The Dresden Files > DFRPG Resource Collection
Custom Powers Master List (Work In Progress)
BumblingBear:
--- Quote from: Sanctaphrax on May 20, 2011, 02:52:54 AM ---Personally, I like the idea of an attack vs. Might or some other such thing.
The execution, though...
It would feel pretty lousy to invest heavily in Athletics before getting gravity-pounded. Maybe once in a while it'd be fun, I guess. But I'd like it to be possible for a character to be legitmately hard to kill, and letting attacks hit any skill takes away from that.
Also, wizards really don't need extra power. But that's another issue.
--- End quote ---
Toughness powers make a PC harder to kill across the board. In my experience with the system, more stress boxes makes a character much tougher to take out than just adding a point or two to a defense roll.
I hear what you are saying, though.
It's hard to walk that fine line sometimes between making a character feel powerful and rewarding their power choices.. and providing a challenge. I think it's hard to do both at the same time unless you have several different types of enemies that all shine against various members of the group.
It's like a RPG skew on rock-paper-scissors. :P
crusher_bob:
--- Quote from: BumblingBear on May 20, 2011, 02:02:51 AM ---This is offensive. I'm not sure why my comment brought out the attitude.
--- End quote ---
I'll apologize for the wording then.
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It turns out that balancing multiple different forms of attack vs multiple different forms of defense is actaully a pretty hard problem.
Where everyone attacks with A, and everyone defends with B, any imbalances are obvious. And barring that, it gets down to either randomness or whatever interesting tactical maneuvers our system allows us.
But when you have different forms (or contexts) of attack and defense, and semblance of balance can quickly go out the window. It's still possible to keep things under control with careful system design, but allowing attacks to change context 'for free' (like letting evocation attack different skills) throws balance right out the window.
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1 argument against:
All Creatures are Equal before God costs around -3 refresh by itself, and gets you the ability to ignore the toughness powers the other guys has.
Letting evocation attack other skills lets you ignore defensive powers (for example, you can ignore any amount of bonus defense granted by speed powers), but you don't pay anything extra for it.
Next, as the characters become more powerful, this ability becomes more powerful as well. When the average (physical) defense is +2, and the average out of context defense is +0, making an out of context attack is around the same as +2 to attack. But when the average defense is +8 and the average out of context defense is +4, then your ability to change contexts is worth +4. And if you can pick and choose your context, then you can probably find an even better option, since the skill pyramid explicitly prevents you from being good at everything.
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Now, why am I jumping up and down about this sort of thing when it comes to attacks, but am nearly silent about it on the subject of maneuvers?
Because you can (in theory) defend against any maneuver already with the skill of the defenders choice.
Example:
Some guy is using investigation to try to have intimate knowledge of your day to day routine or something like that.
All of these defenses might be possible:
(Investigation) I already know all the tricks people watching me might be using. It's going to be much harder to find stuff about me.
(Resources) My wall of money makes it very hard for you. Just about anywhere I go, the security guards take their jobs seriously, all the locks are up to date, and so on. Heck, the people who pick up my garbage are probably paid more that you are, so bribing them to look through my garbage is just not going to work.
(Discipline) When the war started, the White Council sent out this 'how to avoid being ganked' pamphlet. Sure doing all that stupid stuff is hard, but as a wizard who does powerful magic all the time, doing stupid little stuff to not die horribly is already something I'm do every day. These security measures are just another little ritual to add to my already ritual laden day. And I'm not going to screw them up anymore than I'd break a ritual circle by accident.
(Deceit) I lie so well that presenting untruths is second nature. You think you are going to find out anything true about me by going trough my garbage?
(Or any other justification you want to come up with)
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But wait, you say, that means that players will generally be defending against maneuvers with their best skills! Of course! they make offensive maneuvers with their best skills too. So the context of the maneuver is generally going to be negotiable, and probably not that unfair.
Sanctaphrax:
Rewritten Not Amphibious, but only in order to reformat it. Tell me if it looks off.
NOT AMPHIBIOUS [+1]
Description: You are not able to breathe air.
Musts: You must have the Aquatic power in order to take this one.
Skills Affected: Endurance
Effects:
Not Amphibious. You can't survive outside of the water; if at any time you are not submerged you gain a "Suffocating" aspect. This aspect remains until you are once again able to breathe water. So long as you have that aspect, the enviroment makes a Fantastic (+6) physical attack against your Endurance each exchange. Once you concede or are taken out (falling unconscious), the attacks stop. However, the damage is already done; without medical attention and re-introduction into your necessary environment, you will soon die.
I'll finalize Extra Appendages sometime this weekend, probably by offering both crusher_bob's method and mine as options. At this point, I think that neither is clearly superior.
Sanctaphrax:
TITANIC SIZE [-4]
Description: You are very very very large. You are at least the size of a house, and at the very largest you stand as tall as a skyscraper.
Musts: You must have an aspect related to your size. Almost all characters with this power also have high levels of Strength and Toughness, but it's not actually required. Same goes for Long Reach.
Note: This ability is always in effect unless you can shapeshift.
Skills Affected: Fists, Weapons, Stealth, others
Effects:
Very Easy To Hit, Very Hard To Hurt. You're a pretty big target, giving any attacker +2 to hit you when target size is a factor. But that increase in body mass means that you can soak up more punishment, adding four boxes to the length of your physical stress track.
Everything Is Tiny. You cannot interact meaningfully with any object of any reasonable size. You also cannot enter buildings or other enclosed spaces, with few exceptions. The GM is free to impose arbitrarily large zone borders on you if you try to pass through openings of limited size. However, you get +4 to all attempts to lift or break stuff on top of the bonus from Strength powers. Also, you get +3 to your Athletics when trying to cover distance with your enormous stride.
Big Is Frightening. You get +4 on any Intimidation attempt against a target likely to consider your size an advantage.
Very Easy To Detect Your Stealth is automatically considered to be Terrible -1 (-3) and you can never gain any shifts on a Stealth roll.
UNTHINKABLE SIZE [-6]
Description: You are incredibly, unbelievably, unrealistically large. You are at the very least larger than a skyscraper, and you could be up to city-sized.
Musts: You must have an aspect related to your size. Almost all characters with this power also have high levels of Strength and Toughness, but it's not actually required. Same goes for Long Reach, and for Physical Immunity to human-scale weaponry.
Note: This ability is always in effect unless you can shapeshift.
Skills Affected: Fists, Weapons, Stealth, others
Effects:
Nearly Impossible To Miss, Nearly Impossible To Hurt. You're a pretty big target, giving any attacker +5 to hit you when target size is a factor. But that increase in body mass means that you can soak up more punishment, adding ten boxes to the length of your physical stress track.
Everything Is Miniscule. You cannot interact meaningfully with any object of any reasonable size. You also cannot enter buildings or other enclosed spaces, with very few exceptions. The GM is free to impose arbitrarily large zone borders on you if you try to pass through openings of limited size. However, you get +8 to all attempts to lift or break stuff on top of the bonus from Strength powers. Also, you get +6 to your Athletics when trying to cover distance with your enormous stride.
Big Is Terrifying. You get +6 on any Intimidation attempt against a target likely to consider your size an advantage.
Impossible To Ignore Don't even think about Stealth. You are literally visible from miles away.
Sanctaphrax:
I got tired of thinking about how to modify Breath Weapon, so I decided to make something new.
NATURAL WEAPONRY [-1]
Description: Your body contains some kind of weapon.
Note: You have to pick one type of weapon (eg. fire breath, metal claws, three-foot tusks) when you take this power.
Skills Affected: Fists, Weapons, Guns
Effects:
Natural Weaponry. Your body contains a weapon with a rating of 2. This weapon has a no range, is not capable of spray attacks, benefits from Strength powers, and is wielded with the Fists skill.
Potent Weaponry [-1]. Your natural weapon has a rating of 4.
Defensive Weaponry [-1]. Your natural weapon may be wielded with Weapons and used with the defence trapping of that skill.
Ranged Weaponry [-1]. Your natural weapon has a range of one zone and is capable of spray attacks. It may be wielded with the Fists, Weapons, or Guns skill. It cannot be used with the defence trapping of Weapons.
Long-Range Weaponry [-1]. (Requires Ranged Weaponry) Your natural weapon has a range of three zones.
Area Weaponry [-1]. (Requires Ranged Weaponry) Your natural weapon may be used to make zonewide attacks at a -2 penalty.
Superior Area Weaponry [-1]. (Requires Area Weaponry) You suffer no penalty when making zonewide attacks with your natural weapon.
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