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Messages - Tarion

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31
DFRPG / Re: Temple Dog Catch
« on: January 01, 2013, 03:19:01 PM »
The 'powered by thresholds' thing sounds more like a Feeding Restriction applied to some or all of their powers than a Catch, at least to me.
That's a fascinating way to do it.  Mechanically, it fits far better than a Catch for what I was trying to do.  It ties the Temple Dog to their home, without crippling them outside it.  In fact, the more I think about it, the more I think it's a near perfect fit.  Mouse, for example, pretty clearly takes a scene or two out to recover behind his threshold after using his Bark in White Night, in a way that's consistent with recovering from Feeding failure. 

The only downside is that this is already represented a bit in the Temple Dog kit by the options for them to take Mental Stress to power their abilities.  I suppose one way around this would be to switch The Bark and Sacred Guardian to Hunger stress, rather than Mental Stress, to represent them powering it from the energy they're channelling from their threshold. 

I also don't know the system well enough to say what that does to balance - If you give them a feeding dependency without changing their abilities, they're going to have three stress tracks on the go in a physical encounter.  It seems like it might be quite vulnerable to gaming, if done well (And YMMV as to whether that's a good thing or not). 

Also, I wanted to add that I genuinely love the way that discussions about mechanics on this board have a tendency to branch out.  We've got Temple Dogs, Tortoises and anti-tank weaponry, all on one page. 

32
DFRPG / Re: Temple Dog Catch
« on: January 01, 2013, 03:35:25 AM »
Inhuman recovery and toughness are not that big of a deal, that they would be gamebreaking without a catch. I for one can live with them, especially, if the subject is in fact inhuman. A D-Rex like Mouse would certainly be tougher than your average human, and it will certainly recover from wounds more quickly. Not necessarily by supernatural means, just because they are tougher by their very physical nature. I would, for example, give a bear inhuman toughness without a catch.
That does seem fair. 

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Anything above that though would need a catch, I think. It's "supernatural" toughness and recovery, it says so right there in the name. And even if temple dogs are tough, I would not grant them anything above inhuman, without additional justification. The catch would then stem from that additional justification, rather than their templedogness.
I'm not so sure.  I mean, Mouse takes some fairly heavy hits throughout the series, and very rarely shows any effects.  He gets hit at fairly high speeds by a van, and walks it off.  He's shot.  He jumps straight through a window on the second floor and lands running. 

I wouldn't argue it for sure that he's at a Supernatural Toughness/Recovery level in game terms (I mean, look at the things with Supernatural resilience in OW.  There's a fairly massive spread  - Lord Raith and the Loup Garou are really supernaturally tough.  On the other hand, I'm not sure I'd put Gard that far above Mouse.  Yes, she heals quickly, but she still needed to seal her wounds to do so.  She's not like Lord Raith who just ignores bullet wounds), but his toughness and recovery certainly are supernatural, rather than just him being a monstrous canine. 

33
DFRPG / Temple Dog Catch
« on: January 01, 2013, 03:04:55 AM »
Hey guys,

I tried searching this and didn't find anything, so I decided to throw a new thread up.  As it stands, OW doesn't give a Catch for the Temple Dog's Inhuman Recovery.  And while that's fine if they're only tangentially involved, I thought it'd be nice to try to nail one down for if players are trying to play them. 

Now, based on what we know from the most recent AMA, Temple Dogs draw their power from thresholds.  At it's most restrictive, this could translate to them only using their Inhuman Recovery when they're within, or near their "place of power" (as Lea puts it).  I imagine a lot of people would find this really restrictive - Especially if they're wanting to play something reminiscent of Mouse, who we know cheats.  They're wanting to play superdog, not the glorified security guard.

We could probably widen this a bit by also allowing it to work when protecting someone who shares a home with them.  This more closely reflects the way Mouse acts in the series, where he's able to pull out some pretty intense superheroics when his friends and family are in danger.  Unfortunately, this gets quite clumsy to phrase, which is a bit of a pain.

Thoughts on the matter?  I'd rather avoid dropping the Catch altogether - The book is quite clear that it's a pretty potent power. 

34
My issue here is that this theory completely discounts the actual headaches in the past.  In Turn Coat, his headaches have gotten so bad that Butters is trying to get him into an MRI machine.  In Cold Days, he says they've been growing "steadily worse" "over the past few years".  Harry certainly doesn't see this as a case of two different types of headaches, but as a continuation of the ones plaguing him. 

i thought death curses were a human thing?
Ebenezar says Mavra can do one, since she has a wizard level talent.

35
DF Reference Collection / Re: Crazy HWWB theory revisited [CD SPOILERS]
« on: November 30, 2012, 11:56:37 PM »
Is there somewhere a list with all the quotes about Harry's migraines?

If no could you help me found them: - I know there are two in TC, one in CD , and some SmF.

Here are some, plz give all the one you have:
The issue with picking out headaches is that a lot of them are justifiable.  Harry essentially makes a living getting beaten up by supernatural creatures.

Storm Front - He complains about a headache, but only after getting his skill pounded by a thug.
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Maybe this had been another reminder from the mob boss. It had that kind of mafioso feel to it.
I staggered to my kitchenette and fixed myself a tisane tea for the headache, then added in some aspirin. Herbal remedies are well and good, but I don't like to take chances.
Fool Moon - He develops a headache while working on potions and researching Werewolves:
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I tried to ignore the headache that was creeping up the back of my neck toward the crown of my head, but it did little good.
Grave Peril - He has a headache while hunting for Charity.  Maybe justifiable, in that he was stressed.  He'd also been drugged earlier (But that caused pleasure, not pain) and had a ghost chew out his magic.
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Hell’s bells, all I had was a headache, an hourglass quickly running out of sand, and a case of the shakes.
Summer Knight - He develops a headache while researching the Queens
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I felt the headache start at the base of my neck and creep toward the crown of my head. "Okay, Bob. I need to know about these Queens...

I stared at the skull for a second, while the headache settled comfortably in."

It came back while talking to Meryl
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The headache started coming back. "Look, Meryl, I've got a lot on my plate already."
Death Masks - No mention of headaches!  Or at least, not specifically.  He did get hit in the head though:
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Light exploded behind my eyes and I dropped to my hands and knees at the bottom of the stairway. Anna had slugged me with something. A second burst of light and pain drove my head far enough down to splash some cold water against my forehead....

I tried to lift her body, but the effort brought a surge of pain to my head and I almost threw up.
His head also hurt while being held by Nicodemus.
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I came to my senses in complete darkness, under a stream of freezing water. My head hurt enough to make the wound on my leg feel pleasant by comparison.
Blood Rites - Harry gets hit in the head.  At this point, who's surprised?
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Multiple injuries, including a vicious headache from where Inari had socked me.
Dead Beat - 3 guesses on what happens. 
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I started to look around for the source of the noise.
And then someone hit me on the back of the head.
I remember that part, because I'd been through it before...

Then I stood up. My head pounded with a dull, throbbing beat of pain, and I bowed my head forward for a moment, letting cold rain fall onto the lump forming on the back of my skull. The worst of it passed after a minute, and I got the pain under control. I'd taken harder shots to the head than that one had been, and I didn't have time to coddle myself.
Proven Guilty - Harry has a headache.  He was in a car crash though
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My headache started rising up again...

My headache flared up with a vengeance, and the light of my amulet and staff both faded.

He then complains of a headache after using his Sight
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“It’ll pass. Just got this damned headache...

My headache finally began to fade away just as Murphy returned...

I spat a few times into the trash can and stood up. My headache started to return.
Then he gets hit in the head. 
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I came to with a headache, and my stomach attempted to slither out of my mouth. Its escape attempt was blocked by some kind of gag. I had the taste of metal in my mouth, and my jaws were forced uncomfortably wide. The blindfold on my face was almost a mercy, given the headache.
White Night - What looks like another stress headache when Molly looks at the dead girl
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I muttered under my breath, rubbed at the incipient headache beginning between my eyes, and thought dark thoughts.
Then Little Chicago takes a hit for him
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And then there was a geyser of scarlet pain, as if someone had seized both halves of my skull and torn it into two pieces.
And another one
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I leaned against a wall—unless maybe, since we were on a ship, it was a bulkhead—and rubbed my finger at a spot between my eyebrows where a headache was coming on.
Then he gets hit in the head, yet again, although it's healed by Elaine
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My head hurt, even more than it had after Cowl had finished ringing my bells the night before, if such a thing was possible. I didn't want to regain consciousness, if it meant rising into that.
It pops up a little bit again
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It had been a long night, and despite Elaine's incredible hands, my headache had begun to return
Small Favor - Harry gets kicked in the nose
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I hunched my shoulders and rolled, only to be kicked in the nose by a cloven hoof, and an utterly gratuitous amount of pain came with a side order of whirling stars.
Then Mab freezes his eyes
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Mab’s frozen-berry lips lifted in a silent snarl, and the world turned into a curtain of white agony that centered on my eyes. Nothing had ever hurt so much
And his head hurt some of the times he tried to remember his blasting rod/fire magic
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—a savage pain went through my skull for a second—son of a bitch—...

“Where,” he said gently, “is your blasting rod?”
This time I heard the words.
Pain stabbed me in the head, ice picks plunging into both temples. I flinched and doubled over. Blasting rod. Familiar words. I fought to summon an image of what went with the words, but I couldn’t find anything. I knew I had a memory associated with those words, but try as I might, I couldn’t drag it out. It was like a shape covered by some heavy tarp. I knew an object was beneath, but I couldn’t get to it.
“I don’t…I don’t…” I started breathing faster. The pain got worse.
Someone had been in my head.

Turn Coat - the actual migraines start:
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They’d been a problem, the past several months—increasingly painful migraines

The reason I've covered these books in particular is

a) You already got the later ones

and

b) I think it's worth remembering that Harry has always complained about his head hurting.  He develops headaches when he's stressed, and if he didn't have Wizard healing, his brains would have been pounded out of his ears by now.  He's also had some fairly unpleasant things done to his mind and face.  We need to bear that in mind when discussing headaches in the newer books.

I suspect the headaches developing in the spot between his eyes is his usual stress headache (, while the "twin points" headaches are the ones we're interested in.  Throbbing pain is when he's been beaten up.  However, at the beginning of the series, his headaches crept up the back of his skull.

Basically, my conclusion is that his headaches are all over the place, especially at the beginning of the series.  It sort of undermines the real "plot-relevant" headaches. 

36
GS Book Club / Re: wizard healing
« on: November 20, 2012, 10:09:18 PM »
In an several earlier books it was referenced that wizards heal completely unlike us normal mortals.  with this complete healing harry should never feel the minor pains of ageing that mortals feel because his body can fully heal from all the strains and damage done to it.  If this is the case why did he feel so good without a body being absolutly free from all the small nagging pains of getting older that we tend to ignore?  he should not have had any except for current battle damage.
"Healing fully" and "healing instantly" aren't the same thing.

I mean, sure, if Harry were to take a year or two off and take good care of himself, he'd get back to "fine".  But as a big guy, he's constantly dealing low level damage to his knees, or to his back, for example.  His wizard healing will be working pretty much constantly just to mitigate the damage. 

37
DFRPG / Re: Why is the true love catch +0?
« on: August 22, 2012, 01:22:27 PM »
If she doesn't connect love to sex then shouldn't she still be in True Love with Thomas? 

Therefore it should hurt him.  It doesn't seem to.

I greatly dislike this loophole that was created.  Sadly, that appears to be canon --- then it should be even harder to hurt a WCV with their catch...making it more worthy of a +0.
I don't think the books make the connection between True Love and sex in the same way that you do.  In Blood Rites (IIRC) Thomas is quite explicit that the reason True Love and sex make people toxic to the White Court is because sex is both a transformative, magically significant act, and an exchange of essence.  When that essence is of the one you "Truly Love", it mingles with your essence as a whole, essentially.  The last person you had sex with is the most significant influence on your essence (Although Bob does say that there are lots of other, more minor exchanges, such as hugging). 

So when Justine has sex with Mara, it mingles her energy with someone not touched by true love, essentially overwriting the influence on true love. 

Mr. Death, I think the "loop hole" is actually pretty well laid out in Blood Rites, when Thomas is clued in by the fact that Harry's last sexual partner was Susan.
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"The last time you were with anyone, it was with Susan. You love each other. Her touch, her love is still upon you, and still protecting you...If there hasn't been anyone else, then it's still the strongest touch of another life on your own."
Clearly the implication there is that if there had been someone else, she wouldn't have been the strongest influence on him, and so he'd have been vulnerable. 

38
DFRPG / Re: Why is the true love catch +0?
« on: August 20, 2012, 09:39:59 PM »
I think you can make an argument that it really is that rare.

Firstly, remember that not many people have access to true love.  Lots of people could have access to it, but it's not something you can find on demand.  Especially since looking for it probably makes it even harder to find (Since you're looking for it for profit, rather than out of love).

Secondly, weaponising it is bloody difficult.  Remember that in a person it only works on vampires who choose to feed on them (Or whose vampire side is in control).  You can be as truly loved as you want, but unless you have a token of that love, there's nothing you can do to force the catch on a vampire.  Slap Lara all you want, she's not going to blister. 

To actually weaponise it, you're going to need your true love to give you a weapon (or something you can improvise as a weapon) as a token of that love.  Which, again, probably won't work if they're doing it so in order to trigger the catch - It probably needs to be given out of love, not with deliberately weaponising it as the goal.  Otherwise it wouldn't be a "token of love".  Even then, just being given something by the one you love isn't enough, or Whites would blister on contact with Harry's coat, which actually Thomas wears.   

Thirdly, I seriously doubt it's well known outside of the WCV community (and I think it's reasonable to discount them for the purpose of calculating the catch's level of information - The fact that the vast, vast majority of people with knowledge to use the catch aren't capable of doing so really limits it's usefulness.  Thomas is the only White seen to show love, and he's the black sheep of the family).  Remember, Harry only finds out from Thomas, and I can't think of a single mention from the Council of that as their weakness.  Harry never says "Don't worry, I'm protected" to Luccio, or Ebeneezer, when they're worried about Thomas preying on him.  The WCV are masters of controlling information.  It's basically their business (Just ask Stoker and the Blacks). 

39
DFRPG / Re: What do you wish you'd known when you started?
« on: August 13, 2012, 05:40:34 PM »
Thanks for the responses everyone.  I have read all of them.  If I've not responded below, it's because it seems relatively straight forward, and not because I'm ignoring you.   ;)

Powers and stunts from OW are a bit suspect.
Is OW just a case of putting fluff before balance? 
I wish I knew how stress worked when I started.  We screwed that up so badly our first couple games.  I'm sure the GM just didn't read it clearly, but wow.
Stress seems a bit weird to me. 

As I'm understanding it, there are lots of occasions where you're "wasting" damage, so to speak.  If someone's 1 and 2 boxes are already ticked off, a two damage hit isn't any more effective than a one point hit.  Am I right on this?  It's not exactly intuitive for someone coming from other systems, but it's certainly got it's advantages - It feels like it's going to be much rarer for a big-bad to take a great-axe to the face without flinching, only to die because he stubbed his toe, for example.  And when it does happen, it's far easier to justify thanks to the consequence system.

Overall, it seems that the stress system makes manoeuvres really useful, whether buffing yourself/allies, or debuffing your opponent, to set up for the big hits that'll force consequences (And thus, versus mooks, end the fight), rather than trying to bee-sting them to death. 
Crafting can break the game into tiny little pieces. If anybody in your group decides to make a character whose only powers are Ritual (Crafting) and Refinement (Lots of Enchanted Item Slots), be very careful.
Hah.  I had actually intended to add in a crafter-NPC, because I wanted a magical presence, but wanted a lower power than a wizard, and didn't want to have to worry about too much magic on the fly at the beginning.  If he ends up as a villain, I'll make sure not to make him too powerful. 
1) The Orbius spell does not exist
"Well, what's this entry in Rote Spells the--"
    "Nope.  Does not exist."
What is it about Orbius in particular that makes it so eraser-worthy?  Is it the effect or the power level?   

Also, it seems to me that the example spells seem to take it for granted that when you're creating the spell, you're choosing how the target defends (Defending with Might against "Ground Stomp" and the suggested variant of "Orbius").  That seems obscenely broken if someone's got a sadistic streak and a decent imagination.  "This spell summons an Outsider who insists you dance for them.  Defend with Performance, or take a massive hit". 

Now, obviously it requires GM/collaborative control, but I dislike the idea of saying that you can't require certain skills for defence purely because they're less commonly taken.  It seems arbitrary, and just outright weird in a system so flexible.  Besides, I don't remember any other references to this earlier in the book.  Did I just miss them? 
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2) Definately do group character/city generation.  It's super helpful for both getting great story hooks and making sure everyone at the table has the same idea about tone and theme for the game.
For sure.  This seems like such a huge part of the game. 

Its also amazing how easily the city came together.  The themes and factions basically wrote themselves. 

40
DFRPG / What do you wish you'd known when you started?
« on: August 12, 2012, 11:49:20 PM »
I'm looking at venturing into DFRPG.  I've gotten to the stage where I feel vaguely comfortable with most of the rules (I'm going to go through the spellcasting again), but I'm mostly curious as to what works and what doesn't.

Is there anything that's widely considered gamebreakingly powerful?  Character-gimpingly weak?

Any houserules that are basically taken for granted? 

I'm sure there's plenty more, but I'm about to go to bed.  Basically, what is it that you've learned over hours or even days of play that you can pass on to smooth my group's beginnings.
 
Thanks. 

41
DF Reference Collection / Re: DR in Dead Beat
« on: July 01, 2012, 12:05:35 AM »
You know when you realise something so obvious that you hate yourself for not getting it sooner?

... Yeah.

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I didn't recognize the place, but it somehow seemed perfectly familiar.
Absolutely sealed it for me.  That's too obvious a parallel for it to be a coincidence. 


42
DF Reference Collection / Re: Dresden Files: Series Timeline
« on: February 17, 2012, 09:05:41 PM »
*Turn Coat:This would support Harry living with McCoy for 2 rather than 3 years, but it's possible Mai was misinformed (a little unlikely given the amount of attention Harry got), or forgot it was 3.  Thoughts?
Mai is known as "Ancient".  Odds are, a few years either way could slip by her attention.  They probably start to slide together pretty well once you're more than a few hundred years old. 

43
DF Reference Collection / Re: [GS Spoilers] Harry's Power Ups
« on: July 28, 2011, 10:09:21 PM »
What I found interesting is that the Fomor apparently have a classification system for powers amongst Mortals.  Obviously, its not especially useful for this discussion because Harry stayed within one band, but I'll throw it out there anyway.  If nothing else, its useful when analysing Harry's allies.

4 - "Sensitives" (The Big Hoods).  No overt power, but capable of hearing ghosts.

3 - ?

2 - Mort, apparently.  Someone with serious power, but not on the Council level.

1 - I'd guess full-level Wizards would sit in here, although it was never explicitly stated. 

Now, who exactly would be a third-tier asset to the Fomor would be is up for discussion.  I'd guess very minor sorcerers (Aristedes) and people with very specific talents.  Maybe the Werewolves, although I'd argue that the Alpha's experimentation probably means they deserve to be higher. 

44
Daniel Carpenter is a strange wild card to me. What's he doing there? I mean, does he have weapons training? He doesn't have magic. He's still so vague. I think that's why I feel like he has the death mark. I hope I'm wrong. :(
Daniel's parents are both master swordspeople.  I'm sure he's picked up at least the basics (I.e., he's already better than Harry ever was  :P ).  However, I suspect he's got a lot in common with the priest from the short-stories (The Warrior?  Can't remember the name) regarding the role of the Swords.  He probably feels that he's entitled to it, as Michael's heir.  

EDIT: He's also hopelessly naive, which I like about him.  I suspect that he'd come down with Harry on a lot of issues.  I don't see Harry being willing to terrify their own people so they stick to groups, for example.  

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