[oWoD Vampire] Celerity Houserule

[The_Jackal]

I've been mulling some tweaks to V:tM revised edition, in advance of running a game for my regular group. In particular, I want to tame Celerity somewhat. In my experience, it's a little too dominant a combat attribute, to the point where if you don't have it, you're pretty much lunchmeat if your opponent has it and you don't. I mean, sure, it's only useful in a fight, but I know my group and fights will be happening a lot, Masquerade be damned.

Existing celerity is quite simple: Pay one blood per turn to get N extra actions, where N is the number of dots of Celerity you have. Celerity 3 means you pay one pool and get 4 actions, simple.

My change involves some changes to some base rules first, in particular, the multiple actions rules. Normally, you subtract the number of actions taken from the die pool of each action, then lose an additional die for each subsequent action after the first. Take three actions, the first roll is at -3, the second at -4, the third at -5. Again, not too complicated.

What I want to do is reduce the base penalty for multiple actions to the number of actions taken minus 1, so your 3 actions would face penalties of -2, -3, and -4, respectively. And celerity would interact with the multiple action rules as follows:

Celerity - Each turn, the vampire may offset penalties from perfoming multiple actions by twice her celerity rating. Doing so adds her celerity rating in dodge dice, rolled regardless of whether she dodges that turn.

Basically, the idea here is to merge the effects of celerity with the basic multiple action system, so non-celerity users aren't at such a large disadvantage. The dodge benefit is inspired by the nWoD celerity, compensating the loss of offensive ability with some defense, and finally, dispensing with the blood expenditure.

Thoughts?

[Dingle]

so, someone with takeing 4 actions (and with celerity 3)
has penalties of :
-3(0), -4(0), -5(0), -6(0))

?
(same as old, except he gets to split farther if he wants to, doesn't act last, and gets bonus dodge dice, gets it on the 1st turn, and for free ?)


Unless I've misunderstood your rule, it's just the original celerity with all disadvantages removed, and bonus dodge dice.

please clarify if I'm wrong, and I'll be happy to help you adjust rules to get the feel/tone and balance you want.

[MickJay]

Considering you can't split celerity actions for multiple actions anyway, this doesn't really help making celerity less broken. The only difference is, you're now doing all of your actions at once, rather then on consecutive actions.

The houserule I've seen used simply made each action taken with Celerity cost 1 blood (this was an exception to the limit on spending imposed by generation), being spent at the beginning of each consecutive action the character was taking.

Another was to limit celerity to x/2, rounded up, extra actions, where x=ranks in Celerity (so one extra action for C. 1 and 2, 2 extra for 3 and 4, and 3 extra for 5).

[comicshorse]

The houserule I've seen used simply made each action taken with Celerity cost 1 blood (this was an exception to the limit on spending imposed by generation), being spent at the beginning of each consecutive action the character was taking.

That was actually an official rule. It was used in one of the Dark Ages Vampire books. Though it was never very popular

To adapt New Vampire rules you could have each Dot of Celerity add 1 to your Iniative, 1 dice to your Dodge and improve your Move rating by your Move rating ( so you can do that wonderful bit in "Interview with the Vampire" where Brad Pitt goes from one side of the room to the other in the blink of an eye to throttle Christian Slater)

[Dingle]

did you have celerity actions occuring the turn after blood is spent?

the physical disciplines can be compared to thier respective attributes.

1 Potence ~=~ 2 STR (1 potence gives one success, and 2 strength gives an average of one success)

1 Celerity ~=~ 2 DEX* ( regular split:{-1, -2} => {-0(Cel) -1 -2} OR {-2(+2 =0) -3(+2 = -1) -4(+2 = -2)} which works out the same as with celerity)


1 Fortitude ~=~ 1 + (STA x % of damage which is agg)
(which varies but might add up to 2) STA

*using your new action splitting rules (the maths work out nicer)

[The_Jackal]

Unless I've misunderstood your rule, it's just the original celerity with all disadvantages removed, and bonus dodge dice.

You have. You get a total of double your rating each turn. You're applying double the rating to each ACTION. So with the example you offered, 4 actions with 3 dots in celerity, the penalties would be as you say, -3, -4,-5, and -6, and exactly 6 of the 18 total dice lost to penalties would be restored. I don't specify which penalties you can offset, so you can do 0,-1,-5,-6, or -1,-2,-3,-6, or any other combination of offsets.

Also, it was my understanding that ALL multiple actions were sequenced by initiative, not just the ones from celerity, ie: everyone performs their first action, then anyone with a second action acts in the same initiative order as the first, repeating through the initiative order until all actions have been resolved. Then on the next turn, initiative is rerolled and the process starts over. That's certainly the way it would work in my house rule, with all multiple actions occurring in sequence, with celerity only serving to reduce penalties applied to those actions.

To adapt New Vampire rules...

No thank you. I do like the multiple action system in Vampire, I'm just trying to tame it relative to some of the other disciplines, and also tweak the multiple action rules to give non-celerity users a prayer of competing.

My objection to the Dark Ages rule (1 blood per action) is that it wildly skews the discipline in favor of low-generation vampires, who, to be honest, don't need the help. Spending 5 blood to get 6 actions is a huge gamble at Gen 12, it's a LOT less so at Gen 7. That's the other reason I wanted to drop the blood-cost to activate, as it lessens the skew of the power toward low-generation vampires.

[Dingle]

ahh, I see, that makes more sense.

so, you're decreasing the power, but also removing any disadvantages.

and these dodge dice; when are they applied?
all on one dodge action?
all on one opponents action?
once each per turn (distributed as you want), only on dodge?
once each per turn (distributed as you want), in reaction to opponents actions?
added to every dodge action taken?
used against every action taken against you?

[The_Jackal]

I figured to use them in the least constricting manner possible. If you're conducting an all-out defense, you add your celerity rating to your dodge die pool, and resolve normally. If you're not, you can either add them to the die pool for a dodge you take during your action, or apply them to a 'free' dodge rolling your celerity dice alone, or some combination of the two.

The one thing is that unless you're doing all out defense, the celerity dodge dice can only be rolled once per turn.

So basically:

once each per turn (distributed as you want), only on dodge?

With the exception of all-out defense, in which case they're treated just like additional dodge dice.

[Dingle]

sounds good, have you done any playtesting of this?
I might get back to you if I can find an analytical method of calculating power; but the just try it a few times method should work just as well.

I might mention this to my vampire ST (I'm the guy who thinks about rules and points out the effects of house rules between sessions; but he doesn't like maths so I get replies in rant form)
or my werewolf ST (who doesn't mind rules) if she runs a vamp game and is unhappy about celerity

[The_Jackal]

No playtesting yet, I just wanted to sanity-check it on this board before I try it out on my players. Thank for the feedback, it definitely helps me clarify my rules text, I'll post to this thread with post-playtesting observations later.

[Dingle]

cool, looking foreward to it

[LibraryOgre]

I would probably go with "reduce the number of penalty dice by Celerity rating" rather than twice rating. Celerity is still hella useful, even at low levels, but not so useful you HAVE to have it.

Another thing to take a look at, IMO, is Presence. The power needs some kind of resistance roll built in, or you have Brujah dominating the game because they can spam Potence, Celerity and Presence.

[Dingle]

Presence kind of has a resistance roll, in the form of "spend willpower to ignore"
I've mostly played sabbat, dark ages, and one shots, so I haven't seen it abused in elysium; what kinds of powerful things can you do with it?

how does it compare to other no resist powers like auspex?

if it were very obvious to elders, and frowned upon, would that make it more reasonable?

[Jeebers]

I gotta say, your version of Celerity seems both unnecessarily complicated, and too weakened. This is coming from a guy who owns every Vampire (old school) book ever made, including the core books of the other lines so that I can do a decent facsimile when necessary for a different supernatural.

I've been going for the DA Vampire version of Celerity with a slight modification.

If you don't have the book, basically you have to spend blood equal to the number of extra actions you want to take in the beginning of the round (max is your Celerity rating), and this expenditure does not apply toward your turn limit. As usual, you can only do physical actions with Celerity. This means Celerity is incredibly expensive in terms of vitae.

I slightly weakened it further by requiring the wielder to roll Wits instead of Dexterity for Celerity actions. I thought it made sense given that one needs mental acuity to keep up with the raw speed of it, especially given that combat rounds are 3 seconds a pop.

This keeps the mechanics simple, and the combat fast.

[bladesyz]

I don't think Celerity is overpowered at all. Celerity by itself is only good for running away. Celerity with Potence, on the other hand, is a whole other beast.

The physical disciplines in VtM follows a rock-paper-scissor relationship, in that:

Potence > Fortitude > Celerity > Potence

I've played a Celerity+gun twinked character, and had a hell of a time taking down a Ventrue Elder, even with the help of my pack, mainly due to his fortitude and my lack of a source of Agg.

Now, Potence + Celerity + Protean 2 is incredibly dangerous in combat, but you're still vulnerable to a high-caliber shot to the head. And considering that Celerity happens only on the next turn after you activate it, it provides no protection against surprise attacks (unlike Fortitude!).

Again, why would Celerity be considered overpowered compared to Obfuscate, Obtenebration, and Chimerstry?

[TheCountAlucard]

Again, why would Celerity be considered overpowered compared to Obfuscate, Obtenebration, and Chimerstry?

Because you're going more than once and they aren't. That is a massive benefit in almost any game you play.

[bladesyz]

Because you're going more than once and they aren't. That is a massive benefit in almost any game you play.

So?

Obfuscate: you can see them but they can't see you.

Obtenebration: you can see them but they can't see you, plus you get to summon a dozen tentacles to ra--- fight for you.

Chimerstry: you can create illusions of anything you want. Anything.

Dominate: who's your daddy?

Auspex: your only hope of survival when facing Obfuscate

[comicshorse]

And considering that Celerity happens only on the next turn after you activate it, it provides no protection against surprise attacks (unlike Fortitude!).

You sure about that ? I only have the Dark Ages book handy but it doesn't work that way in that and I can't remember any ST I've played with ever using that rule

I always thought Quietus was under-rated. Screw claws I'd much rather have my sword do aggravated damage.

[Dingle]

it is a bit more complicated, bu that's to make it weaker but not too weak.

the Dark Ages version has already been mentioned, but The_Jackal has explained why it won't work for him.

My objection to the Dark Ages rule (1 blood per action) is that it wildly skews the discipline in favor of low-generation vampires, who, to be honest, don't need the help. Spending 5 blood to get 6 actions is a huge gamble at Gen 12, it's a LOT less so at Gen 7. That's the other reason I wanted to drop the blood-cost to activate, as it lessens the skew of the power toward low-generation vampires.

Because these actions all occur in the same turn, if you can afford the blood it's even more powerful than usual.

It also hugely increases the effect of how recently you've fed on combat ability; and the 15 minute adventuring day is not something many people will want to encourage in a vampire game.



celerity is also nice for parrying, and just killing stuff faster.


I'd aggree with the RPS relationship to a certain extent,

but there's also an in combat/out of combat discrepancy:
celerity's the best in combat, but useless outside of combat.
potence is very good in combat, and useful out of combat, but you could have used a jackhammer.
fortitude isn't quie as good as the other 2 in combat (not bad by any stretch), but it can save your unlife many times out of combat.

and soft counters:
vs 1 (elder or something):
celerity: can't touch this (parry) and still hit them, makes enemies trivial
Potence: guaranteed damage, nice
fortitude: hits could be big enough that you only live 1 turn longer

vs many (mortal street gang or something):
celerity: only 1.5x thier actions, the action economy isn't quite so screwed
potence: 1hko is fun
fortitude: I laugh at your guns knives doing no damage


I think the gun and the elder were the problems, not the disciplines,
you still won, remember

Combinations of physical disciplines is a big advantage as you can multiply the effectiveness.

In total, celerity is nearly balanced by it's disadvantages, but it comes out ahead in a combat heavy game because combat is all it's good for; and The_Jackal has a combat heavy game.


EDIT: @comicshorse Dark ages uses very different rules for celerity, which go in the opposite direction to what The_Jackal wants

[The_Jackal]

Well, you're certainly entitled to your opinion, but I don't like Revised's or Dark Ages' take on Celerity. As I mentioned in an earlier post, the extra vitae cost for Celerity is highly punitive on high-generation users and not nearly as much of a constraint on elders.

And considering that Celerity happens only on the next turn after you activate it

Yeah, this is another permutation on Celerity aimed at taming it that I don't like. Holdover actions across turns, to me, are much more unwieldy than a little arithmetic. My rules also have the advantage (IMO) of unifying the treatment of multiple actions altogether. There's no longer one set of rules for Celerity users and another for everyone else.

As for the raw utility of having extra actions, there's no question that it's incredibly powerful. While it won't make you any tougher, each extra action is a direct multiplier to your damage output. There's no mechanical difference between being shot by one shotgun armed vampire with celerity 2 and being shot by three shotgun armed vampires with no celerity at all.

PS: Also, extra actions has a kind of metagame effect that shouldn't be overlooked. Simply put, when your character is acting twice as often as another player character, you're sort of mechanically able to monopolize the GM's attention. This puts non-celerity using characters at a distinct 'fun disadvantage' in so far as they get to spend more time waiting and less time acting than their celerity-using peers.

[bladesyz]

Yeah, this is another permutation on Celerity aimed at taming it that I don't like. Holdover actions across turns, to me, are much more unwieldy than a little arithmetic. My rules also have the advantage (IMO) of unifying the treatment of multiple actions altogether. There's no longer one set of rules for Celerity users and another for everyone else.

As for the raw utility of having extra actions, there's no question that it's incredibly powerful. While it won't make you any tougher, each extra action is a direct multiplier to your damage output. There's no mechanical difference between being shot by one shotgun armed vampire with celerity 2 and being shot by three shotgun armed vampires with no celerity at all.

PS: Also, extra actions has a kind of metagame effect that shouldn't be overlooked. Simply put, when your character is acting twice as often as another player character, you're sort of mechanically able to monopolize the GM's attention. This puts non-celerity using characters at a distinct 'fun disadvantage' in so far as they get to spend more time waiting and less time acting than their celerity-using peers.

I'm not sure what you mean by "hold-over" actions. To me, it's pretty simple: it takes one turn for celerity to take effect, so you have to announce that you want to activate celerity one turn in advance.

Also, keep in mind that the kind of actions characters can do using celerity is limited. You cannot perform complex actions that require lots of concentration, and you can't use disciplines either. So it kind of cuts down on the time an ST has to spend on a celerity character.

Also, like I said, Fortitude > Celerity if Celerity is not supported by some other discipline, such as Potence or Feral Claws. Celerity is only overpowered in combat if the character also has Potence or a source of Agg, *AND* the opponent isn't geared toward surviving confrontation.

In fact, Obfuscate 4+ is so overpowered that anyone who doesn't have enough Auspex to pierce it automatically loses.

Obtenebration is ridiculously overpowered at low levels.

That's not even getting into the really "broken" disciplines like Thaumaturgy, Necromancy, and Chimerstry. Or, god forbid, things like Obeah and Temporis.

[Dingle]

I like the idea of removing the weaknesses and decreasing the power of celerity to make it more like potence and fortitude.

Bringing it all together under a consistent action splitting system is also cool.

There's no mechanical difference between being shot by one shotgun armed vampire with celerity 2 and being shot by three shotgun armed vampires with no celerity at all.

yeah, but only for that round: there's the small problem that guns generally top out at 3 shots per round, celerity guy will have to reload soner, and there's only one guy to kill. It still hurts exactly as much though.

[MickJay]

PS: Also, extra actions has a kind of metagame effect that shouldn't be overlooked. Simply put, when your character is acting twice as often as another player character, you're sort of mechanically able to monopolize the GM's attention. This puts non-celerity using characters at a distinct 'fun disadvantage' in so far as they get to spend more time waiting and less time acting than their celerity-using peers.

That does tend to be a problem. Friends have been playing a long running vampire game, where only one character did not have Celerity - while the highest score in group was 4. Guess who usually got to act once during a 30-minute+ (real time) combat.

Chimerstry is hideously powerful, especially in a PbP or online games. Other players might not realize for sessions on end that they're being somehow misled by the Ravnos (not to mention their characters).

[The_Jackal]

Yah, there are no Ravnos in any oWoD campaign I run. Dumb clan, abusive discipline. For shifty-sneaky types the Settites and Malkavians fit the bill marvelously.

[Dingle]

Ravnos are also uncommon in the games I play in.

Chimerstry is quite nice, but also very expensive.

How much illusion can you reasonably afford?
Know any cheap tricks?

[LibraryOgre]

Know any cheap tricks?

I want you to want me is really more a Presence thing than a Chimerstry thing...

[The_Jackal]

Well played, sir. Well played.

[Project_Mayhem]

Yeah, having played several Vampire games, I'd agree Celerity is overpowered as written, especially at higher power levels. As mentioned, sufficient celerity + potence/protean/quietus etc. means you do vast amounts of damage very quickly, while your opponent makes one attack.

As an example, I played an Assamite in a Dark ages game recently - I had 3 extra actions from celerity, 3 potence, and was doing aggravated damage from quietus. If you build a melee focused character, as I did, there's very little you can't destroy with that in one round.

Similarly, the first game I played in once or twice a week for a year, with no houserule on celerity, and the celerity focused characters dominated. Massively. The first fight we got in began as such: We win surprise - my action is activating my feral claws. The toreador blade artisan's actions are blurring and killing all enemies in the room. Fight over. I resheath my claws and back away from the gore spattered artist. Even with fortitude recieving a buff (it added automatic soak successes) the disipline seemed too powerful

As mentioned earlier, dark ages makes you pay for each action. This makes celerity less ridiculous, but still means you can murder everyone - you just have to then drain someone, which is less of a problem given that dark ages encourages you to play paths that have no issue with that.

After several instances of celerity fighters dominating, the ST for my recent dark ages game edited celerity so that the 1st, 3rd, and 5th dot only gave you non attack actions, and gave it an initiative bonus instead. This took the edge off, but it still meant your making 3 attacks for every one your opponent makes, and now you are probably parrying his attack too.

I think the conclusion of my little rant is I've seen two options really. Either you suck it up and accept that extra actions are really really good, and that if you allow core celerity it will become a discipline tax, or you nerf it down to requiem levels

[bladesyz]

Yeah, having played several Vampire games, I'd agree Celerity is overpowered as written, especially at higher power levels. As mentioned, sufficient celerity + potence/protean/quietus etc. means you do vast amounts of damage very quickly, while your opponent makes one attack.

As an example, I played an Assamite in a Dark ages game recently - I had 3 extra actions from celerity, 3 potence, and was doing aggravated damage from quietus. If you build a melee focused character, as I did, there's very little you can't destroy with that in one round.

Similarly, the first game I played in once or twice a week for a year, with no houserule on celerity, and the celerity focused characters dominated. Massively. The first fight we got in began as such: We win surprise - my action is activating my feral claws. The toreador blade artisan's actions are blurring and killing all enemies in the room. Fight over. I resheath my claws and back away from the gore spattered artist. Even with fortitude recieving a buff (it added automatic soak successes) the disipline seemed too powerful

You just mentioned Celerity + Potence + Quietus, that's 3 disciplines, and your Assamite had 10 discipline points for that melee domination. Of course he's going to curb stomp anyone with only a few combat discipline points.

Pit a character with Celerity 5 (total 80 xp from scratch) against another character with with Potence 3 and Fortitude 3 (total 70 xp from scratch), assuming same gen, blood pool, and skills, and the Celerity char will likely lose. Pit that same char against a Nosferatu with Obfuscate 4 and Potence 2 (75 xp), and the Celerity guy is lunch. Not to mention Celerity costs blood (lots of blood for DA version), while the other disciplines mentioned don't.

*** Note that I'm NOT saying Celerity isn't powerful, it's just not OVERpowered, like some other Disciplines are.

[TheCountAlucard]

Pit a character with Celerity 5 (total 80 xp from scratch) against another character with with Potence 3 and Fortitude 3 (total 70 xp from scratch), assuming same gen, blood pool, and skills, and the Celerity char will likely lose.

Not if he plays it smart, he won't.

"With Celerity up, I'm faster than this guy? Okay, I will never let him close with me, then."