Red Court Infected, revisited

[Cadd]

That sentence seems to be meant as clarification, but really just muddles it.

I'll quote what's just before that, bolding stuff for emphasis:

If you fail, you take hunger stress as
though you’d suffered an attack. If you
have physical or mental consequence
slots open, you may use them to buy
off the stress as per the normal rules
(page 203). If you cannot or do not wish
to spare consequences, then you must
lose access to a number of your powers,
up to a refresh cost equal to the amount
of stress taken.

There is actually nothing indicating that losing access to powers reduces stress in a way similar to consequences. Instead, it specifically says you lose powers equal to the stress taken. And then that darned line "These options can be combined however you choose." comes in and just makes the whole shebang confused.

[killking72]

That sentence seems to be meant as clarification, but really just muddles it.

I'll quote what's just before that, bolding stuff for emphasis:
There is actually nothing indicating that losing access to powers reduces stress in a way similar to consequences. Instead, it specifically says you lose powers equal to the stress taken. And then that darned line "These options can be combined however you choose." comes in and just makes the whole shebang confused.

But the ruling you quoted describes losing powers equal to the refresh as buying off the stress, which is exactly what a consequence does

[Cadd]

Not to my reading it doesn't. It says you can take consequences to reduce stress and then says you lose powers equal to stress taken, i.e. the remaining amount after consequences. It never says that stress is further reduced by losing powers.

[Sanctaphrax]

I think the simple fact that people argue about it means that it's ambiguous or at least vague. People don't just pretend to understand things differently.

[Taran]

I'm still agreeing it's unclear.  But to clarify, Cadd, you missed the last line of that quote:

These options can be
combined however you choose

So it seems to imply that you can use stress, consequences and powers (combined however you choose) to soak up damage.

[killking72]

So it seems to imply that you can use stress, consequences and powers (combined however you choose) to soak up damage.

That's exactly what it's saying.

[Cadd]

Taran, I never missed that line. I specifically said that I quoted the text immediately before that line. I quoted it to show that while that line indicates that you can mix and match, that is actually in contradiction to what is said before and the RAW never actually states straight up that you can lose powers instead of taking stress.

To be clear, I'm not asking how Feeding Dependency works, I'm only debating that RAW is unclear since the alternate reading didn't seem to have even occured to Killking72 and he thus seemed to wonder why I needed to houserule it.

[killking72]

First off what do you mean RAW, and what alternate reading

[Rossbert]

I think the confusion comes from the next line down "If you have no powers left to lose and are
taken out by a feeding failure, you are actually taken out"
The line before seems quite clear, you can lose powers or take consequences. The issue for me is that they don't seem to mesh because it never says that you take stress except after losing all the powers and refusing (or being unable) to take consequences.
My inclination has changed the more I read it.  I would basically treat hunger as a regular attack, with each power treated as a consequence of appropriate value for the purpose of hunger only.  So you have Mild, Moderate, Severe, Extreme, Inhuman Strength, Inhuman Recovery as all possible consequences, with the exception that you HAVE to use the power ones before you reach taken out.

[Cadd]

First off what do you mean RAW, and what alternate reading

RAW = Rules As Written, as opposed to Rules As Intended (which we really only know when a writer chips in with the underlying thoughts behind a specific rule).

What I meant by "alternate reading" is alternative to how you seem to read the power. Your reading is definitely not wrong, but it's not the only way to interpret the text either.
An example: You use 6 refresh worth of powers and completely bungle the the Discipline defense against hunger, for an end result of Mediocre (+0). This means you have 6 hunger stress incoming.
Your reading: Take a Minor Consequence (-2 stress) and lose Inhuman Strength (-2 stress), leaving 2 stress. You check off the second Hunger Stress box.
My "alternate" reading: Take a Moderate Consequence (-4 stress), thus leaving 2 stress. I check off the second stress box and thereby have to lose Inhuman Strength. (This is the "lose powers equal to the amount of stress taken" part. I haven't actually taken the stress prior to checking off the stress box.)

Both of these readings are supported by different sections of text within the same power. Neither reading is definitively wrong, thus the power is unclearly written.

I think the confusion comes from the next line down "If you have no powers left to lose and are
taken out by a feeding failure, you are actually taken out"
The line before seems quite clear, you can lose powers or take consequences. The issue for me is that they don't seem to mesh because it never says that you take stress except after losing all the powers and refusing (or being unable) to take consequences.
My inclination has changed the more I read it.  I would basically treat hunger as a regular attack, with each power treated as a consequence of appropriate value for the purpose of hunger only.  So you have Mild, Moderate, Severe, Extreme, Inhuman Strength, Inhuman Recovery as all possible consequences, with the exception that you HAVE to use the power ones before you reach taken out.

Which is basically Killkings reading, and I think it might be the intended reading. It is however unclear, because for every one who finds that reading absolutely obvious, there's one who finds the other, harsher, reading obvious.

This lack of clarity is a part of why I've chosen to not use it in the specific instance of my game featuring Red Court Infected as PC's. There are other reasons as well, but the confusion as to how it's actually supposed to work is what sparked me taking a hard look at it. That hard looked made me realize that there were other things about both Feeding Dependency, the RCI template, and how they interact that I didn't like, and have since house-ruled with input from the forums. (The result is essentially the first section of this thread, before it became a discussion on the merits and confusions of Feeding Dependency.)
I may still use Feeding Dependency (in one form of another) with other hunger-affected beings, but that is for future games to show.

[Taran]

My "alternate" reading: Take a Moderate Consequence (-4 stress), thus leaving 2 stress. I check off the second stress box and thereby have to lose Inhuman Strength. (This is the "lose powers equal to the amount of stress taken" part. I haven't actually taken the stress prior to checking off the stress box.)

Huh.  I never even considered this.  It's interesting.

The reason why I never considered this reading is because, when I'm a gm, I say "you get hit for 8 stress"

The player takes stress before they click off stress boxes, take consequences etc... "stress" is the term for damage in DFRPG.

You then soak stress using various methods:  Stress boxes; consequences; armour and, in the case for hunger; powers.  Or that's how I see it, anyways.

It's silly.  Has anyone ever asked for an official clarification?  Do they do that anymore?

[Rossbert]

My "alternate" reading: Take a Moderate Consequence (-4 stress), thus leaving 2 stress. I check off the second stress box and thereby have to lose Inhuman Strength. (This is the "lose powers equal to the amount of stress taken" part.

That was my original take as well, and I find nothing terribly wrong with it. 
The only problem left is what happens if you have more powers than stress.  If you have say 8 points of powers but only 3 boxes (6 points total) do you always have access to 2 points of powers?

[Jabberwocky]

Uh, the books are already four years old. Some of the authors (Fred Hicks at least) are active on these forums. Has really no one of them clarified this? Maybe we should just ask...

[Sanctaphrax]

You can ask here.

But why bother? Even with the ambiguity resolved the Power isn't really worth using.

[vultur]

And here's what the template might look like with those changes....

Red Court Infected
(all flavor text same as canon template)

Musts:
Sponsor (Vampiric Hunger) [-0]: allows you to take sponsor debt to boost Athletics, Fists, Might rolls
Either Inhuman Recovery [-2] or Inhuman Toughness [-2]. Catch is Holy items, sunlight [+1, or +2 if you have both powers]

Options:
Beyond the above, the following powers are available:
Addictive Saliva [-1]
Blood Drinker [-1]
Cloak of Shadows [-1]
Inhuman Speed [-2]
Inhuman Strength [-2]

Important Skills: Athletics, Deceit, Fists, Might

Minimum Refresh Cost: -1

---

It does seem odd to me not to have Blood Drinker by default.