So I'm not a fan of the In/Sup/Mythic Dexterity powers and have decided to re-write them so that fit the same theme as the other building block powers. Also a player in my campaign wanted to take it and my brain rebelled. I'd like some opinions on my first draft to see if it could be improved upon at all, and whether the cost is right. I'm afraid Steady Hand and its upgrades may make it a bit too powerful for -2 refresh.
INHUMAN DEXTERITY [-2]
Description: Your hand-eye co-ordination is abnormally good, capable of putting even the best surgeons to shame.
Skills Affected: Weapons, Deceit, other skills that require dexterity.
Effects:
Fencing Master: Your bladework is so fast that you make Olympians weep. +1 to Weapons.
Sleight of Hand: Manual tricks and card work are child's play for you. +2 to Deceit when using it for Distraction and Misdirection.
Steady Hand: Some things require patience and a steady hand to see them through. +2 to the Building, Fixing and Lockpicking trappings.
SUPERNATURAL DEXTERITY [-4]
Description: There's being fast and then there's being good.
Skills Affected: Weapons, Deceit, other skills that require dexterity.
Effects:
Born with a Sword in Hand: Swordplay is as natural as breathing to you. +2 to Weapons.
Look, a Distraction!: Even experienced card sharps can't spot your tricks. +4 to Deceit when using it for Distraction and Misdirection.
Give me a Real Challenge: You break into bank vaults for fun and then improve the locks. +4 to the Building, Fixing and Lockpicking trappings.
MYTHIC DEXTERITY [-6]
Description: Your fingers are a blur to anyone who looks.
Skills Affected: Weapons, Deceit, other skills that require dexterity.
Effects:
THIS IS SPARTA!: You're either a God of War or the next best thing. +3 to Weapons.
Find the Ace in the Nth Dimension: Your card tricks are physically impossible. How the hell did you do that? +6 to Deceit when using it for Distraction and Misdirection.
The World Stands Still: There is no lock on this planet that is too tough for you. You once made a clock that ticked in time to the heart of a star. +6 to the Building, Fixing and Lockpicking trappings.
INHUMAN DEXTERITY [-2]
Description: Your hand-eye co-ordination is abnormally good, capable of putting even the best surgeons to shame.
Skills Affected: Burglary, Weapons, other skills that require dexterity.
Effects:
Fencing Master: Small blades and short swords are your bread and butter. +1 to Weapons when using small or light weapons. This does not apply to the Weapon Knowledge trapping.
Sleight of Hand: Deception is the art of showing one thing while doing another. Whenever using Weapons to modify another skill, it always provides a +1 regardless of the actual comparison of your Weapons score to the skill in question.
Steady Hand: Some things require patience and a steady hand to see them through. Difficulty factors due to tiny size or intricate details are reduced by 2 when rolling.
Quick Draw: When you draw or reload a weapon you do not take a -1 penalty from supplemental actions.
SUPERNATURAL DEXTERITY [-4]
Description: There's being fast and then there's being good. This power replaces Inhuman Dexterity.
Skills Affected: Burglary, Weapons, other skills that require dexterity.
Effects:
Born with a Sword in Hand: Swordplay is as natural as breathing to you. +2 to Weapons when using small or light weapons. This does not apply to the Weapon Knowledge trapping.
It's All in the Wrist Action: Juggling knives is an old hobby for you. Whenever using Weapons to modify another skill, it always provides a +2 regardless of the actual comparison of your Weapons score to the skill in question.
Give me a Real Challenge: Your eyes are as sharp as your blade and have little difficulty in spotting flaws. Difficulty factors due to tiny size or intricate details are reduced by 4 when rolling.
Quick Draw: When you draw or reload a weapon you do not take a -1 penalty from supplemental actions.
MYTHIC DEXTERITY [-6]
Description: Your fingers are a blur to anyone who looks. This power replaces Supernatural Dexterity.
Skills Affected: Burglary, Weapons, other skills that require dexterity.
Effects:
One With the Blade: Your blade is a blur and your name is Death. +3 to Weapons when using small or light weapons. This does not apply to the Weapon Knowledge trapping.
Master of Deception: You can get more with a kind word and a sword than you can with just a kind word. Whenever using Weapons to modify another skill, it always provides a +3 regardless of the actual comparison of your Weapons score to the skill in question.
The World Stands Still: You could pick the lock of Fort Knox if you wanted, and could do it in seconds too. Difficulty factors due to tiny size or intricate details are reduced by 6 when rolling.
Quick Draw: When you draw or reload a weapon you do not take a -1 penalty from supplemental actions.
Okay, I've dropped the support skills down a bit so that they don't give flat bonuses to skills any more. This should make the Weapons bonus a bit more prominent and bring it more into line with the refresh cost. I'm not much a fan of it either, but the purpose of this power is to do for Weapons what the Speed powers do for Athletics and the Strength powers do for Might. The Weapons bonus now doesn't apply to the Knowledge trapping as well.
I'm less inclined to give a bonus to Fists/Guns, though I admit it does fit with the idea of dexterity. Any ideas on how to make this less of an issue? A re-flavouring maybe?
Still feels a bit clunky, but it's getting closer to what I want from this power.
Here's what I had in mind for a Weapons Power.
Not sure I'd allow these in one of my games. They're designed to make stunts obsolete and I usually frown upon that. Also, I pushed the power level pretty hard. These are likely too good.
I don't think +1/tier is too good, compared to what Speed and Refinement do. But I worry about how it might stack, so that's restricted.
Considered including a surprise attack trapping, but decided against it because the Power already does so many things.
Generally speaking, I prefer zone attacks to spray attacks. Simpler, cleaner, and more effective in play.
INHUMAN SKILL [-2]
Description:
Skills Affected: Weapons.
Effects:
Master Of War. Add 1 to your Weapons skill for attacking and defending. Your Weapons attacks inflict +1 stress. These bonuses do not stack with stunts or with True Aim.
Deflect Arrows. As long as you are armed, you may use your Weapons skill to defend against ranged attacks with arrows, thrown weapons, and other physical projectiles that are slow enough to see.
Strike Like The Wind. You may make spray attacks with your Weapons skill. You never suffer a -1 penalty from drawing a weapon as a supplemental action.
Attuned To The Weapon. Your Weapons skill is treated as infinite for the purpose of modifying other skills.
SUPERNATURAL SKILL [-4]
Description:
Skills Affected: Weapons.
Effects:
Lord Of War. Add 2 to your Weapons skill for attacking and defending. Your Weapons attacks inflict +2 stress. These bonuses do not stack with stunts or with True Aim.
Parry Everything. As long as you are armed, you may use your Weapons skill to defend against any attack that could be dodged with Athletics.
Strike Like Lightning. You may make spray attacks and zone-wide attacks with your Weapons skill. You never suffer a -1 penalty from drawing a weapon as a supplemental action. You don't hurt yourself when attacking your own zone.
One With The Weapon. Your Weapons skill is treated as infinite for the purpose of modifying other skills. Your other skills are treated as infinite for the purpose of modifying your Weapons skill.
MYTHIC SKILL [-6]
Description:
Skills Affected: Weapons.
Effects:
God Of War. Add 3 to your Weapons skill for attacking and defending. Your Weapons attacks inflict +3 stress. These bonuses do not stack with stunts or with True Aim.
Perfect Defence. You may use your Weapons skill to defend against any attack that could be dodged with Athletics.
Strike Like The Sunlight. You may make spray attacks and zone-wide attacks with your Weapons skill. You never suffer a -1 penalty from drawing a weapon as a supplemental action. You may choose which characters to affect when attacking a zone, and when you combine a zone attack with a supplemental move you may attack every zone that you move through.
Living Weapon. Your Weapons skill is treated as infinite for the purpose of modifying other skills. Your other skills are treated as infinite for the purpose of modifying your Weapons skill. As long as you are alive, weapons that you are wielding cannot break and you cannot be disarmed against your will. You may attack unarmed with your Weapons skill.
Huh, really?
Seems like people in general don't rate this Power nearly as highly as I do.
Also, what do you not like about Living Weapon? Do you think it should be changed because it's bad, or is it just not to your taste?
It means that if you don't have a Wizard on side there's very little way to stop this guy. The way you defeat a master swordsman is to take away his sword; if you can't do that you're effectively forced to cripple or kill him in order to win. It limits the options available to a character to be forced into that level of violence, especially if you want to take him alive. It also means that if another Mythic-level swordsman comes along they're both unable to disarm each other, which is probably realistic, but not quite in the spirit of the way the FATE system works, which is more like a pulp fiction novel than real life.
More than that though, the infinite bonus for modifying is fine for Weapons but doesn't make sense for other skills. Why should a swordsman get a bonus to, say, Might when using it to modify? He doesn't grow any stronger, and any bonuses Might would give to Weapons is already included in there implicitly since it goes into being able to wield a sword in the first place. Doesn't make sense to me.
Lastly, you effectively make Weapons into Fists+ with the ability to use it unarmed. Maybe if you had Natural Weaponry or a Shapeshifting ability, but even then I think this would be better off as a stunt than part of this power.
That could work, but it's simpler and more elegant to have each tier give +1. I'll think about it.
What would you think of just removing the weapon rating bonus? People could pick up stunts or Strength for that. Maybe also get rid of the multi-zone attack option on Mythic Skill, since that seems to scare people. Then we could expand the Weapons bonus to maneuvers and blocks. It'd still be too strong compared to stunts, but it might balance well against other Powers.
That could work. This power is trying to do too much and is overlapping in other skills' areas. So yeah, let's get rid of the weapon rating bonus.
Thinking about it, this skill with the multi-zone attack would be a great way to model Black Kaze's power in Worm.
Anyway, let's compare the bonuses to the other skill powers, assuming an optimised build at Submerged for each power.
Mythic strength acts at +8 Might with 4 stress inflicted as a supplemental in a grapple. Muscular force attacks get +6 stress.
Mythic Speed gives an effective Athletics of +8. Sprinting increases that to +11.
Mythic Toughness gives +6 physical stress boxes and natural Armour:3. That means 10 stress minimum to inflict a consequence in one hit.
Mythic Recovery gives instant recovery after a scene has ended and the ability to clear away three physical consequences. (As a side note, does that mean you can clear three consequences at once or one consequence three times? The wording favours the latter, but I'd like to be sure.) That's an effective minimum of +6 stress per scene, with a maximum of +24 stress per scene.
I'd say we want this power to be a bit weaker than Mythic Strength and Speed, since this power would cover both offence and defence plus manoeuvres and blocks. Since Strength has stress bonuses already, we should shelve that. We don't want to completely replace Athletics as the defensive power, so perhaps getting rid of the ability to parry anything... Limit it to being able to block single target attacks that are targeting him? We have to drop the multi-zone attack because Wizards have to pay -2 power for every zone they want to attack. This guy could do it at full power with exactly zero cost. The choice of target for zone wide attacks is enough, I think.
MYTHIC SKILL [-6]
Description:
Skills Affected: Weapons.
Effects:
God Of War - Your Weapons skill is at +3 for the purposes of attacking, defending, blocking and manoeuvring.
Perfect Defence - You may use your Weapons skill to defend against any attack that can be dodged with Athletics and can be reasonably assumed to be blocked by a melee weapon.
Strike Like The Sunlight - You may make spray attacks and zone-wide attacks with your Weapons skill. You never suffer a -1 penalty from drawing a weapon as a supplemental action. You may choose which characters to affect when attacking a zone.
Living Weapon - Your Weapons skill is treated as infinite for the purpose of modifying other skills. You weapon can never break as a result of your own actions.
Thinking about it some more, I think the flat bonus to Weapons could easily apply to knowledge as well, since part of being an expert swordsman is knowing what you're up against as well as using various forms with various advantages/disadvantages (or that's what my fantasy reading tells me). If it doesn't, Limitation would be able to cover that more effectively.
Anyway, this way we're looking at +8 Weapons/+3 stress, but able to target every enemy in a zone (without hurting allies) for 11 stress before rolls/armour. Defensively we've got +8 defence against everything from Fists to lasers, but not area of effect weaponry or some spells.
I'd say we have to drop the flat bonus. Maybe drop it from Inhuman Skill entirely and make Sup/Mythic Skill into a +1/+2 bonus. So we'd be looking at +7/+3 at 10 stress total before rolls/armour and +7 as a defensive skill. That means it's not quite doing the same job as Mythic Speed but it synergises well with the lower levels of it, with the same going for the Strength powers but moreso because of the stress bonus.
It also means a Submerged character would need to take a pretty hefty Limitation to get anything above Inhuman Power to go with Mythic Skill, which I think fits.
And do you think the stacking limitation is actually necessary? I'm starting to think that people wouldn't buy stunts or True Aim anyway, since another level of Skill is probably better.
Well, that's kinda true about Athletics and Fists with the Speed and Strength powers. I mean, another level of Strength is objectively better than the Killer Blow stunt and Fleet of Foot is part of Inhuman Athletics. Not to mention Tireless, No Pain, No Gain and Tough Stuff compared to Supernatural Toughness (plus Catch/Limitation). I think what we're seeing here is a difference in how stunts are viewed. I view stunts as a way to make a character unique, which is why most of the stunts I use are made up from scratch. Once I've got the basic character concept down (powers) I'll go for stunts to make him my own.
Sounds interesting. Can I get a link?
Sure!
https://forums.darklordpotter.net/showthread.php?t=25726
We're in the City Creation stage at the moment and I'm trying to wrangle the players into making actual characters rather than powersets at the same time. Also, if you're in to fanfic we've got a decent amount of Dresden Files stuff. Mostly of very high quality.
If we break down what each of the powers do, each has about 4 effects of similar power: (I've grouped recovery/toughness). From looking at PirateJacks original take, it looks like he kind of broke it down like this.
Primary Effect
Strength gives +2/4/6 Damage
Speed gives +1/2/3 dodge
Toughness/recovery gives: 1/2/3 armour
Dexterity shouldn't give any of those benefits. Give it +1/2/3 accuracy instead.
Maybe instead of accuracy we could go for defence instead. That would put this power as basically Athletics-lite defence wise, and allow a bit more leeway in the secondary abilities it could give.
Secondary Effect
Strength gives +3/6/9 for lifting breaking
Speed gives +1/2/3 free zones for moving
Toughness/recovery gives + 2/4/6 stress boxes
Dexterity should give some equivalent. +1/2/3 for Weapons maneuvers (or maybe +2/4/6?)
Manoeuvres bonus works for me.
specific "situational" bonus
Strength: +1/2/3 damage/accuracy for grappling
Speed: +4 etc.. initiative bonuses
Toughness/recovery: long term recovery from consequences.
dexterity: Ambush 1/scene. ambush @+1; ambush @+2
In light of the different focus for the primary ability, I think a more offensive focus for this one would be more appropriate. Like Sanctaphrax's Spray-Zone-Selective Zone attacks.
Random Effect
Strength: Modifies: +1/2/3
Speed: Diffuculty factors for stealth drop by 2/4/never impedes
Toughness/recovery: Endurance never restricts. No need to eat or sleep.
Dexterity: Quick Draw + Maybe can draw so quickly that they never parry at mediocre even when ambushed?
Or Weapons never restricts...something to that effect.
I like the idea of this or the ambush ability filling the fourth slot, with the other being taken as a stunt. Ambush makes more sense as a power-based ability, while Weapons never restricting sounds like something an expert mortal swordsman would be able to do and would do better as a stunt.
So...
INHUMAN SWORDSMANSHIP [-2]
Description:
Effects:
Cutting the Wings off a Fly - You are amongst the best in the world at wielding a blade. For the purposes of defence your Weapons skill is at +1.
Swordplay Sensation - Flashy tricks and subtle movements give you an almost unnatural ability to mess with your opponent. Manoeuvres with Weapons are rolled at +2.
Target Rich Environment - Having more opponents within range of your blade just means more targets for you to aim for. You are able to make Spray Attacks with Weapons.
Quick Draw - You move so fast that even people watching you are unable to keep up. You may make a single ambush attempt per scene against someone in your zone without having hidden with Stealth first.
SUPERNATURAL SWORDSMANSHIP [-4]
Description:
Effects:
Legendary Skill - You outstrip even the best mortal swordsman: your skill is that of legends. For the purposes of defence your Weapons skill is at +2.
Supernatural Swashbuckling - If it involves a blade, you can probably do it. Manoeuvres with Weapons are rolled at +4.
One With my Sword - For when you absolutely have to kill everyone in the room. You are able to make Zone Attacks with Weapons.
Blink And You'll Miss it - Your blade is a blur. You may make a single ambush attempt per scene at +1 against someone in your zone without having hidden with Stealth first.
MYTHIC SWORDSMANSHIP [-6]
Description:
Effects:
Born to Wield a Blade - Maybe you're the God of War. If not, you could take him. For the purposes of defence your Weapons skill is at +3.
One With Your Sword - Your sword is an extension of yourself. Manoeuvres with Weapons are rolled at +6.
Never Outnumbered - When you aim at a target you never miss your mark. You are able to make Zone Attacks against targets of your choosing with Weapons.
One Hit Kill - If your sword is seen it's because you wanted it to be. You may make a single ambush attempt per scene at +2 against someone in your zone without having hidden with Stealth first.
I think I'm happy enough with these that I'd be willing to use them in my games.