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Messages - PirateJack

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1
DFRPG / Re: Who can death curse?
« on: May 02, 2016, 05:59:09 PM »
Death curse requires deliberation, and flat out isn't survivable.  It may have been headed into death-curse territory -- but it really was just taking a severe for LOTS of extra oomph to the spell.

Harry would have died if not for Michael's intervention, which came through a prayer to God. Also, there was deliberation in the way Harry sought more power, it just wasn't rationally motivated. You've just got to remember that the novels don't align perfectly with the RPG, so while mechanically it would likely have been a severe consequence, in the books it was probably a Death Curse that was cured through the power of God.

2
DFRPG / Re: Who can death curse?
« on: May 01, 2016, 05:35:43 PM »
Severe Physical Consequence: Heart Attack

Well, in game terms it could work that way, but in the novel it looks more like an actual Death Curse. Harry uses up all of his regular magic, but he's so angry that he reaches further and his body begins to shut down on him. Sounds pretty Death Curse-like to me.

3
DFRPG / Re: Who can death curse?
« on: April 30, 2016, 07:13:25 AM »
The difference here is the death curse deliberately tosses any limits overboard.  You could accidentally drain yourself to death, maybe, but I'd argue that without the choice to do so, your body's final reserves will go untapped, even as they dwindle to a point where they aren't enough to keep yourself alive.  Your body -- your *life* -- has a lot of energy bound into it that you can't tap into on a daily basis.  A death curse willingly shoves those limits aside, knowing it's your death.

Well, there was a point in Grave Peril where Harry cast a large enough fire spell that his heart stopped beating in his chest. It required actual divine intervention to get it going again.

4
DFRPG / Re: Who can death curse?
« on: April 24, 2016, 08:12:30 AM »
+1 ...
But we DON'T hear of this as a worry about other Blamps, even strong ones (offhand, I don't think we EVER meet another really-powerful Blampire, but Harry clearly knew a great deal ABOUT the BC).  It stood out as something extra to worry about, with Mavra.  Thus I presume it's a practitioner-thing, not a Blampire thing.  Or maybe it's just a terribly-minor and inconsequential thing from most BC's, but far-more-potent because of Mavra's training?

IIRC we in fact ONLY hear about these in conjunction with practitioners of fairly-high strength; do we EVER hear (in the novels) about "random supernatural baddie" (that is NOT a practitioner of some stripe) that DOES have a Death Curse?

Mavra is explicitly stated to be a sorcerer, possibly on the same level of power as a White Council Wizard, so while I wouldn't say it's unreasonable for most practitioners to have the ability (training required), it's only once it gets to WCW levels that the death curse is something to worry about.

5
DFRPG / Re: Who can death curse?
« on: April 22, 2016, 11:50:52 PM »
It's mentioned specifically by McCoy that Mavra may have a death curse to use, so I'd consider any practitioner capable of using one with the right training.

6
DFRPG / Re: Dresden Files Cooperative Card Game
« on: April 21, 2016, 04:03:38 AM »
Expansion 3 is already up there, featuring Luccio and Ramirez. I think we can reasonably predict who is going to turn up in the next expansions too.

Expansion 4 - Changes & Ghost Story. The Leanansidhe and McCoy/Vadderung.

Expansion 5 - Cold Days & Skin Game. Demonreach (alternately Sarissa or Cat Sith) and Goodman Grey.

7
DFRPG / Re: Character creation help - Mermaid
« on: April 20, 2016, 10:10:25 PM »
If you go a changeling route, it could be that one of his parents struck a bargain with a more powerful Sidhe and had them erase the memory and send her on dry land to be safe. Since Sidhe rarely do what they are told, she got turned into a man with all the memories of a mortal life, but when he touches water turns back into the old mermaid self.

That might also give you lots of opportunities for plot hooks. Someone is looking for her, for example.

Generally, it's easier to finalize a character sheet the more you know about who the character is supposed to be. The powers aren't really the problem, most of the time, they just follow from a good description.

Expanding on this idea slightly, instead of being cursed to transform when in water, running water is gradually washing away the spell that keeps her transformed. By the time the game takes place the spell is nearing its end and he/she's transforming into a mermaid more and more often, often at completely random and inopportune times.

8
DFRPG / Improvised Weaponry
« on: April 08, 2016, 04:38:28 PM »
Kinda inspired by the Supernatural Speed thread, a situation I've seen come up a fair few times in my games is when a character picks up another character and uses them as a (thrown) weapon. Usually this character has Supernatural Strength, which is the minimum I'd allow to have a character able to effectively wield people as weapons.

How exactly do you adjudicate a situation like that? The way I've gone with it in the past is a Weapons attack modified by Might, with the stress bonus from SupStr being applicable. The problem then is that by all rights, it should be a split attack due to there being two opponents being attacked.

As I said, it's come up a couple of times so I was wondering how you guys dealt with it.

9
DFRPG / Re: Looking to limit wizard power thread.
« on: April 08, 2016, 03:54:35 PM »
You could argue that only armour held as a defensive item would trigger on defence, since Enchanted Items usually require an action to activate. That goes counter to what was printed in Paranet Papers, however, so do what you will.

10
DFRPG / Re: Outer Gates Discussion
« on: April 08, 2016, 01:45:23 PM »
Eh, I prefer the unknown horror angle, personally. If you make the Outsiders just another batch of monsters like those in the Nevernever they lose a bit of their mystique. After all, Harry mentions in Cold Days that they're supposed to be completely separate and dangerous because of it. They don't follow the rules of our reality and, apparently, all act in concert with each other. They're the otherworldly threat that make the usual monsters seem a bit more human by contrast.

As for the Outer Gates, I like to think that there have been occasions in the past where people have had to go past them, which is why there is a gate.

11
DFRPG / Re: Making and populating a city in NeverNever
« on: March 14, 2016, 05:21:20 AM »
Don't get me wrong, I'm not opposed to a city in the Never-never.  But I do think it has to have an origin and purpose.

In the Dresdenverse, the Never-never is basically magical potential without shape.  The places we've seen are all shaped to purpose.  Either by mortal belief or supernatural control, they're given shape.

Now what if we said that this city of yours was a culmination of mortal belief in a lost city?  In the Dresdenverse, Atlantis was a real place.  I forget which story mentions something in context of, " not since the fall of Atlantis". 

But even if Atlantis was real, it's not tied to what humans dream of.  So maybe all of that human fascination with lost and legendary cities like  Atlantis and Mu and Camelot and El Dorado and Shangri-La found a home in the Never-never, where a city with features of each formed from the combined belief in them?

Human faith would seem to have power in the Dresdenverse, and supernatural beings would likely fight over it for themselves.  But with no way to associate themselves with the legends, they'd be left with using the city for their own purposes. 

Now, in regards to humans living in the Never-never, we know that they can't live there and consume things from there and remain human.  That's established in the books.  If a human stayed there long enough, they'd slowly lose themselves.  In an ancient WoJ on the subject, JB said that as humans eat things from the Never-never, their cells are replaced by Never-never cells from Never-never nourishment.  So if they ever went back to reality, where Never-never material turned into ectoplasm... So would they.

That's a great idea, but I've got a different take on it.

There is a city in the Nevernever that has always existed. It was there before the first vampire was created, the first sidhe born, the first angel fell to Earth. Neither Heaven nor Hell, it is something different yet similar, occupying that same thoughtspace that all universal concepts fall into. When the first mud huts were built in ancient Africa, their builders dreamt of this. When wood replaced mud and stone replaced wood, each idea was taken from this one, ideal city.

If you were to visit this city you could find yourself in a replica of a tribal village in one moment then transported to a scene straight out of a science fiction film. Every building, every town, every city ever conceived was based on something from this one, monolithic city. Yet if that is the case, why does everyone dream of this place? What connects it to mortal minds and what reason does it have for sending these visions in the first place?

My pet thought here is that the city is alive. It's the first genius loci, immensely powerful, and it's trying to have mortals build enough parts of it in their realm so that it can breach through the barrier between Earth and the Nevernever, manifesting itself in the mortal plane. Could make for an interesting end game scenario. How do you defeat a living city?

12
DFRPG / Re: Making and populating a city in NeverNever
« on: March 13, 2016, 02:50:25 PM »
Make it Michigan during the time it was stolen by Unseelie Fae.

13
DFRPG / Re: I'm A GM Looking For Help
« on: March 10, 2016, 01:08:44 PM »
When you're designing NPCs/encounters, base their stats on the average effective skills of the PCs rather than on refresh spent. This means totalling up their skills and the bonuses they get to them from powers/stunts/weapons/armour, and then average them across the party. A decent guideline is that an encounter at around the average is going to be pretty easy with a couple of aspect invocations, average +2 is a challenge and average +4 has the chance to wipe the party if they don't have plenty of fate points to spend (so BBEG time).

14
DFRPG / Re: Request A Character
« on: March 09, 2016, 01:13:03 PM »
I've never played Undertale, but if Sans simply can't be hit without being ambushed, wouldn't that be better modelled by Physical Immunity? As it is, if you have an entire party working together in stacking aspects, you'd be able to hit him in straight up combat.

15
DFRPG / Re: Payment for services rendered
« on: March 07, 2016, 01:10:30 AM »
There are a few means I can think of, some more realistic than others.

The easiest way would be to get a plane ticket, complete with plane that will allow a lit torch on it, and then fly around the world.

Alternately, give yourself the Wings power and Mythic Speed. There may be a slight problem with violating sovereign airspace this way, though.

Another idea, with only a slight chance of losing a head, would be to use chronomancy to slow down time and then just do it normally.

You could give yourself the ability to run tirelessly and without injury, then run it. It'd take about 41 days of non-stop running to make it around the equator at 25 mph, though that doesn't answer the ocean problem.

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