The Dresden Files > DFRPG Resource Collection

Custom Power List

<< < (180/184) > >>

Taran:

--- Quote from: Sanctaphrax on November 17, 2014, 07:24:50 PM ---That might be a good idea. I'm loath to make this ability any stronger, though.

--- End quote ---

I just meant instead of something else.

Sanctaphrax:
Revised Skill Powers here.

The changes aren't big. I dropped the stress bonuses, expanded the skill bonuses, made the bonuses compatible with stunts, made it clear that higher levels replace lower ones, and added descriptions.

Thoughts?

(click to show/hide)INHUMAN SKILL [-2]
Description: You are incredibly skilled with weapons. In fact, you're more skilled than it's humanly possible to be.
Skills Affected: Weapons.
Effects:
Master Of War. Add 1 to your Weapons skill. This bonus doesn't stack with True Aim.
Deflect Arrows. As long as you are armed, you may use your Weapons skill to defend against ranged attacks with arrows, thrown weapons, and other physical projectiles that are slow enough to see.
Strike Like The Wind. You may make spray attacks with your Weapons skill. You never suffer a -1 penalty from drawing a weapon as a supplemental action.
Attuned To The Weapon. Your Weapons skill is treated as infinite for the purpose of modifying other skills.
(click to show/hide)SUPERNATURAL SKILL [-4]
Description: You are far more skilled with weapons than any normal human could ever be. Your movements in battle are so fast and precise that any fight you get into looks choreographed.
Musts: This Power replaces Inhuman Skill.
Skills Affected: Weapons.
Effects:
Lord Of War. Add 2 to your Weapons skill. This bonus doesn't stack with True Aim.
Parry Everything. As long as you are armed, you may use your Weapons skill to defend against any attack that could be dodged with Athletics.
Strike Like Lightning. You may make spray attacks and zone-wide attacks with your Weapons skill. You never suffer a -1 penalty from drawing a weapon as a supplemental action. You don't hurt yourself when attacking your own zone.
One With The Weapon. Your Weapons skill is treated as infinite for the purpose of modifying other skills. Your other skills are treated as infinite for the purpose of modifying your Weapons skill.
(click to show/hide)MYTHIC SKILL [-6]
Description: Your combat skill is frankly ridiculous. When you fight, it's as though the laws of physics have temporarily been suspended.
Musts: This Power replaces Inhuman or Supernatural Skill.
Skills Affected: Weapons.
Effects:
God Of War. Add 3 to your Weapons skill. This bonus doesn't stack with True Aim.
Perfect Defence. You may use your Weapons skill to defend against any attack that could be dodged with Athletics.
Strike Like The Sunlight. You may make spray attacks and zone-wide attacks with your Weapons skill. You never suffer a -1 penalty from drawing a weapon as a supplemental action. You may choose which characters to affect when attacking a zone, and when you combine a zone attack with a supplemental move you may attack every zone that you move through.
Living Weapon. Your Weapons skill is treated as infinite for the purpose of modifying other skills. Your other skills are treated as infinite for the purpose of modifying your Weapons skill. As long as you are alive, weapons that you are wielding cannot break and you cannot be disarmed against your will. You may attack unarmed with your Weapons skill.

gojj:
I like the power overall, it would be very cool on a Deadpool type character. That said, here are my questions/concerns.

1. One With The Weapon.
This is similar to Superior Strength (YS 183) in that it doesn't count for attack and defense rolls, right? As in (assuming you have Supernatural Skill), you wouldn't add three to your weapons rolls claiming that your athletics modifies your weapons roll, right?.

2. Parry Everything/Perfect Defense
I'm not a fan of these, because Dodging gets moved to Weapons, I see very little incentive to take Speed powers, as (arguably) the most useful trapping has been moved elsewhere. Also, while deflecting bullets is awesome, how would you parry a fireball? Or a giant boulder? Or an explosion?

What if instead the three levels are thrown objects/"Slow" missile attacks (arrows are the only thing that comes to mind)/Bullets. The second level stinks but you see what I mean. I just think there are some things that are simply impossible to block with weapons, no matter how fast/dextrous you are. I think that these trappings step on the feet of the Speed Powers just a tad too much.

3. Strike Like The Sunlight
I think this is very cool, and you are paying 6 refresh for the power at this point, but I'm unsure about the ability to make zone attacks on two separate zones with the ability to avoid any friendly fire that accompanies zone attacks. I like the ability to avoid hitting allies (as the user is merely moving from target to target instead just spinning in a circle haphazardly), but perhaps drop the ability to hit the second zone, and instead remove the -2 penalty on zone attacks. This still allows the user to clear out groups of people, but just not two zones worth of people.

This is by far my weakest objection, as it is motivated more of a gut feeling than anything concrete.

4.
Do you think you could expand these powers to Guns as well? As in, when taking the power the player can decide whether they want to apply it to Guns or Weapons? We've seen in movies people being able to shoot bullets out of the air, or blow away an entire room of people on a quick draw, and this power could be a good way to model a Kincaid type character.

You might have to tweak some of the wording on some of the trappings, but I think it could work nicely, what do you think?



Reading down I see that you guys have been talking about this for awhile. I don't think I talked about anything you guys have already discussed, but if I did I'm sorry.

Also, here's my two cents on a couple of points you guys were talking about.

--- Quote from: Sanctaphrax on November 17, 2014, 04:57:31 AM ---What really worries me is something like a character with Mythic Skill, Inhuman Toughness, Inhuman Recovery, and a +3 Catch at Chest Deep. Legendary attacks at weapon 6, legendary defences against everything, and superhuman durability. Plus plenty of open skill slots, little gear dependence, the zone attack option, and the other side benefits of Mythic Skill. And that's without going for every available rebate.

--- End quote ---
Well the simplest way to prevent this would just be to not allow your player to take the Mythic level of this skill, or at least not at lower refresh levels. The fact that this power can be fully utilized with only one skill could be a problem, but you'd probably have to wait until one of your players took this skill in game to see how balanced it actually is.


--- Quote from: Taran on November 17, 2014, 02:33:13 PM ---As I stated early: yes, the wizard can output lots of damage in many zones but not without hitting himself or allies.

--- End quote ---
Remember that Wizards can pump up the weapon value of their attacks much, much more cost-effectively than a physical character can. Someone with Supernatural Strength and Skill is sitting on +2 weapons, +4 stress. A Wizard with Evocation, Thaumaturgy, and two refinements can easily reach +5 Control, +3 Power with Specializations and Focus items, and the gap widens the higher the refresh values get. Also, Weapons generally have an initial weapon value of 2 or 3, while magic generally starts at 4-5 at Submerged and above.

Basically, I don't think the Skill powers really rival magic in terms of raw damage output, it just closes the gap. As of now, the only real way a physically focused character can match a combat focused Wizard in terms of damage is to take an Item of Power.

Also, in case those last two paragraphs came off as overly critical, this is not me saying "Grrrr, Taran, you are so naive!", I just think you brought up a valid concern and wished to give my opinion on it.



Wow, this became pretty long, but hopefully I avoided being long-winded.

Sanctaphrax:

--- Quote from: gojj on December 20, 2014, 08:00:58 AM ---1. One With The Weapon.
This is similar to Superior Strength (YS 183) in that it doesn't count for attack and defense rolls, right? As in (assuming you have Supernatural Skill), you wouldn't add three to your weapons rolls claiming that your athletics modifies your weapons roll, right?.
--- End quote ---

It only benefits you in situations where a mundane character would be able to (or have to) use their other skill to modify their weapons roll.

So if your Athletics is restricting your attack and defence rolls because you're standing on a balance beam, then One With The Weapon will keep your Weapons from being reduced. But on a normal attack roll, where your Athletics doesn't matter, it does nothing.


--- Quote from: gojj on December 20, 2014, 08:00:58 AM ---2. Parry Everything/Perfect Defense
I'm not a fan of these, because Dodging gets moved to Weapons, I see very little incentive to take Speed powers, as (arguably) the most useful trapping has been moved elsewhere. Also, while deflecting bullets is awesome, how would you parry a fireball? Or a giant boulder? Or an explosion?

What if instead the three levels are thrown objects/"Slow" missile attacks (arrows are the only thing that comes to mind)/Bullets. The second level stinks but you see what I mean. I just think there are some things that are simply impossible to block with weapons, no matter how fast/dextrous you are. I think that these trappings step on the feet of the Speed Powers just a tad too much.
--- End quote ---

Of course it's impossible. If it was possible, it would just be a stunt. It works by magic.

Blocking an arrow with a sword isn't any more plausible than blocking a laser beam with a pocket knife, so I don't care to draw a distinction there.

Bear in mind that mechanically Parry Everything is just a stunt with supernatural flavouring. It's Footwork, but for Weapons and described in a supernatural way.

And I don't see why Skill Powers shouldn't step on the toes of Speed Powers a bit. Not every pair of Powers has to work well together.


--- Quote from: gojj on December 20, 2014, 08:00:58 AM ---3. Strike Like The Sunlight
I think this is very cool, and you are paying 6 refresh for the power at this point, but I'm unsure about the ability to make zone attacks on two separate zones with the ability to avoid any friendly fire that accompanies zone attacks. I like the ability to avoid hitting allies (as the user is merely moving from target to target instead just spinning in a circle haphazardly), but perhaps drop the ability to hit the second zone, and instead remove the -2 penalty on zone attacks. This still allows the user to clear out groups of people, but just not two zones worth of people.
--- End quote ---

There is no -2 penalty on zone attacks. That's a spellcasting thing.

Anyway, I don't think it matters much one way or the other. One zone, two zones, it's not usually a significant difference.


--- Quote from: gojj on December 20, 2014, 08:00:58 AM ---4.
Do you think you could expand these powers to Guns as well? As in, when taking the power the player can decide whether they want to apply it to Guns or Weapons? We've seen in movies people being able to shoot bullets out of the air, or blow away an entire room of people on a quick draw, and this power could be a good way to model a Kincaid type character.

You might have to tweak some of the wording on some of the trappings, but I think it could work nicely, what do you think?
--- End quote ---

It could work quite well, with a few minor tweaks.


--- Quote from: gojj on December 20, 2014, 08:00:58 AM ---Also, here's my two cents on a couple of points you guys were talking about.Well the simplest way to prevent this would just be to not allow your player to take the Mythic level of this skill, or at least not at lower refresh levels.
--- End quote ---

No sense banning a Power when you can balance it. A Chest Deep character with Mythic Strength isn't overpowered, just overspecialized. I'd like Mythic Skill to be similar.

All that being said, I'm not sure I like what these do to the game. They make a lot of stunts obsolete. Mostly pretty bad stunts, and True Aim does the same thing to some extent, but still...

Sanctaphrax:
On an unrelated note, I would like opinions on these Powers:

(click to show/hide)DRUIDIC SPELLCASTING [-1]
Description: You have spellcasting powers, but not the common wizardly sort. Your magic is the natural magic of the druid.
Skills Affected: Survival.
Effects:
Druidic Magic. At the beginning of each session, you may select up to four spells with a power no greater than your Survival skill. The spells may be Evocation or Thaumaturgy, but they must have a "natural" theme. You may use each spell once during that session, as though they were enchanted items.
Additional Power [-X]. For each additional point of Refresh invested in this Power, you may prepare and cast 4 additional spells.
(click to show/hide)BARDIC SPELLCASTING [-1]
Description: You have spellcasting powers, but not the common wizardly sort. Your magic is the subtle magic of the bard.
Skills Affected: Performance.
Effects:
Bardic Magic. Design four Evocation or Evothaum spells that seem vaguely bard-y. You can cast four spells each session from among those spells. Their power is equal to your Performance skill, and you use Performance to control them as well. They don't cost mental stress.
Additional Knowledge [-X]. For each additional point of Refresh invested in this Power, you may design four additional spells that you may cast.
Additional Power [-X]. For each additional point of Refresh invested in this Power, you may cast four additional spells per session.

Navigation

[0] Message Index

[#] Next page

[*] Previous page