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The Dresden Files => DFRPG => Topic started by: Mr. Death on July 28, 2014, 04:07:05 PM
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So, I might be finally getting to actually play a game instead of GMing all the time, and I've decided to play a were-bear. I've given him Inhuman Toughness, but I'm not sure what, if any, Catch he should have.
I'm thinking of giving him some kind of Norse connection, if that helps.
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If you're going with the Norse connection, bears were associated with Odin and through him to the Berserkers.
Berserkers were said to be immune to fire and iron, but could be hurt by blunt instruments, so perhaps your Catch could be that.
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Especially for animals and animal forms with only inhuman levels of toughness, I don't think the catch is always necessary. The additional mass and different physique just makes you tougher, it's not a magical shield.
And please, give him an aspect like "I have the right to bear arms". :P
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Someone in one of the campaigns I'm in went with "The Catch is massive damage (attacks done with Weapon:3 or greater can bypass this toughness)." Which seemed perfect, since, well, it's a bear, and for real bears you tend to have to go with massive damage just to get through the thick layers of fur and fat, not to mention their naturally thick hide.
Especially for animals and animal forms with only inhuman levels of toughness, I don't think the catch is always necessary. The additional mass and different physique just makes you tougher, it's not a magical shield.
And please, give him an aspect like "I have the right to bear arms". :P
This made me smile before even my first cup of coffee, well done sir.
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And please, give him an aspect like "I have the right to bear arms". :P
So much win.
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I just so happen to be making a were-bear. I went with the catch of massive damage. The toughness works against Weapon:2 or lower attacks and is bypassed by Weapon:3 or higher attacks. So the protection is good against knives, claws, and most handguns. But not so good protection against rifles and shotguns and military weapons. It seems to be a fairly realistic catch for a natural bear.
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The Weapon level Toughness seems like a clever and realistic way to go, I like that Idea.
If you really prefer some more supernatural catch though, espcially in light of Haru's point, there are options:
-Obviously, if your shapeshifting is somehow rooted in Fairyland, you could have an Iron Catch, but I personally hate that one since it's every-bloody-where.
-PJ's norse connection is an interesting one, but making the catch Bludgeoning damage strikes me as a painfully debilitating Catch, and one that doesnt feel right to me; it's the same sort of protection a chain shirt gives you, which is miles away from Bear-hide imo.
-Running with the Norse connection, you could spin it to relate to Baldur somehow, and use his Catch of weapon's made of Mistletoe.
-A more vague Natural vs Supernatural theme could declare that only natural weapons (teeth, claws, etc) bypass the toughness, which could fit any mythology with a nature connection, from Native American to Vanir, to a more tangential Fae style.
-Then of course you can always go with something more exotic for the catch, Kryptonite style, but that would be more story specific.
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I'm wary of making it just Weapon:3, because that would include things like swords swung with nothing but regular human strength. Maybe make it high powered firearms specifically?
As for the bludgeoning, yeah, that wouldn't be very useful.
Teeth and claws kind of seem like the sort of thing the hide is specifically to defend against -- think Listens to Wind vs. the Naagloshi.
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Teeth and claws kind of seem like the sort of thing the hide is specifically to defend against -- think Listens to Wind vs. the Naagloshi.
true, though in that case they were both constantly changing what /kind/ of teeth and claws they were throwing at each other, to counter the other. But my suggestion was specifically for the case if he wanted the Catch to be a purely supernatural element, rather than attempting to use the mechanic to explain the actual physically thick flesh that a Bear-form would grant. In that case the less-than-natural PC Bear would be vulnerable to actual Nature and natural weapons, but be supernaturally protected against manufactured items. This would have nothing to do with the actual damage type, etc. So the toughness would protect against a claw but not a knife even if they are physically exactly the same.
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One of my first characters I made was a were-bear and my catch was blade, blunt and pierce damage only.
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One of my first characters I made was a were-bear and my catch was blade, blunt and pierce damage only.
Doesn't that kind of encompass every kind of physical attack?
So did the toughness only apply to magic, then?
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Doesn't that kind of encompass every kind of physical attack?
So did the toughness only apply to magic, then?
I'd think mortal fire/acid as well. Which would mean that all of a sudden Smokey the Bear didn't care about forest fires.... There's something just wrong about that.
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I think he means the catch was, his power only worked on phsyical attacks. Thats what im guessing from the "only" at the end of that post xD
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I'm not a big fan of the "big weapons" as a catch. In comparison, a bear will take less damage from a big gun than a regular mortal would. It would still hurt him, because it's a big weapon, but it does need to get through its thick skin, and because it is a ferocious animal, it can deal with the pain better as well. Like I said, in a case like this, the source for the toughness isn't really supernatural. When the guy is changed, he is, for all intents and purposes, a bear, and those are just tougher. The bigger weapon is simply there to counter that in the first place, but it doesn't make sense to me, that it would drop the entire toughness.
Not to mention, I find "big weapons" as a catch a bit nondescript. Specific materials linked to the creature, times of the day, emotionally loaded items, things like that are the idea behind the catch, in my opinion.
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I like the big weapon catch, because without it an elephant gun can't kill an elephant. An elephant is incredibly hard to hurt with a small weapon like a (weapon 2) pistol, and it needs Inhuman or Supernatural Toughness to represent that...but if it also has that Toughness against a (weapon 4) elephant gun, it's gonna be harder to kill than it should be.
Against a human, overpenetration means that a big gun is only a bit more effective than a little gun. Against a bear or an elephant, there's less overpenetration and the big gun is way better.
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Doesn't that kind of encompass every kind of physical attack?
So did the toughness only apply to magic, then?
The other way around. The catch was that toughness only applied to slash, pierce and crush. So no protection from magic, fire, acid, etc.
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I dunno. A bear actually would be pretty tough against fire or acid for the same reason knives aren't terribly effective. The outer layer of fur and fat is pretty much non-essential. It hurts, but it doesn't come close to doing anything that stops the bear from ripping you apart.
I favor the "high penetration" catch on this kind of monster. It simulates better "tough on the outside, squishy on the inside" critters, which include most mortal large animals. With a big enough weapon, it gets just its raw endurance. With not enough weapon, you mostly just annoy it even if you're a pretty good shot.
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Well, YMMV. Of course, I also took Hulking Size and Great Endurance (while in bear form) so I still had six boxes on my physical stress track even for stuff that got past my Toughness. He lived through the campaign so it worked out for me.
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I'm not a big fan of the "big weapons" as a catch. In comparison, a bear will take less damage from a big gun than a regular mortal would. It would still hurt him, because it's a big weapon, but it does need to get through its thick skin, and because it is a ferocious animal, it can deal with the pain better as well.
Except that a high powered rifle or .45 magnum round will in fact punch through the thick skin etc without actually losing anything in killing power, that's what they're precisely designed to do (just as most military rounds can kill you through walls these days).
While it is true that it'll deal with pain and such better than the average person, I think the fact that most folks would stat up a bear with endurance in the 3-5 range instead of the typical human rating of 0-1 covers that sufficiently. Bear blubber really isn't as good as kevlar+strike plates against stuff designed to penetrate meat. Likewise a spear is actually a pretty effective weapon against an elephant if you know what you're doing with it. (I saw a video in college of a Pygmy running under an elephant, stabbing it once, running away and wait for it to die...)
If you want it to be more precise than the mechanical "weapon 3", I think you could represent the catch as "deep penetration weapons, such as spears, high powered rifles, pistol-3 magnum rounds". So the bear gets armor against a normal sword but not a heavy spear, against a shotgun, but not a rifle, against a flamethrower but not a tightly focused Fuego-blast (where Harry managed to control it properly and didn't dedicate any shifts to knockback) even though all of those are technically weapon 3+ attacks.
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Against a human, overpenetration means that a big gun is only a bit more effective than a little gun. Against a bear or an elephant, there's less overpenetration and the big gun is way better.
This makes total sense, and I hadn't seen it that way before. You're right, looking at it like this, it makes absolute sense.
If you want it to be more precise than the mechanical "weapon 3", I think you could represent the catch as "deep penetration weapons, such as spears, high powered rifles, pistol-3 magnum rounds". So the bear gets armor against a normal sword but not a heavy spear, against a shotgun, but not a rifle, against a flamethrower but not a tightly focused Fuego-blast (where Harry managed to control it properly and didn't dedicate any shifts to knockback) even though all of those are technically weapon 3+ attacks.
And this not only makes sense but is in keeping with my sense of the catch. This should work nicely.
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If you want it to be more precise than the mechanical "weapon 3", I think you could represent the catch as "deep penetration weapons, such as spears, high powered rifles, pistol-3 magnum rounds". So the bear gets armor against a normal sword but not a heavy spear, against a shotgun, but not a rifle, against a flamethrower but not a tightly focused Fuego-blast (where Harry managed to control it properly and didn't dedicate any shifts to knockback) even though all of those are technically weapon 3+ attacks.
Yeah, I think this is the best explanation I've heard so far.
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That makes sense, I like it. Mr. D, is Haru's impression correct in that your shifted character is more or less a mundane bear, as opposed to something more overtly supernatural? Basically, are you going Alpha, Mouse, or Loup Garou?
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That makes sense, I like it. Mr. D, is Haru's impression correct in that your shifted character is more or less a mundane bear, as opposed to something more overtly supernatural? Basically, are you going Alpha, Mouse, or Loup Garou?
Yeah, Haru's impression is correct (it's a low refresh game at this point, he can't afford to be much more than a regular bear just yet).
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I have a bear in my game, and after a bit of discussion between me and him he decided to take Claws and Strength/Speed, though he's a Black Bear.