Custom Powers Master List (Work In Progress)

[PirateJack]

Quick question about Incite Effect.

I'm designing a character that is able to make people believe he is their best friend upon touch. Given that this is a kind of maybe mind-control, would Incite Mental Effect be the right choice, or would I be better off going with a hacked Enthralment?

[narphoenix]

Incite Effect. Enthrallment is too slow.

[PirateJack]

Gotcha. Cheers.

[Sanctaphrax]

Note to self: add Affliction and Tinker to list.

[Taran]

I'm not sure if this is the best place to bring this up.  This seems dubiously balanced:

SUPERHUMAN ACROBATICS [-1]

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Description: Gravity doesn't seem to apply to you the way it does to normal people. You can dance on a tightrope and jump like a flea.
Skills Affected: Athletics, Stealth
Effects:
Inhuman Balance. You can move freely and without penalty over any surface sturdier than a spiderweb. You never fall accidentally and you may add four to your Athletics skill when using it to resist an attempt to knock you down.
Impossible Jumps. Add four to your Athletics skill when using it to jump.
Soft Landing. You are immune to falling damage.

For 1 refresh I get

- Unfettered stealth over any terrain (which is only given at Mythic speed)
- immunity to compels that revolve around falling down
- ability to bypass impossible obstacles (like crossing a ravine by walking on a spider web)
- +4 to resist being tripped
- +4 to Jump
- Physical immunity with a Catch of everything but falling (which is a -2 power, at least)

But ignoring all that, I'd like to make a similar power that revolves around being hard to catch. (rabbit themed).

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SUPERHUMAN ACROBATICSEscape Artist [-1]
Description: Gravity doesn't seem to apply to you the way it does to normal people. You can dance on a tightrope and jump like a flea. You are almost impossible to catch.
[/s]Skills Affected: Athletics, Stealth
Effects:
Inhuman Balance Wriggle: You are hard to pin or catch.You can move freely and without penalty over throughany surface sturdier than a spiderweb. natural foliage, brush etc...You never fall accidentally and you may add four to your Athletics skill when using it to resist an attempt to knock you down using it to overcome grapples..
Impossible Jumps. Add four to your Athletics skill when using it to jump.
Soft Landing. You are immune to falling damage.

- The moving through foliage and natural borders is a bit more limited than the original power
- +4 to resist grapple is as limited as resisting a trip maneuver
- +4 to jump helps you escape by bypassing obstacles an enemy might not be able to
- immunity to falling(maybe can be changed to armour = to half your athletics which stacks with resisting falling damage.  Enemies can't follow when jumping off a cliff

I'd like to add a bonus to stealth for hiding.  Maybe by reducing the jumping bonus to 2, it could also add 2 to the 'hide' trapping of stealth?

[Sanctaphrax]

It's not meant to remove penalties to Stealth from moving. "Move without penalty" is meant to mean that you don't get penalties to moving. I guess it's grammatically ambiguous, though.

I suppose having it remove Stealth penalties might be a good idea. Because as-is, it's more or less strictly inferior to Wings. It might seem strong for 1 Refresh, but since there's another 1 Refresh power that's better in pretty much every way it can't not be underpowered.

Escape Artist looks okay as-is, but I wouldn't add +2 to hiding if I were you. That'd be worth 1 Refresh on its own.

+4 to escape grapples is actually way better than +4 to avoid being tripped. Trip attempts are rarer than grapples, and if you have a bonus against them your opponents can just use a different Fists (or whatever) maneuver instead. With grapples, there's no equally-effective action that an opponent can substitute.

But I'd say weakening the first trapping more-or-less balances that out.

[Taran]

The wings comparison does make it seemed somewhat balanced.  and the immunity to falling won't come up often since you're not actually flying...just jumping.

[Taran]

I have another question about supernatural acrobatics:

Impossible Jumps. Add four to your Athletics skill when using it to jump.

Does this +4 stack with the bonus to speed Powers?  Supernatural speed gives you +4 to sprinting.

Let's say I want to run away and need to leap over a high fence, do I get +8 to my sprint?

[Sanctaphrax]

It should certainly stack with the basic Athletics bonus, since it doesn't say it doesn't. But I don't think you can both jump and sprint at the same time.

[Taran]

Jumping is done when overcoming a border (like a fence).  Overcoming borders is a sprint action.  So, how do you separate the two?

[Sanctaphrax]

Hm. I guess I can see how that would work.

Honestly, to me it looks like the Power isn't written to accommodate that. Maybe we should add some terminology from that jumping stunt, I think it's called Mighty Leap. Reduce the difficulty of jump rolls rather than boosting the Athletics skill.

It would also stop people from using that +4 bonus on maneuvers, which seems like a good thing to me.

[Taran]

Honestly, to me it looks like the Power isn't written to accommodate that. Maybe we should add some terminology from that jumping stunt, I think it's called Mighty Leap. Reduce the difficulty of jump rolls rather than boosting the Athletics skill.

Yeah, that's a good idea.  Speed already reduces penalties, but that's just for stealth.
I'm not sure it will make a difference shift-wise, but I think the semantics are important:
Border 5; Speed +4 and Jump bonus +4 gives you +3 shifts over border
Border 5; but reducing border to 1.  Speed +4 still gives you +3 shifts.

It would also stop people from using that +4 bonus on maneuvers, which seems like a good thing to me.

This was the first thing I thought of when looking at the power, so I resolved that I would never use the bonus for maneuvers.  Not everyone will do that, though.  So, reducing the border instead of a bonus to skill is a good idea.

[Sanctaphrax]

If you need to bypass multiple borders at once, then reducing the difficulty is better than boosting your roll.

Anyway, how does this look?

SUPERHUMAN ACROBATICS [-1]
Description: Gravity doesn't seem to apply to you the way it does to normal people. You can dance on a tightrope and jump like a flea.
Skills Affected: Athletics, Stealth
Effects:
Inhuman Balance. You can move freely and without penalty over any surface sturdier than a spiderweb. You never fall accidentally and you may add four to your Athletics skill when using it to resist an attempt to knock you down.
Impossible Jumps. Reduce the difficulty to bypass (or the border value) of any obstacle that you try to jump over by four.
Soft Landing. You are immune to falling damage.

[Taran]

Yeah, I like that.  It prevents the insane stacking bonuses.

the way it's described, you could reduce the difficulty of maneuvers and blocks as long as you justify being able to 'jump' over them.  In some circumstances, that makes sense so I'm fine with it but I'm just pointing out that that's how it reads.  Don't know if that's how you intended it.

[Sanctaphrax]

I wish DFRPG had some of Fate Core's terminology. Seriously, I'd like to just be able to say it boosts Overcome rolls and reduces obstacles to movement rolls.