The Gaming Den

I'm going to be MCing an A.S. game next month. I like what I've read so far of the system, but I have a few rules/setting questions for things I couldn't figure out on my first pass through the rulebook:

Beast Form (Call of the Wild Basic Power)
Is the your ability to use disciplines/sorcery in anyway impeded when you transform? (If it matters, let's assume you are a bird). What about a character who has been subjected to the Transform spell (an advanced power of this sorcery).

Overstimulation
It's a temporary status effect. How do you resist being overstimulated? I assume there's a physical resistance test [Strength + plus Edge]. I was wondering what sort of threshholds would be suitable. I am using this information to try and judge how risky it is to run with Supernatural Senses turned on (especially during combat) without the Sensory Dampener power being bought.

Supernatural Senses (Discernment Basic Power)
Can you use supernatural senses to precisely target a creature with a ranged attack in total concealment (in deep mist for example)? I assume Supernatural Sense let's you see through all concealment since it even lets you see in the complete absence of light.

Blindness
Is there any way to target a creature if you are blind(ed)? Especially as it pertains to ranged attacks and being able to target powers/sorcery? Can Supernatural Senses let you see or let you locate a creature with sufficient precision if you are blinded?

Poison Heart (Names of the Blasphemies Basic Power)
You can use this sorcery to make friends or lovers distrust each other. Is this distrust an instantaneous effect, or will it be a permanent effect (like conditioning) that remains detectable by dowsing and aura perception?

Banishment (Names of the Blasphemies Basic Power)
How dangerous is the Dark Reflection? If you manage to Banish them there how likely are they to come back? What would be a fair way for an MC to adjudicate that? Should most banished luminaries not make it back from Limbo?

Name of the Blasphemies
Once you have learned at least one advanced power in this sorcery, the character knows the names of anyone they can see an accurate picture of. What constitutes an "accurate picture?" As MC, I assume this means one in which the subject is not disguised. But what about old pictures - say from the subjects childhood? Also how close a likeness does the picture have to be? Photographically accurate? What about a police sketch of a suspect?

Telepathy (Discernment Advanced Power)
Can you use telepathy to read the mind of an unconscious or insensate person? How might the resistance roll for this be different from that of a fully conscious target?

How difficult is it to employ high-profile powers in populated urban areas? Abilities like:
Giant Form
Marble Form
War Form
briefly panicking multiple people with Flames of Panic
conjuring a kilometer radius of fog via Rising Mists,
other weird instantaneous weather patterns?
Also do Quickness and/or Alacrity break the Vow of Silence? What about Edge expenditures to gain additional turns?

While Veiled (via Hide From Notice Basic Power), you remain hidden unless you do anything "incredibly obvious." Would flying around (via the Flight Devotion) be incredibly obvious? How about walking about in Giant/Marble/War From?

Blind the Senses (Devotion)
Can this effect be disrupted (can you un-blind someone) as if it were a sorcery with a power source identical to the character who wields this devotion? The rules for this devotion specifically say it can be detected via dowsing....

also interested in answers

To arrogantly stride in and answer the ones that I think can be interpreted from the text alone without a GM call...

Supernatural Senses (Discernment Basic Power)
Can you use supernatural senses to precisely target a creature with a ranged attack in total concealment (in deep mist for example)? I assume Supernatural Sense let's you see through all concealment since it even lets you see in the complete absence of light.

The second sentence is a complete non-sequitur. Conceptually, "not enough light" is orthogonal to "actually a line of sight between you and the target". Being able to see in absolute darkness in no way implies that you no longer need a line of sight that could be drawn by a mere person if there was enough light; conversely, I can easily imagine an X-ray vision style power which allowed you to see through concealment but didn't make it any easier for you to see in the dark.

Blindness
Is there any way to target a creature if you are blind(ed)? Especially as it pertains to ranged attacks and being able to target powers/sorcery? Can Supernatural Senses let you see or let you locate a creature with sufficient precision if you are blinded?

It seems in genre for Supernatural Senses on your ears to let you echolocate while blind. Which might be sufficient precision for melee attacks or spells like Lightning Strike, but probably not worth risking bullets on.

Banishment (Names of the Blasphemies Basic Power)
How dangerous is the Dark Reflection? If you manage to Banish them there how likely are they to come back? What would be a fair way for an MC to adjudicate that? Should most banished luminaries not make it back from Limbo?

This is really a setting question about the Dark Reflection. I'd actually expect most Luminaries to eventually make it back, possibly having become Fallen or Baali in the meantime - but they're out of your hair for a while, and if you have minions or allies (or "allies" of convenience) waiting to gank them when they are shunted into Limbo their survival chances drop somewhat.

Also do Quickness and/or Alacrity break the Vow of Silence? What about Edge expenditures to gain additional turns?

Edge expenditures can be done by Luminaries, so are probably not an outright breach of the Vow - the humans are presumably aware of cases where Luminaries have spent Edge "on camera" so don't see that level of speed as supernatural, just really fragging impressive.

Repeatedly doing that with Quickness or Alacricity might draw questions, though - similar to how using Clout to be merely unusually strong is still a little dangerous because it means you stand out.

Captain_Karzak wrote:I'm going to be MCing an A.S. game next month. I like what I've read so far of the system, but I have a few rules/setting questions for things I couldn't figure out on my first pass through the rulebook:

Unofficial take from an After Sundown editor.

Beast Form (Call of the Wild Basic Power)
Is the your ability to use disciplines/sorcery in anyway impeded when you transform? (If it matters, let's assume you are a bird). What about a character who has been subjected to the Transform spell (an advanced power of this sorcery).

As far as I know, there is no rule saying you can't use sorceries in animal form, so this is absolutely legal. In the second edition, I would probably tag disciplines based on mode of activation and make some of the sorceries be spells you have to cast with verbal components, and others be enchantments that permanently alter your properties.

Overstimulation
It's a temporary status effect. How do you resist being overstimulated? I assume there's a physical resistance test [Strength + plus Edge]. I was wondering what sort of threshholds would be suitable. I am using this information to try and judge how risky it is to run with Supernatural Senses turned on (especially during combat) without the Sensory Dampener power being bought.

Sensory damper is basically bullshit and is not at all worth existing as a power. It's not a coincidence that nobody gets it for free. Its entire effect should probably be folded into Indomitability.

Supernatural Senses (Discernment Basic Power)
Can you use supernatural senses to precisely target a creature with a ranged attack in total concealment (in deep mist for example)? I assume Supernatural Sense let's you see through all concealment since it even lets you see in the complete absence of light.

It's not clear to me that seeing without light translate to seeing through obstructions, which is what fog-based concealment actually is. After Sundown basically lacks concealment rules completely except a mention that it may increase thresholds by 1 to 2. One power mentions "total concealment", which is undefined, nor are the penalties for blind humans. As a quick hack, I'd say that supernatural senses caps concealment penalties at 1 hit and allows you to shoot anyone in line of sight.

Blindness
Is there any way to target a creature if you are blind(ed)? Especially as it pertains to ranged attacks and being able to target powers/sorcery? Can Supernatural Senses let you see or let you locate a creature with sufficient precision if you are blinded?

No one knows.

Poison Heart (Names of the Blasphemies Basic Power)
You can use this sorcery to make friends or lovers distrust each other. Is this distrust an instantaneous effect, or will it be a permanent effect (like conditioning) that remains detectable by dowsing and aura perception?

It doesn't say you can dispel it, so I don't think you can. In second edition I would either make it dispellable, or better yet, write in rules for the distrust to wear off through repeated interactions with the targets.

Banishment (Names of the Blasphemies Basic Power)
How dangerous is the Dark Reflection? If you manage to Banish them there how likely are they to come back? What would be a fair way for an MC to adjudicate that? Should most banished luminaries not make it back from Limbo?

I would say it's always fair game for a luminary to come back if the MC thinks it would be interesting, but it shouldn't happen during the same adventure.

Name of the Blasphemies
Once you have learned at least one advanced power in this sorcery, the character knows the names of anyone they can see an accurate picture of. What constitutes an "accurate picture?" As MC, I assume this means one in which the subject is not disguised. But what about old pictures - say from the subjects childhood? Also how close a likeness does the picture have to be? Photographically accurate? What about a police sketch of a suspect?

I would not allow a sketch to count unless the artist was able to see the subject. Old pictures still count.

Telepathy (Discernment Advanced Power)
Can you use telepathy to read the mind of an unconscious or insensate person? How might the resistance roll for this be different from that of a fully conscious target?

Personally, I would allow this, but all information would count as "things the subject does not know they know." I'd be harsh there because interrogation scenes with conscious suspects are more interesting, and to limit the intrusion on Veil of Morpheus terrain. A subject clearly doesn't have surface thoughts, but you could allow the difficulty 2 stuff to work if you wanted. I would allow a normal resistance roll.

How difficult is it to employ high-profile powers in populated urban areas? Abilities like:
Giant Form
Marble Form
War Form
briefly panicking multiple people with Flames of Panic
conjuring a kilometer radius of fog via Rising Mists,
other weird instantaneous weather patterns?
Also do Quickness and/or Alacrity break the Vow of Silence? What about Edge expenditures to gain additional turns?

I would think that messing with mood and weather should be masquerade compliant. Sudden mass panic doesn't have supernatural FX, and people are already familiar with "mass hysteria." Weird weather will be reported as weird weather, but who cares. Marble form, war form, and celerity should be all be fine if there are only 1-2 witnesses, visibility is poor, and/or the witnesses lack credibility. Giant form could be the same, but usually leads to unacceptable property damage or unexpected witnesses.

While Veiled (via Hide From Notice Basic Power), you remain hidden unless you do anything "incredibly obvious." Would flying around (via the Flight Devotion) be incredibly obvious? How about walking about in Giant/Marble/War From?

I would interpret this to be effects-based. Basically, something is "obvious" if it directly affects someone or if it leaves evidence. Breaking things, hitting people, opening doors that people are actively watching, yelling . Minding your own business shouldn't count no matter how weird you look, and flying over people's heads should make you less detectable.

Blind the Senses (Devotion)
Can this effect be disrupted (can you un-blind someone) as if it were a sorcery with a power source identical to the character who wields this devotion? The rules for this devotion specifically say it can be detected via dowsing....

Yes.

I think sorceries have words of power or whatever, so if you can't talk then you can't use them. That's just my impression though.

Supernatural Senses lets you see in darkness, but you can still only see whatever you'd see if there were enough light to see by. You can't see through thick smoke just like you can't see through a wooden wall.

Thanks for taking a stab at so many of my questions, Orion.

I was wondering what constitutes a superior character build in this system?

I've been trying to assess the efficacy of strength based [in media-res] builds since strength is so obviously easy to inflate to relatively huge values:

Daeva (PATM, Revive the Flesh, Gift of Health, Vigor, Attract, Fire Walking, ,Restoration, Flight)
Choose:Giant Form, Hide from Notice, Nimble Feet, Supernatural Senses
Str: 9 (19) Agi: 1 Int: 7 Log: 1 Wis: 3 Cha: 1

This Daeva can get into melee range with basically anyone thanks to Daeva flight and Nimble feet. Strength augments all the way up to 19 with Vigor + Giant Form. You are on a feeding schedule so you potentially replenish your power points very quickly and often. You are basically impervious to most sources of damage, good resistance to Transformation and Banishment, you have the perception die pool and discernment power to penetrate veils, and your own veils are very strong.

A Bagheera can achieve similar results

Bagheera (Nimble Feet, Quickness, Alacrity, Vigor, Hide from Notice, Revive the Flesh, Touch of Darkness, War Form)
Choose: Giant Form, Repel, Flight, Supernatural Senses
Str: 9 (19) Agi: 1 Int: 7 Log: 1 Wis: 3 Cha: 1

Overall this is better, except you are on a Lunar power schedule so you are sharply limited on power points compared to the Daeva.

Both builds are vulnerable to Authority augmented by Will to Power, and to Flames of Panic (less so for the Daeva, who shares the Infernal power source).

A High Strength - High Willpower build is less vulnerable on the Will To Power and Flames of Panic front, but sacrifices a lot of Intuition leading to weak veils, and diminished ability to find veiled and/or hidden foes, and enhanced vulnerability to Transformation, Death Note, and Banishment.

High Agility Builds seem to require opening up with Flames of Panic, backed up with a high Intuition, a discernment power, basic and advanced celerity, all so to maximize your chances of noticing all your targets and then Panicking them before they murder-death-kill you.

A couple more questions came up during our first AS session:

Does electricity damage get a soak roll? The rules for electrocution only say that you can become immune to it. I've been assuming there is a physical resistance roll (Strength + Edge, armor does not apply).

If you take "military weapons" as a level 2 finance resource, do you have enough guns, suppressors, and special ammo to supply a coterie/band of arbitrary size, or just is there only enough resources to keep yourself fully locked and loaded?

For Electric effects, use the base damage given on the table, and instead of adding the Net Hits (if any) like you normally do for damage sources, you separately roll a die and add 1 damage if it shows a hit. After determining the damage rating you'd soak the effect like normal before putting it on your wound track.

Resources are kinda narrative. Personally I could totally see a level 2 resource being enough for weapons for a PC group. It depends on the exact weapon perhaps. Everyone could at least have heavy pistols or rifles. Any "actual" military gear like a rocket launcher is probably still very limited at level 2. A Finance 2 can get you a house which everyone could live in. Asset 2 can get you "a team of cops" as well, so it would make a sort of sense if a Finance 2 gave you the money to keep that squad of cops well equipped.

You get to soak electricity, yes.

Finances 2 can get you a house. Houses are worth tens of thousands of dollars. Fancy weapons go for hundreds of dollars up to over a thousand, so with finances 2 you should have a few dozen weapons. Basically, you should be able to give a dozen people (the PCs plus maybe someone's Assets 1 gang) with 1-2 pieces of gear each, plus have a big bag full of specialized guns and gadgets for yourself.

Thanks guys! I have even more questions for you.


How do different protean powers combine?

Say an antagonist has activated Giant Size (Advanced Clout). Your character hits them with Transformation (Advanced Call of the Wild), turning them into a goldfish. Does transformation override the Giant Size, or are we left with an extra large, super strong goldfish?

Also, if a character knows a protean power, they can spend a complex action and a power point to "return to their real form." So if the gold-fish shaped antagonist reverts to his "real form", is he going to be still Giant Sized?

Can you cast transformation on yourself to say turn into a Gorilla (for small bonuses to STR and AGI) and then Giant Size yourself to become a bigger, stronger Gorilla?

Also what happens to your gear when you beast form (Basic Call of the Wild) youself? I've been treating it as 3.5 wildshape where all of your gear melds with you (maybe up to a strength-based encumbrance limit).

Similarly what happens to a character's gear who is Transformed?



Speaking of gear, what determines how much armor you have lying around? Weapons aren't armor, but I could sorta see riot security armor and flack jackets, etc being folded into the whole "you own military weapons" at finances 2.


edit: forgot to ask, can automatic weapons ONLY fire in automatic mode, or can you do single shots with them? This matters for firing at targets who have good cover or if you want to take aimed shots.



Finally, how useful is Hide From Notice (Basic Veil) for a character who already has a good agility+stealth pool for mundane stealth? Hide From Notice is really nice for low AGI characters because you can generate a veil with Intuition + Survival, but a high AGI character does not really benefit from that.

It depends a bit on the MC and whether you're also taking Hide in Plain Sight. Hide from Notice will sometimes be redundant but it's generally still more powerful because there's situations where you'd likely be at a penalty while attempting normal Stealth. By contrast, with Hide From Notice you don't have to explain shit and when comboed with HiPS you can sucker punch people mid-combat. Also, unless people are unconscious or whatever I virtually always allow them their opposed roll vs normal stealth whereas with Hide From Notice the rules specifically call out the possibility of no rolls for defenders at all.

I'd rather post here than make an other thread:

I just wanted to be clear on how exactly can "Cleanse the Flesh" be targetted.

Is the wording of "an other" mean that the ability can only be used on targets that are not the casting creature themselves; or does it mean that the power can be used on the caster themselves, as well as other creatures?

I, and my group; has been using the more limiting interpretation; making Restoration a necessary power for a character with Cleanse the Flesh, if they want to be able to heal their own injuries magically.

Also, Creatures with a Feeding Power Schedule with Cleanse the Flesh are able to (with patience and at least one still living creature available) refill their power points to full; as well as heal any donor creatures. Is this "sort of infinite" power points loop acceptable; or an unexpected edge case of the engine?

I've found that it's generally not a problem since it requires disciplines, donors and actions to perform the loop. There's times where it'll come in handy but considering the discipline investment I wouldn't call it worlds better than an Android who can wind themselves back up whenever they have 2 hours to kill or a werewolf that can recharge their batteries post mortem.

I thought I understood how Blasphemy (advanced Names of Blasphemies) works, but one of my players has a different reading of the text that could be valid.

I thought it worked by rolling your (Int + Larceny or Cha + Bureacracy) and on three net hits your target is banished to the Deep Limbo.

My player believes that if you get ANY net hits, your target is banished to the Shallow Limbo, and on 3 or more net hits, you can cast them into the Deep Limbo.

Regardless of which reading is right, in your opinion, which reading is more balanced? Blasphemy is essentially (but not actually) a ranged attack that does not suffer from ANSWER distance threshold modifiers, cover/concealment threshold modifiers, or movement penalties, it is resisted by intuition instead of strength, and your roll to activate it can be based on Intuition (as opposed to keying off a weaker stat like Logic or Charisma). Banishment on 1 net IMO makes this power too good, even for a power that activates as a complex action and costs a power point.


Also I wanted to reiterate some earlier questions that never got answered. I assume this is because no one know how this things DO work, so could you guys weigh in on how they SHOULD work?

Captain_Karzak wrote:Thanks guys! I have even more questions for you.


How do different protean powers combine?

Say an antagonist has activated Giant Size (Advanced Clout). Your character hits them with Transformation (Advanced Call of the Wild), turning them into a goldfish. Does transformation override the Giant Size, or are we left with an extra large, super strong goldfish?

Also, if a character knows a protean power, they can spend a complex action and a power point to "return to their real form." So if the gold-fish shaped antagonist reverts to his "real form", is he going to be still Giant Sized?

Can you cast transformation on yourself to say turn into a Gorilla (for small bonuses to STR and AGI) and then Giant Size yourself to become a bigger, stronger Gorilla?

Also what happens to your gear when you beast form (Basic Call of the Wild) youself? I've been treating it as 3.5 wildshape where all of your gear melds with you (maybe up to a strength-based encumbrance limit).

Similarly what happens to a character's gear who is Transformed?

I think your player is right that you can banish them to the shallows with any net hits at all, "rules as written", but I think that you're also right that balance-wise it's too good that way.

How do different protean powers combine?
They combine, unless one effect is clearly impossible to mix with another for some reason, in which case you have to pick a non-impossible setup.

In the case of being a goldfish and also giant, you'd be a giant goldfish, sure.

Being a gorilla and giant, you're a giant gorilla, sure.

For gear i'd go with a "gear (within your carry limit) melds into your form" type of rule. Maybe magical items stay visibly on you (but sized to your new form) and only mundane gear merges into you. Whatever you decide, Transform and Beast Form should use the same rule here.

I'd rule the opposite regarding gear and protean powers: that the power has no effect on the gear and they're dropped, shredded, etc.

My reasons are that this is sort of a common horror trope to show that they've lost control and shed vestiges of civilization (see: Hulk). Whereas the gear merging with the body comes more or less only from D&D and implies that the magic is sort of benevolently designed. This ruling also safely treats offensive and defensive protean uses the same way: in the above case you could ask whether you can control gear merging with the body during an offensive transformation.

I'd also let a player take special care to make some items that could fit on the new form. Amulet: easy enough. Firearm: pretty tough if you have paws.

That said, Lokathor has spent a lot more time with the text then I have: this isn't based on any RAW so much as an interpretation of the tone of the powers.

While I haven't been immersed in the RAW nearly so long as Lokathor - there is one bit of precedent I'm aware of for gear changing or merging or otherwise being accommodating with you.

Giant Size The character can grow extremely large. By spending four power points and a Complex Action, they can expand to a muscular 3.5 meters in height. This is a Protean power. While in Giant Size, the character has an additional 6 points of Strength, they gain a point of armor, and the base damage of any weapon they use increases by 2 (assuming that it is allowed to grow with them). All of the things that a character wants to grow along with them grow along with them while they are being carried by them, and anything they aren't carrying or that they wish to leave normal size stays normal size.

Captain_Karzak wrote:?Say an antagonist has activated Giant Size (Advanced Clout). Your character hits them with Transformation (Advanced Call of the Wild), turning them into a goldfish. Does transformation override the Giant Size, or are we left with an extra large, super strong goldfish?

Transformation says that "a character can't be transformed into an animal much larger than their original size, but they can be transformed into something much smaller." Since transformation has the power to turn a human-sized human into a rat-sized rat, I would argue that it also has the power to turn a giant-sized human into a rat-sized rat. The power doesn't explicitly say that it overwrites the target's current size, but that's an implicit part of its effect. If the target wants to, it can spend power points to re-activate giant-size and become a giant rat.

Also, if a character knows a protean power, they can spend a complex action and a power point to "return to their real form." So if the gold-fish shaped antagonist reverts to his "real form", is he going to be still Giant Sized?

No. It's "return to real form" not "selective negate protean effects."

Can you cast transformation on yourself to say turn into a Gorilla (for small bonuses to STR and AGI) and then Giant Size yourself to become a bigger, stronger Gorilla?

Yes.

pragma wrote:That said, Lokathor has spent a lot more time with the text then I have: this isn't based on any RAW so much as an interpretation of the tone of the powers.

Hey now, I haven't given AS a close look in a long while. I even had to re-download the PDF off github because I cleared out my development folder a few months ago. I've always personally thought that the game should play more like an action movie than a horror movie, so don't take my word too heavily on these things.

I'm partial to having clothes meld to you if the shift is completely voluntary and having things get torn if the shift is involuntary/activated during a Frenzy discount. That way you can have baleful polymorph humiliations, hulk outs and sneaky spies without compromising too much.

Lokathor wrote:

pragma wrote:That said, Lokathor has spent a lot more time with the text then I have: this isn't based on any RAW so much as an interpretation of the tone of the powers.

Hey now, I haven't given AS a close look in a long while. I even had to re-download the PDF off github because I cleared out my development folder a few months ago. I've always personally thought that the game should play more like an action movie than a horror movie, so don't take my word too heavily on these things.

That just seems to follow naturally from the very premise of the game. You don't really hear about horror movies where the protagonists know what the horror is and how it works and how it can in theory be defeated from the very beginning of the film, yet most In Media Res characters will start the game knowing that everything that exists can be killed with one of silver, wood, or iron even if it isn't tangible and could reasonably guess that beheading will help it to stay dead. You also generally don't hear about horror movie protagonists who start as a team of three to six actually competent investigators with more resources each than the average teenager, let alone three to six badasses with magical powers.

League of Extraordinary Gentlemen.
Hellboy.
The list that comes to mind of Horror movies where people mostly know what they're doing from the start does seem pretty short.

Lokathor wrote:League of Extraordinary Gentlemen.
Hellboy.
The list that comes to mind of Horror movies where people mostly know what they're doing from the start does seem pretty short.

I never really saw Hellboy as a horror movie despite it having the right aesthetics and I can't even comprehend how LXG the movie is a horror movie.

I mean, maybe the LXG comics delve deeper into the psychological effects of the whole situation, but the film didn't. (And was also critically panned though I recall enjoying it at the time as mindless violence action.)

Well now you see my exact point.

Lokathor wrote: The list that comes to mind of Horror movies where people mostly know what they're doing from the start does seem pretty short.

Any 'realistic' war movie then