Where does the system break down in terms of power level

[sinker]

Yeah, the Marcone-Titania comparison is terrible. There's really no point in making it. On the other hand the Marcone-Anastasia comparison isn't terrible and I would think that it would likely come out with her barely on top.

Then again, Marcone is a terrible example of a good pure mortal PC. He's too generalized. A good mortal PC picks a specialty or two and really gets good at them.

[bitterpill]

In most of the campaigns I have been in the pure mortals have sucked or have been contact focused useful characters useless if you are in a fight, most of my groups have played the 'only human' pidgeon wholing game so the mortals know that the supernaturals underestimate them. When it comes to certain things there are moments when fate point stacking makes no sense certain levels of speed and certain levels of strength which should be impossible for a human regardless of how many fate points they roll. I do not care if you are spending 5 fate points on it or not a pure mortal with average strength cannot throw a truck at someone or run at the speed of a Lamborghini.

[sinker]

Because of the way the system is set up a pure mortal doesn't need to throw a truck at someone. Stress is Stress regardless of it's source. A really precise shot can be just as effective as a thrown truck.

I'm not saying that mortals are just as good as supes in every way. I'm just saying that properly built they can be just as effective in combat. People relegate them to only being useful on the sidelines or in social combat and it just isn't necessary. Make a good mortal and you can be part of the group.

[devonapple]

In most of the campaigns I have been in the pure mortals have sucked or have been contact focused useful characters useless if you are in a fight, most of my groups have played the 'only human' pidgeon wholing game so the mortals know that the supernaturals underestimate them.

That is an unfortunate situation and/or attitude. Everyone should be able to contribute in a fight, if effectively positioned and creatively used. It is an unfortunate thing in this system that people have to overcome this conception that only the Wizard /Werewolf/WCV can do anything productive in combat: they simply have the easiest and most obvious and easy tools to apply to such situations.

[BumblingBear]

In most of the campaigns I have been in the pure mortals have sucked or have been contact focused useful characters useless if you are in a fight, most of my groups have played the 'only human' pidgeon wholing game so the mortals know that the supernaturals underestimate them. When it comes to certain things there are moments when fate point stacking makes no sense certain levels of speed and certain levels of strength which should be impossible for a human regardless of how many fate points they roll. I do not care if you are spending 5 fate points on it or not a pure mortal with average strength cannot throw a truck at someone or run at the speed of a Lamborghini.

Focus fire, man!  Focus fire.

I know that it goes against the grain for many RPers, but FATE games are really a team effort.

With 4 pure mortal folks, if everyone stacks an aspect the first round, the the next 3 players stack an aspect too, that is 7 free tags that the last player can use for an attack.

+14 to an attack shift ain't no joke.  Especially when the last player uses all of his or her fate chip in the attack too.

4 more fate chips on personal aspects or a scene aspect would be + 22 shifts to the PC's attack.

If the PC rolled a 4 shift attack to guns, and was firing a 2 shift pistol, that would be a 28 shift attack.  With a pistol.  From a mortal human.

Leetsauce

[sinker]

Focus fire, man!  Focus fire.

I know that it goes against the grain for many RPers, but FATE games are really a team effort.

With 4 pure mortal folks, if everyone stacks an aspect the first round, the the next 3 players stack an aspect too, that is 7 free tags that the last player can use for an attack.

+14 to an attack shift ain't no joke.  Especially when the last player uses all of his or her fate chip in the attack too.

4 more fate chips on personal aspects or a scene aspect would be + 22 shifts to the PC's attack.

If the PC rolled a 4 shift attack to guns, and was firing a 2 shift pistol, that would be a 28 shift attack.  With a pistol.  From a mortal human.

Leetsauce

You're forgetting about a superb guns skill.

[BumblingBear]

You're forgetting about a superb guns skill.

Indeed.

That amount of power from stackable aspects is something that old school RPers are not used to.

In fact, I was able to put together over a 30 shift evocation (after using every fate chip and stackable aspect I had - and even taking mental consequences to up my shifts) with my character in a game, and it just poleaxed the GM.

In the novels, Harry is able to easily take out buildings without even "stacking aspects".  By "Our World", which has been said to be extremely lowballed by both players and Fred Hicks, the senior council can dish out 20 or 30+ shift evocations without taking more than 1 mental stress.

This amount of power is a culture shock for players and GMs who have not actually read the rules thoroughly.

If I end up GMing, I know that the easiest way to dial back on that power for magic characters is to have more than 1 big bad, and to include mortal enemies.

Can't blast a mortal, and can't use everything up in one shot if there are 5+ bad guys around.

[Tedronai]

If I end up GMing, I know that the easiest way to dial back on that power for magic characters is to have more than 1 big bad, and to include mortal enemies.

Can't blast a mortal, and can't use everything up in one shot if there are 5+ bad guys around.

Challenge accepted.

[KOFFEYKID]

Blasting a mortal is a really heavy handed use of evocation. You'd get better results with a "suffocate till unconscious" grapple

[LokiTM]

I think that simply spending the fate points for the +2 may be less effective than using them creatively for declarations. That may not do direct damage, but could have far more ability to turn the tide.

Used that way, the impact of a pure mortal might be on par, even if the raw shifts of damage per exchange can not be compared.

Unfortunately I can't think of a good way to compare them without some large ensemble of test cases.

[Tedronai]

Blasting a mortal is a really heavy handed use of evocation. You'd get better results with a "suffocate till unconscious" grapple

'blast' is an incredibly vague term

fire: 'blast' the area with a sudden but diffuse increase in temperature - inducing hyperthermia (ie. heatstroke) - secure the mortals, drag them away from the epicenter, and get them some basic medical attention; slit the throats of the non-mortals at your leisure, or whatever
air: shockwave effecting sudden increase in air pressure accomplishing similar
water: ...we've seen very little of what this is capable of accomplishing, so I'm less sure of how to go about it
earth: dramatic increase in gravity until targets lose consciousness

(click to show/hide)

(but less than Harry used at the mall to goop those vamps)

spirit: induce sleep...or just club folks upside the head

[BumblingBear]

I think that simply spending the fate points for the +2 may be less effective than using them creatively for declarations. That may not do direct damage, but could have far more ability to turn the tide.

Used that way, the impact of a pure mortal might be on par, even if the raw shifts of damage per exchange can not be compared.

Unfortunately I can't think of a good way to compare them without some large ensemble of test cases.

That's very true in a fate game...

However, I pretty much had to make everything straight damage.  The GM of my game didn't understand the fate system and was not comfortable with aspects, compels, invokes, etc.

In fact, every enemy the group faced was taken all the way out to severe consequences and the entirety of its stress track.

If had made a maneuver for "head cut off" and then invoked it, I could have predicted that this GM would not have gone for it.  Every single compel that any player got in 40 hours of game play was a self compel, and always grudgingly given.

Fate is a very unique system, and my experiences in my last group just kind of drove home that whoever is running the game really needs to have a good grasp of the mechanics.  It helps if everyone is on the same page and the group has good cohesion.

I think that next time I play or run a campaign, I will push to have recap discussions where everyone kind of talks about what they liked, what they didn't like, what could be done differently, etc.

[Ren]

I think its kind of funny discussing Power level in a role-playing game. Sure, any wizard could crank out 25+ on a Spell-casting Roll on a regular basis, but should you do it every time? No. Why? Well because then the GM will have to start creating challenges so bad-add and in such numbers that all the other non-caster characters are getting turned to pudding when the bad guys sneeze.
Sure, the GM COULD use a bunch of lesser-powered bad guys but while the caster is taking out the baddest of them again his non-caster allies are getting their butts handed to them again.
A smart caster would conserve his energies and make sure his allies will make it through the fight in as close to one piece as possible. Or find alternative uses for magic other than Blasting everything in sight....which after the first 10 or so times of doing that it gets boring, not just for the GM or the player in question but for the rest of the players as well.

"Oh crap a dragon!"
"No worries Fred will get it, we'll just stand over here and watch."
*yawn*
"Is it over yet?"

Point being that its a GAME and its meant to be fun for everyone playing, including the GM who has spent hours crafting a fun scenario and challenging opponents only to see them melt away in an eye-blink because someone who could overdo things but didn't really need to decided to go ahead anyway.

ANY system breaks when someone sees a way to exploit a system and goes for broke. The systems don't break if they aren't abused and having played or run probably a few hundred game sin my nearly 30 years of gaming I think I can say that with some authority. Though there ARE systems that are built to be broken and playing with that kind of power is fun because everyone is doing it. In a game like the Dresden Files the emphasis is on Role-Play, heroic role-play to be sure, but Role-play.

To Quote Ben Parker; "With great power comes great responsibility"

But hey, for folks that want to play in high-powered, building leveling games and have a group that wants to do that more power to you and have fun! That's what the game is all about!

As a Note (this was talked about in the Sponsored magic thread as well); YS288 Bottom paragraph of the right-hand Column essentially states that you can only incur One Sponsor debt per Roll and that Debt can only be used to Tag an Aspect, not give an automatic +2 on the roll. So no more grabbing 4 points of Sponsor Debt for +8 to the roll! Of course a truly forgiving (and possibly very drunk) GM may allow it anyway, tailor your game as you like. (Don't be shocked, I DO read rules).

DFRPG has a steep learning curve so getting everyone up to speed is not going to be fast or easy especially for folks who have been used to entirely different sets of mechanics that aren't nearly so flexible.

[Tedronai]

As a Note (this was talked about in the Sponsored magic thread as well); YS288 Bottom paragraph of the right-hand Column essentially states that you can only incur One Sponsor debt per Roll and that Debt can only be used to Tag an Aspect, not give an automatic +2 on the roll. So no more grabbing 4 points of Sponsor Debt for +8 to the roll! Of course a truly forgiving (and possibly very drunk) GM may allow it anyway, tailor your game as you like. (Don't be shocked, I DO read rules).

See "The Dark Powers Are Always Willing To Help" on page 289

[devonapple]

If had made a maneuver for "head cut off" and then invoked it, I could have predicted that this GM would not have gone for it. 

Well, no GM should go for that one. It's not a maneuver, it's a "taken out" result. Aspects derived from Maneuvers are allowed to be removed with a successful skill check.