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Messages - jb.teller4

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1
DFRPG / Re: Running Away?
« on: August 12, 2011, 09:40:37 PM »
Like DFJunkie said, it also depends on what the runner is trying to accomplish. The above option assuems they're trying to get away. If they're jsut runnign around in circles trying not to die for a couple turns until their allies show up, then that isn't a sprint roll, it's a full defense. They're just dodging, so they get a +2 to their defense roll (which would be Athletics if they are trying to run around in circles so the ghoul can't get close enough to gut them).

But I wouldn't let them use the Sprinting rules as an automatically successful defense roll (they sprint, therefore forcing the enemy to spend their action sprinting as long as they get over one success, therefore taking up the enemy's action, therefore guaranteeing that the enemy can never attack even if they roll better on the sprinting roll) which is how I interpreted the example in the original post.


But if they were trying to run away and I didn't want to handle it as a chase conflict for whatever reasons, I think I'd give the chaser a free action against the query on any turn that they catch up (i.e. end the turn in the same zone as the query). I'd allow for pretty much any action that can be justified (an attack, a maneuver such as placing a "tackled!" aspect on them that can be tagged to start wrestling the next turn, a block against running the next turn, etc.). And of course the query would get a defense roll if it would normalyl be applicable (like vs. an attack).

But if the chaser doesn't catch up (i.e. make it all the way to the zone where the query ends up), then they don't get a free action (basically they spent their action sprinting).

Regardless of the results, at the end of the turn you'd know where each party was (they've each moved a certain number of zones on the map so you'd know how far apart they are). If the query ends any exchange at three or more zones away, then they've escaped (you can modify the number of zones they have to get ahead depending on the cirumstances).

-John B.

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DFRPG / Re: Brain damage: mental or physical?
« on: August 12, 2011, 09:13:11 PM »
Well, philosophically the relationship between brains, "minds", "free will", "souls" (in the Dresden Files sense), etc. is an interesting topic.

But on the original topic, I lean towards it being physical damage. I'm more concerned with how physical vs. mental damage impact the game and narrative than which is more "accurate". The three main effects (that I can think of) are: 1) which track of stress you're impacting in a conflict (which matters for subsequent attacks), 2) what types of armor protects against it, and, most importantly I think, 3) how recovery is handled.

For any supernatural power impacting recovery (whether Inhuman/Supernatural/Mythic Recovery, Wizards Constitution, or even Living Dead) I'd say it recovers as a physical wound. The Recovery powers and Wizard's Constitution would allow brain damage to heal compeltely without any justification except time. this is definitely more like physical damage.

Even for mundane healing, I think that rest or medical care are more relevant than getting counseling or similar for minor brain injuries.

Of course, many brain injuries never heal (without supernatural recovery of some sort) and intensive therapy to build new pathways around the damaged region might be appropriate (like a stroke), but in the system that would only apply if they took an Extreme consequence.

On the topic of armor, it seems weird either way. Neither physical armor nor mental toughness seems like it would stop it (unless it was innate physical armor, like the Toughness powers), but I don't think it's a good idea to worry about modeling that level of detail. It you want, do a maneuver to place an aspect like 'Their brain is undefended by their armor' and tag it for +2 to your attack. Otherwise, I'd just treat it as any other physical attack.

Anyway, just my two cents.

-John B.

3
DFRPG / Re: FPs used for Evocation Casting are twice as good...?
« on: August 12, 2011, 06:31:37 PM »
Regarding mental stress: how my group does it is if you want to pump up your spell with stress its a stress box for each point. For example, if you wanted to increase your spell's power by two you would have to fill in your one, two, and three mental stress boxes instead of just box number three. In my opinion this is more effective than limiting how much power someone can throw into a spell. If they want to throw down a legendary attack (assuming they have Superb Conviction with no focus items) than they can just tick off all of their mental stress boxes, but they won't be able to cast anything else without harming themselves in some way.

Huh. I like that. So if they want to throw out one massive spell that does like 22 damage, then they can, but they're totally tapped out. I'm going to think about that some more.

-John B.


4
DFRPG / Re: Modified in reverse?
« on: August 12, 2011, 06:18:01 PM »
Actually, there is an official example of this in the RAW:

Quote
"If being less wealthy is actually seen as a positive in the situation (perhaps to gain some “street cred” or what-have-you), then the rules for modifying may be turned around, creating a –1 to the roll if Resources is above a particular level."

-Page YS139, under the Money Talks trapping of the Resources skill

Edit: I wouldn't do this often, because I agree that high skills shouldn't generally be a penalty (compels of aspects are entirely different, of course, as has been mentioned above), but there is some official precedent for it.

-John B.

5
DFRPG / Re: FPs used for Evocation Casting are twice as good...?
« on: August 12, 2011, 06:11:21 PM »
I've been messing with this a bit, based on some of the comments in this thread. I was thinking about an idea and was wondering what people thought (basically I'm trying to keep the power of evocation more in line with other powers and with my own expectations based on the novels and setting, while also trying to keep or make Discipline and Conviction roughly equally useful).

Evocation House Rule Idea: You cannot increase Power above your Conviction (plus any specializations, focus items, etc.) with stress.

You may choose any power up to or equal to your modified Conviction and you suffer a single Mental stress, whatever the Power is. The only way to cast a spell with Power higher than your modified Conviction is with Mental consequences or Sponsored Magic debt. Consequences increase the Power up to their rating (e.g. a Minor consequence gives +2 Power while an Extreme mental consequences gives +8 Power). I haven't really thought through how Sponsored magic would work exactly, but it makes sense to me that it should thematically and mechanically.


There are a couple repercussions of this that I can think of that I'll discuss below. Please point out anything that I'm missing or overlooking or miscalculating.

Mental Stress: Since every spell causes a single stress no matter what its Power, Mental stress is simply a counter ("pouring extra power in" is represented by consequences, not stress). So at Conviction 1-2 you can cast three evocation spells without consequences, while with 3+ Conviction you can cast four evocation spells without consequences. Really, this isn't all that different and actually lessens some of the calculations ("well, I've already filled stress boxes 1 & 3 so I might as well go for a stress 2 or 4 Power, since a 1 or 3 are going to roll up anyway..."). It's a pretty minor thing either way, but unless I'm overlooking something I think that 1 stress per spell will work fine in practice without substantially how Mental stress limits evocation.

Evocation Attacks: Discipline is still slightly better than Conviction for attacks, which I'm okay with. An extra point in Conviction or an extra point in Discipline both give +1 damage, while Discipline has an edge because it's more likely to hit targets with good defense skills and/or armor and because you're less likely to suffer Backlash or Fallout. Conviction isn't completely irrelevant: Attacking multiple opponents or hitting a whole zone both require a minimum Power and can't be done unless your modified Conviction is high enough, whatever you Discipline is. Plus, there are other benefits to Conviction (see below). But all in all, a balance is ideal, but higher Discipline is better than higher Conviction for evocation attacks. And I'm okay with that.

But apart from the balance or Discipline and Conviction, how does it affect damage and the power of evocation? In practice, it's costly to get a Weapon rating higher than your modified Conviction. But for most wizards, that still means Weapon ratings of 3 or more (7 or higher isn't that hard to get at character creation). When you add in that they can get significantly more powerful attacks with consequences or sponsored magic, I don't feel like they're too weak.

On a personal note, it also resolves something that's always bothered me, which is that the difference between a wizard with Conviction 3 and Conviction 5 isn't all that big in practice in the RAW. In the books Dresden is described as being very innately powerful, but I don't think the RAW captures that well compared to other wizard builds.

Other uses of Evocation: Modified Conviction is more important than Discipline in every other use of evocation except attacks.

  • Most effects have a minimum Power (e.g., Maneuvers are 3 or the target's affected skill)
  • The strength of blocks and armor is based on Power, not the control roll
  • All modifiers (duration, area of effect, etc.) increase the required Power
  • More powerful spells are harder to counterspell (a masterful but weak warden with Conviction 1 and Discipline 7 would be a lot easier to counterspell than they would be to dodge)
  • The more Power you have, the easier it is to counterspell other people's spells
  • Conviction also determines how many spells you can cast

So overall I'm pretty happy with the balance of Discipline and Conviction with this house rule. I also think it stacks better in comparison to other "combat" powers of similar cost (e.g. Supernatural Strength if you consider the drawbacks of Evocation to effectively be a "price discount")

Thaumaturgy: As far as I can see, Thaumaturgy isn't much changed. It will never cause mental stress unless I tweaked the house rule (like saying that you can do up to 2 below your Conviction for no stress, while 1 below or equal to your Conviction causes 1 stress). Also, since the only way to get more Power is consequences (Thaumaturgy doesn't allow Conviction to be modified by specializations or focus items), Conviction becomes a pretty hard cap on the fastest you can possibly cast a spell. Control (Discipline) is still more important because you don't want to have the spell blow up.

It seems to me like the balance of stats is similar to RAW thaumaturgy, with Conviction getting a small boost in that it's a more fixed cap on casting speed than it used to be.

Again, I might be missing something.


Anyway, I'm not set on the above house rule by any means. But I was thinking about ways to prevent the insanely powerful attacks that I talked about in the original post (where each fate point effectively gives +4 damage) that are easier than my original house rule yet don't make Discipline significantly better than Conviction, like the second idea above of saying that only successes above the higher of Power or attack roll add to damage.

So, thoughts? Comments? (Note: Pointing out any big flaws and ripping it apart won't hurt my feelings--I'd be grateful.)

-John B.

6
DFRPG / Re: when things don't have a catch
« on: August 04, 2011, 01:55:23 PM »
I dimly remember right after the game came out reading one of the developers talking about the cost of the Catch being a reflection of how often the Catch will come up in the game. Anyone who takes a +3 Catch should expect the Catch to be well-known and easy to get and to come up all the time (like maybe even as every session), while someone with a +0 Catch should probably only have the Catch come up very rarely (possibly never). In the same discussion, I vaguely remember the sentiment being expressed that taking a +0 Catch and saying "I dunno what it is, but it's really obscure and I don't really think it will ever come up" was fine, with the caveat that if a character in the game ever decided to actively research the Catch and figure out what it was, then you're have to make something up.

-John B.

7
DFRPG / Re: when things don't have a catch
« on: August 04, 2011, 01:48:09 PM »
The way that I read the intent of Catches is that every creature with toughness/recovery powers has to have a weakness or a way to get around that toughness/recovery power.

This isn't RAW, but something I've done on occasion is that if the creature (and I wouldn't allow this for PCs) has some other weakness (like zombies falling inert if the drumming stops or even having Human Form where the toughness/recovery don't apply until they change), I'll sometimes let that effectively count as their Catch and I'll give them a +0 Catch so they aren't getting any further discount (e.g. a zombie could have the Weakness of "Only while they can hear the drum (+0)").

Also, I've only ever done this with the "Inhuman" levels of Toughness and Recovery (where the toughness/recovery is a nice boost but doesn't make them invulnerable or nearly imposible to kill without either doing massive damage or finding their Catch). For the more powerful versions, like Mythic or Physical Immunity, I'd make sure there's a more standard Catch for the players to find out and exploit.

And finally, I've really only done that when I can't think of a good Catch and the creature isn't really important enough to get hung up worrying about it. I think that having a good Catch is almost always more interesting.

-John B.

8
DFRPG / Re: Question reguarding the setting.
« on: August 03, 2011, 03:49:03 AM »
I'd started to write a long reply, but devonapple nailed everything I was saying much more succinctly.

I know that other people have played Dresden Files in different eras (e.g. Rick Neal's Fearful Symmetries campaign set in Prague in 1620 during the Thirty Years' War) and it didn't seem like they had any trouble converting the system to earlier eras.

-John B.

9
DFRPG / Re: Handling detecting lies
« on: August 03, 2011, 03:01:36 AM »
Note: I know that zenten said that he/she knows that player knowledge and character knowledge are separate but that he/she thinks it will be more fun if the players never know. I wasn't ignoring that when I wrote my reply above. I was suggesting a different way of approaching the issue. It may or may not work for your group, but it's worked really well for mine and I recommend trying it.

-John B.

10
DFRPG / Re: Handling detecting lies
« on: August 03, 2011, 02:43:48 AM »
I've had this same thought.

Something I've been trying lately as GM in Dresden and other games is to be pretty up-front with the players when someone is lying. Even going so far as to say, "yeah, this guy is totally lying to you... :wink, wink:" I tell them they don't know what exactly he's lying about, or why, or what the truth is (nor do they have enough information to call them on it). Then I let them roll Empathy. If they fail, their characters don't know he's lyin (or aren't sure), but the players do. My group has actually had a lot of fun with this. I think that the FATE system actually does really well with this separation of player knowledge vs. character knowledge (for the same reason, I tend to be pretty out in the open about aspects to the players, unless there's a specific reason to keep it hidden). I think the tension of knowing they're lying but also knowing you failed the roll so your character doesn't know is more tense and more satisfying than the players not knowing they're lying.

This technique is actually from another game (Dogs in the Vineyard by Vincent Baker), but it's worked very well for my group. I also think it fits well with the advice in DFRPG about only rolling the dice "when there is an interesting challenge with meaningful consequences" (YS 192).

So looking at it that way, if it isn't an interesting challenge with meaningful consequences, just tell them "no, he's telling the truth" or "she doesn't know anything" or whatever without rolling.

Basically, I'd assume they're always trying to tell if people are lying and I'd only draw attention to it (and bring out the dice) when either the target is lying or else there's some other reason that rolling the dice would be interesting and meaningful. And then, like I said above, I'd still start by saying to the player, "she's totally lying to you, dude..."

11
DFRPG / Re: FPs used for Evocation Casting are twice as good...?
« on: August 02, 2011, 08:36:56 PM »
They are a single roll. However, that single roll serves two purposes, which is why they said it felt like the fate point was counting 'twice' - because it improves both your control and your aim.

Which means you can get +4 extra damage per fate point with Evocation atacks, instead of the +2 extra damage per fate point that you can get with any other type of attack, magical or mundane.

For example, if you decide that you're planning on spending 2 FP on an attack, then you can up your Power by 4 (which increases the damage by 4) because the 2 FP you spend on casting will offset the additional difficulty of controlling that increased Power. Then the 2 FP you're spending will also improve your to-hit roll by +4, which also increases the damage by 4. Thus for 2 FP, you got +8 damage instead of the usual +4 damage you'd get if you spent a FP while shooting a gun or swinging your fists or any other type of attack, mundane or magical.

I don't mind wizards doing obscene amounts of damage, per se, but I don't like them getting double the bonus from FP that everyone else does. However, there are other consequences of either of the two house rules that have been suggested (mainly that Discipline becomes more important than Conviction), so I'm undecided what I want to do about it in future campaigns.

This has been a very helpful discussion...

-John B.

12
DFRPG / Re: FPs used for Evocation Casting are twice as good...?
« on: August 02, 2011, 03:05:52 PM »
[Y]our houserule sounds reasonable. So does Redthorn's (although I don't know how he/she handles cases where the caster takes backlash), so does the one about foci and specializations that seems to belong to no-one in particular.

If I'm understanding Redthorn's rule variation and your question correctly, it should still work just fine.

First, if you roll high enough to hit the target (i.e. tie or beat their defense roll), then you hit them, regardless of what happens with the attempt to Control the Power of the spell.

Next, attempting to control the Power of the spell is resolved as RAW--if you fail to meet or beat the Power, then you choose Backlash or Fallout. If you choose Backlash, you take damage but the spells goes off at full power. If you choose Fallout, then the Power (and thus the damage) of the spell decrease, plus there is unintended fallout.

The only difference is that if the Power of the spell is higher than the target's defense roll, then you have to roll higher before you start getting extra shifts of damage, so you'll get less overall.

Is that what you're asking, Sanctaphrax, or am I misunderstanding?

-John B.

13
DFRPG / Re: FPs used for Evocation Casting are twice as good...?
« on: August 02, 2011, 02:43:33 PM »
Thanks for all the comments, everyone. Some very good points. They'll be very helpful next time I run a Dresden campaign with evocation or channeling.

Link is broken. You have http:// twice and unnecessary quotation marks.

Thanks. It should be fixed now.


Also, some of them are Submerged and others are Feet In The Water. What's up with that?

Well, it's not directly related to the post's question, but there were two separate sets of characters who did not directly interact (until the very end, and even then it was limited). So the Submerged characters were all together in one party and the Feet in the Water characters were all together in a separate party. It was basically two interwoven campaigns around the same central themes and threats. I think that the main Wiki page explains more what we did.


PPS: I have to wonder why the guy without Speed was going first. Did you never fight anything supernaturally fast?
PPPS: I question the balance of that initiative-boosting enchanted item more than I do those evocations.

Well, that's embarrassing--I think I'm going senile at an early age. I looked at Alois'character sheet and he doesn't have any Initiative boost... the enchanted item I was thinking of is actually for physical defense. So he wasn't going first. It's weird what memory does sometimes... Still, his evocation uber-blasts dominated every fight he was in, except for the Outsider fight.


There is one thing I'd like to point out. Just in case it's not simply a typo. Base Power of 7, increased to 14 means 8 Stress from casting. One Mild consequence would not be enough to manage that.

Yeah, it was a typo -- he actually had a base Power of 8, and a base Control of 7, so I mixed those two up. Thanks.


Or you could follow the 'mantra' of the novels, as was also suggested, throw out a big fight early on, or several smaller ones. Stretch the players a bit and have them face the big bad in a worse-for-wear state, as Harry often does. You don't have to do this all the time, but just often enough to remind them to use their minds creatively.

That's a good idea and I didn't use it as much as I wanted to. Because we weren't doing a combat focused campaign, one fight per session was usually all I threw in. And I didn't push them as hard as I should have (or the novels would have) so they got recovery time between pretty much every conflict until the climax.

In the two-session climax (which I haven't written up on the campaign wiki yet), there was a series of back-to-back fights, chases, and other conflicts--basically Alois snuck and ran through a full-blown Wild Hunt in progress to get to a Red Court stronghold, which he proceeded to wipe out (though not without getting hurt and tired). He knew it was coming and he played more conservatively with an eye towards stretching out his resources (fate points and Mental stress/consequences).

I used mortals in the climx, too (the Red Court stronghold was a night club full of people).

(I'd also instituted the hosue rule above before the climax sessions, so I can't say for sure if it would have been any different if we were using RAW...).

-John B.

14
DFRPG / Re: FPs used for Evocation Casting are twice as good...?
« on: August 02, 2011, 03:18:32 AM »
@computerking, good points. He was actually okay at social conflicts (and is the kind of character who enjoys getting himself in trouble, so he tended to be fairly central in many social scenes, too, even if it largely consisted of him getting himself compelled and causing the rest of the group to groan and smile at the same time). The issue wasn't ever that we weren't having fun. As much as anything else, it felt weird that he could do so much damage--like it didn't fit the feel of the world and campaign otherwise. Plus, at least one of the other characters was also a physical-combat focused character and was definitely very overshadowed in that niche (as well as being less versatile in other areas).

Ironically, the problem was made worse precisely because we didn't focus on combat. Almost every combat that came up went like this: This wizard went first (he had an enchanted item that basically let him use his Lore for Initiative 3 times a session, which more than covered every turn of combat in an average session). He fried the main bad guy in one shot (or, on one occasion, fried several bad guys in one shot after splitting the attack), or if he didn't, they were so weakened that the other characters mopped them up in an almost desultory fashion. Therefore almost every fight, even against villains that were meant to be scary, ended with the smell of scorched flesh and the enemy never even getting a single blow or spell off. This also completely negated the weakness of wizards, which is that they have a limited number of spells before they're tapped out.

In contrast, there was a fight against an Outsider that had complete immunity to magic and it was by far the most interesting and tense fight of the campaign and let the other combat character (a werebear) shine.

So, basically, one character consistently ending the fight in one roll wasn't as much fun and we didn't get in enough fights for me to ever get the balance right (the campaign's been over for a couple months now).

15
DFRPG / Re: FPs used for Evocation Casting are twice as good...?
« on: August 02, 2011, 03:00:25 AM »
I've been giving my wizard extra shifts of damage based on how well their control roll does against the higher of Spell DC and Target DC...

IE, if they barely manage to control a high-power spell, they haven't been getting any bonus damage. Even if the target had low defenses and they hit very well.

Huh. I think that's a lot more elegant than my house rule (which involves keeping track of which part of the roll you apply invokes/tags to) and it addresses the "double-dipping" issue so each fate point only adds +2 shifts of damage instead of +4.

I'm going to think about that a bit more...

-John B.

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