Whoa whoa whoa. That is a totally unfair comparison. The first setup gives you +2 to hit, +1 defense, lets you use weapons for all defense, and also gives you many non-combat benefits of glamours.

You effectively have a weapons skill of 7 that can be used for almost all combat actions and weapon 5 (assuming a submerged type game). This is more than just enough to be good at physical combat. It is fairly excellent, and gives other benefits besides. And it only costs you one apex skills, which in my book is more valuable than refresh for most things.   

Your comparative social character is no where near that. They are competent. Lets assume you take Rapport and Deceit, and then you have to take Takes one to Know One. To get to 7 skill rating for attack and defense, you need some power that boosts Deceit and Rapport by 2 for all of the trappings. This does not exist AFAIK, outside of a very broad reading of Flesh Mask, but that has other baggage. So you are basically now taking 2-4 stunts, assuming that you allow social conflict stunts to give +2. So in order to be as good at social as your character is at weapons, you have to spend almost as much refresh, and 2 instead of one apex skills. You also do not get reasonable stealth or any other utility out of the deal. Also social combat just comes up less often and in my experience the payoff is less, or a forgone conclusion anyway. 

1. I don't think it's a good idea to merge Rapport with other skills. It's already the best social skill, the way I read it.

2. Rapport is the only social skill that cleanly merges with anything, though I guess you could make a case for Intimidation and Presence.

3. So if I were going to reduce the number of social skills, I'd want to write a new list entirely. Starting with the current list would probably trip me up.

4. But honestly I'd rather just make it easier to get by socially with only a few social skills. Swordsmen don't need Guns, thugs shouldn't need Rapport.

PS: Well-roundedness doesn't matter much. Effectiveness does. That being said, Fists and Footwork and Endurance won't get you far against serious opposition.

I agree with this entirely. I think in the current list Rapport+Empathy is the only combo, and as you said it is clearly too strong in comparison to the other skills. I also think that you should be able to be effective in social conflicts with only 2 or 2.5 skills.

In order to do this, I agree, we need to start from scratch. I would offer suggestions for new categories and try to tie them to the Admiral's/Sancta's character tropes. The problem is that right now I am stuck in the mindset of the skills as written, s when I think shoulder to cry on I think Empathy, and when I think likable I think Rapport.

I agree, fists+footwork+endurance wont do it, but if you pair it with powers (Strength+Claws) it does, similarly you could substitute weapons or guns, but the disadvantage is that you are weak without your tools. In any case with only 2 skills and a stunt you can be effective in any physical combat where you get your tools, regardless of the type of opposition or the goal of the combat. The same cannot be said of social combat under the current system (and also social combat sees less use). 

In order to keep the game light-hearted you have basically re-skinned torture, this may mean it uses some skill other than Intimidate, but otherwise I would run it the same way torture is normally run in the book. 

That's the point. In order to be good in all/most social conflicts you need to be able to talk to people normally in a not deceitful non threatening manner, so you need Rapport. You also need to be able to lie and detect lies, so Empathy and Deceit. You also want to be able to take a hit, so Presence. You do not necessarily need intimidate, but it can also be useful.

On the other hand,  in order to be good in a fight you need Fists + the footwork stunt, and Endurance. You can do similar things for all the other skills. You really do not need the other skills, since a character with weapons, will generally always be armed, at least with that one backup knife. If not it is because they took one or more compels, which is not really a bad thing for them.   

First of all, I do not think my reply suggested magic. I suggested you use the mechanics in the game for enchanted items, which are supposed to be fixed strength one use items, you can flavor them however you want and use whatever effects you think are appropriate. I suggested this because they model utility items very well (in my experience) and have a built in usage limitation. Using declarations and aspect invocations would also be good, but you said you wanted more mechanical crunch.

I think Incite Effect would be a bad fit here because the effects produced by utility belt items are too broad. Incite Effect is meant to allow you to use one skill to make changes in the world (or in someone's mind or whatever), if you allow one skill to use Grenade attacks, Grappling Hooks, Smoke Screens, and whatever else it is going to be too good. This skill becomes a replacement for stealth, movement, attacks, and pretty much anything else your player can think of. A good example of a Incite Effect would be the basic Incite Emotion (one emotion) powers from the book, or a power that lets you control shadows, or something similarly broad.


I also do not like using feeding dependency for the ammo type effect. Basically, you will never run out of anything mid fight (unless the GM tosses out a bunch of compels for Hunger Stress attacks mid combat, but it still likely wont make you loose anything). Also, refills are not difficult (presumably) nor morally objectionable to obtain. If you can just use your powers all fight, then tack hunger at the end of the fight, then clear it by going back to your base, that really isn't much of a downside. It also just feels wrong to have your ammo represented by a stress track and consequences (at least to me).

What is it you specifically do not like about enchanted items/potions? I understand why you may not want to work with thaumaturgy, it is complicated and requires a lot of GM handling in order to work and can get out of hand. But enchanted items will be fairly simple, they are (mostly) pre generated, do not take much time to use, and unless you let someone take tonnes of refinement for crafting foci they are pretty balanced.

For example a character with Bag of Tricks (Resources) and 5 resources skill could have Grenades (Weapon 3 zone attack, 3/day, 2 slots), Grappling Gun (5 shit athletics skill replacement to climb walls, 1/day), and Smoke Bomb (5 shift Stealth 1/day). If you wanted more uses/items/wanted to allow declarations to make them up on the fly you could use the upgrade (even multiple times). Keep in mind you as the GM can veto effects from items if you think they are out of line, just make certain you and your players have the same expectations for what is allowed.

I am sorry if I come off as pushing "magic" to you, if you don't want to use it that is fine, do whatever is the most fun. But in my experience the enchanted items rules work very well for this type of thing and are simple, strait forward, and balanced.   

Feeding Dependency is, in my opinion, the worst worded of all the powers in the book. Lets look at some of what it says:

• If you cannot or do not wish to spare consequences, then you must lose access to a number of your powers, up to a refresh cost equal to the amount of stress taken.
• These options can be combined however you choose. (Referring to loosing powers and taking consequences)
• If you have no powers left to lose and are taken out by a feeding failure, you are actually taken out.

To me, it is unclear form their wording weather you loose powers whenever you take stress (ie. do not absorb all stress with consequences), or weather loosing powers act as another type of consequence. I interpret it as the second option.

In your example 2, you would just take one point of hunger stress and suffer no other ill effects (or you could choose to loose access to powers or take a consequence, but that would be silly). 

The reason I interpret it this way is because of the last bullet point. It says that in order to actually be taken out you must both have no powers left and be "taken out" (which I interpret to mean take a hit that goes past your stress track, and not absorb it with consequences).  So lets take an example, say a full WCV, with 6 refresh in inhuman powers and currently suffering no hunger penalties used all his powers. He would face a 6 shift attack, say his discipline was a 2 and he rolled 0, so he takes 4 stress, he chooses not to use any consequences. If you interpret this the first way (that he must now loose 4 refresh worth of powers) what happens? I have no idea, it appears the game breaks. So first you loose 4 refresh in powers (so 2 of his 3 inhuman powers), then what? How do you handle the 4 stress hit. He stress track has a length of 3 so we can't just mark it down, and since loosing powers is tied to how much stress you are taking they are clearly not behaving consequences, so they do not buy down the stress. So is he taken out since he has taken a hit that goes past his stress track? Well no, he is not, since he still has a power left he could loose, he cant be taken out (see bullet point 3). This interpretation produces a contradiction, so it cannot be correct.

I am aware that this does not exactly jive with what is said in bullet point 1, namely that "if you cannot or do not wish to spare consequences, then you must lose access to a number of your powers." However, directly after stating that you must loose power if you do not take consequences it states "up to a refresh cost equal to the amount of stress taken." This use of "up to" implies to me that you could loose access to power of a refresh cost of less than the amount of stress taken (since up to implies less than or equal to). The second bullet point makes me think that since you can combine loosing power and taking consequences however you choose that they should behave similarly.

So here is my interpretation: At the end of a scene where you used your powers or whenever you face a stressful situation and are compelled you face a hunger attack equal to the refresh of powers you used (or 1/2 the total cost of the affected powers) and defend with Discipline. If you win you clear your stress track, if you loose you take stress. If you cannot take this stress (the value of the hit is greater than your largest unfilled stress box) you can choose to either absorb the hit with consequences (and take any remainder as stress), or loose powers, treating them like they were consequences (So an Inhuman power would be like a mild consequence, you could also downgrade a Supernatural to an Inhuman to absorb 2 stress, or loose the whole thing to absorb 4 stress). You may not allow yourself to be taken out of you could loose powers instead (this is different from normal consequences, since you can choose to be taken out rather than take a consequence). Now the 3rd bullet point makes sense. Since if you have no powers left to loose and would still be taken you, you actually are.

Given all of this, I still think the power is poorly worded and abuse able. For example, a character with 3 discipline could use all 6 refresh of powers, eat the ~3 stress hit, then use one power next scene and clear his stress. This does limit you if you have to go all out for multiple scenes, but if you can ever afford to go easy the actual feeding part will never come up (so I would recommend to your GM to push you with multiple large conflicts in a row, or scenes where you take large stress attacks).

Finally, if you wanted to go the house rule way in order to fix these problems Sancta has a version here and I have a version here.

I think this is really cool thanks for doing it. I think it would be cool to have the description of what the characters can do mechanically. I think I have a good handle on most of them, but some of them are fairly vague, especially the modular abilities character 9I can think of tons of ways to spend 5 modular points, but how did you intend her to play).

Also I am really excited for the random encounter table.