Character Breaks

[Obsid]

When I was reading through the books, I couldn't help but notice how easy it is to break toughness. I tried searching these forums and saw similar ideas but it didn't quite answer my question.

As far as I understand the RAW, this works. Am I wrong?

Jack is a wizard or other magic scholar, we'll leave his stats alone for now. Jack wants to be more than human, without being inhuman. His research allowed him to find ways to enhance himself, in game terms these amount to toughness-type powers. He compiles a collection of his research, exposing The Catch of a lot of creatures (many of which were already exposed) and spreading the work through the White Council and the Paranet (why not? They're convenient). In this work he lists his findings on human-modification, ideal ways craft it and what he would if he could succeed the process.

High Concept, Clever Superhero.

Jack succeeds his research. He succeeds it very well, achieving Mythic Recovery, Toughness, and Physical Immunity.
The Catch to the Mythics is Obsidian. Common and public knowledge +4 each.
The Catch to the Immunity is non-Obsidian. Specific, Common, and Public Knowledge +6.
Total cost. -20. Total refund. +14. Net cost. -6.
Alternatively.
The Catch to the Mythics is non-Obsidian. Specific, Common and public knowledge +6 each.
The Catch to the Immunity is Obsidian. Common, and Public Knowledge +4.
The Stacked-Catch to the Immunity is a sharpened-edge. Common, and public Knowledge. +4.
Total cost -20. Total refund +20. Net cost -1 (minimum outlined in The Catch).

In the first instance, Jack sacrifices a reasonable amount of free will, but less than half of what he should. If he's hit by Obsidian, nothing happens, if he's hit by anything else, he's minimally effected.
In the second instance, Jack sacrifices virtually no free will. If he's hit by Obsidian, he's minimally effected. If he's hit by anything else, nothing happens. Either way my spidey sense is tingling about this.

If I come up with anything else that I'm worried about, I'll post it here. But for now, am I wrong about this? Does this seem broken to anyone else?

[toturi]

Setting aside that I think your math for your Mythic Toughness and Recovery are wrong in the first place, there is also the following:

A character with a Stacked Catch that inverts the conditions of the first Catch is strongly discouraged. ..., and if it did, one of both Catches would be rightly valued as worth zero.

[Tsunami]

First, from the description of Physical Immunity, last paragraph:

A  character  with  a  Stacked  Catch  that
that inverts the conditions of the first Catch
is strongly discouraged. A Physical Immunity
to  Fire  layered  on  top  of  Supernatural
Toughness that can only be pierced by Fire
just never happens in reality, and if it did, one
or both Catches would be rightly valued as
worth zero.

Second:
You only ever get the Refund ONCE.
It is subtracted from the Total Cost of your toughness powers, not the individual cost
Mythic Toughness -6
Mythic Recovery -6
the Catch +6 (Common, Known, Specific)

Physical Immunity -8
Stacked Catch (Common, Known, Specific) +6

Total Cost -8


If you have multiple catches for your toughness powers you only get one refund.

Mythic Toughness -6
The Catch A +6 (Common, Known, Specific)
Mythic Recovery -6
The Catch B +0 (Common, Known, Specific) <- no refund here

[crusher_bob]

1
You can't manipulate your stacked catches to so one of them negates the other.  A disadvantage that isn't one isn't worth any points.

2
For the second example, you've misused that mechanics to stacked catches.  An example of how stacked catches are suppose to work:

Supernatural toughness [-4]
The catch (Obsidian)
+2 Common item
+1 researchable

Immunity to fire (-8)
Stacked catch:
+2 Specific immunity
+2 'not fire' is common
+1 researchable

So your total cost is -4.

You don't stack catches on a single power, you only stack catches when you have both a toughness power and immunity, and you gets points back for both of the catches.

[Obsid]

First, from the description of Physical Immunity, last paragraph:

A  character  with  a  Stacked  Catch  that
that inverts the conditions of the first Catch
is strongly discouraged. A Physical Immunity
to  Fire  layered  on  top  of  Supernatural
Toughness that can only be pierced by Fire
just never happens in reality, and if it did, one
or both Catches would be rightly valued as
worth zero.

Second:
You only ever get the Refund ONCE.
It is subtracted from the Total Cost of your toughness powers, not the individual cost
Mythic Toughness -6
Mythic Recovery -6
the Catch +6 (Common, Known, Specific)

Physical Immunity -8
Stacked Catch (Common, Known, Specific) +6

Total Cost -8


If you have multiple catches for your toughness powers you only get one refund.

Mythic Toughness -6
The Catch A +6 (Common, Known, Specific)
Mythic Recovery -6
The Catch B +0 (Common, Known, Specific) <- no refund here

Thank you! I don't like it when the center does not hold.

I was actually wondering if you only got the refund once, but I couldn't find any evidence to indicate that. To the contrary, the part in Red-Court Infected template seemed to imply that you got the refund each time.

Toughness abilities, the Catch (page 185)
is sunlight, holy stuff, and a weak spot in
the belly, valued at +1 or +2 depending
on whether –2 or –4 of refresh is spent
on those abilities.

I did read that last paragraph but it seems I misread it.

Thanks again, if I see anything else that worries me I'll post it here.

[InFerrumVeritas]

[qoute] This will give you a discount on the total cost of any and all Toughness category powers that you take... [/quote]

Emphasis mine, from YS185.

[Tsunami]

I was actually wondering if you only got the refund once, but I couldn't find any evidence to indicate that.

YS:185 upper right hand corner

You may specify more than one Catch if you so
choose, but you can only receive the discount
once; take the best one.

To the contrary, the part in Red-Court Infected template seemed to imply that you got the refund each time.

Toughness abilities, the Catch (page 185)
is sunlight, holy stuff, and a weak spot in
the belly, valued at +1 or +2 depending
on whether –2 or –4 of refresh is spent
on those abilities.

That has to do with the minimum cost of -1 for Toughness powers.

If you only spend -2 on toughness powers, then you can get a +1 refund at most, even if the catch is actually worth +2.
Once you spend enough on toughness, in this case -4, the complete refund is given, +2 in this case.

[Obsid]

So then...

Mythic Toughness and Recovery. -12
Physical Immunity. -8.
Total cost. -20.

The Catch. Non-Obsidian. +6 (if properly disseminated) (MT and MR)
Stacked Catch. Obsidian. +0. (PI)

Net cost. -14. Still powerful, but not ridiculously cheap.

Alternatively.

The Catch. Non-Obsidian. +6.
Stacked Catch. Non-blades. +6.

Net cost. -8. Vulnerable to obsidian blades. Resistant to non-obsidian blades. Immune to non-bladed obsidian (like anyone would use that as a weapon) and all other sources.  Powerful and cost-efficient.

Do these work?

[crusher_bob]

You only get the last +2 on the catch if your power only protects you against something specific, like fire, magic, obsidian, etc.  If your power protects out from everything but that thing, then you get zero points for that part of the catch.

So it would look like:

Mythic toughness
The catch (obsidian)
+0 everything but obsidian
+2 common
+2 known to everyone

Physical immunity to bladed weapons
Stacked catch
+2 specific thing
+2 common
+2 known to everyone

So you have absolute protection from bladed weapons, even when they are made out of obsidian, you have high toughness vs anything that is not obsidian, and you are vulnerable to obsidian, as long is it's not bladed, so stuff like an obsidian mace, obsidian bullets, obsidian boulders, red hot obsidian dust, etc will work just fine.

------------------

[done editing]

Or, if your powers looked like this:

Mythic toughness vs obsidian
The catch
+2 specific thing
+2 common
+2 known to everyone

(note you'd need another toughness power, or you'd only get +5 for this catch, since you can't lower your cost down to less than one, and I think, but am not sure, that immunity is counted separately.)

Physical immunity to bladed weapons
Stacked catch
+2 specific thing
+2 common
+2 known to everyone

Then you would have immunity to any sort of bladed weapon, be very tough against blunt obsidian weapons, and be quite killable by, say, a sharp stick or an iron mace.

[Tsunami]

So then...

Mythic Toughness and Recovery. -12
Physical Immunity. -8.
Total cost. -20.

The Catch. Non-Obsidian. +6 (if properly disseminated) (MT and MR)
Stacked Catch. Obsidian. +0. (PI)

Net cost. -14. Still powerful, but not ridiculously cheap.

Catches cancel each other out.
Hence Highly discouraged due to munchkinism.
And they should probably both be zero.

total cost should be 20

It would be a lot cheaper to simply get Physical immunity and take a +0 catch. which has a comparable ingame effect. That is to be technically immune to all harm.

Alternatively.

The Catch. Non-Obsidian. +6.
Stacked Catch. Non-blades. +6.

Net cost. -8. Vulnerable to obsidian blades. Resistant to non-obsidian blades. Immune to non-bladed obsidian (like anyone would use that as a weapon) and all other sources.  Powerful and cost-efficient.

Do these work?

This one would have both catches broken by someone using his fists.

Fists are non-Obsidian, and therefore break the Catch.
Fists are also non-Blades, and therefore break the Stacked Catch.

Bullets would break both catches as well.

As would baseball bats, tonfas, boots, magic etc.

You are however quite resistant to blades made of obsidian.


Basically you have the catches backwards here

I see Crusher_bob has put up a proper writeup, so i'll skip that here ;-)

[Obsid]

Yes, it was quite the facepalm when I realized my mistake.

MT MR Catch Obsidian. +4.
IP stacked catch blades. +4.

Would make 12 the minimum cost then? (going by the intent and not the brain-dead letters of my previous example).

A tangent question. Wizard's Constitution is replaced by any other toughness-type power. So does a non-wizard character with inhuman recovery have long life as well? Does a wizard keep is life span when the power is replaced?

[Papa Gruff]

A tangent question. Wizard's Constitution is replaced by any other toughness-type power. So does a non-wizard character with inhuman recovery have long life as well? Does a wizard keep is life span when the power is replaced?

Yes and yes. That's sorta implied.

[crusher_bob]

Living a long time is a [-0] power, you don't have to pay any points for it, though the GM may make you give up the pure mortal bonus, since it's technically a power.

[Obsid]

Okay, next question.

Magic Wizard by night, Computer Wizard by day. Militiaman during the weekends.

Warden Erik never got a Sword. But who needs it, when you can shoot magic bullets out of a semi automatic rifle?

And all he needs is magic-barrier wards. A circle so simple even Butters can do it. Case all the technical parts with magic circles. Commando Wizard Erik. I don't know if that's OP in game terms, but it sounds like it should be.

Does this work?

[finnmckool]

Don't think you can carry mobile circles, for one. And how do you put them back up again in time to not get shot. Plus the bullet would break the circle.