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The Dresden Files => DFRPG => Topic started by: KOFFEYKID on May 01, 2010, 01:49:58 AM
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I was looking at Mimic Power, and thinking that it might be a shortcut to building an uber-Sorcerer, the really powerful bit is the ability to just strait up replace your score in a skill with the rank of your victim's skill. It seems like a fine way to get lots and lots of skill points. Here is just a preliminary theoretical build to showcase what I mean. Note that under Mimic Power's Must, it only details needing to set aside mimic points, you dont even have a surcharge like with Modular Abilities, or any other powers.
COST POWERS
-9 Mimic Abilities
Mimicked Abilities
COST POWERS
-3 Evocation (Earth, Water, Spirit)
-3 Thaumaturgy
-1 Conviction (5 Ranks)
-1 Discipline (5 Ranks)
-1 Lore (5 Ranks)
Ranks Skills
5 Endurance, Presence, Lore, Conviction, Discipline
4 Empathy, Rapport
3 Athletics, Alertness
2 Resources, Deciet
1 Intimidation, Scholarship
This guy has 5 Rank 5 Skills, at Refresh -9. He also has an extra Physical, Mental, and Social consequence.
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Hmmm. You're right. That's clearly a rules loophole that can be exploited.
I wouldn't allow it, naturally, but it's not technically illegal. Damn. That's definitely in need of fixing.
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And it only gets worse the more he kills. With the ranks in the skills he has now, he just has to go wizard hunting to find more and more skilled wizards. Imagine he goes after somebody with +6 Lore, +6 Conviction and +6 Discipline? It ramps up very quickly.
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And it only gets worse the more he kills. With the ranks in the skills he has now, he just has to go wizard hunting to find more and more skilled wizards. Imagine he goes after somebody with +6 Lore, +6 Conviction and +6 Discipline? It ramps up very quickly.
Not really. Wizards with skills like that are on the Senior Council and he's no match for them even with all his stolen skills. Still, it's bad enough as is.
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I was looking at Mimic Power, and thinking that it might be a shortcut to building an uber-Sorcerer
There is nothing in the description of the power that says it trumps the column rule for skills, or the skill cap/skill points for your power level. Thus I assume that any changes you make can't break those restriction.
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Thats because technically it doesn't go into the skill column. The power says:
Mimic Skill. Allocate one mimic point to copy any one of your target’s skills. This replaces your actual rating with that skill while the allocation remains in place.
You keep your own ranks in the skill, but you use the bonus provided by the stolen skill instead. So it doesn't violate the column system at all. I just put them in there because it was easier to keep track of it there.
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I'm not actually sure if this is really that broken, because yes, the mimic does get uber skills, but at the same time a normal sorcerer could use those three power points to buy up things such as sponsored magic and/or refinement (though iirc there was a limit on the refinements they could take, but I can't remember what), so in the end I think they end up with at least equivalent casting power.
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Consider that a mortal stunt will at most give you a flat +1 bonus to a skill, and costs 1 refresh. This gives you up to a +5 if you don't have points in that skill to begin with. That means that this character gets 15 Refresh "worth" of mortal stunts for 3 Refresh. Thats a 1 to 5 ratio, making it about 5 times as powerful as a mortal stunt.
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Consider that a mortal stunt will at most give you a flat +1 bonus to a skill, and costs 1 refresh. This gives you up to a +5 if you don't have points in that skill to begin with. That means that this character gets 15 Refresh "worth" of mortal stunts for 3 Refresh. Thats a 1 to 5 ratio, making it about 5 times as powerful as a mortal stunt.
From that perspective true, but then again its my opinion that mortal stunts were somewhat weak to begin with anyway (with a few exceptions).
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From that perspective true, but then again its my opinion that mortal stunts were somewhat weak to begin with anyway (with a few exceptions).
Alright, lets take the example away from a Sorcerer, lets put all of it into skills, You could have a character that has these skills:
COST POWERS
-9 Mimic Abilities
Mimicked Abilities
COST POWERS
-1 Endurance (5 Ranks)
-1 Presence (5 Ranks)
-1 Conviction (5 Ranks)
-1 Rapport (5 Ranks)
-1 Empathy (5 Ranks)
-1 Deceit (5 Ranks)
-1 Athletics (5 Ranks)
-1 Alertness (5 Ranks)
-1 Lore (5 Ranks)
Ranks Skills
5 Intimidation, Contacts
4 Scholarship, Resources
3 Driving, Scholarship
2 Guns, Burglary
1 Fists, Melee
Now this character has 44 percent of all the skills in the entire game at Superb. That is AMAZINGLY powerful. This character will own in almost EVERY situation.
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I guess from a rules standpoint it's not too different from skill substitution Stunts...but being whole skills makes it much more powrful. Quite likely to the point of being TOO powerful. The other uses aren't bad, but this one's murder as a starting character...
Maybe just a sidebar that says you can't start out with your Mimic points assigned, and thus you have to find people to Mimic during play?
That'd keep this particular problem from happening since you can only mimic one guy at a time, and the GM's never going to have you run into the guy who's Superb at everything.
We really need some sort of official ruling on this.
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The power doesn't limit it to only mimicing one target at a time, thats Mimic Form. Mimic Powers just says you can mimic powers of your victim, and nothing says you have to spend all of your mimic points on one guy. This character just has to find something skilled at each thing he wants to be skilled in, kill them, and then cannibalize part of them.
I agree that you probably shouldn't start out with by spending all of your mimic points, but it shouldn't be too difficult to start amassing skills.
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Everything about Mimic Power specifies a single target, so I think you need to have only one. That said, it could be much more clear.
Again, I think we absolutely need an official response here.
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Took me a while to look this up but Fred had this to say about Mimic Abilities,
http://games.groups.yahoo.com/group/FateRPG/message/17319 (http://games.groups.yahoo.com/group/FateRPG/message/17319)
This'll depend on the creature (this is a monster ability after all, not something I'd really want PCs considering), really. Grave Peril should be guidance enough here, given what the Nightmare did to Harry (bit a huge hunk out of one of his chakras -- that's a mental consequence by my book). I don't know that I'd want to tie the amount of power gained to the size of the consequence; it might be more appropriate to tie the *duration* of the mimicry to that.
The emphasis is mine.
This doesn't really fix anything but perhaps it only seem broken because it was never intended to be used by a PC.
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i actually have a character in my game using it and while she is tough my soulfire wizard who has less refresh than her can take her. I dont really think its broken or even that Op but in my opinion it isnt something players should easily get(i made the girl take an aspect pertaining to it, if anyone is curious it's her trouble "you are what you eat" so she feels like the more power she gains from monsters the more she becomes like them) also it can be a great plot point or even plot device.
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Oh, absolutely. The main area of brokenness (getting large numbers of Superb skills) is something it was never intended to be used for. Used as intended, the power is cool, but not broken in any major way.
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Edit: Hey, I learned to read today!
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I just reread the description for mimic power, and saw something that mitigates the abusability of it. You can only mimic skills and mortal stunts with it, not supernatural powers.
That's clearly not the intent, to quote the cost section of the power:
"You must set aside a number of points of
your refresh equal to the maximum total refresh
value of any mortal stunts and supernatural abilities
you wish to copy from a target."
Emphasis mine. But that whole power is a bit of a mess, and in need of some sort of revision.
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I have no idea who you are talking to. You just made that quote up
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Hmmm. You're right. That's clearly a rules loophole that can be exploited.
I wouldn't allow it, naturally, but it's not technically illegal. Damn. That's definitely in need of fixing.
There's some controls on this: the character's got to find someone with the abilities he wants, after all. Nothing says you get to start with everything you want mimiced...
Also, the guy mimicking a bunch of skills at superb is going to be responsible for the death (or otherwise deeply harming) nine extremely talented people - people who probably have friends and allies who would be upset to see them hurt or killed. Plus there's the police (whatever the local version of SI is) who would be interested in the identity of the serial killer who seems to target the city's most talented people.
...kinda sounds like a Harry Dresden case, doesn't it?
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Well, nothing says they have to be people, also, murder is a pretty heavy word, a player just has to tag along with the other players, and eat bits off of whatever they kill.
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There's some controls on this: the character's got to find someone with the abilities he wants, after all. Nothing says you get to start with everything you want mimiced...
Also, the guy mimicking a bunch of skills at superb is going to be responsible for the death (or otherwise deeply harming) nine extremely talented people - people who probably have friends and allies who would be upset to see them hurt or killed. Plus there's the police (whatever the local version of SI is) who would be interested in the identity of the serial killer who seems to target the city's most talented people.
...kinda sounds like a Harry Dresden case, doesn't it?
Oh, yeah. But there's not anything saying one way or the other about whether you can start having Mimicked. There needs to be to prevent starting out like this with a 'perfectly reasonable' story about how you did it without getting caught.
I'm also still not convinced that you can Mimic more than one person at a time. Either way the power needs to be clarified somewhat.
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I'm also still not convinced that you can Mimic more than one person at a time. Either way the power needs to be clarified somewhat.
I also thought you could only mimic one person at a time.
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Like many of the other powers in this system weather it can do one thing or another seems to be up to the st, for weather you can mimic more then one person at a time i think it depends on how exactly your mimic works, if its a you touch your target and take all of there power[ala rogue from x men] then your probably limited to one at a time or your gonna be an npc real quick. If its more of a scalping thing. where you eat your enemies heart and gain there "strongest talent/skill" then id say that it most definitely can work on more then one target at a time. bumping the "weakest" bonuses as appropriate.
The balancing factors i don't think anyone has mentioned yet are mostly ic. For one weather your technically killing anyone or not, your talking big chunks of who and what they are to fuel your power. that's Black Magic regardless of if you get lawbreaker or not, and if you do it to a human i at least would hit you with lawbreaker First [as appropriate] , Second [nearly always], Third [especially if taking skills] and Fifth [ if you use the power on corpses]. Not to mention the fact that wardens and other things are likly to come gunning for you.
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The balancing factors i don't think anyone has mentioned yet are mostly ic. For one weather your technically killing anyone or not, your talking big chunks of who and what they are to fuel your power. That's Black Magic regardless of if you get lawbreaker or not, and if you do it to a human i at least would hit you with lawbreaker First [as appropriate] , Second [nearly always], Third [especially if taking skills] and Fifth [ if you use the power on corpses]. Not to mention the fact that wardens and other things are likly to come gunning for you.
This is utterly ridiculous, as has been argued many times, the cost of such evil is payed for as part of the powers. Like how WCVs dont get a Lawbreaker 3rd for inciting emotion. The only way to ever get a lawbreaker is to break the laws of magic with a spell.
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This is utterly ridiculous, as has been argued many times, the cost of such evil is payed for as part of the powers.
Im Farly certain that was primarily intended for Non-Humans who have those powers, especially since many of those powers were not intended to be had by pcs/ Humans, Its also been said that the powers and rules of this setting are guidelines not set in concrete. if someone is taking mimic power to simulate a magical ability to steal parts of someones soul then yes i think that counts as both Magic and a violation of the law.
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Then that is your interpretation, which is in no way supported by the guidelines of the game, and is essentially an arbitrary decision you've made. There are lots of cultures where cannibalism isn't an evil thing (they eat the bodies of their dead relatives so that they can keep them with them always), or where cannibalism is seen as a right of the victor (to get their strength).
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Im done with this aspect of the thread, if other people want to argue the laws of magic please move to another thread for it.
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As far as I'm aware only taking supernatural powers requires you to 1. touch their brain/heart 2. Take a bit out of their magical power.
or atleast, that's how I've read it.
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which is in no way supported by the guidelines of the game, and is essentially an arbitrary decision you've made.
Magic dose not have to be an evocation. Any power could be magic , weather or not it counts as magic is entirely up to the storyteller. if you want to ignore that part of the rules that's up to you , but that doesn't mean its not there. however since you are the one that started this thread i will refrain from posting here again.
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First off I'm pretty sure that the Lawbreaker stunts and the laws of magic only apply to spells, if someone has supernatural strength and sticks a sword in someone they do not get lawbreaker. Not to mention thwe fact that lawbreaker stunts are gained because you completely believe in the action. But even assuming that you are right lets look at those laws
if you do it to a human i at least would hit you with lawbreaker First [as appropriate] , Second [nearly always], Third [especially if taking skills] and Fifth [ if you use the power on corpses]
1st: probably not as you most likely wouldn't kill them via this power, you might kill them before or after this power but I don't think that this power itself does any damage to them.
2nd: You really aren't transforming another person. That is meant to be warping their body and destroying thier mind, this power does neither.
3rd: The problem I see with this law is that you don't mess with their thoughts, but you do copy their skills, so this is really an ST call.
5th: It is demonstrated in the books that imprints can be read off of a dead body without breaking the laws, so I'd say if you eat a corpse to gain its' power that wouldn't grant a lawbreaker.
All that being said I strongly disagree with giving lawbreaker to anyone who did not cast spells.
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I would say that anyone stealing 9 refresh worth of powers and skills from others better be prepared to get a serious beatdown.
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From the typo thread:
Non-Typo potentially major issues that have come up in various threads:
2. Can a character with Mimic Abilities come into play with someone (likely a dead someone) already mimicked? Because that can result in badness like the character with 11 Superb skills (he ate Doc Savage's brain), and never using Mimic for anything else. He just has 11 Superb Skills.
3. Can a character with Mimic Abilities mimic more than one person at a time (say, a single skill from each of nine people)? Everything about the ability screams at me that you can't, but others disagree and it's somewhat unclear.
I think some of these questions come from a willful misinterpretation of the obvious spirit of the rules. As such I'm gonna get a bit snarky about it. Fair warning.
#2 - If an NPC, yes. NPCs do things off camera all the time. If a PC, no.
Mimicking someone should come off a lot like the process of prepping a Thaumaturgical ritual does: you gotta build the story. No story*, no mimic.
* By which I mean a story which everyone agrees is a good one, passes the sniff test, and sounds like a good fun thing to include in the game.
I could see maybe someone asserting it through a combination of aspects and backstory from character creation, but even then the 11 Superb skills is clearly someone trying to game the system in a way that destroys fun and fair play. (Also, if someone has 11 Superb skills, we're talking about someone who very likely had enough going on that they should have trounced the mimic. Have you done the fucking math on that? This person had 55 skills out of 25, so that's a trick, totaling 165 skill points. Rule of thumb -- if a skill comes from pre-game "eating", the best it can be is two lower than the skill cap for the game. In a Superb-cap game that limits you to Good.)
At my table, people who do that should be shown the exit; they are a committed abuser, interested in aggrandizing their own power fantasy, not in playing a game with other people. I am uncompromising on this perspective, and draconian when someone tries to pull that kind of a rude and disruptive fast one on the game.
#3 - I might bend the rules for a Big Bad NPC, but on a PC I'd say it absolutely is only one victim at a time.
Oh, I might be upset about the line of thinking, but I'm definitely aiming some ICBMs at 'em and nuking it from orbit. For example:
HARRY: For Mimic Abilities, can a PC mimic more than one person at a time? Or someone from before the first session?
BILLY: I’d say no. It’s a bit of an “evil people eater” power, so it should be treated very strictly when in PC hands.
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I'm not going to quote the book here, but page 176 where Mimic Abilities is...in the last paragraph of the first effect of the power. That holds the only answer I'll ever need.
That paragraph SHOULD be tacked on to the end of both of the other effects. It strikes me as ridiculously obvious that was the intent, but just didn't happen. Silly them, thinking they wouldn't have to repeat themselves for each of the effects.
To me, it says you can't cherry-pick powers like you can with Modular Abilities, they come and go in a group. At best, it can be a set of POWERS from one target, a set of STUNTS from another target, and a set of SKILLS from yet another target. Even if each "set" is only a single power, stunt, or skill...if you swipe off of someone else, it's gone...replaced by the new batch.
But hey, admittedly, that's merely my interpretation alone. I think it works well and makes the power still worthwhile.
I agree that someone who tries to start with 11 superb skills is just being a prick, no matter how "justified" their story is. And frankly, NO pre-game story could ever reasonably justify that, period. As stated before, such a story would have to be agreed upon by all players and the GM as both interesting and fun for all. That just isn't possible with that kind of crap.
That said...it should totally be fair game for NPCs to cherry-pick hardcore. Bad-ass NPCs are the bread and butter of good gaming...again, in my opinion.