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No, but even in a disorganized state they make a better plot-hook/monkey-wrench, no? You could do an entire chronicle about a Wayward suddenly setting up shop in a city.
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Nov 7, 2018 00:09
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MonsieurChoc posted:No, but even in a disorganized state they make a better plot-hook/monkey-wrench, no? I tend to think so too, but I can see them working as essentially different genres of hunters, either of which you might want to use depending on whether you're emphasizing more of a big brother paranoia or the idea that the supernatural hunters are being hunted in turn by something with mysterious powers. In terms of avoiding setting issues though, imbued are probably more practical. Of the many things V5 seems to be nostalgic for from 90s WW, not having a great grasp of how state institutions work or what they can bring to bear seems to be one of them.
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Nov 7, 2018 02:54
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Couldn’t you just do some writing so whatever “fiat powers” hunters have don’t gently caress the setting
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Nov 7, 2018 03:17
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long-rear end nips Diane posted:Couldn’t you just do some writing so whatever “fiat powers” hunters have don’t gently caress the setting Short answer no. They aren't built to take attacks really, they are built to keep the attacks from ever happening. Generally what happens when a group of hostile people keep you from responding is you die. There's not a lot of wiggle room there, you'd have to fundamentally redesign everything about Hunters to stop them from having "I chump you and you do nothing" powers. You could remove things like the power that lets a flat out opposed Willpower roll strip supernatural templates [Although why would you, it's hilarious], but you can't do a lot about the bread and butter Hunter moves that restrain monsters. And save or die powers are exactly as save or die against an Antediluvian as they are against a ghoul. A crazy end game Hunter [You know, one that's been hunting for like 5 months] can easily throw 25 dice at a roll even an Ante would be lucky to throw 20 at. And there aren't a lot of beings of that power wandering around. Most cities are lucky if their leader is a few centuries old and seriously dedicated to staying alive. A guy like that is potentially throwing the same few dice from his Stamina roll as a rando from the street. So as always you have two types of Hunters: Ones that don't know what they are doing and how their powers work, who probably die, and the ones that do know what they are doing and how their powers work......and you have to be really lucky to survive an attack by the second group.
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Nov 7, 2018 05:48
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Mulva posted:Short answer no. They aren't built to take attacks really, they are built to keep the attacks from ever happening. Generally what happens when a group of hostile people keep you from responding is you die. There's not a lot of wiggle room there, you'd have to fundamentally redesign everything about Hunters to stop them from having "I chump you and you do nothing" powers. You could remove things like the power that lets a flat out opposed Willpower roll strip supernatural templates [Although why would you, it's hilarious], but you can't do a lot about the bread and butter Hunter moves that restrain monsters. And save or die powers are exactly as save or die against an Antediluvian as they are against a ghoul. A crazy end game Hunter [You know, one that's been hunting for like 5 months] can easily throw 25 dice at a roll even an Ante would be lucky to throw 20 at. And there aren't a lot of beings of that power wandering around. Most cities are lucky if their leader is a few centuries old and seriously dedicated to staying alive. A guy like that is potentially throwing the same few dice from his Stamina roll as a rando from the street. That's all assuming you're dealing with Reckoning hunters and not say....the guys from something like "The Hunters Hunted"
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Nov 7, 2018 07:05
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joylessdivision posted:That's all assuming you're dealing with Reckoning hunters and not say....the guys from something like "The Hunters Hunted" The start of this tangent was specifically about the Imbued from Reckoning, yes. Not that I really have a dog in a fight over what happens in nuWolf's special Swedish sandbox, but a more relevant objection would be: Mulva posted:you'd have to fundamentally redesign everything about Hunters to stop them from having "I chump you and you do nothing" powers. I don't know why you would assume step one for the Imbued in a fifth edition, whether they were being used in this role or not, wouldn't be "fundamentally redesign them from the ground up."
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Nov 7, 2018 08:11
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I Am Just a Box posted:I don't know why you would assume step one for the Imbued in a fifth edition, whether they were being used in this role or not, wouldn't be "fundamentally redesign them from the ground up." Because they lack the desire to reinvent things so totally. Even their destruction of V5 seems more accidental, not considering what the Second Inquisition would really mean. Vampires weren't suddenly a type of ferret or anything, it's the same basic idea and names. If they were going to look at Hunter again, I'd imagine they wouldn't try to reinvent the Creed wheel. So Martyrs, Innocents, Judges, Defenders, that sort of thing. Ok, well, what do you give a Redeemer to survive conflict? It should probably be different than an Avenger or a Visionary. It should definitely be *something* though, because Hunters hunt. They all get in there and deal with the supernatural problem in some way. They all need something to survive it going wrong. And they all need it drat near immediately, because it's the first thing they are going to do by definition. Imbued are imbued in the middle of a crisis. It better be like their first power for someone. So can you think of 9 ways to deal with a V5 vampire without making at least one of them tricky bullshit? With the assumption that "Do nothing" and/or "Walk away" preclude you from being a Hunter. You do *something* or you are a Bystander. I can't. You have to design something that can meaningfully defeat all the other overpowered assholes in the WoD, and that basically means they are going to cheat a lot.
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Nov 7, 2018 10:20
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Mulva posted:Short answer no. They aren't built to take attacks really, they are built to keep the attacks from ever happening. Generally what happens when a group of hostile people keep you from responding is you die. There's not a lot of wiggle room there, you'd have to fundamentally redesign everything about Hunters to stop them from having "I chump you and you do nothing" powers. You could remove things like the power that lets a flat out opposed Willpower roll strip supernatural templates [Although why would you, it's hilarious], but you can't do a lot about the bread and butter Hunter moves that restrain monsters. And save or die powers are exactly as save or die against an Antediluvian as they are against a ghoul. A crazy end game Hunter [You know, one that's been hunting for like 5 months] can easily throw 25 dice at a roll even an Ante would be lucky to throw 20 at. And there aren't a lot of beings of that power wandering around. Most cities are lucky if their leader is a few centuries old and seriously dedicated to staying alive. A guy like that is potentially throwing the same few dice from his Stamina roll as a rando from the street. I don't remember Imbued being that powerful. Mostly they could resist some supernatural powers by spending Conviction. Which is less powerful than Demons being straight-up immune to them.
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Nov 7, 2018 15:14
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MonsieurChoc posted:I don't remember Imbued being that powerful. Mostly they could resist some supernatural powers by spending Conviction. Yeah, while having some neat tricks Hunters are really weak. If a Vampire knows they are coming and thinks to buy a gun he has solid odds.
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Nov 7, 2018 15:20
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As stated before, the Imbued are not that durable or even that powerful. It's one of the big tonal differences between the art and association of them with the video games to their actual stats. Their powers also sound impressive at first glance but in actuality they aren't really due to how mechanics work in OWoD. They're mortal and their powers aren't automatic and although a group can take down a lone vampire or werewolf, if they're lucky, they're pretty screwed if they took on a Sabbat or werewolf pack. There was a big emphasis on the Risen and random monsters, as opposed to supernaturals meant to be PC's, because Reckoning games would be unfun and a constant parade of getting wrecked by more powerful character types. Edit: Even if a vampire can't use disciplines, I think they also can't use blood, they don't breath and take bashing from firearms. RocknRollaAyatollah fucked around with this message at 15:36 on Nov 7, 2018 |
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Nov 7, 2018 15:29
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Yeah, the thing with the Imbued was they were supposed to work together and going against even a young vampire was supposed to be a major team effort, hampered by each Hunter probably had a different view on what to do with the precious little neonate when they captured it. Do they cycle through every movie way to kill them? "I've had the hose on it for five minutes and nothing!" Cure it? "Now we need to sneak it into the hospital and give it a complete blood transfusion!" Throw it in a confessional and have a priest talk to it? And by this time the vampire's probably escaped or, worse yet, had a frenzy.
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Nov 7, 2018 15:52
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My understanding was always that the Imbued were pretty resistant to mind powers and would probably be a serious threat to somebody who relied on Mind magic or Dominate/Obfuscate/Presence, but were laughably helpless against any kind of threat that actually had a superhuman capacity for violence.
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Nov 7, 2018 16:11
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Unless they're Wayward. Then everyone should run because there's a great chance they have a dead man's switch and a suicide vest studded with silver nails and white phosphorous vials on.
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Nov 7, 2018 16:15
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Rand Brittain posted:My understanding was always that the Imbued were pretty resistant to mind powers and would probably be a serious threat to somebody who relied on Mind magic or Dominate/Obfuscate/Presence, but were laughably helpless against any kind of threat that actually had a superhuman capacity for violence. Anything with the ability to take multiple actions, go first and carry an assault rifle would gently caress the average Imbued unless they're very high up on their power scale.
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Nov 7, 2018 16:15
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IIRC those limitations were "by design" setting wise too. The backstory was that an earlier age's imbued (implied to be exalted when they were doing those connections) had much fewer limitations, and eventually hosed everything up via hubris/power madness/whatever. So v2.0 was built with some major inhibitors to keep them manageable. Though also IIRC, the later books in the line suggested that imbued really pushing the limits of their power (at the consequence cost to their sanity/humanity) were starting to bypass those limitations and develop frightening degrees of power. I remember wishing we got some more exploration of that before the lines ended.
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Nov 7, 2018 16:36
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Desiden posted:IIRC those limitations were "by design" setting wise too. The backstory was that an earlier age's imbued (implied to be exalted when they were doing those connections) had much fewer limitations, and eventually hosed everything up via hubris/power madness/whatever. So v2.0 was built with some major inhibitors to keep them manageable. The earlier version of the Imbued were the Wan Xian, the pre-curse Wan Kuei (Kindred of the East). The Wan Kuei "Kaja" script is even compared to the Hunter Code at some point.
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Nov 7, 2018 16:38
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The base concept of Hunter: The Reckoning was a really strong horror premise. The whole 'you can no longer deny what things are like and are forced to look on the world in its awfulness, what do you do because of it?' is a great idea for a horror game, and astonishingly relevant in 2018. Shame about almost everything else about it.
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Nov 7, 2018 16:38
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I always think of a throwaway line (in I think Gilded Cage?) about some Prince or another that actually managed to get a Hunter mind-controlled in some fashion. Which worked out great up until the Prince tried to turn the Hunter on to a rival, the Hunter picked up a candlestick, paused a moment when Conviction kicked in, and then proceeded to try to kill off both the Prince and their rival. That and the endless dick-waving contests on New Bremen.
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Nov 7, 2018 17:02
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Night10194 posted:Anything with the ability to take multiple actions, go first and carry an assault rifle would gently caress the average Imbued unless they're very high up on their power scale. The thing that makes them hard to talk about is they have a non-traditional power scale. Like the difference between Virtue 3 and 10 for a Hunter could be one exceptionally bad week. They level as fast as they want to. Like obviously that's true for any game, but it's true in game for Hunters. Hunt, get better at hunting, hunt more, get better again, continue. And once they do get high up that power scale things change a bit. And they have....specific strengths and weaknesses, which is why it's always "Get a gun" or "shoot them". Conventional ranged attacks are one of the things they are weakest to, hilariously enough. If they run into some combat monster with claws that is used to making people into small slices of gore even a new group has a much better chance of surviving compared to someone with half the dice that just, you know, tries to shoot them. It doesn't matter if you have 15 attacks a turn if you can't move to gut someone. Once you start getting to 6 and 10 Virtue though you start getting to the range of "Nobody uses magic juice" and "The TN for everything against all of us is 10" to "We need to escape, I will throw this van off their head" or "Oh no, it's 20 werewolves. Well guess I'll make myself completely immune to health level loss for awhile and force all of them to attack me while my team whittles them down". And yeah, that last one totally dies after his power ends and he takes all those accumulated health levels of damage....but boy howdy would they lose a bunch of werewolves too. If you actually make a raving lunatic that has the 5 dot powers you start getting into the really crazy poo poo, like the template removal and the strange world [For Hunters] of attacks that are competent against groups.
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Nov 7, 2018 17:39
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I'm starting to think maybe we shouldn't let game rules determine the overall story direction
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Nov 7, 2018 17:43
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You also physically couldn't get 5 dot powers without GM fiat, by design, because White Wolf was garbage at making actual game mechanics.
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Nov 7, 2018 17:50
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Waywards aren't dangerous because of their powers, much as it is fun to turn on everyone's Second Sight at once.
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Nov 7, 2018 18:24
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Loomer posted:Unless they're Wayward. Then everyone should run because there's a great chance they have a dead man's switch and a suicide vest studded with silver nails and white phosphorous vials on. One of the most ominous lines from the Time of Judgement news ticker was Wayward 'God45' saying "The sun is gone, but I have a light." God45 himself was an interesting cat. When he first showed up, he was vaguely written as the typical WW Christian fundie mental patient but then you get to the actual Wayward book and he is very much not that. The book itself might be one of the best reasons to justify the Black Dog line as a whole.
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Nov 7, 2018 18:25
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So hey I'm playing Bloodlines for the first time and I just have a question: Did anyone fall for this Therese/Jeanette thing when the game came out? Because it's kind of obvious.
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Nov 7, 2018 18:25
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Dawgstar posted:One of the most ominous lines from the Time of Judgement news ticker was Wayward 'God45' saying "The sun is gone, but I have a light." Please expand on this, because "The sun is gone, but I have a light" is an amazing line even in a vacuum.
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Nov 7, 2018 18:35
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Joe Slowboat posted:Please expand on this, because "The sun is gone, but I have a light" is an amazing line even in a vacuum. A lot of that stuff was purposefully vague, and nobody ever outright stated what God45 meant as I can recall. The popular theory at the time was he'd managed to get his hands on a suitcase nuke or something. I really ought ot go back over the ToJ ticker. There was some fun stuff.
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Nov 7, 2018 18:41
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Most the ticker stuff is just short blurbs or statements meant to give you a taste of what kind of stuff were in the end times books but are never touched upon in detail. I found this compilation of all of them after a quick Google search. https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/alt.games.whitewolf/ziEIovYp70U
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Nov 7, 2018 20:00
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long-rear end nips Diane posted:I'm starting to think maybe we shouldn't let game rules determine the overall story direction Or you know, not build games that are tantalizing for cross over and then not actually bother to balance anything to work together.
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Nov 7, 2018 21:10
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Night10194 posted:The base concept of Hunter: The Reckoning was a really strong horror premise. The whole 'you can no longer deny what things are like and are forced to look on the world in its awfulness, what do you do because of it?' is a great idea for a horror game, and astonishingly relevant in 2018.
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Nov 7, 2018 21:26
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joylessdivision posted:Or you know, not build games that are tantalizing for cross over and then not actually bother to balance anything to work together. And maybe don't also include an official character that's a giant take that at anyone who's attempted crossover play.
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Nov 7, 2018 21:48
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tem! plate! stack! ing! tem! plate! stack! ing! *bangs table in rhythm* TEM! PLATE! STACK! ING!
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Nov 7, 2018 21:50
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Kurieg posted:And maybe don't also include an official character that's a giant take that at anyone who's attempted crossover play. I have all the books that Mr. Haight appears in and I'm excited to read about that lunacy.
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Nov 7, 2018 22:05
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RocknRollaAyatollah posted:Most the ticker stuff is just short blurbs or statements meant to give you a taste of what kind of stuff were in the end times books but are never touched upon in detail. I found this compilation of all of them after a quick Google search. https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/alt.games.whitewolf/ziEIovYp70U Oooh, very cool. - What's Sleepytown aside from apparently Mage-related? I always liked this one: quote:Friday October 24, 2003 While it comes from Hunter, I always figured it was referencing something Demon-related.
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Nov 7, 2018 22:09
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Dawgstar posted:
It's a Technocratic experimental village where everything is very pure and wholesome and 50s, a la Pleasantville.
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Nov 7, 2018 22:41
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Dawgstar posted:Oooh, very cool. I thought that was a reference to Lucifer revealing himself in LA before being... eaten by an Earthbound i think?
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Nov 7, 2018 22:52
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PantsOptional posted:It's a Technocratic experimental village where everything is very pure and wholesome and 50s, a la Pleasantville. Interesting! Do you recall where it popped up? citybeatnik posted:I thought that was a reference to Lucifer revealing himself in LA before being... eaten by an Earthbound i think? In the not-great LA sourcebook for Demon, Demon was a giant hub of Fallen activity in the Real Olden Days and I do remember something about a citadel located that you could use as a plot hook. I think that's why the Cryptics were in town. One other thing amusing me going over the ToJ stuff is it talks about something being released from Antarctica and that could be like three different things at the least. Big Wyrm thing, Antediluvian or one of the big Earthbound. Fun for the whole family!
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Nov 7, 2018 23:00
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Dawgstar posted:Interesting! Do you recall where it popped up? Considering how Mithras is somehow both a Ventrue Methuselah and an Earthbound's alias it could be all three?
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Nov 7, 2018 23:07
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Dawgstar posted:Interesting! Do you recall where it popped up? Mage Revised Storytellers Guide, I think? The entire point was that they were experimenting with creating an environment where even the idea of magic was a foreign concept.
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Nov 7, 2018 23:08
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Blockhouse posted:So hey I'm playing Bloodlines for the first time and I just have a question: I've seen at least two let's players that totally fell for it. It's not really about falling for it, though, it's about how well they pull it off, in the game (no slip-ups in how "either of them" know things they shouldn't, there actually being two computers, overhearing two-sided conversations, etc). Which was pretty well, in my opinion.
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Nov 7, 2018 23:21
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PantsOptional posted:Mage Revised Storytellers Guide, I think? The entire point was that they were experimenting with creating an environment where even the idea of magic was a foreign concept. From what I remember they come up again in Ascension as the camp administrators, special forces of the final Technocratic clamp down instigated in one of the scenarios.
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Nov 8, 2018 03:52
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