"New Advantage" Words of Power

[nerdvana]

So, I came up with an idea to make Rapier Wit less "silly" and I'd like everyone's opinion of this.

Stunning Words 4 points/word

Stunning Words functions just like Rapier Wit, except in the following ways: instead of rolling Public Speaking vs. your opponent’s Will you roll Thaumatology (Stunning Word) vs. your opponent’s Will; the target(s) gain no benefit from the Clueless or No Sense of Humor disadvantages (+20%); you gain no benefit from the description of the verbal attack since it is just a single word being said (-25%); you gain a +1 bonus to your roll if you have the Penetrating Voice perk (+5%); a critical failure doesn’t affect your target at all, instead it causes backlash and you must make a Quick Contest of your Will vs. your own Thaumatology (Stunning Word) skill as you are now the target of your own Stunning Word however a critical success on your part only means that the Word doesn’t affect you (-10%); targets can only be affected by a given power word from a specific user once per day (-10%)

Each time you take this advantage you learn a new stunning word which has its own specialization of the Thaumatology skill. These specialties will default to the Thaumatology skill, although I'm not sure at what penalty that should be, or maybe I should make each word a Technique instead.

These words are typically from obscure languages so Broken level of the language the word is from is required for the use of this power. However, with broken you have a -2 penalty to your Thaumatology skill roll and with Accented the penalty is reduced to only -1.

I would specifically like advice on the defaulting for the skill use and critiques on the modifiers I put on the advantage (such as if it is balanced or needs to be tweaked).

[Dinadon]

You might want to give this advantage a different name, Words of Power is a new advantage in Thaumatology, and is something rather different to what you have.

[nerdvana]

Ok, good point. I'll return to the original name I thought for it which was "Stunning Words".

Any other critiques?

[giganerds]

Perhaps "Absolute Language", "Language of the Gods" or "Words of God", did you like it?

Words of Powers in in THM178-179, costing 10 per word and permit you do a drastic magical effect with a somewhat unreliable results and a lot of Fatigue.

[nerdvana]

Originally Posted by giganerds

Perhaps "Absolute Language", "Language of the Gods" or "Words of God", did you like it?

Words of Powers in in THM178-179, costing 10 per word and permit you do a drastic magical effect with a somewhat unreliable results and a lot of Fatigue.

Yeah, I don't want to use Words of Power from THM178. I'm going to go with Stunning Words as the name of this advantage. Any thoughts on the mechanics as I posted them?

[nerdvana]

Edited OP to add a comment about the language the advantage uses that reads thusly:

These words are typically from obscure languages so Broken level of the language the word is from is required for the use of this power. However, with broken you have a -2 penalty to your Thaumatology skill roll and with Accented the penalty is reduced to only -1.

[giganerds]

Originally Posted by nerdvana

Yeah, I don't want to use Words of Power from THM178. I'm going to go with Stunning Words as the name of this advantage. Any thoughts on the mechanics as I posted them?

I only post the Words of Power to follow and complete the anterior post.

About the mechanics, IMHO it's appears nice and balanced, the default penalty I could suggest is Thaumatology-3 per word especialization (like colleges in Ritual Magic, but with a half penalty, once the effect is more specific) and the critical failure backslash is more insteresting if the effect of the word affect the caster instead of additional damage.

[Lupo]

Originally Posted by nerdvana

Any thoughts on the mechanics as I posted them?

The limitation "you gain no benefit from the description of the verbal attack since it is just a single word being said" could also be read as an enhancement, "you don't risk to be penalized by the GM due to a poor description". B79 states that the GM may assign "any modifier", not just a bonus, for the description. So it should probably be a +0% feature.

That said, I wouldn't allow Rapier Wit in a "serious" game... not because it's silly, but because it's too cheap.

Basically Rapier Wit is a 10 point Affliction (stunning) with LOTS of enhancements, such as "can affect groups", "benefits from Public Speaking skill", "resisted on Will", "can injury the target if he critically fails", "unaffected by distance as long as the victim can hear you", but most importantly "doesn't require Ready or Concentrate", a very powerful enhancement.
There are some built-in limitations, such as "can enrage the target if the caster critically fails", "Unfazeable gives immunity" or "No sense of humor gives -2" but they aren't significant compared to the enhancements.

As written, ANY character (warrior, mage, soldier, diplomat, whatever) would benefit greatly from Rapier Wit, since it costs only 5 points (plus, let's say, 4 points to get Public Speaking at IQ+1), and allows you to "freely" attempt to stun your enemies, both in combat and in social situation.
Actually I see few reasons not to buy it... no other advantage or skill can give you that much for so few points! I guess that 95% of all PCs in all campaigns would buy it if the GM allowed it (or would choose not to buy it simply for roleplaying reasons: "this power is sooo cool but it doesn't fit in my character concept, so I will sadly renounce to it")

If you fear your players can abuse it, my advice would be to build a similar Affliction using standard affliction rules. It will be WAAAY more costly, though.

[kure]

Originally Posted by nerdvana

So, I came up with an idea to make Rapier Wit less "silly" and I'd like everyone's opinion of this.

[

Words of Power functions just like Rapier Wit,

Actually Rapier Wit. have enhancement Worlds of power in Powers, costs +100%
and do somethin like you have described

[nerdvana]

Originally Posted by kure

Actually Rapier Wit. have enhancement Worlds of power in Powers, costs +100%
and do somethin like you have described

I had missed that. However, I'm going to stick with my write-up because I am changing the functionality.