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Yeah, but what that list doesn't add up to is the ability to casually trivialize similarly-leveled vampires... unless you do the kind of endless buff-stacking that that evoked "well no one actually plays like that anyway" responses (completely honest ones, mind you - most people don't, I suspect) when this issue first started getting brought up in these threads a year or three ago. The mage supremacy meme has almost completely eclipsed the mage supremacy fact. I can't stand it.
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Jun 9, 2015 00:08
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"Browsing all forms of electronic media with their minds" is just a replacement for having a cheap e-reader and a minor non-combat effort. And a significant number of the things you mention are under the same Effect = Damage scale as every other action in the game.
Gerund fucked around with this message at 00:16 on Jun 9, 2015 |
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Jun 9, 2015 00:09
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I mean if you have Forces 5, sunlight is a bit of a novelty. Just levitate something huge and drop it on the dumb bastard when he's sleeping. Half the fun of Forces is being able to go the full Looney Toons on somebody.
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Jun 9, 2015 00:11
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Okay, what are the rules for a heavy thing falling on someone? If someone's in a building, and that building begins to collapse for completely mundane reasons - someone set a bomb or something - how does the Storyteller adjudicate it? Is it by saying "40L, make a new character"? EDIT: IIRC there might literally be rules for a heavy thing landing on someone, its Size and Durability become dice or points of damage somehow - but falling on someone? Like, you see it coming and can conceivably dodge? Ferrinus fucked around with this message at 00:16 on Jun 9, 2015 |
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Jun 9, 2015 00:13
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I would also note that "able to kill a sleeping person" is not, perhaps, the highest benchmark of cosmic power
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Jun 9, 2015 00:15
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Ironslave posted:Yeah, been a bit. That's still a hell of a power to have in any situation against Vampires. Not to mention by that point you're also immune to fire and electricity, can create fire, can cause storms, can cause lightning strikes, turn all forms of energy into other forms, fly, run super fast, shield themselves, see in other spectrums, browse all forms of electronic information with their minds- Its super flexible! But the thing with a lot of damaging abilities is most of the time you're still rolling unmodified forces + gnosis. You still need to contend with armor or defense. (that you're only dealing with one is the biggest plus, imo) And you do your successes in damage, the type of which is gated by arcana dots. Then you've got to check if reality tried to unmake itself because it did that because forces is vulgar as gently caress. And depending on the target, you've also got to check to see if the spell even works at all. Its been my continued disappointment that in offensive terms, Forces is mostly flash and very little oomph when going by the rules as written.
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Jun 9, 2015 00:15
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Crion posted:I would also note that "able to kill a sleeping person" is not, perhaps, the highest benchmark of cosmic power Sounds like something a hero would say!
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Jun 9, 2015 00:15
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Ferrinus posted:Yeah, but what that list doesn't add up to is the ability to casually trivialize similarly-leveled vampires... unless you do the kind of endless buff-stacking that that evoked "well no one actually plays like that anyway" responses (completely honest ones, mind you - most people don't, I suspect) when this issue first started getting brought up in these threads a year or three ago. No one plays like that anyway unless they've played a game long enough. And as far as trivilizing similarly-leveled vampires, typically they can't do these things from the other side of the planet (not sure when you'd be THAT far away, just an example of the absurdity of it) by dipping into Space 2. And if we're talking about similarly-leveled, where this comparison breaks down the most is where they start climbing above 5 in their power stat. Gerund posted:"Browsing all forms of electronic media with their minds" is just a replacement for having a cheap e-reader and a minor non-combat effort. And a significant number of the things you mention are under the same Effect = Damage Having the full access of the world's biggest information bank on-tap isn't exactly minor depending on the situation. Moreso if you have two dots in Mind and can divide your focus to perform a number of searches at once.
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Jun 9, 2015 00:19
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Der Waffle Mous posted:Its super flexible! Yeah there is a reason most of this behavior appears in the abuse of the Matter arcanum, mainly through weedling inexperienced STs into thinking that turning someone into base elements, or turning the ceiling into acid which falls on them, somehow isn't an attack that requires a roll
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Jun 9, 2015 00:19
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This sort of "turn the air in their lungs into acid" wankery is why I wish there was a writer brave enough to include: NO MATTER HOW 'CLEVER' YOU ARE WITH SPELLS YOU CAN ONLY DO SUCCESS WORTH OF DAMAGE as the first sentence of the first paragraph of the spellcasting section. Spend the rest of the paragraph explaining that the Exarchs hate you and its the reason mages hate the Exarchs.
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Jun 9, 2015 00:19
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Ironslave posted:Yeah, been a bit. That's still a hell of a power to have in any situation against Vampires. Not to mention by that point you're also immune to fire and electricity, can create fire, can cause storms, can cause lightning strikes, turn all forms of energy into other forms, fly, run super fast, shield themselves, see in other spectrums, browse all forms of electronic information with their minds- It's probably worth noting Changelings can make sunlight, as an actual attack, at contract... like... three? Four? of summer. Changelings represent. Ferrinus posted:Yeah, but what that list doesn't add up to is the ability to casually trivialize similarly-leveled vampires... unless you do the kind of endless buff-stacking that that evoked "well no one actually plays like that anyway" responses (completely honest ones, mind you - most people don't, I suspect) when this issue first started getting brought up in these threads a year or three ago. I don't know; 5 dot disciplines are good, but even the good ones are singular effects. Mages are amazingly versatile. You can solve a hell of a lot more problems with Mind or Life 5 than you can with Dominate 5 or Protean 5.
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Jun 9, 2015 00:19
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Ironslave posted:No one plays like that anyway unless they've played a game long enough. And as far as trivilizing similarly-leveled vampires, typically they can't do these things from the other side of the planet (not sure when you'd be THAT far away, just an example of the absurdity of it) by dipping into Space 2. Yes, they can. They can pick up a phone. spectralent posted:I don't know; 5 dot disciplines are good, but even the good ones are singular effects. Mages are amazingly versatile. You can solve a hell of a lot more problems with Mind or Life 5 than you can with Dominate 5 or Protean 5. Oh, no doubt. But what they can't do is straightforwardly trump or overpower other supernatural creatures. They're veeeeerrrry flexible and veeerrrry informed - and should be - but a mage's ability to fight a coterie of vampires to a standstill does not live in "having mastered an Arcanum" but in "ritual casting and things which shouldn't stack but do."
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Jun 9, 2015 00:20
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See, discussion like this makes me want to check out Mage even less.
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Jun 9, 2015 00:21
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The only time I really ever encountered 'mage supremacy' as a thing in the NWOD was on a MUSH, which is sort of a degenerate example to begin with, but they rolled with all the sidebar optional rules to make ritual casting even better than it already was, so of course it went terribly, with dozens of people with maxed out stats and multiple actions lasting for a month at a time.
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Jun 9, 2015 00:22
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Ironslave posted:No one plays like that anyway unless they've played a game long enough. And as far as trivilizing similarly-leveled vampires, typically they can't do these things from the other side of the planet (not sure when you'd be THAT far away, just an example of the absurdity of it) by dipping into Space 2. Space 2 magic is a flat -6 to your roll unless you know the target's True Name, no matter how hard you cast the rest of the sympathy-affecting spells in the game. My second personal mage suggestion would be to eliminate the sympathy-affecting spells, by the by. Also "isn't exactly minor depending on the situation" is not exactly a grand pronouncement in a game where Chief Wolftail turns into a 9ft ball of ragefur.
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Jun 9, 2015 00:22
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spectralent posted:I don't know; 5 dot disciplines are good, but even the good ones are singular effects. Mages are amazingly versatile. You can solve a hell of a lot more problems with Mind or Life 5 than you can with Dominate 5 or Protean 5. This pretty much sums up what I've been saying in less words and with less Batman vs. Superman crap. Gerund posted:Also "isn't exactly minor depending on the situation" is not exactly a grand pronouncement in a game where Chief Wolftail turns into a 9ft ball of ragefur. You seem to have conflated "not balanced against other splats" with "can beat every single splat in a straight-up fight."
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Jun 9, 2015 00:23
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Cabbit posted:Sounds like something a hero would say! Given what Beasts do to people, it is the exact opposite of what they'd say.
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Jun 9, 2015 00:26
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Axelgear posted:Given what Beasts do to people, it is the exact opposite of what they'd say. Beasts are scumbags who would kill people in their sleep to satiate their hungers. A hero would say "that is a lovely thing to do". Unless one of us has drastically misinterpreted the other.
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Jun 9, 2015 00:29
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Ferrinus posted:Yes, they can. They can pick up a phone. I think I get some of the disconnect now, and you're right in terms of a sort of power-level way. The place where I think Mages are "unbalanced" (and you might not consider this a point of unbalance, it's a subjective thing; I think I understand some of what you were saying earlier better now) is that they're very versatile and, if you compare, as we have been, a Vampire and a Mage, the Mage built for social won't straight-up outclass the vampire at that to the point there's no point the vampire bothering in that niche. They might be a little worse. But, for a similar investment, the Mage has a tool which can potentially work on any manner of things; a Vampire just has, say, the power which makes people do what they say, while a mage has a power that makes people do what they say, but also the ability to implant memories into people's heads, the ability to see auras, the ability to generate mental illusions, probably the ability to do damage, yadda yadda. The Vampire, with his investment, is in a position where something outside their area is a stonewall to them; the mage just has to improvise a little. That, I think, is what people get at when they say ""Mage supremacy", rather than that they're capable of hosing other people in straight-up fights (which they're broadly not outside degenerate use). EDIT: Though in fairness, "Improvising" would be my one-word summary of why Mage is fun. My five word summary would be "What could possibly go wrong?".
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Jun 9, 2015 00:31
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Space 2 is very much able to enable certain levels of bullshit via teleporting objects (needs another Arcana depending on the object) such as listening devices or explosives into areas that may not be quite accessible. Matter 2 to transmute something like water to petroleum or tar when touching the volume or Matter 3 at range Death spells have odd interactions with Vampires iirc, but I may be wrong there. Edit: Again, every dot added to a dsicipline for a Vampire is one extra trick or improvement on a trick compared to a Mage where each Arcana dot expands their flexibility and breadth of ability greatly. Given a particular task and for a Vampire or Mage of a certain amount of XP, the Mage is likely to have an easier go at it compared to the Vampire 9 times out of 10. Xelkelvos fucked around with this message at 00:47 on Jun 9, 2015 |
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Jun 9, 2015 00:40
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I was going for the "zenith of cosmic power" thing. I may have misread. I am tired.
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Jun 9, 2015 00:41
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Ironslave posted:You seem to have conflated "not balanced against other splats" with "can beat every single splat in a straight-up fight." Yeah okay, mister instantly disintegrate vampires. A mage's ability to make people do what they say is a lot worse than the vampire's. It has a shorter duration or needs to be sustained or needs traits sacrificed on the mage's part to last even decently long or whatever. If you're a master of Mind and can literally abduct someone and perform a psychic reformation ritual over their unconscious body you could maybe replicate the kind of easy and total control Dominate/Majesty and the Vinculum could afford, but, frankly, even the newly-reconfigured psyche of your prospective slave might grow and change with time, as minds do, while upkeep of the Vinculum is easy. EDIT: Sorry, got the wrong quote. Ferrinus fucked around with this message at 00:48 on Jun 9, 2015 |
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Jun 9, 2015 00:45
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Ferrinus posted:A mage's ability to make people do what they say is a lot worse than the vampire's. It has a shorter duration or needs to be sustained or needs traits sacrificed on the mage's part to last even decently long or whatever. If you're a master of Mind and can literally abduct someone and perform a psychic reformation ritual over their unconscious body you could maybe replicate the kind of easy and total control Dominate/Majesty and the Vinculum could afford, but, frankly, even the newly-reconfigured psyche of your prospective slave might grow and change with time, as minds do, while upkeep of the Vinculum is easy. So you're just going to ignore what I initially pointed out and what spectralent has expanded on in favor of hanging on a line about how some splats are better at doing a specific thing while Mages can be good at doing dozens. Ironslave posted:If your sole criteria for what "balanced" is in nWoD 1E is "they both have targets and they both roll stats to be used" without taking into account things like scale, ease of access, general usability, splat weaknesses/strength, scope of a given power, the evolution of a character sheet, effect vs. time invested, and so on, you're doing a pretty poo poo job of arguing on what balance is. EDIT: edited in light of above edit to not be a worthless post Ironslave fucked around with this message at 00:55 on Jun 9, 2015 |
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Jun 9, 2015 00:47
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paradoxGentleman posted:See, discussion like this makes me want to check out Mage even less. Here's how you can tell Mage is written with the idea of balance in mind, at least in theory, while Beast's are 100% the MMcF "whatever man just feel the heart of the dice" poo poo: If Mage's mechanics were written like Beast it would make the Arcana read more like Geist Keys mixed with Scion's stat-scale write-ups. But it isn't, because it at least pretends that you don't need to explicitly state Unlimited Numbers to convey unlimited potential.
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Jun 9, 2015 00:47
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Chernobyl Peace Prize posted:Thank god you're here Soonmot, people almost went a page on-topic about Mage without someone's pissy whinging Geist has a slightly lower flexibility in their abilities in how they scale compared to Mage, but they're more potent. Contrast to other splats, their scaling is a lot faster with equal potency.
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Jun 9, 2015 00:49
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Xelkelvos posted:Geist has a slightly lower flexibility in their abilities in how they scale compared to Mage, but they're more potent. Contrast to other splats, their scaling is a lot faster with equal potency. I think Geists were the closest we came to a splat which could ignore ten guys with bats who hate them, yeah. Mages have (potentially) a lot more tools for avoiding that situation in the first place, but they're not going to win.
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Jun 9, 2015 00:53
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Okay, I'm ironslave's ST and I'm as frustrated by thr Mage uber alles attitude as anyone but...Ferrinus posted:shorter duration Mages determine the duration; up to a month or so. They also control when it expires. Not a huge issue. Ferrinus posted:abduct someone Space 2. If you're a Mind master, getting a piece of hair won't be difficult. Ferrinus posted:easy and total control Dominate/Majesty and the Vinculum could afford, Easy? Maybe. Total? Not so much. Dominate turns people into obedient robots, Majesty into loyal slaves, Vincilum into obsessive fans. Thing is, you can't turn these off. Vinculum in particular is basically cautionarytale.txt. Ferrinus posted:the newly-reconfigured psyche of your prospective slave might grow and change with time, as minds do, while upkeep of the Vinculum is easy. HEY, DRINK THIS MUG OF BLOOD. DRINK IT. DRINK FOR MOMMY. But really, Mages with Mind can get the obedience of Dominate, the love of Majesty, the addiction of Vinculum. They may or may not have the relative power but the point is that they can at least approach all three, and more, for the same investment that gets a Vamp one. I hate Mage uber alles too but I can't stand looking over facts.
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Jun 9, 2015 01:01
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I think there is a little bit of linear/quadratic coming into play because 1 dot powers are probably more useful than the broad but anaemic potential a dot of arcana (arcanum? It's been ages) offers. But by 2 or 3 you're in pretty major and broad effects and, if you were in a mixed party, at least, I think around 3 dots of a primary arcanum and 2 of one or two others is when other PCs are likely to start feeling a bit sidelined by how many of their special powers can be replicated or rendered unnecessary with magic.
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Jun 9, 2015 01:08
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Axelgear posted:Mages determine the duration; up to a month or so. They also control when it expires. Not a huge issue. Yeah, up to a month on a single spell that gives a single command, if you're willing to take -10 dice to its pool or whatever. "Telepathic Domination" is more convenient than plain old Dominate because it doesn't require eye contact; it is otherwise flimsier and less reliable. quote:Space 2. If you're a Mind master, getting a piece of hair won't be difficult. Space 2 doesn't abduct people and you can't cast a Mind 5 ritual spell at sympathetic range without being an archmage. quote:But really, Mages with Mind can get the obedience of Dominate, the love of Majesty, the addiction of Vinculum. They may or may not have the relative power but the point is that they can at least approach all three, and more, for the same investment that gets a Vamp one. They can't, though. Look at the actual listed spells. Compare "Telepathic Domination" to like, Dominate 2. Compare Breach the Vault of Memory to Dominate 3. Using Mind magic to create lasting, dependable servants is like writing on water.
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Jun 9, 2015 01:09
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Were this any other day, I'd be yelling at you idiots to stop having the same argument for the millionth time, but at this point I'd take oWoD canon waifu discussions over Beast rumination, so let me throw my hat in the ring by saying that it always amuses me that Paradox is such a nonissue that it never ever comes up in these wankfests.
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Jun 9, 2015 01:12
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The range of things Awakened magic can do is such that I have to ask why I, in a cross-splat game with a stereotypical werewolf and vampire, would focus on combat or social interaction when I can be creating golems, interrogating ghosts, perfecting bonsai planets, etc., doing things that nobody else can really do, assuming that there's no need for an additional skull-cracker or party animal.
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Jun 9, 2015 01:16
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Hey, man, I'm on your side. Though this is 1e Mind, the wankiest of thw magical spunk buckets, so, no, it probably wouldn't. If you want a new topic, we could always discuss the weirdest ideas people have for Supernal entities and see how long it takes to get to fetishes, Hitler, or fetishHitler.
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Jun 9, 2015 01:17
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Gerund posted:This sort of "turn the air in their lungs into acid" wankery is why I wish there was a writer brave enough to include: Honestly I think it's a silly thing not to do, really. The people who cry about "but muh creativity  " aren't people I'd want to be around at all, let alone play with.
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Jun 9, 2015 01:26
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Effectronica posted:The range of things Awakened magic can do is such that I have to ask why I, in a cross-splat game with a stereotypical werewolf and vampire, would focus on combat or social interaction when I can be creating golems, interrogating ghosts, perfecting bonsai planets, etc., doing things that nobody else can really do, assuming that there's no need for an additional skull-cracker or party animal. So true. Changeling is rad (did I mention changeling?) because it's got so many different things weaving together; mage is great because it's got just that one spark of curiosity that means you've got a billion activities to do with it. Actually, if we just pre-emptively stick Beast at the bottom, how would you guys rate nWoD splats, in terms of mono-splat enjoyment/interest/fun/whatever your heuristic for "good game" is?
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Jun 9, 2015 01:30
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spectralent posted:So true. Changeling is rad (did I mention changeling?) because it's got so many different things weaving together; mage is great because it's got just that one spark of curiosity that means you've got a billion activities to do with it. Changeling/Promethean/Demon Vampire/Mage/Werewolf/Hunter Mummy/Minor Splats Geist Beast
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Jun 9, 2015 01:32
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I'm definitely tempted to try that now, if only because it immensely streamlined things. It's not hard to justify, either. Yes, you can turn the ground beneath them to sodium hydroxide, but its molarity is dependent on your spell's potency. Yes, you can turn air to chlorine, but how concentrated is it? Yes, you can make a swarm of wasps, but how aggressive are they? How nasty is their poison? Etc. I'll run it by my players, see what they think.
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Jun 9, 2015 01:34
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spectralent posted:So true. Changeling is rad (did I mention changeling?) because it's got so many different things weaving together; mage is great because it's got just that one spark of curiosity that means you've got a billion activities to do with it. Mage and Changeling tied at the top. Vampire a close second. I'd put Hunter a close third just from what I've read. The rest I don't really have interest in, though I suppose I should check out Geist and Demon. Promethean gets an honorary award for execution not meeting its lofty and fun concept.
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Jun 9, 2015 01:36
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If I had to rank the WoD games by, like, how much I personally want to play them in general, it'd go something like Mage/Vampire/Werewolf/Demon/Promethean/Changeling/Mummy, but a lot of that comes down to personal aesthetic taste and knee-jerk opinions on what is or isn't "cool". Everything I put in that list is, I think, really solid in terms of playability, setting coherence, etc.
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Jun 9, 2015 01:42
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Mage and Changeling tie for first. I've never gotten to play anything else, but Vamp and Hunter and Woofwoof tie for second in terms of pure reading. I think my love for Mage and Changeling comes in the way they each catch the sublime; the beauty felt in gazing at a distant mountain or out a window at a rainy city night; in capturing the magic in the mundane and making the world we live in something beautiful through contrast. I think those games lose all lustre to me when they lose sight of that. The mundane merging with the magical is where their wonder begins. e: Okay, so maybe I just described the entire World of Darkness, but shut up, there's other reasons. Axelgear fucked around with this message at 01:46 on Jun 9, 2015 |
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Jun 9, 2015 01:42
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Yawgmoth posted:I did this for my mage game that used the piecemeal rules of 2e from the blog posts and it worked amazingly because suddenly my players weren't googling for immediately fatal poisons and reactive materials to skirt the damage rules, it was just "your Matter spell turns some of his shirt into NaOH for [potency] lethal" or "your Life spell makes a swarm of tarantula hawks that sting him for X bashing and give him a -[factor] penalty to actions because 4/4 Schmidt pain scale."
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Jun 9, 2015 01:44
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