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The Dresden Files => DFRPG => Topic started by: JayTee on May 15, 2011, 10:31:48 PM
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After my disastrous attempt to make a Wizard, I scrapped that idea and decided to make a pure mortal (once again, I apologize for that the thread and my inept handling of it). So, here he is, my pure mortal
This is my first (official) character that i've built for the game, and would like people's feedback on it. Be merciless, its the only way i'll learn.
Name: Ryan Green
High Concept: Supernatural Surviver and Thriver
Template: Pure Mortal.
Trouble: My problems are my own.
Aspects: Trial by Fire; Prep and skill trump magic; From all walks of life; Crouching Moron, Hidden Badass; Don't mess with me and mine.
Skills:
5 Superb - Alertness
4 Great - Athletics, Discipline
3 Good - Contacts, Resources, Endurance
2 Average - Lore, Scholarship, Deceit, Stealth
1 Fair - Conviction, Rapport, Empathy, Presence, Invetigation
Stunts:
Fast and Deadly Use Athletics for combat rolls, provided you are unarmed or useing a weapon that can be held in one hand.
Small Weapons Expert when using a weapon that can be held in one hand, inflict 2 extra stress.
Support Network +2 to getting a Tip Off regarding things that could have an impact on your life.
Be prepared +2 to declarations about having a wearable or pocket-sized object on hand.
Occultist +2 to Lore rolls made involving knowledge of magical defenses and countermeasures.
Trust your Knowledge use Alertness when making Declerarions or Assesments, so long as its something that could have been researched or read up on.
Social: 000
Physical: 0000
Mental: 000
Refresh: + 6 (pure mortal)
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Friends across the social spectrum - sounds good but you may want to say "from all walks of life"
Gives the Gm a chance to get you into high scoiety, slums, and everywhere in bewteen...also lets you have a bonus to contatcs everywhere also with a fate point.
Anticipate stunt and Custom Gear stunt - depending on your GM, they may not like those.
Sounds good to me otherwise. May want to come up with a way he'll react to finding out what the Accords are and how he'll deal with Wizards and minor practitioners as opposed to more obvious monsters...not necessarily in need of an aspect regarding it, but somethign to think about role play wise and may change decisions in game. "Hunters" are dangerous things to play in any system... sometimes you wind up hunting your own party members.
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This is perhaps my inexperience with the system, but the way you've phrased "All walks of life" is how I imagined "Friends across the social spectrum" to be used. How would the difference of phrasing have an impact?
I don't think the stunts will be an issue, but if worst comes to worst and I have to replace them would it be better to just take the extra Fate points or build a substitute stunt?
Dealing with Wizardly Shenanigans is represented in "Prep and Skill trump Magic", I figured that since a bullet to the head from 500 yards off takes care of the mage-types more easily than a creature, the stunt "Supernatural Anatomy" would be more useful. Does this make sense system/story wise?
On the subject of Hunters being an issue for their party members, I figure that would be an good story hook. He gets a tip that one of his allies is doing crazyfaced and has to either (depending on the GM's presentation) find the person who is framing his friends, or investigate if his friend really IS doing all the nastyness. Good idea/bad idea?
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This is perhaps my inexperience with the system, but the way you've phrased "All walks of life" is how I imagined "Friends across the social spectrum" to be used. How would the difference of phrasing have an impact?
I don't think the stunts will be an issue, but if worst comes to worst and I have to replace them would it be better to just take the extra Fate points or build a substitute stunt?
Dealing with Wizardly Shenanigans is represented in "Prep and Skill trump Magic", I figured that since a bullet to the head from 500 yards off takes care of the mage-types more easily than a creature, the stunt "Supernatural Anatomy" would be more useful. Does this make sense system/story wise?
On the subject of Hunters being an issue for their party members, I figure that would be an good story hook. He gets a tip that one of his allies is doing crazyfaced and has to either (depending on the GM's presentation) find the person who is framing his friends, or investigate if his friend really IS doing all the nastyness. Good idea/bad idea?
I was simply making sure you and your gm knew what to make of "all walks of like or social spectrum...the wording means little so long as the GM knows what it means.
stunts will likely be better, with enough compels the fate points will flow fast anyhow.
I didnt mean how you would fight them...i wondered if you saw them as something to hunt. Also will you hunt supernatural threats simply becasue they are/exist or do they have to be evil/do something wrong first?
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The Character is very much of the "lawful good" persuasion, sort of a combination of Doctor Who and Jason Born. So long as something isn't a threat to people, or can be solved an a way that leaves everyone happy, he's more than willing to try that method. For example, a lighting spirt that is eating the electricity of a hospital to survive would likely be moved to a place less threatening to mortals and has a nice surplus of electricity. On the other hand, a Black Court Vampire turning people left and right is going to get the "torches and pitchforks" treatment.
In short, he (and his government contacts) knows the supernatural is out there, but only the ones posing a threat are dealt with. The rest are largely ignored, or at least have an eye kept on them.
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This is perhaps my inexperience with the system, but the way you've phrased "All walks of life" is how I imagined "Friends across the social spectrum" to be used. How would the difference of phrasing have an impact?
You can look at the differences between the two Aspects. "All walks of life" could mean that he has broad experiences dealing with different kinds of people, it could also mean that people from different walks of life know him or of him good or bad. "Friends across the social spectrum" could mean those people that know him are friends, not guys bearing a grudge or negative stuff like that. So you may want to stick with "Friends across the social spectrum" if you want the Aspect to be more positive.
While wording can take a back seat as long as the GM and player are on the same page as to its meaning, sometimes the GM or player or even other players may take a new spin on its meaning based on the wording.
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That is a good point, when thinking of my Aspects I tired for something that could easily be compelled or invoked for good or ill. If I can't think of a few easy ways for my GM to compel "Friends across the social spectrum" I may exchange it for "From all walks of life" instead, thanks.
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All walks of life might also imply areas of expertise as well as social classes, which might be useful for hitting them up as contacts. (I do wonder if the Contacts skill ought to be higher).
Is "Crouching Moron, Hidden Badass one Aspect or two?" If the former, you're missing one, there should be seven.
How do you envisage "My Problems Are My Own" working? Do you have specific problems in mind, or are you after being surprised, but having a character who won't ask for help until things become near-untenably bad?
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Custom Gear and Anticipate look excessively powerful to me. I wouldn't allow them as stunts, and I'd be hesitant to allow them as powers.
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Modified the a few things based on suggestions. "My problems are my own" is a trouble that can be handled in whatever way is easiest for my GM, be it a long term issue or just a long series of surprises that we think would be a fun addition to the game. I can be very flexible with how my character gets played, so long as everyone is having fun!
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The 'Assault' stunt should probably be changed to 'Armed Arts' which is a skill straight out of the book. It allows two weapons (in your case, knives and clubs, which in turn would include bats and lead pipes) to be used with the Fists skill.
As to the rest ... well, you cerainly have a large base of skills, but I wonder if you will regret not having a 'speciality' skill at 5? (Note that I'm assuming you are playing a Submerged game based on the skill points spent.)
Also, you probably want to note that your refresh is 8 (again, assuming base 10 plus 2 for pure human). You might also want to consider a few more feats to give you that extra edge in what is likely to be a world filled with nasty things with lots of powers...
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The 'Assault' stunt should probably be changed to 'Armed Arts' which is a skill straight out of the book. It allows two weapons (in your case, knives and clubs, which in turn would include bats and lead pipes) to be used with the Fists skill.
I see Assault as a reskinned Extensive Training further limited to "urban" type weapons.
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Changed the stunt.
My main fear with skill-based RPs is that I'll overspecialize in one thing and be totally useless in others. He's got a combat focus to be sure, but I don't want him to be useless in anything other than that.
Refresh is something thats always been somewhat confusing for me to calculate. By my knowledge its 10 (Submerged level) + 2 for pure mortal, totaling 12, - 4 for each stunt, leaving him with +8, This correct?
As for the lack of other stunts, I'm fairly new to the game (haven't actually played yet) but from what I can tell a pure mortal's biggest advantage is their large refresh level. That, and I just do not have a confidant understanding of the system to buy the extra stunts.
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Have you thought about what said character would likely do to a "threat"? is he going to eliminate them? handcuff them? You might look for a stunt that helps you "deal" with them. The other question is if he's a Fist user, why have your guns so high? Or if he's a gun user.. why no stunts for that as well?
I personally tend to run a much smaller fate pool. I can always bring up one of my "interesting" aspects to get some during a game, so I can use them during a challenge. 8 floating seems like a boatload of potential stunts that could be alot more useful than a pile of fate in some circumstances.
As to the chracter being one dimensional... yes it does seem like that. But both the examples you listed are equally one trick ponies. With any character, there's a balance between being a focused professional, and a jack of all trades. How's your party set up? how easily can you as a player trust them to cover your weakspots? Are you one of the only character focused on combat? or one of 5?
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Thank you everyone for all your help, I believe its back to the drawing board for me and this character, but I appreciate you willing to take your time and help me. Your suggestions were most helpful and I will keep it in mind when I create my next character :)
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So, here he is, my new character!
Yes, I know all I did was change around his High Concept and skills and stunts, but I've got a good handle on how this guy thinks and acts so I don't want to change that.
My ultimate goal when making him was a Jack-of-all-trades type character, simply because my GM should be able to plan his/her games without having to worry too much about if my character can handle things or not. On the flip side his Stunts are somewhat focused on combat simply because if you're a Pure Mortal hanging around with the Supernatural something is going to want to eat you, or worse.
The two Stunts I'm worried about are Fast and Deadly and Trust your Knowledge. The former represents what happens if a character who lived a normal life was suddenly and irrevocably thrust into the Supernatural. He's going to lean through Trial by Fire just how vulnerable he is to some things out there. If he wants to stand a chance he's going to have to learn to strike fast and hard while making sure he's not cornered.
The Latter Stunt represents one of the major advantages Mortals have: Organization. Having been exposed to the Weird he's going to want every advantage he can get, so he'll likely do some research on a few of the more hard sciences that the mystical has a harder time affecting simply by existing.
So, that said, thoughts? Questions? Comments? Disparaging remarks about my looks?
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In my opinion, some of those stunts are overpowered. In general, a stunt is supposed to give you 2 shifts of benefit some of the time
"Fast and Deadly Use Athletics for combat rolls, provided you are unarmed or useing a weapon that can be held in one hand."
Basically, what you've done here is collapse four skills into one. With this stunt, there is really no reason to have Fists, Weapons, or Guns. And since Athletics is the default skill for defense, literally every roll for offense and defense is covered by one skill. Ok, you are slightly limited in that rifles and zweihanders aren't covered, but that's a fairly minor consideration. Consider that most skills list 4-6 trappings, thus when a stunt borrows a trapping it should gain about 20% of the utility of the (one) skill it borrows from.
How to fix this? Perhaps something along these lines:
Fast and Deadly: Whan a narration of the character's Weapons attack showcases his athletic prowess, Athletic complements Weapons. Alternately, if the character makes a Weapons attack after making a supplemental move, he can ignore the penalty for the supplemental move action.
With no more than a modest effort, this should allow you to claim a +1 on most of your weapons attack rolls, which is within reason for a stunt. (Note that the second option is only different than the first option in semantics.)
Small Weapons Expert when using a weapon that can be held in one hand, inflict 2 extra stress.
This translates to +2 damage whenever you attack with melee or ranged weapons (since you plan on using only one-handed weapons anyway). It needs to be re-worded to affect only one type of attack skill, and should either give you a +2 bonus *occasionally* or a +1 bonus routinely.
"Trust your Knowledge use Alertness when making Declerarions or Assesments, so long as its something that could have been researched or read up on."
This seems too broadly defined ... and really doesn't make much sense. What does Alertness have to do with memorization of facts, orthe capacity to trust in such knowledge? Based on your description of what you intended for the stunt, perhaps it would make more sense for the stunt to allow you to roll Contacts in place of Lore when performing Arcane Research? (Or mayby Scholarship for Academic research, I wasn't too clear on your wording...)
That's my opinion, at least, others may have different views.