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The Dresden Files => DFRPG => Topic started by: Shadowman17 on February 06, 2012, 03:52:05 AM
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So there's a player in my group that keeps getting on me about nerfing evocation. Specifically, he wants to restrict spell targeting and blocks. We're running a 9-refresh game with a skill cap of Superb, and I have a couple of wizards in my group. Both of them have Conviction and Discipline as their top skills, and each has one point of Refinement. They can both cast powerful evocations, and they hardly miss. Granted, we've been playing under the assumption that backlash helped targeting, but we've recently changed that. Most of the physical opposition I've had has been fairly fast, with Inhuman or Supernatural speed, but again, the wizards rarely miss unless they're trying something really big. In terms of their skills, I'd rather not restrict how they build their character as long as it seems reasonable (they won't suddenly have Claws at the next Major Milestone), but is something wrong when they rarely miss? Or are they supposed to aim that well?
With blocks, he wants to cut their effectiveness in half, essentially making a standard block cost as much as an armor effect. He had a character (who died today, in fact) that had an enchanted item with a 10-shift block with a large number of uses attached to it. Most things that went against it to damage him couldn't hit it, and his skill was high enough that he could avoid most maneuvers to disarm (until today). He thought that was too powerful, mostly because things couldn't punch through it and hit him.
This is the first game that I've ever GM'd, though we have been playing for a while now. Do I just need stronger opposition for wizards or is there a valid point here? Sorry if this doesn't make any sense/I am just being dumb. This hasn't really been an issue until recently, or at least not one that was brought to my attention. My personal theory is that I need to do a better job of tagging/invoking aspects when they're to my NPCs' advantage defensively, focusing less on directly dealing damage.
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Wizards are pretty darn strong. Maybe not as strong as they seem, though. I can think of two things that make them seem more powerful than they are.
1. It's very easy to make them stronger when you reinterpret the rules. Magic is complex and it can do almost anything, so it's easy to add capabilities to. You got a taste of this with the backlash targeting thing.
2. They are really easy to optimize. Making an optimized Evoker is as simple as peaking Conviction and Discipline and then pouring as much refinement as possible into one element. To focus that hard as a non-wizard requires a lot more work.
Even ignoring that, though, enchanted item blocks are probably stronger than they should be. I think that the best solution is to cap their power, not to halve it.
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Maybe try something a little tougher, that can take the hits from a couple of evocation spells without getting taken out, and forces them to take mental consequences if they want to keep casting. Or maybe larger numbers of enemies, to force them to split their targeting rolls. Or something nasty that can do mental attacks.
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Thanks for these responses. Just a note, my player doesn't want to just halve enchanted item blocks, but all blocks. I think his issue with aiming is that when he looks at the books series, Harry misses with his spells quite a bit. What I'm not sure he understands is that, from a mechanical perspective, Harry's control, and thus targeting, isn't all that great, at least at the start. As stated in Our World, he's got Superb Conviction and only good Discipline, and any of his focus items only give +1 control at best.
As to my opposition, I've already been planning for something both fast and tough. Outside of NPC wizards, which I'm also including, in my upcoming scenario, my philosophy with spell casters so far has been to move first when I can.
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I find that compels are a good way to bring any character down to a manageable level once in a while. Honestly? Wizards should be able to blow away a lot of opposition through brute force. That's why they have such a high refresh cost. But there's ways around it.
In a game I'm running, one character is a Warden with Athletics and Weapons both at 5, and somewhat weaker spellcasting ability. So when I want to challenge him, I do things like Compel his Warden aspect to say, "You're going into a night club, you can't really bring the big obvious sword in there," or compel a scene aspect to say, "Okay, this is a narrow walkway, so if you try to leap out of the way of any punches, you're going to fall into the pool. Defend with Fists instead."
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Do I just need stronger opposition for wizards or is there a valid point here?
There is a valid point, wizards are the most powerful character type in the game. Understandable, it is "Dresden Files" after all. :)
That said, there are things you can do to compensate. Lengthen your encounter scenes - mental stress is still a limitation. Throw a few White Court at them - and emphasize the mental combat when you do. Use numbers and smaller zones / areas - if the wizard can only hit a few at at time he won't be nearly as effective. Use hit and run attacks by speedsters inside buildings where walls / zone barriers will break line of sight. In short, play to the other characters' strengths while reducing the wizards' advantages.
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I appreciate the feedback and hope you guys don't mind if I ask an off-topic question I'm my own thread, though it is related tangentially.
In White Night, how did Carlos get his shield up before either of the vamps moved? Both of them should have the initiative, bit Ramirez was able to raise a defense right before one of them started firing. Is there a RAW way to do that?
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RAW, you do that by having an enchanted item provide your defense.
With a bit of homebrew, you do that by giving Ramirez a custom stunt / power / thing that lets him sacrifice his next action to cast a defensive evocation as a defense. I'd charge -1 for that, and give the resulting evocation a default duration of "until his next action" - so that he can choose to extend the duration via a second evocation if he wants to.
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RAW, you do that by having an enchanted item provide your defense.
With a bit of homebrew, you do that by giving Ramirez a custom stunt / power / thing that lets him sacrifice his next action to cast a defensive evocation as a defense. I'd charge -1 for that, and give the resulting evocation a default duration of "until his next action" - so that he can choose to extend the duration via a second evocation if he wants to.
Yeah, items to provide defense make a ton more sense. I'm actually pretty sure Harry's shield works the same way. Otherwise magic blocks just feel underpowered in game. That said, It sounds a little like you need to vary up the encounters. Throw in mooks and enforce the laws of magic. Wizards are balanced by The Laws of Magic more than anything else.
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A couple ideas:
*Throw some werewolves at them. It's definitely on the greyer line of the 1st Law, and will force them to pull their punches.
*If they use specific element, choose things that have resistance to their element- not to spite them, but to make it more interesting.
*More opponents than before. Sure, they take one down, but the other got through.... have a care though, it's easy to accidentally cause TPW.
*Ghouls. I ran a pair of ghouls against 2 wizards and they nearly won. Be sure to take advantage of anything with Inhuman abilities (especially anything that can take a punch).
*Other Wizards. A more unique challenge, in a same vein of combat as them.
*Give <foe> some magical item for (BASIC) defense against magic.
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Throw in mooks and enforce the laws of magic. Wizards are balanced by The Laws of Magic more than anything else.
This is true. While opponents with Supernatural Speed, particularly if they're also stealthy, can be one way to beat a wizard, they don't really play up the themes of wizardry. What does is the fact that a mortal with a gun can and should be a dangerous opponent, because the wizard needs to be very careful about how they cast spells around him. Sure, a blocking spell can hold them off for a time, but you need to think in terms of escaping, not destroying, your enemies. As Katarn notes, there are also grey areas; lycanthropes, were-critters, or changelings who don't appear inhuman can all pose a supernatural threat while still being shielded by the Laws.
Mechanically, if you have to overcome high defenses, the way to do it is through teamwork and maneuvering. Most blocks aren't going to be universal defenses; there should be some loophole through which maneuvers, if not attacks, can slip, until one attacker can tag three aspects and pop through. Mental attacks are a double threat, not only bypassing most defenses (a standard force shield won't do anything to stop them) but also attacking the stress track a wizard needs in order to cast his spells. If you want to get really nasty, a White Court Virgin with a couple of the upgrades to Incite Emotion could do a lot of damage while still falling under the Laws' protection, and not even making any visible threat.
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Yeah, items to provide defense make a ton more sense. I'm actually pretty sure Harry's shield works the same way. Otherwise magic blocks just feel underpowered in game. That said, It sounds a little like you need to vary up the encounters. Throw in mooks and enforce the laws of magic. Wizards are balanced by The Laws of Magic more than anything else.
I tend to take a looser view of the initiative rules, mainly that whoever throws the first punch or takes the first action gets initiative. As for Harry and Ramirez's shields, they generally block attacks like that when they have at least some idea that the attack is coming, so I look at it, in the books, as if they're holding action, then interrupting the attacker with the shield. In the White Night example, well, Ramirez knew a fight was starting, so he had been gathering power already and when the fight started, just had to pull the trigger, so to speak. Call it a prepared action.
I tend to look at the alertness-based initiative as more an abstraction of "Okay, everyone suddenly runs into everyone. Who's quickest off the draw?" So if Harry and Ramirez had just been walking down the street, turned a corner, and bam, there were the two White Court vamps, then yes, the vamps would've had initiative. But in that formal duel setting, where they all know they're there, they're getting ready, and just waiting for the signal to start, it's more of a crapshoot--so in that one instance, the GM probably let them all just roll their base Alertness (without the speed powers), or had everyone act at once and sorted it out as it came.
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I'd treat it as a prepared action. Basically, like others have said, he knew it was coming and had it readied.
With initiative, I treat it as whoever starts the conflict having the first action, then everyone else getting initiative from there.
If there are two readied actions, who ever has the highest initiative would get priority.
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In White Night, how did Carlos get his shield up before either of the vamps moved? Both of them should have the initiative, bit Ramirez was able to raise a defense right before one of them started firing. Is there a RAW way to do that?
The novels often appear to describe reactive use of magic. Though it doesn't appear to be allowed by the game.
From the game text, it pretty much has to be an item as others have mentioned. Personally, I'm in favor of allowing a caster to sacrifice his next action to block reactively with a rote as a house rule (no stunt required). Any exchange & spell a wizard uses up defensively is one they're not dropping the magic hammer on an NPC with an attack spell. In other words, it's a functional nerf without actually reducing capability or choices. :)
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I don't think that wizards are the strongest character type. Mandatory The Sight and no rebate powers really cuts down on their sheer brute force level. But they're definitely up there.
I don't understand what your player wants here, Shadowman17. How would halving all blocks make wizards less accurate? Blocks don't even use accuracy.
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With the blocks, it's not about accuracy. Sorry, that was poorly explained. He wants to weaken blocks because he feels that a standard block has the potential to be too powerful, preventing anything other than magic from getting though.
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I don't think that wizards are the strongest character type. Mandatory The Sight and no rebate powers really cuts down on their sheer brute force level. But they're definitely up there.
Meh. This is a debate for another thread. Suffice it to say that magic is the only way to increase both targeting and weapon power by skills...and skills are easier to increase than most other character attributes. I'll leave any deeper an analysis for a different thread.
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Put it this way, at a Submerged level game, the average non-monster, non-wizard character will probably be rolling attack with their apex skill at 5, with, at best, a Weapon:3 weapon, more often Weapon:2, and their weapons probably won't be getting much stronger barring Refresh-costly powers--and even then, they can't do much to raise their accuracy. Plus, they have to have the weapons with them.
A wizard, on the other hand, can very easily be regularly casting Weapon:7 evocations, rolling from 7, in their preferred element, barehanded if they put their Refinements toward specializations instead of focus items.
So given a Good dodge roll, that non-wizard's going to be hitting for around 5 shifts of damage, while the wizard's going to be hitting for 11. The wizard will only be getting stronger and more accurate, while for the most part unless you're a plot device, your attack skill will top out at 5, maybe 6 given a stunt.
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If the character is attacking with an apex skill of 5, then they would most likely be a combat focused character. As such, they would probably have a couple of stunts to help them out with their damage-dealing, generally giving a +1 to attack and +2 to stress when using a specific type of weapon. Also, there would be fate points to consider.
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In addition those attack cause stress. Something physical characters don't t take. I can't.tell you how many fights my parties mates have run dry.in before the fight was over.
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Put it this way, at a Submerged level game, the average non-monster, non-wizard character
The problem with this comparison is that wizards are more comparable to inhuman critters than to mere mortals, mechanically speaking. Compare a Submerged Scion or Emissary with a combat focus, and it may come out rather more even. A character with Supernatural Strength and Speed, with Superb Athletics and Weaponry, can easily manage Weapon:6 attacks and standing +7 defenses, without the stress cost of spells. If actually enforcing the initiative rules, such a character could easily inflict serious consequences on a wizard before the first spell can be cast.
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Let them cast whatever they want, the secret is that magic doesn't solve everything.
There is ALWAYS something bigger.
Start getting them on Mental Stress by throwing out Psychic attacks, or make it so that they cant use their magic to stop a threat without killing someone or causing their cover to be blown.
What do you roll to protect yourself from Anthrax? Anyone?
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A thaumaturgy ritual to add enough to endurance to survive Anthrax.
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@UmbraLux: Well, magic does eventually outstrip other methods of inflicting damage. The investment cap on Refinement is very high. But I'm not sure that wizards are the most powerful magical characters. And at typical Refresh levels, I think that magic is not clearly superior to other approaches.
@Mr. Death: That's more or less the point I was making. See, you're comparing a semi-optimized wizard to a non-optimized mortal. This is easy to do, since almost all wizards are optimized to some degree. After all, they essentially all have Item Of Power built in.
A fairer mortal comparison to the average wizard is a mortal with Superb Guns, a weapon 4 assault rifle, and stunts boosting accuracy and damage with it. His accuracy is 6 and so is his weapon rating. He spends no stress on his attacks, and he's invested a whole lot less of his character into shooting than the wizard has into Evoking.
PS: 7 shifts barehanded is actually impossible for a Submerged wizard who isn't using rebates/sponsors.
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For the wizard's attacks I would suggest broadening your field of combat and upping the enemy numbers. If you have a bunch of enemies spread out over ten or twelve zones then the wizards have to be strategic with their four mental stress slots, and the other characters will get a chance to shine.
As for blocks, if you can't get through a 10 shift block, then you aren't maneuvering enough. Consider one wizard VS five mortals. Wizard throws a 10 shift block, which he intends to extend next turn. First four mortals do not take directly aggressive actions, but instead place aspects of "Stressed shield" on the wizard or "Coordinated attack" on each other. None of these run directly against the block, so the block can't prevent them. The last one makes an attack and all he has to do is get a fair result to break the block, as he gets 8 shifts from tagging his friend's aspects.
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Waitaminute, I forgot something in my last post. A wizard could pull off 7 shifts barehanded with Lawbreaker or some noncanon sponsored magic.
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What do you roll to protect yourself from Anthrax? Anyone?
A ward / block to prevent infection. Healing to get over it sooner (reiki or other). Biomancy to change it to something harmless...or at least less harmful. Biomancy to introduce antibodies to fight it (similar to the military's vaccine).
@UmbraLux: Well, magic does eventually outstrip other methods of inflicting damage. The investment cap on Refinement is very high. But I'm not sure that wizards are the most powerful magical characters. And at typical Refresh levels, I think that magic is not clearly superior to other approaches.
Not sure about that...pretty sure a beginning evocator can have +1 specialty, +2 focus, +Conviction, + Discipline. (Which only takes Conviction of 4 to hit 7 shifts of power...before adding any targeting successes.) That's going to beat Guns +firearm...even if you carried around a Weapon:4 machine gun. It will likely match or beat Weapons +two-hand weapon (3) + Superhuman Strength (4)...and, as you noted, magic has far more room for expansion. Not to mention being the single most flexible power in the book.
Really think we're straying from the subject though.
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Waitaminute, I forgot something in my last post. A wizard could pull off 7 shifts barehanded with Lawbreaker or some noncanon sponsored magic.
You could have +7 Control. That makes Weapon 7 spells quite possible.
Superb Discipline, Evocation, Thaumaturgy, Refinement x2, Sight
Evo gives you +1 in secondary element
Refinement gives you +2 in primary element
7 shifts just means you're taking more stress.
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You can either have 7 control or 7 power. Not both without foci or Lawbreakers or homebrew content.
Though if someone made some homebrew content that made it possible, I might allow it.
And UmbraLux? I have counterpoints, but like you say we're ranging off topic.
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@fantazero, about mental attacks: can they be performed as evocation? The mental conflict section specifically mentions Thaumaturgy, however in the evocation section under elements, it's mentioned that the Spirit element covers mental magic.
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Without something like Kemmlerian Necromancy to provide psychomancy as evocation, you're probably limited to fairly simple and straightforward effects.
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In this case, I wasn't thinking about anything too complex, more of a psychic pressure effect.
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Thanks for these responses. Just a note, my player doesn't want to just halve enchanted item blocks, but all blocks.
This, to me, suggests a possible 'inadvertent house rule' regarding blocks. Because they're pretty much useless at low values (which a value of half peak skill definitely is except against mooks).
Could you explain your table's understanding of what it is that a block accomplishes?
I think his issue with aiming is that when he looks at the books series, Harry misses with his spells quite a bit. What I'm not sure he understands is that, from a mechanical perspective, Harry's control, and thus targeting, isn't all that great, at least at the start. As stated in Our World, he's got Superb Conviction and only good Discipline, and any of his focus items only give +1 control at best.
This, on the other hand, screams 'inadvertent house rule' regarding what it means, narratively, for an attack to 'hit' mechanically.
Inflicting stress does not mean that the target of the attack took that ball of fire straight to the face. In fact, unless a consequence is inflicted, it doesn't even mean that a single hair on their head will be singed.
Even if they DO take a consequence from an attack, even that doesn't necessarily mean that the attack itself caused any harm, narratively speaking, at least. They could have twisted their ankle while desperately throwing themselves out of the path of the fireball hurtling towards them, or any number of other 'third-party' sources of injury.
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@fantazero, about mental attacks: can they be performed as evocation? The mental conflict section specifically mentions Thaumaturgy, however in the evocation section under elements, it's mentioned that the Spirit element covers mental magic.
Oh, great. This again.
There's no definite answer to this, let me try to summarize the situation.
1. Some parts of the novels indicate that you can, since mental evocation is the easiest way to model a few spells in them. On the other hand, if one treats the novels as a DFRPG game with mental attacks allowed then Harry looks like an idiot for not dropping mental evocations left and right. Maybe he's just getting compelled.
2. The rules are somewhat vague. Either answer is more or less supported by Your Story. The balance is probably slightly weighted towards them being possible.
3. It's really not a good idea from a balance standpoint. It's a massive power upgrade for everyone with spellcasting. And that's not desirable, since as you know wizards are already pretty boss. And it makes the Spirit element even more better than the others.
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Alternatively, straight up mental attacks that cause consequences (i.e., lasting psychological damage) are probably going up against the Laws of Magic--and while that may make it technically acceptable to use it on Vampires, Ghouls, etc., it probably falls under the 'really bad habit to get into' category regardless. Mental maneuvers on the other hand are probably more kosher since they're much more temporary.
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In terms of my players performing mental mojo quickly, that's pretty much out of the question, as long as I can compel them and they don't buy it off. Just because they have an element on their sheet doesn't mean they have full mastery of it. Look at Harry, for instance. He's fine when he wants to use kinetic force, but up until Changes, his veils suck. According to Your Story, that's the result of compels. My wizards are heavy hitters, no good at the delicate stuff.
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In terms of my players performing mental mojo quickly, that's pretty much out of the question, as long as I can compel them and they don't buy it off. Just because they have an element on their sheet doesn't mean they have full mastery of it. Look at Harry, for instance. He's fine when he wants to use kinetic force, but up until Changes, his veils suck. According to Your Story, that's the result of compels. My wizards are heavy hitters, no good at the delicate stuff.
Yeah, I would definitely handle it this way. YS discusses finesse casters, such as Molly, and more "thuggish" casters, such as Harry by tying everything into their Aspects.
One thing to watch out for, though, are characters who constantly suggest a course of action knowing you'll compel them against it in order to farm FPs. If this happens too often, it might be time to suggest a change of Aspect for them.
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It might be a good time to point out a classic staple: illusion magic.
Illusionists should certainly be dealing mental stress. Illusions can't truly hurt you, but they can scare the bejeezus out of you and can leave lasting psychological trauma.
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Or Psychedelic Mushrooms or Plants.
You can make it a scene based attack. Like a poison gas.
Make them roll for say Discipline (Or whatever) to "Not See" the illusions or at least to ignore them.
Have a Character whose family was killed? How screwed up would it be to see her trying to eat your face, or making out with the Big Bad of your game.
I mean, you as a GM will always have the power to kill your players, but you dont want to do that, you want to challenge them.
Take away a Wizards ability to do Magic isnt cheating, its making things interesting.
Thats why Batman is an interesting Character, hes mortal and fights crazy powerful guys all the time and wins
Superman sucks because hes superman, nothing challenges him
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A couple ideas:
*Throw some werewolves at them. It's definitely on the greyer line of the 1st Law, and will force them to pull their punches.
It in fact does not. You can still hit them with your +9 Weapon 10 attack. If you take them out you get to narrate the how. You don't even have to kill anyone (have a FP in reserve just in case) by RAW.
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It in fact does not. You can still hit them with your +9 Weapon 10 attack. If you take them out you get to narrate the how. You don't even have to kill anyone (have a FP in reserve just in case) by RAW.
Yup. Per the conventional interpretation of the RAW, you can Nuke a city and narrate that all of the victims were merely knocked out (and maybe had some bad sunburns).
Of course, you might also consider stressing that regarding getting taken out, the rules state that "The outcome must remain within the realm of reason" (YS203). One could argue that if you shove a shotgun in someone's mouth and pull the trigger, it is not "within the realm of reason" for the target to be merely hospitalized. Similar logic could apply to spells with weapon ratings that make elephant guns whimper.
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@Shadowman17: That isn't really a solution. Wizards need a free fate point every fight about as much as they need a free way to bypass Toughness. And if it's a big enough deal, your wizards can always refuse the compel.
@Orladdin: I disagree completely. An aspect that gets compelled all the time to make people act suboptimally is a good aspect.
And illusions aren't necessarily possible with evocation, and if they are they might not be capable of inflicting stress.
@fantazero: You need to read better Superman stories.
@CottbusFiles: It indeed defies plausibility to nuke a city block without killing anyone, but I don't think that nonlethal sleep spells are impossible. And a sleep spell is probably best represented as a physical attack.
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And illusions aren't necessarily possible with evocation, and if they are they might not be capable of inflicting stress.
Certain events in Ghost Story would seem to indicate they are possible, though I'm with you on the stress bit.
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Illusions like that, Mr. Death, would probably be adjudicated like a veil, as a block against perception.
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@Orladdin: I disagree completely. An aspect that gets compelled all the time to make people act suboptimally is a good aspect.
I agree there, but what I meant was someone choosing aspects that specifically counter the way they intend to play their character in order to farm FP that way. If their aspects are geared toward thuggish spells, and the player always tries subtle spells first (tugging out the compels) they get a free-flowing source of fate points at no real disadvantage-- they're doing it intentionally.
Consider: shouldn't someone's aspects actually guide how they intend to play their character? Isn't that the whole point?
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Consider: shouldn't someone's aspects actually guide how they intend to play their character? Isn't that the whole point?
Yes, and when doing so represents a disadvantage, they're to be compensated for the (self-/)compel with a FP.
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What Tedronai said.
Ideally, the player would never have the opportunity to try the subtle spells. The GM would compel him as soon as it becomes clear that a subtle spell would be helpful in any given situation.
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What Tedronai said.
Ideally, the player would never have the opportunity to try the subtle spells. The GM would compel him as soon as it becomes clear that a subtle spell would be helpful in any given situation.
This is right. It's hard to do at first but in my opinion FATE works that way. Compel as much as you can 8) the Story will write itself
Edit:
I agree there, but what I meant was someone choosing aspects that specifically counter the way they intend to play their character in order to farm FP that way. If their aspects are geared toward thuggish spells, and the player always tries subtle spells first (tugging out the compels) they get a free-flowing source of fate points at no real disadvantage-- they're doing it intentionally.
Consider: shouldn't someone's aspects actually guide how they intend to play their character? Isn't that the whole point?
Aspects guide how you get and spend FATE Points. They help you a lot in how to play your character but mostly they are there to let you interact with FATE Points. This is a really gamist concept but it works really well.
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My 2 cents, for mental stress dealing illusion I would require the same thing that mortals need to deal mental stress to each other: Intimate knowledge of the target, or special training in torture.