|
What makes the Batman comparison really apt is that moment in The Dark Knight when Batman's holding a mobster by the throat and doing the growly voice and everything and the mobster's just rolling his eyes, because come on, man. We've all caught on that you're full of poo poo by now.
|
#
¿
Apr 21, 2015 00:06
|
|
|
|
| # ¿ May 9, 2024 05:27 |
|
|
All this stuff is front and center in 1st edition. You're wardens of the boundary between flesh and spirit, but twisted hybrid mutants by the standards of either side, so wherever you go and whatever you do you have to deal with either being incredibly dangerous to your surroundings or in great danger from your surroundings. 2E's changed, like, nothing in the way of lore and setting (which I'm glad for).
|
|
#
¿
Apr 21, 2015 06:10
|
|
|
I really have no idea what you're talking about at all. The 1E corebook didn't present werewolves as pointlessly antagonistic and doomed to infinite hellfailure or whatever. If anything, the premise that the Pure outnumbered the Forsaken probably made the Tribes too cohesive. The game in general was about getting small victories to snowball, taking care of and improving your own little territory and eventually growing it, etc. It seriously sounds like you're mixing up the couple-paragraph blurbs describing the Pure tribes with the rest of the text in the corebook - that's the only place I remember humans as nothing but breeding stock, new werewolves as convert-or-die fodder, etc.
|
|
#
¿
Apr 21, 2015 06:55
|
|
|
A badass and perhaps epic death*
|
|
#
¿
Apr 21, 2015 18:53
|
|
|
I think we found Beast's target audience!
|
|
#
¿
Apr 21, 2015 20:12
|
|
|
Omnicrom posted:Honestly this was why I never really jumped aboard the God Machine train, I liked that there wasn't a lot in the way of truly codified setting stuff. It seems like it's the Dark Mother stuff that's trying to slip itself behind all the preexisting material and become a codified creation myth. The God Machine doesn't explain anything, but when you say that all the world's monsters are part of an extended family with roots in astral space you're saying quite a bit.
|
|
#
¿
Apr 22, 2015 05:38
|
|
|
paradoxGentleman posted:The image of a Beast trying to befriend with puppy-like enthusiasm all the other supernatural critters by pointing out how they are all related, only to be met with a mixture of disinterest and disdain, is reason enough to use this splat IMHO. The weird cloying ingratiation that seems native to Beasts both in character and metatextually is really off-putting, frankly. Like, prior to there being even any hints of Beast, I was happy to entertain the idea of primordial mothers of monsters, an expanded portfolio for the Crone, the reflection of monsters as concepts in astral space since monsters and humanity are so intertwined, etc... but not if it comes with a bunch of genre-savvy metamonsters who really get off on people being scared but aren't otherwise actually monstrous. But they keep like, leering at actual, grounded monsters and making encouraging gestures and are all "no go on, I just want to watch".
|
|
#
¿
Apr 22, 2015 15:04
|
|
|
Primal monsters have nothing to do with exploration or randomly meddling with other, realer monsters. There's literally other text in the book describing the actual solving of mysteries as "rude". poo poo, explore the _____ could describe the goals of anyone (sin-eaters explore the dark corners of the underworld where they feel more at home anyway!). And, wait. Exploring somewhere you feel more at home? You know what that actually translates to? "Beasts look for plot hooks." That's it. They try to find something interesting to do because lord knows they've got a shortfall. Ferrinus fucked around with this message at 23:56 on Apr 22, 2015 |
|
#
¿
Apr 22, 2015 22:33
|
|
|
GimpInBlack posted:As far as All Your Teeth Are Falling Out, the High Satiety effect is pretty nasty in a fistfight, yeah, but it doesn't do anything to weapon damage ratings, so it's not exactly insurmountable. Satiety Expenditure can be pretty nasty if you go into a one-on-one fight full and you're willing to come out starving, for sure, but you're also facing diminishing returns with each activation. That's the one where your natural weaponry goes to poo poo, right? Sorry, but whispering "you should've been spending XP on weaponry and carrying a chainsaw around" into a Gangrel or werewolf's ear doesn't really justify something like that. Hey, guys, archetypical monster and monster-enabler here, kin to all the creatures that haunt the dark! Yeah I can make a werewolf's claws and fangs stop working. It just seems appropriate, you know? Also, who cares if it costs mana? Most powers do. EDIT: Oh, wait, that's not what it does at all. It actually fucks weapon users up just as much as brawlers. My god, this thing is a beating! But does it defeat healing to full every turn or taking only one damage from every attack or whatever the hell else? Who would ever want to actually play a game in which they find out? Ferrinus fucked around with this message at 18:04 on Apr 23, 2015 |
|
#
¿
Apr 23, 2015 17:58
|
|
|
Of course Satiety's mana. It doesn't matter that weapon ratings apply on top of your rolled successes - that's true for both combatants. The thing is, after the power gets used (assuming extra Satiety DIDN'T get spent - if it did, the other guy can just plain give up, because come on) the Beast is dealing successes + weapon damage while the victim is dealing 1 + weapon damage. The more powerful you are, the more attack dice you're rolling and the more your actual rolled successes are contributing to combat (especially because you're benefitting from -again rules or whatever) except, oops, now they're not. Sure, there are powers which work by adding autodamage rather than by adding or improving dice, but that's only a portion of what makes a supercombatant work. In a system like this one that lets you specialize and specialize and specialize some more, you can't afford to just lose half your poo poo.
|
|
#
¿
Apr 23, 2015 18:39
|
|
|
paradoxGentleman posted:It really isn't though. You spend Satiety to activate or amp up your powers and then find ways to regain it. It's mana. "This costs mana" is not a good excuse for something to be overpoweringly strong; everyone has stuff that costs mana, and everyone has ways to regain mana. Atavisms make having low mana even less of a problem than it is on most characters! Oh, no, you spent all this satiety and now you have to TP someone's house to get it back? That's rough, buddy. I, myself, don't have a phone, and it causes me no end of woe.
|
|
#
¿
Apr 23, 2015 19:12
|
|
|
Here's what makes the least sense about the Beast Seeming writeup:quote:A Beast can, of her own free will, enter into a Contract or Pledge or other more intimate acts of binding, but it chuffs her more than the average Lost. Shouldn't Beasts dislike bindings? It just doesn't make sense.
|
|
#
¿
Apr 23, 2015 19:26
|
|
|
Rand Brittain posted:They may have meant "chafed" instead of "chuffed." I'm really chuffed that you didn't get my joke.
|
|
#
¿
Apr 23, 2015 19:33
|
|
|
The overarching theme of Beasts was a particular sort of dehumanization, same with all the other Seemings. The big difference here is that each Seeming is going to be a survival strategy you adopted rather than a scar the Durance inflicted on you. "Humanity has failed her, failed her when she was the most in need, and so she rejected it" is a weird sentence to see in Changeling.
|
|
#
¿
Apr 23, 2015 19:42
|
|
|
Right, or "restraint" or "civility" or similar. The idea's going to take me a bit to get used to over all, honestly, because I feel like there's more pathos in your antlers or your glass carapace or whatever being things your Keeper forced upon you rather than material manifestations of yourself-actualization. As-described Beasts seem to be, broadly, werewolf stories - you're stuck in a suffocating and restrictive place so you wolf out, and now you're an actual fangs-and-fur wolfman. Which is cool... but it's a little less tragic and a little more, well, done already.
|
|
#
¿
Apr 23, 2015 19:53
|
|
|
paradoxGentleman posted:Your antlera and whatnot are not going anywhere, and they are still something that the Keeper forced on you, it's just that they are represented by your kith instead of yoyr Seeming. So your "Seeming" describes your innermost nature and the source of your willpower rather than how you seem. I mean, that's not really fair of me. I suppose that in terms of external, available-to-everybody visuals you get a mix of both, so if as my Durance I was just one of the menhirs marking the borders of my Keeper's dominion, and then I became a Beast and escaped, I'd look like a big ox or tiger or whatever that's been carved roughly out of stone, or at least a golem suffused with unnerving vitality and that's got a wild look in its eyes. This feels a bit like Court territory, though... I'd expect that the thing currently called your "Seeming" is what should be determining your mantle and maybe your favored means of reaping glamour more so than your appearance.
|
|
#
¿
Apr 23, 2015 20:15
|
|
|
Frankly, it's the Thyrsus more than anyone who could get away with being an embarrassing orgy cult in the first place. You can tell because their 1E writeup made them out to be, like, ardent environmentalists who think cities are corrupting influences.
|
|
#
¿
Apr 23, 2015 20:39
|
|
|
When your glasses-wearing sidekick does something really cute
|
|
#
¿
Apr 24, 2015 07:52
|
|
|
Geist 2E should let you play as Geists rather than as Sin-Eaters.
|
|
#
¿
Apr 24, 2015 11:01
|
|
|
Gerund posted:Since 2E seems to be going for a more fluid, wishy-washy expression of their Integrity-analogs, they should make that a part of its thematic expression. That's basically how I'd do it - "mute wisp of vapor" would be a Geist's equivalent of Vampire's "snarling draugr", except it's a bit easier/faster to fall down and to bounce back.
|
|
#
¿
Apr 24, 2015 16:13
|
|
|
Please don't insult me by suggesting that I care about the feelings my posts inspire in others.
Ferrinus fucked around with this message at 17:59 on Apr 24, 2015 |
|
#
¿
Apr 24, 2015 17:57
|
|
|
Last Saturday...?
|
|
#
¿
Apr 25, 2015 04:40
|
|
|
Someone mentioned those before, yeah. Do they have Prereq: Beast or are they just general additions to the game?
|
|
#
¿
Apr 25, 2015 06:07
|
|
|
But if we can't buy feats that let us take a penalty to accuracy for a proportionate bonus to damage the game just won't feel like D&D. Wait-
|
|
#
¿
Apr 25, 2015 16:46
|
|
|
I knew it in my heart. But if Beast actually has multiple upgrades and extensions for the nearly 100% worthless "lose 3 dice, gain one damage" fighting style merit from the 2E corebook I'll be overjoyed.
|
|
#
¿
Apr 25, 2015 20:54
|
|
|
Emy posted:So what is that, lose an expected 0.9 successes to gain 1.0 damage? Who thought that was worth merit points, or even character sheet space? Because of 10-again, you actually lose an expected 1.0 successes. Unless something's making your pool qualitatively worse on a die-for-die basis (you've lost 10-again, say, or are the victim of All Your Teeth Are Falling Out) it's just straight up a trade-down due to the fact that you gain no average damage but slightly increase your miss chance. But, hey, the more weird dice tricks or roll-independent attack filters we get, the more it's retroactively justified.
|
|
#
¿
Apr 26, 2015 01:56
|
|
|
I notice that "anymore" is the last word of your post, even though all the terror and psychological violence was part and parcel of Nightmare 1E and all that 2E adds is the goofy 20% real gnome illusionist stuff. Oh but it has to be a creepy wall or a creepy man. This is like that time David Hill said that now elders had to be smart while revealing rules that made elder vampires way more powerful and scary during the daytime than they ever were in 1E.
|
|
#
¿
Apr 26, 2015 14:39
|
|
|
Doodmons posted:Hey man, if you don't think being able to invisibly follow people around and make them hallucinate an unescapable horror movie isn't cool as gently caress, I don't know what to tell you. Upon rereading old Nightmare, however, it's a lot better than I remember so I'll grant you that "anymore". I still think the hallucinations are an excellent addition to the power set and not goofy at all. You could already do that. The provlem here is that whoever designed the power just misunderstood A Hunger Like Fire, thinking that Nosreratu characters were willfully crafting and loosing illusion spells rather than striking fear and letting it manifest however it may. So, like, if 2E Scratch knows I'm arachnophobic, he wills me to imagine a giant spider. But what if his intel is bad? What if I love spiders? Does he win the contested roll but watch me roll my eyes or pump my fist at what he thought would be a spooktacular frightmare? Or do I flee in terror regardless because the discipline makes the spider-illusion scary regardless of its actual subject matter? My guess is option number two, but then what's the drat illusion for? Nightmare should strike fear, and hallucinations should be one of many ways that fear might manifest in a victim. Creating custom hallucinations should not be a first-order Nightmare effect. Maybe some combination of Obfuscate and Dominate could produce "everyone suddenly sees a full-grown tiger enter the cafeteria!" Nightmare should produce "Everyone fears to remain in the cafeteria" and let their own dumb brains decide why. Now, structurally, 2E Nightmare makes some obvious and long-needed improvements, like making Dread a free, entry-level power and allowing for some finesse and specific behavior alteration at the intermediate level. But the mechanism's all wrong, and the actual decisions made in the course of using the power (what false thing shall I make her believe (as long as it's scary)? what false thing will I cause everyone to see (as long as it's scary)?) turn Nosferatu into hucksters rather than haunts. Put another way, you might have noticed that Majesty doesn't make people confuse you for specific celebrities, and Dominate doesn't fool people into thinking you're the President. They just work. Ferrinus fucked around with this message at 16:57 on Apr 26, 2015 |
|
#
¿
Apr 26, 2015 16:55
|
|
|
Doodmons posted:That's completely fair and to be honest, I'm surprised Nightmare doesn't have a power that finds out someone's worst fears. Hell, even a Nightmare/Auspex Devotion that enhances Nightmare 1 to passively tell you what everyone who's affected by it fears. At the moment the only way to do that is use Nightmare 2 and get an exceptional success so you know what, exactly, the victim thinks they're running from. Even that might not necessarily give you a specific worst trigger. I'd make it work through ex nihilo terror and make hallucinations an occasional side effect that isn't under the vampire's direct control or important to the actual working of the power. You'd probably be able to produce paranoid delusionss (i.e. the subject just can't shake the feeling that there's something lurking in those shadows or that everybody is out to get them, such that they're compelled to avoid certain places, people, or behaviors) but not conjure customized holograms. Ferrinus fucked around with this message at 20:17 on Apr 26, 2015 |
|
#
¿
Apr 26, 2015 19:28
|
|
|
Changelings... just got epic.
|
|
#
¿
Apr 29, 2015 03:54
|
|
|
Seriously though the combat kiths presented there are pretty much just par for the course w/r/t 2E combat systems - "has a weapon" or "has armor" are nothing to write home about. That's approximately in line with the noncombat kiths, who also basically get traits that you could've gotten anyway if you'd bought the right Merits. Of course, there are multiple quotes that seem to depict Changelings threatening their own Keepers with physical violence, so maybe there'll be a bevy of fuckawesome combative Contracts to even the score.
|
|
#
¿
Apr 29, 2015 04:34
|
|
|
The draconic damage downgrade is worse than armor, and costs to turn into normal armor. The chimera magic tolerance is considerably better - in terms of uniqueness and applicability it's probably the strongest trait on offer in that entire document - but all it really does is even the odds against dicepools that'd otherwise be way bigger than whatever you're rolling to contest, and it's also 100% useless against powers which are resisted rather than contested.
|
|
#
¿
Apr 29, 2015 05:25
|
|
|
My hope is that 2E mages are genuinely weak and fragile.Esser-Z posted:Nah, Vampires just suck. Yeah, in 2E it's just vampires who have no real access to agg to speak of while every other splat can throw it around out of the gate. I can't imagine the people writing Vampire 2E knew about werewolf bites, demon guns, etc, as they were actually finalizing stuff, so I just chalk this up to general lack of oversight/consistency.
|
|
#
¿
Apr 29, 2015 20:33
|
|
|
Esser-Z posted:Why would you ever use an attack spell instead of OOPS THAT CAR'S TIRE BLEW AND IT SLAMMED INTO YOU or whatever? IMO, Mage surives on creativity, not blasting. That's an attack spell.
|
|
#
¿
Apr 29, 2015 20:36
|
|
|
Luminous Obscurity posted:I asked in the comments, but just so everyone here is fully aware. That's the problem with Shielding. It's either the fiddliest and most combat-specific poo poo ever or an end-run around the fraying/unraveling/unmaking progression.
|
|
#
¿
Apr 29, 2015 21:18
|
|
|
Throwing fire at someone shouldn't be Unraveling Forces, it should be Weaving (scooping up and weaponizing fire), Patterning (turning some sound or light or whatever to fire, then maybe Weaving it at someone), or Making (hey, presto: some fire!). Possibly I should be saying Ruling rather than Making because I'm not quite sure of the difference in 2E, but it shouldn't be Unraveling. Practices should be something you do TO, not WITH, the Arcanum.
|
|
#
¿
Apr 29, 2015 22:25
|
|
|
I think it's generally a good idea to assume that magic works relative to the planet earth in most circumstances, such that someone whose personal gravity gets suspended just starts floating around aimlessly unless they can grab onto something.
|
|
#
¿
Apr 29, 2015 23:30
|
|
|
Ha-ha, then it's an attack spell but not a direct attack spell! Ferrinus wins again. Seriously, though... how severe is the crash? How much roof falls in? How much current do you draw? How hot is the air? How bad is the luck? Several of those actually sound like exactly the thing that gets dialed up and down based on Imago and/or casting successes rather than ST judgement/consistency with a previously-described environment. The way you put it, "direct attacks" themselves are incredibly niche and might not need to exist at all, instead simply calling for things like "heart attack", "creeping necrosis", and "dissolving into sky-blue pixels" to be added to some list of example weaponizable hazards.
|
|
#
¿
Apr 30, 2015 08:34
|
|
|
Gerund posted:It seems to me that the writers are terrified of telling players that no matter how Clever a mage is with their magic, the exarchs declare that in the Fallen World disciples of an arcana do a single bashing per potency in a single combat round with a spell. Well, nothing works like that any more. A sword doesn't deal one lethal per success... it deals three (plus successes). A chainsaw deals five, a knife deals one, and so on. It seems like this should be extensible to eighteen-wheelers and heart attacks, even when the hazard is one you, the caster, can customize (that's when you just set the bonus rather than asking your ST or a book for one). It seems like some kind of ironclad 3 = bashing, 4 = lethal rule has no place here, though, except as a rough guideline.
|
|
#
¿
Apr 30, 2015 20:00
|
|
|
|
| # ¿ May 9, 2024 05:27 |
|
|
jagadaishio posted:My main hope is that you are pummeled by an endless barrage of Magic Missiles until you recant. Higher Arcana make you more context-free than low Arcana. You don't need to find fire if you can turn any energy you have at hand into fire, and you don't even need to find energy if you can create fire from nothing. The advantage of using environmental effects is that they exist in the scene for you to make use of whether or not you're a century-old obsessive who's replaced every pursuit they once had in their lives with the study of the Arcana. Ball of Abysmal Flame should be rarer and more technically demanding than Gas Main Eruption; making it also outright weaker would just be stupid. Wishing someone to death should be more powerful than shooting them with a gun for the same reason that wishing yourself to Paris should be more powerful than buying a plane ticket - assuming you're that good at making wishes.
|
|
#
¿
Apr 30, 2015 20:53
|
|