The Gaming Den

Wraith description, second paragraph wrote:If a Wrath loses track of their fetters,

Table in Using Skills wrote:1: Completely Pedestrian. Driving a car,

Other than that comma, driving a car in normal circumstances is now something that requires zero hits.

I'm also not sure the concept of an attribute array is explained anywhere in the text. A couple words about assigning attributes to monsters with nonstandard arrays might be in order. [Note to self: make and post some ready to use statblocks for nonplayable monsters].

There aren't any rules for property damage, even though Devastation makes a reference to destroying objects.

The Curious Tail of Barbara Stanwick

Barbara Stanwick is a sample character, who is played by a sample player who we will call Jenny. Jenny wants to kick ass and take names, but she also wants to identify with her character on a physical basis. To balance these two desires, she chooses to have her alter-ego Barbara be a Werewolf. This allows her to make a character who is a slightly sporty liberal arts type, while still being able to turn into a giant monster and rip a car in half. Fortunately, she is making an In Media Res character and she can totally start already being a Werewolf.

The Backstory: Jenny can write whatever backstory she wants, subject to the story ending with Barbara Stanwick being wherever the chronicle is going to take place and being interested in interacting with the chronicle rather than ignoring it or getting on a plane to Boston or something. So ironically the first thing she finds out is where her backstory has to end up. And after discussing it with the Storyteller, she finds that the initial chronicle is going to take place in the San Francisco area, hunting a rogue Werewolf under the auspices of The World Crime League. That sparks some inspiration with Jenny – and her first question to the Storyteller is if it would be disruptive for her to suspect the main villain Werewolf of being the one that mauled Barbara (making her a Werewolf in the first place). The Storyteller lauds as how that sounds like a great idea (as it personalizes the chronicle for Barbara and also motivates her to participate), and so Jenny begins writing.

Barbara is the daughter of the District Attorney of Santa Clara County. She attends the University of California at Berkeley, where she studies literature. Her father wants this to be a pre-law degree, but she has been strongly considering going into teaching. However, things became simpler and more complicated when she and a couple of acquaintances were attacked and killed by a wild animal after a party in Oakland. She ended up lying in the torn up shreds of a couple of students for several hours, before waking up and making a full recovery. She has since been contacted by Black Hand agents, and has joined that organization as an enforcer from beyond the grave. Also, having been associated with supernatural society for some time, she has presented herself to the local covenants and has citizenship in the World Crime League.

Jenny actually writes a backstory that is several pages long, and includes reasons why and how she knows the other player characters (which she worked out with the other players), but that is neither here nor there.

Magical Transformation: Barbara Stanwick is a Werewolf in an In Media Res game. She gets all of the inherent Disciplines of a Werewolf, and also gets to select 2 Basic Disciplines and an Advanced Discipline of her choice. She then gets one Basic or Advanced Discipline that can be either Universal or taught by the Black Hand. The first place she looks for inspiration is her cult's sorcery, the Lure of Destruction. She likes Glimpse of the Abyss, so she takes it and Touch of Darkness as a pre-requisite. She has one advanced left to pend, and she does that first because it might constrain her basic. She settles on Summons form Presence, which *would* leave her free to go for a basic from any new discipline (earning her another passive bonus), but she finds Awe too good to pass up. Her final list looks like this:

• Feral Whispers (Basic Animalism)
• Beast Form (Basic Animalism)
• Revive the Flesh (Basic Fortitude)
• Vigor (Basic Potence)
• Quickness (Basic Celerity)
• Dread Gaze (Basic Presence) [S/W]
• War Form (Celerity / Potence Devotion)
• The Beckoning (Advanced Animalism) [S/C]
• Touch of Darkness (Basic Lure of Destruction)
• Glimpse of the Abyss (Advanced Lure of Destruction) [S/W]
• Awe (Basic Presence) [W/C]
• Summons (Advanced Presence) [C/C]

Each discipline's activation stats are marked above. Summons requires a high Charisma to be effective, which conveniently also helps with most of her other powers. Dread Gaze and Glimpse the Abyss, however, require either Strength or Willpower. Strength will be high anyway due to magic bonuses, so she knows Strength and Charisma will be her top priorities.

It is worth noting that she gains +2 to Socialization tests (Advanced Presence), +4 to avoid death and healing (Advance Lure of Destruction), +1 Strength (Basic Potence), +2 to Physical Resistance checks (Basic Fortitude), +2 to initiative tests (Basic Celerity), and a +4 to Animal Ken checks that increases to +6 for canines (Advanced Animalism, and she can personally turn into a wolf). Many of these are situational, but the bonus from Potence is just an always on thing, so she makes a note to include it on her line up of attributes.

Attributes: Because Jenny is making a character for an In Media Res game, she can assign 2 points to her least stat category, 4 points to the middle pair, and 5 points to the top selection. However, she also has 3 points she can assign however she likes, so if she wanted, she could bring her “lowest” attribute category to parity with her highest. Because she needs a high Strength and Charisma for her disciplines, she knows that her top priorities will be physical and social; she decides to justify that by emphasizing Barbara's sport and dance background, with a later emphasis on academic development. She has magic bonuses coming to Strength anyway, so she prioritizes highest, physical second, and mental last, giving her

She's able to buy:

Strength	3	Intuition	2	Willpower	3
Agility	3	Logic	2	Charisma	4

Looking it over, she feels she needs a higher Logic to justify her academic background, and more charisma to bring the social power. She spend her bonus points there, and then remembers she has a +1 to Strength from potence. Since she already knows she is creating a werewolf, she also writes down the base Edge, Potency, and Power for a PC monster.

Strength	4	Intuition	2	Willpower	3
Agility	3	Logic	4	Charisma	5
Edge	3	Potency	1	Power	13

You'll note that Jenny has cast her net pretty wide – Barbara doesn't have really high physical attributes for a combat oriented character, or really any super high attributes at all. That's deliberate on her part, and actually OK given her magical abilities, which augment the mediocre physicals into deadly ones and still leave her enough Logic and Charisma to investigate well.

Active Skills: It's very difficult to make a combat monster without the combat skill, but fortunately Jenny has written some combat training with The Black Hand into her character's backstory. She'll get 14 points to one category, 19 to another, and 24 to the third. Then she can distribute 6 points wherever.

Looking at her disciplines, she sees that she'll need Tactics, Empathy, and Athletics to use her powers. She distributes the first 14 points in each category, making sure to get at least 3 points in those skills.

Athletics	3	Animal Ken	1	Artisan	4 (painting)
Combat	3	Bureaucracy	3	Electronics	4 (Software)
Drive	1	Empathy	3	Rigging	-
Larceny	1	Expression	2	Medicine	-
Perception	3	Intimiation	-	Operations	-
Stealth	3	Persuasion	2	Research	6 (Library)
Survival	-	Tactics	3	Sabotage	-

At this point she decides she has all the technical skills she needs, so she gets to distribute 5 more to each of the other groups.

Athletics	3	Animal Ken	1	Artisan	4 (Painting)
Combat	6	Bureaucracy	4	Electronics	4 (Software)
Drive	1	Empathy	4	Rigging	-
Larceny	1	Expression	3	Medicine	-
Perception	4	Intimiation	-	Operations	-
Stealth	4	Persuasion	3	Research	6 (Library)
Survival	-	Tactics	4	Sabotage	-

At this point she looks at her social skills and decides she wants a broader skills base, beyond the ones which she needed for her powers. She makes Social the high priority, getting 5 to spend there, and then 6 bonus points (most of which go to Larceny). Finally, she gets to pick 4 specializations. She uses them to crank dicepools past the cap (putting one on combat 6) but also on skills important to her personality but not her powers. (Specializing expression [dance] is a good way to make a good dancer without taking points from her "money skills" of empathy and tactics).

Athletics	4	Animal Ken	2	Artisan	4 (painting)
Combat	6 (Pencak Silat)	Bureaucracy	4 (Law)	Electronics	4 (Software)
Drive	1	Empathy	5	Rigging	-
Larceny	4	Expression	3 (Dance)	Medicine	-
Perception	4	Intimiation	1	Operations	-
Stealth	4	Persuasion	4 (pedantics)	Research	6 (Library)
Survival	-	Tactics	5	Sabotage	-

All in all, Jenny made a character who could do well as a lawyer or a teacher... or a murderous enforcer. Which is appropriate, because Barbara is still uncertain which direction she'll end up going with her life.

Backgrounds: As a character in an In Media Res story, Barbara Stanwick can have 35 points of Backgrounds. She decides to split them up amongst her interests:

• Classical Literature 4
  Modern Fantasy Books 4
  Student Life 3
  Binge Drinking 3
  Fine Cuisine 4
  Secret History of Supernatural Conflict 5
  California Legal System 4
  American Education System 4
  World Crime League Rules an Etiquette 4

The best criminals are also the best lawyers.

Resources: Jenny can assign one 3 point Resource, two 2 point Resources, an one 1 point Resource. Also, she has to select an Obligation, but gets a Resource for that too. She assigns them as follows:

• Barbara's backstory includes being ending up with a magical mirror that shows whatever is on the other side of a wall it is placed against – like a portable window that isn't transparent on the other side. This requires Jenny to discuss it with the Storyteller, and they agree that this item is a Rating 3 Destiny.
• Barbara Stanwick is still on reasonably good terms with her father, and can get records and information from the Santa Clara County DA's Office. This is a Rating 2 Contact.
• Barbara's parents set her up with a trust fund that is quite substantial. This is a Rating 2 Finances Resource.
• As a student of classical literature, Barbara knows Greek. This is a Rating 1 Languages.
• After being literally pulled out of a pile of bodies where she had been left for dead and then trained in seven deadly Inonesian martial disciplines, Barbara feels obligated to assist The Black Hand in their efforts. This manifests as a Rating 2 Duty.
• Barbara has been allowed into the “Rare Books” archive at UCB – which is a magical library. A Rating 2 Destiny.

Qualities: As a Werewolf, she gets to have Temperamental for free. But Jenny feels that her character's divided loyalties towards her various available lifepaths would be appropriate for the flaw Flake. Having taken an extra Flaw, she can select a Merit as well. She chooses Attractive.

Strength	4	Intuition	2	Willpower	3
Agility	3	Logic	4	Charisma	5
Edge	3	Potency	1	Power	13

Place in the World: Jenny has a pretty good idea of what Barbara is about. She lives in a loft in Berkeley and is a citizen in good standing with the World Crime League. She is also an enforcer for The Black Hand. Lycanthropy is driving a wedge between her and the aspirations she has to become a teacher or a lawyer. But she has some good friends amongst the supernaturals, some of whom are the other player characters in her coterie.

there is, however, something intrinsically hilarious about "dirving a car" as a "pedestrian" task.

Awesome, although I'd divide up the disciplines a bit to keep it from being a wall of text:

Animalism
[*]Feral Whispers (Basic)
[*]Beast Form (Basic)
[*]The Beckoning (Advanced) [Strength / Charisma]
Celerity
[*]Quickness (Basic)
Fortitude
[*]Revive the Flesh (Basic)
Lure of Destruction
[*]Touch of Darkness (Basic)
[*]Glimpse of the Abyss (Advanced) [Strength / Will]
Potence
[*]Vigor (Basic)
Presence
[*]Awe (Basic) [Charisma / Will]
[*]Dread Gaze (Basic) [Strength / Will]
[*]Summons (Advanced) [Charisma]
Devotions
[*]War Form (Celerity / Potence)

Or

Core Disciplines
[*]Feral Whispers (Basic Animalism)
[*]Beast Form (Basic Animalism)
[*]The Beckoning (Advanced Animalism) [S/C]
[*]Quickness (Basic Celerity)
[*]Revive the Flesh (Basic Fortitude)
[*]Dread Gaze (Basic Presence) [S/W]
[*]War Form (Celerity / Potence Devotion)
Additional Disciplines
[*]Touch of Darkness (Basic Lure of Destruction)
[*]Glimpse of the Abyss (Advanced Lure of Destruction) [S/W]
[*]Awe (Basic Presence) [W/C]
[*]Summons (Advanced Presence) [C/C]


Also, why is she a software engineer?

Well, on the character sheets I wrote for my players, the format would be like this:

Inherent Magic (Astral)
Basic Celerity [+2 Initiative]
--Quickenss (3p)
Basic Potence [+1 Strength]
--Vigor (1-4p)
Basic Fortitude [+2 Soak]
--Revive Flesh (xp)
Advanced Presence [+2 to socialize tests]
--Awe n
--Dread gaze n
--Summons n
Devotions
--War Form (3p)
Astral Sorcery
Advanced Animalism [+4 Animal Ken]
--Beast Form (wolf)
--feral whispers
--Beckoning n (3p)
Orphic Sorcery
Advanced Lure of Destruction [+2 death threshold]
--Touch of Darkness
--Glimpse of the Abyss n (1p)

Where "n" is the number of dice the player rolls for a given power, and p is the power point cost.

This time the list of edits includes a large number of questions as well. Each question should probably be answered in the main document, not just in this thread.

Danger

• Actions and Reactions ;; Do you have to declare all your actions and then take all of your actions like in Shadowrun? Or can you just keep taking whatever action and seeing the results until you're out of actions like in DnD?
• Attacking ;; Does the threshold to hit someone in melee include a possible defaulting penalty if the target has no combat? If not, this should be specified.
• Special Attack Actions;; Spray and Pray is really weak man.
• Special Attack Actions;; It seems to me like Disarm should have a bonus if you're not trying to get ahold of the enemy weapon. Alternately, if you equal the threshold then the weapon goes flying and neither of you get it. If you beat the threshold then the weapon can go into your hands.
• Special Attack Actions;; The text for Feint is unclear about if you lose both Agility AND Combat towards your defensive threshold, or if you lose just one and you (or the target) get to pick which one is lost, or something like that. I'd suggest changing it to "...and does not have the benefit of their Agility + Combat for purposes...".
• Moving, Evading, and Escaping ;; Your table here has an extra column for no reason.
• Moving, Evading, and Escaping ;; You don't have rules for becoming exhausted.
• Hide and Seek ;; This... this is confusing and probably needs an "example" paragraph.
• Wounds ;; Once again I'll mention that net damage of 6 has no entry on the chart.
• Wounds ;; "If a character receives medical care or rest, an Incapacitating Wound can be reduced to a Serious Wound.", the healing section later on doesn't seem to mention specific rules for this, just for healing by the box. Is this still a thing?
• Ranged Weapons ;; The "Cannon" is Huge sized. Can it ever be used in one hand? If so, do you need Strength 8+3 instead of 8+2, or what? Also, does this refer to a cannon like on a naval ship?
• Ranged Weapons ;; The flamethrower listing... is that for a gas or liquid flamethrower? I'm guessing liquid based on the range. If it's a gas flamethrower, then yeah ignoring cover makes sense. If it's for a liquid flamethrower, then cover should still provide benefit, even if it's half benefit (0 for basic cover and 1 for heavy cover).
• Ranged Weapons ;; I note that none of the weapons here allow for selective fire. Most common assault rifles can switch to single shot (probably a Simple Action) and then you could perform an Aim action with them (which breaks even after the first Aim, and is a benefit only after you've performed a 2nd, 3rd, or even 4th Aiming; There might also be an ammo conservation benefit during a survival horror segment).
• Bullets ;; So, I take it that reloading your weapon is considered to be a Free Action? For that matter, what action is it to draw a weapon in the first place? You never talk about either of those.
• Special Ammunition ;; You can fill a shotgun to suppress magic. Can you fill a shotgun with iron/ silver/ wood to deal aggro damage?
• Special Ammunition ;; You talk about rubber bullets in the wounds section, but then don't talk about them here. You should fix that.
• Silencer ;; You say that they fall apart, but then you don't give an action to add or remove one from your gun. I'd assume it's a Simple Action, but that should be mentioned.
• Explosions ;; What's up with flashbangs? Why do they do lethal damage while concussion grenades deal normal damage? Also, why don't they have a note about causing Overstimulation?
• Throwing Things ;; It seems like the concept of being pinned under an object should get a bit more attention, otherwise you can't kill people by throwing cars at them (you just pin them, which is entirely less impressive).
• Electrocution ;; You should really give some examples of conductive mesh and resistant coating.
• Poison ;; Can you not heal a poison's damage while you're still taking part of the damage? I ask becuse otherwise Uranium's damage and time period make it almost not even worth putting on the chart.
• Wind and Water ;; Tagline for this section needs a third period in the ellipsis.
• Fog ;; The sentence "Bright lights get scattered in fog and ca produce glare." needs to have an 'n' at the end of the word 'can'.
• Wind ;; A twig embeds itself into a tree at Strength 15, but you don't take a d6 of damage until Strength 16. Seems fishy. Also, seems like there should be a few more words about characters being blown away completely.
• Armor ;; There isn't an entry for Plant Mail. I find this to be a terrible oversight.
• Armor ;; The part about buying hits could be reworded maybe. "a character with an armor rating can buy a number of hits on soak tests equal to their armor rating at the rate of 1 hit per three dice." should maybe be 'up to their armor rating at the rate of 1 per 3 dice'. Also, I'm assuming that, like with normal hit buying, if you have 7 dice, you just get 2 hits, you don't get 2 hits and then roll 1 extra die.
• Healing and Death ;; I'll say again that this healing process is very fiddly for seemingly not much reason. It's not technically wrong though, so oh well.
• Incapacitating and Terminal Wounds ;; If a person is terminal and going to die in 5 minutes, and then they get 1 or more hits on the Final Healing Test... do they get another 5 minutes? Are they now safe out to the normal timeframe? Are they safe out to the normal timeframe +1 stage? You should talk about the final healing test a bit more.

Questions about Frozen Day: What is the threshold for this power? Is the temperature at the end of the 'casting time' take normal amount of time to heat back to normal, or is it held at the temperature for a time? If you use it on a moving vehicle, does the epicenter follow you (which could be rather extreme on a jet in the tropics as the temperatures fall much faster)? Can you vary the radius of effect from your person? What happens when you choose 1 Kelvin? If the effect is dispelled partway through the casting, does the temperature snap back to normal, or is it at the point when dispelled?

EDIT: Also, is Force Field covert when used (barring stuff floating around)? Is it a continuous effect, acting as an umbrella in a storm?

A design question. What made you decide that any successful hit is guaranteed to do at least 1 box of damage? Come to think of it, in this system, does Force Field act as a separate 'shield' to soak? For example, if a bullet is reduced to 0 damage from the field alone, does it continue on (might as well not bother rolling soak at that point) or does it stop moving and fall to the ground? Or does it simply add to everyone's soak?

Special Attack Actions;; Spray and Pray is really weak man.

No.

I will not fuck with it until you or Orion tell me something coherent about what you think is weak about it. It can wound very large numbers of people and ignores many factors that normally make combat difficult (speed and darkness). And you can do it through dominated 7-11 clerks with automatics. What the hell more do you want?

-Username17

On Proper Care and Feeding of Werewolves
This little essay is intended as a primer for optimization of Strength based AWoD characters.

In any system of finite resources, a relevantly utilized resource contributes to success in both specific and general instances, depending on the utilization of the resource. In utilizing a finite resource, one can conclude that that general success trumps specific success, and in order to maximize the general success of finite resources, one must ensure that any specific resource is utilized in many situations as possible, thereby increasing their efficiency in comparison to a more specifically applicable resource within that system. Therefore, in the context of any system of finite resources distributed to be applicable in any number of instances relevant to that system, there will always exist more and less efficient arrays of resource allocation within that system.

AWoD is a mixture of several systems of finite resources that are divided into subsystem economies: action economy, Power economy, and number economy. Things which increase the efficiency of the action economy do so by allowing your action to affect more than a single target such as the Devastation and Magnify the Swarm disciplines, by increasing the number of actions you may undertake such as the Quickness or Reanimate discipline, or by taking actions away as with the Dread Gaze discipline; A huge boost to your action economy can also come from combat mind control (generally the Suggestion or Majesty discipline), which has the neat effect of reducing the actions of the enemies while increasing your number of available actions. The Power economy is simply getting the most lasting effect for any given amount of Power, and is prioritized by whether the effect is over Instantly < Scene < Solar Duration < When I Fell Like It. And finally there is the number economy, which deals primarily with character creation and advancement by allocating finite discipline/devotion slots as well as allocating ability and skill points into usable pools to interact with the AWoD.

Firstly, I’d like to discuss the number 7 in the context of Abilities before modifiers. Getting a 7 is not hard, but you cannot possess two 7s in the same categories of abilities, as the highest any pair of abilities can be is 7 and 3, respectively. Getting two 7s in two different ability categories puts severe strain on the rest of the ability array, and can really cripple the character if improperly managed.

In an effort to demonstrate a rubric to determine more efficient use of limited resources, consider the basic Werewolf chassis:

• [/td][td]Disciplines[/td][td]Dicepool [/td][/tr]

  Feral Whispers (Basic Animalism)	None
  Beast Form (Basic Animalism)	None
  Revive the Flesh (Basic Fortitude)	None
  Vigor (Basic Potence)	None
  Quickness (Basic Celerity)	None
  Dread Gaze (Basic Presence)	Willpower + Intimidation or Strength + Tactics
  War Form (Celerity / Potence Devotion)	None
  The Beckoning (Advanced Animalism)	Strength + Survival or Charisma + Empathy

  
  

Note that while on first blush it seems you could base a Werewolf around Willpower, Charisma, or Strength, Willpower and Charisma possess the same ability category, and cannot both possess 7s. While you could create a dual 7 character based on Strength and Willpower, doing so needlessly overlaps 2 disciplines, and really cripples the rest of the character. The most efficient use of ability points is to focus entirely on a Strength 7.

Also, it bears mention that a Werewolf is ridiculously strong out of the box, and with no investment in Strength at all a Frenzied Werewolf throws 10 dice.

Clearly, the most efficient use of discipline/devotion slots is to select abilities that interact with Strength either directly or indirectly. Giant Size is an obvious choice, as it nakedly increases your strength by 6 in addition to other benefits (such as +1 Strength for Advanced Potence), while Devastation and Touch of Darkness increase the overall effectiveness of Strength by increasing its utility.

Now, it bears mention that an optimized Werewolf is insanely hardcore strong with just a modicum of effort, and can walk around all day with a Strength 20 or 22+ in any given scene, and don't forget to add its Combat (Natural Weapons 8) so it can toss thirty or more dice in the right (or wrong) circumstances.

Finally, the remaining Disciplines and devotions are selected, which will probably include Hide from Notice as a 5.25m monstrous wolf running down the street can be... unsettling to any extras watching, another Strength Dicepool power (like Glimpse of the Abyss), some No Dicepool power (like Indomitability), or more likely a combination of the three.

---

In the creation of any AWoD character, it is IMPERITIVE that the bonus Disciplines and Devotions are selected because of their compatibility with existing dicepools of the base monster's chasis, and that Ability and Skill points be first allocated to cover Discipline and Devotion dicepools.

Even with werewolves being very encouraged towards Strength, they still have a huge number of options available. A barghest-type werewolf focusing on Logic and Walk of Flame would be totally viable, and a combat monster. Focusing on Intuition and going with Obtenebration would work as well. Basically, any Logic or Intuition sorcery (Name the Blasphemies, Necromancy, Progress of Glass, etc) makes a good schtick to go along side the werewolf's Strength.

There are also a number of other good options for going pure Strength. Aura of Decay (Descent of Entropy) looks like one of the most interesting to me. With your crazy Strength, you actually stand a reasonable chance of corroding your way through an onrushing train. This (and many of your suggestions) works for any naturally high-Strength character, and many are just a short stop away from Giant Size (prometheans, vampires), war form (frankensteins, and bagheera which already have it), or both.

Finally, you don't have to run around in war form all day. It'll have the same cost the just use it when you need it, and what you lose in actions you may make up for in Masquerade points.

First-draft cult/monster associations:

Church of Set: Baali, Android, Child of Aether
Ordo Tremere: Baali, Daeva, Mi Go
Stellar Oracles: Reborn, Fallen, Nezumi
Madness Network: Mi Go, Nezumi, Golem
Glass Walkers: Fallen, Ventrue, Troglodyte

False Face: Daeva, Verbena, Bagheera
White Lotus: Verbena, Nezumi, Werewolf
Storm Lords: Deep One, Child of Aether, Frankenstein
Hollow Ones: Android, Daeva, Deep One
Zeka: Child of Aether, Nosferatu, Mi Go

Giovanni: Khaibit, Troglodyte, Ventrue
Black Spiral: Golem, Werewolf, Frankenstein
Black Hand: Reborn, Nosferatu, Werewolf
Hashashin: Troglodyte, Ventrue, Bagheera
Circle of the Crone: Nosferatu, Khaibit, Golem

Let's get some assumptions going:
-You're a fairly average officer worker with the following stats:
Agility 3, Strength 3, Combat 0, Athletics 3.
-You're an extra and not supernatural at all.
-You've got a group of 10 extra coworkers in front of you that you want to kill.
-These coworkers are all grouped up at the watercooler 10 feet away from you.
-They each have the same stats as you do, but no guns.
-You have a choice between using a machine gun or a heavy pistol.
-We're going to make the math easy and get 1 hit per 3 dice.

-You decide to use the Machine gun and Spray-n-Pray.
On the first round, you make a Complex Action and roll 3 dice. You get 1 hit and, thus, hit them for 3 lethal damage. The people you hit take soak 1 damage on average, lowering the damage down to 2. Anyone that can't Duck for Cover gets a Serious Wound and 6 hit boxes full of damage. However, if you had gotten lucky and gotten 1 extra hit, then you would have downed pretty much everone right then and there. But if you'd gotten 1 less hit, you would have hit absolutely nobody and then you've got 10 people running around and no bullets in anything except the wall.

-You decide to use the Heavy Pistol and Aim.
You take a simple action aiming and then spend the second round of this combat opening fire onto Tim, that guy who would always drink all the coffee. Because you've taken a good while aiming at him, the threshold to hit the bastard is 0 and your 1 hit gets the damage up to 4, which is then soaked down to 3. Tim takes an incapacitating wound, drops and then everyone else either scatters or rushes to Tim's aid.

-You decide to use the Heavy Pistol and just shoot twice.
You point your gun at Tim, the bastard, and shoot him twice. He gets 1 hit on the first soak roll, making the first shot a serious wound and 1 hit on the second roll, making the second shot terminal.

What did we learn?
-If you want to kill a load of people quickly, but have no actual combat training, a machine gun will not actually let you do that. What will happen is you probably seriously wound alot of people, kill a few more and then spend the next fifteen minutes chasing them around the office. You'll probably want to plan ahead and get some bike chains to seal all the doors with.
-If you just want to straight up kill one dude, firing more bullets at him is more useful to you taking time out of your busy day to aim one bullet extra good UNLESS you are concerned about the possibility that you aren't even going to be able to hit them at all. Double Tapping is pretty much as good of an idea as it is in real life.
-All in all, you probably do come out ahead if you take the machine gun.
-Basic Dominate isn't going to get you guys with automatic weapons who will shoot whatever you want. For that, you want assets, cultists, conditioning or ghouls.

FrankTrollman wrote:

Special Attack Actions;; Spray and Pray is really weak man.

No.

I will not fuck with it until you or Orion tell me something coherent about what you think is weak about it. It can wound very large numbers of people and ignores many factors that normally make combat difficult (speed and darkness). And you can do it through dominated 7-11 clerks with automatics. What the hell more do you want?

-Username17

Okay, fair. I wrote that long list over several read-throughs and then sorted it at the end. Here's something coherent: Grek is right in his math. But maybe that doesn't convince you; I think if anything it should still be 3 dice + Edge though. If Edge is a luck stat, then main characters, what with having more luck and all, should still be more likely to hit with the "panic and flail about" maneuver. Other Idea: Increase the dice from 3 to 4, which is +10% chance of 1 hit, but +15% chance of 2 hits. (about +7% chance of 3 hits.) In exchange for that, I'm willing to accept the possibility that, 1% of the time, a Spray and Pray action with an Assault Rifle will hit someone at Extreme range (recalling that all other automatic weapons have Way out or less as their max range). Rolling "Edge + 4" wouldn't be a bad idea either.

I think the problem might be with how you have Spray-and-Pray setup at the moment: The length of the arc that you attack doesn't affect the number of dice that you roll, and also isn't limited by your weapon or by anything but the GM at the moment. In other words, most of the time you can kill everyone you can see within (say) a 90 degree angle out to 100 meters with a single complex action. Spray and Pray is amazingly powerful because you can, "Rules as Written", potentially kill everyone standing on the ground level of a stadium track event in a single complex action using a Submachine Gun. The thing is, players don't want that. They want to be able to totally gun down 10 extras at once, and they're willing to accept that they'll probably never gun down a stadium of extras at once.

Example Rules Rewrite: have it be that you can shoot 180-degrees at once with 3 dice, and then for each step you go down (in 45-degree increments, for example) you get +1 die (max of 6 dice when shooting just a single 45 degree angle arc [91% chance of striking within Near range, 64% chance of striking within Short range.])

Ammo Limitations: Because of how fast your gun can spit our bullets compared to how fast you're swinging it around or because of how few bullets you had in your clip or Whatever Other Reasoning, your targets struck can be limited by the GM to being at most 2d6 different targets (for example). If there's more targets than that in your targeting arc simply pick targets randomly to assign who is at risk and then roll the attack.

For the record, I like Spray and Pray exactly how it is. There is no reason why you should be able to straight up kill a dozen dudes in one round without even spending a power point on it or something. And, if you really, really, really need to kill a ton of dudes with a machine gun all at once, then you can burn an edge on that and roll 6-8 dice on to kill all of those dudes in a single round.

EDIT: Or, if you have Quickness and Alacrity (which you totally can as any starting supernatural) then you can shoot three times as many bullets and kill a whole heap of extras.

Grek's example is about how I would want it to work, but he put his targets within 10 feet. If they were 20 feet away, almost no damage would be inflicted. Perhaps Spray/pray should ignore range penalties?

Frank, what I think we really need is a very clear explanation of how spray & pray works, including a couple of examples at different ranges and visual conditions.

Orion wrote:Grek's example is about how I would want it to work, but he put his targets within 10 feet. If they were 20 feet away, almost no damage would be inflicted. Perhaps Spray/pray should ignore range penalties?

That is a reasonable complaint. Yeah, Spray-n-Pray is kind of too short of a range. I adjusted that.

-Username17

The new rules cause all the destruction people want without having to be too fiddly. Well done sir.

I still think you should better define what you mean by "arc".

Peter my friend, take a walk.

Are Deep Ones supposed to have any water advantage other than not having to breathe? If so, can we make a merit or something for "natural swimmer?"

Inspired by an episode of GTO, I'm sending my coterie to a maya-based network of randomly-flooding underwater passages. Hence, I'm gonna actually apply some water rules. I'll post all the rulings I made after the game on Saturday.

Infectious mood is everything a WoD flaw should be. Any of the master passions lead great situations. Infectious mood (hunger) is just all kinds of creepy.

The deep one thing fits the Innsmouth flavor perfectly; you end up with a town where even the normals are paranoid shut-ins.

Santa Claus

He sees you when you're sleeping
He knows when you're awake
He knows if you've been bad or good
So be good for goodness sake

Base Disciplines (Fallen)
Presence
[*]Awe (Basic)
[*]Dread Gaze (Basic)
[*]Majesty (Advanced)
Fortitude
[*]Patience of the Mountain (Basic)
Names of the Blasphemies
[*]Learn the Heart's Pain (Basic)
Obfuscation
[*]Mask of a Thousand Faces (Basic)
Progress of Glass
[*]Deny the Gauntlet (Basic)
Devotions
[*]Desire Reflection (Obfuscate / Presence)

Learned Disciplines
Trail of Tears
[*]Curse of Failure (Basic)
[*]Dark Night of the Soul (Advanced)
[*]Object of Envy (Elder)
Veil of Morpheus
[*]Dream Vision (Basic)
[*]Denial of Privacy (Advanced)
[*]Dreamstep (Elder)
Walk of Flame
[*]Fire Walking (Basic)

Master Passion: Rage.

Flaws: Feared by Children, Distinctive Appearance.
Merits: Innocence.

Attributes
Potence 2, Edge 4
Strength: 5, Dexterity: 3
Charisma: 5, Willpower: 4
Logic: 4, Intuition: 3

Assets: Mirror goblin army (6)
Destiny: Flying Reindeer Sleigh (5)
Finances: North Pole Fortress (5)

Addiction: Once a year... (5)



Frosty the Snowman

Frosty the snowman is a fairy tale, they say,
He was made of snow but the children
Know how he came to life one day.

Base Disciplines (Golem)
Obfuscation
[*]Hide From Notice (Basic)
[*]Mask of a Thousand Faces (Basic)
[*]Touch of Shadow (Advanced)
Fortitude
[*]Patience of the Mountains (Basic)
Necromancy
[*]Summon Spirit (Basic)
Potence
[*]Vigor (Basic)
[*]Devastation (Advanced)
Walk of Flame
[*]Fire Walking (Basic)

Learned Disciplines
Fortitude
[*]Restoration (Advanced)
Symphony of Silence
[*]Frozen Note (Basic)
[*]Silent Toll (Basic)
[*]Prison of Ice (Advanced)
[*]Frozen Day (Elder)

Master Passion: Fear.

Flaws: Anachronism, Allergy (warmth), Blatantly Magical.
Merits: Loyalty, Time Sense.

Attributes:
Potence 2, Edge 4
Strength 6, Agility 2
Logic 4, Intuition 3
Charisma 2, Will 5

Well played, sir. Well played...

Monsters

This chapter has several problems, some of which are the fact that creature powers are often referred to by slightly different names. I'm going to be assuming that the names within the Power entry are the correct names, and be listing edits accordingly.

• Iron ;; Last sentence of this needs a serial comma.
• Silver ;; Last sentence of this also needs a serial comma.
• Weakening Supernatural Creatures ;; "There are a lot of things which while they won't burn the flesh of supernaturals," You need a comma after the word 'which'.
• Feeding ;; There's a part that's unclear. If you feed on a creature with power points do you always take their power points when you injure and feed on them, or is it optional? or does their power point loss replace the damage they'd take?
• Ritual ;; You say that the ritual to recharge is "usually about 2 hours", but then you don't give specific times for the different creature types. You should consider doing this, or saying that the ritual is always 2 hours, or something.
• Continuous ;; "No playable creatures have a Continuous Power Schedule, and it's important to know that Trolls and the like cannot be worn down.", I think you mean 'but' instead of 'and'
• Tragic Flaws ;; You mention the 'Character Options & Motivations' chapter, but don't link to it. You may wish to link to it.
• Werewolf Starting Disciplines ;; Beast Form should be listed before Feral Whispers, OR listed after Feral Whispers in the Nezumi section. Probably the former, because it's alphabatized that way.
• Vampirism ;; 3rd paragraph, quoted word "type", the period goes outside the quotes.
• Vampirism ;; The 4th and 1st paragraph of this section both say how new vampires are created in almost exactly the same way and it seems rather redundant like that.
• The Nosferatu ;; "Story Inspiration:" isn't bolded.
• The Ventrue ;; "aversion to mirrors" and "sunlight" are bolded in this section, but in other sections when text needed to be emphasized, it was italicized instead. Perhaps a change.
• The Ventrue ;; forced into torpor? What? Piercing it through the heart drains away their blood points? What? It seems that this was one of the earliest monster type writeups, and it suffers accordingly when compared to the later writeups.
• The Ventrue ;; "Story Inspiration:" isn't bolded.
• The Daeva ;; "However, once discovered a Daeva's animalistic, even demonic traits are difficult to explain away as anything short of an extreme breach of the masquerade.", you possibly need an extra comma after the word 'discovered'. I'm thinking there should be one though.
• The Daeva ;; "Story Inspiration:" isn't bolded.
• Witches ;; Are males also witches, or do they become "warlocks"? I assume it's the latter, though perhaps you should make a note somewhere.
• The Khaibit Tradition ;; Eyes of the Night. All other instances of "Eyes of Night" should also be "Eyes of the Night". Search and replace time. Minor spelling differences interferes with the "find" function when people go to look up how their powers work.
• Prometheans ;; Your tagline has an extra space after 'was' before the ellipsis, and the ellipsis at the end has an extra period (4 rather than 3).
• Golem ;; 'and it is these that the Golem "is".'
• Golem ;; You should at some point perhaps make some rules on how the body transfer thing works, if it needs rules other than something simple like "it takes an hour and then you just do it".
• Androids ;; First sentence needs a comma before the "and" that connects the two clauses.
• Androids ;; 'Androids do not, on initial inspection look anything other than human.' you need a comma after "inspection".
• Leviathan ;; 'Those born to Leviathan broods who are not luminaries will if they are lucky never betray their leviathan heritage, appearing for all the world as normal humans (though perhaps with a strange bestial cast to their features).' "if they are lucky" should probably be within commas as an apostive.
• The Deep Ones ;; "Patience of the Mountain", here and all other instances of it within the document, needs to be "Patience of the Mountains" instead (note the 's' at the end).
• Troglodytes ;; the period at the end of the final sentence needs to be moved outside the quotes.
• Mi Go ;; Oh hey, mace, another poison you should add to the equipment section in the danger chapter.
• Mi Go ;; "Story Inspiration:" needs to be bolded.
• The Reborn ;; "Summon Spirits" here and all other instances need to be changed to "Summon Spirit" (singular).
• The Fallen ;; "get lost" needs the period moved outside the quotes.
• Children of Ether ;; Same thing with "accident", periods needs moving outside the quotes.
• Soulless ;; The first paragraph says that "they can and do spread their affliction readily to the living", and then the 3rd paragraph says that they can't spread their affliction on their own, they're just usually part of something that can. Which is it?
• Soulless ;; 3rd pharagraph, 'Soulless, like Shamblers', that part should end with a comma.
• Behemoths ;; "Story Inspiration:" needs bolding. Additionally, in each section after this the same part needs bolding, and I won't mention it every time because that'd be silly.
• Chimera ;; 'Sometimes they look like two or more creatures melded together awkwardly, and sometimes they just look like something draw up for Heavy Metal.', I think you mean "drawn up".
• Wraiths ;; Quotes around 'fetters' need moving.
• Wraiths ;; Wait, how do freed wraiths regain power points on a ritual schedule if they don't need to be near their fetters? Do they just stop moving for 2 hours and then get all their power points back? Or something?
• Akuma ;; Your story inspiration line, in addition to not being bolded, has a comma as if you intended to put another example, but then you didn't put another example.
• Asura ;; "Summoning", as well as all other instances of it, need to be changed to the correct name of "Summons".
• Ifrit ;; Your 'basic disciplines' line needs a space after "Tears" and before the dash.
• Djinn ;; You mention these guys in the Asura section, but then you don't give them a writeup. You should maybe give them a writeup.
• Triffids ;; "bite" needs it's quotes moved.

Questiond:

-What sort of Fey was the "queen of the fairies" that the King of Three Shadows married? Neither mirror goblin, spriggan nor troll really seem to fit here. Was it an Asura? An Ifrit?
-Likewise, who are the Three Shadows of the King?
-What is up with spriggans anyways? Is there a movie that I could watch to get a good grasp of what these are like? You don't have a Story Inspiration: think for them.
-Not really a question, but you also don't have a Story Inspiration: thing for mirror goblins either. Mantraps, Revenants, Soulless and Shamblers are similarlly lacking.

Grek wrote: -Not really a question, but you also don't have a Story Inspiration: thing for mirror goblins either. Mantraps, Revenants, Soulless and Shamblers are similarlly lacking.

He does have story inspirations for those creatures; they're just mentioned in the descriptive paragraph rather than listed at the end of the stat block.


Spriggans do seem a bit more complicated though. A Google Images search for them gives mostly the Elder Scrolls spriggans (which are more like D&D dryads) and some manga I don't know. There's a (very) short Wikipedia article on spriggans, which sez: "Spriggans were grotesquely ugly, found at old ruins and barrows guarding buried treasure and generally acting as fairy bodyguards. They were also said to be busy thieves. Though usually small, they had the ability to swell to enormous size (they're sometimes speculated to be the ghosts of the old giants)." There's a bit more, but not much else.