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Messages - Jack B

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1
DFRPG / Re: Relations between Summer Court and Black Court
« on: February 28, 2013, 09:01:28 PM »
Not a gripe so much as an observation regarding the continued discussion - no matter the tools available (like concessions) it seems that issue always circles back round to the GM. And I am glad it isn't my game...very, very glad...

I don't know.  Apart from this particular incident it sounds like (s)he is a good gm.  The scope and creativity in the backstory make it sound like a very good game.

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DFRPG / Re: Relations between Summer Court and Black Court
« on: February 28, 2013, 07:59:52 PM »
A couple of points:

1) It's all in the language.  Genocide is a loaded term.  Extermination actually fits the situation better since blamps are not alive in the first place (and nobody is insulting them by calling them politicians). 

(From dictionary.com)

gen·o·cide
[jen-uh-sahyd] Show IPA
noun
the deliberate and systematic extermination of a national, racial, political, or cultural group.

ex·ter·mi·nate
[ik-stur-muh-neyt] Show IPA
verb (used with object), ex·ter·mi·nat·ed, ex·ter·mi·nat·ing.
to get rid of by destroying; destroy totally; extirpate: to exterminate an enemy; to exterminate insects.

2) I've never heard of an arms dealer not wanting two or more parties to go to war.  War is when the profits shoot sky high (pun intended)

3) In the vein of Leveki's comment earlier, if your character has any ranks in scholarship, use it to make a declaration that Catherine is having an affair with a werehorse since a mere werewolf can't cut it.  (google Catherine the Great and Horse to see the historical context and have fun with the widespread rumour of the cause of her death).

4) This situation seems like what social combat is designed for.  It's a shame that the GM isn't willing to go that route.

5) Although it's never happened to me in DFRPG, I have had a few campaigns derail at some point and devolved into inter-party violence.  They may stir up the blood but, as long as no real-life friendships are jeopardized, they can be fun and make quite a story.  In fact some of them are my more vivid gaming memories even if we had to start a new campaign shortly after.

6) When in doubt, follow the old Military Engineering Axiom: "There is no situation in the human condition that cannot be solved through a properly sized, shaped, packed, placed, timed, and detonated charge of high explosive!"  ;D


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DFRPG / Re: Funny/Epic/Legendary moments
« on: November 20, 2012, 09:50:53 PM »
The party was extracting a group of scientists that were working in a secret underground lair controlled by, what turned out to be, an almost plot level challenging Black Court vamp.  During the scuffle with the minions the alarm went off and the vamp was on its way.

The group decided to stick around and fight.  The warden, who’s main offensive spell is to use air to pick up random objects and throw them at his target, puts up a ward while the other members of the party helped to make it a very strong one (the strongest that the campaign had yet seen).  The BCV shows up with a pack of hell hounds and disintegrates the ward with one wave of its hand.

The PCs look at each other and decide to run.  They go into the room with the scientists where the warden opens up a portal.  The party’s shapeshifter holds off the pack while the scientists make a run into the portal with the party’s swordsman. 

Meanwhile the BCV enters the lab as the shapeshifter jumps into the portal.  The Champion of God, seeing that the party won’t make it Concedes in the following way:

“Michel burns with the power of God and throws himself at the BCV.  Midway to the vamp he miraculously transforms into Holy Water and envelops the vamp.”

After some discussion between the group, the GM agrees and Michel is killed.

The BCV is horribly wounded with eyes burning for revenge. 

The warden, the last human in the room filled with hell hounds and the injured BCV, steps forward and does what he does best, he invokes a zone attack using the droplets and mist that were once his friend Michel and whirls them around the room in a huge attack that used up his remaining fate points and consequences.

The shapeshifter reached in and dragged the unconscious warden into the portal which promptly closed.

We changed GMs after that session but we kept the same PCs so we never did find out if the BCV was destroyed.

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DFRPG / Re: A Revised Skill List, With Revised Social Conflicts
« on: October 17, 2012, 02:55:09 PM »
Sorry if this was discussed in the previous thread but I can't go through a 12 page thread right now and I wanted to get one concern listed.

If you use mental stress for social conflicts you are potentially limiting the number of spells a wizard/evoker can 'safely' cast.  This would lead the smart baddies to want to talk/argue/parley with the PCs before any encounter (not a bad thing).  It would also lead to the PCs not wanting to talk to anybody that MAY be a threat and that would be a shame.

PS.  I had a much better post reflecting this point but the forum beast ate it  :-\

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DFRPG / Re: Different Catches for Fay
« on: October 17, 2012, 02:05:39 PM »

I have to admit that I get a bit confused with the Dresden Pantheon.  There is a God and Angels, and Devils/Demons.  There are Outsiders which, I guess , are lost or forgotten Gods. (not sure if that's spoiler stuff) Do they still exist in the Nevernever? Does the White God?


Spoiler for Dresden pantheon including some names(to the best of my limited knowledge and/or understanding):
(click to show/hide)
Spoiler for changes to answer Taran's question:
(click to show/hide)

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DFRPG / Re: Wings and dropping people
« on: October 12, 2012, 02:57:10 PM »
Right.  It makes sense if you actually hit.  The problem is when you drop a person, they're DEFINITELY going to hit the ground but they're not necessarily going to hit the other person who's walking around.  Therefore, you need some kind of targetting role to hit the guy on the ground.  Also, if you do some kind of targeting role and you allocate shifts to each opponent, it makes it easier for the person falling to avoid damage....even if you missed your target.  In fact, he's less likely to take damage if you try to target someone else despite the fact that he still fell and hit the ground.

For targeting I would think that it should be your grappling check.  The amount of control of your grapple would dictate how well you are able to drop him when you want to drop him.  The target would then check athletics to dodge.  If he succeeds then the grapplee takes the full damage, if the target doesn't dodge then you split the damage as per the spray attack rules.

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DFRPG / Re: Wings and dropping people
« on: October 12, 2012, 02:09:37 PM »

-Allocate the damage like a spray attack?  (Tedronai: you beat me to it)

Gah.  None of this seems very intuitive.

The more I think of this the more I like it.  It's a spray attack because the guy at the bottom breaks the fall of the other guy and they both get hurt less each than the guy who was dropped would have been if he hit the floor. 

Regarding throwing people around, I have a problem with stating that you can throw an opponent 1 +1/strength power zone away, because zones are a very fluid thing.  I've been in fights where a football field was cut into a 2 zone fight.  So if someone got thrown from the 25 yard line to the 25 yard line in the other zone it would be a flight of around 150'.  That would be a 1 zone throw which a pure mortal could do. 

I would prefer to just narrate that the stress from a successful grapple was the result of the defender being thrown within the same zone. 

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DFRPG / Re: Wings and dropping people
« on: October 11, 2012, 01:19:52 PM »
She specifically said she wants to drop enemies on fences and other nasty stuff.  After the declaration, I don't know how I'd do it.

Since I'm going to do a Might vs Might to release the victim, I could add the difference as added stress on top of the fall damage.

Or I was just mostly thinking a Might attack at weapon 0 vs athletics.  If she misses, then she fails to drop them on the fence, if she succeeds, she gets to do extra damage = to shifts gained (on top of the stress for falling).  It's an extra roll, but I think it's appropriate for the circumstance.

I would simply let it do +2 stress to account for the declaration tag.  Alternatively, it might meet a specific catch (cold iron) instead of added damage.

What if she dropped the baddie on another baddie though?

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DFRPG / Re: Wings and dropping people
« on: October 10, 2012, 03:23:08 PM »
I'm not overly clear on the grapple rules but wouldn't both the player and the baddie fall if the baddie successfully pulls a reversal and the player doesn't beat the block?

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DFRPG / Re: A bit frustrated
« on: April 20, 2011, 03:23:57 PM »
Jack, Taran, I'm getting a sense you guys don't want to play around with the potential lawbreaker issues here. If that's the case just don't do it.

It's not the case that we don't want to.  Personally, I love that spell and think it's completely in line with his sponsor's agenda.  I would hate to see him not able to use it or be forced to use a Bigby's Grasping Hand instead which is so much more boring.  It does, at least, abut with the 4th law which causes some real role playing opportunity between the group which is great as well.

Unfortunately, as I read this thread, I'm starting to change my mind about whether this is a violation.  Can it cause lasting damage to the cops?  It was a 1 round block so my inclination was to say no.  However, putting myself in the cops shoes, I'm here in a subway maintenance hallway confronted with a guy chanting and a couple of other guys looking suspicious and a huge bear!  I shoot the bear to little effect and then this guy jumps up and shouts "Calm the F- down" and all my religious beliefs reinforcing non-violence are slammed into my head and I have to dig deep down just to point my gun at the very large bear blocking my escape route from the other crazies.  One of the cops failed his discipline check. 

He could pretty easily come down with Post traumatic stress disorder or some other mental issues or even a loss of confidence in his ability and will have to take that desk job instead of the beat cop he always wanted to be.

Taran, your Warden wants to talk to you...

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DFRPG / Re: A bit frustrated
« on: April 20, 2011, 01:47:54 PM »
As the devout catholic warden in this situation I didn't really see what was going on.  I was 10 power into an 18 complexity thaumaturgical spell and was busy chanting away.  I was in the area of effect of the block but never pushed up against it since I was out of the combat (except for getting shot by the frightened cops once).  None of the other PCs understand magic (including the soulfire wielding one) so getting a straight answer as to what happened may be difficult.

After the session ended I got to thinking, would casting this block have left a stain on the caster's soul/aura?  I would think that if the universe slaps you with a Lawbreaker power there would be some sort of effect visible to the Sight (or possibly a Soulgaze). 

The GM determined that it was a violation of the 4th law but didn't slap the lawbreaker power on him for role-playing purposes.  My warden didn't see it as a violation because it was only a block in one zone and left all other options open (including moving a zone away and shooting, running away, talking etc.

1) A 7-shift Ward vs agressive actions applied to the entire Zone. Any hostile actions have to contend with a block of 7 that does not break even if momentarily overcome and reflects attacks back on the attacker if the attacks don't overcome it. I think attackers are going to get the idea pretty fast.

I would be worried that the cop would kill himself on the ward.  If he hits the ward with a 6 shift attack with a shotgun he's facing at least some consequences.

First of all, Soulfire is not mortal magic so it is technically not subject to the Laws.

Do you mean it's not subject to the universe's laws or the White Council's laws?  My warden believes that he is subject to the council's laws because he's human and the source of his magic is not a signatory to the accords (even if the group had a laugh while that question was asked  :D )

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DFRPG / Re: Wizard Stamina, Wizard Differences
« on: April 20, 2011, 04:29:28 AM »
Sorry, fixed...

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DFRPG / Re: A bit frustrated
« on: April 19, 2011, 07:24:56 PM »
My GM does this sometimes and it sometimes it works and is quite challenging while other times it feels cheap.

Just to give some examples, I found that it worked quite well when our group of four PCs was attacked by a tentacle beast and had to take out the tentacles individually.  Each one acted on it's own turn and was considered an individual but they didn't take consequences.  They would be ripped/torn/blown/chopped off if we beat it's stress track.

I found it didn't work well when the same party was attacked by a dozen goblin-type fairies and it just became an issue of number crunching (2 left on player 1, 0 on player 2 etc.). 

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DFRPG / Re: Wizard Stamina, Wizard Differences
« on: April 19, 2011, 07:08:02 PM »
When I got tired of my wizard only getting 4 spells off per fight (not counting consequences), this is what I did.

http://www.jimbutcheronline.com/bb/index.php/topic,23196.0.html

It works well.  The only change that I made was to take away the mental armour 1.

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DFRPG / Re: The strength of your rotes
« on: April 19, 2011, 06:58:00 PM »
When I go pure caster at submerged, I go for the Power 10, Control 11 myself. Why sit down and calculate power/control comparisons if you can max both?  ;D


Just curious, how would you spec that out?  The only way I can think of is if you drop thaumaturgy and take three more refinements.

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