General WoD Discussion #2: Its time to Celebrate! - Page 6

Morty · 08-14-2012, 06:22 AM

Yeah, in the long run being resistant to normal weapons would not help vampires much in a confrontation with the entirety of humanity in the event of the Masquerade being broken worldwide. As was said, there's fire, which is probably the most crippling weakness among nWoD gamelines. And besides, Bashing damage will bring you down eventually. A vampire will endure under a hail of gunfire far longer than any mortal, but he'll eventually go torpid.
It would, though, help them in confrontation with individual mortals, like hunters, law enforcement, criminals or other vampires' thralls. Of course, going into close quarters with a vampire is very risky for a mortal anyway, so those who know they're up against a vampire are likely to use fire and otherwise fight smart regardless.

SiderealDreams · 08-23-2012, 05:28 AM

If you haven't been following the development blog of Mummy:the Curse well...good time to start :) More info was spoiled at GenCon and the audio of that session is available for download @ http://theonyxpath.com

In addition some new art was spoiled and you can watch it here. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ekgoBtbqY84

Additional audio and other information is available on what White Wolf has been up to and what Onyx Path Publishing is and what it's doing.

ocel · 08-28-2012, 08:32 PM

Thank you for updating us on Mummy: The Curse's progress, SiderealDreams.

masterjoda99 · 08-28-2012, 09:34 PM

So, I've recently gained an interest in Changeling, and as such I would like some advice on character creation. I was thinking something like Wizened Seeming, but no clue what kith. Essentially, what I'm going for is a character who specializes in Oneiromancy and Hedgespinning, and basically making magic wonders and influencing people's minds through dreams. Any suggestions for this character, I would greatly appreciate.

Kesnit · 08-29-2012, 01:31 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by masterjoda99

So, I've recently gained an interest in Changeling, and as such I would like some advice on character creation. I was thinking something like Wizened Seeming, but no clue what kith. Essentially, what I'm going for is a character who specializes in Oneiromancy and Hedgespinning, and basically making magic wonders and influencing people's minds through dreams. Any suggestions for this character, I would greatly appreciate.

This is just the way I build characters, so it may not work for you.

Who were you before you were taken? Why were you taken? What was your durance like?

Once you answer those questions, you may have a better idea of what Court, kith, etc you want.

Kesnit · 08-30-2012, 09:42 AM

Is there a way to do Agg damage with Prime Arcana? Maybe the answer is in one of the Mage spat books, but I could not find anything that works in the core book.

Background

Spoiler

The next game (in 2 weeks) will start with combat. When the ST was giving out silvered weapons last game, I realized that I had given my PC no dots in Brawl, Firearms, or Weaponry. He is a Master of Prime, but when looking in the book, found no Prime spells that do agg damage, which is useful when fighting werewolves. (Also, everyone else is armed with silver weapons, meaning they will be doing agg.)

There are a lot of things I know I can do. (My plan now is to create a bear with Marionette, create armor for the bear, and send the bear in to fight.) But I'm looking for a way to make myself more combat effective against werewolves using just Arcana.

masterjoda99 · 08-30-2012, 10:35 AM

Well, the Prime 3 spell Celestial Fire can do aggravated damage at Prime 5. In theory, any arcanum can do aggravated at mastery, but it always costs a point of mana to do so. Ultimately, in my opinion, you've picked a good arcanum to master, since prime has direct damage, magic item creation, illusions, and a master of prime basically never needs to worry about mana acquisition.

Morty · 09-01-2012, 06:27 PM

I was talking about the planned rules revisions for Vampire and the discussion about them on the White Wolf boards a while ago. This is another thread about them and predictably enough, the discussion is heated.

Now, changes to Disciplines aside, what caught my attention is that the playtesters are working with the assumption that weapons' damage bonuses add successes to successful attack rolls instead of adding dice to the attack pool. It's a common houserule from what I've heard, but I do wonder if it means it'll be a rules revision for the whole nWoD.

ToySoldierCPlus · 09-01-2012, 10:40 PM

Certainly an interesting idea, though it does make combat more dangerous than it already is. Not necessarily a bad thing, but still.

Morty · 09-02-2012, 08:27 AM

What worries me a bit is that it'll make combat too binary - either you miss or you seriously harm your opponent. Thus no grazing, near-misses, scratches... it's a bit limiting, narratively speaking. Hopefully they'll manage to do something about it. They said they'll probably reduce the damage bonuses on weapons (I hope a new weapons table doesn't make Armory obsolete, though).

Fouredged Sword · 09-02-2012, 12:59 PM

One rule I have been considering is a miss/graze/hit/crit system.

With an attack you do not add your weapons damage to the attack roll, and you count only odd numbers of successes as damage on attack rolls. If you get no successes you miss. If you get one success you graze your target and they take a single wound. If get 2 or more successes you deal 1/2 your weapons damage rating (rounding up) in damage in addition to all successes. If you roll 4 successes the damage auto dealt by your weapon is upgraded to the next damage type. After that you simply deal more damage.

Grazes cannot fill the last box of any damage category (and thus you must score a solid hit to disable a target)

Combat would be much less lethal and characters who can keep foes unable to strike a solid hit can stay in fights much longer, so defense should become more viable.

Eurus · 09-02-2012, 01:36 PM

Wondering if anyone has opinions on this particular example of a six-dot Majesty power for an NPC.

Dies Irae
Cost: 1 willpower per scene
Dice pool: --
Action: Instant
The user's Majesty inspires and bolsters the masses, whipping them into a frenzy of violence. This power does not itself grant influence over the subjects; they must already respect the user's commands through normal or supernatural means, and the user must verbally address them to activate this power. The lord directs his subjects toward a goal, and they begin to pursue it with all of their might. Only mortals may be affected by this power.

The affected are inspired to fight with utter disregard for their own safety, ignoring all wound penalties and gaining bonus dice on all resistance rolls against mental influence equal to the user's Majesty. They may also use the Kindred's Majesty dots in place of any dice pool used to attack if it exceeds their normal dice pool.

This power lasts for one scene, or approximately one hour, and may affect a total number of mortals equal to the user's Majesty dots squared.

Cerlis · 09-02-2012, 10:33 PM

i was wondering if there was a good place to find information or discussion threads for werewolf:the apocalypse. We just started a game.

a paranormal investigator uktena, hacker glasswalker, security guard Gaia (me), all Homid. Apparently gaining the aid of a combat heavy Lupus (I noticed we all lacked physical ability, and most of us players are Skill heavy)

Other than looking for some information, i was also hoping for some good knews. the 3 of us are lost cubs and though we where acquainted with each other before we just got found by a Garou. The issue is i think i've formulated the personality of my character pretty well. And I think its going to be hard for him to get used to the idea of dealing with problems as a Were.

I was wondering how much i'll have to rely on supernatural combat ability. Should i put away my gun, or are there enough monsters out there that can be taken out by it?

The Random NPC · 09-02-2012, 10:52 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Fouredged Sword

One rule I have been considering is a miss/graze/hit/crit system.

With an attack you do not add your weapons damage to the attack roll, and you count only odd numbers of successes as damage on attack rolls. If you get no successes you miss. If you get one success you graze your target and they take a single wound. If get 2 or more successes you deal 1/2 your weapons damage rating (rounding up) in damage in addition to all successes. If you roll 4 successes the damage auto dealt by your weapon is upgraded to the next damage type. After that you simply deal more damage.

Grazes cannot fill the last box of any damage category (and thus you must score a solid hit to disable a target)

Combat would be much less lethal and characters who can keep foes unable to strike a solid hit can stay in fights much longer, so defense should become more viable.

So if I understand the system correctly, let's say I use a 2 damage brass knuckles to deal bashing damage, and my pool is 7.
I roll all 7 dice to attack, let's say I get 5 successes, so I would succeed in hitting and deal 4 (3 from odd successes and 1/2 weapon of 2) damage but because I got 4+ successes, the damage from the weapon is lethal, so I deal 3 bashing and 1 lethal?
If I had gotten exactly one success I would deal 1 bashing, and if I got 2 I would deal 3 bashing.

OACSNY97 · 09-05-2012, 07:54 PM

I have a rules question for Changeling: the Lost. We're coming to the end of a year long story arc and one of my players is very interested in the dual kith stuff from Winter Masques. I'm tempted to let her have it as suitable reward for what's going on in the plot, but...
How would you rule the use of the dual kith merit when the kiths of interest are from different seemings?

The character in question is currently a Darkling Gravewright who works as a bartender and the player would like to use the dual kith merit to pick up the Wizened kith of Brewer.

Would it make sense for the second kith to only give the kith blessing or would it make sense to open up all of the Wizened stuff including the reduced cost for Artifice contracts with the second kith? Winter Masques is somewhat unclear- all examples they give are of two kiths from the same seeming. Opinions?

Thank you

ToySoldierCPlus · 09-05-2012, 08:19 PM

That's because the Winter Masques rules aren't the only rules for dual-kith changelings. Rites of Spring has a section on the subject, proposing different prices for the merit: 2 dots for a same-seeming kith, and 3 dots for a different-seeming kith. The different-seeming option specifically explains that while the character gets the benefits of both kiths, they only get the blessing (and curse) of their own seeming. ...It also says that the merit is available at character creation only, in contradiction to Winter Masques, but you're the ST, so when it's available is your call in the end.

Information on the Dual Kith merit can be found on page 88 of Rites of Spring.

Lord_Gareth · 09-05-2012, 08:35 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Cerlis

i was wondering if there was a good place to find information or discussion threads for werewolf:the apocalypse. We just started a game.

a paranormal investigator uktena, hacker glasswalker, security guard Gaia (me), all Homid. Apparently gaining the aid of a combat heavy Lupus (I noticed we all lacked physical ability, and most of us players are Skill heavy)

Other than looking for some information, i was also hoping for some good knews. the 3 of us are lost cubs and though we where acquainted with each other before we just got found by a Garou. The issue is i think i've formulated the personality of my character pretty well. And I think its going to be hard for him to get used to the idea of dealing with problems as a Were.

I was wondering how much i'll have to rely on supernatural combat ability. Should i put away my gun, or are there enough monsters out there that can be taken out by it?

I would suggest you check White Wolf's own forums. However, a word of warning - W:tA is a terrible, awful wreck of a game that is essentially one gigantic car wreck, starting at the inconsistent, heavy-handed and ill-conceived fluff and moving on to mechanics that are not so much a gaming system as they are the written equivalent of an open-handed smack to the face. There is no 'good' advice for how to run it. There are only ways to lessen the pain.

Yawgmoth · 09-05-2012, 08:47 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Lord_Gareth

I would suggest you check White Wolf's own forums. However, a word of warning - W:tA is a terrible, awful wreck of a game that is essentially one gigantic car wreck, starting at the inconsistent, heavy-handed and ill-conceived fluff and moving on to mechanics that are not so much a gaming system as they are the written equivalent of an open-handed smack to the face. There is no 'good' advice for how to run it. There are only ways to lessen the pain.

To expand on this, oWoD systems in general was written with the assumption that having well-written systems lessens roleplaying, and thus many of the writers (who had no prior game design experience to begin with) just made the systems "whatever sounded good at the time". As such, combat in particular is an untenable mess that takes literally hours just to adjudicate a single person's turn (between 4 different rolls for a single attack and being able to take multiple actions per combatant) and most other parts of the game just do not work together well, if at all.

My honest suggestion to Cerlis: Since you just started, you should swap over to nWoD and play WtF if you really wanna play werewolf. The systems flow with each other much smoother and move much faster, although gifts still have an issue with being overly situational or just outright useless, by and large. If you're not super attached to werewolves but like the whole "wilderness dudes and spirits" motif, you could easily do that with vampire: the requiem (gangrel with possibly a bloodline to play nice with spirits), mage: the awakening (the thyrsus path are actually better werewolves than werewolves), or changeling: the lost (the beast kith is basically this anyways, elementals could get into it easily, other kiths could be shimmied in too).

OACSNY97 · 09-05-2012, 08:58 PM

Thanks for getting back to me so soon on my Changeling question. As this would be a plot reward, I'm going to go with Winter Masques rules as far as when it can be taken, but the information in Rites of Spring was very helpful.

I still have one question- since Rites of Spring says that the character only gets blessing and curse from primary seeming, I assume that means that they only get the contract discount for primary seeming as well? I.E. the Gravewright character who's looking to pick up Brewer would get the Darkness contracts at discount, but not the Artifice ones- correct?

More generally- what about the small handful of contracts in Rites of Spring that are affinity for two seemings- how would you have this work if one of the seemings on the affinity list was the seeming providing the "secondary" kith?

Thanks

Yawgmoth · 09-05-2012, 09:01 PM

To put it really simply: The character has one Seeming, and two Kiths. They only get what that one Seeming and what those two kiths say they give. No more, no less.

ToySoldierCPlus · 09-05-2012, 09:22 PM

As Yawgmoth said, it wouldn't matter. The exact text is:

Quote:

Originally Posted by Rites of Spring

Your character can belong to only a single seeming, but she also possesses the kith blessings of both kiths. No other benefit of the other seeming is transferred; your character is still a member of only one seeming, with all that entails.

So, in list form, the character with the dual kith merit and kiths from two different seemings has:

Seeming blessing from initial seeming
Kith blessing from seeming-related kith
kith blessing from non-seeming-related kith
Affinity with universal contracts
Affinity with seeming contracts
Curse from initial seeming

The character does not have affinity with any contracts that are not universal or on their seeming's list, even if the contracts are affinity for the seeming providing the character's second kith.

An Antiquarian Author Darkling, for instance, doesn't gain affinity with any wizened contracts, like artifice. He would only have affinity for the standard Darkling contracts.

Daemonhawk · 09-05-2012, 10:31 PM

Hey, I recently ordered nWoD(it was on sale, so I took a risk.), and I wanted to know some more about the system, preferably what a new Storyteller should know about the system. Thank you!

Lord_Gareth · 09-05-2012, 11:52 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Daemonhawk

Hey, I recently ordered nWoD(it was on sale, so I took a risk.), and I wanted to know some more about the system, preferably what a new Storyteller should know about the system. Thank you!

Well - and this is speaking as someone who loves and adores nWoD - I have to say that the answers to these questions greatly depends on what it is you like in a gaming system. My group and I tend towards a low optimization, so the gaping flaws in the system's mechanics (such as wild imbalance between various Merits, exploits, that sort of thing) slip us by and we remain blissfully unaware of the practicalities of these problems. If your folks like to fiddle with the knobs and dials, then you should be warned that the actual mechanics are held together mostly by Scotch tape and hatred, and little else.

These other fine folks can tell you more.

Morty · 09-06-2012, 08:31 AM

I wouldn't go as far as Lord Gareth (although I do feel tempted to use "held together mostly by Scotch tape and hatred" for something now). nWoD generally holds together as a system, unless you deliberately try to break it, which as a new player you probably won't do anyway. Now, other advice would depend on what systems you've played before and what style you're used to. And, most importantly: which books do you have?

Jeivar · 09-06-2012, 11:28 AM

Hey, I'm running an OWoD Vampire: Dark Ages game and I have a rules question. One of my players is a Tremere and so far I haven't found any rules on how long it takes for him to learn new rituals. It just says that they must be learned as part of a story, and there must be a teacher. Any advice?

Daemonhawk · 09-06-2012, 05:01 PM

Well, seeing as how the core rule book was the only one on sale, just that one.

I'm used to running/ playing in a game with a lt of combat, but I do enjoy the RP just as much. Aside from that, I know nothing about nWoD.

The Glyphstone · 09-06-2012, 05:13 PM

That'll be fine. NWoD Mortals is a perfectly serviceable game, and probably the best choice for a total new group - get used to the rules, then you can consider choosing a supernatural splat.

If you're used to combat-heavy games, NWoD will definitely be a change. It can be combat-heavy, but compared to games like D&D, it'll be a bit of a culture shock because fighting is incredibly lethal. Humans are squishy, and stay that way - a total newbie can be unconscious and bleeding to death in two or three solid hits (or less), and the most badass hardcore fighter on the planet will be able to take four hits, tops. Guns are vastly better than melee weapons, as expected for a realistic modern horror game - subtract one from the previous values if it's a gunfight.

What is means is that the system discourages using violence to solve your problems, unless you like making new characters a lot. Social skills and stats help you avoid violent situations, mental stats and skills are good for arranging so you're never in a violent situation to begin with. And if you have to fight, fight dirty - use cover, set up ambushes, outnumber your opponents, and still expect to be patching up wounded or sewing up body bags when the dust settles.

It's a game of gothic horror - there are things that go bump in the fight, and you might not know they exist. A Mortals game might involve a haunted house, or a deranged serial killer, or an evil cult leader with mind-control powers. Watch some good horror movies for ideas, then think of how it'd be better if the cast weren't total morons like they always are, and work up a scenario from there.

Daemonhawk · 09-06-2012, 06:47 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by The Glyphstone

That'll be fine. NWoD Mortals is a perfectly serviceable game, and probably the best choice for a total new group - get used to the rules, then you can consider choosing a supernatural splat.

If you're used to combat-heavy games, NWoD will definitely be a change. It can be combat-heavy, but compared to games like D&D, it'll be a bit of a culture shock because fighting is incredibly lethal. Humans are squishy, and stay that way - a total newbie can be unconscious and bleeding to death in two or three solid hits (or less), and the most badass hardcore fighter on the planet will be able to take four hits, tops. Guns are vastly better than melee weapons, as expected for a realistic modern horror game - subtract one from the previous values if it's a gunfight.

What is means is that the system discourages using violence to solve your problems, unless you like making new characters a lot. Social skills and stats help you avoid violent situations, mental stats and skills are good for arranging so you're never in a violent situation to begin with. And if you have to fight, fight dirty - use cover, set up ambushes, outnumber your opponents, and still expect to be patching up wounded or sewing up body bags when the dust settles.

It's a game of gothic horror - there are things that go bump in the fight, and you might not know they exist. A Mortals game might involve a haunted house, or a deranged serial killer, or an evil cult leader with mind-control powers. Watch some good horror movies for ideas, then think of how it'd be better if the cast weren't total morons like they always are, and work up a scenario from there.

Thanks, Glyphstone! I had heard something from my friend about how fighting in WoD is sorta like giving two eggshells large caliber rifles.
Well, I do appreciate the information. I had been under the impression that supernaturals were included in the book, but I wasn't planning on having players use them anyways.

As far as pacing goes, and just being the Storyteller in general, differ from D&D? Is it much more difficult, or on the same level? And should it actually be "scary", or simply just very...creepy?

EDIT: I forgot to say that if this is poorly worded, I apologize. I've been slammed with work lately...

The Glyphstone · 09-06-2012, 08:43 PM

Nope - the book you have, assuming it is black/grey/dark blue, is the New World of Darkness core book, providing the rules for ordinary mortals. Supernatural creatures like Vampires, Werewolves, and other strange beasties -at least, the playable ones - have their own books, because the way NWoD rules work is closer to D&D templates - you create a mortal, then apply the appropriate supernatural template that then gives you new abilities, weaknesses, etc.

I've never run a tabletop game of it, but I would suggest reading the Storyteller section of the book in-depth, it's full of tips for exactly the questions you're asking. But 'eggshells with high caliber rifles' is a good way to put it, particularly if the eggshells have the Sniper or Combat Marksmanship merits (neither of which are in the core book, so you're fine there).

Fouredged Sword · 09-07-2012, 05:10 AM

If you want to have a supernatural creature in a nWoD game, feel free just to make something up. Give it a few strange powers and let it ride. It keeps your players on their toes. Had my players fight a chupacabra once. Great fun was had when it caught them unprepared in the woods during daylight because they thought they where hunting a vampire.