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    Pixie in the Playground
     
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    d20 Can you tell me your power gaming tricks in old world of darkness?

    Greetings and good day to all. Ok, i know it's been quite a while since the glorious days of the classic world of darkness was published. I've been reading through the many sourcebooks of all species and i really find it somewhat limited and balanced. Now i know this is not D&D and the game purpose was not intended for straight power gaming but, there really isn't any cheese build or combination around that you ever found or even played? There is any way of creating a build powerful enough to make the ST tremble?

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    Default Re: Can you tell me your power gaming tricks in old world of darkness?

    It's been decades since I last played, but what I remember is choosing the "Ventrue" Vampire Clan, getting as low a generation as possible (Eight?), and then as many points into the "Dominate" Discipline as possible, and just going "I hyponooootise YOOOOOUUU"
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    Default Re: Can you tell me your power gaming tricks in old world of darkness?

    Quote Originally Posted by 2D8HP View Post
    It's been decades since I last played, but what I remember is choosing the "Ventrue" Vampire Clan, getting as low a generation as possible (Eight?), and then as many points into the "Dominate" Discipline as possible, and just going "I hyponooootise YOOOOOUUU"
    The only issue here is that domination only works against vampires and mortals

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    Default Re: Can you tell me your power gaming tricks in old world of darkness?

    There are no tricks in breaking the game. Want to be a combat monster? Dex 5, melee 5 and get as high in Potency, Celerety and Fortitude. Find a weapon that does aggrivated damage= profit. Lower generation always help but if you want to power play then diablery is the right way as it costs you zero points
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    Default Re: Can you tell me your power gaming tricks in old world of darkness?

    Quote Originally Posted by Dr.Role View Post
    Greetings and good day to all. Ok, i know it's been quite a while since the glorious days of the classic world of darkness was published. I've been reading through the many sourcebooks of all species and i really find it somewhat limited and balanced. Now i know this is not D&D and the game purpose was not intended for straight power gaming but, there really isn't any cheese build or combination around that you ever found or even played? There is any way of creating a build powerful enough to make the ST tremble?
    Wait, which splat are you playing? The oWoD games are not mechanically cross-compatible and the power levels of the spalts aren't even close to equal vampires<werewolves<mages.

    The most powerful starting build out of all splats is a Technocrat Mage who has spent all their freebie points on backgrounds and has something like Resources 8, Backup 8, Requisitions 8 which gives them the ability to essentially field a company of Space Marines. In general, backgrounds are broken and power-gaming is built around having more backgrounds than you should. The Technocracy has the best excuse for having background scores above five (which shouldn't be allowed because it totally breaks the game, but it is a rules option).

    The way the Sphere magic system works generally, a Mage's power is limited pretty much only by how effectively you can fast-talk your GM. For instance, with Correspondence 3 and Forces 2, you can probably go on Google Maps, pick any structure within a hundred miles, and cause a massive electrical fire/gas leak explosion to engulf it in a hideous pyroclasm without ever leaving your desk. And most GMs would even consider this coincidental. Other mages can block this with wards, but Vampires without thaumaturgy and Werewolves without some very specific gifts are totally screwed.

    In terms of humorously broken stuff you can hypothetically do, The Book of Madness has a whole system for selling your soul to a demon lord in return for absurd amounts of power. Properly, this is something that should be used only for NPCs, but...
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    Default Re: Can you tell me your power gaming tricks in old world of darkness?

    Oh yeah I took it for VtM. Sorry, just play a mage and profit.
    Optimizing vs Roleplay
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    Default Re: Can you tell me your power gaming tricks in old world of darkness?

    Quote Originally Posted by Mechalich View Post
    Wait, which splat are you playing? The oWoD games are not mechanically cross-compatible and the power levels of the spalts aren't even close to equal vampires<werewolves<mages.

    The most powerful starting build out of all splats is a Technocrat Mage who has spent all their freebie points on backgrounds and has something like Resources 8, Backup 8, Requisitions 8 which gives them the ability to essentially field a company of Space Marines. In general, backgrounds are broken and power-gaming is built around having more backgrounds than you should. The Technocracy has the best excuse for having background scores above five (which shouldn't be allowed because it totally breaks the game, but it is a rules option).

    The way the Sphere magic system works generally, a Mage's power is limited pretty much only by how effectively you can fast-talk your GM. For instance, with Correspondence 3 and Forces 2, you can probably go on Google Maps, pick any structure within a hundred miles, and cause a massive electrical fire/gas leak explosion to engulf it in a hideous pyroclasm without ever leaving your desk. And most GMs would even consider this coincidental. Other mages can block this with wards, but Vampires without thaumaturgy and Werewolves without some very specific gifts are totally screwed.

    In terms of humorously broken stuff you can hypothetically do, The Book of Madness has a whole system for selling your soul to a demon lord in return for absurd amounts of power. Properly, this is something that should be used only for NPCs, but...
    Thank you all for the answers!!! So basically we are in a heavy cross-over ambient with every official published splatbook in old world of darkness allowed. Technocracy is a great option, the only catch is no matter what kind of creature we play we're always at the NPC's mercy. I need to find out a way to either one-shot the ST critters or be able to resist the punishment they rain above us. The background abuse it's the default method i've been using but when i need to apply all the force of the technocracy upon my enemies (specially via enhancements and requisitions) the ST releases a bigger threat or renders my back-up useless by narrative countermeasures. That's why im looking for a much more decisive method. Book of madness does the same, althought i ussually buy a crapton of features of all kinds i always end up losing my PC to the whim of an evil being.

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    Default Re: Can you tell me your power gaming tricks in old world of darkness?

    Quote Originally Posted by RazorChain View Post
    There are no tricks in breaking the game. Want to be a combat monster? Dex 5, melee 5 and get as high in Potency, Celerety and Fortitude. Find a weapon that does aggrivated damage= profit. Lower generation always help but if you want to power play then diablery is the right way as it costs you zero points
    Already tried this with an abomination tzimisce with the extra discipline merit (grabbing celerity) but in certain points the ST just hard counters this strategy either adding umbra spirits (which simply don't die by my means) or takes the history over a more political base and i don't get to see any battle in a long time.

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    Default Re: Can you tell me your power gaming tricks in old world of darkness?

    Quote Originally Posted by Mechalich View Post
    Wait, which splat are you playing? The oWoD games are not mechanically cross-compatible and the power levels of the spalts aren't even close to equal vampires<werewolves<mages.

    The most powerful starting build out of all splats is a Technocrat Mage who has spent all their freebie points on backgrounds and has something like Resources 8, Backup 8, Requisitions 8 which gives them the ability to essentially field a company of Space Marines. In general, backgrounds are broken and power-gaming is built around having more backgrounds than you should. The Technocracy has the best excuse for having background scores above five (which shouldn't be allowed because it totally breaks the game, but it is a rules option).

    The way the Sphere magic system works generally, a Mage's power is limited pretty much only by how effectively you can fast-talk your GM. For instance, with Correspondence 3 and Forces 2, you can probably go on Google Maps, pick any structure within a hundred miles, and cause a massive electrical fire/gas leak explosion to engulf it in a hideous pyroclasm without ever leaving your desk. And most GMs would even consider this coincidental. Other mages can block this with wards, but Vampires without thaumaturgy and Werewolves without some very specific gifts are totally screwed.

    In terms of humorously broken stuff you can hypothetically do, The Book of Madness has a whole system for selling your soul to a demon lord in return for absurd amounts of power. Properly, this is something that should be used only for NPCs, but...
    Thank you all for the answers!!! So basically we are in a heavy cross-over ambient with every official published splatbook in old world of darkness allowed. Technocracy is a great option, the only catch is no matter what kind of creature we play we're always at the NPC's mercy. I need to find out a way to either one-shot the ST critters or be able to resist the punishment they rain above us. The background abuse it's the default method i've been using but when i need to apply all the force of the technocracy upon my enemies (specially via enhancements and requisitions) the ST releases a bigger threat or renders my back-up useless by narrative countermeasures. That's why im looking for a much more decisive method. Book of madness does the same, althought i ussually buy a crapton of features of all kinds i always end up losing my PC to the whim of an evil being.

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    Default Re: Can you tell me your power gaming tricks in old world of darkness?

    Eh.....you're going to fail. Do you want to know why? Because the Storyteller can just tell you "You fail" and you will.


    You can't win an arms race against the Storyteller. No matter the how powerful your character it just doesn't matter.
    Optimizing vs Roleplay
    If the worlds greatest optimizer makes a character and hands it to the worlds greatest roleplayer who roleplays the character. What will happen? Will the Universe implode?

    Roleplaying vs Fun
    If roleplaying is no fun then stop doing it. Unless of course you are roleplaying at gunpoint then you should roleplay like your life depended on it.

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    Default Re: Can you tell me your power gaming tricks in old world of darkness?

    Quote Originally Posted by RazorChain View Post
    Eh.....you're going to fail. Do you want to know why? Because the Storyteller can just tell you "You fail" and you will.


    You can't win an arms race against the Storyteller. No matter the how powerful your character it just doesn't matter.
    This is true, and I agree.

    In the spirit of gleeful ridiculousness I will note that in terms of truly overpowered things, Technomancer's Toybox has stats for military hardware in the appendix. So if you really want to know what happens when you bring a tank to a bar fight...
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    Default Re: Can you tell me your power gaming tricks in old world of darkness?

    Don't bring a tank to a bar fight, convince the GM to allow you to play a Marauder and bring a Dragon to the bar fight. Better yet, teleport the bar to the dragon fight.
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    Default Re: Can you tell me your power gaming tricks in old world of darkness?

    Quote Originally Posted by Mechalich View Post
    The way the Sphere magic system works generally, a Mage's power is limited pretty much only by how effectively you can fast-talk your GM.
    This is in fact the only way to truly be overpowered in WoD. It's not the kind of system where you can stick a pile of points in something and be free of risk.
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    Default Re: Can you tell me your power gaming tricks in old world of darkness?

    The way to break combat in the old storyteller system is through a merit called charmed existence. It negates the first 1 in every roll which enables you to split your dice pool completely without the risk of botching. The most effective is doing it in a werewolf. I dont have access to the books now so the example may not be perfectly accurate but in the vicinity.

    Newbie werewolf
    Dex 5 +2 for Hispo form
    Str 4 +3 for Hispo form
    Brawl 3
    Rage 10

    You spend 10 rage to get 11 turns on round 1 which you split into 10 (Dex+Brawl) attacks. So you make 110 attacks, of which 55 should land for 9 aggravated damage dies per attack. Almost nothing survives this.

    You could probably raise your brawl to 5 which raises it to 66 successful attacks.

    If you want to play a vampire the is a magic sword that gives a success on each attack. If you give this to a PC with celerity and potence it also works really well. Not the same first round punch but lasts over more rounds.

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    Default Re: Can you tell me your power gaming tricks in old world of darkness?

    Here's another mage option: Prime magic. 2 in Prime gives you access to lightsabers that can kill anything because they do aggravated damage (Summon Prime Weapon). Get enough points in physical attributes and the ability to wield swords and you can kill everything very very fast and make sure they stay dead. You can make things more interesting with the flaws/merits system of Mage giving you a ton of early points too. My personal favorite combination is Phylactery and Shattered Avatar, since it allows for greater growth later on, you can spin it that there's a set of something for your character to find to get more in touch with their Avatar, and it allows more plot hooks for your Storyteller to use (someone else has one, there are rumors that there's one in a cursed temple, etc).

    Alternatively for mage as well, if you want to survive everything, Life magic is unmatched in ability to soak damage and keeping paradox low, since you don't have to have the effect show outwardly.

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    Default Re: Can you tell me your power gaming tricks in old world of darkness?

    Quote Originally Posted by RazorChain View Post
    There are no tricks in breaking the game. Want to be a combat monster? Dex 5, melee 5 and get as high in Potency, Celerety and Fortitude. Find a weapon that does aggrivated damage= profit. Lower generation always help but if you want to power play then diablery is the right way as it costs you zero points
    Heh. I had a blood-trash Brujah with a couple points in Potency, one in Celerity, and a friend who created a silver knife for me. The knife-fighting rules in the Player's Companion had me carving up a Garou into steaks in frighteningly short order... I got something like 4 attacks, that did at least 2 or 3 points of non-soakable damage each.

    (It did help that my "betters" were distracting it by being utter ****-waffles, as "True Brujah" are likely to do).

    However, I would also note that Presence is a particularly poorly written set of powers, with few defenses.
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    Default Re: Can you tell me your power gaming tricks in old world of darkness?

    So, first up - no, Old WoD was not balanced at all. It is hilariously unbalanced. Egregiously unbalanced.

    But with all that said - if your problem is that the ST is throwing NPCs who are casually curbstomping you, you can't win, because the egregiousness of the unbalancing extends to giving elders of every splat ridiculously overpowered abilities that are utterly unstoppable for anyone playing on a PC experience budget.

    If you really want to be generically unstoppable, that werewolf trick is a solid one until the ST has someone arbitrarily beat you in initiative and hit you that many times for that much damage.

    If you want to just generally mess people up, go with a Malefactor Demon with the Forge powers. It lets you take some time for some Difficulty 2 crafting rolls to give everyone in your party each other's super-powers, but with better die pools and lower costs and no activation time. Then you just get everyone involved, and next session your whole party rocks in with 20 Agg soak and +10 Agg hand weapons and the ability to walk through walls and teleport and self-heal reliably.

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    Default Re: Can you tell me your power gaming tricks in old world of darkness?

    Quote Originally Posted by Dr.Role View Post
    Greetings and good day to all. Ok, i know it's been quite a while since the glorious days of the classic world of darkness was published. I've been reading through the many sourcebooks of all species and i really find it somewhat limited and balanced. Now i know this is not D&D and the game purpose was not intended for straight power gaming but, there really isn't any cheese build or combination around that you ever found or even played? There is any way of creating a build powerful enough to make the ST tremble?
    3 words for you Celerity, Potence, and Fortitude. Dump any points you can spare into these 3 Disciplines and your character will be very powerful. Obfuscate is also a great choice if you want to do some spying and blackmailing.

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    Default Re: Can you tell me your power gaming tricks in old world of darkness?

    Quote Originally Posted by RazorChain View Post
    Oh yeah I took it for VtM. Sorry, just play a mage and profit.
    I second this the mages in that system are crazy. I'm talking "don't like the world? Just rebuild it in your image." kinda powerful.

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    Default Re: Can you tell me your power gaming tricks in old world of darkness?

    Quote Originally Posted by EightBitEngine View Post
    I second this the mages in that system are crazy. I'm talking "don't like the world? Just rebuild it in your image." kinda powerful.
    Quote Originally Posted by Torsk View Post
    The way to break combat in the old storyteller system is through a merit called charmed existence. It negates the first 1 in every roll which enables you to split your dice pool completely without the risk of botching. The most effective is doing it in a werewolf. I dont have access to the books now so the example may not be perfectly accurate but in the vicinity.

    Newbie werewolf
    Dex 5 +2 for Hispo form
    Str 4 +3 for Hispo form
    Brawl 3
    Rage 10

    You spend 10 rage to get 11 turns on round 1 which you split into 10 (Dex+Brawl) attacks. So you make 110 attacks, of which 55 should land for 9 aggravated damage dies per attack. Almost nothing survives this.

    You could probably raise your brawl to 5 which raises it to 66 successful attacks.

    If you want to play a vampire the is a magic sword that gives a success on each attack. If you give this to a PC with celerity and potence it also works really well. Not the same first round punch but lasts over more rounds.
    WOW i've never figured you could break even more the combat with a garou i will take this as a primary option. In the case of the vampire, where i can find that sword? In case i want to go for the vampire.

    Quote Originally Posted by gamerfalcon View Post
    Here's another mage option: Prime magic. 2 in Prime gives you access to lightsabers that can kill anything because they do aggravated damage (Summon Prime Weapon). Get enough points in physical attributes and the ability to wield swords and you can kill everything very very fast and make sure they stay dead. You can make things more interesting with the flaws/merits system of Mage giving you a ton of early points too. My personal favorite combination is Phylactery and Shattered Avatar, since it allows for greater growth later on, you can spin it that there's a set of something for your character to find to get more in touch with their Avatar, and it allows more plot hooks for your Storyteller to use (someone else has one, there are rumors that there's one in a cursed temple, etc).

    Alternatively for mage as well, if you want to survive everything, Life magic is unmatched in ability to soak damage and keeping paradox low, since you don't have to have the effect show outwardly.
    I understand the point with shattered avatar is to increase the arete rating by doing certain quests to recover the missing pieces without having to expend EXP to increase the rating, but, what's the purpose for phylactery?

    Quote Originally Posted by Friv View Post
    So, first up - no, Old WoD was not balanced at all. It is hilariously unbalanced. Egregiously unbalanced.

    But with all that said - if your problem is that the ST is throwing NPCs who are casually curbstomping you, you can't win, because the egregiousness of the unbalancing extends to giving elders of every splat ridiculously overpowered abilities that are utterly unstoppable for anyone playing on a PC experience budget.

    If you really want to be generically unstoppable, that werewolf trick is a solid one until the ST has someone arbitrarily beat you in initiative and hit you that many times for that much damage.

    If you want to just generally mess people up, go with a Malefactor Demon with the Forge powers. It lets you take some time for some Difficulty 2 crafting rolls to give everyone in your party each other's super-powers, but with better die pools and lower costs and no activation time. Then you just get everyone involved, and next session your whole party rocks in with 20 Agg soak and +10 Agg hand weapons and the ability to walk through walls and teleport and self-heal reliably.
    I planned to go for this option but the ST banned it outright, he knows the trick's purpose.

    Quote Originally Posted by EightBitEngine View Post
    3 words for you Celerity, Potence, and Fortitude. Dump any points you can spare into these 3 Disciplines and your character will be very powerful. Obfuscate is also a great choice if you want to do some spying and blackmailing.
    I've tried this inthe past but i need so much more raw damage. I think i maybe can try abomination but i think i recall some rule that states you can't burn rage and blood the same turn.

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    Default Re: Can you tell me your power gaming tricks in old world of darkness?

    For the case of a mage i've found the next merit:

    Conditional Magic (1 to 6-pt. Merit or Flaw)
    There is one thing in the world that is a great boon, or bane, to your character’s magic. Perhaps her spells work particularly well against men, or on Tuesdays, or just after a storm, or on people dressed all in black. Maybe she’s powerless to affect those who are or who bear that certain thing, such as her magic being unable to affect Christians or those who carry a piece of rowan and red thread. It may be that a certain individual gave her power over them, or perhaps it is utterly proof against her magic due to an oath she swore or spells that were placed on her.
    The conditions that affect your magic may be common, uncommon or rare, and the value of this Merit or Flaw depends on the rarity of the condition. The base costs listed here assume that you have a difficulty modifier of three on all Arete rolls under the given conditions. You may adjust the difficulty by one for every point more or less you devote to the Trait.
    I'm still searching the sourcebook where it is found but in the case it's real this is absurdly stupid. By RAW this could give you potentially a 9 point reduction to the base difficulty of any sphere you are using. Coupled with quintessence this could bring the difficulty to 1. The condition under the modifier applies in the 6 point version is absurd to the point you could make it work if you are simply "touching the ground". Hell, you could even combine this with cycling magic merit to lower the difficulties by an additional three in the case it wasn't legal to buy additional points in the conditional magic merit to lower the difficulties by more than three and you could simply say you magic works best in the day, in case you were playing in the night you could use Correspondance effect to overlap a tiny piece of a place where it's daytime. Is this even possible?
    Last edited by Dr.Role; 2018-02-22 at 08:45 PM.

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