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The Dresden Files => DFRPG => Topic started by: ashern on July 25, 2010, 07:12:26 PM
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Hey guys! Got my book last week and loving the stuff. Have messed around with creating characters for my players and some NPCs for an upcoming game and feel like I'm getting a good handle on the system, but I was wondering just how deadly of a character you can make under the rules, specifically at the lower power levels. To further this I was wondering what the deadliest character you guys have at the feet in the water level.
Just looking around and a high weapons skill, supernatural stregnth, and a stunt or two would seem to cover it, but I was wondering what all people have come up with.
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Deadliest build is a bit of an odd concept in this system. I suppose if you want to go for a super strong heavy hitter character in a Feet in the Water game, a changeling with an Ogre, Troll or other big strong Fey type in their heritage could have Superhuman Strength (-4) and Claws (-1) and would still be a playable character. They would be hitting with what is effectively a Weapon 6 on a successful Fists attack, and that's not even taking into account Aspects or Shifts from the roll.
Or you could have a Channeling prodigy throwing an Evocation attack spell and if he is willing to take the stress and consequences he can barbecue whole buildings. Or if I am a bad ass Normal with a bunch of stunts I and access to Bazookas I can hit just as hard as any Supernatural Tough Guy. Or if I am a clever bastard with a bunch of time to plan and prepare a whole bunch of Aspects to tag for effect I can take out just about anybody, and that goes double for a bunch of clever low level folks working together to Maneuver and take out a bad guy.
A normal person only has two stress points before they are taken out so one successful shot from a handgun can take out a person, especially if they don't take any consequences. But at the same time you don't have to focus on physical deadliness, taking out someone by depleting their social or mental stress makes them just as out of the conflict as if you had killed or knocked them out, and there are a lot of great character builds that are absolutely lethal for those types of combat.
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I haven't seen it myself, but I hear Luminos has a pretty badass Were-Gator. I'll drop him a PM and see if he'll post the character.
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Technically? On raw offense alone, probably someone with Evocation and two levels of Refinement, so he could have a 9 shift attack at Weapon: 5.
Or, avoiding spellcasting, someone with Supernatural Strength, and an Item of Power granting True Strike and upping Strength to Mythic. Assuming it's Weapon: 3 that's a Weapon: 9 attack at 5 shifts.
Of course, both of those are bad ideas as characters, since they lack and defense whatsoever, but you can come close to those even focusing a bit more on defense.
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I'm going with Deadmanwalking on this one. A focused practioner who drops 2 points on channeling can burn the rest on refinements that boost exactly that giving you a fireball on par with Dresden a whole step of power over you.
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I created an Angelic Scion to play at Feet in the Water level and he's pretty handy in a fight. His speed gives him a decent athletic defense and he can get far enough away from most enemies that they'll struggle to hit him. He's got a decent amount of toughness too and an armour value to match. Give him a decent gun and he can rain down bullets from afar.
He can't dish out damage like DMW's super-strong character above, but that character will struggle to hit him. He'dd have a problem if he came up against the spell caster though.
-----------------Powers-----------------
[-2] Inhuman Speed
[-2] Inhuman Recovery
[+1] Human Form - affecting:
[-1]Wings
[-2] upgrade to Supernatural speed
[-2] Inhuman Toughness.
[+3] Catch - holy items.
[-5] Refresh total.
-----------------Skills-----------------
Great: Athletics, Guns
Good: Endurance, Alertness
Fair: Stealth, Deceit
Average: Presence, Resources
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Hmm... now that I'm thinking about it, a crafting character could come close to this as well. With 4 in lore, refinement dumped into focus items and bonuses... Could create a potion at base strength of nine, boostable by tagging aspects. Talk about a serious grenade.
I have to agree that this kind of character is definitely not the best kind to play, I was just wondering how a focused character could do. Though the evocation specialist would probably be best. An effective discipline of 9 for offensive spells is pretty awesome.
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Skills
Great: lore, athletics
Good: discipline, alertness
Fair: deceit, investigation
Average: conviction, presence
Powers:
[-2] Ritual- crafting strength
[-3] Refinement
Enchanted Items:
Weapon 6, 15 times/day
Block 6 or Armor 3 15 times/day
I really think pure crafters are the highest powered and well rounded at low levels. Strength caps kill them at 14 refresh and above campaigns.
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The Badass Were-Gator at Feet in the Water:
Beast Change -1
Human Form +1 Involuntary Change: Rage +1 affecting the following
Claws -1
Inhuman Strength -2
Feeding Dependency (meat) +1 affecting:
Inhuman Speed -2
Gator Leash +1 granting
True Strike (with claws and teeth and gator stuff) -1
Supernatural Toughness -4
The Catch: Silver +3
Total Refresh: -5
Skills (Gator Form):
Great: Fists, Athletics
Good: Might, Endurance
Fair: Stealth, Alertness
Average: Underwater Basket Weaving, Elvis Impersonations
I consider this character to be as broken as hell. The echoes of the beast power is missing, and the feeding dependency and the Involuntary Change don't fit the spirit of the bonuses attached to them, and can be easily abused by just handwaving them (oh, a mugger is attacking him? He gets really mad about it!). He attacks at Superb with Weapon: 4, defends at Superb, and has 8 stress boxes and armor: 2, and is built for a feet in the water campaign (Plus I'd bet his human form has excellent social skills). And still, still, a well made magic casting character that doesn't even bend the rules can kick his ass.
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A hedge witch like, say, from the Charmed TV show would have:
Thaumaturgy (specialization: crafting strength +1, frequency +1) [-3]
Refinement 1x [-1]
Book of Shadows [-1]
* Refinement 2x
* True Lore (+1 to Lore for all purposes)
* Indestructible
* One-time discount
She has +1 crafting specialization, a +4 crafting focus (which can be the book itself) and eight enchanted items of strength 10. Those are:
Invisibility Ring (block 8 vs perception, duration 2, 3 uses, defensive)
Shield Ring (block 10 or armor 5, 2 uses, defensive)
Ring of Blinking (athletics 8 "teleportation", 4 uses, defensive)
Ring of Counterspells (counterspell strength 9, 3 uses, defensive)
Ring of Telekinesis (might 9, 2 rounds, 2 uses)
Ring of Blasting (weapon 10, 2 uses)
Offensively, she's Weapon 10 at attack +5, or weapon 5 attack +9 if she uses her telekinesis to throw cars on people.
Defensively, she can go invisible to foil someone's attack, or teleport 8 zones to avoid the attack and get a head start at running or flat out block it with block 10 or, if it is another wizard's spell, counter it.
Also note that she can use stress to generate extra uses for her rings; she's at least as durable as a straight evoker.
Finally, her rings are under a thaumaturgical veil so most people won't notice how she is doing what she's doing.
Do note that this character is also broken. She can take on Harry Dresden in his Submerged stats and win in a straight fight.
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Thaumaturgy (specialization: crafting strength +1, frequency +1) [-3]
[-2] Ritual- crafting strength
Perhaps I'm misunderstand your character write-ups, or perhaps I've misunderstood the rules, but I don't think these are quite right (sorry if they are :D). As far as I know, Ritual and Channelling doesn't get a specialisation, and Thaumaturgy and Evocation only get one specialisation, not two.
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True. So 13 uses total. Still more than you'll need in a day
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First off, I doubt True Lore would count in for the doubling (I certainly wouldn't allow it to), there's no precedent for True Strike and similar abilities to actually allow secondary effects like that (not to mention that allowing anything other than True Strike is technically a House Rule, albeit a balanced one, IMO).
This would leave the max Item Strength at 8 (though it would add to, well, Item Strength). Second, with a Refinement in it, Thaumaturgy should have one more Specialty (likely in Crafting Strength). And third, with a +4 Crafting Focus you should get 4 Items, not 8 (6 if you added 2 with that original Refinement).
The first two together would give a base Strength of 7 and a lot more Item Slots, though.
Offensively, she's Weapon 10 at attack +5, or weapon 5 attack +9 if she uses her telekinesis to throw cars on people.
Uh...no. Just no. Might cannot be used as an attack skill outside a Grapple (which would go at skill 9 with an appropriate Aspect...and inflict 1 Stress a turn), Weaponry is the skill for throwing cars. Also, precious few GMs will allow Lore as an attack skill on Enchanted Items...which drops her attack skill to 3. Her Defense remains mighty, though.
Defensively, she can go invisible to foil someone's attack, or teleport 8 zones to avoid the attack and get a head start at running or flat out block it with block 10 or, if it is another wizard's spell, counter it.
Uh...an Athletics 8 effect has to be a Maneuver, and is thus not 'defensive' so it's your action for the turn. Ditto the Counterspell (which are literally described as "an attack on the spell"). All the Items do work, though.
Also note that she can use stress to generate extra uses for her rings; she's at least as durable as a straight evoker.
Finally, her rings are under a thaumaturgical veil so most people won't notice how she is doing what she's doing.
Both true. Not necessarily relevant, but true.
Do note that this character is also broken. She can take on Harry Dresden in his Submerged stats and win in a straight fight.
This character breaks the rules to be broken.
And Harry as written for Submerged is NOT an optimized character, most optimized characters will beat him. Added to which, I'm not sure this character could once appropriate changes are made to account for the rules you violated.
None of which is to say that a Crafting character can't be ridiculous, but the best they can manage at Feet In The Water is Weapon: 8 attacks at 5 shifts of effect, which isn't even as good an offense as the Mythic Strength guy I mentioned above, is entirely Item dependent, and has limited uses. Such a character does a lot better on Defense (an 8 shift Block is pretty much invulnerable without the use of Fate Points at that level), but it's not flat-out broken or anything.
And I can build a nastier version of the gator, if people really want:
Beast Change -1
Feeding Dependency (meat) +1 affecting:
Inhuman Srength -2
Human Form +1 Involuntary Change: Rage +1 affecting the following
Claws -1
Supernatural Strength -2 (from Inhuman)
Golden Torc +2 granting
True Strike (with claws and teeth and gator stuff) -1
Inhuman Speed -2
Supernatural Toughness -4
The Catch: Silver +3
And that's a better match for the kind of optimized magic users we're talking about here, with a Weapon: 6 attack at Superb, Superb Defenses, 8 Stress boxes and Armor: 2, and Fantastic Initiative to get the drop on spellcasters.
The best a spellcaster can do is likely the Craftsman I talk about above, though an Evocation guy with an Item of Power can likely get a 6 shift defensive Item and a 9 shift attack at Weapon: 5, or even an 8 shift defensive Item if they go a slightly alternate route...but that last one is getting into the heavy optimization there.
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I don't know if that's a better version DMW, I mean sure it's stronger, but it doesn't have a talent for underwater basket weaving and I think the other crocodile could also beat it at Elvis impersonations.
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I don't know if that's a better version DMW, I mean sure it's stronger, but it doesn't have a talent for underwater basket weaving and I think the other crocodile could also beat it at Elvis impersonations.
Actually, I only changed the Powers. It keeps the skills, icluding all Elvis and Basket involved ones. :)
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Hah, good; it keeps the character nice and rounded :)
Instead of a were-gator it could be an emissary of power for a harvest god. Something like:
Item of power +2 - Weapon:3 Scythe (removes the need for claws, and is a higher weapons value)
Human Form +2 - Involuntary change (rage/full moon/when he eats genetically modified crops/whatever)
Feeding Dependancy +1 - Harvesting souls
Catch +4 - Fire (Body is made of straw, the character is very obviously flammable)
Lots of plusses so you can squeeze in lots of goodies.
Mythic Strength -6
Mythic Toughness -6
True Aim -1
Beast Change -1
This would give you a superb attack roll at weapon:9, with armour 3 and a ton of stress boxes.
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Perhaps a character based around incite emotion would be effective too. At [-4] refresh, you can mentally attack at range with a weapon:4 rating using either deceit or intimidation. Plus a stunt or two to boost your intimidation or deceit and you could take out a lot of the characters on here pretty quickly.
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Actually, I only changed the Powers. It keeps the skills, icluding all Elvis and Basket involved ones. :)
Nice improvement on my write up. Of course, he's not really optimized for the basket weaving until you can squeeze out the point of refresh for the Aquatic power.
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With Good (+3) Resources he can afford scuba gear, basket weaving gear and a master-crafted elvis wig.