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Messages - Bedurndurn

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1
DFRPG / Re: Using Weapons as defense?
« on: September 11, 2013, 10:58:18 PM »
That's mighty stupid; enough so that I don't even see that being a thing that reasonable people could disagree on.

Possible solutions (aside from the obvious "Don't let that guy run a game. He really doesn't get it."):

1. Stunt your weapon attack onto Athletics. (Recommended stunt name: 'Pretty, Pretty Sword Dancing!'). Your Athletics can now do everything important that Weapons can do (except throw knives at people because that's a separate trapping) and you can dodge everything including guns, spells, bees, etc.

2. Say, 'Fine' and make a new character that is a wizard. Take Channeling [something], 1 point of refinement for more focus items and spend your focus item slots on +4 Offensive Control [something]. You have now won the combat minigame of DFRPG.

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DFRPG / What's the scope of the various <adjective> Strength powers?
« on: June 22, 2013, 10:32:44 PM »
So my group had some questions about what the various strength powers really help with. Each level of the power has these effects:

  • A lifting/breaking bonus
  • A bonus on grappling rolls and an increase in how much damage you can do in a grapple as a supplemental action
  • A modification of how Might modifies other skill uses
  • A flat damage bonus to attacks based on muscular force

So points #2 and #4 are super straightforward and there's no confusion there, but I had some questions about #1 and #3.

For the lifting/breaking bonus, can that be used in combat to set up a block or in a maneuver? It makes narrative sense that any might-based maneuver/block action is better if the actor can pick up cars, but maybe that's too good (the 4 point version of the power adds 6 to those rolls for example). On the other hand, wizards.

For #4, what circumstances warrant getting the bonus for modifying a skill with might? I imagine lifting a dude off the ground by his throat is good for a might-modified intimidate roll. Flipping a car over to use as cover might be a might-modified dodge (or is it a might-based maneuver or block? Could I get my lifting bonus? See? This is confusing!  ;D) Can you guys suggest some other circumstances where Might would or would not be allowed to modify a skill? More confusingly, under the Might skill section, there's this snippet:
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In combat, Might can help you with particular applications of Fists and Weapons: if physical force is a very significant element at play, Might will modify (page 214) the primary skill.
Assuming I like being effective, I would probably always want to attack in a way where physical force was a significant element (because adding to attack rolls is really strong in this system). What are some examples of fists/weapon skill use where modifying with might is appropriate or inappropriate?

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DFRPG / Re: Newbies ask the darnest things
« on: June 14, 2013, 04:05:30 PM »
So I could see a military leader having high presence and low rapport. On the other hand a seductress could have high rapport, low presence.

And then if you throw in Intimidation, there's the question of do people do what you want because they love you or because they fear you?

I still think Presence is kind of a bad skill because favoring Rapport over Presence gives you a more active character, which is way more entertaining in play.

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DFRPG / Re: Purview of Evocation
« on: May 13, 2013, 10:34:36 PM »
I'd argue that BOUND IN PLACE is a bad aspect. Remember that this is an RPG that loosely models the setting of the books; the fiction is not to be taken as examples of how the mechanics of the RPG works. In DFRPG, aspects can be invoked for +2s, rerolls or the nebulous "for effect", but in the scope of a conflict, what you descriptively title the aspect should be in line with the framework of actions that can be taken in combat. If you want to make someone unable to leave their zone, that's a block on their movement, so you should be doing a block action, not a maneuver. Similarly, you're not allowed to use Shooting and a gun to place the aspect DEAD on people as a maneuver and deny them all future actions; you've got to make attack actions, inflict stress and take them out.

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I'm trying to figure out how the Maneuvers work out, but it's hard because I'm dealing with certain things that don't have real world analogs. If you set something on fire, well, of course it's ON FIRE! until the fire gets put out or the fire consumes all the fuel. If you use an Earth evocation to punch your way out of a jail cell, the Aspect MAN-SIZED HOLE IN THE WALL is going to stay there until someone fixes the wall, right? What's the difference between that and BOUND IN PLACE using a spell?

Well look at the targets of those actions. Placing ON FIRE onto the scenery as a maneuver is fine. The scenery isn't an active participant in the conflict, and the Fate system isn't about modeling the effects of arson. Note that you can't place ON FIRE on a participant in the conflict and then demand that it do stress to them in ongoing turns; if you want to pile stress on a combatant, you have to make attack actions. MAN-SIZED HOLE IN THE WALL is also against the scenery, so again that's probably fine (though probably only if you can 'take out' the wall with attacks that deal physical stress or something).

BOUND IN PLACE on a person though seems like that steps over the line since you're using a maneuver to place an aspect that's best represented by another action type in the conflict. Versus other characters, that's an important distinction. If you want to toss an aspect so you can tag it on a future roll, then your description for what happens should be less definitive and less specific like COVERED IN GOO or IN HIS OWN PERSONAL HURRICANE or whatever. If your goal is to prevent action, then that's a block and you don't even need to come up with a spiffy aspect name for it. But doing both with one action is a no-no. It breaks the action economy and there's nothing in the magic chapter that says you can cheat the system and get more than one effect a turn.

As an aside, I don't think I'd allow a block spell that completely jammed up another character for more than a round, since again that breaks action economy in a big way. At least you'd have to pay for it with shifts of power instead of just stacking offensive control bonuses though, so that's probably less obnoxious.

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DFRPG / Re: Game-Breaking Powers To Worry About?
« on: May 10, 2013, 08:19:37 AM »
Things that break your game's skill cap on attacks are probably a dumb idea. Things that can get you an entire combat's worth of attacks at double your game's skill cap (Oh hi, focus items!) are a super dumb idea.

Be upfront with people about what you're going to let them do with thaumaturgy. The ability to do anything with essentially one skill, especially where one of the explicitly listed uses is 'Do impossible things',  has the potential to get way out of hand. :-)

If your group has a 'that guy', maybe encourage him to not be a wizard.

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DFRPG / Re: A few seconds ahead - How strong is it?
« on: April 29, 2013, 12:36:49 AM »
If the librarian had no other powers, AFSA is eating 3 refresh, not 1. If the librarian has any casting, they would be better served putting that 1 refresh towards improving their casting. If the librarian has powers but no casting, has apex lore but no near apex combat defense nor social defense skill... Then at that point they are an intentionally deoptimized character and they can choose to skip AFSA or not skip it as they see fit, it doesn't matter, they already chose to avoid 'better' options, there shouldn't be anything stopping them from forgoing AFSA as well, if they don't envision the character as a precognitive.

Let's break it down:

1. The 'No Powers Whatsoever' case

You are correct that you shouldn't buy a 1pt power and lose your 2pt pure mortal bonus for a power that is two trappings-moving stunts. Of course if your group won't let you move defenses to whatever skill you want for a stunt and equivalent defenses would cost you 3+ stunts, then you might as well pick up this power (and maybe something else that'll fit your concept since you've already 'broken the seal' on powers).

2. The 'I actually already have some powers, one of which is spellcasting' case.

So for this character, your peak skills include Discipline, Conviction and Lore, or you frankly didn't read the book. When you pick up this power, you bring at least one (and almost certainly two) or your conflict defenses up to either skill cap or skill cap - 1. You already have mental defense at cap or cap-1 since it works off of Discipline. My tingling common sense says that if you're planning on taking this power, then Lore is probably at the skill cap unless you're playing one of the tiers where you can only afford 1 skill at the cap level. So the end result of this power is that all your defenses are as maxed as is practical. Congratulations, you have achieved being a boring character with no downsides.

Your alternative equivalent spending here would be 1 point for 4 slots of enchanted items. You could get 3 physical and 3 social defenses per session at Lore level (or some other combination of slots if you feel that's more useful). The downside of that is that you've got to track those uses and make sure that you aren't disarmed of your items, which makes unlimited use with no items the more attractive option. Of course you could've already broken the game in half with Refinement spending, so your 4 enchanted item slots actually give you like 12 defenses a session at Lore*2 or whatever, but actual physical people are already sick of your crap and wish you'd stop coming to the game sessions at that point, so I don't really care what you spend your refresh on.

3. The 'I already have powers, but spellcasting isn't one of them' case.

If you don't have Speed powers, then you're probably already spending a point of refresh on a stunt to bring your 'don't get shot in the face' defense roll to your primary offensive skill. Chances are you were pretty happy to do so because you realized the benefits of not being shot in the face. Sure the wizard got twice as much benefit for his 1 point as you got for yours, but you should be used to that by now, right?

If you have Speed powers, you should probably demand a special snowflake power that lets you defend against social and mental attacks with your maxed Athletics score. Hell you've actually spent points on being super fast; you'd actually be able to react in time to do something unlike the guy with the staff who's picking up 'defend against everything with one of my core skills' for peanuts.

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P.S. Social defense enchanted items are relatively easy through a variety of mechanisms, be they divination, self directed mentalism, self directed bio/pharmomancy or even preparatory conjuration (skill substitution on resources)

Well they're certainly available to *somebody*, but coincidentally it's the class of somebodies who already have all the advantages in the world and a kite.


Hmm... so I guess if your point is that 'A wizard could totally break the game way, way worse as-is, so it's fine if they get this other thing that is tailored specifically to them that is still better than what everyone else gets, but inferior to the other gross stuff that wizards can do, so this power is fine' then I agree with you?

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DFRPG / Re: Purview of the Elements
« on: April 24, 2013, 04:03:38 AM »
Glamours does one heck of a lot more than just Veils.  Seemings is the real powerhouse in that combo.

It's not bad. My only play experience with it was the Neutral Grounds game*, where seemings moved the 'disguise' trapping from Deceit, where it is by default, to Deceit, the skill I used for my glamor ability. It would be a bigger change if you were using Glamours off of a high Discipline skill (though that would probably bite you in the butt later on once you actually had to open your mouth about the thing you disguised). Still the ability to make use of that trapping without carrying around the mundane equipment is nice, but evocation gets that with its attacks too.

*Admittedly not the best example. I have no idea why they gave the character who could literally turn invisible (or look like anyone/thing else on a whim) a stunt to give her +2 to hiding in a crowd.

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DFRPG / Re: Purview of the Elements
« on: April 24, 2013, 02:20:21 AM »
Asking the player of a spellcaster to have at least one Aspect that sort of sums up their philosophy or belief about magic would be a really good idea.

That kind of points to the subtle and the explodey parts of that ability being two separate things for people to buy. Part of the problem is that Conviction and Discipline have to be high for every caster (or at least every caster whose concept includes the idea of 'I'd like my abilities to actually work when I use them'), so anyone who wants to throw a Veil at the level of their game's skill cap is also capable of throwing a Weapon: <skill cap> level face melter.

The other complicating factor, if we just pull the Veil part of Spirit out, it's a 2 refresh ability, which makes it as/more expensive than say Channeling (Spirit) that gets the same functionality and a bunch of other powerful stuff. Admittedly, the 2 point glamor ability doesn't cost any mental stress, but is anyone really throwing the 4 or 5 veils a scene it would take for that to matter?

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Another way to avoid breaking the game with Evocation would be sticking to the Inherent Limitations in the book. You can't use Evocation to affect anything that's not within your line of sight.

That's a pretty toothless limitation, since other than the other type of spellcasting, what works outside of line of sight anyway? For that matter, just about everything else is much shorter range than 'anything I can see' (e.g. same zone for most physical interaction skills, 4(?) zones for guns).

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Evocations have a very short duration.

Again, not much of a limitation since that's true of pretty much all in-combat actions anyway. Evo is actually better than other things, since you get the option for multi-turn blocks and such.

I think the problem with Channeling and Ritual is that they're way too cheap. If we break down their cost, they are effectively:

1 point spent on Refinement (refinement is categorically better than other one point enhancers, since for 1 point you can get +2 to your attack rolls. And it stacks! :o ) You might say 'But focus items are limited since they could be taken away'. I would reply with, 'You can still cast spells without your items (you just can't break the game's skill cap), if you take away sword guy's sword or gun guy's gun, they can't use their skill at all.'

1 point spent that pays for everything else. Among those things are: adding a long-range, area, spray with Weapon:Conviction attack trapping to Discipline. Adding a stealth trapping that is better than Stealth to Discipline. Adding an ability to create armor from nothing to discipline/conviction. Adding an ability to create a block for all allies in your zone to discipline/conviction. Greatly expanding what maneuvers you can create with discipline/conviction. You get the ability to break any tech you want at range. Each use does cost at least 1 point of mental stress (except hexing), so that's a downside, if and only if, your combat encounters are going to have more rounds than you have mental stress boxes.

Ritual is even funnier since it basically boils down to: "Do everything anyone else can do (out of combat) using Lore. Also do a bunch of other things that nobody else can do at all with Lore." Again, for 1 point to pay for the actual capacity to do things and then 1 point that must be spent on Refinement (2 focus item slots).

The other problem is that there are downsides to being a wizard, which would help balance them out in most systems. However, in Fate, the downsides inherent to you being you that come up give you fate points. If wizards exploded when exposed to the color yellow, that might be a real downside, but most wizard problems are of the form: 'Aww, you're inconvenienced, have a fate point'.  :-\

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DFRPG / Re: A few seconds ahead - How strong is it?
« on: April 24, 2013, 01:28:02 AM »
On a marginally related note, what is your take on a stunt that allows you to move the attack trapping from Fists to Athletics? On the surface it's the reverse of Footwork, but would also completely negate the need for the Fists skill.

I think Fists deserves no better. If it wants to cost as much as every other skill in the game (which it does), then it needs to have more than two trappings, one of which is so limited that it is rarely useful. My group merged Fists with Weapons so there's at least enough stuff going on to warrant taking the skill instead of just moving the only useful trapping elsewhere.

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DFRPG / Re: Purview of the Elements
« on: April 21, 2013, 09:41:50 PM »
I think a good guideline is that magic can do anything that will keep the game moving and that another player hasn't already taken as a niche. Can you hex open a lock? Well if another player wanted to be 'lock guy' enough that he's got Burglary at Great, then no. If you don't have an understanding like that, the wizard can Thaumaturgy literally any problem the table has by using his Lore skill in place of *anything*, which is handy for a single protagonist of a book, but ball-hogging in a group of 4 or 5 players who are supposed to be more or less mechanically equal.

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DFRPG / Re: A few seconds ahead - How strong is it?
« on: April 21, 2013, 09:08:09 PM »
You shouldn't be getting two top-of-the-pyramid defenses for 1 point of refresh. If you want to move Dodge from Athletics to Lore for a stunt, sure. If you want to move Rapport's Social Defense trapping to another skill for a stunt, fine. You just can't get both for 1 point.

Also I don't really like the flavor-text for the social defense part. I have no idea how knowing what someone's going to say to you a second in advance is really supposed to be helping you here. The "impact" of people's social skills happens when you perceive them, so I'm not sure how getting a head start on perceiving them conveys any advantage. "Two seconds from now, that man with a gun is going to yell at me and it's going to be super scary! Fortunately, I was able to see it before it happened, so I actually peed myself before he opened his mouth! Go me!".

 ;D

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Thanks for the advice everybody! I think I'm going to go with InFerrum's skill suggestions (You make a good point about Great weapons being more useful than Great Might, especially since the lift/breaking trappings are getting +6 from my strength power). I'll also keep the cost of the catch in mind if I get to add more powers down the line.

I had a bit of a questions about the 'spirit' of the Fate rules. You guys mentioned that I'd probably get compelled out of a stealthy approach to problems, so Stealth wasn't a good skill choice for me. Is it a compel if I'm asked to do a straightforward approach if being stealthy wasn't really an option anyway (say because I've left it at Mediocre?), or is that not a compel because my actions aren't restricted because I had no viable way to be stealthy in the first place?

That might not be clear, so I'll rephrase. If my aspects dictate a certain approach to a problem, is being 'forced' to act in that manner a compel (and thus a fate point) even though I have no relevant skills or abilities to approach the problem a different way?

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So our group played the Neutral Grounds adventure, had fun and now we're about to start an Up To Your Waist level game set in Boston. We did all the character background/city creation stuff this last week, but we haven't done any of the mechanics of character creation yet. Can I get some feedback on the aspects and character build I've got so far?

I'll put the big blocks of text in spoiler tags so it'll (hopefully) be easier to read:

The Rest of the Party
  • Det. Martin O'Shaughnessy - Psychic BPD Detective with 6 months till retirement
  • Mei Ling Yi - Kung Fu Librarian of the Boston Public Library
  • Thomas St. Germaine - Immortal Diplomat for the Italian Consulate
  • Zoe - Late Blooming Steampunk-themed Sorceress
  • Melissa McCarthy - Philanthropic Hotel Heiress Wizard

My PC: Rookie Detective Rebecca Sullivan

Template: Supernatural Guardian
(click to show/hide)

Aspects:
High Concept - Boston's Finest Supernatural Guardian
Trouble - I'm on an (involuntary) mission from God.
If you were from where I'm from, you'd be dead.
(click to show/hide)
It's better to be lucky than good
(click to show/hide)
Tiny bull in a china shop
(click to show/hide)
Finally! Something I'm allowed to punch!
(click to show/hide)
I get by with a little help from my friends.
(click to show/hide)

So that's the aspects from going through the phases. Like I said, none of us really have Fate experience, so I'm not sure if these are good aspects or not.

So here's the crunchy bits of the character:

Skills
Great(2)   : Might, Intimidate
Good (2)   : Athletics, Weapons
Fair (3)   : Rapport, Empathy, Stealth
Average (5)   : Conviction, Discipline, Endurance, Presence, Something?

Stunts/Powers
   Supernatural Strength (-4)
   Supernatural Toughness (-4)
   The Catch (Pure Mortals (at least 6 billion of them +2, Researchable +1)) +3
   Visions of St. Patrick (0) - A re-theme of Cassandra's Tears

Adjusted Refresh: 2

So here's my thoughts about the crunchy bits:
  • I want a bunch more skill points than I actually get. Looking up, I didn't even manage to grab any of Alertness, Investigation, Contacts, Guns, or Fists. Probably one of those should replace Steath at Fair.
  • Weapons and Fists being separate skills is kind of a bummer. For this character, who can pick up pretty much anything, Weapons is probably my best bet. (Fists is a real :P skill, it's an attack with no bonus damage and a defense against almost nothing [in a setting where people are going to shoot guns and fireballs at you].)
  • Character-wise, I want her to be strong (I bought Supernatural strength after all) and snarky, so that's why they ended up as my peak skills. I have no idea how well that'll work in play.
  • Should I ditch Empathy and Rapport at Fair? I'm obviously a much better playing bad-cop instead of good-cop, should I leave that role to another member of the party? If so, any recommendations on what to pick up in their place?
  • My catch is pure mortals. We're planning on a mob-heavy campaign, so that's probably going to come up pretty often. Is that too broad/too narrow/cheesy/just right/etc for 3 points? Is supernatural toughness a good choice or would a mix of toughness and recovery be better? Maybe just recovery (she's certainly strong enough that she could wear a vest in most situations and her background supports it)?
  • I've got 1 more point of refresh that I could spend. How/should I spend it? My mental defense is currently 1, so moving that trapping to Intimidate would be prudent. I could probably move using melee weapons to Might (call it 'What I lack in skill, I make up in enthusiasm') and that would free up a Good-level slot. Maybe Infuriate?
  • Is Supernatural strength worth it? I could go Inhuman Strength/Speed for the same point total. Alternatively, Inhuman Strength and 2 more free fate points? Maybe Inhuman Strength and 2 more stunts? Currently Rebecca is really, really awesome at grappling (Fantastic, actually), but maybe that's not a prudent way to spend points?
  • Am I just way overthinking things? As a group we mainly play fairly combat-heavy D&D and Savage Worlds games, so I'm used to working a lot on the crunch of my characters. Most of the OW-monsters don't seem that tough though, so I'll probably be okay regardless, right?


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DFRPG / Making effective PCs that aren't wizards?
« on: March 15, 2013, 11:59:17 AM »
So my group gave Neutral Grounds a try and had a good time with Fate and DF. It looks like the GM wants to run an Up to Your Waist level game for our group. I've given YS a read, and here's my problem in a nutshell: wizards seem to be really good at stuff. This is probably to be expected in a game based on a series of books about a wizard, but the part of my personality that likes big numbers on my character sheet (I am a flawed man. I believe in this system that means I get more fate points, so that's nice), demands that I pick at some bits.

So remembering that our campaign's set at UtYW, this seems like the best mechanical character choice:

Template (Focused Practitioner)
Lore and Discipline at Great, Conviction at Good
Powers/Stunts: Channeling [-2] and Ritual [-2] (I'm less sure on the elements/theme for these, but that seems up to player preference)

Now if I've understood this so far, it looks like that means that I get 4 focus item slots. I think (I'm less sure here) that I could use all 4 slots to get a focus item that gave a +4 to offensive control of whatever element I chose for Channeling.

That seems crazy, crazy strong. Fate dice have excellent central tendency, so what your modified skill is is fairly likely to be what you actually get when you roll. With this character, that would mean a typical combat would be tossing out an attack with Weapon: 3,4,5 and 6 each at 8 to control. (Is that accurate? I believe you get up to your Conviction rating in power for 1 mental stress, with each point of overflow increasing the incoming mental stress by 1. Since once the 1 box is filled in on the character's stress track, a stress 1 hit is just as damaging as a stress 2 hit, and he's got control to spare, he might as well ramp up in power each round). Now I'm only going by the other Neutral Grounds sample characters, but even with a dodge roll of 4 (which many of them didn't have the capacity to do), that'd be 7,8,9, and 10 points physical stress. The biggest non-wizard combatant from that pack is probably the werewolf who gets to attack at 4 with a weapon: 4 attack and his adjusted refresh is 2 worse than this wizard. If he swung at the equivalent dodge score of 4, he'd only get 4 physical stress a round (so it takes about 9 rounds for him to lay equivalent hurt).

I both understand that the game is not based around PvP (so maybe comparing PC attack strength vs PC defenses isn't a good metric) and that there is a heck of a lot more to RPGing than combat encounters, but:
  • This guy's still got more than half of his skill points to spend, so that second career as a whatever is still within reach.
  • He's got as good of a Lore as he can get at this tier and thaumaturgy (well one aspect of it at least) to play around with.
  • His adjusted refresh is a 3 for this power level, so there's still room to fiddle with for additional stunts/powers.
  • I didn't do anything crazy with him other than realize that points of offensive control are strictly better than points of offensive power for evocation and then bought as many of them as I could. I'm sure someone with more experience can do something more excessive within the bounds of the rule set.

So what are viable options for people who aren't wizards in this game? I don't think anybody can get the +4 to attack rolls that this guy has (nor honestly should they). The guidelines for stunts says that a stunts shouldn't give a +2 to the majority of a skill's use and that stunts don't stack, so it looks like the best anyone who isn't a wizard can get for an attack bonus is +1 and it will cost them 1 refresh point to do so. Inhuman strength and a sword seems like a pretty good combo (you'd get Weapon:5 and you could take some sort of +1 to hitting people with a sword stunt), but with the to-hit bonus stunt and the strength itself, that's only 1 refresh cheaper than this guy's powers for not nearly the same output. If the inhumanly strong can claim the +1 bonus for Might modifying them stabbing other people, then they'd get a little closer, but still be 2 points below the wizard's attack rating (and lower than the wizard's weapon rating for two rounds, and they have to be in melee when the wizard doesn't, and the wizard has the option of blasting a whole zone, and thaumaturgy, and intentional hexing, and yadda yadda yadda).

Now the wizard does run out of juice 4 rounds into a combat. That's certainly a downside. He also throws hot enough that if the opposition was balanced around the rest of the party it's already dead and if the opposition was balanced around what the wizard can do, it's time to leave because everyone else probably can't get the job done without him. Since the wizard is virtually guaranteed to hit and has a big weapon rating, it probably also makes sense for the other players to aid him blowing stuff up by bringing beneficial aspects into being, but to borrow a sports comparison, that effectively makes the wizard Lebron James and the rest of the party The People On Lebron James's Team Who Lacked the Foresight to Be Lebron James, which I bet will get thin real quick.

The wizard also isn't supposed to kill people with magic. That's a downside. But that's also like the lowest of low bars (since everyone else probably also shouldn't murder people, it being y'know murder and all), and since he can dictate what happens to whoever he takes out, it seems like a hard problem to have in Fate (though I guess not impossible).

So I guess that turned out more like a manifesto than a question, but to sum up: Wizards seem to be real good at stuff, can I make other archetypes also be good at stuff or if I like being good at stuff should I just play a wizard and then maybe forget that I can do stupid things to my attack roll?

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