The Dresden Files > DFRPG
Assorted questions
nadia.skylark:
A belated response re: why I should be using compels for my oathbroken wizard rather than a rebate power.
Yes, compels will work. But compels will also work for preventing a loop garou from changing when its not the full moon and being forced to change when it is, and yet they still get a rebate from human form--rare/involuntary change. How is what I'm doing different?
Not being argumentative, just confused. As people who have read some of my other posts know, I'm really bad at figuring out when something should be a power vs when it should be handled with aspect compels, and I'm hoping to get some guidelines.
Edit to avoid triple-posting: How many shifts of power would be needed for a Darkhallow? And do you think one could be cast at Chichen Itza, now that all the vampires are dead?
Sanctaphrax:
--- Quote from: nadia.skylark on June 17, 2019, 12:56:16 PM ---Yes, compels will work. But compels will also work for preventing a loop garou from changing when its not the full moon and being forced to change when it is, and yet they still get a rebate from human form--rare/involuntary change. How is what I'm doing different?
--- End quote ---
As I said, rebate Powers modify normal Powers. Your Oathbreaker Power does other stuff, like hitting you with mental stress.
That said, there's a bias on this board towards using Compels over rebate Powers. There's a good reason for that bias; Compels play better. Even in the case of the loup-garou, it's healthy to use a fair number of Compels.
Compels are at their best, and rebate Powers are at their worst, when it's unpredictable how often your weakness is going to matter. So "you're weaker when you're facing the person you broke your oath to" is a classic Compel thing.
--- Quote from: nadia.skylark on June 17, 2019, 12:56:16 PM ---Edit to avoid triple-posting: How many shifts of power would be needed for a Darkhallow? And do you think one could be cast at Chichen Itza, now that all the vampires are dead?
--- End quote ---
I don't think Chichen Itza could sustain one. My understanding is that you need to eat a whole bunch of souls to make the thing work, so there needs to be a large + dense population present.
As for the shifts, it's really up to you. The game has never made anything about the Darkhallow clear, as far as I can remember.
nadia.skylark:
--- Quote ---As I said, rebate Powers modify normal Powers. Your Oathbreaker Power does other stuff, like hitting you with mental stress.
--- End quote ---
True. It's basically a combination of modifying spellcasting powers (albeit slightly indirectly) and the downsides of demonic co-pilot.
--- Quote ---That said, there's a bias on this board towards using Compels over rebate Powers. There's a good reason for that bias; Compels play better. Even in the case of the loup-garou, it's healthy to use a fair number of Compels.
Compels are at their best, and rebate Powers are at their worst, when it's unpredictable how often your weakness is going to matter. So "you're weaker when you're facing the person you broke your oath to" is a classic Compel thing.
--- End quote ---
Thanks!
But what about the part of the rebate power that's completely consistent?
--- Quote ---I don't think Chichen Itza could sustain one. My understanding is that you need to eat a whole bunch of souls to make the thing work, so there needs to be a large + dense population present.
--- End quote ---
My understanding was that you had to eat a lot of ghosts--souls didn't enter into it. There's also the necessity of sacrificing living people, but that bit's fairly unclear. The best theory I've heard is that the Darkhallow is like a straw--you drink in all the power, and a bunch of people die when their energy gets ripped out to replace what you drank. If you try to do the Darkhallow with no life around, it's like trying to drink through a straw with your finger over one end.
What I'm trying to figure out is if you could combine the Ley line power and all the non-sapient life around Chichen Itza to substitute for all the human sacrifice, or if it would fundamentally change the nature of the ritual, or if it would just make it weaker, or if it would fizzle because you're not killing sapient beings. (Several of these possibilities are more interesting than others, but I'm trying to find out which is more true to the books, and if one of the less interesting possibilities ends up being that, I have modifications I can make.)
Sanctaphrax:
Seems like a bit of a cheat to me, but if it turned up in a story I was reading I'd just shrug and accept it.
--- Quote from: nadia.skylark on June 18, 2019, 01:09:18 AM ---But what about the part of the rebate power that's completely consistent?
--- End quote ---
Penalizing spellcasting would be a reasonable concept for a rebate Power, but spellcasting abilities already scale with Refresh investment. So it seems cleaner just to, say, remove a Refinement. Or demote Evocation to Channelling.
Mr. Death:
The actual terms used in Dead Beat as I recall are "spirit" and "life force," which I took to mean that it includes both the dead and the living.
Plus, I'm not sure that Red Court even have spirits that you could suck in.
As to the compels, another point is that the "oathbreaker" power as you wrote it is revolving around who they broke the oath to, which I don't think is accurate to the series (it's specifically fae that hold you to your oath like that; making a general promise on your power and then breaking it reflects on you regardless of who you're acting against); plus, it seems just killing the dude you broke oath against would remove the penalties entirely -- would it also remove the rebate?
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