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.

So I've got a character idea in mind that I'd like to try and work, but I've run into a bit of a stumbling block.

The basic idea is a character that can only use her Channelling ability through touch. Normally I'd go for Incite Effect, but I want this ability to be more along the lines of Powerful, but harder to hit with (note: My group uses the house rule that has Evocations aimed with base Discipline only).

So, how would I go about modelling this? I could go the route of replacing Discipline with Fists, but then that doesn't cover the control part of the roll. I could go with Discipline, but then that doesn't model the needing to hit people part of it.

Any suggestions on how to work this?

So I've been wondering whether counterspells would be able to affect enchanted items or not, and how they would do so if they are.

I'm inclined to say yes, since enchanted items recharge between sessions, so the effects wouldn't be too prolonged. It would also make it easier for my NPC spellcasters to break through player defences (Crafting heavy builds tend towards being very difficult to break without hilariously overpowering spells). That said, there are a few problems I'm looking at.

• Would the difficulty be the Crafting Strength or Strength + Frequency?
• Would Wizards still be able to pay one mental stress to use the item again?

Also, could someone tell me why the mental stress thing is a rule? I can't recall a single instance of it in the books and it just seems to me that it makes Crafting specialists tougher than things with Mythic Toughness and the likes, which is not something I generally allow for my PCs.

So during my game one of my players suggested putting Demonic Co-Pilot on an NPC because it would fit the character concept well. I'd never really looked at the ability before, but now that I have I feel it could be so much more than it is. DCP is based on the Denarians, which I feel encompasses a whole lot more than just transformation, so I've added a few things to make this more accurate. I've also had a look at the custom powers thread but I don't think that version works particularly well. So here is my attempt.

Demonic Co-Pilot [-VARIES]
Description: You have a spiritual parasite living in your mind, bringing its baggage along with it. This may come with a variety of benefits, but always comes at a cost.
Musts: You must have an Aspect reflecting this Power. You must take at least one ability linked to this Power. You may not take this power more than once.
Skills Affected: Many.
Effects:
Arcane Advisor: The spirit living in your mind has a lifespan measured in centuries rather than decades, and has gathered a wealth of knowledge and experience over the course its lifetime. This allows it to act as a workspace (as detailed on YS140). You may ask the entity questions up to Superb rating for the cost of 1 point of Sponsor Debt.
Sponsored Powers: On top of the knowledge the spirit possesses, it may also choose to grant you access to a variety of powers within its purview. Choose which powers you wish to take from the Creature Features, Minor Abilities, Nevernever Powers, Psychic Abilities, some Shapeshifting abilities, Speed, Strength, Recovery, and Toughness categories. Sponsored Magic is also available, though regular spellcasting powers are not.
Sponsor Debt: Many aspects of this power work hand in hand with the Sponsor Debt mechanic (YS289). If Sponsored Magic is taken as a Power, the Sponsor Debt mechanic is merged with this Power.
The First Taste is Free: Some spirits may be willing to give access to a single power without attached Sponsor Debt as a way of gaining the person's trust and/or reliance. As seen in the DEAD BEAT casefile, use of this 'free' power may come with other consequences such as allowing communication between spirit and host.
The Price of Power: Every time you use a power linked to Demonic Co-Pilot, the spirit accrues 1 point of Sponsor Debt, which may then be exchanged for compels on a 1:1 basis according to the spirit's agenda. The spirit is also able to deny use of any power, should it wish to.
The Struggle for Control: If the spirit so chooses, it may exchange any Sponsor Debt it has stored for a mental attack (defend with Discipline) with a strength equal to the number of Debt Points exchanged. If the character is Taken Out by this attack, he becomes permanently possessed by the spirit.

I've designed this power to be a double edged sword in a big way. It has access to the majority of powers, though I would leave it up to the GM's decision as to which powers a given spirit would be able to impart. Arcane Advisor is the greater of the two benefits it has, in my opinion, since it is essentially a portable superb workspace, which makes for a very broad spectrum of possible declarations.

I wanted to work in Item of Power somewhere as a way to tie this in to the Denarians more, but then I figured it would work the opposite way around. Take Item of Power with Demonic Co-Pilot as one of the imparted abilities.

The First Taste is Free is meant to portray the slippery slope. Get the victim used to your power, so you can deny it later or lead it further down the slippery slope. In Harry's case this would have been portrayed with hellfire, which Lash then used via compels to make Harry angrier, which could then be used to later make him break a Law. Slippery slope.

The Price of Power and the Struggle for Control are two sides of the same coin, really. I like the idea of the spirit being able to decide between short term goals, such as throwing the character into situations where they may need to buy more powers (or temporary powers), or long term ones that would allow it possession over the character. This would be especially good for characters that are used over multiple campaigns or over one long campaign as the spirit would be able to acquire a lot of Sponsor Debt over that time. Could lead to some interesting situations where the PC is unwilling to rely on the powers he's grown accustomed to using, while frantically searching for a way to get rid of the spirit in some way.

So what do you guys think?

So I managed to creep out one of my players with a soulgaze during the last session. It was from an Ectomancer that had been Driven Mad by Grief due to losing his fiancee; becoming obsessed with her to the point where he kept photos of her on every available surface. I'll not try to recreate it since a lot came down to the atmosphere I'd set up, but I managed to evoke a mixture of fear and empathy from one of my players through it. It's definitely ranking up there as one of the best moments of the campaign for me, if only because it got my power gamer to care for an NPC.

So, given that soulgazes are a major part of the Dresdenverse and a great way to let the players get an insight into major NPCs, what sort of techniques do you guys use to get the right effect across? Have you ever been particularly proud of a soulgaze or managed to bring that elusive extra level into the game that really gets the players involved?

Basically, what's your best soulgaze story?

So I'm in an argument with one of my players because he sees veils (and the way they're described in the rulebook) as going against the stated rules for blocks.

He's claiming that veiling a person renders them immune to attacks, manoeuvres and blocks from multiple targets (assuming they don't break through the veil), which according to the rules is not possible (you can either target multiple people/objects against one action or one person/object against multiple actions, not both). I've ruled it as this:

The veil does not 'prevent' anything. It can work in a variety of ways, but the most common one is to bend light around the target, not to directly block another person's vision (that would be an illusion rather than a veil).

The mechanics for it would essentially be:

1) Pick the target for the veil.
2) Declare what you want to block (bend light around the target, in this case).
3) Roll for strength.
4) If anyone tries to pierce the veil they must roll higher than its strength.

This is exactly the same method used to create a shield, and that's how the rulebook essentially describes it, so I'm going to go with that.

Am I right in this or should veils be restricted as he wants them to be?