The Dresden Files > DFRPG
Earth magic responsible for weapons skill?
nadia.skylark:
--- Quote ---They already don't. Aim is Discipline + control, not Conviction + power.
--- End quote ---
I thought that if you rolled a 10 or whatever for your attack, that was the value your target had to beat to avoid the attack. In this case, wouldn't that be conviction + power?
--- Quote ---The thing is, it gives the wizard essentially a free attack that's far more powerful for the high attack roll than is available to anyone else and it frees up the Mental stress boxes for defenses and maneuvers, when without this stunt, a wizard would have to more carefully balance his resources.
A normal wizard might have to choose between whether to use his stress boxes to attack or defend -- with this stunt, they're free to put up an enormous Block against all attacks, then attack at their leisure for free.
--- End quote ---
I realize that you'll probably just think that this makes the power more problematic, but you really should be able to use this power for defense and maneuvers when appropriate, not just attack.
--- Quote ---But the majority of the time, the players are going to have them, while other stunts that add +1 to attack or +2 to stress tend to have more narrow applications than just, "Have the weapon you're probably going to have most of the time."
What's the point of a stunt to get +1 to an attack when I'm surrounded by targets if I can instead take a stunt to get +1 to attack all the time? What's the point of a stunt to unload the clip of a gun for +2 stress when I can just take a stunt to get +2 on every attack with the gun?
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Actually, would allowing stunt bonuses to stack help to fix the problem of wizards being so much better at combat than other characters?
--- Quote ---This all seems too complicated. Why not just say that his weapon skill is complimented by his discipline? Thematically appropriate and it adds a +1 to his weapon skill if his discipline is higher than weapons.
This is a -1 refresh stunt - at most.
--- End quote ---
Because it doesn't replicate what I'm trying to replicate. I had considered designing this power to allow wizards to add their earth power bonus to their weapons/fists skill, but the original point of posting this was to resolve the problem of "making wizards have high weapons/fists skills is unoptimized" while still allowing Morgan-type characters to run around with swords and stuff.
And change of plans: instead of only allowing power bonuses to help with aiming, I'm just going to say that you get a flat -2 penalty to the roll, because even if it's more math, it makes more sense to me and also deals with defense and maneuvers, where the "only to aiming" thing was specifically geared toward attacks.
Taran:
--- Quote from: nadia.skylark on May 22, 2019, 08:14:15 PM ---
Because it doesn't replicate what I'm trying to replicate. I had considered designing this power to allow wizards to add their earth power bonus to their weapons/fists skill, but the original point of posting this was to resolve the problem of "making wizards have high weapons/fists skills is unoptimized" while still allowing Morgan-type characters to run around with swords and stuff.
--- End quote ---
I have to disagree, This is literally what complimenting a skill does and why it was put in the game.
Morgan is really good with swords. His weapons skill is 4 or 5. He’s amazing at earth magic: like 6+ skill after specialization.
His earth magic helps his sword fighting. In this game, the mechanical term for that is ‘compliment’. His earth magic skill compliments his sword skill which boosts his weapons to 6.
So, even when he’s out of spells, his ability to manipulate the metal in the sword boosts his attack to 6.
I mean, feel free to ignore this but i feel it’s a lot less complicated, requires no limitations and is not overpowered but is still a solid boost. And it’s based on other stunts. You could even expand the stunt to affect other items other than swords. Like having it compliment a Might Check when trying to bust down a metal door if you feel it’s underpowered.
Mr. Death:
--- Quote from: nadia.skylark on May 22, 2019, 08:14:15 PM ---I realize that you'll probably just think that this makes the power more problematic, but you really should be able to use this power for defense and maneuvers when appropriate, not just attack.
--- End quote ---
Well, yes. If you're rolling everything from 10 for free thanks to a single -2 refresh power, that's just plain broken.
--- Quote ---Actually, would allowing stunt bonuses to stack help to fix the problem of wizards being so much better at combat than other characters?
--- End quote ---
That doesn't really fix the problem so much as just play into the inflation.
--- Quote ---Because it doesn't replicate what I'm trying to replicate. I had considered designing this power to allow wizards to add their earth power bonus to their weapons/fists skill, but the original point of posting this was to resolve the problem of "making wizards have high weapons/fists skills is unoptimized" while still allowing Morgan-type characters to run around with swords and stuff.
--- End quote ---
There's already a way to resolve that:
High Weapons skill, reasonably high casting skills.
Evocation is already powerful even with only "good" instead of "optimized" skills, so having Discipline and Conviction at 4 or 3 isn't really a handicap, especially once focus items and refinements come into play.
Morgan's good with a sword -- but he's certainly not at Shiro's level. What this stunt does is let a caster effectively be leaps and bounds above the guy who's described as literally the best at swordfighting even before Fidelacchius's +1 to hit power comes into play.
Honestly, this is sounding more and more like a complicated, easily-abusable solution to a problem that doesn't actually exist. It's really not hard to build a Warden character that has good Swording ability and good casting ability. Off the top of my head? At Submerged, you could easily have Weapons at 5, Discipline and Athletics at 4, Conviction at 3. Between Specialization and the four focus item slots, that can bring your effective power and control for a given element back up to 5 or even 6.
And there you go -- a character who is super good at swording, and can hit as hard as Dresden, no complicated penalties or conditions necessary.
--- Quote ---And change of plans: instead of only allowing power bonuses to help with aiming, I'm just going to say that you get a flat -2 penalty to the roll, because even if it's more math, it makes more sense to me and also deals with defense and maneuvers, where the "only to aiming" thing was specifically geared toward attacks.
--- End quote ---
That doesn't really fix it; it's one refinement away from getting right back up to 10, so it's really only delaying the same result.
--- Quote from: Taran on May 22, 2019, 08:28:03 PM ---I have to disagree, This is literally what complimenting a skill does and why it was put in the game.
Morgan is really good with swords. His weapons skill is 4 or 5. He’s amazing at earth magic: like 6+ skill after specialization.
His earth magic helps his sword fighting. In this game, the mechanical term for that is ‘compliment’. His earth magic skill compliments his sword skill which boosts his weapons to 6.
So, even when he’s out of spells, his ability to manipulate the metal in the sword boosts his attack to 6.
I mean, feel free to ignore this but i feel it’s a lot less complicated, requires no limitations and is not overpowered but is still a solid boost. And it’s based on other stunts. You could even expand the stunt to affect other items other than swords. Like having it compliment a Might Check when trying to bust down a metal door if you feel it’s underpowered.
--- End quote ---
Agreed with basically everything here.
nadia.skylark:
--- Quote ---I have to disagree, This is literally what complimenting a skill does and why it was put in the game.
Morgan is really good with swords. His weapons skill is 4 or 5. He’s amazing at earth magic: like 6+ skill after specialization.
His earth magic helps his sword fighting. In this game, the mechanical term for that is ‘compliment’. His earth magic skill compliments his sword skill which boosts his weapons to 6.
So, even when he’s out of spells, his ability to manipulate the metal in the sword boosts his attack to 6.
I mean, feel free to ignore this but i feel it’s a lot less complicated, requires no limitations and is not overpowered but is still a solid boost. And it’s based on other stunts. You could even expand the stunt to affect other items other than swords. Like having it compliment a Might Check when trying to bust down a metal door if you feel it’s underpowered.
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What I meant by "doesn't replicate what I want it to" is that your suggestion isn't earth magic-specific.
Also, it's got nothing to do with manipulating metal--earth magic, according to Paranet Papers, is about enhancing your instincts.
What do you think about the possibility of adding one's earth magic power bonus to their weapons/fists skill?
--- Quote ---Well, yes. If you're rolling everything from 10 for free thanks to a single -2 refresh power, that's just plain broken.
--- End quote ---
--- Quote ---That doesn't really fix it; it's one refinement away from getting right back up to 10, so it's really only delaying the same result.
--- End quote ---
Okay. So what do you think about my suggestion above?
--- Quote ---That doesn't really fix the problem so much as just play into the inflation.
--- End quote ---
I don't understand your answer. The problem, as I understand it, is that due to refinement bonuses being able to boost one's skills much higher than you can with stunts (because stunts don't stack) wizards hit harder in combat. The limitation is usually that they can only make a limited number of attacks, so anything that increases or removes the limit is a problem.
To fix this, you can:
A) not allow anything that increases or removes the limit
B) weaken anything wizards do that is covered by the increase or removal of the limit
C) give other characters something similar to wizards' refinement bonuses
What I was asking was "is allowing stunts to stack a good way of fulfilling option C?" but what you seem to be saying is "option C is invalid" and I'm not sure why.
--- Quote ---There's already a way to resolve that:
High Weapons skill, reasonably high casting skills.
Evocation is already powerful even with only "good" instead of "optimized" skills, so having Discipline and Conviction at 4 or 3 isn't really a handicap, especially once focus items and refinements come into play.
Morgan's good with a sword -- but he's certainly not at Shiro's level. What this stunt does is let a caster effectively be leaps and bounds above the guy who's described as literally the best at swordfighting even before Fidelacchius's +1 to hit power comes into play.
Honestly, this is sounding more and more like a complicated, easily-abusable solution to a problem that doesn't actually exist. It's really not hard to build a Warden character that has good Swording ability and good casting ability. Off the top of my head? At Submerged, you could easily have Weapons at 5, Discipline and Athletics at 4, Conviction at 3. Between Specialization and the four focus item slots, that can bring your effective power and control for a given element back up to 5 or even 6.
And there you go -- a character who is super good at swording, and can hit as hard as Dresden, no complicated penalties or conditions necessary.
--- End quote ---
I get that you don't like optimization. But other people do.
Taran:
--- Quote from: nadia.skylark on May 22, 2019, 09:01:23 PM ---What I meant by "doesn't replicate what I want it to" is that your suggestion isn't earth magic-specific.
Also, it's got nothing to do with manipulating metal--earth magic, according to Paranet Papers, is about enhancing your instincts.
--- End quote ---
It is related to earth. If his discipline is 4 and his weapons is 5, he wouldn’t get the bonus to weapons. If his earth specialty pushes his earth control over 5, he gets a +1 to weapons.
As far as fluff goes, it doesn’t matter. So instead of it being his manipulation of metal, his specialty has honed his instincts. Mechanically, it is still his earth magic that compliments his weapons skill.
But if it’s just honed instincts, shouldn’t it affect more than just weapons? Like dodging and alertness?
It sounds more like an aspect to me.
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