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poo poo. The Hunter video games were never released for PC.
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Feb 8, 2013 16:27
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Doodmons posted:A 0xp, BP1 neonate. I should clarify this is a low-powered campaign. He's only a combat monster relative to the rest of us. Still, 11 dice of lethal seems quite legit to me, but it turns out that Hunter Tactics loving destroy PCs. Your ST is sending legit Hunters against the party at 0 XP? drat. What did you guys do?
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Feb 8, 2013 16:39
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Hunter Tactics don't defeat vampires, numbers kill vampires. Three 0xp mortal characters are going to kill a 0xp vampire character whether or not the GMC rules are in play.
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Feb 8, 2013 16:42
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The Hunter video games had an insane release issue where if you bought the first game on gamecube, you had to buy an xbox and PS2 to finish the series.
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Feb 8, 2013 17:12
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Ferrinus posted:Hunter Tactics don't defeat vampires, numbers kill vampires. Three 0xp mortal characters are going to kill a 0xp vampire character whether or not the GMC rules are in play. True, but the combat started with the hunters doing Hamstring, which stopped the Gangrel from legging it with his superior speed once he realised he was outmatched. crime fighting hog posted:Your ST is sending legit Hunters against the party at 0 XP? drat. What did you guys do? To be honest, I'm not quite sure :P There's something hinky up for sure. The previous couple of sessions involved us killing a Promethean so that the mortals wouldn't spot the Wasteland and coming searching (obviously we didn't know it was a Promethean - my character has Occult 0 and is just going 'eh, I'm a vampire, who cares what else is real?') What I think got the Hunters on our scent is that in the first session one of us hunger frenzied and drained a mortal. A jogger found the body and there was an awful lot of hijinks involved with getting it away from the police so that an exsanguinated body wouldn't make the news. Of those of us who were spotted, only the Ventrue didn't have Obfuscate and so there's a picture of him going round because the police want him to help with enquiries. OOC I'm of the theory that there's a hunter contact in the police and he put two and two together with all the patrol officers being unable to remember our faces and feeling unusual amounts of fear. We did goof quite a lot in getting that body, but at least there's no solid evidence beyond a few confused testimonies. What really grinds my gears is that the attack happened right outside an Elysium and when I ran inside to get help, everyone just fled out the back apart from a single Carthian who came to help. gently caress vampires, seriously. Needless to say, the Carthians are going to be getting as much help from the Ordo as we can give them next time they want to spite the Invictus.
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Feb 8, 2013 18:20
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Doodmons posted:True, but the combat started with the hunters doing Hamstring, which stopped the Gangrel from legging it with his superior speed once he realised he was outmatched. I don't even remember Hamstring's mechanics, but from what I recall all of those "cripple the monster so it can't ____" Tactics involve inflicting damage representing the wound, don't they? You just heal that stuff away. If there's three of you, though, you just physically get in the target's way so that he can't leave without beating you in some kind of ad hoc roll, or failing that inflict the grapple rules on him.
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Feb 8, 2013 18:35
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As a GM I'd be pretty careful about NPCs using Tactics, too; Hunter is one of the least crossover- or PVP-friendly lines, and when Tactics are successful they rob the target of a lot of agency. Saying the target is crippled, or flees in a certain direction, or avoids attacking certain people, is all well and good when they're NPCs, but I don't think their mechanical effects are really calibrated to be used against players.
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Feb 8, 2013 18:42
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Unless I missed something, the XBox Hunter game was impossible to finish because you couldn't heal nearly fast enough to avoid the death from 1000 cuts from a million trash mobs.
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Feb 8, 2013 20:24
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So here's a Mage question that's actually relevant to play: what happens if you remove Rote Spells as a concept? As in, no predefined 'spells' beyond what an individual Mage does often? I wanted to make it clear that using Magic frivolously is a Bad Idea, but the Wisdom mechanics (like most Morality Trait mechanics) are deeply, deeply stupid for this, so I thought that removing the option of using magic without risking Paradox might be a good idea; the probabilities on Paradox are low enough that covert magic won't trigger it most of the time, but there's always that outside chance that you'll gently caress up and generate a minor Paradox. An exception to this is the various Mage Sight spells; the PCs get to cast/maintain the Mage Sight spells associated with their two Ruling Arcana for free, and can use the others once they reach 3 dots in the relevant Arcana. So, what breaks if I just disallow rote spellcasting altogether?
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Feb 8, 2013 20:34
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FrozenGoldfishGod posted:So, what breaks if I just disallow rote spellcasting altogether? Obrimos take a whole ton of extra paradox and using magic to attack people becomes outclassed by mundane weaponry in almost all cases. Mastigos and thyrsus can't really buff people into the stratosphere the way they could before, but acanthus can still give rote action and 8-again without issue. Those are the big ones that come to mind. e: Any spell with a contested roll would become extremely hard to use on mages. Androc fucked around with this message at 20:42 on Feb 8, 2013 |
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Feb 8, 2013 20:39
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Spellcasting rolls get worse, because there's no longer a way to add a third trait to a dicepool, and Mages will get typecast into their Path Arcana more because improvising with your common or inferior Arcana costs Mana. If you want to make frivolous magic use a bad idea, you should make it impossible to soak Paradox as bashing damage and make Paradoxes, themselves, more dramatic.
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Feb 8, 2013 20:40
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Androc posted:Obrimos take a whole ton of extra paradox and using magic to attack people becomes outclassed by mundane weaponry in almost all cases. Mastigos and thyrsus can't really buff people into the stratosphere the way they could before, but acanthus can still give rote action and 8-again without issue. Those are the big ones that come to mind. Not seeing how Obrimos are massively more at risk for Paradox than anyone else - Forces can be used covertly, it just takes more creativity than 'BLUE LAZERS ZAPZAPZAP' to pull off. The mundane weaponry thing is actually a good point, but I mentioned that to my players - and they like the idea that in a setting where world-bending magic is a thing, a good handgun is still a viable option for dealing with problems. Basically, they want it to be much more Invisibles-style magic - Jack Frost is powerful and all, but nobody's putting King Mob out to pasture just because Jack's around. I'll admit to being a bit confused as to why, given that I'm throwing out the rotes entirely, the Acanthus can still massively buff but the Mastigos/Thyrsus can't.
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Feb 8, 2013 20:48
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FrozenGoldfishGod posted:I'll admit to being a bit confused as to why, given that I'm throwing out the rotes entirely, the Acanthus can still massively buff but the Mastigos/Thyrsus can't. It's simple. A thyrsus or mastigos buffs by raising attributes (or skills). The bonus you get is equal to the successes on the spellcasting roll, so rotes mean you can give somebody +4 strength instead of +2 or whatever. Acanthus, on the other hand, just give specific qualities like 8-again or rote action to rolls. These only require a single success to essentially work at full capacity. And if you're not shooting blue lazers, I don't know why you're playing obrimos. 
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Feb 8, 2013 20:52
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Rotes are an important part of Mage: the Awakening because they allow characters to more strongly define themselves as distinct from each other, even when they're walking the same Path. In Awakening, every mage has a broad set of magic they're naturally good at, but they've also got a specific type of magic they're even better at thanks to their training, preferences, and style, and that isn't necessarily limited by their Path. The problem with paradox is the paradox system itself, not rotes.
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Feb 8, 2013 20:53
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Attorney at Funk posted:If you want to make frivolous magic use a bad idea, you should make it impossible to soak Paradox as bashing damage and make Paradoxes, themselves, more dramatic. Agreed. No soak, paradox pool is equal to the character's gnosis, subsequent vulgar spells increase everyone's pool, rituals increase the pool size (major incentive to find a demesne), etc. They can obviously reduce it still with tools and extra mana expenditure, but it will give them pause to wonder whether casting that vulgar spell is really worth the cost/risk. It's worth going over paradox levels themselves and loving with them too, of course, since most amount to cosmetic changes except Havoc which is by far the worst paradox result. Man, paradox in general is such a mess, it's a shame.
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Feb 8, 2013 21:03
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Attorney at Funk posted:Spellcasting rolls get worse, because there's no longer a way to add a third trait to a dicepool, and Mages will get typecast into their Path Arcana more because improvising with your common or inferior Arcana costs Mana. Don't know how I missed this post; but I like this idea a lot better. I'll suggest it to my players. Reene posted:Agreed. No soak, paradox pool is equal to the character's gnosis, subsequent vulgar spells increase everyone's pool, rituals increase the pool size (major incentive to find a demesne), etc. They can obviously reduce it still with tools and extra mana expenditure, but it will give them pause to wonder whether casting that vulgar spell is really worth the cost/risk. Along with this. I'll present it to my players, and see what they have to say.
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Feb 8, 2013 21:18
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For my game, I threw the paradox rules out entirely, and told my players that the Abyss has its own core rules it's going by that they don't get to see. Then I randomized things a good bit on my end-- I like dramatic and more powerful paradoxes in general, but the big thing I really feel like needs killed with them is the level of predictability the RAW builds in.
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Feb 9, 2013 02:31
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t3h_z0r posted:Unless I missed something, the XBox Hunter game was impossible to finish because you couldn't heal nearly fast enough to avoid the death from 1000 cuts from a million trash mobs. I may be dodging a bullet, then. I'll just pull the names and such from walkthroughs.
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Feb 9, 2013 02:37
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Nick at Nite posted:For my game, I threw the paradox rules out entirely, and told my players that the Abyss has its own core rules it's going by that they don't get to see. I think it's best when players know the rules for paradox formation, and that the general severity of a Paradox scales smoothly upward, but that the actual effect of a paradox is largely up to the ST, such that players know when they're in trouble (and therefore have the power to decide whether to push it or back off) but can't predict what'll happen if they gamble and lose. The rules we're using for paradoxes right now change up the way a paradox dicepool is assembled, and pull results from a list like this: 0: phew 1: A zone appears in the area that responds to active magic, causing spooky phenomena to cling to mages and their spells (ex: spoiling milk, weird reflections - vulgar spells make your nimbus obvious) 2: The zone produces spooky but largely sensory phenomena which get stronger when mages are around (ex: bleeding walls, willowisps) 3: The zone produces tangible but non-extreme phenomena, about as strong as a covert spell, that get stronger when mages are around (ex: tilted gravity, haunting activity) 4: The zone produces bizarre, vulgar spell-level phenomena that get stronger when mages are around (ex: spacetime fractures, local plantlife mutates) 5: No zone forms or is upgraded, but enjoy your abyssal intruder Players know how a dicepool is formed and what makes it bigger (it's stuff like "anyone in the scene casting a vulgar spell" or "anyone in the scene spending mana to make an active spell stronger"), and they know how strong in terms of raw dicepower they can expect a given paradox rating to be, but don't know what it's going to actually do or if this'll be the time they really gently caress up and roll 4 or 5 successes at once. It's mostly been NPCs who avail themselves of these rules, but it's had a cool dynamic thus far. If someone's throwing vulgar magic around you really want either for them to stop or for you to be somewhere else. Depending on how many mages were involved, the lower levels on the chart can last for days or weeks or longer, so it's sort of a thing to wander into an area, pause, and be like "Hmm, there's a paradox here..."
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Feb 9, 2013 04:19
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I'd like to thank everyone who recommended the Horror Recognition Guide. This is like good found footage horror parsed into the oHunter post-its and printouts format. There was a spoilered "answer key" posted earlier in the thread, does anyone remember what page that's on? I tried searching earlier but no luck.
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Feb 9, 2013 22:24
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I went to Powell's Books last night and noticed a Mage: The Ascension book, 1st edition, as I was heading to the coffee shop. The intro fiction was so aggressively bad I almost burned 15 dollars on the book just so I could do some dramatic readings. Holy poo poo, guys, what were you thinking. Raphael fingered the katana within his trenchcoat... ETA: There were also typesetting errors in the intro fiction. Like a row of three asterisks with "{center these marks]" next to it. Hysterical. Reene fucked around with this message at 23:10 on Feb 9, 2013 |
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Feb 9, 2013 23:03
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Reene posted:I went to Powell's Books last night and noticed a Mage: The Ascension book, 1st edition, as I was heading to the coffee shop. Maybe I'm too much of a horrible collector but $15 for a 1st edition WoD corebook sounds like a good price to me.
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Feb 9, 2013 23:06
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Reene posted:Holy poo poo, guys, what were you thinking. Raphael fingered the katana within his trenchcoat... Carry on.
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Feb 9, 2013 23:22
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Hey would-be new gods, Imperial Mysteries recruitment thread is up! I'll be hanging around #fortheworld on synirc if anyone has questions or wants to tell me how horrible the OP is.
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Feb 9, 2013 23:29
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Reene posted:I went to Powell's Books last night and noticed a Mage: The Ascension book, 1st edition, as I was heading to the coffee shop. You made the right decision by not buying it. Spending too much time with early WoD leaves you a bitter and twisted husk of a man, mumbling about how many vampires are in San Francisco compared to changelings compared to wraiths.
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Feb 10, 2013 02:24
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Loomer posted:You made the right decision by not buying it. Spending too much time with early WoD leaves you a bitter and twisted husk of a man, mumbling about how many vampires are in San Francisco compared to changelings compared to wraiths. Still waiting on that magnum opus, by the way. I will be very disappointed if there are no graphs. Or pie charts.
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Feb 10, 2013 12:38
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Found it, for some reason I thought the post was months ago, and it really wasn't.Flavivirus posted:Gillen, Emily: Slasher I don't have this sourcebook, but I think The Market is specifically A Goblin Market but Gillen, Emily is actually the price Kaplinski paid to get his family back four months earlier in addition to the above. This is a great read and now I want to play so much Hunter, but I can't so I'll just finish reading this thing.
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Feb 10, 2013 19:11
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I was looking to make characters for an archmage game and oh my God, Forces 5 is so bad. Forces as a whole is really underpowered compared to the other Arcana, but 5 is the worst. Let's look at the effects: Adverse Weather: Tsunamis, hurricanes, etc. Probably only really useful as a plot device, and has the regular duration factors which means it's almost totally useless unless cast as a ritual. Bestow Burst of Speed: Have you ever wanted to make someone else somewhat faster? No? Well, no, not, like "Acceleration" or Celerity fast, but it still costs the same per turn...where are you going Bestow Levitation: See above. Oh, and it's willing targets only. Complete Invisibility: Useful- against Sleepers. Everything except Forces Mage Sight renders it useless. Control Gravity: Could be useful, except the radius is dogshit, requiring three successes before it can affect a small room. Hitting the average ceiling is going to cause one bashing damage, and everyone you'll be facing probably has a ranged attack. Outside, they only fall up or sideways until they reach the edge of the radius. Oh! And it's Transitory. Create Sunlight: Kill vampires! Worse than just shooting them with fire, which you could do back at Forces 3. Might be useful for killing multiple vampires simultaneously, except the radius is also dogshit. It's Vulgar and costs mana. Earthquake: Maybe nice for bringing down a lovely building, worse than Matter 3, and less versatile. Radius is decent for once. Electromagnetic Pulse: Useful, but crippled by radius, and probably useless against most other supernaturals. Eradicate Radiation: Not bad, but not commonly useful either. Radius still a problem. Flight: Fly! At about half your walking speed. It costs Mana and will be destroyed by Disbelief. People knew this was poo poo the moment the book came out. Increase Gravity: Decent-radius Strength debuff, crippled by the fact that successes are split between Strength and radius. And how many opponents at this level are worried about a small penalty to their Physical rolls? Nullify Gravity: Same exact problems as above. And why were Nullify Gravity, Increase Gravity and Control Gravity not rolled into one spell? Radiation: This is probably the most useless Master-level spell in the game. Every 30 minutes someone spends in the (dogshit) radius, the radiation's Potency increases by one. Once it is at one above their Stamina, they take a single -1 to all physical rolls, and once it's four above their Stamina, they start suffering one bashing damage every 10 minutes. So the average person could spend about three and a half hours in your spell before they start taking any real damage. Oh, and it's at regular Prolongation factors. Thunderbolt (Forces 5) - Aggravated damage - at range! Minus magic armor and Defense. Worse than the damage-dealing capacities of at least four of the five other Arcana capable of a similar effect. Velocity Mastery: Be Neo! Stop bullets! Well, bullet, singular. Rather than allowing for a radius, each bullet requires a separate Target factor, and the autofire penalties basically require this to be a rote. Nonetheless, still one of the best spells in this level. t3h_z0r fucked around with this message at 00:35 on Feb 11, 2013 |
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Feb 11, 2013 00:19
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The best power for blasting your enemies with lightning in the WoD is, of course, found in the Werewolf "Weather" Gift List. Forces 5 disappointed me from the beginning. Smash the spell list
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Feb 11, 2013 00:30
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I think it's highly appropriate that Forces is the lamest Arcanum. It really aids my immersion.
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Feb 11, 2013 00:32
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From my experience, Forces was overpowered in OWoD, with people saying poo poo like "I drop the Technoc fighter jet like a rock by transmuting all of its kinetic energy into electricity" so I guess they went way too far in the other direction. They tried to balance it by giving it utility factors like "listen to radio bands" or "always have cell service" but these were always worse than the utility spells in virtually every other arcanum. Forces also lacks any buff capability aside from Speed, and its armor and damage spells are worse than those available in other arcana. They didn't even put in a writeup for 8 dots in Forces in Imperial Mysteries.
t3h_z0r fucked around with this message at 00:50 on Feb 11, 2013 |
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Feb 11, 2013 00:48
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Yeah I get the feeling they were trying to keep it from being overpowered and just overdid it. When you really break it down the kind of poo poo you can pull with Forces should be loving insane.
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Feb 11, 2013 00:55
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Turning the kinetic energy of a fighter jet into electricity, dropping it like a rock, should be exactly what a Patterning Forces spell with enough Size factors can do !!
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Feb 11, 2013 01:07
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Death is still worse. Forces is fantastic to splash into at the very least. Its utility isn't really in the flashy, I-poo poo-Paradox stuff, it's in the ability to tap into anyone's wireless poo poo and gently caress around with it directly. Assuming your game's setting is modern and people are just as tethered to their smartphones as they are in real life, that is not something to sneeze at.
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Feb 11, 2013 01:09
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I still love the Death/Forces combination that lets you transmute darkness (which is a substance of its own according to Death) into fire.
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Feb 11, 2013 01:11
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Forces + Matter is the really scary one, because that's when you start getting into Mass/Energy conversions and other high end physics poo poo. stephen hawking would be the best mage
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Feb 11, 2013 01:27
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Luminous Obscurity posted:Forces + Matter is the really scary one, because that's when you start getting into Mass/Energy conversions and other high end physics poo poo.
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Feb 11, 2013 01:32
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Yeah, the game does a good job of singling out the fact that you can't use science in conjunction with magic to break the mechanics. Science is the Lie's approximation of the underlying truth of magic, so whenever magic is used its the laws of magic that apply, not those of science... which means you always use the magic rules for balance. I always thought there'd be interesting mileage in playing a Scelestus whose Legacy Attainments were all about using the laws of science in conjunction with magic, twisting magic through the lens of the Lie to achieve power.
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Feb 11, 2013 01:36
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Reene posted:Death is still worse. loving with someone's smartphone? Really? Oh no, I'm back to the rustic horror that is 2006, whatever will I do if I can't get text messages and play Words With Friends for the next hour? Death 5: -Get Willpower OR Mana from anybody while dealing lethal damage. Requires touch, so a bit meh, but still very useful. -Destroy Mana. -Dispell any spell. -Empower a ghost. Not really broken until you get into ritual casting. -Live forever at the expense of Wisdom -Summon a powerful ghost from the Underworld.
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Feb 11, 2013 01:38
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At the actual gaming table, Fate remains the best.
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Feb 11, 2013 01:40
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