Some faith powers I've cooked up. Do note that I do not have the greatest mechanical chops with this system, so consider these powers to be a rough draft. Critique is more than welcome in order to get them in to a place thats balanced in the game and represents the idea that I'm going for.


The goals in mind with these powers were

1: To give True Believers a set of powers that would grow stronger with the character, letting them continue to operate alongside Casters and Shapeshifters (the two most common player types, I've found) and their continuing applications of Refinement of adding on more creature features.

2: Find some way to mechanically emulate the effects we see or hear about in the books, but aren't really possible at the moment with the current powerset (Murphy carving her way through a sea of vampires in Changes, Michael facing down a dragon and winning)

3: Find a way to produce the former two while keeping in mind how faith powers are usually represented in the books: "Coincidence is on my side", as commented on several times by Harry and seen a few times. "Subtle but very powerful", we rarely see very many flashy displays of holy power, but we see a lot of True Faith people doing a lot of crazy awesome stuff. "works best against the supernatural", it's been a general theme that faith powers are really meant as a force multiplier against non-mortal forces, and his largely important against people with free will.



Providence tries to invoke the feelings of "Coincidence is on my side" and "subtle put powerful".  It's also meant to work alongside the Righteousness and Holy Touch powers, letting you spend Fate Points on things that you really want to spend them on, rather than things you have to spend them on in order to get the most out of your powers.

Providence -X
Description:
Your choices and beliefs have a profound impact, granting you favor above and beyond simple chance.
Musts: The character must have taken Righteousness and Holy Touch.
Skills affected: Varies
Effects:
The world abides the believer
Belief has a powerful effect on the world. For every 2 points of refresh spent on this power, you may gain 1 free expenditure of a Fate Point per scene.
Walking my chosen path -1
Focusing on your goal, you find it a much easier road to walk. Whenever you make a roll that is affected by Righteousness, you may make an additional roll to place a Conviction aspect on the scene that is somehow related to what you are doing to be used on your next turn.





Grace Against the Dark likewise tries to invoke the feeling of "subtle but powerful" but with a much greater focus on "works best against the supernatural". It's intentionally very powerful, but completely useless against regular mortals.

Grace Against the Dark [-5]
Description:
Mortals who leave the safety of their homes may find themselves buoyed by the knowledge that a strong spirit can make all the difference when facing the unknown terrors of the world.
Musts: You must have taken Righteousness and Holy Touch.
Skills affected: Varies
Effects:
The Darkness Yields
Though the workings of the wicked may conspire against you, your faith will see you through. When faced with supernatural forces opposing your path chosen by Righteousness, you may add half your Conviction (round down) to your dice rolls.

In the game books, and in the series itself, a lot of noise is made about how badass mortals are when they're right and organized. It's implied that one of the biggest advantages for pure mortals is the fact that our organizations are typically on our side when it comes to supernatural threats, and that the others (White Council, Vampire/Fae Courts, etc) are usually pretty preoccupied with infighting and backstabbing.

The problem is, there doesn't seem to be a lot of support for it in the game. High Resources and Contacts skills and relevant aspects can help mimic good social ties, but that doesn't really seem to be unique to mortals.  The +2 refresh is also neat, but that represents the individual mortal's choice, not their social strength.

Am I missing something in the game that supports the idea that mortals are scary when they band together? Or is it generally assumed that Contacts/Resources should take care of that?

I've only GM'ed a few times, and not on here, but I've found that planning things out is more work than is needed. I tend to develop an NPC's goals and motives for them, and then have them react to the actions of the players in  a way that makes sense for the NPC.

So, winging it, with a dash of planning.

Hm, well if I can't make it make sense then I must being doing something wrong. Lets just go with your version, it fits the overall idea was going for anyway. 

Maybe make it narrower--it works on Warlocks, and is stronger based on how much refresh they have in Lawbreakers powers?

I'm thinking a power that lets you make a mental attack on someone, with the shifts being based on how many 'evil' Aspects they have and how much refresh has been spent on traditionally 'evil' powers. Given how that's likely to be insanely powerful against some targets, I would probably require a Fate Point to activate it.

So you see it as an easy button for taking out all the bad guys without harming the nice little girls?  Meh.  Doesn't sound fun in game terms.

Anyone with a high enough Guns skill can do the same thing.

Well, the way they let it keep a challenge in the movie is that it worked via the soul, and the main villain simply didn't have one. Lots of big badguys in Dresden wouldn't--Red Court, Black Court...pretty much anything you couldn't Soulgaze.

I would honestly just apply it to how 'evil' they are, rather than if they have a soul or not. Otherwise you get in to cross-universe discussions and that can only lead to failure.

If the thug had a strength power or did something else magic-y to make it more effective, then you would get a +2. If not, then you get nothing

Hm, I think I may have taken the wrong angel when I labeled the protective value as 'Armor'. Armor implies a kind of resistance, however in this context the protection comes from skewing probability in the favor of the wearer rather than providing any degree of toughness.

Doing a hard reset of the Ward power, how would you price something that gave a flat +2 to defense rolls opposing Supernatural Powers? Like you said, it wouldn't make sense for a lucky charm to provide resistance against the damage of a house thrown by a giant, but it would make more sense for it to provide a better chance of dodging it.

To be fair, you are quite good at this 

Anyway, here is another IoP, a custom one this time rather than a mythological one. (Also if it'll help with space, feel free to remove Vidar's Shoes.)

MYTHBANE [-5]
Musts: You must be either be a Pure or an empowered Mortal (Wizard, True Believer, etc). Half humans or Inhuman characters cannot use Mythbane.
Skills Affected: Fists, Others.
Effects:
[-0] It is what it is. A ring, the kind you wear on your finger.
[-0] Unbreakable. The ring cannot be broken save through a dedicated magical ritual perverting it's purpose.
[+1] One Time Discount. Gloves and pockets, 'nuff said.
[-4] Ward against the Wired. Mythbane grants a subtle but potent protection to the wearer, granting them Armor: 2 against all forms of Supernatural Powers in all situations (Physical, Mental, Social). The ring does not protect against self-inflcited damage, such as Mental Stress from spellcasting.
[-2] Mythbreaker. The ring is violently incompatible with Inhuman entities, inflicting 1 point of physical stress every time it makes contact with them (such as a Fists attack). Mythbane is so toxic to Inhumans that simply having it in their possession will qualify as making contact.


I'm not sure about the pricing for it, for the Ward effect I simply took Supernatural Toughness and converted the extra stress boxes in to the ability to be used in (almost) all situations. Likewise, Mythbreaker is an odd hybrid of Venomous Claws and Holy Touch.

The backstory for Mythbane is that it was originally little more than a 'lucky charm' with no powers of it's own. However it had an odd habit of being used by Wizards, True Believers or regular old Mortals who regularly stood against the dark forces of the world. Eventually after being used as such so many times, the belief surrounding it took on a life and power of it's own.