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The Dresden Files => DFRPG => Topic started by: devonapple on February 11, 2011, 05:55:53 AM
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If you have an idea for a custom power, but don't know how to begin building it, feel free to post it here. Many folks on the forum like to tinker with the rules, and while we're not always coming up with new powers for our own games, we might be inspired by your idea!
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I was wondering how you could have a power that absorbed memories or skills of the victim without it breaking the game, how would you stat a power to steal skills?
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I was wondering how you could have a power that absorbed memories or skills of the victim without it breaking the game, how would you stat a power to steal skills?
Define steal skills.
Like... touching someone and making one of their skills go down in order to +2 one of yours for a scene or something?
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I was thinking something more along the lines of a dominate so you can after you win the fight mind wipe your enemy absorbing memories and skills (the memories bit would be pretty strong in it's own right) so you could replace one of your skills with one of theirs or have temporary access to their skills list if it is better than yours.
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I was thinking something more along the lines of a dominate so you can after you win the fight mind wipe your enemy absorbing memories and skills (the memories bit would be pretty strong in it's own right) so you could replace one of your skills with one of theirs or have temporary access to their skills list if it is better than yours.
Hmmm.
I really can't see how this could be implemented without being a game breaker.
I know that may seem to be a cop out answer, but this skill could easily be used to artificially bump one's character up by like 10 milestones.
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Best way to do something like this? Thaumaturgy. So many shifts of power to duration, so many shifts of power to the actual skill increases, and that should be pretty much it.
Just don't lose your head over this. ;)
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I was wondering how you could have a power that absorbed memories or skills of the victim without it breaking the game, how would you stat a power to steal skills?
Hmm...
Memory Thief [-2]
You Steal Peoples Memories!
Effect: If you Take Out an opponent and have time to touch its head, you may copy their memories into your head. You gain a +1 bonus on all skills they have that are higher than your own (alternatively a +1 bonus on 3 skills they have higher than yours if the former is too hard to keep track of...which it probably is...ALTERNATIVELY you gain a +1 bonus on all Great or Higher skills they possess). You gain the aspect "Stolen Memories" representing these stolen memories.
You gain a Debt Track for victim's persona. You may incur 1 debt to Invoke "Stolen Memories" (either for a reroll or +2 bonus on a relevant skill or for Effect to represent something else the person knew like a combination). The memories you have stolen compel you to do things the person you took them from would have done (e.g. you can be compelled for any of the aspects the victim had and then some). The memories disappear if you do not incur a debt in a given scene and have 0 debt at the end of that scene starting the scene after you gain them. If you reach a total of 3 debt (perhaps 5), the personality of the victim takes control of your body for 1 scene (and you lose 1 debt from this).
Hmm, needs some work, but I think that's a good start. Debt track bit needs some tweaking.
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Mimic Abilities (YS176-177) already covers the abilities to steal/copy skills with the Mimic Skills ability. ;)
Mimic Skill. Allocate one mimic point to copy
any one of your target’s skills. This replaces
your actual rating with that skill while the
allocation remains in place.
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Mimic Abilities (YS176-177) already covers the abilities to steal/copy skills with the Mimic Skills ability. ;)
Ah sorry everyone I missed that entirely.
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Mimic Abilities (YS176-177) already covers the abilities to steal/copy skills with the Mimic Skills ability. ;)
That's not the same as /stealing/ those skills, though.
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That's not the same as /stealing/ those skills, though.
Doesn't cover memories and such either. I was trying to fashion something similar but a bit different from that as well.
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I was thinking something more along the lines of a dominate so you can after you win the fight mind wipe your enemy absorbing memories and skills (the memories bit would be pretty strong in it's own right) so you could replace one of your skills with one of theirs or have temporary access to their skills list if it is better than yours.
It's more or less what he wanted.
Memories are hard to quantify in game terms, skills/stunts seem to be the easiest way to do so. Only way I can think to do more is somehow use their aspects as if they were your own for an invoke or something.
Eat Power. You may clone the supernatural
powers of your target (see below) under
particular circumstances. This cloning is only
possible if you lay hands on a significant part
of the victim—such as his brain, his heart,
or a large portion of his magic power. If the
victim is not dead from this, then he is at
least diminished while you access his abilities
(reflected by a consequence resulting from
the attack that allowed you to steal from him,
the terms arrived at when taking him out,
etc.).
After take out, you steal their skills/stunts (memories) and they are diminished by a consequence (yay, compels for not knowing things you once knew).
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Mimic Abilities>Eat Power seems to do most of what we want.
Bitterpill: Is there anything else you would want this to do? We could design a potential Upgrade for Mimic Abilities.
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Besides from the memories (which can be done through aspects I suppose) eat power does what I wanted the power to do, most of the effects I wanted could be shown through aspects.
Hmm...
Memory Thief [-2]
You gain the aspect "Stolen Memories" representing these stolen memories.
You gain a Debt Track for victim's persona. You may incur 1 debt to Invoke "Stolen Memories" (either for a reroll or +2 bonus on a relevant skill or for Effect to represent something else the person knew like a combination). The memories you have stolen compel you to do things the person you took them from would have done (e.g. you can be compelled for any of the aspects the victim had and then some). The memories disappear if you do not incur a debt in a given scene and have 0 debt at the end of that scene starting the scene after you gain them. If you reach a total of 3 debt (perhaps 5), the personality of the victim takes control of your body for 1 scene (and you lose 1 debt from this).
Hmm, needs some work, but I think that's a good start. Debt track bit needs some tweaking.
I liked the idea of memory debt as I think that consume other people's mind should impact upon yours, but I suppose this could be shown by mental stress
and GM mandate on what memories you can recall.
The power was for a NPC who I was going to turn into a Hive Mind which consumed its enemies body and soul and then used the material (Mimic Power) to augment itself and added it's victims minds to it's own.
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I liked the idea of memory debt as I think that consume other people's mind should impact upon yours, but I suppose this could be shown by mental stress
and GM mandate on what memories you can recall.
Maybe we can rule that as a limitation of Mimic Abilities, providing a Rebate of [+1]. The power would work the same, but whenever the Eater used a memory or Power, it would:
A) Invoke Personality Debt.
B) We could rule it like a Hunger Track (call it a Persona Track), and using the stolen abilities causes "Persona" Stress, which makes it more and more easy for the stolen personality to assert itself.
C) We can reskin Demonic Co-Pilot but, instead of a Demon and Demon agenda, it's the personality you just ate trying to turn you against yourself. Instead of taking Mimic Points, you could just determine that "Eaten Persona Co-Pilot" gives you a +1 to its important skills.
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Maybe we can rule that as a limitation of Mimic Abilities, providing a Rebate of [+1]. The power would work the same, but whenever the Eater used a memory or Power, it would:
A) Invoke Personality Debt.
B) We could rule it like a Hunger Track (call it a Persona Track), and using the stolen abilities causes "Persona" Stress, which makes it more and more easy for the stolen personality to assert itself.
C) We can reskin Demonic Co-Pilot but, instead of a Demon and Demon agenda, it's the personality you just ate trying to turn you against yourself. Instead of taking Mimic Points, you could just determine that "Eaten Persona Co-Pilot" gives you a +1 to its important skills.
All those sound like good ways to go. (B) is probably best, since it handles depending on those abilities makes the personality get in your head more really well.
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How would someone recover from this "Persona Stress"?
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How would someone recover from this "Persona Stress"?
You have to feed the persona, so you'd do something they'd do for a bit. That might be talking to a secretary for a little bit if you fed on a business guy, talking to the person's wife like you were the husband, etc. If you completely lose control though, then the persona would fully assert itself and be able to tell people what was really going on and really act against your interests. Otherwise, essentially you'd have to waste time and potentially do somewhat risky or mildly counter-productive things to keep overall control of what you did.
I think that would work, generally speaking.
Edit: If you took consequences they could be things like "Bob is trying to warn his friends" for something mild or "Which one am I?" perhaps for a severe consequence.
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How would someone recover from this "Persona Stress"?
Good question. My initial thought was that they would fade with time.
If that's too easy, then perhaps the mindstealer needs to feed periodically on the original victim, which would motivate them to kidnap their target and hide them away, sneaking off now and then to "top off" the Persona tank. Which the heroes could eventually discover. And if the original got away, that would be additional plot zaniness as the mindstealer slowly started losing control.
You have to feed the persona, so you'd do something they'd do for a bit. That might be talking to a secretary for a little bit if you fed on a business guy, talking to the person's wife like you were the husband, etc. If you completely lose control though, then the persona would fully assert itself and be able to tell people what was really going on and act against your interests. Otherwise, essentially you'd have to waste time and potentially do somewhat risky things to keep overall control of what you did.
That would work as well. Convince the swallowed persona that "things are fine" by showing it a normal life, in a manner reminiscent of the way Necromancers need to keep a drumbeat going to keep their zombies in line.
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If that's too easy, then perhaps the mindstealer needs to feed periodically on the original victim, which would motivate them to kidnap their target and hide them away, sneaking off now and then to "top off" the Persona tank. Which the heroes could eventually discover. And if the original got away, that would be additional plot zaniness as the mindstealer slowly started losing control.
Ah yes, the Parasite technique.
Anyway you do it, pretty awesome for a villain, I think. It would be pretty memorable, especially if the target knew the PCs.
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The power was for a NPC who I was going to turn into a Hive Mind which consumed its enemies body and soul and then used the material (Mimic Power) to augment itself and added it's victims minds to it's own.
Am I the only one who thought Zerg when i read this? :D though the soul bit would be different
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Am I the only one who thought Zerg when i read this? :D though the soul bit would be different
This sort of thing is a lot older than the zerg...and the zerg don't really gobble people up into one organic composite (which is pretty gross).
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I know it is, but I was just playing Starcraft the other day... :) and the Zerg do seek to perfect thier genome so they do take bits and pieces from others. At least thats how I saw it. but ignore me on this
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I like the 'stolen persona' idea, but I'd use the mental stress track; it would make the power more dangerous. Anyone familiar with a Marvel comix version of this a while back? Rogue stole (and accidentally permanently kept) Ms Marvel's memories, and during a stressful situation, reverted to the stolen persona to the extent of being compelled to rescue a friend of the original personality; well and tragically done.
Dian
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I like the 'stolen persona' idea, but I'd use the mental stress track; it would make the power more dangerous. Anyone familiar with a Marvel comix version of this a while back? Rogue stole (and accidentally permanently kept) Ms Marvel's memories, and during a stressful situation, reverted to the stolen persona to the extent of being compelled to rescue a friend of the original personality; well and tragically done.
Dian
I like using a new track more since it let's you have a "reverse" corpsetaker (if you use mental stress, then a wizard can't really do this that effectively). You still can get compels and all sorts of other things with that. The Hunger rules for stats seem to make good sense here as well.
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Me
"I like the 'stolen persona' idea, but I'd use the mental stress track; it would make the power more dangerous. Anyone familiar with a Marvel comix version of this a while back? Rogue stole (and accidentally permanently kept) Ms Marvel's memories, and during a stressful situation, reverted to the stolen persona to the extent of being compelled to rescue a friend of the original personality; well and tragically done."
reply:
"I like using a new track more since it let's you have a "reverse" corpsetaker (if you use mental stress, then a wizard can't really do this that effectively). You still can get compels and all sorts of other things with that. The Hunger rules for stats seem to make good sense here as well."
I agree that using a mental stress track makes it less easy for a wizard to to it; which is why I would do it that way. It makes it much more fun (challenging, whatever) to play - and for me & my gamers, that would be the point.
dian
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I agree that using a mental stress track makes it less easy for a wizard to to it; which is why I would do it that way. It makes it much more fun (challenging, whatever) to play - and for me & my gamers, that would be the point.
My point was that it only makes it more challenging for a wizard or evoker of some sort.