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Messages - jalrin

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DF Spoilers / Re: Mab, So Who. . .?
« on: July 20, 2020, 04:30:16 AM »
This is not dispositive, but it should be noted that in The Once and Future King version of the Arthurian mythos, Mab's title of "Queen of Air and Darkness" belongs to Morgause, Arthur's half-sister and mother of Mordred. 

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DFRPG / Shapeshifter character catch question
« on: January 12, 2013, 12:06:25 AM »
I am planning a new scenario for the DFRPG group that I am GMing, and the upcoming sessions will be some of the first where my PCs will be seriously interacting with a group of shape-shifters who (depending on what my players do) could be either friends or foes.  My question is this: what kinds of catches make sense for were-bears or other shape-shifters with a toughness power?  They are supposed to have one, but I am having trouble figuring out what it is. 

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Harry uses soulfire to augment his conjuration in the FBI building to make the "stunt doubles" for Murphy and co. more realistic and to do it quicker than he could with standard methods.

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DFRPG / Re: Grappling Versus Incite Emotions?
« on: September 03, 2010, 06:12:27 AM »
Personally, I feel that grappling a WCV is just... an awful idea. Especially Raiths.

Cop grapples WCV(Raith) to the ground, finding her extremely hard to hold down, he uses his body weight to pin her. He then starts trying to put hand cuffs on the... beautiful... *drool*... soft... Yeah... yeah right. She couldn't have him MORE where she wants him.

If my group tried to use a grapple on a Raith, that'd be a mistake.

Wouldn't the fact that someone is in some sort of headlock make them seem less attractive to you, or is that just me being weird?  If it would not, wouldn't having someone in a headlock make them at least slightly less scary (if you were fighting a Malvora)?

Given how borderline broken incite emotion is, should we not at least let our players have some benfit from grapples in battle with WCVs (e.g. if the above view is rejected, why not at least let aspects placed on the WCV from grappling be used to defend against the incite emotion attack).

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DFRPG / Re: Grappling Versus Incite Emotions?
« on: August 31, 2010, 09:28:25 AM »
It is not completely illogical that a grapple could block a use of incite emotion.  Imagine for example that a vampire from House Malovra is using Incite Emotion to make you feel fear.  If you have them in a half nelson, that is going to:
  • make it harder for them to focus on incting the fear in you because they are being grapppled and
  • make said vamp less scary because it is, after all, trapped in a half nelson

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DFRPG / Re: Spellcasting aboard a ship?
« on: August 31, 2010, 02:53:14 AM »
There seems to be some inconsistency with respect to running water. Harry does not seem to have a whole lot of trouble with his spells while on board a boat. But proximity to running water in YS seems to have some sort of barrier to magic, enough for a Threshold while on a bridge across a river it appears.

The easiest way to square this with Small Favor and the battle on the Water Beetle in White Knight is to hypothesize that large bodies of (relatively stagnant) water do not create the same problem that the smaller quantity but faster moving river water from the Nevermore chapter of YS does.  I am not sure the best way to implement it, but weakening the threshold value of the water based on its slow moving nature would seem to be the easiest way to do it.

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DFRPG / Re: Dark Path Sorceress
« on: August 29, 2010, 08:41:07 AM »
This game must have an ultra-permissive GM.  If the argument above is accepted, I do not see how Elena can be matched or beaten while veiled.  How is any PC supposed to compete with a godlike uber-PC that can become unbeatable just by casting a single spell?  What counter to this seemingly broken set of powers am I missing?

Hobbitguy has a good point.  The destructive consequences of Elena's antics would be more than enough to justify all of the major powers calling down the thunder on her so that she does not keep bringing more outsider influence into the world.

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DFRPG / Re: Dark Path Sorceress
« on: August 28, 2010, 06:27:44 PM »
Sightblinder is cool but not worth it.  Any ritual with that much raw power is going to show up on a practioner's arcane senses and can be targetted without having to open the third eye.  Sadly, because the ability to become invisible without any possible counter is basically an "I win power" there is going to be a counter to any veil that a good GM will allow you to use.  This is aside from the obvious "if Elena deploys this the Council would immediately order McCoy to hunt Elena down and kill her and he would probably bust out the Blackstaff to do it via thaumaturgy".  Sometimes using the lower key approach is best so that Elena does not become such a threat that the major powers decide they need to eliminate her immediately (even Kemmler did not have the power to survive one major power making that decision, let alone several as Elena's antics would.

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DFRPG / Re: Dark Path Sorceress
« on: August 26, 2010, 11:22:01 PM »
This character concept is interesting but I do have a few questions and concerns.  First, how is this character going to fit in your gaming group?  This character would be viewed by most groups in the Dresdenverse as being on the Sith end of the scale.  This would make it impossible to work with most of the major supernatural powers and their members and allies.  If anyone in your group is a Wizard, a member of the Venatori Umbrorum, a Champion of God, a True Believer, or a Sidhe Knight, there is no way they will be able to work with this character because they will have extreme animosity towards her behavior (not to mention the fact that the Council would view her as kill on sight).

I am also curious, why does she not have Thaumaturgy or the Sight?  It would seem to me that broadening Elena's abilities would make her better able to function in what is not going to be a hostile world for her.  It would also seem to be crucial in order to justify the wizard level evocation specializations that Elena has (my math may be off, but it looks like she has 6 levels of specialization when non-wizards are capped at 3- the base one that comes with evocation and the one level of refinement permitted for non-wizard evocators).

Quote
The sight overcomes Illusions. Elena's veil is not an illusion; she literally exits reality so she won't be perceived. (She is using 7th-Law violating magic to do it. Not spirit illusions)

This is not going to work as a veil because the magic that lets her see what is going on in our reality would be detectable via the sight and thus she could be targetted that way.

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Also, if you teleport sb over a volcano, they will die through no action of any other creature. If you teleport someone into a dragon's lair, they willdie through the dragon's actions - or even their own. So the final act that kills them? Not your doing.

There is no way the White Council would ever buy this.  Allowing this kind of action would make it possible for a practicioner to kill helpless mortals with magic in such a manner as the mortal authorities could not cope with (teleportation to another realm as murder weapon does not fly in court).  The wardens, not to mention the Senior Council, would go berserk and begin a witch-hunt.  Considering the ease with which the distortions to reality created by her powers could be tracked (cf the the tracking of necromantic energy in Dead Beat), this would the survivability of this character problematic.  :(

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DFRPG / Re: Feeding Dependency
« on: August 26, 2010, 07:39:34 AM »
Luminos, you and I agree for the most part.  The only difference seems to be that I think that if the stress from an attack can be fit into an empty stress box on the hunger track it can go there without any other problem aside from that box being there.

For example, say a white court vampire uses 4 of its 6 feeding dependent powers (it did not use its inhuman strength because this was a shoot out).  It would then roll a Great (+4) attack against its discipline.  So far we agree.  Suppose the character has weak discipline and rolls badly and takes two stress despite having fair discipline (which would give it three stress boxes).  If its second hunger stress box is empty, it can just check that box off and, aside from needing to clear it, nothing else happens.  I do not think that a power consequence is necessary for stress that has been placed on the hunger track any more than hunger stress dealt with via consequence.  Power loss is only there for stress that has not been dealt with using wither of the other ways.

This would appear to be the onyl area we disagree, as it sounds like you are saying that the vampire in my example would need to lose one of its powers even if it could absorb the hunger stress on its track.  That would seem to be the only area we disagree though.

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DFRPG / Re: Feeding Dependency
« on: August 26, 2010, 06:52:44 AM »
Actually the way i read it is the second way (as an alternate form of consequence) with the caveat that one must remember that hunger stress does not clear after a scene is over.  The problem with the harsher version is that it is completely different from how stress works in the entire rest of the system and leads to potentially absurd results where even an even role makes the character helpless for the rest of the evening (by having to opt out of 2-3 scenes after every fight). The alternate consequence model, by contrast, is less disruptive to the game while also yielding results more consistent with the source material (Vampires are not completely unable to do anything except thinking about feeding in the books unless have either really pushed themselves or have gone protracted periods without feeding).  It therefore is the best model for gameplay.

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Deadman,

I am trying to develop my own modified write-up of Elaine because, while I think you did (as usual) a good job with her, I think your version might be slightly underpowered.  I was wondering about her focus item crafting specialty: did I miss something becuase she does not seem to be anymore fond of her focus items than any other wizard (I am asking because I have my own plan for that slot).  Just curious.

P.S.:  I finally found Billy's stunt for you: he is described in Turn Coat as being an engineer.

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DFRPG / Re: Damage vs. Bypass: Expanding the Catch
« on: June 25, 2010, 01:51:22 PM »
DFJunkie,

Your system works too.  The difficulty is that there are a number of GMs who have apparently crafted their own custom house rules that make it virtually impossible to use magic without the taken out result being mandated by GM fiat as automatically death.  This is a severe deviation from the rulebook and makes seriously complicated play balance.  I am currently redesigning the campaign I am GMing to incorporate a bunch of refugees from such games- none of whom were playing spell-slingers but who are so tired of the other GMs in my city behaving like this that they would rather have a less experienced GM (granted one whose knowledge of all things Dresden is better than the other potential GMs) than deal with this issue.


That being said, while I would probably go with your system for the most part, if not killing the opponent with magic will create problems for the character and they have an appropriate non-killing aspect, then I would still award the FATE point

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DFRPG / Re: Damage vs. Bypass: Expanding the Catch
« on: June 25, 2010, 12:56:38 PM »
What Deadman just said.


The laws of magic are also different however because the lawbreaker stunt not just massively complicates a character's life, but have the potential to make it unplayable.  Using such a hammer by changing the rules to make it almost impossible for a mortal spell-slinger to avoid it with care and then turning around and not allowing compels when that fits the concept ("morally grey" casters should not get this benefit but someone who really would be hyper-cautious such as Donald Morgan deserves it) risks creating an unhealthy dynamic
where players feel that the GM is screwing with them.***

*** I was really looking forward to playing this game but, because the other potential GMs all pull these stunts in our WoD, everybody else has quite literally refused to play unless I GM the game.   I say this, not because I think anyone here would do this, but to just provide the benefit of my experience.  And also in hopes that someone will take pity on my Bookworm of the White Council and give me an idea on how to find him a home, because it is sad when a character is homeless. :(  

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DFRPG / Re: Damage vs. Bypass: Expanding the Catch
« on: June 25, 2010, 11:31:19 AM »
Deadman is right.  If a character's high concept as a wizard of the White Council it means that there character concept requires them to be faithful to the laws of magic in a way that a sorcerer or an "independent" wizard a la Elaine is not.  Especially if we are going to implement one of the anti-evocation house rules that we have been floating around here, following such a high concept with the negative baggage it employs needs (the extra oversight from the wardens that wizards get for example) needs to be balanced with compels to make it work.

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