The Divine Move: Smite, Too Powerful!

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The Divine Move: Smite, Too Powerful!
« on: February 22, 2017, 12:23:40 PM »
Is it ok to make some moves not allowed in the game. One of the most broken moves is the "Smite" move of the Divine. Or what I call "The Magic Bullet for Every Monster". One of the main parts of Monster of the Week is to find and exploit the weakness of a monster to defeat it. A Divine Playbook with smite pretty much cuts this out as the PC's merely have to beat down the Monster's harm in a fight and have the Divine do the finishing blow, totally removing an important part of an investigation. So in my games I remove the Smite ability from play as makes an important part of the game a moot point.
« Last Edit: February 22, 2017, 12:31:37 PM by Darkenfire »

Re: The Divine Move: Smite, Too Powerful!
« Reply #1 on: February 24, 2017, 04:56:30 PM »
Personally --

1) I would never remove a move/power by fiat if a game is already in progress. Discuss it with the group first, especially with the person who chose that playbook/move;

2) If I am going to disallow a move/playbook/anything else players can choose, I'll make sure it's known at character creation;

3) I would find a way to make the power more costly (for the character), have consequences, or otherwise not be an obvious I WIN button before I would remove it from play entirely. That said, the power of the Divine is basically exactly that (I WIN) in most occult/supernatural settings.

In every case this only happens after group discussion and consensus. If I wanted to run stuff by fiat I'd still be running AD&D. ;) Your mileage and that of your group may vary, as will what suits your collective playstyle.

At the end of the day, it's your game (you & your group) - whatever you choose to do with it is the right decision for you.

Re: The Divine Move: Smite, Too Powerful!
« Reply #2 on: February 25, 2017, 06:36:30 PM »
Plus, if someone takes "smite", that says to me "I'm not interested in puzzling out monster weaknesses".