Raw Materials VS Sabotage

[Griautis]

Hello,

I'm looking for how to make Sabotage worth it, as written, Raw Materials is better for destroying objects, and it also provides you with stuff, making Sabotage borderline useless in comparison.

Does anyone have possible house rules available?

I've been brainstorming a little and possibilities could be:

• Raw Materials broken object is very easy to repair before the new object arrives. Repairing the broken object prevents the new one from arriving;
• Raw Materials requires the object to be destroyed thoroughly before activating the Embed, essentially meaning that it takes time to crush the object before you can activate the Embed
• Raw Materials broken object must be owned by the Demon for some time, like at least an hour or some such
• Give a size limit to Raw Materials

Thoughts?

[Taidragon]

Sabotage allows you to disable items, which allows you to delay rather than outright destroying something. It also means that you can stop someone from using something of your own without properly breaking it. Raw Materials requires the character to break the item such to the point someone cannot make anything useful out of it, and there's no chance of a new item being tracked to you. No changes to either needs to be made - they're useful for their own tasks.

[Griautis]

Except Raw Materials is essentially _two_ Embeds rolled into one. You can destroy an object with it (and it's super good if you want to do it on enemy territory on their objects). AND you can get stuff for yourself.
Sabotage only temporarily disables an object.

Currently, I'm planning to remove the destruction part from Raw Materials, requiring the demon to do it via a different method. (Shatter/explosives/physical breaking).

[Deinos]

I definitely interpret Raw Materials as the demon having to break it thoroughly. "The demon can break an object to 'summon' an object of Similar size" has a very different meaning to me than "This Embed instantly breaks an object, causing a replacement to be 'summoned'"

[Satchel]

You can destroy an object with it (and it's super good if you want to do it on enemy territory on their objects).

Wild notion: An Embed whose roll results nearly all include "the object breaks" does not automatically break the object whose destruction serves as the medium of exchange just because its actual effect requires an object to be broken.

[Taidragon]

The point of my post was that Sabotage is the wrong Embed to compare to Raw Materials; if you're in a police car, bound for wherever and you need time to think of a plan if not to simply keep you alive for a few more minutes, Sabotage is the Embed of choice because the car is suddenly broken down. Since Sabotage only requires a touch, and a car breaking down out of the blue isn't unheard of, it's a lot less questionable than if you used a power that completely broke the car. Breaking the car, or even a piece of it, is a lot more attention grabbing and permanent, especially if you're inside your own car and you don't want to have to get a new one (or explain how/why your car is broken in such a peculiar way). The comparison is apples to oranges.

Honestly, the one to compare Raw Materials to is Shatter, since that destroys objects, but as Satchel noted Raw Materials by itself already doesn't destroy objects, no more than Break To Heal does. Note that the wording for Raw Materials is specifically "The demon breaks the target object", implying if not stating the Demon has to do this themselves through means outside of the Embed, whereas Shatter has "The object breaks and is rendered useless". You can use Shatter to evoke Raw Materials, but Raw Materials alone won't cause something to break.

[Tessie]

To be fair Raw Materials does literally list the object breaking as an effect of using the Embed, not as a prerequisite for using it. It's context and critical thought that leads to the intended meaning instead of the literal reading.
I very much liked how Vampire handled similar situations by including a "Requirement:" line in the Disciplines that needed the user to do things before the power could be activated.

Another difference between Raw Materials, Sabotage and Shatter is that they can be used to Install different Gadgets and serve as prerequisites for different Exploits as well as Keys for different Interlocks. Even if the three Embeds were more similar than they actually are, that alone can make it worth choosing one over the others (with the exception of choosing Embeds for Keys unless the ST gives hints).

[Griautis]

Until this thread happened, neither to me nor my player it occurred that destroying it is not part of the embed itself. Now that that's cleared, all is good.