Cleaning Up The Stunt List

[Sanctaphrax]

As many of you know, I maintain the master list of homebrew stunts on this forum.

As many of you may not know, I'm not totally satisfied with the quality of everything on that list.

So. It's time to clean things up.

The purpose of this thread is to get some help from the rest of the forum in doing so. If a stunt seems bad to you, tell me. If there's a general problem throughout the list, tell me. If there's anything at all on the stunt list that you think ought to be changed, tell me.

[Sanctaphrax]

Here are the problems I've noticed. If you see something that one of these problems applies to, please point it out to me. If you think something should be added to this list, please tell me.

1. Some stunts are just badly or inconsistently worded.

Nothing fancy here: it's just that some of the stunts aren't very well written. And the format is not entirely consistent. I'd like to have bonuses written like this: "add two to your Might skill" but I've foolishly gone and peppered the list with things like "+2 Might". Yeah, I know, it's nitpicky. But that's how I am.

2. Some stunts are too supernatural.

I believe that stunts can interact with powers. But they should do so in a way that is stunt-like. Some of the stunts on the list cross over the nebulous boundary from stunt-like to power-like.

3. Some stunts are overpowered.

When I started the stunt list, my ideas on balance were a little different. The most important difference between my opinion now and my opinion then is that I know think social combat stunts should be subject to the same restrictions as physical combat stunts.

To elaborate:

Attack stunts give +1 to hit under a specific circumstance or +2 stress under a specific circumstance.
Defense stunts give +2 to dodge under a specific circumstance or 1 armour under a specific circumstance.

This supersedes the standard rules on stunt balance. Even if Dodging is just one trapping of Athletics, a blanket +2 to it doesn't seem fair for 1 stunt.

There are stunts on the stunt list that give a flat +2 to Rapport in a specific situation. Experience has taught me that that is way too good.

I'm also considering putting restrictions on the stunts that move attack and defense trappings, especially the ones that move physical defense. They seem too good.

[Sanctaphrax]

Nobody has anything to say, it seems...

Maybe people think the list is perfect as-is.

If you've used stunts from the list, have there been problems?

Do you think my issues sound reasonable?

I'd really rather get people's input before I start making changes. The opinions of others should prevent me from making mistakes or introducing my own biases, in theory.

[EdgeOfDreams]

Consistency of wording is a non-issue for me.

I've never liked stunts that interact with powers at all.  I would rather follow the Incite Emotion model of having various power upgrades that are explicitly powers, not stunts.

The balance of social stunts is gonna vary a lot between groups.  For example, I play with a group that rarely has socially-competent characters and tends to resolve a lot of social situations in just a roll or two or three, rather than having full social combat with stress, consequences, etc.  For my group, stunts that grant +2 to a social trapping just aren't that big a deal, though I could see it being a bigger problem for groups that DO use the social combat rules extensively.

Considering that social attacks don't have a weapons rating outside of powers and stunts, I think the balance point for social combat stunts is probably something like...
Defensive: +2 to the roll
Offensive: +1 to the roll and +1 stress on a successful attack.

But that's completely untested and probably worth a thread to itself.

Regarding the Physical Defense trapping - I feel that only Fists and Weapons should be allowed a blanket "Substitute this for athletics when dodging ranged and area attacks".  A few other skills, such as Stealth MIGHT be viable for a substitution of defense trapping, but it'd have to have a limiting circumstance so you don't have the absurdity of the 5-Scholarship, 0-Athletics pure-mortal nerd dodging everything that comes at him for the price of a stunt or two.

And really, anyone who's worried enough about combat optimization to sub a defense trapping ought to have Athletics at 2 or 3 anyway. Otherwise, they can easily fail to deal with (or waste fate points on) non-combat physical obstacles, high-speed foes, chase scenes, falling damage, etc. etc.

[ALurker]

People likely aren't responding because this is a massive task.

Alertness:
Attention!: Way too powerful (you might as well not have alertness at that point if one of the other members of your party does)

Traffic Watcher: Doesn't make sense. Why are you getting a flat +2 to Alertness while in your car? That would be sitting down on a moped and suddenly being able to react to danger faster. It should be +2 to watching for a tail or something. Alternatively it could allow one to modify alertness by driving when in a car.

Inspector: Does not make sense at all. Alertness is about the ability to react to changes in environment and is only for passive not active examination.

Notice the Unseen: This allows one to add three to notice magically hidden things. That most certainly does not qualify as "very, very narrowly defined"

Athletics:
Excellent Mount: Having someone on top of you should not increase your athletic ability. This stunt should only be used to remove a penalty, if it were to exist at all.

Highly Mobile: Doesn't that impede on the Speed powers.

Land On Your Feet: This seems rather powerful for an ability that doesn't require a fate point.

Burglary:
Five-Fingered Discount: This needs to be limited in what you can find and how long it takes to find it. It should also be used at a penalty as compared to resources.

Burglar's Signature: This allows you to invoke an aspect to add +2 to burglery. Isn't that how things normally work?

Contacts:
Friends Everywhere: That is both way too powerful and doesn't make sense fluffwise. It completely negates a penalty of four or greater. Fluffwise it basically states that even if you are Outside the outer gates, you have friends. Unless breaking the laws of magic is central to your character, that would make no sense.

Conviction:
Stubborn Faith: This can be quite broad given how many actions could go against the character's faith. Two minor consequences might be too much.

Shield Of Faith: Power and fluffwise this makes no sense.

Religious Contacts: This needs to be a whole lot less broad. Anyone who shares your religion? That's a whole lot of people depending on the religion you choose. This can basically be used to replace Contacts in its entirety. It should only be when dealing with religious leaders and such.

Lay On Hands: That should be a supernatural power.

Actual Priest: This needs to be better written and have a new name. Furthermore, it really should only be used to determine you knowledge of your religion's doctrine, not overall religious knowledge.

Craftsmanship:
Do You Like It? I Made It Myself: This should only provide a bonus when using weapons you made yourself. Replacing attacking skills with Craftsmanship is beyond powerful.

Bricoleur: Way too broad. You get straight bonus to "to make creative and resourceful use of whatever materials are at hand (regardless of their original purpose)." So that is pretty much everything your crafting. For example, you could make creative use of metal to craft a sword. In fact I would completely replace this entire skill tree with the Scavenger stunt and maybe enhancements to it.

Big Pocking Wrench: This stunt almost seems like a joke. Why would one get a bonus to fixing things with a wrench? All a wrench does is tighten and loosen things. Now the breaking bit of this stunt is relatively reasonable, though I would instead make it so that large wrenches no longer count as improvised weapons. Also unless the wrench causes pock marks, it needs a new name.

And now to skip ahead to my favorite skill, Resources.
Resources:
Wealth Beyond Imagination: Major fluff problems. Why do you have more money to buy expensive things than you do cheap things?

Prized Possession: Finally, a drastically under powered stunt. A single item that is two above your resources score isn't worth refresh.

Access Pass: This doesn't really seem to be a resources stunt so much as a scholarship stunt that lets you bypass resources. Furthermore, why is it always Superb? It would seem to make more sense to simply allow you to replace your resources with scholarship for getting that library (ie: since you have more knowledge you get a better job and thus access to better resources)

Professional Gambler: This would seem to be a purely gravy train stunt. It is a +2 to all resources half the time which is not a narrow application. It needs penalties.

Sponsored Resources: I personally would tend toward this stunt being a 2:1 trade (+2 to resources for every point of sponsor debt) but still capped at +4.

Other (not as detailed notes):
Feint: Too powerful and doesn't make sense.

Disciplined Body: Doesn't make sense.

Unbroken Composure: Fluff problems. Avoiding Surprise is about reacting fast enough, not keeping calm enough to react. It doesn't matter how composed you are if you don't have time to react to being shot in the back.

Trained As A Unit: Beyond powerful.

Instinctive Defence: See above.

Gunner: Fluff problems. Why would someone with great driving but horrible guns suddenly be able to use a vehicle mounted minigun well?

Backlash Absorber: There is a side bar that talks about how bad an idea a stunt like this is.

Inexhaustible Power: This is not a narrow use, this should only give you one mild consequence at most.

Spell Resistance, Fireproof, and Was That Supposed To Hurt?: Those are supernatural abilities.

The King Still Stands: Still not a narrow use. Also fluff problems.

No Holds Barred Beatdown: Too powerful.

Destroyer Of Abominations: Too powerful, most evil creatures will count as offensive to your faith for most religions.

Brutality and Extreme Brutality:  You are skipping the entire stress track. If there was a facepalm smilie I would be using it right now.

Touch Of Emotion: Severe fluff problems.

[The Mighty Buzzard]

Nobody has anything to say, it seems...

Maybe people think the list is perfect as-is.

If you've used stunts from the list, have there been problems?

Do you think my issues sound reasonable?

I'd really rather get people's input before I start making changes. The opinions of others should prevent me from making mistakes or introducing my own biases, in theory.

Consistency of wording isn't an issue for me because I'm not trying to write a script for stunts or powers.  It's extremely handy for NPCs though, since it saves me a lot of work.

[The Mighty Buzzard]

People likely aren't responding because this is a massive task.

True that.  I've got plenty on my plate already.

[Sanctaphrax]

Ah, this is more like it!

My thanks to everyone who responded.

I didn't mean to ask much, really.

I wasn't expecting anyone to scan the whole list.

But I figured that many people here had read the list and some had used things from it, so they'd probably have complaints.

Point by point response next post.

PS: Consistency of wording is just one of my little obsessions. In case it isn't obvious, I'm the sort of guy who gets amateur diagnoses of OCD.

[Sanctaphrax]

@EdgeOfDreams:

The power-stunt interaction thing is not changing, unless someone else takes over this job. But I would be willing to tag supernatural-ish stunts so that people who don't like 'em can avoid 'em. Should I do that?

Stunts on this list have to be balanced around a hypothetical average game. In my hypothetical average game, social interaction is important. If a stunt would be broken in a game like that, it's gotta go.

Would be interested to see a social stunt balance thread or to hear your reasons for making social attack stunts stronger.

I agree completely about physical defense stunts.

@ALurker:

Wow, this is a very comprehensive reply. Before I reply to each point, let me specify that I use a limit of roughly 50% for how often a +2 stunt should apply.



Attention!: Not sure if you're aware, but this stunt only works if the guy who's initiative you're copying has this stunt too. Which means that it costs 2 refresh, effectively. It costs 1 refresh to replace one of your own trappings with another one of your own trappings, so I figured an extra refresh would be a fair price for sharing this between players. Thoughts?

Traffic Watcher: Yeah, this makes little sense. I seem to recall this one going through a not-very-good rewrite. Will try to make it better.

Inspector: Disagree. Expanding a skill beyond its normal limits is what stunts do. This is a very reasonable step for Alertness to take.

Notice The Unseen: How often do players roll to notice something magically hidden? I'd expect less than once per session. Is that contrary to your experiences?

Excellent Mount: You are correct. Any ideas for a better Athletics stunt based around being a mount?

Highly Mobile: Yes, but not any more than the On My Toes or Fleet Of Foot stunts do. A little overlap between stunts and powers is OK.

Land On Your Feet: Nope. This'll reduce stress from falling by 2 or 3. Compare to a defensive stunt giving +2 to avoid attacks. Given the rarity of falling damage, I actually think that this is probably underpowered.

Five-Fingered Discount: Why? It seems fine to me...

Burglar's Signature: The bonus stacks with normal invocation benefits. Will make that clear.

Friends Everywhere: I thought that the penalty was always -2 for Contacts rolls is unfamiliar territory. And I didn't think that a skill being actually impossible to use counted as a penalty. But for the sake of clarity, will rewrite to say that it negates 2 points of penalties only.

Stubborn Faith: Maybe, not sure. I guess this one's borderline.

Shield Of Faith: Yep, this is BS. It was on my kill list before you said a thing, but I appreciate the backup nonetheless. I originally wrote this under inspiration from the canon stunt offering physical Conviction blocks, which I now see was a bad precedent.

Religious Contacts: What you suggest I change this stunt to is what I intended it to be originally. Will rewrite to make more clear.

Lay On Hands: I don't think so. It's within the mechanical limits of stunts and it's no more supernatural than the canon stunt letting you create scene aspects by praying.

Actual Priest: You're right, it isn't all that well written. But it "religious knowledge" seems narrow enough as it is.

Do You Like It? I Made It Myself: What do you mean? Attack trappings aren't that much more valuable then other trappings. That being said, I don't think the thematic justification here is very good. I might change it so that Craftsmanship complements combat skills when fighting with self-made weapons.

Bricoleur: Only boosts Assessments and Declarations. That's limitation enough. Also, making a sword is not creative.

Big Pocking Wrench: It is indeed a bit of a joke. Pocking is a euphemism for the f word, if I'm not mistaken. But the mechanical effects are balanced and reasonable, so I don't care.

Wealth Beyond Imagination: This is basically just +2 to Buying Things. Given the relative importance of that trapping, it might be too powerful.

Prized Possession: This stunt was a bad idea from the start. Thanks for pointing it out.

Access Pass: Replacing Resources with Scholarship would give you a lab worth Scholarship-2. This stunt was intended to be stronger than that but also more limited on account of not letting you own the lab. But it should indeed probably scale with skill.

Professional Gambler: It boosts your skill slightly less than half the time, given that not all applications of Resources are rolled. So I think it's okay.

Sponsored Resources: Will think about it. Will probably settle on having it give +3, one use/roll only.

Feint: I more or less agree.

Disciplined Body: It's meant to represent the whole "mind over matter" thing that some semi-mystics advocate. Does that seem nonsensical to you?

Trained As A Unit: Man, the wording here is awful. Will edit. Suffice to say, the stunt is not supposed to be as powerful as it is.

Instinctive Defense: Indeed, this was a bad idea.

Gunner: I figure that operating a mounted weapon is very different from operating a normal gun. Am I wrong?

Backlash Absorber: Would appreciate a quote, I don't have books on hand.

Fireproof and Spell Resistance: I don't think so. Some people are more resistant to some things than others. Why is that supernatural?

Was That Supposed To Hurt?: This doesn't have to be magical because of the abstract nature of stress. Nonetheless, it needs a slight nerf as part of my general combat stunt modifications.

The King Still Stands: Seems narrow to me. Players rarely fight alone, and when they do it's often 1v1.

No Holds Barred Beatdown: Why? It's only better than the standard +2 after you've inflicted a severe consequence, and fights where that happens before you've essentially one are rare. Especially because only very important characters have severe consequence slots.

Destroyer Of Abominations: I suppose it depends on religion. I figure that the average guy with this stunt will fight mortals or non-offensive beings at least half the time. But maybe that isn't a safe assumption.

Brutality and Extreme Brutality: I don't think that these were meant to bypass the stress track, but they are written that way. Will edit. The idea was to let you control the choice of consequences, that's all.

Touch Of Emotion: Yes, this is too supernatural. Will make into a power.



If you ever feel inclined to attack the rest of the list, I'd really appreciate it. This has been helpful.

[admiralducksauce]

Scavenger: You are an expert in the art of making things quickly out of cannibalized parts. If as part of a Craftsmanship roll made to build or fix something you take apart an object that contains parts appropriate to the thing you are building or fixing, you may make that Craftsmanship roll two time increments faster.

This rubs me the wrong way.  Why is taking something apart for parts quicker than simply having said parts on hand?  I like the sentiment, however, but would rework it so that you can roll Craftsmanship instead of Resources to...uh... get parts, or to "buy" things, or something, when in appropriate surroundings.  I don't know what would be balanced; I'm just taking issue with the lack of logic that I'm seeing.  I hate picking nits without appropriate useful feedback but you guys are so much better at balancing these things.  I withdraw my criticism if you can explain this stunt in a way that makes sense.

[admiralducksauce]

Killer of Many: You have killed a lot of people, but not so many monsters. All of your attacks with Guns inflict two additional stress to Pure Mortals.

...I suppose I would allow this one depending on the campaign.  I'm leery of it, though - clearly anyone taking it is planning on shooting a lot of people, and the stunt is going to apply to billions of targets.  It's hardly a narrow use IMO.

I'm okay with the stunt applying to a type of supernatural creature, strangely enough.  Not ALL supernatural creatures, but a type.  Vampires, Fairies, Demons, Denarians, etc.  Possibly Wizards. 

Empty Mag Empty Room: (Requires Blaze Away) Sometimes you just have to fire every bullet you have. When you attack with a gun, you may choose to fire every bullet in your gun at once. If you do, each attack you make that exchange gets a +1 bonus.

This shouldn't require Blaze Away.  You can empty your magazine and make a single attack at +1, or you can use an automatic weapon that naturally allows Spray Attacks and get a +1/attack, or you can have the Blaze Away stunt and a NFA weapon and make Spray Attacks at +1/attack.

The benefits of this stunt stack quickly as you increase the number of attacks as well; I'm not sure I like that sliding scale of effectiveness.  Perhaps a blanket +2 to Spray Attacks before your shifts are divided into multiple attacks would be more balanced.

Should we also have a stunt that allows a zone attack at a -2 with an automatic weapon?  Or possibly at a -1 penalty?

[admiralducksauce]

Torturer: You have the complete lack of mercy that is needed to torture someone properly. You may use your Intimidation skill to inflict mental stress as long as your target is entirely within your power.

I thought torture/interrogation was a trapping of Intimidation, and it's one of the few skills that may inflict mental stress. I don't think this stunt is needed, or if so, it could be reworded to add 2 stress to Intimidation attacks when the subject is helpless or so on.

I Do What I Want: You don't take no orders from nobody. You have social armour 1 against social attacks phrased as commands.

Teflon Persona applies Armor:1 against social attacks.  Either Teflon's overpowered and IDWIW is fine, or there's no point in taking IDWIW.  I suppose I'm coming from a POV where I wouldn't let them stack.

[Sanctaphrax]

Scavenger doesn't really make sense by real-world logic. But by plot logic, it's...well, not as ridiculous. I guess you could justify it by saying that the parts of existing machines are already put together in useful ways.

Perhaps we need a fourth problem:

4. Some stunts make little sense.

Killer of Many might apply too often in some games where supernaturals are rare. Maybe I should add a warning about that...

The reason Empty Mag, Empty Room requires Blaze Away is thematics and balance, not mechanical necessity. It pushes the envelope of allowable stunt effects a bit, so I think a prereq is appropriate. It rewards making huge spray attacks because the normal rules make huge spray attacks a dumbass move.

A zone-attack Guns stunt sounds like a good idea to me.

Teflon Persona has a limitation, like I Do What I Want. I admit, though, that Teflon Persona's limitation is a little weak.

I think torture is a standard trapping of Intimidation, but I'm not sure that it can be used to inflict mental stress without a stunt. Can someone who has the books on hand check?

[admiralducksauce]

I'm full of crap, and the Torturer stunt should remain as it stands:

Certain individuals might also have the
training to accomplish this sort of thing, going
beyond the usual trappings of Intimidation
and into torture, represented by an appropriate
stunt.

You sold me on Empty Mag, Empty Room as it stands here.  And I think with Killer of Many it really comes down to the group, the campaign, and the GM whether it's going to be a problem.  Hell, you can probably say that about any of these stunts, KoM just stood out as a glaring example of a very context-sensitive stunt.

[ALurker]

@ALurker:

Wow, this is a very comprehensive reply. Before I reply to each point, let me specify that I use a limit of roughly 50% for how often a +2 stunt should apply.

Personally I consider that a little too often but I guess that's okay.

Attention!: Not sure if you're aware, but this stunt only works if the guy who's initiative you're copying has this stunt too. Which means that it costs 2 refresh, effectively. It costs 1 refresh to replace one of your own trappings with another one of your own trappings, so I figured an extra refresh would be a fair price for sharing this between players. Thoughts?

The thing is that instead of replacing it with one of your own skills, you are replacing it with another person's. The problem comes when one person sacrifices one of their refresh points and sets Alertness as one of their highest skill (if not their highest), in exchange for benefits from the other players, who for one refresh can completely dump alertness.

Notice The Unseen: How often do players roll to notice something magically hidden? I'd expect less than once per session. Is that contrary to your experiences?

Good point, my experiences with DnD were leaking over.

Excellent Mount: You are correct. Any ideas for a better Athletics stunt based around being a mount?

Maybe something that gives the mount an aspect that can be tagged/invoked by either the mount or rider? I really don't know.

Highly Mobile: Yes, but not any more than the On My Toes or Fleet Of Foot stunts do. A little overlap between stunts and powers is OK.

Good point.

Land On Your Feet: Nope. This'll reduce stress from falling by 2 or 3. Compare to a defensive stunt giving +2 to avoid attacks. Given the rarity of falling damage, I actually think that this is probably underpowered.

The thing is that it scales upward. Furthermore, compare it to Acrobat which gives it two one shift effect a +1 to surviving a fall and a +1 to dodging ranged attacks.

Five-Fingered Discount: Why? It seems fine to me...

It allows you to steal anything that you could buy which doesn't really work. For example stealing a house or an island. Also it should note that depending on the item, stealing things could take significantly longer than buying them with money on hand (which is what resources is a measure of). Buying illegal things is more expensive than legal items and I would think that all stolen items count as illegal (which isn't noted). Second to last, the reason I'm wary of this stunt is that unlike other skills, the resources skill has one very powerful trick (and one benefit that allows it to enhance other skills) which all of its trappings are a variation of. This is unlike other skills which generally can do a host of things. Replacing that one trick with another skill that can also do a whole lot of other things seems rather unbalancing. Finally, stealing something major (or sometimes even minor) is really an action that should have its own scene, whereas this lets that be skipped.

Friends Everywhere: I thought that the penalty was always -2 for Contacts rolls is unfamiliar territory. And I didn't think that a skill being actually impossible to use counted as a penalty. But for the sake of clarity, will rewrite to say that it negates 2 points of penalties only.

Nope it specifically says +4 or more (pg 123).

Stubborn Faith: Maybe, not sure. I guess this one's borderline.

You will note that it says one or two expendable two-shift effects and you should lean towards one if the application is broad. Most religions dictate pretty much everything in your life (assuming you are doing what it says which most people don't) but consider this stunt on someone like Michael.

Do You Like It? I Made It Myself: What do you mean? Attack trappings aren't that much more valuable then other trappings. That being said, I don't think the thematic justification here is very good. I might change it so that Craftsmanship complements combat skills when fighting with self-made weapons.

The problem is that is says to choose ranged or close combat weapons. That allows it to either replace Fists and Weapons (for close combat weapons) or Weapons (for throwing weapons) and Guns. That's a trapping and a half each time. Furthermore, explosives are already part of Craftsmanship so this trapping makes it extremely easy to make so pretty much all your physical attacks are governed by one skill. Finally as you said the fluff just doesn't make sense. I totally agree with the complementing idea though.

Disciplined Body: It's meant to represent the whole "mind over matter" thing that some semi-mystics advocate. Does that seem nonsensical to you?

The problem is that ignoring your body doesn't make it any less damaged. But I guess given the relative abstraction of stress that that could fit. However, this would basically turn all Sorcerers/Wizards into tanks as soon as they got one refresh to spend on this stunt.

Gunner: I figure that operating a mounted weapon is very different from operating a normal gun. Am I wrong?

Depends what you mean by mounted gun (which this stunt doesn't specify and that is my main problem with it). Operating the main gun of a tank could totally be governed by driving since it is very different from firing a gun. Operating a truck mounted machine gun is pretty much like firing any stationary machine gun (though mobile of course ) and would thus fall under guns.

Backlash Absorber: Would appreciate a quote, I don't have books on hand.

This one is always hard to find so it might take me a while but I'll get back to you with the quote. I've found it several time and then when ever I think of it I have to find it again (you'd think I would learn my lesson and write it down somewhere easy to find).

Edit: See next post.

Fireproof and Spell Resistance: I don't think so. Some people are more resistant to some things than others. Why is that supernatural?

There's a difference between being resistant to high levels of heat and being resistant to fire. One is a survivable temperature if miserable and the other is several hundred degrees.

Being resistant to all magic is even more ridiculous. It covers a range of being resistant to thrown boulders, fire, mental attacks, direct magical force, drowning, lightning, being blown into an object, and more.

Was That Supposed To Hurt?: This doesn't have to be magical because of the abstract nature of stress. Nonetheless, it needs a slight nerf as part of my general combat stunt modifications.

The problem is that you can't be immune to bullets, explosions, fire, lightning, and so on by enduring them without some kind of magic ability, whereas you could dodge them perfectly easily. Note that this is primarily a fluff problem. Also saying that it works because the abstract nature of stress does not work with this power since this is about avoiding being hurt entirely.

The King Still Stands: Seems narrow to me. Players rarely fight alone, and when they do it's often 1v1.

I missed the "on your own" bit. My bad.

No Holds Barred Beatdown: Why? It's only better than the standard +2 after you've inflicted a severe consequence, and fights where that happens before you've essentially one are rare. Especially because only very important characters have severe consequence slots.

Good point.