Modifiers to True Faith

[Graey]

The way to mimic the ability to turn undead is True Faith [15] with the Turning (+65%) and Holy (-10%) enhancements for 24 points. I start my characters out with 150, and 24 is a lot of points for what is supposed to be a newbie to spend on one ability.

I'm not actually playing Dungeon Fantasy RAW. I'm trying to recreate the feel of that other game. I want a reduced cost version of True Faith (Turning; Holy) that's suitable for a "first level character." There is Reliable from Powers that has +5% per +1 bonus, up to +10. In this case that would be a bonus to your Will in the QC, I would imagine. Terror [30] in Basic has +10 points for every -1 to the Fright Check. (Granted a Fright Check is not exactly the same as a Quick Contest, but in this case the result would be the same.) But that's 33%. Unreliable, which might be the opposite of Reliable, gives dice rolls to see how mangled the result of the power is, not a modifier

Has this been addressed somewhere? I did some searching, but came up empty. I would like to be able to modify True Faith (Turning; Holy) with penalties and bonuses to the Quick Contest between the priest and the undead with altered point cost so I can give it to beginner characters and let them buy it up as they progress.

Thanks. :)

- Graey

[Anders]

A -5% decrease per -1 to Turning seems reasonable. Scales nicely with -1 Will (True Faith Only, -80%) [1].

[Christopher R. Rice]

Originally Posted by Anders

A -5% decrease per -1 to Turning seems reasonable. Scales nicely with -1 Will (True Faith Only, -80%) [1].

Canonically, Hard to Use (GURPS Powers, p. 107) is what you'd go for here. Each -3 to skill is worth -5%. That said, -5% might make sense as a special case for this one particular trait.

[lvalero]

You might as well consider Limited uses XX per day and Costs Fatigue / Costs Enery Reserve.

In my DF the Divine Spells and Powers uses Threshold magic. The "total tally" is renamed as Pride. So, when your Pride is too high for using your powers and spells, bad things could happen.

In my campaign, when a Cleric uses the Turn ability, it costs Pride.

Other idea. You could make this power a layered one for a discount based on "Accesibility".

Turn I - Accesiblity: only turns minor corporeal undead (Skeleton, Ghouls, Zombies, Wights). Requires Power Investiture 1
Turn II - As Turn I, but it includes middle uncorporeal undead (Wright, Specters, Phantasm, Poltergeist, Banshee). Requires Power Investiture 3
Turn III - Any Undead. Requires Power Investiture 5

Third idea. Add "requires divine focus" as a limitation. If stolen, or broken, the power ends.

[Graey]

Cool, thanks for the replies. -3 for -5% sounds pretty expensive. In order to make it be significantly cheaper (the goal of crippling it a bit) it would have to be all but unusable. -5% for a -1 modifier ([-0.75] per level, if I'm reading it correctly) seems a bit better. Though to avoid all the fractions maybe +/- Will (True Faith only) for 1 per level would work best.

I like the Accessibility idea. It would be handy to base it off of Power Investiture anyway. True Faith seems to require presenting your holy symbol already. Would it be "fair" to throw a "requires divine focus" limitation on it as well?

Any suggestions to make it even cheaper? Visible for -10% might work. I recall a lot of descriptions from players of their characters turning undead involved light emanating from their holy symbols anyway. I considered Costs Fatigue, but it didn't work like that in the old game. Though buying that off could reasonably be seen as coming with increased ability.


- Graey

[Anders]

Originally Posted by Graey

Cool, thanks for the replies. -3 for -5% sounds pretty expensive. In order to make it be significantly cheaper (the goal of crippling it a bit) it would have to be all but unusable. -5% for a -1 modifier ([-0.75] per level, if I'm reading it correctly) seems a bit better. Though to avoid all the fractions maybe +/- Will (True Faith only) for 1 per level would work best.

I like the Accessibility idea. It would be handy to base it off of Power Investiture anyway. True Faith seems to require presenting your holy symbol already. Would it be "fair" to throw a "requires divine focus" limitation on it as well?

Any suggestions to make it even cheaper? Visible for -10% might work. I recall a lot of descriptions from players of their characters turning undead involved light emanating from their holy symbols anyway. I considered Costs Fatigue, but it didn't work like that in the old game. Though buying that off could reasonably be seen as coming with increased ability.


- Graey

Fickle? You require a reaction roll from the God before He will consent to let you use his powers? Remember also that you can take powers as Alternate Abilities.

[lvalero]

Remember also that you can take powers as Alternate Abilities.

I like this idea. What if "Power Investiture" is an Alternate Ability of Turning? So, while the turning power is "on" you can't cast spells. In this case, remember NOT to add the Power Investiture level as "talent bonus" to the turning roll.

Another posibility is to create a Heal Power that is Alternate Ability of Turning. While you are channeling your "positive energy" to turn undead, you can't channel the positive energy to heal allies.

In this second idea the following powers could be Alternate Abilities to represent different ways to "Channel positive energy".

- Divine Heal
- Turn Undead
- Rebuke Undead (Make damage to undead by using Innate Attack + Malediction + Area)

[Anders]

Blessed is another advantage that goes well with True Faith.

[Christopher R. Rice]

I'm wondering if you could create a lesser variation of True Faith in the vein of Sensitive > Empathy?

Hmmmm.

[sir_pudding]

Originally Posted by lvalero

I like this idea. What if "Power Investiture" is an Alternate Ability of Turning? So, while the turning power is "on" you can't cast spells. In this case, remember NOT to add the Power Investiture level as "talent bonus" to the turning roll.

You can't take a Power Talent as an Alternative Ability to an ability in the power. You also probably don't want to, since presumably you want to add your PI to your Will for turning.