Ok- first off, the game in question isn't DF, but I'm coming here because you guys are good, and because you have blocks in your version of fate (unlike FateCore, which took them out).

We have a problem. Our group is in a survive-the-night scenario. They need to hold out in a semi-secure area against a zombie horde until the cavalry arrives- at most a single night (it'll arrive when dramatically convenient, but the longer they hold out, the greater the benefit to the story, and the greater the game reward)...
My players are all human, but they all wanted to be a reasonable cross-section. We have one Boxer, but other than him, no one has a combat skill at peak (+4) [unless you count athletics, we also have a fitness nut who runs a lot].

The players have long enough before the horde to run a prep montage... in essence, they get two actions with lasting effect (the group had long ago ruled that two was a reasonable limit, to keep either them from using preparation time to get the run of the show. Actions-in-play are unlimited, but a montage gets 2-3 and we move on). Typically, the players have used this in the past for navel-gazing maneuvers (standard difficulty 3)- the boxer would practice his footwork to limber up, the runner would stretch, the carpenter who-knows-his-way-around-an-axe would sharpen his weapons, and so on... The aspects, as part of the montage rule, are automatically semi-sticky (last until used, but don't have to be used right away like typical fragile aspects- this is the reason why there's a limit- the perk that balances the trade-off).

We're happy with the rule, and it has served us quite well in the past, innumerable times. That is, surprisingly, not the issue. Blocks and how they work are:

Since the carpenter has Craft +4 (with a stunt bringing wood-work up to +5), and Melee at only +2... the navel-gazing self-buff on his weapons is a crapshoot. Honing them or practicing with them would require him to roll a +1 (+2 = 3) to bank a single-use +2 bonus (in the form of an aspect).
So, he got the bright idea to set up a block- one of their available last-stand grounds is a smallish room, concrete walls, with high small windows (2' by 6") too small to get through... and a door that's been unhinged (literally had them removed- it was a storehouse, and someone removed them to raid it- everything's still intact). He can easily put the door back on- I'm not even really charging them for that, so to speak... but he wants to reinforce it using his craft skill. More power to him- instead of gambling on a mid-grade skill, he can bring his peak skill to the table.
Problem is, he gets two actions. Can he use both on the block?
Even if he can't, can the others reinforce it, and by how much?

There's also an academic in the group- ok with a shotgun (skeet shooting in college), but a good engineer by chance (academics +4, stunt applicable with only a little debate)... he can help out there, in design if nothing else.
The boxer's plenty strong- he could use his boxing to navel-gaze and bank a +2 on a skill that's already strong... or his might to add +3 to the block on a 0-roll, piling up all manner of heavy into the barricade to make it that much more... more.

You get the gist. We had to break session before we really got into this, because of time constraints... thank God, since it gives me time to think about how to handle it...

By my best guess, if I let every player act twice on the block, and simply add all their rolls together for a single effective block, and they all roll 0's... it'll be around a block rating of 60. Sure, the zombie horde might EVENTUALLY push through that (if I similarly let each of their attacks on it deplete it), but it would still be enough to get them through a  helluva lot more night than I was ready to expect... and sounds pretty close to unreasonable, even given that I want to reward their moment of brilliance.

Even if I only let them act on the block directly once, they're likely to still pile all their eggs in one basket, by using their first action (each) to place a maneuver (gathering materials, etc) that are then tagged on the 2nd action... and get a block rating around 50. Even if I force them to only work with a single action for a single block, they can still pile everything in on this by loading up that one action with aspects, and creating a block at least around 30.

I also thought about saying sure- but each action is a separate layered block... this would result in 12 blocks ranging in strength from ~2 to ~6 (even assuming 0-rolls and no FPs). This might be the best way to go, with blocks lasting as long as they normally would (until overcome)... when a zombie overcomes a block, it fails, but then must face the next one in the list (any extra shifts could immediately overflow to taking out that one, if they're enough). This would AT MINIMUM buy the team 12 attacks (given the tight confines, probably 6 rounds minimum)...

Which brings up another problem- while the horde is working on tearing it down, what (besides limited supplies) is to keep them from repairing it from inside, and how do I best handle THAT?

The best idea I've had as far as my gut instinct for fair play goes is that the initial roll sets the level of the block, and any additional rolls either replace it, or add +1 to it (whichever is better). This will produce a solid but not impossible block, and allow wiggle room for repair... but the players would get more bang for their buck setting up aspects on the primary actor than contributing to his roll after the fact.

In essence, I just need a think-tank to tell me how they handle blocks in this kind of scenario. Can you take an existing block (one that's still standing ONLY because it hasn't been breached, not because it's got a fixed duration), and enhance it? It seems intuitive that it should be possible, but then, how is that best handled systems-wise?
Thoughts, opinions, advice?

The real ones... and the Oblivion War, from the Backup Short?

I've had a lot of fun with them... and I'm curious. I suppose, given the subject matter, we should spoiler lock any mention of them?

OW173 briefly references familiars- enough to show they exist, but not enough to define them on ANY useful level.

They came up in a recent session (the one I'm playing in, not running), and I'm wondering what they are.

In particular- my character (evocator on par with any wizard, but no thaumaturgy- works for Monoc, which I'm treating as the supernatural Blackwater) has a little sister who, it turns out, also has the gift. Unfortunately, I found out when I found out that she'd bound someone else (human, may or may not be true mortal, another player) to her as a familiar.

2 laws for the price of one! Yay! (2nd and 4th, I think- since she definitely called him against his will to her side, and I'm pretty sure he's been physically altered beyond normal human). He was built as a True Mortal, but with enough Refresh to spare to afford losing them- and gave the GM permission to do so.

Here's the thing- I took one look at the spell with my Sight, and knew the spell immediately (got a +8 on my Lore check for it)... and we both need to look into it.

Ideas (both for the normal kind of spell, and for the human-variant)?

Simple enough one this time... How long does a fragile aspect last if unused? Does it fade at end of scene, or last until used, or somewhere situationally in between?

So, let's say I use water(decay) or biomancy to directly target and damage someone's brain- not their mind, their brain... Causing neurons to die or scramble in mass- hell, maybe even use air to cause an embolism- would this be physical or mental damage?
I'm leaning towards mental for flavor and appropriateness, and towards physical for the sake of mental damage being wicked dangerous and imbalancing.

Furthermore, if mental would it be a law violation? Prolly not 3rd law- you're not invading any minds... But maybe/probably 2nd law, with some concerns. It may be modifying their body, but as long as it doesn't kill them or cause an extreme consequence, the brain damage would be (by the rules) recoverable and temporary... Arguably no more of a 2nd law violation than cutting someone's arm off with fire- less even, since that's decidedly permanent of a modification, but still a raw attack.
Dresden in the books and the DFRPG stresses that the laws have some pretty broad grey areas... Maybe this would be one? (ie, no lawbreaker stunt less you make a habit of it, and you'd better pray whatever warden finds out about it is one of the forgiving variety... Good luck with that).

Thoughts?

Reference: Our GM just had us come up with our own concepts/aspects, and tie into eachother's characters through backstory on our own, rather than pass the sheets around, so we built our aspects more like a character in development through 5 milestones than the traditional method.


In the new campaign I'm joining, I built a focused practitioner (evocation only) who used to be a pure mortal. When he was 17, his younger brother got taken away (voluntarily, but my character doesn't remember that way) by the white council to train... so he went looking for power... and made a deal.

Lucky and unlucky for him, it was with Vadderung... not that he necessarily didn't come across other options first, but something led him specifically to Odin. (I'm thinking either the fact that Odin has more of a foot in the mortal world than a lot of other options, and is a lot more respectful of free will was what settled it for my character- after all, he wanted the power so he could use it, not be a slave to it.)

Vadderung, of course, offered Sponsored Magic- but he also put something else on the table. Sponsored Magic would be power on-loan, you see... and if I was dedicated and willing enough... he could offer me a chance at power of my own, if I was willing to pay the price.

This is Odin, the god who sacrificed one of his own eyes to gain Wisdom, and hung from the great tree (dead) for the power of runes.
I'm treating these as references to two specific rituals he underwent when he was still a young god (and that anyone who knows of the rituals now could go through) to obtain Evocation and Thaumaturgy, respectively. (Before having performed these, Odin himself was just a warrior god, like most of the Aesir, though a particularly cunning one.)

My character agrees... and performs the first of the two rituals... in it, he's required to cut his own left hand off (I'm writing the backstory such that each individual who goes through the ritual would get asked something somewhat different based on who they are and why they wanted the power... not that it's been done often). He gets Evocation, flavored by his own cold dedication to finding and saving his brother (with a little vengeance mixed in), The Sight (but not soulgaze, yet anyway), and Wizard's Constitution (as a side-effect of the magic flowing through him, as Butters and Harry hypothesized)...

...and a couple aspects as part of the backstory- one a milestone ("Ha! I've done worse to myself!" He has little respect for physical pain or damage, and balls of steel...) and the other an Extreme Consequence ("Need a Hand?").

The latter is the one I'm concerned about... physical effects are obvious- there will be times not having a left hand will be a problem.
Magically, I suggested to the GM that he'd be MUCH weaker at defensive magic, since that's strongly associated with the left side of the body (taking in energy)- I may still try defensive magic, but I didn't specialize in it, and the GM can compel me to flub any such attempts.
It also refers to his pragmatic view on shortcomings- he worked for Vadderung for several years after that (still does) while he looked for his brother- more often than not in a team, and they had to help cover his shortcomings as much as he had to help cover theirs. Teamwork is something he simply gets, and he'll rarely refuse someone assistance if they need it.

One of the other players pointed out to me that I could conceivably use magic to create a hand for myself out of air or frost (since I'm building him as a frosty) when I need one... but I have mixed feelings about it.

On the one hand, it'd be nice to do from time to time... I had a mental image of him riding a motorcycle before I decided on his left hand as the sacrifice... and that's pretty well impossible one-handed. It'd also be a nice visual special effect to be able to use... and, well, handy.
I assume it would count as Mundane Effects... for the sake of wanting it to not be that easy, I built it as a 5-shift effect (my base casting ability without foci or spec) Mundane Effect (use of left hand, 0 shifts) + Weapon:1 for 5 rounds (1 shift damage, 4 shifts extra duration).

On the other hand... (har har)... I'm wondering how appropriate this is. He lost his hand some time ago, and Extreme Consequences are semi-permanent- no reason why, by now, he can't have found a way around it... but it's still on his sheet like that. Would I be, in essence, circumventing the aspect and cheapening my character?
Just as importantly... if giving up his hand was part of a cosmic bargain (with primal forces even beyond Odin, since he once went to them too)... would circumventing that price qualify as breaking the bargain, or since he's using the power he got from it to do so story-appropriate? (after all, Odin uses his power/wisdom/foresight to more than make up for the loss of an eye)

Thoughts?


As a side-note, when/if I have him take thaumaturgy, I'm going to have him go through the other ritual during down-time between game stories, replacing "Ha! I've done worse to myself!" with "I died, and all I got was this lousy tee-shirt..." from milestone to represent him going from ballsy to just plain cavalier about getting hurt, and probably another self-inflicted extreme consequence "Chill of Death" to replace whatever seems appropriate when the time comes.

So, I remember there being a spell in Death Masks that took a while to hit- snakes crawling after harry. Now, it could've been a conjuration, and that was just the snakes crawling... but what about a creeping fog, or slow moving spell that operates more like evocation otherwise?

It came up recently in a game, and my off-the-cuff, 'we can't find anything quickly in the book, and don't want to waste time figuring it out' ruling was to give the spell an extra 2 shifts of effect, to balance out the fact that the players had a round to run away, counter it, take cover, or put some nifty defensive aspect on themselves with a maneuver.

Later I got the chance to think about it, and realized that over 2 rounds, the caster (power 6, control 7), could've put 2 aspects on himself with a maneuver for a -1 roll or better ("Charged up" and "Focused Mind" both for a single round), and then tagged them both on the next round for 4 extra shifts. It would've cost 2 stress instead of 1, and taken the caster's action for both rounds... whereas I had the caster use a  no-stress supplemental action on round 2 to maintain the spell, and he took the chance to run away.

I'm trying to use that as a litmus test to figure out if my off-the-cuff ruling was reasonable. For NPCs, it may not matter- just storytell and move on, but my players may be interested in trying something like this themselves at some point, and I'd rather have a well-thought out semi-hard ruling on it than another off-the-cuff guess that may or may not even line up with what I've used before...

While I was at it, I had this as a thought:
If the caster in question were to try to use a maneuver to place a single, one-round aspect on himself, he'd be a shoe-in. Even at a -4 to the roll, the worst possible, he'd roll the standard difficulty. If I were willing to allow him, off the cuff, to do a maneuver spell as a supplemental action at worst possible outcome, that would give him a 2 shift bonus, and free up his other action. He's still spending 2 stress instead of 1, but I still haven't accounted for the delay, and I could simply fold that stress reduction in as the benefit. This of course, depends on whether or not the idea of allowing a -4 discipline supplemental spell is kosher, and for that, I have another thread, but I'm also starting to see similar lines of logic... and in math at least, when you can solve a problem 3 different ways to the same result, it's generally safe to call it proven.


So... thoughts?

My game is set in Seattle, and the players have a couple city aspects to deal with- It never rains but it pours (things tend to stack up on them- no small problems), and Here comes the rain again...

In seattle, IRL, it rains a lot, but not constantly. It's more like very frequent showers year round. It can be clear one minute, drizzling the next, or monsoon the next after that, then clear again an hour later.
Certainly causes problems for mages. I let my players compel that city aspect for a fate point at any time, but given that one of them is a mage, they really haven't yet. I've compelled it once as GM, and the fate point went to the mage, as they were the only ones to really suffer as a result.

My question is 2-fold... one, if there are mages on both sides of a combat, should anyone get that fate point, and if I have more than one mage in the group, should it go to whoever's worse off or both, or to a group pool?

two, what's the best way to run this? The one time I've done it, I set it up as a universal Block 2 against magic (3 against fire magic) and magical beings/ecto, for a light shower- more if it were a heavy downpour or outright monsoon season... but I'm wondering if it wouldn't be more appropriate to do it as universal armor, since armor survives what bypasses it, and rain would be more likely to make a spell harder to fuel (reducing it's overall power) than hard to control.