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Galick posted:So, been a while and I can't quite remember what half this poo poo does so: The White Wolf Wikia has a comprehensive list of all vampiric disciplines along with powers and examples for each dot you can invest in them. While I only know the oWoD setting from this game, it seems to me that generally speaking the mage spheres seem to allow for broader actions than comparable disciplines. Like comparing the Time Sphere: Pussy Cartel posted:One dot: knowing what time it is exactly, picking up on temporal manipulation. Five dots: perfect time travel (but not without the usual risks), freezing subjective time for oneself or another entirely. with the True Brujah discipline of Temporis: quote:One dot: Time Attunement: Sense the passage of time exactly as well as any temporal distortions. Nine dots: Summon History: Bring a particular time into the present; Tangle Atropos' Hand: Go back in time a few rounds at great mental cost seems to suggest that mages have much more possibilities to act than high-level Vampires. And you can even go beyond five dots in the spheres! On the other hand, each ten-dot discipline is also defined as a "plot device" by the rules, so take that as you will 
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Jan 23, 2015 23:39
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quote:Tangle Atropos' Hand: Go back in time a few rounds at great mental cost [to your ST and the rest of your group who now have to undo the last five rounds of the spectacularly complicated oWoD combat system] Zephro fucked around with this message at 23:45 on Jan 23, 2015 |
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Jan 23, 2015 23:41
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System Metternich posted:The White Wolf Wikia has a comprehensive list of all vampiric disciplines along with powers and examples for each dot you can invest in them. While I only know the oWoD setting from this game, it seems to me that generally speaking the mage spheres seem to allow for broader actions than comparable disciplines. Like comparing the Time Sphere: Just like the Vampire disciplines, 9 and 10 dot spheres are listed as basically being godlike powers that are discussed only in the vaguest terms. So yeah.
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Jan 23, 2015 23:52
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I always houseruled that there were no spheres beyond 5. Five is pretty awesome, and beyond that lies cheese and stupidity.
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Jan 24, 2015 00:06
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Zephro posted:Yeah, like I said in the post, the logical person to do that is Jack, given his role in the plot. Trouble is he's only 10th. Hell, even the simplest version of such a plan, should nothing else in the plot have happened, would have been to engineer your survival at the start and then point out later on after your strength has manifested that your blood is too strong to have been the childe of the vampire he had killed, thus showing him up to being an incompetent publicly and causing embarrassment to him and his backers, etc. But sending the sarcophagus to the city was a master stroke given LaCroix's nature. The end result being multiple failed blood hunts, potentially losing control of the city, being caught assassinating a primogen, and forming an alliance with the Quei-jin against his own kind (Something highly likely to seriously antagonise the Anarchs, something the cam elders don't want because they see a potential second Sabbat in them, thus their use of kid gloves when dealing with them). It wouldn't even be hard for an Cam elder to pretend to be Autarkis and bring Jack into the plot, especially if they didn't want to show their own hand so he could claim credit for everything. Sorry, I have been forced to think like an elder recently due to game planning stuff and discussions, and this whole thing ranks as a pretty simple plot by their standards.
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Jan 24, 2015 01:23
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Pickled Tink posted:Except that LaCroix consistently shows himself to be barely competent, openly power hungry, and openly ambitious on a scale where he is willing to throw caution to the wind. There is almost no conceivable way that he didn't step on powerful toes along the way on his rise to power, and it is very plausible that an elder took the opportunity to set him up to fail. Carefully selecting a mortal with the right mental traits and giving them the blood strength they need to throw a wrench into everything is hardly a troublesome excursion. Yeah, LA's whole setup is basically a candy store for convulated elder hijinx. Plus there's another angle: LaCroix is rash enough to stick his hand into a sawblade in an attempt to seize power/control of a city. The Powers That Be are more than willing to let him try as they don't have much to lose if he fails. And since he's nominally succeeded, they can take the opportunity to yank the rug out from under him and put someone Actually Capable in control. Heads they win, tails you lose...LaCroix really should have seen this coming.
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Jan 24, 2015 01:34
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OAquinas posted:Heads they win, tails you lose... To be fair, this is WoD metaplot.txt in general.
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Jan 24, 2015 01:40
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OAquinas posted:Yeah, LA's whole setup is basically a candy store for convulated elder hijinx. Plus there's another angle: LaCroix is rash enough to stick his hand into a sawblade in an attempt to seize power/control of a city. The Powers That Be are more than willing to let him try as they don't have much to lose if he fails. And since he's nominally succeeded, they can take the opportunity to yank the rug out from under him and put someone Actually Capable in control. Heads they win, tails you lose...LaCroix really should have seen this coming. Here's another potential mindscrew- who says that the schmuck they find you with and execute is actually your sire? There's plenty of mind-fuckery vampire powers that could let them manage a swap.
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Jan 24, 2015 01:44
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Zephro posted:I can only imagine the horror. Any ST who lets a player run around with level 9 Temporis deserves it.
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Jan 24, 2015 02:33
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Oberndorf posted:I always houseruled that there were no spheres beyond 5. Five is pretty awesome, and beyond that lies cheese and stupidity. I preferred second edition's version: having a rank of 6 in a Sphere was terrifying, there were maybe a dozen people at that level of power, they were almost all so old they couldn't go back to Earth without accruing a sizable Paradox tab, and so on. Then Masters of the Art came out and things got really stupid. Omobono posted:Could Life + Mind + Spirit 5 equal perfect resurrection, in theory? There was explicitly a rote in first edition Mage that could do this, but it came with the usual laundry list of problems, not least of which was that only a total moron would try to do it on Earth. There's also the point that many of the mages who are good at the kinds of magic required to pull off a resurrection don't regard death as much more than a momentary inconvenience. Half the mystic Traditions can prove that reincarnation exists.
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Jan 24, 2015 02:57
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apostateCourier posted:Here's another potential mindscrew- who says that the schmuck they find you with and execute is actually your sire? There's plenty of mind-fuckery vampire powers that could let them manage a swap. Well, if you want a proper mindscrew, how about this? Being an eighth generation might explain your bloodpool, but it absolutely does not explain hitting five points in your disciplines in under a month. Your power curve is drat near vertical when compare to other vampires. So how do you explain that? What if she's not learning them? What if she's remembering them? Let's create a hypothetical situation. You have an elder, probably fairly high up in the Camarilla. Not local, he's over in Europe. Pretty old, pretty powerful, but not hugely important. Sixth, seventh generation, around there. He hears the news about what's happening over in california. Anarchs organizing, Kuei-jin invading and some complete moron of a Prince not doing anything useful to secure of the biggest ports on the continent. So he decides to do something about it. But he can't be seen taking an interest in something so far away or meddling in a prince's domain without reason or his enemies will use it against him. So he decides to use a sleeper agent. So he takes one of his problem solvers, eighth generation, a few centuries old, and plants a hypnotic suggestion in her. When someone says the right words to her she'll pass out for a few minutes and wake up with her memories suppressed and thinking she's human, at least until someone tells her she's been turned into a vampire. Then she heads over to LA, plants a few suggestions of her own into some mortals so the new neonate will have a backstory if anyone bothers to check, seduces a local of the right clan, calls in a tipoff to the Sheriff and gets her date to say the words to trip her programming. A couple of hours later she's embedded in the local court with no one at all the wiser.
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Jan 24, 2015 04:10
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Stroth posted:Well, if you want a proper mindscrew, how about this? Being an eighth generation might explain your bloodpool, but it absolutely does not explain hitting five points in your disciplines in under a month. Your power curve is drat near vertical when compare to other vampires. So how do you explain that? What if she's not learning them? What if she's remembering them? What's the insurance policy in case Nines hadn't interfered?
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Jan 24, 2015 04:12
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TheMcD posted:What's the insurance policy in case Nines hadn't interfered? One of the others stepping in to interfere. Just because Nines spoke up first doesn't mean no one else would.Or a couple of the anarchs got a few suggestions planted as well as part of the setup. Would explain why they're happy to accept to new camarilla gofer so easily.
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Jan 24, 2015 04:19
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TheMcD posted:What's the insurance policy in case Nines hadn't interfered? Grout takes off his Smiling Jack mask and announces that LaCroix shaved a weregorilla and forced him to carry around a replica buster sword. Malkav takes the opportunity to awaken from his eons-long torpor to manifest balloons in LA -- billions of them. Inside those balloons? Rats.
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Jan 24, 2015 04:19
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Stroth posted:Well, if you want a proper mindscrew, how about this? Being an eighth generation might explain your bloodpool, but it absolutely does not explain hitting five points in your disciplines in under a month. Your power curve is drat near vertical when compare to other vampires. So how do you explain that? What if she's not learning them? What if she's remembering them? Believe it or not I played a character who was explicitly this. He was a 7th gen Brujah who got staked and buried shortly before the Norman Invasion. Queen Anne of London dug him up in the 1970's and turned him into a brainwashed plant inside of London's Anarch movement.
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Jan 24, 2015 04:23
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Stroth posted:One of the others stepping in to interfere. Just because Nines spoke up first doesn't mean no one else would.Or a couple of the anarchs got a few suggestions planted as well as part of the setup. Would explain why they're happy to accept to new camarilla gofer so easily. Right. OK, let me graph this out a bit with a bit more detail, because this is a theory I haven't heard before and find quite fascinating: Outset: poo poo's goin' down in LA, Anarchs and Kuei-jin are loving with the Camarilla. A high-ranking, but not too high-ranking member of the Camarilla that isn't locally involved (let's just call him Xelram because giving him a name probably makes this easier to sort out) decides that LaCroix is a loving idiot and will mess everything up, Problem: He needs to interfere, but can't do so directly because that's against the rules. Solution: Xelram calls up Melissa, an 8th gen capo to Xelram's boss, and preps her for her mission - when somebody says a certain phrase ("I want to show you something" maybe?), she'll pass out and suddenly believe she's a regular human. Ideally, this happens right before the mark bites her. Then, she wakes up, gets told she's a vampire now, and gets set upon her mission of solving LaCroix's problems. Since she's actually really badass, this would not be a major problem for her. She would start out weak, since she's forgotten everything, but the powers are still there, just latent until she gets back into the groove. So how does this play out? Melissa shows up in LA and starts her prep work. She implants memories in Samantha and her friends for the backstory and she implants suggestions into some local Anarchs so that they get Nines to interfere with the execution. She stakes out a mark (no pun intended), which is like a 13th gen or somewhere roundabout that and seduces him because she's got like 8 in Seduction or Persuasion or something. Or, hell, you probably don't even need that. She can probably just implant more poo poo in the mark's head so that he does exactly what she wants him to do. She does that, and at exactly 12:34, he attempts the embrace while saying the code phrase, and at the same time, a small-time Camarilla goon witnesses it because Melissa arranged it exactly so that he would witness it, immediately tell the authorities, who would immediately dispatch a hit squad, which arrives just after the "Embrace" played out at 12:37. First question: How does Melissa fake the "Embrace"? The Embrace requires the subject's blood to be drained and be replaced with some of the sire's vitae. How does that work without it turning into diablerie? I read this on the White Wolf wiki: quote:In gameplay terms, diablerie is rolled by draining another Kindred of blood just as he would a mortal, but continue feeding at this point. An extended Strength roll is made against a difficulty of 9. Every success inflicts one level of aggravated damage, and diablerie is complete when all health levels are attacked. Does that mean that if you drain a vampire of blood, you can still think it's a human if you don't keep feeding? Or would the vampire notice something's up when he just keeps feeding until he thinks it would be empty, but suddenly there's something else - the soul? I guess that's just another thing that's solved by the implanted suggestions - "feed until the blood is empty, then stop" and the like. OK, so that's all done, Melissa and the mark find themselves in the theatre where LaCroix does his spiel. The Anarchs that were prepared before have riled Nines up so much that he interferes, and Xelram knows enough about leadership as a Prince to know that this is a situation where you fold. I guess the alternate solution if LaCroix ends up going full retard again and wants to continue with the execution is some sort of large thing where some Anarchs run a van into the theatre, grab Melissa and bust out or something similar? Or to have some local Camarilla in Strauss's ear about the same thing some Anarchs were with Nines and hope like loving hell both the de-facto leader of the Anarchs and the Tremere primogen interfering is enough for LaCroix to call it off? Let's go with the latter. I guess we can still call this the second question - what's the backup for the absolute worst case scenario, where LaCroix throws all logic to the wind? Somehow involving the sheriff in this complicated scheme? Seems a bit heavy to me. Either way, the execution is called off, but Xelram knows LaCroix still wants Melissa dead and will send her on dangerous missions. Of course, that plays right into his plan, because Melissa will ace those missions and strengthen the Camarilla's position in the city and eventually depose LaCroix and put somebody capable in charge. But how is Melissa activated? Is that where the e-mails from "a friend" come in? They're actually code phrases that make Melissa activate Auspex 4 to contact Xelram, who then tells her how to proceed, then reactivates her sleeper status with the instructions intact? That could work, I guess, and then everything comes together in the scenario where Melissa does everything right and goes for the Camarilla ending. Of course, that leads to the question of what happened when Melissa sides with the Kuei-jin or something similar. Instructions got messed up? The system was looser than I previously hypothesized and the freedom Melissa got led her off the track? I guess that's the problem when you try and apply theories like that to an RPG - the player freedom often fucks with theories that claim the player character is being controlled from behind the scenes by somebody that isn't the player. LaCroix is also a massive wildcard in this scenario - we know he's smart, he has to be in order to have made it as prince, but at the same time, he's pretty stupid when it somehow involves to his power being in question.
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Jan 24, 2015 05:21
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Stroth posted:Well, if you want a proper mindscrew, how about this? Being an eighth generation might explain your bloodpool, but it absolutely does not explain hitting five points in your disciplines in under a month. Your power curve is drat near vertical when compare to other vampires. So how do you explain that? What if she's not learning them? What if she's remembering them? The second is the mortal who you meet in Hollywood after Isaac who remembers you from your life, causing a masquerade violation if you don't either convince her you're not you or murder her before she reaches the phones if you fail that. There is literally no possible reason for any elder to set such an encounter up. You are way too busy to be thinking about anything but the business at hand and there are no discernible benefits of it any way it plays out for an elder.
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Jan 24, 2015 05:39
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TheMcD posted:OK, so that's all done, Melissa and the mark find themselves in the theatre where LaCroix does his spiel. The Anarchs that were prepared before have riled Nines up so much that he interferes, and Xelram knows enough about leadership as a Prince to know that this is a situation where you fold. I guess the alternate solution if LaCroix ends up going full retard again and wants to continue with the execution is some sort of large thing where some Anarchs run a van into the theatre, grab Melissa and bust out or something similar? Or to have some local Camarilla in Strauss's ear about the same thing some Anarchs were with Nines and hope like loving hell both the de-facto leader of the Anarchs and the Tremere primogen interfering is enough for LaCroix to call it off? Let's go with the latter. I guess we can still call this the second question - what's the backup for the absolute worst case scenario, where LaCroix throws all logic to the wind? Somehow involving the sheriff in this complicated scheme? Seems a bit heavy to me. Pickled Tink posted:The second is the mortal who you meet in Hollywood after Isaac who remembers you from your life, causing a masquerade violation if you don't either convince her you're not you or murder her before she reaches the phones if you fail that. There is literally no possible reason for any elder to set such an encounter up. You are way too busy to be thinking about anything but the business at hand and there are no discernible benefits of it any way it plays out for an elder.
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Jan 24, 2015 05:52
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Why bother with the sleeper agent stuff?  Why not just lie?
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Jan 24, 2015 06:08
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Tiggum posted:In case LaCroix (or someone else) tries to check up on just who Melissa was when she was alive. It would be suspicious if no one knew her and she just turned up out of nowhere. An Elder does not introduce a potential point of failure into their plan unless there is a commensurate reward to be gained from it. The ones that do tend to lose at Jyhad and end up either as Autarkis if they are lucky or destroyed if they aren't, especially when there are potential stakes as high as this games story indicates. There just isn't a benefit worth the risk in this case.
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Jan 24, 2015 06:13
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Rockopolis posted:Why bother with the sleeper agent stuff? Because the only thing vampires love more than blood and existential angst is circuitous, complex plans that operate on bizarre moon-logic.
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Jan 24, 2015 06:13
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TheMcD posted:First question: How does Melissa fake the "Embrace"? The Embrace requires the subject's blood to be drained and be replaced with some of the sire's vitae. How does that work without it turning into diablerie? I read this on the White Wolf wiki: You have to deliberately keep feeding after someone's empty to diabolize someone, it's not something you can do by accident and it's not something that starts instantly. TheMcD posted:I guess we can still call this the second question - what's the backup for the absolute worst case scenario, where LaCroix throws all logic to the wind? Somehow involving the sheriff in this complicated scheme? Seems a bit heavy to me. Let's say Xelram knows LaCroix well enough to confidantly predict him. Either by reputation or they've actually met before, or Xelram has just had him investigated. LaCroix is a very good politician, a dirty coward and above all else looking out for himself first. He's to afraid of danger to deal with with the Anarchs when he's safe in his tower behind twenty stories of security. He isn't going to start a fight when they're actually in the same room as him. Especially since he's a good enough politician to relize that he can score points of of them by making them like reactionary idiots and improve his own reputation at the same time. TheMcD posted:Of course, that leads to the question of what happened when Melissa sides with the Kuei-jin or something similar. Instructions got messed up? The system was looser than I previously hypothesized and the freedom Melissa got led her off the track? I guess that's the problem when you try and apply theories like that to an RPG - the player freedom often fucks with theories that claim the player character is being controlled from behind the scenes by somebody that isn't the player. LaCroix is also a massive wildcard in this scenario - we know he's smart, he has to be in order to have made it as prince, but at the same time, he's pretty stupid when it somehow involves to his power being in question. Pickled Tink posted:Cainites really couldn't care less about who others were when they were mortal.
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Jan 24, 2015 07:35
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Stroth posted:Well, if you want a proper mindscrew, how about this? Being an eighth generation might explain your bloodpool, but it absolutely does not explain hitting five points in your disciplines in under a month. Your power curve is drat near vertical when compare to other vampires. So how do you explain that? 
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Jan 24, 2015 16:20
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Stroth posted:Most don't. Some do. And when you've got people like Smiling Jack and Beckett running around in the background then you don't leave any lose ends. Besides, it's the little details that sell something like this. The fact that you think no one would bother with that level of detail is exactly why you should when doing a plan like this. Because if no one would bother setting it up and it happens anyway then that's proof that it wasn't a setup at all. Even still, wouldn't that be better served by dummying up a paper trail and making a random blood bound lackey the 'witness' as it were? Still unnecessary to bring in random mortals. Sloppy, too.
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Jan 24, 2015 16:28
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The rapid power gain thing is only a problem until you think about just how much poo poo Melissa went through so far. Most vampires don't see this much action or this many problems solved by their own words and hands in a hundred years, if ever, let alone two or three months. I think this is another thing that's touched on in one of the books, kinda like how in the late 90s/early 2000s they figured out the blood point in-universe.
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Jan 24, 2015 16:45
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Zephro posted:The Cabbie is your sire This is the theory I subscribe to. Or at least he's influencing your capabilities. He can totally do that.
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Jan 24, 2015 17:47
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placid saviour posted:This is the theory I subscribe to. Or at least he's influencing your capabilities. He can totally do that. On the other hand, he is taking an interest in you. That makes no sense in itself, for the same reasons as above (not like he needs anyone's help, right?). But he's doing it anyway. Maybe he's just bored and in it for the lulz. Do we need to spoiler Cabbiechat, by the way?
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Jan 24, 2015 19:55
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Zephro posted:Why bother messing around with a catspaw when he can literally do anything? A common WoD question with common WoD answers: for fun, because he can, because he's playing another game within the game, for longer-term plans, or because that's what the plot demands.
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Jan 24, 2015 19:59
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Zephro posted:I've wondered it too. It would make sense in a lot of ways. But why would he bother? If the Cabbie really is who he's hinted to be he could just telepathically convince LaCroix that it's an excellent idea to dress up in a bikini and go sunbathing on Santa Monica beach and be done with it. Why bother messing around with a catspaw when he can literally do anything? That's the WoD equivalent of A Wizard Did It.
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Jan 24, 2015 20:37
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Zephro posted:Do we need to spoiler Cabbiechat, by the way? Considering we have seen everything of the cabbie which we are going to see, I don't expect so.
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Jan 24, 2015 21:45
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Bobbin Threadbare posted:Considering we have seen everything of the cabbie which we are going to see, I don't expect so. We haven't seen the special chat yet. I would err on the side of caution. TheMcD posted:Yeah, that'll come in the post-postgame, when the question of "who is the cabbie" is discussed. It's probably best to bring it up there. Yup
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Jan 25, 2015 00:22
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Bobbin Threadbare posted:Considering we have seen everything of the cabbie which we are going to see, I don't expect so. We definitely have not
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Jan 25, 2015 00:24
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Stroth posted:Most don't. Some do. And when you've got people like Smiling Jack and Beckett running around in the background then you don't leave any lose ends. Besides, it's the little details that sell something like this. The fact that you think no one would bother with that level of detail is exactly why you should when doing a plan like this. Because if no one would bother setting it up and it happens anyway then that's proof that it wasn't a setup at all. Introducing a mortal to interact with someone, if it is not, in fact, genuine, introduces a major point of failure to the plan, especially given the myriad ways vampires have of extracting information from people. Tossing a "mortal acquaintance" in when you have set up someone to have powerful enemies is like asking those enemies to take said mortal and rip all the information out of them they can and there's not really much you can do to stop them finding out that the person is a fake. Also, no way is an experienced 8th gen going to comply with that kind of a plan given there's gently caress all reward and a massive chance of being destroyed. Furthermore, they generally have the skills, willpower, and support required to prevent an elder from abusing them in such a fashion. There's a reason subtle manipulation is preferred. 8th gens are the highest gen typically considered "elders", and the odds of an elder that experienced having a humanity of 7 at the start of the game are abysmally low unless they are trying for Golconda (In which case they wouldn't get involved in this kind of poo poo).
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Jan 25, 2015 05:24
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Zeroisanumber posted:Any ST who lets a player run around with level 9 Temporis deserves it. Any ST who lets a player run around with level 9 anything deserves it.
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Jan 25, 2015 16:10
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apostateCourier posted:...kinda like how in the late 90s/early 2000s they figured out the blood point in-universe. Wait, what?
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Jan 25, 2015 17:56
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LoonShia posted:Wait, what? It's in Time of Thin Blood. Maxius and Dr. Netchurch are evaluating vampires and quantifying the results. quote:My own research confirms Maxius’ results. All vampires of the same generation have the same potential for exertion, measured in what Maxius calls “Vitae Efficacy Units” (VEUs). The lower a vampire’s generation, the more VEUs it contains — even though by fluid volume, they contain roughly the same quantity of Blood. One can determine a vampire’s generation just by measuring the mass of vitae lost in the course of a day’s sleep, or in healing a calibrated wound.
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Jan 25, 2015 18:01
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So it kind of comes down to... blood density, then. Metaphorically speaking.
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Jan 25, 2015 19:59
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JT Jag posted:So it kind of comes down to... blood density, then. Metaphorically speaking. More like a number of midichlorians in your blood
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Jan 25, 2015 20:02
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Granted, Netchurch was a Malkavian, so he probably wasn't seeing things the way everyone else would in the setting.
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Jan 25, 2015 21:53
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Pussy Cartel posted:Granted, Netchurch was a Malkavian, so he probably wasn't seeing things the way everyone else would in the setting. Maxias is a Tremere getting the same results though.
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Jan 25, 2015 23:19
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