The Gaming Den

Er... don't aWoD vampires just have their superpowers lock down in sunlight? So, yeah, they're no stronger than normal guys and thus vulnerable when they're flying on a plane... but it's not like they'll explode or anything.

IIRC, sunlight is not insta-death for anything. It just reduces powers somewhat in a vaguely defined manner.

True, I forgot we weren't going with flammable vampires. But even the worst WoD rules for fire damage for vampires still allowed them to basically drive around with tinted windows at worst.

Whoops, I missed that.

The nWoD rules are so nasty that vampires who go anywhere need to have themselves shipped in a box (Faint, Filtered Sunlight with just a small part of the body exposed causes 1 Agg box per turn). But the aWoD vampire can just take a plane or a train. They become vulnerable but they don't catch on fire.

Which brings us to the other weaknesses. I could plausibly have 3 or 6. And all of them should be plannable and avoidable like sunlight is. Getting wet is actually a possibility (I'm looking at you Witches), as long as it's actually getting wet as opposed to merely being near water or drinking. There is something viscerally satisfying about throwing a bucket of water on a Baali and then beating them up with a mop.

-Username17

How vulnerable are we talking here? As zerus mentions, it's vaguely defined as "renders powers weak".

I would think that being unable to access/spend PP makes a good way to implement weakness. Exposing a Vampire to sunlight renders them incapable of regenerating or moving faster than the eye can see, but they don't become ravenously hungry because they haven't eaten in a century. Equally, I don't have a problem with Vampires continuing to be unKOable even in Sunlight.

The inability to spend PP is a good start. We might also be able to have our cake and eat it vis a vis flammable vampires by having your effective Potency drop to zero, and have creatures with a Potency greater than 5 (or whatever) take actual damage.

-Username17

FrankTrollman wrote:There is something viscerally satisfying about throwing a bucket of water on a Baali and then beating them up with a mop.

Thats rather more portable than sunlight though. That gives the advantage to the attacker. Vampires would be able to attack without their disadvantage in play and force opponents to suffer their disadvantage. Assuming disadvantages mean anything thats a pretty big bulge in the pants.

DA wrote:Thats rather more portable than sunlight though. That gives the advantage to the attacker. Vampires would be able to attack without their disadvantage in play and force opponents to suffer their disadvantage. Assuming disadvantages mean anything thats a pretty big bulge in the pants.

I don't see how this could be true. Light moves at, well, the speed of light. So it's easy enough to blow down a wall and fill an entire battlefield instantly with sunlight. Throwing water balloons just isn't nearly the same thing.

Frankly, it's difficult for me to think of anything that is as restrictive as sunlight.

-Username17

So we need 3-6 weaknesses per monster? I'm not sure on what the mechanical drawbacks of each weakness are, but I can certainly list some. I am assuming that you need Potency of at least 1 to use powers, if I understand section 1.1.3: Special Attributes properly.

Vampires

1. Sunlight: The sun is a symbol of life, growth, and the giving thereof; naturally, the cursed creatures of the night cannot abide it. Vampires exposed to direct sunlight quickly lose their powers, and lose one dot of Potency for every minute they are in it, to a maximum of 0 potency. They regain Potency at the same rate when removed from sunlight.
2. Garlic: Vampires cannot stand the presence of garlic, and will not willingly approach it. Vampires cannot pass through a door warded for garlic, nor can they touch a person warded with garlic. While they can do so if forced, they must make a Threshold X A+B test to do so.
3. Dead Men's Blood: Vampires feed on the blood of the living, and, more importantly, on the blood as the life force of the living. Consuming blood taken from a corpse, though, is like consuming the essence of the dead, and will swiftly bring a vampire to its knees. [Mechanics]

That sound good as a start?

So we need 3-6 weaknesses per monster?

Not really, no. What we need are:

• A way to temporarily strip the powers of every supernatural creature down to manageable size.
• A minor annoyance/giveaway for each type and subtype.

Vampires are all over this shiznit. We got little batwings on the Dark Stalkers vampires and hideous malformities on the Nosferatu. And of course, they got the sunlight thing tied up.

Witches may be on to something too. The Baali get creeped out by their reflections and the wicked witch's magic doesn't go off after Dorothy douses her. That seems to be a workable paradigm.

Things can of course be reused. We don't necessarily need 6 different weakening limitations. We could use the Larry Talbot Werewolf instead of the Underworld Lycans and strip their shapeshifting off in sunlight. But obviously getting wet can't be a big problem for Leviathan because hey... Deep Ones (although I could make a pretty convincing case for getting wet to be a bad thing for Golems and Androids, if you get my meaning).

But at the minimum, it calls for a weakening deal for Leviathan and Transhumans.

-Username17

Animals are Scared around Transhumans; as they are unnatural.

Plants get browned around Leviathans; as they are from places where plants do not live, and are themselves part of the reason why that fact is true.

Troglodytes have Sunlight (eyes)

Mi Go have Salt (dry out insects)... or fire

Deep Ones have ..... heat? warm places, being out at midday in the central latitudes, and for the most of the daytime in equatorial regions; and going to The Dark Reflection is literally a hassel).

Actually, why not give them Fire, Light or heat? And they can defend themselves by doing things that could give them away or break the masquerade. Meaning that they can't run around in daylight that easily.

Honestly, cielingcat, I feel that exposure to any weakness should have standard mechanics instead of opening up room for particular monsters to have less restrictive vulnerabilities. I further feel that we should standardise the kinds of vulnerabilities they can have.

I think it's best to go for 1 environmental weakness, 1 weapon weakness and 1 taboo. These provide, respectively, places to hide, ways for mortals to take the offensive, and identifying trait/crazy trick to play on them.

Vampires should have Sunlight for their Environmental weakness. That is beyond debate. We have Garlic, Silver, and Wood as potential Weapon weaknesses. For taboos, we can choose from Drinking of the dead, Moving through running water, and Overruling OCD (or possibly "Leaving the unknown"). Frank probably wants to inject more Native American folklore for the Daeva to counteract the Western notions of Vampirism.

I don't know what kind of Environmental things screw with Lycanthropes, but they probably need Silver as a Weapon weakness for Werewolves.


As for Weakness mechanics: ending Protean disciplines prematurely seems thematically appropriate.

The easiest possible solution I suppose would b to call it two power-draining weaknesses: Sunlight and Wetness.

Sunlight Prevents Power Use by:
Vampires
Lycanthropes
Leviathans

Getting Wet Prevents Power Use by:
Witches
Prometheans
Transhumans

---

Fire I don't think works as much more than a specific subtype psychological weakness. I could see Frankensteins getting all freaky about fire from a psychological perspective. But Fire immunity is handed out like candy, so no one could have it as a physical weakness and have that not be an exploit waiting to happen.

Similarly, Reflections make a decent psychological problem, but the fact that they are portable and travel at the speed of light makes them way too powerful to allow as any kind of personal weakness. Anyone with Reflections as a physical weakness would be boned, because monster hunters could reliably nail them anywhere on segment zero of every battle just by coming in with mirrored shields like Perseus.

-Username17

I have no objections to keeping Water and Sunlight as the PC-type weaknesses.

That said, who cares about fire immunity? We're talking a power suppression weakness. So maybe Frankenstein knows walk of flame, and thus is immune to fire. He still can use his Potence or Necromancy while he's ON FIRE. Sounds reasonable to me.

Also: Maybe Reflections only works if it's a reflection of your face? As in, you can block it by wearing a mask?

Orion, as Dracula II: Ascension taught us, having easily-obviated weaknesses is the same as having no weaknesses at all. If you can laugh off fire with something that honestly gets handed out like loose change, or can ignore reflections by wearing an all-too-easy-to-get mask, then why have that weakness in the first place? All you're really doing is basically adding racial/class features.

Making demonologists freak out when they see their own reflections is a bit of a problem, because they need to use mirrors all the time in their magic. On the other hand, having their reflections show the pull of the Dark Reflection would pose no problem for the working of magic and still create a reason for them to avoid mirrors in day-to-day life.

Now, if it's a masquerade-breaking thing rather than just a 'tell', that's a pretty horrific weakness--unless it's only their actual flesh, and they can use dark robes or big hats to avoid giving the game away.

I was dubious about the reflections thing and threw it out there mostly for speculation purposes.

But I'm willing to stand by my opinion that Fire is a perfectly legitimate weakness. Yes, basic Walk of Flame means you don't take fire damage ever. But Sunlight and Water already don't do damage. Tossing a golem in an oven to depower it seems perfectly reasonable to me, even if it's still alive when somebody fishes it out. Game mechanically, dousing a frankenstein in fire works just like dousing a witch in water.

so I'm planning to run a session this weekend of a game in which the players get trapped in a creepy hotel and slowly get vamped, fallen, or lycaned up.

What's a reasonable number of starting stats, skills, and backgrounds?

While there isn't technically a problem with Fire as a depowering (rather than injuring) weakness, it still seems problematic for someone with Walk of Flame to have, given that some of their powers will set everything around them on fire. It would be like a Vampire having sunlight-creating powers.

Orion wrote:so I'm planning to run a session this weekend of a game in which the players get trapped in a creepy hotel and slowly get vamped, fallen, or lycaned up.

What's a reasonable number of starting stats, skills, and backgrounds?

FrankTrollman wrote:Characters for an Origin Story
Don't be silly, there's no such thing as vampires.

In an Origin Story, the characters are, or at least believe themselves to be mortal humans. As such, the player creates their character as if they were a mortal human Luminary. Generally over the course of the story, the player characters will be embraced by vampires, mauled by werewolves, or even discover that their memories of growing up in Indiana are digital imprints and they've been a robot the entire time. But becoming cursed with magic powers or discovering that they have had them all along is something that doesn't happen until after character generation. This makes characters who are substantially better than normal humans and makes sure that they have a diverse set of competencies. They are the Protagonists, after all.

• Attributes:
  All of a character's attributes start at 1. The player then prioritizes their Physical, Mental, and Social attributes, distributing 1 point to one pair, 3 points to another pair and 5 points to the last pair. Then they get 2 additional points that they can place anywhere they want. An individual attribute cannot be higher than 6 on character creation.
  Luminaries begin the game with an Edge of 3.
  
  Active Skills
  A character's Active Skills start at zero. The player then prioritizes their Physical, Social, and Technical skills, distributing 11 points to one set, 16 points to the third set, and 21 points to the last set. Then they get 6 points they can place anywhere they want. An individual skill cannot be higher than 6 on character creation.
  
  Backgrounds
  A character starts with 27 points of Backgrounds. No Background can start higher than rating 6.
  
  Resources
  The player chooses one 3-point Resource, one 2-point Resource, and one 1-point Resource. At the Storyteller's discretion, a player may be able to buy more Resources with Obligations. Mortal humans are not normally able to take Destiny or Secrets.
  
  Motivations
  Human characters do not normally have Master Passions. However, they still do have Driving Passions and Ethical Taboos. So the player should define some for their character. The player should really think about what their character wants, and what their character is willing to do to get what they want.

So I realize your mechanic for handing out Elder disciplines is "plot device," but how would you maintain intra-party balance in a game which used them? Would each power source just have to give the whole party "an elder discipline of choice"?

It would seem cooler and more like you weren't just getting XP if elder disciplines came from thematically appropriate power sources, but then the party balance goes to hell.

EDIT: also, is there a skill list? Are the named skills in the advancement deck the only skills?

EDIT: Found the PDF

FrankTrollman wrote:The easiest possible solution I suppose would b to call it two power-draining weaknesses: Sunlight and Wetness.

Sunlight Prevents Power Use by:
Vampires
Lycanthropes
Leviathans

Getting Wet Prevents Power Use by:
Witches
Prometheans
Transhumans

There is a serious problem if Frankenstein's Monster is unable to go out in the rain. Plus, rain is mostly unforeseeable (unless you have CtS), whereas sunlight is pretty damn predictable, and thus easier to work around.

I think that you are overestimating the value of sunlight as a dampener. Honestly, just about everything interesting that an aWoD character might want to do can (and probably ought to) be done at night anyways.

What is the current situation of all the proposed sets of weaknesses?

How do the "getting wet" rules mesh with Verbena or Androids who want to advance their Chasing the Storm?