Princes of the City: Anyone Want to Bite?

radthemad4 · Post by **radthemad4** » Mon Mar 23, 2015 8:15 pm

Instruction says that 'some' talents can be taught though only Brawl is given as an example. Could Seth learn Alertness from Kel?

Ancient History · Post by **Ancient History** » Mon Mar 23, 2015 8:45 pm

Sure.

Shady314 · Post by **Shady314** » Mon Mar 23, 2015 11:18 pm

At the safe house Id like to have the same setup as at Ia's bolthole. A deeply buried, encased in concrete, sarcophagus.

EDIT: Also a secondary crutch that instead of a blade has fire extinguisher functionality built into it.

hyzmarca · Post by **hyzmarca** » Tue Mar 24, 2015 11:36 am

I just got my hands on Road of Kings and noticed that An Ear for Lies is a combo discipline rather than an alternate power.

When I bought it, I assumed that it was just an alternate version of Auspex 2, and treated it as is stated in Elysium (if there's more than one power available at that level, pick one when you take the dot) and thus chose it as an alternative to aura reading.

I suspose that it's a bit late now, but is this alright?

Ancient History · Post by **Ancient History** » Tue Mar 24, 2015 3:21 pm

Waiting for Koumei, as nominal Prince, before we move forward with the business of the night...

I put up rules for buying combo disciplines (stated cost/3 in Freebies).

hyzmarca · Post by **hyzmarca** » Tue Mar 24, 2015 3:48 pm

Ancient History wrote:
I put up rules for buying combo disciplines (stated cost/3 in Freebies).

Yes, I know. It's just that would screw up my current build, which was created on the assumption that I could just substitute the default level 2 power for the other, since Aura Reading and An Ear for Lies are both 2 dot Auspex powers with no other discipline requirements or prerequisites.

That is to say, I don't particularly want Aura reading, and wouldn't be able to free up five points anyway.

Well I could, drop two skills and the resemblance to a particular vampire movie star, which is pretty much fluff anyway.

Edit:

I did some rejiggering of my build, dropped some useless skills, and one particular useless Merit, and took advantage of Instruction from Kel and Seth.

So now my character currently has all points in order, and has both Aura Reading and Lie Detection.

Edit: oh heck, and now I've got 4 freebie points unaccounted for. It seems I screwed up my math somewhere.

Edit: I think my character is legal now. Crap, I really screwed my math up earlier.

I'd still prefer to now have aura reading, though.

radthemad4 · Post by **radthemad4** » Tue Mar 24, 2015 6:26 pm

Slight problem with learning from Kel. His dice pool is 5 (3 Manipulation + 2 Instruction). The Difficulty of him teaching you is 10- 3 (your intelligence)=7. If Max is in the same room, you can get it down to 6, but it's still not low enough for autosuccess. Either you'll need the fast learner merit, another intelligence point, or Kel will need another dot in either instruction or manipulation to avoid rolling. I think this applies for everyone who's intelligence is 3 or below.

There is one way around this without rejiggering everyone's builds but it'll depend on a call by AH (i.e. can Instruction be used to teach Instruction?). Since Seth's backstory hasn't been particularly fleshed out yet, if he happened to know Kel from before Juneau, he could potentially have given Kel an extra dot in instruction (with two extra dots, Kel could also teach Max). One extra dot would require a 4 month pre Juneau history and two extra dots would require a 10 month one.

Nebuchadnezzar · Post by **Nebuchadnezzar** » Tue Mar 24, 2015 7:34 pm

I can take a retainer or two out of my character if it's a matter of you needing to free up a couple of points.

hyzmarca · Post by **hyzmarca** » Tue Mar 24, 2015 7:39 pm

Nah, that's okay. Those are the least important skills to my character, anyway.

Ancient History · Post by **Ancient History** » Tue Mar 24, 2015 7:53 pm

I think this applies for everyone who's intelligence is 3 or below.

I rolled the dice, everyone succeeded. More fun, less maths.

There is one way around this without rejiggering everyone's builds but it'll depend on a call by AH (i.e. can Instruction be used to teach Instruction?)

Sure.

hyzmarca · Post by **hyzmarca** » Tue Mar 24, 2015 8:03 pm

You know, looking at the actual costs for things, I think White Wolf may have screwed up somewhere.

Turning into a bat costs 28 freebie points.

Being a nuclear armed global military superpower costs 10 freebie points.

It seems a tad unbalanced.

radthemad4 · Post by **radthemad4** » Tue Mar 24, 2015 8:52 pm

No no, it's totally balanced. You see, a story teller can ban Leadership Military Force.[/oberoni]

Ancient History wrote:
I think this applies for everyone who's intelligence is 3 or below.
I rolled the dice, everyone succeeded. More fun, less maths.

There is one way around this without rejiggering everyone's builds but it'll depend on a call by AH (i.e. can Instruction be used to teach Instruction?)
Sure.

Huh, that's lucky. If it already worked, we don't need to worry about this any further.

Shady314 · Post by **Shady314** » Tue Mar 24, 2015 10:07 pm

hyzmarca wrote:You know, looking at the actual costs for things, I think White Wolf may have screwed up somewhere.

You don't say.

Nice use of dry wit.

Whipstitch · Post by **Whipstitch** » Wed Mar 25, 2015 3:58 am

Yeah, protean is teh suck even before you factor in Elysium backgrounds explicitly meant for higher power level games. They couldn't have made the power discrepancies any more hilarious short of straight up reprinting all the Protean powers as Thaumaturgical rituals just to really hammer home how much better than you Tremere are. Hell, if you went back in time to 1997 and told a younger Whipstitch that in the upcoming Revised edition Protean would be downgraded to being a loose collection of rituals, I probably would have believed you. The situation was so bad that the Blood Sacrifice: the Thaumaturgy Companion authors felt compelled to include this heading in the forward:

Spoiler alert: in this case, the "perhaps" just means that deep down they know they're bullshitting you and just don't want to admit it publicly.

Shady314 · Post by **Shady314** » Wed Mar 25, 2015 9:10 am

That's priceless. The more I look at Thaumaturgy the more of a bargain it really is. Secondary paths cost less xp than disciplines. Also there's a bunch while others are stuck with 3 in-clan disciplines. You're absolutely right they knew it was bullshit.

Ancient History · Post by **Ancient History** » Wed Mar 25, 2015 9:34 am

I pinged Koumei.

Whipstitch · Post by **Whipstitch** » Wed Mar 25, 2015 6:11 pm

Shady314 wrote:That's priceless. The more I look at Thaumaturgy the more of a bargain it really is. Secondary paths cost less xp than disciplines. Also there's a bunch while others are stuck with 3 in-clan disciplines. You're absolutely right they knew it was bullshit.

Thaumaturgy is the true path of munchkinry. You have no idea how close I came taking a single dot of meditation just to stack that bullshit Diamond Serenity power with my bullshit Perfect Clarity power. Wandering around with -4 difficulty to Willpower tests would have been hilarious.

radthemad4 · Post by **radthemad4** » Wed Mar 25, 2015 8:12 pm

Could Seth restore Willpower by answering questions on stackoverflow or something? If so, what kind of rolls and/or rates would be involved?

What would the odds be of being able to use Telecommute to go through the cellphones of our guests?

Lightning Calculator wrote:Your natural affinity for numbers and your talent for mental arithmeticmake you a natural for working with computers or betting at race tracks. All relevant rolls are made at -2 difficulty. Another possible use for this Merit, assuming you have numbers on which to base your conclusions, is the ability to calculate the difficulty of certain tasks. In appropriate situations, you may ask the Storyteller the difficulty rating of a task you are about to perform.

Also, I'd like to invoke Common Sense (Meticulous Planner grants it) on any potential problems with this sort of thing, e.g. would they suspect something's up if Seth tries it, would they know he can do stuff like this and plant false info in their phones, etc.?

Ancient History · Post by **Ancient History** » Thu Mar 26, 2015 2:51 pm

Hzmarca, check your PMs.

Could Seth restore Willpower by answering questions on stackoverflow or something? If so, what kind of rolls and/or rates would be involved?

I reckon that's fine.

What would the odds be of being able to use Telecommute to go through the cellphones of our guests?

Not sure what you're going for here. As part of the global telecommunications network you can access them using Telecommute by touching your own cell phone; or you can remotely operate them using Remote Access.

radthemad4 · Post by **radthemad4** » Thu Mar 26, 2015 3:17 pm

Remote Access requires Line of Sight so that won't work. Telecommute it is then. I'm putting up a post in the IC thread.

Ancient History · Post by **Ancient History** » Mon Mar 30, 2015 9:22 am

Tibiru still awaiting a decision.

Ancient History · Post by **Ancient History** » Tue Mar 31, 2015 9:01 am

C'mon, players. It's too early to go a couple days between posts.

Nebuchadnezzar · Post by **Nebuchadnezzar** » Tue Mar 31, 2015 10:41 am

I think it's just a combination of no one wanting their characters to speak out of turn and it being the first vampire game for 3 of us leading to general pussyfooting in matters of court. If it were to be considered a vote, I think most characters besides Stan are indifferent-to-accepting of Tibiru placing a Tzimisce agent in town. Note, though, that if Wikipedia is to be taken as any indication then Andrew Vlacha will be representing criminal interests, for the sake of which the party will receive some fallout. None of the party has any expressed holdings in gambling, for example, and human smuggling wouldn't be a stretch.

hyzmarca · Post by **hyzmarca** » Tue Mar 31, 2015 4:14 pm

Nebuchadnezzar wrote:I think it's just a combination of no one wanting their characters to speak out of turn and it being the first vampire game for 3 of us leading to general pussyfooting in matters of court. If it were to be considered a vote, I think most characters besides Stan are indifferent-to-accepting of Tibiru placing a Tzimisce agent in town. Note, though, that if Wikipedia is to be taken as any indication then Andrew Vlacha will be representing criminal interests, for the sake of which the party will receive some fallout. None of the party has any expressed holdings in gambling, for example, and human smuggling wouldn't be a stretch.

In my case, it's mostly because what I want to say is not something that my character would know IC.

There are only two logical reasons for him to ask for an Embrace from us instead of from his Elders.

Reason 1) His Elders would say no. This is unlikely. And he doesn't seem to care enough about Andrew, personally, to go behind their backs, though this remains a possibility.

Reason 2) He's trying to circumvent the Home Soil weakness by making Alaska Andrew's Home Soil. I'm not sure if this will actually work, given that the Home Soil is supposed to be important to a person when he was mortal. But for a ghoul who is obsessed with becoming a vampire, the place of Embrace is pretty darn important.

The concern here, of course, is that this is a permanent placement.

Nebuchadnezzar · Post by **Nebuchadnezzar** » Tue Mar 31, 2015 7:04 pm

Ancient History wrote:"Need to stay in town a bit. Seven days. With yer leave."

Concise as ever, Tracker.

Stan would have no problem with this. Would anyone else, or perhaps wonder about any regional news? The Mendenhall Tower, where visitors are put up, is ~1/4 mile away as the crow flies.