How much should Catches be worth in the Dresden Files RPG?

Question

When I look at some of the White Court characters in Dresden Files, I see 'True Love' being used as a 0 point catch. Yet looking at the rules for coming up with a Catch, it seems like it should be worth more. At the very least, it seems like a 1 point (specific research material, rather than 'requires personal knowledge of character'.) What should this Catch be worth?

Likewise, how much should 'The Catch: Cold Iron', be for a Fey? It seems like this would be worth a whopping 4 Refresh (anyone with knowledge of supernatural + reasonably get access to.)

Answer 1

I'm not sure what logic was used for the values in the book for White Court catch values. Certainly after the events of White Night at least, the White Court vampire info should be on the Paranet, making that catch +2. (Though your standard White Court vamp only has Inhuman Recovery, limiting the catch's value to +1.) If your vampire does an unusually good job of hiding the fact that he's a vampire and what emotion he works with, that could be reduced on the argument that the knowledge is finding out that this guy has this weakness, not that vamps in general do. Actually, depending on how easy you think True Love is to come by, it could easily be +3; True Love's probably not as rare as Swords of the Cross.

Looking at Our World, it seems like the canonical value of The Catch: Cold Iron is 3, though many fey have it capped lower than that, but I agree it seems like it should be 4, since Cold Iron is the example for something easy to get your hands on and it really should have hit the Paranet on day one.

Cheers, ~Xavid

Answer 2

The reason for the White Court catch being 0, and not +1 or +2, I believe, is that True Love, like True Courage and True Hope (for the other varieties of White Court vampires) are exceptionally rare. You can't just get access to True Love, so even if you know about that particular Catch, there's not necessarily anything that you can do about it.

Answer 3

This looks like an example of fudging it in the name of fairness. By the book, it Protects against everything BUT the catch (0) Is incredibly rare (somewhere between 0 and 1) Is moderately easy to discover (1-2)

However... it's not something you can readily USE. How do you hit a vampire with True Love? Find a princess and use her as a club?

That, to me, is an unwritten limitation on the value. It's too impractical as a weapon

Answer 4

Remember that the cost of the catch is a discount for the stunt it's tied to. So you can make your catch really obscure, but you don't get a discount for it. Whereas if your catch is very common then you get a really good discount for the stunt.