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Topics - ironpoet

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DFRPG / What happens when a shapeshifter crosses a threshold?
« on: July 10, 2014, 03:19:12 PM »
Imagine a true shapeshifter (someone like Odo from Deep Space Nine) that is disguised as Daniel Carpenter's backpack.  If Danial (unaware of the switch) carries his "backpack" into the Carpenter home, what happens to the shapeshifter?
  • Do thresholds effect shapeshifting?
  • Did Daniel effectively "invite" his backpack into the house?
  • If not, would the shapeshifter revert to their natural form?
  • If not, would the shapeshifter be stuck as a backpack until it leaves the house?

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DFRPG / How do you handle social actions during physical combat?
« on: July 10, 2014, 03:11:11 PM »
I'm working on a trickster character who, among other things, would probably employ a wide range of social actions in a physical combat.

Maneuvers: This is fairly straightforward, and the most obvious use of social attacks.
  • "Look behind you!" (Deceit vs. Discipline/Alertness) applies the "Distracted" aspect, etc.

Blocks: Could blocks could be justified?
  • "If you kill us you'll be the monster they think you are!" (Rapport vs. Conviction) applies a block against attacks from the target
Attacks: Could you actually Take Out someone socially in the middle of a conflict?
  • "I'll rip your heart out!" (Intimidation vs. Conviction/Discipline) - Social attack intended to make the target flee
  • "She'll never love you" (Deceit/Rapport vs. Conviction/Discipline) - Social attack intended to make the target break down in tears
  • "What's the point of it all?" (Deceit/Rapport vs. Conviction/Discipline) - Social attack intended to make the target stop caring about the conflict
  • "Why can't we all just get along?" (Rapport vs. Conviction/Discipline) - Social attack intended to make the target switch sides

Defense: I would say that once an attack has been made, you couldn't defend against it socially ("Not in the face!") without a stunt or two.

There's lots of examples in movies/books/etc. of protagonists talking their way out of the middle of a fight (by converting, cowing, or confusing their opponent), and I'm interested in the best way to handle those actions mechanically.

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DFRPG / [House Rules] A (Slightly) Streamlined Magic System
« on: March 22, 2011, 06:31:28 PM »
I don't have any particular problem with the Magic rules, but I wanted to try streamlining them a little bit.  I've found that I was trying to keep track of too many things: How much mental stress can I afford? How strong an attack can a pull off? etc.  In other words, I was getting bogged down in the mechanics, when I wanted to be focusing on the story.

There are more details below, but the basic rules are:

  • All magical actions cost one Mental Stress
  • Evocation: Roll Discipline + Focus Item
  • Thaumatrugy: Roll Lore + Focus Item
  • Spell Strength: Conviction + Specialization
  • Reduce Strength by 1 for each Exchange added
  • Reduce Strength by 2 for each Zone affected

I'm interested in any suggestions people have, as well as whether or not I'm introducing any big problems with these rules.

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DFRPG / Mechanics Question: How do you shut down a magic user?
« on: March 07, 2011, 09:50:00 PM »
There are example in the books where a wizard can't cast magic because either (a) another magic user is blocking them, or (b) they are too distracted to focus.  Considering how hugely powerful wizards are, that seems like a pretty useful strategy to use against them.  So how would you run it?

The Intent: The intent is to block an enemy magic user from casting spells at you.  Or, alternately, to weaken the spells that the magic user casts.  Then the rest of your buddies can go beat them up, without fear of being burned alive.

The Mechanics:
- Most "shield" spells and defensive rolls are treated as a Block against the targeting aspect of the Discipline roll.
- Could you create a block against the control aspect of the Discipline roll?  Could a +5 Block vs. Control require a wizard to roll +6 shifts just to control a Weapon: 1 Evocation attack?
- Since there is only one Discipline roll, could you create a block that both weakens the control roll and weakens the targeting roll?
- Could you create a block against "Spell Strength"?  Could a +5 Block vs. Spellslinging weaken a Weapon:6 Attack spell or a Block:6 Shield Spell to just Weapon:1 or Block:1?

What skills would be required for these Blocks?  Would you require a spell to shut down another spell?  Could you do it with a Fists roll (to keep the magic user from focusing)?  Could you do it with a Rapport/Deceit/Presence roll (to distract the magic user)?

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DFRPG / How would you run "Immunity/Toughness to True Magic"?
« on: February 10, 2011, 06:56:06 PM »
I think you could make an interesting "Wizard Hunter" character that had Immunity (or Toughness) to Magic:

-3 (-8) Physical Immunity, Catch - Everything but True Magic
    (+2) Protects against something specific
    (+2) "Not Magic" is extremely common
    (+1) A little research could find out why Wizard Hunters are so feared

I wasn't sure how you would rule what counts as a magical attack, though (or, honestly, how to decribe a failed attack).

1) An Earth Wizard uses evocation to launch a boulder at you - The attack bounces off.
2) An Ogre uses strength to launch a boulder at you - You get crushed.
3) An Earth Wizard uses evocation to start an avalanche - Can this hurt you?  How is the attack rolled?

So my two questions are:
  • What rules would you use to determine what is, or isn't, a True Magic attack?
  • How might you describe the Immunity/Toughness working in situations where magic is being used to create a physical effect? (i.e. every element but Spirit)

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DFRPG / Looking for advice on how to Self-Compel aspects
« on: February 04, 2011, 10:36:34 PM »
I've been playing in a Dresden game for a few sessions now, but I've been having trouble finding ways to Self-Compel aspects for Fate points.  Invoking aspects has been easy, but, even though I have ideas about when my aspects would be compelled, they don't seem to come up in play at all.  I was wondering if anyone had general or specific advice about how to compel aspects more often in play.  (Or how to modify Aspects to make them easier to compel.)

In my specific case, my aspects are:
  • New Warden In Town
  • Somebody Has To Do It
  • Knowledge Is Power
  • Been Around A Long Time
  • Stubborn Old Mule
  • Needs Of The Many Outweigh The Few
  • (plus one more I plan to replace anyway)

In theory, I expected to compel local magical practicioners to be scared and/or suspicious of me.  I expected local faces to tell me to stay out of their business, which would compel me to dig in my heels and mess with their business.  I expected to compel unexpected backstories and possibly owed favors to local Fae Courts.  And I expected to compel myself to make difficult choices, sacrificing a few innocent souls for the Greater Good.

In practice, our sessions have been more "investigate-y".  Something bad has happened, and we have to fix it.  Most of the people we talk to are not in a position of power (so they can't tell me to back off), and by the time we actually meet anyone of power, it's usually time to start slinging spells rather than discuss our backstories.

In short, I seem to have built a character for a supernatural "Leverage" or "Burn Notice" ("defeat the villain with clever moves and countermoves"), but I seem to be playing a game of supernatural "CSI" ("follow the leads to discover the villain").

Any advice on how to modify my playstyle or aspects to earn Fate points easier?  Has anyone else had similar problems, where their choice of Aspects didn't match up with the style of the game they were in?

Quick update for clarity
As mentioned later in the thread, I'm not looking for ways to compel these specific Aspects.  I'm just mentioning them as a specific example to demonstrate the problem.

What I'm looking for is generic advice for how a Player can modify either their character or their playstyle in order to accomodate the story that the GM wants to tell.  There is already tons of advice for how the GM can modify their story to suit the players, but I'm interested in the opposite.  What can I do to make the game run more smoothly?

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DFRPG / Can you "prolong" another spell as a Rote spell?
« on: December 02, 2010, 03:55:39 PM »
Page 259 in "Your Story" describes how you can prolong an existing spell.  Prolonging a spell is essentially like casting a new spell that adds shifts of power to the existing one.  Therefore I'm curious if you could create a Rote spell that does this.

Basically, could Johnny Wizard have the following two Rote spells?

"Stonewall"
Type: Earth evocation, defensive block
Power: 5 shifts
Duration: One exchange
Effect: Deflects an incoming attack. If overcome, it vanishes.

"Filibuster"
Type: Earth evocation, defensive maneuver
Power: 5 shifts
Effect: Prolongs a "Stonewall" effect for five more exchanges

Also, if this type Rote spell is allowed, would you have to specify the type of spell it prolongs?  You don't have to specify the target of offensive Rote spells, so could you just have a generic "Prolong" Rote spell?

"You can do it!"
Type: Spirit evocation, defensive block
Power: 5 shifts
Effect: Prolongs an active magical effect for five more exchanges

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DFRPG / How do you make Thaumaturgy casting interesting?
« on: November 05, 2010, 07:14:49 PM »
When do people actually roll the dice to cast a Thaumaturgy spell?  The section "When Not To Bother" (Your Story, page 270) suggests that there's no point in rolling if the results would be undramatic (i.e. if you have lots of time to build up power, or nothing interesting would come from failing to cast the spell.)

So how have you (or would you) make casting a Thaumaturgy spell interesting?

  • Casting in the middle of combat seems like the most obvious answer (someone is trying to stop you from casting your spell).  But there isn't any consensus on how to cast Thaumaturgy in the middle of combat.
  • Casting with some kind of time limit might work ("You have three exchanges until the bomb goes off.")  What are some good ways to set up a time limit?
  • Are there other good ways to add drama to ritual casting?

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DFRPG / Magic can make you rich! (Wait, no it can't)
« on: November 01, 2010, 03:33:53 PM »
This thread was inpsired by the comments in this post: http://www.jimbutcheronline.com/bb/index.php/topic,22095.0.html

It started off with a caveat from Ryan_Singer:
Quote from: Ryan_Singer on October 28, 2010, 06:39:36 PM
This looks about right. I'd add the caveat that in the Dresdenverse, no one has ever gotten rich using magic. Even the senior council relies on traditional finance with centuries of compounded interest. Turning lead into gold is possible, but never costs less than gold on the open market.

That lead into a series of suggestions about how magic can be used to make you rich:

Quote from: Belial666 on October 29, 2010, 09:54:57 PM
...A wizard can become very, very wealthy without the need to conjure money;
1) Thaumaturgy divination, to predict the moves of the stock market in the day. That would be solving a problem with the contacts or resources or scholarship skill. Even the most skilled mortals in financial science in the world would get a base of superb +5 plus +2 from a stunt in this. A wizard using divination could easily get a complexity of 10 with a two-minute ritual. Fancy getting the maximum benefit of the stock market every day? 20% rate of interest per day would be about the best possible. In ten days you'd have 6 TIMES the money you started with. In one month you could start with $4.000 and end up with $ 1 million.

2) Thaumaturgy divination, to search for minerals - gold, oil, gems. Similarly to the above use, even the weakest wizard could get better results in minutes than world-class prospectors could get in days or months of searching.

3) How about buying and selling land? A wizard could influence the weather or conjure attacks by vermin with only minor complexity or even do power outages and the like to really drop property values. Then he'd buy the land for a ridiculous price and sell some months later at a much higher price.

4) Invest in a company then destroy the company's competitors. You don't really need black magic or any direct spells; any modern company can be destroyed by simply hexing it. Even better, manipulate the stock market like that.

5) Steal a bank. Hex the bank at night, sneak in under a thaumaturgy veil, put the guards to sleep, melt the vault door and grab the money. Even better, use summoned creatures to steal the money for you. No Laws broken whatsoever and the police will have no evidence at all; no modern security can resist hexing and any trace evidence left by summoned creatures melts away in minutes (and isn't human to begin with.
Or, you can do it faster by opening a Gate from the Nevernever directly into the bank vault.

6) Insurance fraud. Lots of insurance fraud. Fires, power failure, equipment failure, wizards can do it untraceably and seemingly naturally.

7) Arms Dealing. How much would an assassin or a terrorist pay for an invisibility potion? How about a mercenary for an invulnerability potion or a healing potion? Any kind of armed forces for a grenade-like potion that does 8 shifts of hexing in one zone, destroying every kind of technological item from alarms to firearms and mines to armored vehicles? How about lasting thaumaturgy veils for secret facilities and bunkers? And NONE of the above violate the Laws of Magic.

That led to a series of arguments about how that wouldn't work.  Conflict leads to story ideas, so I thought I would make a new post to capture it all!

I'd like to invite people to post three types of things here:
METHOD TO GET RICH: [Some way of getting rich using magic]
WHY IT WON'T WORK: [A reason why it wouldn't work.  This could be a mechanical reason, a thematic Dresdenverse reason, or a made up reason.]
STORY IDEA: [A quick description of a story idea that a GM could run, using this conflict]

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DFRPG / What is the complexity to Transform Objects?
« on: October 28, 2010, 05:30:05 PM »
Transforming people violates the Laws of Magic, but transforming objects is considered acceptable.  However I couldn't find any guidelines for the complexity of permanently transforming an object.

To give some specifics, what would be the complexity to...

1) Transform a fast food burger into a steak dinner?
2) Transform a knife into a sword?
3) Transform a pen into a knife?
4) Transform a wall with a door into a solid wall (with no door)?
5) Transform a house that burned down to its original condition?

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DFRPG / Ways to "mark" someone for Divination tracking (or other spells)
« on: October 21, 2010, 06:55:23 PM »
What are some different ways to "mark" someone so that you could track them later via Divination?  Basically, I'm interested in finding a way to sneak a symbolic link onto someone.  (The most obvious way is to sneak a physical item into their pocket or something, but I'm looking for something that doesn't require Deceit or Burglary.)

Could you mark someone with Thaumaturgy?  In other words, could you cast one spell to create a symbolic link, and then use that link later for other thaumaturgical spells (attack, scrying, tracking, etc)?  This would sort of be like hexing someone, except instead of giving them an Aspect like "Bad Luck", you would give them an Aspect like "Magically Marked".

The Intent here is to mark someone while they are physically present (ideally without them knowing about it) so that you can use Thaumatrugy spells (like Tracking) on them later when they think they are safe.

Some possible ways to mark someone:
- Get them to drink a magically "spiked" drink.
- Create a "land mine" that marks them if they break one of your Wards
- Create an enchanted item that supplements one of your attacks by marking the target

Would any of these be possible, or is it outside the mechanics of Thaumatrugy?

If it *is* possible, what are some other good ways to mark someone?

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DFRPG / Creating duplicates while Out Of Combat
« on: October 18, 2010, 05:09:50 PM »
I'm interested in creating a wizard who creates mirror images of himself while out of combat to safely scout ahead (or to safely talk to an enemy without making himself vulnerable).  I'd be interested in knowing how other people would build this.  What would you consider the complexity to be?  How long would it last?  What limitations would it have?  Etc.

The Intent: The intent is to make a duplicate that can scout instead of the wizard.  The wizard would stay behind in a trance, while his duplicate could scout ahead, but be unable to cast spells or manipulate objects.  This would basically be mobile scrying, plus the ability to project image and sound.

I'd also be interested in how much added complexity it would take to have:
- A duplicate that could cross thresholds
- A duplicate that could impersonate someone/something else
- A duplicate that could manipulate objects
- A duplicate that could cast spells
- A duplicate that could act independently of the wizard (or fight beside him)

I expect that some of those enhancements would push the complexity outside of mortal reach, but I'd be interested in how people would calculate the complexities.


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DFRPG / Creating duplicates while In Combat
« on: October 18, 2010, 05:00:47 PM »
I'm interested in creating a wizard who creates mirror images of himself while in combat to throw off enemy attacks.  I'd be interested in knowing how other people would build this.

The Intent: The intent is to make enemies choose the wrong target entirely.  The duplicates would not attack or act independently.

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