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[Quantus]

I could easily see Spidey-Sense being useless in certain situations that are inherently dangerous: warehouses being on fire, Radioactive areas, Hdes or Hell, and certain areas of the Mos Eisley Spaceport.

Im not sure I like that, purely from my old Spidey fandom.  I dont think Spidersense is supposed to be able to be "drowned out" like that expect in very rare circumstances, in fact I think it was the specific and unique danger of Morlun and his ilk. 

[Mr. Death]

Yeah, the Spider-Sense is generally more of a, "Hey! You, specifically, are about to be hit by something!" than just making him generally aware of danger.

[dragoonbuster]

Yeah, the Spider-Sense is generally more of a, "Hey! You, specifically, are about to be hit by something!" than just making him generally aware of danger.

Otherwise he'd have gone insane living in New York City.

Spidey-Sense always came off to me as what Mr. Death said. It's an early warning collision system more than anything.

[blackstaff67]

I'll concede the argument to you.  To be honest, I was thinking of Danger Sense (or something like it) from GURPS  (another RPG) and tried to extrapolate/translate it to this setting.

[Razgrizi]

Just a quick question! A friend of mine is going to be joining our campaign and hes looking to make a dwarf. Does anyone have any build recommendations for one?

[Quantus]

Just a quick question! A friend of mine is going to be joining our campaign and hes looking to make a dwarf. Does anyone have any build recommendations for one?

Can you elaborate on what kind of "Dwarf" you are looking for?  My brain goes straight to classic DnD dwarves (craft-heavy with heavy stone and/or subterranean flavor), I know others default to Tolkien, and neither have great equivalents in the DV that I can think of (Svartalves are pretty close maybe)

[FloraDelirus]

Does anyone know of a way to disrupt the Ways or block access to them from a specific city?  A spell, sacrifice, magical item, entity, something?

[Tedronai]

The following is nearly pure conjecture / personal opinion:

The only method I could think of would be to block all access to/from the Nevernever as a whole, since the Ways are not so special that they could be blocked specifically like that, being little more than (comparatively) safe paths within the Nevernever to (relatively) stable and known locations.
That should be able to be accomplished (in theory) by a sufficiently (read: incredibly) large and powerful magical working functionally opposite that of opening a gateway.  Instead of smashing or tearing or otherwise parting the veil between the mortal world and the Nevernever, you strengthen and reinforce it, making it difficult for others to traverse.  This may or may not be easier for communities with more well-defined borders - those borders providing something to anchor to in much the same way as a Threshold.

This will not be absolute, and a sufficiently powerful or determined traveler should be able to break through in time (and maintaining such a barrier would itself be taxing and of questionable value over the long term unless paired with similarly immense defenses of other sorts).

In terms of game mechanics, you'd simply be erecting a Thaumaturgical Block over a large area

[Razgrizi]

Can you elaborate on what kind of "Dwarf" you are looking for?  My brain goes straight to classic DnD dwarves (craft-heavy with heavy stone and/or subterranean flavor), I know others default to Tolkien, and neither have great equivalents in the DV that I can think of (Svartalves are pretty close maybe)

I actually asked him today and he said kind of anything but like, a dwarf in a real world setting. He likes the idea of a dwarf owning a pizza shop.

[Sanctaphrax]

D&D-style dwarves can be represented as humans with Aspects, honestly. Most of the time they're just humans, but every once in a while you can invoke your dwarfness to hold your liquor better or something. And by the same token, your dwarfness can be compelled to make you stubborn or to give you height-related problems.

Does anyone know of a way to disrupt the Ways or block access to them from a specific city?  A spell, sacrifice, magical item, entity, something?

Like Tedronai's said, you'd probably do this by blocking Nevernever travel in general. Simplest way to do it would be a fairly straightforward block spell.

Over the long term, keeping boundary-crossers out of town or keeping them from using their abilities might thicken the barrier. YS283 says the veil between worlds gets weaker when someone passes through, so maybe a city where nobody ever crosses to the Nevernever will naturally develop a stronger veil.

Also, welcome to the forum.

[Londo]

Hi guys, I'm sure this question has been asked before so I apologise in advance. I'm a new GM for the DFRPG, and the one thing that strikes me as weird is how additional success shifts add to damage. Wouldn't that be an incentive for people to spend all their focus items on discipline? I'm looking for the balance here.

[Sanctaphrax]

Welcome to the forum and the game, Londo.

And yes, control is better than power for attacks. For other spells, though, power has advantages.

[Londo]

Thank's for the welcome, and I'm loving the game system. I've never seen a character creation and game mechanic that's so roleplay focused.

Thanks for answering. So just to clarify, under what circumstances would bumping power be more beneficial than the discipline of an evocation spell?

In addition to this, I'm still confused with the 'landmine' ability of thaumaturgy. Could someone just make a 'land mine' bullet, and pump enough points into it to kill even the most powerful of enemies?

[Taran]

Thanks for answering. So just to clarify, under what circumstances would bumping power be more beneficial than the discipline of an evocation spell?

Blocks and maneuvers are resisted based on the power.  So a power 5 block or maneuver would require a roll of 5 to overcome.  There's no targeting.

Still, though, I find discipline to be more useful.  if you have 6 control and 5 power, you can take a 2 stress hit and still control a power 6 maneuver/block.  Especially if you make it a rote spell.  I've never played a Power focused mage so I can't really tell you how well they work.

In addition to this, I'm still confused with the 'landmine' ability of thaumaturgy. Could someone just make a 'land mine' bullet, and pump enough points into it to kill even the most powerful of enemies?

Yeah, basically.(edit: assuming you have enough time and power to do so)  A bullet would probably be a spirit(telekinetic/force) attack.

So, you program the evocation into the ward.  Let's say you make a 3 shift ward, which is pretty lame but you then add a 10 shift 'landmine' which is a 10-shift evocation attack.  In total, you have a 13 shift ward.  It doesn't include the 2 shifts for having a pass-word or something to avoid whacking your own friends, but it would make for a nasty trap on a door.  So, when someone goes through the ward or destroys it, it unleashes the landmine.

I think the landmine acts as an accuracy 10, weapon 0 attack.  You could probably pay extra shifts to boost the weapon rating but I don't see the point.  You might as well boost the accuracy.

EDIT:

The effective targeting roll will be
equal to the power of the evocation, though the
spell’s complexity may be increased on a one for
one basis to add to the targeting roll

So, it looks like the weapon value is equal to the targeting.

It also says:

add complexity equal to
the power of the evocation spell stored within
the ward.

So, I think what that means is you actually look at your evocation spellcasting ability.  If you can(and want) to cast a power 6 attack into the ward, then it costs you 6 extra shifts.  It becomes a power 6, accuracy 6 attack.  You can then add extra shifts to boost accuracy.  So, it's the opposite of what I said above.

[Sanctaphrax]

The thaumaturgy rules are really not engineer-proof. I could cite some rules to explain why putting a landmine on a bullet is not really workable but it'd be beside the point. If a player wants to break thaumaturgy they probably can, and the best answer to ask them politely not to.