Assorted questions

[nadia.skylark]

Also, what do you think about this?:

Oathbroken [+1/+2?]
Available only to spellcasters. You broke an oath made upon your power. As a result:
-you suffer a -1 penalty to all discipline rolls made for spellcasting.
-you suffer a -1 penalty to any action that opposes the person you broke your oath to when they're in the same area as you.
-every time you try to work against them (when they're in the area, as above) and succeed, you must roll discipline (with the -1 penalty) against the result as if you were defending against an attack. Failure results in mental stress.
-increase all penalties by 1 for every additional time you break a promise to the person you broke your original oath to (subsequent promises need not be sworn on your power) (increase refresh rebate for this?)

[Taran]

I thought that if you break an oath on your power it makes you unable to use your power at all.

I’d treat it as a compel or make it a block on all spellcasting.  The block, depending on its strength, would prevent spellcasting all together or reduce its efficiency.  It wouldn’t be a power you buy but an aspect attached to the wizards high concept or a new aspect put on the scene/campaign.

[narphoenix]

I thought that if you break an oath on your power it makes you unable to use your power at all.

I’d treat it as a compel or make it a block on all spellcasting.  The block, depending on its strength, would prevent spellcasting all together or reduce its efficiency.  It wouldn’t be a power you buy but an aspect attached to the wizards high concept or a new aspect put on the scene/campaign.

It gives you a slight drop to your power, but do it enough and you drop to power zero.

Compels are the easiest way to model this, though I understand why a separate rebate might be considered necessary. I think the flat penalties may not be the best idea though: Sanctaphrax has a limitation power on the wiki that might be your best bet.

[nadia.skylark]

I think the flat penalties may not be the best idea though: Sanctaphrax has a limitation power on the wiki that might be your best bet.

Would the limitation power allow for things like mental attacks if a character resists doing what the person they'd sworn an oath to wants? I'm trying to model Harry's reactions to Lea in Grave Peril.

[Mr. Death]

Would the limitation power allow for things like mental attacks if a character resists doing what the person they'd sworn an oath to wants? I'm trying to model Harry's reactions to Lea in Grave Peril.

Compels. What you're looking for is compels on an aspect.

Compels allow for pretty much anything, and not everything is suited to be represented by a power.

[Sanctaphrax]

In general, rebate Powers are only used to modify other Powers. You can't really get Refresh from a weakness in this game, you can only reduce the Refresh costs of your strengths by limiting their usefulness in some way.

Compels pick up the slack. On its own, The Catch just makes you as vulnerable as a normal person to whatever your Catch is. If you're more vulnerable than that, you get Fate Points.

Anyway, here's Limitation.

I'm trying to come up with 12 demonic lords, and right now I can only think of 3: the demonic lord of emptiness, the demonic lord of deception, and the demonic lord of pain. Can you think of any others?

I figure you can probably use any vaguely negative-sounding concept. Fear, gluttony, bigotry, foolishness, bureaucracy, pride, vengeance, sorrow, laziness, whatever.

[nadia.skylark]

Compels. What you're looking for is compels on an aspect.

Compels allow for pretty much anything, and not everything is suited to be represented by a power.

Compels pick up the slack. On its own, The Catch just makes you as vulnerable as a normal person to whatever your Catch is. If you're more vulnerable than that, you get Fate Points.

Yeah, yeah

Anyway, here's Limitation.

Thanks!

I figure you can probably use any vaguely negative-sounding concept. Fear, gluttony, bigotry, foolishness, bureaucracy, pride, vengeance, sorrow, laziness, whatever.

The problem is, there are so many negative things out there, it's hard to pick. I'm trying to choose things that would make good story contributions (well, and one of them is just me ripping off another book series), but I'm stuck.

Yet another question, how would you represent Alex Verus' divination powers (and how much would they cost)?

[Sanctaphrax]

The problem is, there are so many negative things out there, it's hard to pick. I'm trying to choose things that would make good story contributions (well, and one of them is just me ripping off another book series), but I'm stuck.

Just pick at random and start writing, I say. If it doesn't work out, change it.

Yet another question, how would you represent Alex Verus' divination powers (and how much would they cost)?

I'm not familiar with Alex Verus, but divination is generally Ritual or Thaumaturgy. There's also a couple of custom Powers for predicting the future:

https://dfrpg-resources.paranetonline.com/index.php?title=Prophecy
https://dfrpg-resources.paranetonline.com/index.php?title=Precognition

Precognition is excessively die-roll-y, unfortunately.

[Mr. Death]

A thing to remember is that even if your setting canonically has 12 major demons, you don't have to involve or even explain all 12 of them in the story.

[nadia.skylark]

A thing to remember is that even if your setting canonically has 12 major demons, you don't have to involve or even explain all 12 of them in the story.

True, but I need to know who all of them are if I want to involve even one of them, because it's important to the motivations and decision-making of the one involved.

[nadia.skylark]

A belated response re: why I should be using compels for my oathbroken wizard rather than a rebate power.

Yes, compels will work. But compels will also work for preventing a loop garou from changing when its not the full moon and being forced to change when it is, and yet they still get a rebate from human form--rare/involuntary change. How is what I'm doing different?

Not being argumentative, just confused. As people who have read some of my other posts know, I'm really bad at figuring out when something should be a power vs when it should be handled with aspect compels, and I'm hoping to get some guidelines.

Edit to avoid triple-posting: How many shifts of power would be needed for a Darkhallow? And do you think one could be cast at Chichen Itza, now that all the vampires are dead?

[Sanctaphrax]

Yes, compels will work. But compels will also work for preventing a loop garou from changing when its not the full moon and being forced to change when it is, and yet they still get a rebate from human form--rare/involuntary change. How is what I'm doing different?

As I said, rebate Powers modify normal Powers. Your Oathbreaker Power does other stuff, like hitting you with mental stress.

That said, there's a bias on this board towards using Compels over rebate Powers. There's a good reason for that bias; Compels play better. Even in the case of the loup-garou, it's healthy to use a fair number of Compels.

Compels are at their best, and rebate Powers are at their worst, when it's unpredictable how often your weakness is going to matter. So "you're weaker when you're facing the person you broke your oath to" is a classic Compel thing.

Edit to avoid triple-posting: How many shifts of power would be needed for a Darkhallow? And do you think one could be cast at Chichen Itza, now that all the vampires are dead?

I don't think Chichen Itza could sustain one. My understanding is that you need to eat a whole bunch of souls to make the thing work, so there needs to be a large + dense population present.

As for the shifts, it's really up to you. The game has never made anything about the Darkhallow clear, as far as I can remember.

[nadia.skylark]

As I said, rebate Powers modify normal Powers. Your Oathbreaker Power does other stuff, like hitting you with mental stress.

True. It's basically a combination of modifying spellcasting powers (albeit slightly indirectly) and the downsides of demonic co-pilot.

That said, there's a bias on this board towards using Compels over rebate Powers. There's a good reason for that bias; Compels play better. Even in the case of the loup-garou, it's healthy to use a fair number of Compels.

Compels are at their best, and rebate Powers are at their worst, when it's unpredictable how often your weakness is going to matter. So "you're weaker when you're facing the person you broke your oath to" is a classic Compel thing.

Thanks!

But what about the part of the rebate power that's completely consistent?

I don't think Chichen Itza could sustain one. My understanding is that you need to eat a whole bunch of souls to make the thing work, so there needs to be a large + dense population present.

My understanding was that you had to eat a lot of ghosts--souls didn't enter into it. There's also the necessity of sacrificing living people, but that bit's fairly unclear. The best theory I've heard is that the Darkhallow is like a straw--you drink in all the power, and a bunch of people die when their energy gets ripped out to replace what you drank. If you try to do the Darkhallow with no life around, it's like trying to drink through a straw with your finger over one end.

What I'm trying to figure out is if you could combine the Ley line power and all the non-sapient life around Chichen Itza to substitute for all the human sacrifice, or if it would fundamentally change the nature of the ritual, or if it would just make it weaker, or if it would fizzle because you're not killing sapient beings. (Several of these possibilities are more interesting than others, but I'm trying to find out which is more true to the books, and if one of the less interesting possibilities ends up being that, I have modifications I can make.)

[Sanctaphrax]

Seems like a bit of a cheat to me, but if it turned up in a story I was reading I'd just shrug and accept it.

But what about the part of the rebate power that's completely consistent?

Penalizing spellcasting would be a reasonable concept for a rebate Power, but spellcasting abilities already scale with Refresh investment. So it seems cleaner just to, say, remove a Refinement. Or demote Evocation to Channelling.

[Mr. Death]

The actual terms used in Dead Beat as I recall are "spirit" and "life force," which I took to mean that it includes both the dead and the living.

Plus, I'm not sure that Red Court even have spirits that you could suck in.

As to the compels, another point is that the "oathbreaker" power as you wrote it is revolving around who they broke the oath to, which I don't think is accurate to the series (it's specifically fae that hold you to your oath like that; making a general promise on your power and then breaking it reflects on you regardless of who you're acting against); plus, it seems just killing the dude you broke oath against would remove the penalties entirely -- would it also remove the rebate?