[nWoD] Demon: the Descent

[talozin]

Another observation: demons are significantly worse in combat than other supernaturals - no soaking lethal, no healing without buying special abilities. They also have very harsh consequences for using their powers. Summon Bigger Fish basicaly. The demons do however have very good at-will no save social powers.

So basically someone took the underlying premise of Mage, ripped out all the Atlantean bullshit, installed a new magic system, and called it a day? Nice work if you can get it, I guess.

[Longes]

Another observation: demons are significantly worse in combat than other supernaturals - no soaking lethal, no healing without buying special abilities. They also have very harsh consequences for using their powers. Summon Bigger Fish basicaly. The demons do however have very good at-will no save social powers.

So basically someone took the underlying premise of Mage, ripped out all the Atlantean bullshit, installed a new magic system, and called it a day? Nice work if you can get it, I guess.

Yep. Except Mages get broad powerful abilities, and demons get very specialized bullshit.

[Longes]

Shift Consequence
This somewhat dangerous Embed allows a demon to change the results of a scene by changing who suffers the consequence. A critical injury, poison, humiliation or a Condition can change from one target to another. This Embed can be activated any time between when the consequence appears and the end of the scene. The demon specifies which consequence he wishes to shift. It must be something that occurred within the last scene and it must have a game effect — damage or a Condition are the most likely targets.

Dice Pool: Manipulation + Occult – Resolve, Composure, or Stamina (Storyteller’s discretion)

Action: Instant

Roll Results

Dramatic Failure: The demon suffers the consequence himself. Anyone else involved in the scene that wants to inflict her own consequence on the demon may do so. This won’t kill the demon; the demon suffers only the most intense injury. In addition, though, the demon must check for compromise as described under Success.

Failure: No effect; the consequence stays where it is.

Success: The demon shifts the consequence to another eligible target. If the consequence is damage, the demon can change it to an inanimate object (the wall took the bullet instead of the demon’s friend, for instance). Conditions, however, only shift to targets that might conceivably have them. Cars don’t get Embarrassed and buildings don’t become Lost. The character also risks Cover (apply a +1 modifier).

Exceptional Success: As above, except that the character does not check for compromise.

Yes, this is an at-will ability that allows you to move bullet wounds onto your enemies.


There is also a power for turning words literal. You see someone tell the guy you hate to suck a barrel of cocks, and then he literaly does.

[nockermensch]

sounds lovely. care to explain?

There is nothing in the game that is "demonic". You don't make pacts with mortals, you don't appear in fire and brimstone. You have technology fluffed abilities, some of the demonic form powers are electricity related. You are an android on the run, trying to fight the god-machine/corporation. God-Machine establishes "Infrastructure", which you are probably supposed to fight.

I think they misspelled Daemons, then.

[talozin]

Yep. Except Mages get broad powerful abilities, and demons get very specialized bullshit.

I would be more hostile to the idea if you could actually use the magic system in Mage without a dozen pages of houserules and errata. The last time I tried to play Mage the house rules in use totaled almost fifteen thousand words and didn't even begin to handle all the edge cases, because the GM made no secret of his willingness to slap shit down if he thought you were being twinky. Never mind that even figuring out what's "twinky" and what's "working as intended" in Mage is a complete clusterfuck.

A magic system that worked at all would be an improvement. One that worked and still allowed a similar level of creativity to Mage would be ideal, but I can't find it in myself to get too down on the Demon authors for scaling the ambitions a little closer to their abilities. Mind you, I'm confident that it's still broken as fuck, but baby steps.

[Longes]

Yep. Except Mages get broad powerful abilities, and demons get very specialized bullshit.

I would be more hostile to the idea if you could actually use the magic system in Mage without a dozen pages of houserules and errata. The last time I tried to play Mage the house rules in use totaled almost fifteen thousand words and didn't even begin to handle all the edge cases, because the GM made no secret of his willingness to slap shit down if he thought you were being twinky. Never mind that even figuring out what's "twinky" and what's "working as intended" in Mage is a complete clusterfuck.

A magic system that worked at all would be an improvement. One that worked and still allowed a similar level of creativity to Mage would be ideal, but I can't find it in myself to get too down on the Demon authors for scaling the ambitions a little closer to their abilities. Mind you, I'm confident that it's still broken as fuck, but baby steps.

The main problem with Demon magic is that there is no rhyme or reason to Embeds (small at-will magic) and Exploits (big effects for which you pay Aether). Everything I've listed so far was an Embed. Even Shift Consequence. One Exploit I remember of the top of my head is "Deep Pockets". You teleport and pull out of your pocket any item you've ever seen. Contrast with "In My Pocket" embed (which is a prerequisite to Deep Pockets) which allows you to create and pull anything out of your pocket, provided the contents of your pockets weren't objectively established so far.

[Prak]

sounds lovely. care to explain?

There is nothing in the game that is "demonic". You don't make pacts with mortals, you don't appear in fire and brimstone. You have technology fluffed abilities, some of the demonic form powers are electricity related. You are an android on the run, trying to fight the god-machine/corporation. God-Machine establishes "Infrastructure", which you are probably supposed to fight.

I think they misspelled Daemons, then.

I literally just made this joke on the previous page.

[Longes]

There is nothing in the game that is "demonic". You don't make pacts with mortals, you don't appear in fire and brimstone. You have technology fluffed abilities, some of the demonic form powers are electricity related. You are an android on the run, trying to fight the god-machine/corporation. God-Machine establishes "Infrastructure", which you are probably supposed to fight.

I think they misspelled Daemons, then.

I literally just made this joke on the previous page.

Personally, I thought you were just trying to be british.

[nockermensch]

I literally just made this joke on the previous page.

Personally, I thought you were just trying to be british.

This is why I added the wikipedia link. Daemon is an obscure enough technical term. But for those who know it, I think it's about impossible to not make that association between it and this game.

Apologies for missing the post where you made it before than me, though.

[Longes]

I literally just made this joke on the previous page.

Personally, I thought you were just trying to be british.

This is why I added the wikipedia link. Daemon is an obscure enough technical term. But for those who know it, I think it's about impossible to not make that association between it and this game.

Apologies for missing the post where you made it before than me, though.

It's not that obscure. Anyone who sys.admined UNIX knows it

[Prak]

Or anyone who sent a lot of emails, especially with aol, in the 90s.

[TheFlatline]

Yep. Except Mages get broad powerful abilities, and demons get very specialized bullshit.

I would be more hostile to the idea if you could actually use the magic system in Mage without a dozen pages of houserules and errata. The last time I tried to play Mage the house rules in use totaled almost fifteen thousand words and didn't even begin to handle all the edge cases, because the GM made no secret of his willingness to slap shit down if he thought you were being twinky. Never mind that even figuring out what's "twinky" and what's "working as intended" in Mage is a complete clusterfuck.

A magic system that worked at all would be an improvement. One that worked and still allowed a similar level of creativity to Mage would be ideal, but I can't find it in myself to get too down on the Demon authors for scaling the ambitions a little closer to their abilities. Mind you, I'm confident that it's still broken as fuck, but baby steps.

The main problem with Demon magic is that there is no rhyme or reason to Embeds (small at-will magic) and Exploits (big effects for which you pay Aether). Everything I've listed so far was an Embed. Even Shift Consequence. One Exploit I remember of the top of my head is "Deep Pockets". You teleport and pull out of your pocket any item you've ever seen. Contrast with "In My Pocket" embed (which is a prerequisite to Deep Pockets) which allows you to create and pull anything out of your pocket, provided the contents of your pockets weren't objectively established so far.

Correspondence 2 has the pocket thing listed as a sample ability back in Mage the Ascension. The deep pockets thing could probably be done with matter 3, correspondence 2. Nice to know that they're busy ripping off abilities from 15 years ago.

Also, it's like someone took Virtual Adepts and decided to totes make a full on game out of them, only they had to be edgy so DaEMONS.

[Mord]

It's not that obscure. Anyone who sys.admined UNIX knows it

[Longes]

In nWoD Chronicles of Darkness news: you now need merits to headbutt people and put poison on your weapon. As you may remember, you need a merit to own a shiv in the God-Machine Chronicles Chronicles of Darkness, so the system is getting sillier and sillier.