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The Dresden Files => DFRPG => Topic started by: JCaps on March 02, 2011, 06:00:58 AM
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My character's High Concept revolves around battling Red Court vamps, and as such many aspects of his character are centered on specializing him to fight them. I was wondering how the Reds' "unarmored belly" catch would be used in actual gameplay. Simply stating "I'm attacking their stomach to meet their catch" seems more than a little overpowered, since any successful attack would essentially render them cut off to most of their supernatural powers.
The only thing me and my GM have managed to come up with is, taking into account that these are supposed to be reasonably badass individuals and shouldn't be able to be slaughtered in the dozens, is a stunt that grants the character the option of, after a successful Weapons hit (tailored to his personal weapon preference), spending a fate point to slice the blood-bladder and deprive the vamp of more or less all its Inhuman Toughness, Strength, Speed, etc. The required fate point ensures that it can't be over-employed, making sure each Red Court doesn't become a total pushover.
If anyone else has other ideas on how to work their "unarmored belly" catch into gameplay rules, I'd appreciate the input.
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Even if the catch were avoidable simply by knowing about it, only the Toughness powers would be voided
Strength and Speed powers don't have catches
Personally, I don't think it would require a stunt to target the weak spot, but simply knowledge of it's presence
ie. change it from a stunt to a Lore declaration (once it's established that you know about it, I wouldn't require rolls in the future)
a related stunt might allow you an extra free tag per scene on aspects related to the knowledge of weak points
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However, if the vampire is now drained of its blood, I see this as an issue with their Feeding Dependency, which in the Our World book (Pg. 86) is said to affect the following powers: Inhuman Strength, Inhuman Speed, Inhuman Recovery, and Inhuman Toughness.
In addition, in Your Story (Pg. 185) under the "Catch" section, it states that "Any Recovery powers you have will not speed up the recovery from an injury sourced from something that bypasses the Catch." Thereby, an attack satisfying the catch would invalidate their Inhuman Recovery as well, at the very least.
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true
forgot about that part
I'd recommend paying attention to the 'hard enough' clause of their weakness, and say, then, that this (the loss of blood as fuel for their powers) is the product of a consequence of sufficient magnitude (probably at least a moderate consequence)
so:
succeed (or have previously succeeded) on a Lore Declaration that you know about the weakness
spend a Fate point to tag the resultant aspect so that any successful hits the weak spot, bypassing the toughness powers and having the potential to nerf their powers
any resultant consequences get themed appropriately; sufficient consequences nerf the vamp's powers by way of a Compel
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Thats not how feeding dependency works. It only comes up after an encounter. At the end of the encounter you make a discipline roll versus a difficulty of the total refresh cost of powers tied to your feeding dependency, that you used in the encounter, to see if you can clear your stress track.
Thats all it means when a power is tied to feeding dependency.
As far as the bellies, I'd just let people make called shots to the belly, with a penalty for the called shot and an even bigger penalty if the RCV still has its flesh mask on. There are two reasons for this. 1) Its not hard to overcome a vampires catch to begin with. 2) the description of RCVs in the novels made that weakness pretty obvious before it ever even came up.
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True, but I'm wondering if the catch is almost too easy. That, and the feeding dependency rules are alright for a player controlled character, but when it comes to draining an enemy NPC, tallying everything up after a scene just doesn't cut it.
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Thats not how feeding dependency works. It only comes up after an encounter. At the end of the encounter you make a discipline roll versus a difficulty of the total refresh cost of powers tied to your feeding dependency, that you used in the encounter, to see if you can clear your stress track.
Thats all it means when a power is tied to feeding dependency.
The issue comes not from the content of the Feeding Dependency 'power', but from OW's generic-RCV' "weakness" section
As far as the bellies, I'd just let people make called shots to the belly, with a penalty for the called shot and an even bigger penalty if the RCV still has its flesh mask on. There are two reasons for this. 1) Its not hard to overcome a vampires catch to begin with. 2) the description of RCVs in the novels made that weakness pretty obvious before it ever even came up.
what does that 'called shot' do and how is it accomplished?
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Simply allowing an attack to get through their toughness and perhaps nullify their recovery is all well and good, but I was looking for something that would emulate the effect that gutting the RCV's had in the case files, focusing more on the description given in their Weakness section of the OW book (85) of "Additionally, their bellies are a vulnerable point; strike them correctly and hard enough, and all the blood they’ve consumed spills out, often leaving them too weak to fight." Bypassing a catch doesn't really seem to pack the power that "leaving them too weak to fight" implies.
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simple solution:
'hard enough' = 'inflicting a sufficient consequence'
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"Additionally, their bellies are a vulnerable point; strike them correctly and hard enough, and all the blood they’ve consumed spills out, often leaving them too weak to fight." Bypassing a catch doesn't really seem to pack the power that "leaving them too weak to fight" implies.
Often leaving them too weak to fight means that it doesn't always leave them too weak to fight. This means that most RCVs will concede if a gut shot inflicts a consequence (all other effects of a gut shot can be handled as said consequence).
That, and the feeding dependency rules are alright for a player controlled character, but when it comes to draining an enemy NPC, tallying everything up after a scene just doesn't cut it.
Absolutely disagree. NPCs run on the same rules as PCs. They aren't special. This isn't D&D, where every opponent exists to be mowed down in the fight and never seen again. And if we are talking about nameless mooks then who cares how easy they are to kill? They exist solely to be cut down enmass.
what does that 'called shot' do and how is it accomplished?
My bad. What I meant was more along the lines of, Red Court Vamps already have an implied Aspect of "Weak belly"(Its part of their high concept). Any player can make a Lore based assessment (or just be told) to get a tag on that aspect. You invoke the aspect for effect (the effect being to satisfy the catch). From then on, anyone whos seen it can invoke the aspect by spending fate. For some reason I couched that in terminology from other games.
The red court belly is effectively no different than staking a Black court vamp.
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Absolutely disagree. NPCs run on the same rules as PCs. They aren't special. This isn't D&D, where every opponent exists to be mowed down in the fight and never seen again. And if we are talking about nameless mooks then who cares how easy they are to kill? They exist solely to be cut down enmass.
Not really, I would like to think that NPCs are run on the same rules as PCs, but some NPCs get to cheat.
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My group had a few encounters with RCV. We used the Aim and Called Shot rules for targeting their bellies. That bypasses their toughness and recovery powers, and if the RCV take consequences you can invoke for effect to say that their blood supply is drained and that they are taken out.
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My group had a few encounters with RCV. We used the Aim and Called Shot rules for targeting their bellies. That bypasses their toughness and recovery powers, and if the RCV take consequences you can invoke for effect to say that their blood supply is drained and that they are taken out.
I'm familiar with the aim rules (manoeuvre to place an "In My Sights" aspect or something similar). But what're the called shots rules? I'm not familiar with them.
-EF
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I'm familiar with the aim rules (manoeuvre to place an "In My Sights" aspect or something similar). But what're the called shots rules? I'm not familiar with them.
-EF
YS 210. Though to make an attack bypass toughness powers, I'd say you need to Invoke it For Effect with an attack rather than just Invoking for a +2 bonus (that's just my opinion though).
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The rule that seems to make the most sense to me is treating the "unarmored belly" as an aspect to be tagged or invoked, no argument there. After it becomes clear that the character is facing a RCV, and assuming he has at some point made the Lore check or otherwise become aware of the blood-bladder weakness, he tags or invokes that aspect (I'd say on a successful hit), to threaten the draining of their blood and the loss of most of their inhuman powers. Badass, important vamps would be able to buy out of the compel, peons would be screwed.
Aiming and Called Shots seem like good mechanisms for doing solid damage and bypassing their inhuman toughness, and I'd definitely use it as a way to even the field just a tad without being forced to spend fate points. I still like having heavier-hitting option too, though, for when things get hairy and you need to incapacitate a RCV as quickly as possibly, like Harry, Michael, and Thomas at the vampire ball. Fate point cost still limits its repetitive use without making it a total silver bullet against Bigger Bads.
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I'd still advise only letting it cancel toughness powers, instead of taking away all their inhuman powers. That would be insanely powerful. The vague flavor text can be emulated easily enough by having most RCV's (the nameless lackeys), just concede the fight if an attack bursts their bloodsack (enough to give them a consequence to that effect, which would take out most peons anyway), without the added possibility of a good shot leaving an ancient and major NPC completely powerless. Because even if the NPC wants to buy out (which he may not have the refresh to do at all), a Pure Mortal, or "low power" PC could easily up the ante to the maximum 3 fate (which the NPC almost certainly can't afford), and reduce the whole encounter (and maybe the whole case) to a single roll.
Also, I'd personally give the RCV a +2 to the defense roll if he still has his flesh mask on (its hard to target what you can't see, and the vamp can shift around inside the mask).
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I'm familiar with the aim rules (manoeuvre to place an "In My Sights" aspect or something similar). But what're the called shots rules? I'm not familiar with them.
-EF
I dont have the books in front of me right now, but its placing a maneuver on the target basically. You hit the RCV in the belly, and place an aspect on him...like a "Ruptured blood sack" aspect which you can tagg or invoke for effect...or to get a straight reroll or +2 bonus on your next attack.
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I think you should be able to cancel the catch just by saying that your aiming for it, but considering gutting someone is at least severe argueably an extreme concequence I do think you could use the aspect 'gutted' to compel for effect a hunger test which if they fail they lose thier powers in line with feeding dependancy.
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Would it be acceptable for anyone to make it a consequence (say, moderate, depending on what people want to do) that can then be either Invoked for bypassing the catch, or Compelled to just take them out of the fight? Honestly, the way they books are written they would likely concede at that point anyway, but that does seem like a simple solution.
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Making it a consequence doesn't really make sense. All of the side effects of bursting the blood bladder are flavor text that can be covered by consequences, but for overcoming the catch all you have to do is aim for the stomach. It says right in their write up, "no armor on belly".
By making it a consequence you're saying that they have armor on the belly until you burst the bladder, which is not how its portrayed in the books.
The easiest way is to make a called shot, or make it an assessment based on their high concept, either way the rules for it are about the same.
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My personal idea was if you knew about the red court vampires weakness you could aim at it in a standard attack, the reason that concequences came into it was for the effect of causing the red vampire to loose all its blood rather than bypassing the armour which I think you can do just by saying you are attacking the weakened stomach.
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I was responding to the post immediately preceding mine.
But, the, "just say so" approach doesn't really seem like a good fix to me. Its basically allowing anyone who's ever fought an RCV (or can make an obvious logical inference from their description) to take away all the bad guys powers just by saying they do.
And in any case, any of these systems for that side effect are silly because 1) that side effect was flavor text, not in their write up, and 2) all the systems that are being proposed ignore that same flavor text. The text says
"their bellies are a vulnerable point; strike them correctly and hard enough, and all the blood they’ve consumed spills out, often leaving them too weak to fight."
It doesn't say "severely weakened". It doesn't say "Loses all his powers" (which assumes we're playing Vampire the Requiem, where you have to spend blood to use powers. Thats not how feeding works in Dresden. If they exert themselves, they get hungry. It has nothing to do with using that blood to fuel their powers). It says "too weak to fight", if you're too weak to fight you were taken out, or you conceded. There's no way to be too weak to fight and not have lost the fight.
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However you do it, I see the effects as being limited to:
You have bypassed the armour.
and that the vampire will *have* to feed if it wants funky powers in the next scene. Not this scene, next scene.
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However you do it, I see the effects as being limited to:
You have bypassed the armour.
and that the vampire will *have* to feed if it wants funky powers in the next scene. Not this scene, next scene.
I agree with you but I believe forcing an enemy to have roll discipline against hunger this scene is within the realms of possibility for invoking for effect it is then their choice if they want to pay a fate point not to do so.
I think a seasoned fighter of red court vampires would allways aim for their weakness because that is logical and that is the reason why the red court catch is so high.
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I'll second (or third, or whatever) the idea that going for the gut would negate their armor value. If you need a tag/invocation to hit it no one ever would, since you'd essentially be spending a FP to negate a -1 to your calculated damage, which is less beneficial than a +2 on your attack.
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I think I'd tend to treat the RCV's belly as a facet of their High Concept. Basically, it allows anyone who is 'in the know' (which might require a Lore check) to spend Fate at part of an attack to invoke the RCV's HC. Doing so would generate the usual +2 for invoking aspects for an attack, but the attack would ignore Toughness powers. Any consequences generated should reflect the damage done to the RCV's belly, and such consequences would not be eligible for Recovery powers. Note that the RCV would get the Fate point spent (due to his aspect being invoked), and that his powers (including Tougness and Recovery) would remain active against any other attacks (though tagging the consequence to prevent use of Feeding-related powers would be reasonable). Hunger-related HC compels might also become appropriate.
Summary: The attacker is exploiting the RCV's flaw to get more than the usual benefit from an aspect invocation, and the RCV is getting the Fate point to compensate them for the complication their flaw imposes on them.
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I kind of have a problem with people having to spend fate points to decide the outcome of thier own actions, I think that a player shouldn't have to spend a fate point (luck) to attack the belly and if they attack the belly this will bypass the red vampire catch as the belly is part of the red vampires catch. It seems asking for fate point to attack the belly is the same as asking a fate point for your sword being made of iron to hurt fae as your sword is made of iron regardless of whether you spend a fate point or not.
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I kind of have a problem with people having to spend fate points to decide the outcome of thier own actions, I think that a player shouldn't have to spend a fate point (luck) to attack the belly and if they attack the belly this will bypass the red vampire catch as the belly is part of the red vampires catch. It seems asking for fate point to attack the belly is the same as asking a fate point for your sword being made of iron to hurt fae as your sword is made of iron regardless of whether you spend a fate point or not.
Yes, but why would anyone *not* attack the belly? And what would be the downside in always doing so? In other games, there would be some penalty to hit associated with the called shot, but there really isn't a called shot mechanic in the game. There is, however, a High Concept which carries a weakness, and the rules do allow players to invoke other player's aspects in appropriate situations ... like this one. In effect, the knowledge of the RCVs weakness gives you a new option on how to spend your Fate points ... and also makes spending that Fate more powerful than normal. At the same time, players can't hit the belly *every time*, because there's a limit to how much Fate they are willing to spend to do so.
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I think the limitation on you aiming for belly all the time is the the vampire can invoke its own high concept to defend against this type of attack. If you allways attack the same area all the time then the opponent could either invoke thier red court vampire aspect to protect their weakspot or make a decleration that the enemy is allways attacking the same spot and invoke that for a +2.