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The Dresden Files => DFRPG => Topic started by: Samael on May 22, 2011, 02:33:15 AM
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Okay so I need help putting together some enchanted items for this character, linked here (http://www.jimbutcheronline.com/bb/index.php/topic,26019.msg1110042)
I have 24 slots to work with at Power 10, Frequency 7 and am trying to think of stuff to have that may prove helpful. I'd like to split it up in a ratio of 10 Offensive Items, 6 Defensive Items, and 8 Utility (investigation, veils, travel, insta-wards, etcs).
Any help will be appreciated.
Thanks.
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Gee, powergaming much?
Well, you don't have the "item of power, flying battlesuit, it is what it is", but other than that, it is straight out of the power gamers hand book.
I would suggest going with a lot of potions for maximum flexibility, but I note you have zero skill in Resources, which means you have maybe a studio apartment and a scooter, no giant lab for making tons of potions.
Not sure why you have 17 refresh but only 30 points in skills.
How about
Alertness potion +10 to alertness for a scene (ie, 15 minutes). On top of all the other niftyness, you are almost certain to go first in a round.
Side effects can include paranoia, migraines, and, unlike The Sight, a complete inability to shut off what you are seeing for the duration of the scene.
Potion of Invulnerability +10 block for a scene.
Potion of Smite Ruler and Transfer Loyalty of Populous +10 to presence for scene
And don't forget, you can always spend a fate point and say, retroactively, you have whatever abusive potion you need for the occasion.
Not getting where that character is fun to play, unless you really, really hate your GM.
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First of all, powergaming is relative. Of course a character with nearly twice as much usable refresh as a submerged PC is going to be powerful. That does not mean they are overwhelmingly powerful for this level. As a GM I can more easily handle an enchanter that pulls lots of effects at Power 10, attack +6 than a black sorceress that does Power 14 Control 14 for her smallest rote or a demon that can hit at Weapon 8, attack +9 and defends at +8 plus mythic toughness.
Secondly, thaumaturgy spells provide skill rolls, not skills. Someone could drink a potion for an Alertness roll of 10 for initiative for a scene but they have to do it pre-combat (i.e. before rolling initiative). Someone could drink a potion for an Alertness roll of 10 for passive perception in that scene. Someone could drink a potion for an Alertness roll of 10 for doing a Declaration. But all of those are separate potions, not one potion that does everything.
Besides, thaumaturgy requires sympathetic links. You can only affect those you have a link to - otherwise you must fall back to evocation effects. It is not nearly as powerful as you think.
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MS, back down the tone a little, please. You're a guest in Fred & Jim's house.
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Considering the character (and the 0 resources) a bag of holding/many things might be interesting. Just have an enchanted item that drops several aspects along those lines on you and then you don't have to spend a fate point to have whatever you want on you at any point.
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Thanks everyone for pointing out the lack of Resources on the CS. I have switched it out with Scholarship so he now has it at fair.
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Here are some rough drafts of what I got so far.
Helm of Eternity
10 shift bonus to Arcane Senses Lore trapping rolls
Provides The Sight temporarily
10 shift block vs Mental Attacks
Cloak of Destiny
Provides 10 shift veil
Provides 10 spirit block or Armor 5.
Ring of Strife
Atlas Shrugged - Weapon 10 attack resisted w/ Might.
Vitality Theft - Weapon 10 attack resisted w/ Endurance.
Elemental Trifecta - Weapon 10 attack resisted w/ Athletics.
Ring of Shifting Fortune
Lady Luck's Favor - Maneuver places temporary aspects of "Good Luck" and "Fortune's Blessing" on target.
Your Fate's Bitch Now - 10 shift maneuver vs. discipline to place "Bad Luck" sticky aspect on target.
Alter Probability - 10 shift block or Armor 5.
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Really not a fan of the example enchanted items. Even assuming that the multiple effects for each are separate items, there are still some issues.
1. Enchanted items cannot provide direct bonuses except in certain special circumstances. So the helm's first effect is out.
2. I'd require you to choose between block or armour effects for each item.
3. Attacks that aren't resisted with Athletics are sketchy.
4. "Your" should be "You're" in the second effect.
I dunno whether mental blocks work against The Sight's attacks, and I can't check right now because my books are elsewhere.
Anyway, here are some more general thoughts:
1. Less slots for offence, more for utility.
2. You have enough power for meaningful thaumaturgy effects, so I suggest you take advantage of that.
3. A summoning item would be pretty cool.
4. So would something that creates walls out of nowhere.
5. There are a lot of useful objects that can be easily conjured. Swords, handcuffs, protective clothes, tools, pencils and paper, etc.
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Quick note: Lots and lots of refresh can give a character powers, but you really need skills to use them effectively.
If you want to build your own items you might consider Craftsmanship. Otherwise a carefully crafted wand you make might look like a third grader made it to play Harry Potter.
Resources determine your workshop and arcane library - defaulting to (Resources -2). If you are making a lot of thing (or doing research) then you might want it higher (or to get a stunt).
Just a suggestion...
Richard
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@ Sactaphrax -Enchanted items can act in in place of a roll for an effect, which is what the Helm is doing. Enchanted items likewise allow you to choose between a block or armor when you use it. Look at the example of Harry's Duster in YS for details. Attacks that are resisted by are other skills are still RAW and thus legal, unless the GM houserules otherwise. Your right about the grammar mistake. Thanks for pointing it out.I will take the rest of the stuff you say into consideration.
@Richard - I have a Demense which will work as my work-shop, there Declarations are automatically successful, thus things things like Crafting and Thaumaturgy are ridiculously easy to do.
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Ah, I see. From the wording it looks like the Helm adds to rolls instead of replacing them.
Harry's duster is written as either a block or armour. By my interpretation, he has to pick one when he makes it. But I can see how it could be read otherwise.
I won't debate attacks vs other skills here.
By the way, I wouldn't rely too heavily on the Demense if I were you. The only auto-successful declarations relate to the physical form of the area, and there might well be a limit to how much that can help.
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The current implementation of (enchanted) defensive items is that you can pick block or armor at the time of the item's use.
Example:
3 vampires pile on our wizard.
The first vampire attacks and gets a great attack result.
The wizard, whose athletics is good, rolls his defense and only gets a +0 on the dice, not good enough.
He then decides to use his power 6 enchanted item to make a block.
So the attack is blocked by the enchanted item.
Minor rules interpretation:
You can wait until after you roll your regular defense to decide if you want to use your defensive item. This allows it to protect you from bad rolls, or provide 'just in time' armor to help mitigate an attack.
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The second vampire attacks.
Note that our wizard is still under the effect of a +6 block.
The vampire gets lucky and gets a +6 result. on the dice.
The wizard, hoping for a lucky roll, rolls his athletics, looking for a +4 (which would give him a defense total of +7). He doesn't get it. Even if he had managed to dodge, the block would still be broken.
The wizard can't use the same enchanted item to also generate armor, as it was already protecting him with a block effect.
The vampire hits him for some stress.
Minor rules interpretations:
1
You can't use the same item to stack both block and armor effects on yourself.
1a
You can use multiple items to stack a block and armor effect on yourself.
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The third vampire moves in for the attack
It rolls a great result too.
Our wizard rolls athletics and gets a great result. No wanting to take another hit, he uses his item (again) to provide (another) block.
Minor rules interpretations:
1
You can use your defensive item again and again (barring running out of charges or stress to power it), as long as it doesn't stack effects.
1a
The duration of armor or blocks generated by enchanted items lasts until your next action, this may mean that the block generated by your item will last into the 'beginning' of the next exchange.
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So, what items do I recommend:
2 defensive items for yourself, so you can stack block and armor effects on yourself, to defend against particularly big attacks.
3 offensive items:
1 single target weapon 10 item
1 zone target weapon 8 item
1 'non-lethal' weapon item, to allow you to take our mortals. something like weapon 4, 13 uses; depending on what weapon power you GM will allow you to justify as 'non-lethal'
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A lot of the rest of your stuff can be just left as potions, as even your potions will still be strength 10 with many uses.
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But other stuff to consider:
Defensive items that can be used by others. If you have to protect someone else, having tank armor that you can hang around their neck would come in handy.
Spell breaking prod-stick (counterspell effect). This is your goto solution for people hiding behind things like magical blocks or zone borders. You poke it with the prod stick, then your friends lay into them.
'air cannon' like potion. This lets you stuff steel ball bearings, or salt, or whatever into it and then fire it out at a damaging velocity. There for all your catch beating needs.
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Super flare: 4 point maneuver +2 for affect zone, +4 for affect lots of zones
Block versus travel to and from the Nevernever. If someone's transit spell uses the minimum power needed to cross, it won't take much power to block it. Buy it as armor that increases the toughness of the Veil? As an evocation type effect, you wouldn't be able to stop someone who takes enough time to create a thaumaturgy spell that generates enough power to blow through your barrier, but in a hot pursuit situation, being able to lock your target in for a few exchanges can be effective.
At 17 refresh, 10 block and 5 armor (from different items) is actually pretty low. You could be encountering a lot of Mythic toughness + mythic recovery at that level. And with supernatural speed, a tough character could zip into another zone, get out of combat, and clear their entire track.
You probably would want to have multiple block 10 items, actually. That way, if one attack goes past your shield, (say with a large use of fate points, navel gazing maneuvers, tagged aspects in the surrounding), that won't mean that every other attack that exchange won't go against your sad little athletics.
Be advised that a specialist evocation wizard who puts a lot of points into Counterspell could probably deactivate most of your items at once if they take a -2 penalty to dispel everything in the zone.
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If the block from the item gets broken, then you can just use the same item again to generate another block to deal with any follow up attacks. Sure it's hard on the charges, but it's still much better than paying in blood.
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At 17 refresh, 10 block and 5 armor (from different items) is actually pretty low. You could be encountering a lot of Mythic toughness + mythic recovery at that level. And with supernatural speed, a tough character could zip into another zone, get out of combat, and clear their entire track.
It's not that bad. An evocator would have to pay 7 points of refresh in refinement to get to +5, +4 in thier main element. And they'd also want to dump enough points into enchanted items so that they could gen enchanted item defenses as well.
So our ecocator would be looking at something like control 10, power 9 evocations, with power 10 stacked enchanted item defenses (and be out of points around there).
So he can expect to do around 4+ stress to you through your stacked defenses and you can't do much to him in return, since he'll also have power 10 or so defenses.
A physical combatant can afford supernatural everything
So they are looking at something like targeting 5, defense 7, weapon 6, armor 2, 8 stress boxes. He can't penetrate the enchanted item defense, and suffers stress 10+ hits every time the evocator attacks.
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But the system really starts breaking down here, especially with the high to hit bonus plus high weapon value of evocation
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I have it on good authority that a focused evoker can get weapon 14 control 14 attacks at that level. They might be a bit short on defenses though.
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It's not that bad. An evocator would have to pay 7 points of refresh in refinement to get to +5, +4 in thier main element. And they'd also want to dump enough points into enchanted items so that they could gen enchanted item defenses as well.
So our ecocator would be looking at something like control 10, power 9 evocations, with power 10 stacked enchanted item defenses (and be out of points around there).
So he can expect to do around 4+ stress to you through your stacked defenses and you can't do much to him in return, since he'll also have power 10 or so defenses.
A physical combatant can afford supernatural everything
So they are looking at something like targeting 5, defense 7, weapon 6, armor 2, 8 stress boxes. He can't penetrate the enchanted item defense, and suffers stress 10+ hits every time the evocator attacks.
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But the system really starts breaking down here, especially with the high to hit bonus plus high weapon value of evocation
Lawbreaker helps you get there faster. A lot faster. Of course, I wouldn't see what lawbreaker is capable of as a balancing point as there are significant story and plot drawbacks.
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Question, does the fact that there are only 5 elements mean that the maximum refinement bonus you can have is +5?
Looking through the Our World supplement, even High Council wizards rarely have more than +3.
And technically it would be 8 refresh to get to +5, as you would need to buy two more elements of magic from your starting 3.
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1) Assuming you do not raise the minimum cap yes, not counting focus items or lawbreakers.
2) The Senior Council Members are highly underpowered in Our World, by all accounts they are realistically in the mid thirties to early forties refresh wise.
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Because they have to follow the stack, yes, +5. However, focus items could do quite a lot (there's no limit, only how much power you can stack up).
Granted, that +5 ends up costing quite a bit of refresh: -7
15 points of refresh leads to +5 to power and +5 to control in one element. Add that to a potential Superb in both Discipline and Conviction (requiring 45 skill points). That gives you 10 power, 10 control.
Now, breaking things down a bit more:
Basic Wizard template is -7. That gives you four focus items and one point of specialization (for evocation, which is what I'm working with).
-15 points of refresh gives you 30 points of specialization. You only need 29 to max out specializations, so Billy says it's cool to have the last specialization grant one focus item and one point of specialization.
Now you're looking at Superb Discipline +5 offensive spirit control, +5 Spirit Control with Superb Conviction +5 Spirit power.
That gives you 15 offensive control, 10 defensive control, 10 power. At -22 refresh. With IoP shenanigans you look at -20.
I'd probably call anything approaching this at -10 refresh powergaming. Not necessarily bad (as you are sacrificing a lot of the side benefits that this character has, but still powergaming). As a GM, I'd probably question the character.
Lawbreaker gets you there much faster. Sponsored magic can get you there even faster. I imagine that many of the Senior Council might have sponsored magic of some sort (more like Kemmerlerian Necro than actual sponsored magic, granting "extra" specialization).
Also, they likely have stunts/powers that do things like allow faster casting of rituals (Turn Coat), other powers (Joe's shapeshifting/Blackstaff/Gatekeeper have all shown this). Possibly even longer endurance when casting spells (extra mental consequences?). It may even be possible to have the ability to cast multiple spells (Archive). I'd probably say that at one point, it becomes less of a numbers game and more of a tactics game.
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Evocation bonuses of +1, +2, +3, +4, +5, with the last being +5 control, +4 power for your element of choice cost -7 refresh. (counting free spec). Focus bonuses of +5 offense power, +5 offense control for your element of choice cost -3 refresh. (counting free focus slots). The wizard template costs -7 refresh. The sorceror template costs -6 refresh. Plain Evocation costs -3 refresh.
So, absolute minimum for +14 power, +15 control offense, +9 power, +10 control defense is -13 refresh without any Items of Power or Lawbreaker or Sponsored stuff.
Minimum for the base Sorceror template for the same is -16 refresh and for the wizard template -17 refresh.
That is significantly lower than -22. Add Item of Power and you reduce those to -11, -14 and -15 refresh respectively.
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@ Belial
1) Love your latest post in EtA, its inspired and made me laugh a good bit. I am going to find something suitable to siggy from it.
2) Any ideas for some particularly nasty enchanted items, that would fit the character concept? I am more or less having writers block on this.
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Eye of Providence: A gold triangle set with three gems; a shapphire, a ruby and a diamond. The ruby magnifies your senses so you can see even insignificant details of a scene and how they can be used to your advantage. (spend charge to make 2 perception-based declarations at +5). The shapphire provides you with defensive precognition, giving you the temporary aspects "forewarning", "foreknowledge", "forethought". (defensive item - spend charge for 3 taggable aspects vs a single attack/maneuver). The diamond gives you clarity of vision allowing you to see things as they are. (spend charge for supernatural perception of 10, potentially revealing info about supernatural forces or breaking through veils)
Mantle of Thought's Speed: A cloak that appears to be a sheet of silver from the inside, a sheet of gold from the outside, both woven out of impossibly fine thread. The silver sheet enables you short-duration flight by manipulating air currents. (spend charge to get sprint 7 for 4 exchanges. You can choose to fly but must then roll athletics to control the flight). The golden sheet enables short-range teleportation at a moment's notice like an escape potion. (defensive item - spend a charge to move up to 10 zones, ignoring most barriers. Roll Lore to control the destination.)
Rod of Dominion: Three thin rods twisted around eachother like serpents; one of inherited silver, one of meteoric iron, one of pure gold. The silver can set a Ward on a circle, provided you use the Rod to make the circle (supplemental to make circle, full action to spend a charge to Ward). The iron one can set a Binding around part of a zone, provided you run a full circle around the area. (supplemental to make circle, full action to spend a charge to Bind). The gold can be used to banish demons and supernatural entities. (spend charge to make 10-shift spiritual attack vs non-mortal. Takeout is Banishment)
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Question, does the fact that there are only 5 elements mean that the maximum refinement bonus you can have is +5?
The max specialization bonus, along with the max bonus you can get from a foci, is limited by your lore. So if you have a superb lore, you can get +5 from specialization and +5 from a focus item.
barring certain Tower of Hanoi issues, you can get to +5/+4 refinement in your element of choice without ever needs to get more than 3 elements.
A sample:
Evocation (Spirit, Air, Fire)
Spirit Control +5, Spirit power +4, Air control +3, Air power +2, Fire control +1
The refinement to get you there is 7 points.
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The refinement to get you to a +5/+5 balanced bonus would require around 15 points of refresh, and you need to have all five elements as well, so closer to 17 points of refresh.
but
You can get to +6/+5 for only 10 refresh, and you still don't need any but your base 3 elements.
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Just as an aside, there are more than five potential elements (even assuming you limit yourself to the default western tradition elements). In addition to the basic five, each Sponsored Magic power source counts as an additional element, so there's also Hellfire, Winter, Summer, etc, for those with the Refresh to play around a bit.
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There do seem to be more balance problems at high levels of refresh. One thing that is kind of interesting is that it seems to be easier to boost defense rolls than attack rolls for someone using magic items.
The above character would have a ton of 10 shift attacks... that attack at 5 discipline.
Considering the environment would have characters with 5 athletics + Mythic speed (defense 8), persistent blocks in the 8-10 range. And a 'modest' amount of evocation specialization +3 power, +4 control, for 5 refresh or so and some focus items would yield rote block and attacks in that range. But the evoker would have 8 or 9 control to go with their 8 or 9 attacks. The evoker might have less brute power, but they are more likely to hit.
At really high levels of refresh, physical combatants need to find a way to spend refresh to boost their hit chance. True Aim and similar stunts.
Of course, Greater Glamoured stealth and super speed could sub for that. A complete surprise attack and you might have no defense at all.
Unfortunately, once you get into hit and run tactics involving super speed, you need a larger battlemap. Instead of just having 4 or so zones for the encounter, you need to sketch out everything a speedster could get to in one exchange as a free action.
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Here are the different items I am going to be making for my game, they noticably all have a Greek theme, and if you can guess at what some of them do I will give you a cookie. ;)
Gauntlets of Nemesis
Satchel of Hephestus
Veil of Eris
Rod of Hecate
Twin Blades of Kratos and Via
Brooch of Athena
Bracer of Atlas
Shield Ring of Medusa
Flute of Pan
Chain of Hades
Gauntlet of Ares