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The Dresden Files => DFRPG => Topic started by: Obsid on May 19, 2011, 01:23:05 PM
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When I was reading through the books, I couldn't help but notice how easy it is to break toughness. I tried searching these forums and saw similar ideas but it didn't quite answer my question.
As far as I understand the RAW, this works. Am I wrong?
Jack is a wizard or other magic scholar, we'll leave his stats alone for now. Jack wants to be more than human, without being inhuman. His research allowed him to find ways to enhance himself, in game terms these amount to toughness-type powers. He compiles a collection of his research, exposing The Catch of a lot of creatures (many of which were already exposed) and spreading the work through the White Council and the Paranet (why not? They're convenient). In this work he lists his findings on human-modification, ideal ways craft it and what he would if he could succeed the process.
High Concept, Clever Superhero.
Jack succeeds his research. He succeeds it very well, achieving Mythic Recovery, Toughness, and Physical Immunity.
The Catch to the Mythics is Obsidian. Common and public knowledge +4 each.
The Catch to the Immunity is non-Obsidian. Specific, Common, and Public Knowledge +6.
Total cost. -20. Total refund. +14. Net cost. -6.
Alternatively.
The Catch to the Mythics is non-Obsidian. Specific, Common and public knowledge +6 each.
The Catch to the Immunity is Obsidian. Common, and Public Knowledge +4.
The Stacked-Catch to the Immunity is a sharpened-edge. Common, and public Knowledge. +4.
Total cost -20. Total refund +20. Net cost -1 (minimum outlined in The Catch).
In the first instance, Jack sacrifices a reasonable amount of free will, but less than half of what he should. If he's hit by Obsidian, nothing happens, if he's hit by anything else, he's minimally effected.
In the second instance, Jack sacrifices virtually no free will. If he's hit by Obsidian, he's minimally effected. If he's hit by anything else, nothing happens. Either way my spidey sense is tingling about this.
If I come up with anything else that I'm worried about, I'll post it here. But for now, am I wrong about this? Does this seem broken to anyone else?
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Setting aside that I think your math for your Mythic Toughness and Recovery are wrong in the first place, there is also the following:
A character with a Stacked Catch that inverts the conditions of the first Catch is strongly discouraged. ..., and if it did, one of both Catches would be rightly valued as worth zero.
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First, from the description of Physical Immunity, last paragraph:
A character with a Stacked Catch that
that inverts the conditions of the first Catch
is strongly discouraged. A Physical Immunity
to Fire layered on top of Supernatural
Toughness that can only be pierced by Fire
just never happens in reality, and if it did, one
or both Catches would be rightly valued as
worth zero.
Second:
You only ever get the Refund ONCE.
It is subtracted from the Total Cost of your toughness powers, not the individual cost
Mythic Toughness -6
Mythic Recovery -6
the Catch +6 (Common, Known, Specific)
Physical Immunity -8
Stacked Catch (Common, Known, Specific) +6
Total Cost -8
If you have multiple catches for your toughness powers you only get one refund.
Mythic Toughness -6
The Catch A +6 (Common, Known, Specific)
Mythic Recovery -6
The Catch B +0 (Common, Known, Specific) <- no refund here
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1
You can't manipulate your stacked catches to so one of them negates the other. A disadvantage that isn't one isn't worth any points.
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For the second example, you've misused that mechanics to stacked catches. An example of how stacked catches are suppose to work:
Supernatural toughness [-4]
The catch (Obsidian)
+2 Common item
+1 researchable
Immunity to fire (-8)
Stacked catch:
+2 Specific immunity
+2 'not fire' is common
+1 researchable
So your total cost is -4.
You don't stack catches on a single power, you only stack catches when you have both a toughness power and immunity, and you gets points back for both of the catches.
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First, from the description of Physical Immunity, last paragraph:
A character with a Stacked Catch that
that inverts the conditions of the first Catch
is strongly discouraged. A Physical Immunity
to Fire layered on top of Supernatural
Toughness that can only be pierced by Fire
just never happens in reality, and if it did, one
or both Catches would be rightly valued as
worth zero.
Second:
You only ever get the Refund ONCE.
It is subtracted from the Total Cost of your toughness powers, not the individual cost
Mythic Toughness -6
Mythic Recovery -6
the Catch +6 (Common, Known, Specific)
Physical Immunity -8
Stacked Catch (Common, Known, Specific) +6
Total Cost -8
If you have multiple catches for your toughness powers you only get one refund.
Mythic Toughness -6
The Catch A +6 (Common, Known, Specific)
Mythic Recovery -6
The Catch B +0 (Common, Known, Specific) <- no refund here
Thank you! I don't like it when the center does not hold.
I was actually wondering if you only got the refund once, but I couldn't find any evidence to indicate that. To the contrary, the part in Red-Court Infected template seemed to imply that you got the refund each time.
Toughness abilities, the Catch (page 185)
is sunlight, holy stuff, and a weak spot in
the belly, valued at +1 or +2 depending
on whether –2 or –4 of refresh is spent
on those abilities.
I did read that last paragraph but it seems I misread it.
Thanks again, if I see anything else that worries me I'll post it here.
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[qoute] This will give you a discount on the total cost of any and all Toughness category powers that you take... [/quote]
Emphasis mine, from YS185.
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I was actually wondering if you only got the refund once, but I couldn't find any evidence to indicate that.
YS:185 upper right hand corner
You may specify more than one Catch if you so
choose, but you can only receive the discount
once; take the best one.
To the contrary, the part in Red-Court Infected template seemed to imply that you got the refund each time.
Toughness abilities, the Catch (page 185)
is sunlight, holy stuff, and a weak spot in
the belly, valued at +1 or +2 depending
on whether –2 or –4 of refresh is spent
on those abilities.
That has to do with the minimum cost of -1 for Toughness powers.
If you only spend -2 on toughness powers, then you can get a +1 refund at most, even if the catch is actually worth +2.
Once you spend enough on toughness, in this case -4, the complete refund is given, +2 in this case.
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So then...
Mythic Toughness and Recovery. -12
Physical Immunity. -8.
Total cost. -20.
The Catch. Non-Obsidian. +6 (if properly disseminated) (MT and MR)
Stacked Catch. Obsidian. +0. (PI)
Net cost. -14. Still powerful, but not ridiculously cheap.
Alternatively.
The Catch. Non-Obsidian. +6.
Stacked Catch. Non-blades. +6.
Net cost. -8. Vulnerable to obsidian blades. Resistant to non-obsidian blades. Immune to non-bladed obsidian (like anyone would use that as a weapon) and all other sources. Powerful and cost-efficient.
Do these work?
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You only get the last +2 on the catch if your power only protects you against something specific, like fire, magic, obsidian, etc. If your power protects out from everything but that thing, then you get zero points for that part of the catch.
So it would look like:
Mythic toughness
The catch (obsidian)
+0 everything but obsidian
+2 common
+2 known to everyone
Physical immunity to bladed weapons
Stacked catch
+2 specific thing
+2 common
+2 known to everyone
So you have absolute protection from bladed weapons, even when they are made out of obsidian, you have high toughness vs anything that is not obsidian, and you are vulnerable to obsidian, as long is it's not bladed, so stuff like an obsidian mace, obsidian bullets, obsidian boulders, red hot obsidian dust, etc will work just fine.
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[done editing]
Or, if your powers looked like this:
Mythic toughness vs obsidian
The catch
+2 specific thing
+2 common
+2 known to everyone
(note you'd need another toughness power, or you'd only get +5 for this catch, since you can't lower your cost down to less than one, and I think, but am not sure, that immunity is counted separately.)
Physical immunity to bladed weapons
Stacked catch
+2 specific thing
+2 common
+2 known to everyone
Then you would have immunity to any sort of bladed weapon, be very tough against blunt obsidian weapons, and be quite killable by, say, a sharp stick or an iron mace.
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So then...
Mythic Toughness and Recovery. -12
Physical Immunity. -8.
Total cost. -20.
The Catch. Non-Obsidian. +6 (if properly disseminated) (MT and MR)
Stacked Catch. Obsidian. +0. (PI)
Net cost. -14. Still powerful, but not ridiculously cheap.
Catches cancel each other out.
Hence Highly discouraged due to munchkinism.
And they should probably both be zero.
total cost should be 20
It would be a lot cheaper to simply get Physical immunity and take a +0 catch. which has a comparable ingame effect. That is to be technically immune to all harm.
Alternatively.
The Catch. Non-Obsidian. +6.
Stacked Catch. Non-blades. +6.
Net cost. -8. Vulnerable to obsidian blades. Resistant to non-obsidian blades. Immune to non-bladed obsidian (like anyone would use that as a weapon) and all other sources. Powerful and cost-efficient.
Do these work?
This one would have both catches broken by someone using his fists.
Fists are non-Obsidian, and therefore break the Catch.
Fists are also non-Blades, and therefore break the Stacked Catch.
Bullets would break both catches as well.
As would baseball bats, tonfas, boots, magic etc.
You are however quite resistant to blades made of obsidian.
Basically you have the catches backwards here :)
I see Crusher_bob has put up a proper writeup, so i'll skip that here ;-)
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Yes, it was quite the facepalm when I realized my mistake.
MT MR Catch Obsidian. +4.
IP stacked catch blades. +4.
Would make 12 the minimum cost then? (going by the intent and not the brain-dead letters of my previous example).
A tangent question. Wizard's Constitution is replaced by any other toughness-type power. So does a non-wizard character with inhuman recovery have long life as well? Does a wizard keep is life span when the power is replaced?
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A tangent question. Wizard's Constitution is replaced by any other toughness-type power. So does a non-wizard character with inhuman recovery have long life as well? Does a wizard keep is life span when the power is replaced?
Yes and yes. That's sorta implied.
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Living a long time is a [-0] power, you don't have to pay any points for it, though the GM may make you give up the pure mortal bonus, since it's technically a power.
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Okay, next question.
Magic Wizard by night, Computer Wizard by day. Militiaman during the weekends.
Warden Erik never got a Sword. But who needs it, when you can shoot magic bullets out of a semi automatic rifle?
And all he needs is magic-barrier wards. A circle so simple even Butters can do it. Case all the technical parts with magic circles. Commando Wizard Erik. I don't know if that's OP in game terms, but it sounds like it should be.
Does this work?
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Don't think you can carry mobile circles, for one. And how do you put them back up again in time to not get shot. Plus the bullet would break the circle.
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Don't think you can carry mobile circles, for one. And how do you put them back up again in time to not get shot. Plus the bullet would break the circle.
For the guns, I'm thinking of slightly more complex wards. Three dimensional, spheres, cylinders, and hollow cylinders mostly. The sections where the bullets go wouldn't be warded. A custom built weapon can be made to make the necessary wards as simple as possible. But you're right about the mobility. Any way to get around that?
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wards need thresholds. so not really.
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The general consensus is that if you inscribe a circle on something mobile it doesn't work properly. Better potential examples include inscribing a circle on the interior hood of your car so it isn't affected (I'm scaling up so it's easier to deal with on the conceptual level of being mobile at all). Given that the magical principles of circles (as they have generally been presented to us) include them as immutable barriers, making them mobile disrupts their "essence." Circles work by grounding out and limiting movement, if they themselves are moving it's kinda hard for them to limit movement and to remain grounded.
(I should note that while the analogy of circles as "force-fields" against magic is reasonable, when you start expanding that analogy to assume other things work because a force-field would work you run into problems.)
Finally, if you wanted to make a character who's weapons all worked fine when magic was around either do a homebrew power "Technomancer" or a homebrew Item of Power "Holy Hand Grenade of Antioch" (other other special weapons that you devise a back story for). It can work in game terms, and I think is a better solution than the circle man concept.
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For the guns, I'm thinking of slightly more complex wards. Three dimensional, spheres, cylinders, and hollow cylinders mostly. The sections where the bullets go wouldn't be warded. A custom built weapon can be made to make the necessary wards as simple as possible. But you're right about the mobility. Any way to get around that?
If you can convince a GM in a particular game to allow such a thing, please enjoy the opportunity to combine magic and technology in this way.
The DFRPG setting, however, is pretty clear about the oil-and-water nature of mortal magic and technology. Mobile circles etched in micro-runes all over a weapon seems clever, but there isn't really a way to make this work with the precedents established in the canon, such as the immobility of magic circles. Simply warding everything but where the bullets would go would seem, even to me (not a savvy gun nut) impractical, one of those "weakest link" situations where the few moving parts which couldn't be warded would still be hex-vulnerable, and therefore still able to cause the whole weapon to jam up.
A rules-light way to accomplish some of what you seem to want would be to set up one of your Aspects to reflect your particular affinity for technology, which you can tag for a bonus to resist hexing, or simply to Declare that a particular thing is going to work right around you in a given Scene. A GM might also allow a Stunt for a bonus to Discipline checks to avoid hexing things. But ultimately, hexing is a liability of having mortal spellcaster powers, and the GM is basically Compelling a spellcaster's High Concept to make it happen. Playing a mortal spellcaster in DFRPG means that someday, somehow, Murphy's Law is going to come into play, when you don't have a Fate Point to buy it off, and there just can't be a truly foolproof way of preventing it.
Unless, of course, your GM and fellow players buy into it. But that is a table decision, and not anything that could get established as precedent with anyone holding to the canonical DFRPG setting.
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The DFRPG setting is pretty clear about certain things except when they are not.
It is pretty clear that magic and tech do not mix, except that some people seem to be able to make use of technology without much trouble.
The setting is pretty clear that mortal magic have trouble hurting Outsiders except when said mortal magic user is Harry Dresden. (Harry doesn't even need an Aspect to represent his ability to take down Outsiders, cool no?)
There are quite a few instances of "exceptions" to stuff that are "pretty clear".
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With regards to the Catch question, you should consider that as with everything else on your character sheet (aspects, etc), what you put down as your Catch should be viewed as a vote of sorts as to how the game is run. By this, I mean that if write down a Catch and put a +4 next to it, then you are telling your GM that you fully expect that material to be used against you practically constantly. After all, you are saying that not only do most people (including those who want you dead, of course) know that obsidian is what hurts folk like you, but also that anyone who felt the need for obsidian weaponry can run down to the neighborhood sporting goods store to find some. This may not reflect reality, but by choosing your Catch value you are making it true for your game.
As to the mixing magic and technology question, I think devonapple is right on.
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Much thanks for all the help.
A few more questions... not really regarding Breaking a character but still regarding power balance.
First Question. Beast Form gives you access to a single alternate form and costs -1 refresh. True Shapeshifting gives you access to unlimited alternate forms and costs -4 refresh. How about a shape change that grants you a specific set of alternate forms. Like shapeshifting into a dog, choosing to be a anything from tiny puppy or a dogosaurus rex. Same race, same breed, just different sizes/features.
Next. For Supernatural Sense, how are the following senses.
1. Sense in Void. You can use your senses despite a lack of sense data, such as seeing in darkness, or smelling something normally odorless.
2. Sense in Excess. You can use your senses despite an otherwise overload of data. Such as seeing in blinding light, or hearing in a crowd.
3. See with Acuity. Your vision is better than normally possible for a human. You can see with extra precision, maybe even a larger range of the electromagnetic spectrum.
4. See Reality. You can see an illusion for what it is. You recognize if something has been transformed or otherwise disguised. This does not necessarily allow you to see through illusions, to recognize the normal form of something, or to see through mundane disguises.
5. Hear with Clarity. Your hearing is better than normally possible for a human. You can hear more clearly, maybe even higher or lower decibels than normal.
6. Hear Truth. When people talk, their words vibrate to you in a way that tells you how truthful they are being. This regards more with intent than the accuracy of what they say, so if someone tells you (and believes) that the ground is up, it seems truthful, but if a someone (like a faerie) speaks accurately in attempt to mislead you it strikes false.
7. Taste with Purity. Your taste is better than normally possible for a human. You can taste more strongly and possibly even more tastes than normal.
8. Taste Purity. Evil tastes bad. Holy tastes good. Innocence tastes like vanilla. Corruption adds flavor. You can taste the purity of anything you direct this sense toward. You have to be mentally aware of its location relative to you to do this (such as being able to see or feel it).
9. Touch with Sensitivity. Your tactile sense is better than normally possible for a human. You can feel a pea through a mattress, or the texture of things that might normally feel smooth.
10. Feel Presence. You can feel the presence of other creatures. The stronger their Presence the stronger you feel them.
11. Smell with Intensity. Your sense of smell is better than normally possible for a human, or even most animals.
12. Smell Power. You can smell power the way other people smell fear. The type of power (money, magic, might, etc) determines the scent. (I imagine necromantic power would smell like rotting corpses and taste much the same)
I'm a bit worried that 1 might be a little over powered (since Seeing in Darkness would be part of that, and its listed as an example of sense options). If its possible to make it balance (such as by requiring the other odd numbered senses to work clearly) I'd like to hear opinions. I'm not sure if the other senses would be over powered or not but they don't really seem that way to me.
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Another important thing is "mmhmmm... and how did you acquire this particularresistance/immunity?" > "Oh magical research or something equally vague?" "mmhmmm...."then at some pointlater on you find out that you have brought out the wrath of the GM and apparently somehow bound to an outsider or something equally "fun"
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For your first question:
I'd allow a number of forms equal to the number of refresh spent on it. -2 is two forms, -3 is three, -4 is unlimited.