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The Dresden Files => DFRPG => Topic started by: Tbora on June 29, 2010, 11:50:33 PM
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I just wanted to see how a time wizard might be put together hence this thread, the character should be done with 18 refresh, 60 skill points, capped at fantastic.
Lets start with the basic wizards package and build from there.
[-3] Thaumaturgy
[-3] Evocation
[-1] The Sight
[-0] Soulgaze
[-0] Wizards Constitution
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Well, Lawbreaker (Sixth) [-2] is basically a must. Beyond that...it really depends on what you want the character to do. Chronomancy is a wide category.
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I want the character to be able to like stop time, fastforward,rewind, etc
and generally control it, he is getting his ass handed to him?
Go back 30 minutes and and get rid of the enemy before they even know your there.
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That sort of thing will be hard to do without story support from the GM. One way to try modeling it is to make 1 spell that gives you multiple aspects, and then tag all of them in to blast someone. At this power level, and with the lawbreaker stunt, you should probably be capable of power 12 evocations. So, for example, you could try using one evocation to lay 4 (4 effects at 3 power) on yourself representing your previous time manipulation. And then, in the next turn, you tag all of them to blast the guy. "How did he get here with all those broken bones? I dunno."
Another thing worth looking into is minor powers that give you abilities based on your time manipulation.
We have the example there 'A few seconds ahead" (OW 99) that lets you use lore to defend against physical and social attacks. You could then take an extension that let you use lore to determine initiative and to spot ambushes (both awareness trappings). So with a fantastic lore and -2 refresh, you would then have a very good base physical and social defense, be very hard to surprise, and be very fast, for someone who is just flesh and blood.
Another possibility is to take a slightly hacked speed power, to represent the fact that you saw whatever coming.
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DMW, if we were to take crusherbobs suggestions, how would this be done mechanically?
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Well, you'd do something like this:
Skills:
Fantastic: Discipline, Lore,
Superb: Conviction,
Other skills based on character concept as a whole
Powers:
Refinements [-6]
Evocation [–3]
Thaumaturgy [–3]
The Sight [–1]
Soulgaze [+0]
Wizard’s Constitution [+0]
Lawbreaker (Sixth) [–2]
A Few Seconds Ahead [-2]
Total: -17 Refresh
Specializations:
Evocation: Elements (Air, Water, Spirit); Power (Spirit +3, Water +1), Control (Spirit +2)
Thaumaturgy: Complexity (Chronomancy +2); Crafting (Strength +1)
Focus Items:
Staff of Time [+2 Offensive Spirit Control, +4 Offensive Spirit Power]
Enchanted Items:
Temporal Desynchronizer (10 shift Block or Armor 5, 5 times per session) [6 Enchanted Item Slots]
Rotes:
I Saw This Coming (12 shift Maneuver placing three Sticky Aspects on yourself, requires Staff and Lawbreaker.)
Chronal Flux (Weapon: 10 attack against everyone in one Zone, ages victims rapidly, possibly destroying them. Requires Lawbreaker and the Staff.)
Just Not There (8 Shift Block or Armor 4, lasting 3 exchanges, costs a 3 Stress hit. Requires Lawbreaker.)
Other Rotes will do other, similarly chronal things.
All this obviously assumes a combat Chronomancer, a Ritual Magician version would be somewhat different.
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How would you do a time reverse, like he suddenly is stabbed but he reverses time, and avoids the thing that stabs him?
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I have an idea on how to do actual time travel (via ritual) I would model it off of summoning (so conviction is defense skill) and placing a manuever. Also since your body and spirit want to be in the same time that they normaly are you would unconciously defend against it. So you would place an aspect like "Traveling Forward In Time" and then add shifts (similar to adding duration) into how long you want it to go (default is a few moments) After you place that aspect then you tag it for effect and your caster is suddenly flung to whenever you set the spell at.
so for a wizard with great(+4) conviction who wanted to go foreward a decade and was willingly time traveling the base power would be 4 (to hit, and place the aspect "time traveling") then you would add shifts to go further so a +19 (to go foreward a decade) for a total of a 23 shift ritual to travel ten years into the future.
So Simplified
+4 (to place the aspect "Time Traveling") +19 (To go forward a decade)= 23 shifts.
Note: If you allowed travel back in time you might model it as tougher saying you have to get a taken out effect to even attempt it or maybe set the default time as an instant.
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That sounds like an evocation based block, with a time based justification. So, call up a power 10 evocation block.
What does it look like?
Maybe all of your wounds are shifted in time to somewhere else. So you eat the blast of fire, there's a huge hole burned through your chest, but when they look again, it's gone.
Or maybe you come back from the dead, since it's not your time to die.
Or maybe you just saw it coming and got out of the way really fast.
Or maybe you slowed down time and got out of the way really slowly...
Or, if you are talking about more long term effects: for example, you come home with a broken leg and want to get rid of it. That can probably be modeled as thaumaturgical shapeshifting (there's a thread on it around here somewhere) to give yourself a recovery power. Or just use a time based version of the reiki (YS 300) spell to justify a quick recovery.
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I want the character to be able to like stop time, fastforward,rewind, etc
and generally control it, he is getting his ass handed to him?
Go back 30 minutes and and get rid of the enemy before they even know your there.
In general, you don't unless you're the only player at the table or everyone is in on it. How would you feel if another player could just declare "The last couple of hours of our game never happened, everyone could have been in the other room with the XBox instead." whenever they felt like it?
Not to mention that now the GM has to come up with an entire set of time travel rules to adjudicate how paradoxes are resolved and try to think of ways to actually challenge the party without them just reloading a save game and changing every outcome they don't like every 5 minutes. Using time travel to fix all your problems (now that I know that I'll probably lose this fight, I'll go back in time two hours and set up my own ambush), learn everything without effort (great, now that I know who the bad guy is, I go back in time two days and tell the group to just kill him and we win) and negating any attempt at suspense or drama (now that I know that we're about to be ambushed, I go back in time two mins and warn myself) will quickly become a crutch. Which is exactly why Harry Dresden, Wizard, isn't allowed to time travel in the first place; because it's boring.
If one of my players wanted this, I'd strongly advise them against it. If they persisted they wouldn't last a session before I had the rest of the players rolling around laughing about how the player came back in time; battered, bruised, unkempt and laughing maniacally and screaming about how him had to stop himself to save the universe while future him killed current him. Certainly more entertaining than the Gatekeeper showing up with the Blackstaff and blowing him into chunks two seconds before he finished his spell to time travel, but it's always good to have a backup plan.
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Not to mention the simple fact that this character would have a very short lifspan. Unless you're getting Major Milestones every other session, eventually you're going to rack up so many Lawbreaker stunts that you'll have no Refresh left.
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Not to mention the simple fact that this character would have a very short lifspan. Unless you're getting Major Milestones every other session, eventually you're going to rack up so many Lawbreaker stunts that you'll have no Refresh left.
You can never go past -2 on a particular Lawbreaker, actually. So while his Aspects will all shortly reflect his nature as a Chronomancer he's not going to lose any more Refresh over it. As long as he avoids actually breaking any other Laws, like killing people via magic or such.
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Ah, sorry, didn't realise that. It's good to know, though.
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Maybe chronomancy could be taken as mythic speed plus sponsored magic (outsider)
I wouldn't allow any actual time-travel without some serious ritual work i.e. no Prine of Persia style tricks. If you get stabbed, you're stabbed. You're in too much pain or you're just plain dead, neither of which is conducive to focusing enough to cast a spell.
I guess it's possible to come up with some rules for undoing past events, but I'd only allow restarts upto the current scene and the shifts from complexity could only be gathered from self-sacrifice. After all killing someone in blood sacrifice would be instantly undone and so wouldn't count, however dealing 10 shifts of damage to yourself (plus a point of sponsored debt, plus your conviction) would still be there after you rewind time. That plus maybe the ability to re-roll twice, the first with a fate point and the second with a point of debt, would recreate chronomancy.
This is just off the top of my head of course, there's bound to be a few issues to iron out.
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Pull of regular divination to give yourself a bunch of floating 'hazy glimpses of the future' tags.
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The whole point of this character is to have Prince of Persia style tricks, so what your suggesting doesn't really work.
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I second CableRouter's statement that a "redo" character that can invalidate the last X minutes/hours/days of play is messed up.
Here is the important thing to recognize: Assuming you had a Sands of Time type guy, the only outcome other people perceive are your successes (and the version of the timeline that goes with it). Therefore, focus on a character that doesn't **** up in the first place.
That means, general aspects that can be invoked early and often. At the same time you need to be able to generate more fate points.
Just as were-forms in DFrpg don't need spellcraft powers to do their thing, this character doesn't need a spellcraft power to do its thing. Just a lot of unspent refresh and the appropriate things to tag for a whole lot of +2's (and maybe a re-roll).
Inhuman Speed can help. It is a +1 to all athletic checks and +2 for sprinting. The only problem with taking it is that if it is your first (or only) supernatural power, you just gave up 4 refresh for a +1 all the time.
I know it is counter intuitive, but a pure mortal with few stunts can be more of a (functional) "repeater" (or precog) than a supernatural guy.
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Has anyone considered focusing on the enchanted item framework for consumable blocks/armor/etc?
I think the prince of persia 'redo' concept could just as easily be worked using rationed per-exchange effects as any spellcasting or aspect triggering; during actual play the Prince generally only rewound brief moments of battle.
It'd also do a lot to put a lid on some potential abuses if the character only has so much chrono-juice per session to work with.
You could even incorporate Lawbreaker [6th] into, say, the Lore for the enchanted items.
That notion aside, I giggle at the idea of having to rig up all seven aspects tied to time manip. That's a fun project.