The second you allow thaumaturgy or sponsored magic.
I like Thaumaturgy and Sponsored Magic they add flavour and options.
Certainly that doesn't change the fact that they very rapidly break the system.
Id say the system breaks down largely based on the skill system. Eventually you've got most of the skills on your sheet and you wont be able to upgrade any of them. I've worked out a sort of temporary fix for that.
I suggested to a few of my GMs an alternative Major Milestone option. Here it is:
"Instead of raising the skill cap you can instead raise the skill minimum. From Mediocre to Average and so on."
This is to represent that the characters have been around the block a few times.
Normal Humans should get shafted in combat, they make up for it by being numerous.Recovery Powers seem them most potent power in a campaign as a well speced fighter should be able to up to severe concequences and be ok in five minutes time, so a fighter can keep going and going well after the wizard has ran out of tricks (in campaigns where mythic levels are an option mythic recovery is the best power by far).
Pure Mortals are limited by their to hit ability which is maxed at six at Submerged (5+1 for an appropriate stunt), where a supernatural fighter can have a max to hit of 7 (true strike + stunt + 5) not a big difference seven is also about par for True Believers, the only group that has a massive advantage is the caster who can get massive to hit bonus tied to equally massive weapons ratings a submerged caster can get a minimum of 9 to hit and 9 weapon rating (or 7 for area of effect) and this for only 1 mental stress.
I'm running a game right now at Submerged plus a few extra skills from advancement. The pure mortal gum bunny PC is rather scary with his 10 modified refresh, even compared to the PC with channeling.
Channeling isn't that much worse than Evocation. Most people are going to stick to one element anyway due to specialization and focus bonuses. I mean lets face it, you only stray out of your favorite element when you have to, generally.
If done properly a pure mortal is a force to be reckoned with.
I don't know what kind of pure mortals you guys play, but I've done 20+ stress in a single hit with my pure mortal and I didn't even spend a third of my fate to do it. As the power level goes up pure mortals are just going to get more and more fate points which means you can do those 20+ attacks with greater frequency. If done properly a pure mortal is a force to be reckoned with.May I know how your character did so?
I don't know what kind of pure mortals you guys play, but I've done 20+ stress in a single hit with my pure mortal and I didn't even spend a third of my fate to do it. As the power level goes up pure mortals are just going to get more and more fate points which means you can do those 20+ attacks with greater frequency. If done properly a pure mortal is a force to be reckoned with.
Let's see, starting with a Guns skill of +5, throwing in couple of stunts for +1 to hit and +2 to damage on hit, give it a Weapon rating of 3 for a rifle, +2 for free tag of "In My Sights", lucky roll of +4 brings us to an Attack at 12, with effective Weapon:5... before any Fate Points are spent. If you have another Guns stunt that add 3 to damage for a Fate Point, we're up to Attack 12 and Weapon:8 for a single fate point, minus whatever the unfortunate target managed to defend with... Am I close? :)
Yeah, 20+ stress attacks from a mortal are quite plausible, far as I can tell. Or in the words of the Team Fortress 2 Sniper - "Boom. Headshot." ;)
Well, a +4 on your roll is just a 1/81 chance, so that's hardly repeatable. A more reasonable lucky roll would be +2 though even this isn't something that can be easily pulled off on any sort of consistent basis. Going with an average roll of 0 (unless you want to wait exchange after exchange until you get a good roll), would make that an attack of 8 and require a maneuver to setup (so 2 exchanges to do). The weapon rating would still be 8, of course. That might result in 11 or so shifts of damage (depending on what the enemy does). Getting to 20 on any sort of consistent basis would be tricky and cost either a ton of maneuvers/declarations/etc for free tags or a bunch of fate points. Not impossible, but not easy by any stretch.
In any case, it's a lot easier for a supernatural creature to do this kind of damage.
Oh, absolutely, the +4 roll is statistically unlikely - I just tried to see if reaching a total of 20 shifts from Attack and Weapon Rating was plausible without the expenditure of half a ton (depending on Fate point token weight) or so of Fate Points... Which, it seems, it is.
When you then start adding Aspect tags that do cost Fate points into the equation, Mortals are likely to have more Fate points to consistently pour into their rolls than supernaturals...
Also, I should like to point out that one of the most dangerous individuals in the book, even if not the most powerful in a personal scuffle, is John Marcone... The only mortal signatory to the Unseelie Accords, with the skill and strength necessary to hold his own as a Freeholding Lord...
He's capable of handling himself in personal combat, and for the love of all that is Holy, do NOT engage him in social combat...
Also, I should like to point out that one of the most dangerous individuals in the book, even if not the most powerful in a personal scuffle, is John Marcone... The only mortal signatory to the Unseelie Accords, with the skill and strength necessary to hold his own as a Freeholding Lord...
He's capable of handling himself in personal combat, and for the love of all that is Holy, do NOT engage him in social combat...
Titania is far more dangerous than Marcone in terms of personal power, persona and even in terms of social stuff because she is the leader of an entire nations of Fairies and a court of superhuman monsters, she has more magic than marcone could ever dream off, more minons than marcone could raise in a hundred years and more social hacks (presence at legendary at least, Full Incite Emotion Awe, Fear etc etc). Marcone is not that potent but he is potent locally and has powerful allies which is the only reason he has survived as a free holding lord.
And on the other hand, Marcone doesn't lose any power at all by going where uninvited...
To someone who is used to standard D&D type games, the DF are going to seem overpowered when a fairly low level wizard can level a building or take out a supernatural enemy in one evocation shot.
I think D and D and Dresden are roughly the same level of power as long as you assume that the starting level is 10, A level 20 D&D Balor is on par with a Denarians, a level 30 D&D character is on par with the Earl King.
I think a lot of people discount the mortal, and it's just because they haven't seen a proper one in action. I'm not arguing that one can stand up to Titania, but they should be able to almost hold their own against a supe of relative refresh.
In most of the campaigns I have been in the pure mortals have sucked or have been contact focused useful characters useless if you are in a fight, most of my groups have played the 'only human' pidgeon wholing game so the mortals know that the supernaturals underestimate them.
In most of the campaigns I have been in the pure mortals have sucked or have been contact focused useful characters useless if you are in a fight, most of my groups have played the 'only human' pidgeon wholing game so the mortals know that the supernaturals underestimate them. When it comes to certain things there are moments when fate point stacking makes no sense certain levels of speed and certain levels of strength which should be impossible for a human regardless of how many fate points they roll. I do not care if you are spending 5 fate points on it or not a pure mortal with average strength cannot throw a truck at someone or run at the speed of a Lamborghini.
Focus fire, man! Focus fire.
I know that it goes against the grain for many RPers, but FATE games are really a team effort.
With 4 pure mortal folks, if everyone stacks an aspect the first round, the the next 3 players stack an aspect too, that is 7 free tags that the last player can use for an attack.
+14 to an attack shift ain't no joke. Especially when the last player uses all of his or her fate chip in the attack too.
4 more fate chips on personal aspects or a scene aspect would be + 22 shifts to the PC's attack.
If the PC rolled a 4 shift attack to guns, and was firing a 2 shift pistol, that would be a 28 shift attack. With a pistol. From a mortal human.
Leetsauce
You're forgetting about a superb guns skill.
If I end up GMing, I know that the easiest way to dial back on that power for magic characters is to have more than 1 big bad, and to include mortal enemies.
Can't blast a mortal, and can't use everything up in one shot if there are 5+ bad guys around.
:)
Blasting a mortal is a really heavy handed use of evocation. You'd get better results with a "suffocate till unconscious" grapple
I think that simply spending the fate points for the +2 may be less effective than using them creatively for declarations. That may not do direct damage, but could have far more ability to turn the tide.
Used that way, the impact of a pure mortal might be on par, even if the raw shifts of damage per exchange can not be compared.
Unfortunately I can't think of a good way to compare them without some large ensemble of test cases.
As a Note (this was talked about in the Sponsored magic thread as well); YS288 Bottom paragraph of the right-hand Column essentially states that you can only incur One Sponsor debt per Roll and that Debt can only be used to Tag an Aspect, not give an automatic +2 on the roll. So no more grabbing 4 points of Sponsor Debt for +8 to the roll! Of course a truly forgiving (and possibly very drunk) GM may allow it anyway, tailor your game as you like. (Don't be shocked, I DO read rules).
If had made a maneuver for "head cut off" and then invoked it, I could have predicted that this GM would not have gone for it.
See "The Dark Powers Are Always Willing To Help" on page 289
See "The Dark Powers Are Always Willing To Help" on page 289
Ah I see thank you. And natch the description doesn't actually limit you to Dark Powers allowing it, though I would. Light Powers would rather you help yourself! Though in this case it's sort of a grayish power...well maybe reddish...would that count? 8)
And thus more rules confusion is added.
I think its kind of funny discussing Power level in a role-playing game. Sure, any wizard could crank out 25+ on a Spell-casting Roll on a regular basis, but should you do it every time? No. Why? Well because then the GM will have to start creating challenges so bad-add and in such numbers that all the other non-caster characters are getting turned to pudding when the bad guys sneeze.As I stated in another thread, mortal enemies or numerous lesser supernatural enemies keep a wizard from blowing everything in one shot.
Sure, the GM COULD use a bunch of lesser-powered bad guys but while the caster is taking out the baddest of them again his non-caster allies are getting their butts handed to them again.
A smart caster would conserve his energies and make sure his allies will make it through the fight in as close to one piece as possible. Or find alternative uses for magic other than Blasting everything in sight....which after the first 10 or so times of doing that it gets boring, not just for the GM or the player in question but for the rest of the players as well.See above for motivations.
"Oh crap a dragon!"
"No worries Fred will get it, we'll just stand over here and watch."
*yawn*
"Is it over yet?"
Point being that its a GAME and its meant to be fun for everyone playing, including the GM who has spent hours crafting a fun scenario and challenging opponents only to see them melt away in an eye-blink because someone who could overdo things but didn't really need to decided to go ahead anyway.
ANY system breaks when someone sees a way to exploit a system and goes for broke. The systems don't break if they aren't abused and having played or run probably a few hundred game sin my nearly 30 years of gaming30 years of gaming doesn't mean anything. Someone can do something badly for 30 years. I personally didn't see anything that particularly wowed me from my gm other than a serious lack of social skills.
I think I can say that with some authority. Though there ARE systems that are built to be broken and playing with that kind of power is fun because everyone is doing it. In a game like the Dresden Files the emphasis is on Role-Play, heroic role-play to be sure, but Role-play.
To Quote Ben Parker; "With great power comes great responsibility"Yup - kind of like when someone is leading a group they should not chastise one member in front of the group - especially when this GM never bothered to talk about power levels or that sort of thing beforehand.
But hey, for folks that want to play in high-powered, building leveling games and have a group that wants to do that more power to you and have fun! That's what the game is all about!Exactly. Likewise to boring vampire larps with the occasional wizard.
As a Note (this was talked about in the Sponsored magic thread as well); YS288 Bottom paragraph of the right-hand Column essentially states that you can only incur One Sponsor debt per Roll and that Debt can only be used to Tag an Aspect, not give an automatic +2 on the roll. So no more grabbing 4 points of Sponsor Debt for +8 to the roll! Of course a truly forgiving (and possibly veryNot thoroughly. As someone stated above me, this is not true.
drunk) GM may allow it anyway, tailor your game as you like. (Don't be shocked, I DO read rules).
DFRPG has a steep learning curve so getting everyone up to speed is not going to be fast or easy especially for folks who have been used to entirely different sets of mechanics that aren't nearly so flexible.
Ouch bear, that seems like a harsh response. It seems to me that 1. Ren was responding to the OP, and not necessarily your specific post. And 2. That you had a terrible GM. I'm sorry.
In the future, I will either GM myself, or have a good relationship with my GM. Otherwise I will not play.
Yeah I don't hold any real ill will towards anyone, but it was a terrible experience- especially for my first time gaming.
A GM isn't a writer, trying to get people to read his story.Agreed. I tend to think of GM as instigator...and not always a nice one! ;D Drop 'em in the pot and stir...see what happens.
Agreed. I tend to think of GM as instigator...and not always a nice one! ;D Drop 'em in the pot and stir...see what happens.
I have to agree completely with that. While I'm not currently playing in a DV game (I'm up next as GM in rotations of who runs the game in my group, so hopefully soon), I'm in two other games a week. And my least favorite is my Saturday game. We have 4-5 PCs there every week, and while I generally like all the characters and the setting is interesting, the GM always gives us leads and then nothing happens. We don't really progress the story or figure things out. Things just resolve as a matter of fact. The only reason I continue is that I like spending the time with my friends whom I wouldn't get to see otherwise due to IRL constraints.Games like that can be tedious. But does nothing happen in session b/c the GM is trying to keep you on the rails or because he's running a more sandbox style game the players aren't actively driving the story? Lack of story development isn't always the GM's fault.
A GM isn't a writer, trying to get people to read his story. Well, not just a writer. He has to be able to engage his players and work with them in a way that lets everyone have a good time. Otherwise, what's the point?