World of Darkness Composites

[Username17]

OK, some of the ideas in nWoD are good, others are bad. On the balance, I would say there isn't enough cool factor in nWoD to put up with the fact that Storyteller is a shit system. Nonetheless, it is a fact that oWoD is too full of crazy to actually be playable despite the fact that it does have enough cool factor to make us try anyway.

So really, the question comes up: how would one go about making the whole thing playable?

System:

Ugh. Variable TNs on a d10 were bad, the current combat system is usually even worse. I would think that you'd want to fold in something a lot more like Shadowrun 4th edition.

Obvious concessions have to be made for things like the lack of a Cracking group and the fact that everyone is a Vampire and noone is a cyborg. Essence goes out the window, and people drain Blood Traits from each other instead.

But static TNs, piles of d6s, Edge instead of Willpower, no Appearance stat - these are all solid benefits. Separate to-hit and damage rolls. Unified electrical and physical damage rules, etc. these are benefits as well.

Setting

nWoD has some solid improvements thrown in with so much stupid shit that it makes me cry.

Organizations
Removing the Camarilla and Sabbat was a requirement, because having organizations that were fought to the death like Jedi and Sith made the game unplayable. Even more so, having a series of rigid organizations of neutrals who never worked with the other groups for long made the creation of a lasting party impossible.

But for all that, the new organizations have their own problems. The Invictus and the Carthians are fine, and the Circle of the Crone is at least somewhat interesting (even if their magic is underpowered). But the Ordo Dracul exists for no reason except to enact /godmode. That's their actual goal, so the fact that "The Inifinite Ammo Code" is a third tier coil isn't even out of character. They have to go. And the Lancea Sanctum is just plain inappropriate. They have to go too.

So what does that leave us with?

• Invictus are a political group who believe that they have things pretty good as they are, what withthem being immortal vampires and all. They espouse Conservative viewpoints and resist change.
  Motto: "Don't kick over the apple cart! Those are my fvcking apples!"
  
  
• Carthians are a political group ho believe that things can and should be done better than they are now. Their views on what should be done differ greatly, but they are united by a desire to change the current world order.
  Motto: "Human society has advanced and become something vampires can no longer control. We must advance our society as well."
  
  
• The Order of the Crone is a magical group who seek to use ancient magics. Highly ritualistic, they believe the best magics are the old ones, and they value traditionalism.
  Motto: "The ancient powers sustain us."
  
  
• Room for two or even four more covenants honestly.

Both the Lancea Sanctum and the Ordo Dracul have the problem where they are essentially "this dude said we should do things like this!" - making them impractical as a global society of loosely connected vampires. How impressed with the World Communist Conspiracy would you be if it was all "The Fabian Society"? So they are out. To get more World of Darkness compatible covenants, one would have to kick over some old WoD groups. Here are some:

• Order Tremere - an organization of sorceror scientists who uncover new magics and perform research. They believe in a unified magical theory that will allow them to bring the entire world toits knees. But the important part is that they are a magical organization that values modernization.
  Motto: "By changing the paradigm of how we see magic, we can accomplish things once thought impossible."
  
  
• Pentex Corporation - An organization that believes that vampirs should take an active role in human society and artifice. An explicitly capitalist edifice, the Pentex Corporation values human money and power in the world of humans primarily and provides employment to vampires rather than membership.
  Motto: "What is the bottom line?"
  
  
• The Sabbat - this is an unfortunately loaded term because the old WoD authors could never decide what the hell this organization mant or did. For these purposes, it is an explicitly religious organization that believes in the primacy of vampires and believes that vampires should cut themselves away from human society entirely and make a parallel and superior one.
  Motto: "We are the divine beings, they are our food."

And shit, you could throw in any of a number of minor groups or upgrade minor factions to full covenant status:
Madness NEtwork: Hive minds!
Followers of Set: Secrets, Shadows, and Corruption.
San Giovani: Incest and Necromancy.
Assamite: Killing and eating the weak is a vampire's duty.
Baali: More evil? More Power? Where do I sign?!

Or whatever. The point is: Ordo Dracul have to go and so do the Lancea Sanctum. And there's a shit tonne of extra groups from oWoD who have write ups that are a lot cooler than either.

The History

There are problems both oWoD and nWoD. Perhaps the biggest problem in oWoD was the entire Cain -> Antedeluvian ->Your punk ass thing that it had going on. Blood Potency is a much better schtick than Generations ever were. The universe just can't support Antedeluvians having ever existed, let alone having them run around doing shit like Giovani was supposed to.

So boom, all the vampires start off at BP 1 and the blood of elders is more awesome because high Blood Potency means that they can do stuff with just a drop of blood instead of needing 30 cubic centimeters - and not because it lmade them start with a silver stick up their ass. Also, the original vampires can be legendary or dead and not ALL POWERFUL ROXXORZ!

Clans and Bloodlines

The World of Darkness is inherently subject to feature bloat. The "Clans" methodology however caused the addition of every single dude with a unique power to come as part of a lineage of vampires with a bushy family tree and hundreds of currently living canibals who preyed upon humanity. The Bloodline method is much superior, because it works like at all.

Even so, a huge number of bloodlines have to be trimmed. Between oWoD and nWoD there is a metric crap tonne of stuff that's just stupid and unworkable. I don't give a crap about the Gulikan (vampires who have the magic power to make enticing scents - I'm not even kidding). I don't give a crap about the Children of Osiris and their fvcking Bardo discipline.

The five clans presented in Vampire: The Requiem suffer from one core problem: the mechanics are bad, Physical Disciplines are worthless, and Nightmare sucks my ass. So let's revue:

• Daeva: Their disadvantage is a storytelling one, which may or may not do anything depending upon how you interpret the shitty "vices" that the nWoD tries to use. It's workabble actually. Charisma + Willpower (3) to avoid caving in to temptation as outlined for oyur character. The real deal here is that Majesty (Presence) is fvcking awesome - and... that's it. Vigor and Celerity? What th hell, man? What the hell?
  
  
• Gangrel: The Gangrel clan drawback is inane, and always has been. Protean is a really good discipline in theory, but it suffers from the fact that all the good shape changing has been given to Vissisitude for some reason. The first half doesn't really do anything as written. That can be fixed, but it's annoying. Animalism is a powerhouse, and of course Resilience sucks ass through a straw.
  
  
• Mekhet: Auspex is quality, and it used to come free with your cheerios in oWoD. Having it be a clan exclusive is a major departure and a huge ace in the hole. Obfuscate is tremendous, and Celerity is shit. Their weakness is at least very easy to comprehend and adjudicate.
  
  
• Nosferatu: I don't think this is salvageable. Seriously, Nightmare is crap. Other than that, they get Obfuscate and Animalism which are both very good. All in all, very odd. Their weakness is poorly defined and the rules are crap. Probably doesn't even need mechanics once you get rid of the appearance stat. Having characters look really distinctive in any fashion is enough of a drawback in any game where they commit crime.
  
  
• Ventrue: Dominate is the Win. Seriously, it's crazy crazy good. Animalism is also quality, and I wouldn't wipe my ass with Fortitude. Their weakness is problematic from a game design standpoint, because it doesn't actually do anything to a character unless something is already boning them. That means that if you play a normal character and don't diablerize anyone or anything, they don't even have a disadvantage. The oWoD drawback wasn't any help either, because it was dumb.

So ugh. We've got a grand total of zero clans that have a list of disciplines that we are genuinely happy with, three clans where we can even attempt to fix their clan drawback, and that's still better than oWoD simply because there are less clans to worry about fixing.

Very problematically, if you don't have Majesty or Dominate it isn't even possible for you to feed. Seriously, it's not. Vampires in Requiem don't have any special abilty to overpower people so if you can't get "willing" victims you can't survive. Both of those disciplines are single clan disciplines.

One possibility is to simply embrace that fact: only Daeva and Ventrue exist (give the Ventrue the clan disad of the Mekhet). Another is to go in entirely the other direction: make physical disciplines good. If Celerity was three levels long and counted as a level of SR4 Wired Reflexes for each level it would go a long way towards making other people able to feed. Regardless of how you do it - having people with no mind control and normal human levels of physical prowess breaks the game because they can't get blood out of victims.

More Later -

-Username17

[Modesitt]

Organizations: I would strongly encourage you to check out Belial's Brood. It's their Guide to the Sabbat. Drop some of the crazy and they'd make a solid covenant.

Clans and Bloodlines:

Physical disciplines should be brought back to their oWoD levels. For example, back in the oWoD Vigor was an autosuccess per dot and celerity was exactly as you suggested.

I disagree that people without majesty, dominate, or super-human powers are unable to get blood. When a vampire bites someone, the victim is usually stunned with ecstasy, then they usually forget the entire experience. It's completely possible for someone to just be a date rapist/blood drinker. Or to own a bunch of dogs. Or to have a herd of gothlings. Or a few ghouls.

I also think you overstate what a 'clan exclusive' means. It does not mean Daeva never teach anyone Auspex. Hell, it doesn't even mean you need a Daeva teacher. It just means no other clan gets it as an in-clan discipline.

[Bill_Bisco_Isometric_Imp]

2 Questions.

1. Why do you feel that Physical abilities are crap? In LARP I would mostly agree with you. However, Fortitude I think is still worth it.

In tabletop though, I'm under the impression that Celerity is very useful.

2. What's wrong with the Ordo Dracul and with the Lancea Sanctum? I'm not really seeing it. Could you clarify this 'godmode' ?

[virgil]

Ordo Dracul's expressed purpose as a group is to rise above the inherent weaknesses of vampirism without having to be nice, but to literally retain their power and ignore the flaws of their condition. Quite literally, they want 'godmode'. It's founded on the principles of the original Vlad the Impaler, who became a vampire supposedly without a sire (literally cursed by god) and went on to advance and begin the principles of Ordo Dracul.

Lancea Sanctum was founded by the man who stabbed Christ, who supposedly became a vampire for what he had done. They are a group of vampires that go full-out Christian over their 'curse'.

[Username17]

I disagree that people without majesty, dominate, or super-human powers are unable to get blood. When a vampire bites someone, the victim is usually stunned with ecstasy, then they usually forget the entire experience.

Uh... no. The stunning with ecstasy thing is true, though it requires that you successfully bite them in the first place, which is really hard. People are stunned with ecstasy if you can bite their neck in a non-combat situation - good luck with that. Even then they get a chance to resist, though their resistance is unlikely to accomplish much (they need 3 hits on a double-attribute test, which means that an average person only gets that about one time in nine). But the "usually forget" the instance is totally wrong.

There is a result on exceptional success for a down-time feeding test which has the victim forget the incident, but even then the example says:

Exceptional Success: The character feeds successfully until satiated. Furthermore, events coincide to either protect the character's identity or give him an alibi if he needs it. For example, the vessel might not remember the details of the event, or onlookers might mistake someone else for the person who waylaid the vessel.

But holding out for exceptional success on feeding tests is wholly unacceptable for someone who needs to feed pretty much every day. Yeah, you can get by somewhat as a vampire who happens to be dead sexy or really sneaky - but unless you kill your victims you inherently leave a trail of pissed off people in your wake - and a trail of corpses has its own problems.

I also think you overstate what a 'clan exclusive' means.

So does the book sometimes. The book is genuinely confused as to what the difference is between a discipline, a clan exclusive discipline, and a blood line discipline. For example, you can't learn a bloodline discipline after play begins unless you join that bloodline. But you can start with a bloodline discipline for a bloodline that isn't yours. You can even buy it up later with XP.

The actual rules for what happens when there's a clan exclusive discipline that you want just don't... exist. It gives a page citation for where you're supposed to go to find the rules for how hard it is to get a discipline that is an uncommon discipline proprietary to another clan (p. 230-231 supposedly) and there's nothing there.

. Why do you feel that Physical abilities are crap? In LARP I would mostly agree with you. However, Fortitude I think is still worth it.

The game effect of Resilience is that if you spend 1 Blood you add your Resilience to your number of wound levels for the remainder of the scene. These are Barbarian hit points that let you experience ragedeath when the scene is over. Game mechanically you could just have the same number of extra wound levels all the time for free by having a higher Stamina. It's worthless.

All the other physical disciplines are similarly worthless. Vigor is not quite as inferior to extra points of Strength as Resilience is to Stamina, but it's still inferior.

Could you clarify this 'godmode' ?

The Coils of the Dragon exist for one explicit purpose: to remove the drawbacks of being a vampire.

That means from a conceptual standpoint it actually exists to transform its members into super munchkins. From a game mechanical standpoint, Perspicacious Blood allows you to gain one blood trait per round by concentrating - you don't even have to play this Vampire bullshit anymore. You've got the infinite ammo code biatch!

2. What's wrong with the Ordo Dracul and with the Lancea Sanctum?

The Ordo Dracul and the Lancea Sanctum are problematic in that they are both a cult of personality for a single character (Dracula or Longinus respectively).

The Ordo Dracul is specifically problematic in that their powers are specifically game breaking and genre destroying. That's actually the entire point.

The Lancea Sanctum is specifically problematic in that their magic is literally world destroying (transform anything into anything else is broken in D&D and even more so in a modern world). But even more so they suffer thematically because White Wolf doesn't really have the nuts to throw down some good old fashioned Christian Heresy. But more importantly, they don't really do anything. I can't even make a coherent argument against them because there isn't anything there to argue against.

-Username17

[RandomCasualty]

Feeding without presence or dominate basically entails tying up some guy, and blood bonding him over the 3 day period, then just feeding on him when he's a ghoul.

Alternately you can just get good seduction skills and feed on people after you've had sex with them and they're asleep. It's not too hard really.

[User3]

1178087462[/unixtime]]
Uh... no. The stunning with ecstasy thing is true, though it requires that you successfully bite them in the first place, which is really hard. People are stunned with ecstasy if you can bite their neck in a non-combat situation - good luck with that. Even then they get a chance to resist, though their resistance is unlikely to accomplish much (they need 3 hits on a double-attribute test, which means that an average person only gets that about one time in nine). But the "usually forget" the instance is totally wrong.

Wow, they've switched things around some for the new version. Then again, this was rarely as clear-cut as is sometimes thought. I'm not sure VtM2 had any specific ruling one way or the other, and even Revised restricted it to the "flavor text" section.

Regardless, I think that as long as we're throwing things overboard because they're ass, we might as well include this along with them. While there is a certain flavor of cool in a vampire who sneaks in through people's windows and feeds while they're asleep, or who runs a big blood-banking operation solely for a source of blood (if it's even legal to feed on banked blood in Requiem), having those be the default and only modes for those without the right powers is dumb.

But even more so they suffer thematically because White Wolf doesn't really have the nuts to throw down some good old fashioned Christian Heresy.

Interestingly enough -- if it's the sort of thing one finds interesting -- White Wolf did previously do a book that pretty much threw down on a whole raft of actual for-real Christian heresies and how vampires interacted with them (though this was for Dark Ages, not for Masquerade). As a roleplaying supplement, it kind of suffered for the same reason playing Tekumel is hard (because everyone else in the game needs to know the material also), but it was a neat read.

--d.

[Username17]

The Elders

The sleeping ancients who wake up to fvck shit up and throw their weight around is a classic of the vampire mythos that both oWoD and nWoD eagerly embrace. Unfortunately, both are shitty in their own way.

• oWoD has elders who are too fvcking powerful. They wake up and the universe crumbles around them, they have such powers as "destroy the sun" and shit. It isn't just that their awakening spells the end of the world, it's that the world could never exist as we know it if these guys ever walked the Earth.
  
  
• nWoD has elders who are pissant little shits. Seriously, anyone who spends a nap-nap in Torpor can pretty much expect to awaken back at Blood Potency 1 having lost all of their special elder powers. Seriously, a min/maxxed elder wakes up from the sleep of ages as a starting character. What the hell?

Obviously, something must be done. I figure you do the Requiem thing where only 6th dot disciplines exist and none of them involve smashing the orbs of the sky with your thumb. Then you do the Masquerade thing where the vampires wake up from torpor with the powers they fell asleep with. This makes the elders wicked bad ass without having them be genre destroying plot device juggernauts.

Cutting fat from Meat

Raise your hands if you care if you can turn your eyes red.

Anyone?

That's what I thought. There are a lot of dead levels in disciplines. Protean is the worst offender in the basic book, but I defy anyone to tell me what Animalism does at the levels it isn't allowing you to call up rats for assistants without looking at the book.

People want to turn into bats and mists, and making them crawl through such bullshit as "turning your fingernails into claws" to get there is bullshit. Dead levels have to go, and disciplines have to merge. Obvious dead levels are:

• Protean 1, 3.
  
• Animalism 4, 5.
  
• Nightmare Discipline
  
• Obfuscate 2.
  

Reigning in Thaumaturgy

Whether you're talking oWoD or nWoD, the disciplines of "magic" are inherently better than disciplines that do... pretty much anything at all. And why is that? It's because the sorcerous disciplines allow people to purchase addiitonal "rituals" at reduced cost. In most cases, this means that players may cherry pick abilities indistinguishable from high level disciplines for less than the cost of buying a single dot of a discipline already purchased at that level - let alone the cost of buying one's self into a new discipline all the way until it allowed an effect of that magnitude.

Whether it's Theban Sorcery offering Trnasubstantiation or Thaumaturgy offering Flesh of Marble, these rituals are on occassion at least as powerful as anything else in the game. And that's bullshit.

A simple enough solution is to simply put ritualistic disciplines on the same level as normal disciplines in terms of cost. That is, whatever you pay for a third level discipline should be what you pay to get a third level Ritual - since it is a third level Discipline. The advantage is that you can purchase the third level over and over again, picking up new 3rd level rituals each time. Still awesome - but no longer game definingly broken.

-Username17

[Modesitt]

Uh... no.

I just went through the entire core Vampire book searching for the part where mortals forget vampire encounters. Apparently, it doesn't exist. This concept should definitely be imported from Werewolf and Mage: Low willpower people completely blank on the supernatural, medium willpower folk remember it but explain it away, and high-willpower types remember everything. It makes everything so much easier.

Seriously, a min/maxxed elder wakes up from the sleep of ages as a starting character.

That's not true at all. They don't have their Special Elder Perks, but if you have a 5 in a Discipline when you go to sleep, you STILL have a 5 in a Discipline when you wake up. I consider it to be completely appropriate for an ancient elder to wake up weakened and need some time to rebuild their to their full, former strength.

---

Sticking up for the the fat
Nightmare: The discipline is, like Dominate, excellent for allowing a non-combat character to contribute to combat, although it wouldn't hurt to make the penalties a little heavier.

Protean 3: DEAD LEVEL? Dude, it's Aggravated damage with your bare hands. That's incredibly awesome for fighting supernatural creatures, including other vampires. If your ST allows you to combine it with Kung-Fu and form Voltron, You > Most people.

Obfuscate 2: If you argue with your ST, you might be able to convince him 'Aura looks mortal' means 'No diablerie marks'.

[Username17]

I just went through the entire core Vampire book searching for the part where mortals forget vampire encounters. Apparently, it doesn't exist. This concept should definitely be imported from Werewolf and Mage: Low willpower people completely blank on the supernatural, medium willpower folk remember it but explain it away, and high-willpower types remember everything. It makes everything so much easier.

Please no. The delerium completely ruined Werewolf and it'll ruin any other game you put it in as well.

The whole point of the "Masquerade" is that it's something you have to think about. You can't just run around in the street going all boogie boogie on people or the other vampires will kill you. If that shit just worked itself out, you wouldn't even need to play the game. It would be all bad.

They don't have their Special Elder Perks, but if you have a 5 in a Discipline when you go to sleep, you STILL have a 5 in a Discipline when you wake up.

But they don't have their level 6 disciplines, which is the basic problem right there.

Protean 3: DEAD LEVEL? Dude, it's Aggravated damage with your bare hands. That's incredibly awesome for fighting supernatural creatures, including other vampires. If your ST allows you to combine it with Kung-Fu and form Voltron, You > Most people.

So what? Seriously, it's aggravated damage, and I don't care! The only people who care whether they are hit with aggravated damage are player characters. Magical healing is so slow in that game that the difference between Lethal and Aggravated is about one box of damage per round - and then only if all damage being inflicted is Agg.

You fight vampires in Vampire the same way you fight trolls in D&D: you hit them with an axe until you overwhelm their regen to the point of unconciousness. Then you set their inert bodies on fire. Actually doing damage that can't be regenerated in combat is a waste of time.

Claws do less damage than an axe by a substantial amount. Therefore they are a worse weapon for killing enemies even though that damage is aggravated. And when your discipline is worse than "having an axe" - your discipline is shitty filler that I don't care about.

Obfuscate 2: If you argue with your ST, you might be able to convince him 'Aura looks mortal' means 'No diablerie marks'.

So what? The days of multiple interlocked groups of rival politicals all having the ability to read auras constantly narcing on each other is over. You can just have diablerie marks, nothing happens.

----

On a slightly different note:

Predator's Taint

Fvck that noise. Seriously.

Playing vampire is about hanging out in goth clubs posturing at other vampires. If vampires can't risk meeting other vampires because they'll fvcking frenzy there cannot be a vampire society. That's the worst thing you copuld possibly do to the genre. The entire thing about vampires flipping out when they meet each other in nWoD has got to go. There is no way to salvage that.

-Username17

[User3]

1178326328[/unixtime]][*] oWoD has elders who are too fvcking powerful. They wake up and the universe crumbles around them, they have such powers as "destroy the sun" and shit. It isn't just that their awakening spells the end of the world, it's that the world could never exist as we know it if these guys ever walked the Earth.

I sort of always figured that the world-destroyingly powerful stuff came to them while they were in Torpor, i.e., they went to sleep and woke up way more powerful than they had been. This meshes well with the wellspring of the modern Vampire revival, Anne Rice (sigh), but having it match up with the mythology is really the least of our worries.

Having ancients with world-destroying powers sleeping the ages away is fine as long as, when they wake up, the game actually ends. (Which is pretty much how White Wolf eventually ended Masquerade, but never mind that.) Unfortunately, if you put ancients with world-destroying powers in the game at all, sooner or later some dumbass is going to have one or more of them wake up without it being the end of the game, and then life will get ugly. (Remember the sad, desperate admonition "this is not a mandate to create 4th-generation characters!" in one of the VtM Revised books? Little late for that, guys, you published the fvcking stats for them about four years ago.)

So having the top-level disciplines be awesome but not world-destroying is basically a necessity. At the same time, having elders wake up from the sleep of ages and not be instantly at their previous level of awesome is actually desirable (at least, it is to me). Can we have them wake from sleep with all their old stuff except the sixth dot is unusable, and have to go through some sort of rigamarole before they can use it again? Diablerizing some poor fool would be a fine canonical example, here.

Whether you're talking oWoD or nWoD, the disciplines of "magic" are inherently better than disciplines that do... pretty much anything at all. And why is that? It's because the sorcerous disciplines allow people to purchase addiitonal "rituals" at reduced cost. In most cases, this means that players may cherry pick abilities indistinguishable from high level disciplines for less than the cost of buying a single dot of a discipline already purchased at that level - let alone the cost of buying one's self into a new discipline all the way until it allowed an effect of that magnitude.

Why do we have to have Thaumaturgy at all? I mean, since so much of what it does is basically the same thing as having a bunch of Disciplines, why not just eliminate the middleman and make people who want to have a whole bunch of Disciplines ... buy a bunch of Disciplines? Then you can get rid of the notion of vampires with Thaumaturgy as having a special game mechanical widget -- an idea that got increasingly stupid through the lifespan of Masquerade as the Tzimisce, the Giovanni, the Followers of Set, the Assamites, and probably some other clans who've slipped my mind all turned out to have a handle on some form of Thaumaturgy -- and just let people do the Champions-esque choosing between alternative explanations of "Yes, I can turn invisible because I can do magic" and "Yes, I can turn invisible because I'm a fvcking vampire".

1178383956[/unixtime]]
The whole point of the "Masquerade" is that it's something you have to think about. You can't just run around in the street going all boogie boogie on people or the other vampires will kill you. If that shit just worked itself out, you wouldn't even need to play the game. It would be all bad.

Agree. Having people get fuzzy about exactly what happened when they get fed on is one thing; having people get fuzzy when they see someone else getting fed on is another. I'm on board with the former and violently opposed to the latter.

--d.

[User3]

I just want to say that I have no clue how to play this game Vampire and probably never will, but this thread still cracks me up.



~D&DFan

[Brobdingnagian]

Protean - Level 2 is claws. Level 3 is sleeping in the ground. It's cool if you don't have a haven, but if you don't have a haven, you're either all playing Gangrel (with free dots in Protean so you don't die on the first day) or your ST is a deuche (spelling?). Also, claws would be awesome if they would just do decent damage. Yeah, their damage is weak. Too weak to make the "Soaking Aggravated Damage = Aggravating" philosopy really usable. Throw more damage and it's good. Oh, and those red eyes let you see in pitch dark and they cost nothing to activate. I don't know if that's any good, but whatever.

Thaumaturgy - Am I the only one who realises that Thaumaturgy costs a blood point and willpower check to use any of its stuff? Then you pay the blood points to use whatever ability you're trying to. I'd be perfectly fine with anything in Thaumaturgy being able to duplicate other disciplines, but cheaper to get because you're technically in the same discipline, and more expensive to use because you gain access to them easier. It'd be like "We're the Tremere. We do everything you do, except we learn it faster." And the other guy's like "Dude, but it's easier for me to do."

Backgrounds - Resource is all you'll ever need... nothing says "Die supernatural freak" like ol' Willy Pete, and with a thousand bucks a day, WP is standard ammo.

[Username17]

Protean - Level 2 is claws. Level 3 is sleeping in the ground.

At first I thought you were just on crack, and then I remembered that that was totally true in oWoD. In nWoD by the way, it's Earthmeld first and Claws second. It's also not called Earthmeld anymore, but something stupid.

Also, claws would be awesome if they would just do decent damage.

This isn't true. You can just put phosphorous rounds into a shot gun. Nothing is stoppinf you from doing that. No matter what your claws do, they are in aggragate never better than the ability to hide an object on your person - and Onfuscation lets you do that. Hell, Obfuscation also lets you hide magical idols and credit cards and marijuana. Claws are structurally incapable of meaning jack shit even if they did decent damage.

Oh, and those red eyes let you see in pitch dark and they cost nothing to activate.

Those Red Eyes in nWoD just cause the Predator's Taint to bone you in a different way (check for rage frenzy instead of check for fear frenzy - you still fvcking die) they don't even let you see in the dark. But regardless, Heightened Senses let you see in the dark too and don't bone you at all.

Thaumaturgy - Am I the only one who realises that Thaumaturgy costs a blood point and willpower check to use any of its stuff? Then you pay the blood points to use whatever ability you're trying to.

Having read it quite thoroughly, I am quite certain that you are the only person who "realizes" this.

---

A note on why the Lancea Sanctum sucks: I realize in retrospect that I didn't really explain this super well. Here's the deal:

All the NPCs are played by the Storyteller. If an organization exists simply as the mouthpiece of an NPC (such as Longinus), then it's really just the Storyteller telling you whatever he feels like spouting off about today. In short, all organizations which are a cult of personality of a single individual are identical one to another.

And that's sort of OK, in that really belonging to any organization is structurally just like that. Sometimes the storyteller rants at you or provides you with things you are supposed to do to move the plot forward. Sure, whatever.

But the purpose of an organization in a game like Vampire is to provide characters with a reference frame to have upward mobility with respect to. That is: if you're part of the Camarilla or the Carthian Movement, you have the opportunity to become a more important member of these groups. And that means that a player who is part of that organization is entitled to plot and scheme to advance the goals of that group (or at least, to be seen by other members as having done so).

And that means that the group has to have definable and coherent goals that the player can understand and take with them away from the gaming table in order to think up plots to scheme upon at the next game session. Even if that goal is something stupid and basic like "put all magic items into pants", there has to be something.

And the problem is that the way human society is structured, being "Christian" doesn't qualify as being a goal. There are 2 billion Christians in the world, and there are Christians on both sides of every single poltical, social, military, and legal issue currently in contention on the planet. The fact that the Lancea Sanctum is "Christian" tells you precisely dick about what it is that they actually want to do, and that means that being a member of that organization is completely game destroying.

-Username17

[Brobdingnagian]

Sorry, never read a nWoD book. All my reference material is from oWoD. My ST is... umm... uninformative, in some ways. I was under the impression it was nWoD...

Anyway, I guess nWoD broke Thaumaturgy more, so whatever. But my point still remains; if it can do anything the other disciplines do at equal levels, just for cheaper acquisition and more expensive use requirements, wouldn't that be balanced? Or would that require some kind of overly-complex internally consistent system that nobody wants to deal with?

Also, Frank. Glad to see you agree with the WP idea.

[Username17]

But my point still remains; if it can do anything the other disciplines do at equal levels, just for cheaper acquisition and more expensive use requirements, wouldn't that be balanced?

Let's put that in D&D speak:

If it does the same thing that a normal 4th level spell does, only you only need to be a 5th level character and it chews through some extra spell slots to use, wouldn't that be balanced?

No. It wouldn't.

-Username17

[User3]

Yeah, I don't even play Vampire, and I can tell you that Artificers are stupid broken.

[Brobdingnagian]

Stupid exponential power increases... making things stupidly complex to balance...

As usual, Frank is right. I'd like to feel special, but I get the distinct sensation I'm neither the first nor the only person who he has made look stupid, so I'm just going to nod my head and say yes.

...

Resource is still the best background. That point hasn't been argued against yet, so I'm sticking to it.

[Username17]

1178522344[/unixtime]]
Resource is still the best background. That point hasn't been argued against yet, so I'm sticking to it.

The correct choice is "any one background - taken to five". Each of the backgrounds scales in an exponential type way with the more you invet into it the better a deal you get.

So if you have Resources 1, Allies 1, Contacts 1, Status 1, and Retainer 1 you seriously have a couple of friends and a job at Taco Temple.

Resources 5 means that you can throw money at pretty much any problem in the game. You drift from luxury hotel to luxury hotel and can bribe your way out of pretty much any problem.

Allies 5 means that you have a vast network of ninjas that have infiltrated the entire police force of New York and you can openly flauint the law.

Contacts 5 means that essentially Hollywood is set up to funnel information to you specifically.

Retainer 5 means that you have a cohort who is better than you are. Which means that he basically solves any problem you can't.

Status 5 puts you in charge of a corporation or national military (really), and means that you can request virtually limitless funds or weaponry for any occassion.

---

So basically you just min/max the Backgrounds (or "Social Merits" as they are called in nWoD). If you put all your eggs in one basket you are a tremendously influential person who waves their hands and makes awesome shit go down. And if you were an idiot and spread your points out you are the big sucker.

-Username17

[NineInchNall]

So, um, are the Tremere all still blood bound to their superiors? 'Cause if they're not, then having a Thaumaturge with all his character creation points spent on maxing "Social Merits" (i.e., Status 5 + some other shit) seems to be the most twinked out character possible. Am I right in inferring this?

[Brobdingnagian]

Hmm...

On the basis of Background (any) + 5 dots = awesome, spend all your freebie points on Backgrounds, because they can't be increased through experience and you could get four (five with points from flaws) maxed out and totally rock everything by virtue of your history.

[Username17]

1178565710[/unixtime]]So, um, are the Tremere all still blood bound to their superiors? 'Cause if they're not, then having a Thaumaturge with all his character creation points spent on maxing "Social Merits" (i.e., Status 5 + some other shit) seems to be the most twinked out character possible. Am I right in inferring this?

The Tremere were never blood bound to their superiors.

Their "disadvantage" was that they were all required to drink the blood of the clan elders once after being created. This made no sense of course, because:

• That's not a disadvantage. Drinking someone's blood one time doesn't do anything special.
  
  
• There's no reason for the clan elders to not demand that progeny drink the blood two more times, thus ensuring total loyalty throughout the clan.
  
  
• If they just drank the blood first they'd be in the enviable position of having an entire clan made out of fifth generation ass kickers. Apparently that would be too cool, so they don't do that.

Regardless, in nWoD the Tremere don't even exist. Thaumaturgy has been split up and now exists as a series of Rituals which are generally speaking available to the Circle or the Lancea Sanctum. Lancea Sanctum Rituals are in general superior, coming with (I'm not making this up) transform anything into anything else. You are forbidden from creating sapience in this manner, but you can transform inert materials into plutonium or people into different creatures with their mental abilities - go nuts.

Rituals are more problematic in nWoD even than they were in oWoD because they really ran with the whole idea of "Devotions" - which are one-time powers with prerequisites that are purchased at a completely arbitrary cost and give you a specific ability completely out of sequence. These Devotions are sometimes things like "Knowing the Stranger" a 21 XP ability that lets you know what other people see when you use Obfuscate to mask your appearance (note: that's shitty). And sometimes they are things like "Swarm Communion" which costs you nothing and allows you to use Dominate with an Area of Effect (note: this is fvcking awesome).

With the blurring of the lines between what is a "ritual", what is a "merit", and what is a free bonus at the bottom of your Cheerios, nWoD has enough secret pockets of power that your character gets more power directly proportional to how much you read the books. Hell, even if you are a member of the Invictus you get access to the Blood Oathes which are bullshit extra power that are extremely powerful and cheap (The Oath of Blood Service, for example, allows people to lend their Disciplines and Skills to each other).

On the basis of Background (any) + 5 dots = awesome, spend all your freebie points on Backgrounds, because they can't be increased through experience and you could get four (five with points from flaws) maxed out and totally rock everything by virtue of your history.

In nWoD they "fixed" that by not giving anyone any Freebie Points and allowing them to buy up their Backgrouns later on with XP. I'm not even kidding.

-Username17

[User3]

That's awesome. Seriously, I would love to play a game where you can punch a guy in the face so hard that your father retroactively becomes President.

Wait, no, that's terrible. But hilarious.

[Brobdingnagian]

Hmm...

Now, I can't tell for certain, because after all, this is the internet and I can't judge facial expressions or body language, but it seems to me the whole of WoD pisses off Frank to no end...

I have to agree, of course. The flavour is totally awesome hot shit. The mechanics suck harder than Christina Aguilera on a Friday.

[Draco_Argentum]

1178577601[/unixtime]]And sometimes they are things like "Swarm Communion" which costs you nothing and allows you to use Dominate with an Area of Effect (note: this is fvcking awesome).

You've gotta be kidding. If not why hasn't PETA started protesting WW for abusing retarded monkeys?