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Doresh posted:I think the most logical way to convince these grogs of the error of their ways is to write a heartbreaker where the PCs have to dungeon crawl turn-by-turn so the GM can track the positions and behaviors of every monster in the whole dungeon based on their Initiative and Perception rolls. Theyd love it. I mean theyd never play it play it but its existence as a readable book would only support their position that it can, nay, should be done. Then theyd argue that Pathfinder/3.5 is the perfect harmonious point between ease of play and madness.
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Mar 26, 2017 00:20
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LatwPIAT posted:*hides copies of GURPS and treasured Phoenix Command supplements*
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Mar 26, 2017 00:25
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Nessus posted:I don't think anyone at any point has acted like GURPS is some kind of an accurate simulation of the objective function of reality, although I have seen people dick around about how to accurately model historical figures. Usually this revolves around things like "Should Adolf Hitler have the Lucky or Extremely Lucky advantage?" GURPS isn't an accurate simulation, but GURPS Vehicles sure made the attempt at one point
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Mar 26, 2017 01:34
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i kinda want to do trollman's diet WOD clone after i do 13a, it's another fascinating failureNessus posted:I don't think anyone at any point has acted like GURPS is some kind of an accurate simulation of the objective function of reality, although I have seen people dick around about how to accurately model historical figures. Usually this revolves around things like "Should Adolf Hitler have the Lucky or Extremely Lucky advantage?" there's a whole series of GURPS books that are just statblocks of historical figures. i owned them in a collection i sold a long time ago, they were not useful books Cease to Hope fucked around with this message at 01:45 on Mar 26, 2017 |
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Mar 26, 2017 01:35
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I'm going to stake-out the possibly controversial position that GURPS isn't actually simulationist. Or at least, not always, and not as consistently as even D&D 3e. I mean, just look at the skill system: roll 3d6, and get a result equal to or less than your effective skill in order to succeed. Now, while there are some guidelines for applying penalties or bonuses to various rolls (-2 Architecture if it's strange, -5 Architecture if it's "alien"), GURPS doesn't specifically tell you that balancing on a 6-inch wide surface has a base DC of 15, or that it's DC 17 if the surface is also slippery, like D&D 3e does. Combat, if you use most of the rules, does get rather simulationist, but at the same time there are also rules (mostly in the Action! series of supplements) that lets you abbreviate a lot of them. And the game lets you do this because the whole point is the tug-of-war between the GM's penalties trying to drag down the player's effective skill, versus the player trying to bring their effective skill back up. All the simulationist rules do, in effect, is to make it so that the GM and the player have a common reference to what kind of modifier to expect. But the modifiers don't need to be ground in reality, they just need to be consistent. And that's why you can reduce GURPS to a single-page pamphlet, if you wanted to.
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Mar 26, 2017 02:02
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Yeah, GURPS is super weird that way. The actual game is relatively simple, to the point SJG's done a few quickstart style pamphlet books that give basically the whole game in... 16? 24? pages. Somewhere around there. But the sheer amount of skills, mechanics, benefits, whatever you can bolt onto those rules and the thoroughly researched early supplements gave the game a weird fanbase of super-simulationist people that focused heavily on that even if it may not have been the best game for it. This is what lead to the sheer insanity of GURPS Vehicles and Robots and some of the other books around then. Of course there's other issues with the game too, where it really kind of breaks down at higher power levels of play but since it's "universal" they kept doing stuff for superheroes and other fantastic 700+ point builds that were intolerable to actually design and play, but hey.
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Mar 26, 2017 02:05
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gradenko_2000 posted:I'm going to stake-out the possibly controversial position that GURPS isn't actually simulationist. Or at least, not always, and not as consistently as even D&D 3e. you're describing rearranging the arithmetic as somehow changing the way the world works. 3d6+skill versus target number 10+(average expected skill to accomplish the task) is the same as roll 3d6 under skill to accomplish that same task. GURPS just uses THAC0-style roll-under for skills instead of D20-style additive sums, that's all
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Mar 26, 2017 02:10
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Yeah, one of the things that massively irritated me about GURPS 4e was that instead of stepping back and compartmentalizing the rules and simplifying them, instead they throw everything in a pile in terms of organization. If you want to create a normal human 21st century character there's a basically a bunch of white noise that you don't need to know about clogging up page after page, making it a headache to focus and find what you actually need.
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Mar 26, 2017 02:10
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Cease to Hope posted:you're describing rearranging the arithmetic as somehow changing the way the world works. 3d6+skill versus target number 10+(average expected skill to accomplish the task) is the same as roll 3d6 under skill to accomplish that same task. GURPS just uses THAC0-style roll-under for skills instead of D20-style additive sums, that's all I get what you're saying, and okay maybe that paragraph was a mess, but what I meant to say was that GURPS doesn't have modifiers specifically relating to the physics of trying to balance on a ledge based on the width of the ledge and/or the friction of the ledge. Like, GURPS can say it's a -2 if it's difficult or something, but it doesn't always define how or why that modifier came to be (except, as I mentioned, if you want to go all-in on the combat rules).
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Mar 26, 2017 02:15
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GURPS is definitely crunchy and has a lot of limits but I don't think that's the same as "simulationist" exactly. The core rules are really condensible, and you could probably jettison much of the weirdly precise tactical medieval melee fight simulator and be left with something kind of similar to BRP/Call of Cthulhu, just using 3D6 instead of percentiles for most things. When I see simulationist in such detail I'm thinking stuff on the 3.5/PF spectrum, or the various games that go nuts with six page character sheets like Anima or whatever. Also, the Who's Who books appear to be addressing demand for time traveller or historical campaigns, which appear to be a pretty significant swath of the GURPS market since that's what they built 4E around.  Though they're definitely products of a different era, stuff like that nowadays would never be done by an actual company. At best they'd have an authorized wiki or blog or something.
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Mar 26, 2017 02:34
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it's almost like "simulationist" is a term made up by a known (if talented) flake with no clear definition other than "games which aren't dogs in the vineyard"
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Mar 26, 2017 02:36
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GURPS largely suffers from its core book being a reference book containing every possible thing, and any campaign setting immediately needing to sit down and declare what is and isn't allowed. The templates that are in some later books are super great tho at doing that bit.
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Mar 26, 2017 02:37
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Cease to Hope posted:it's almost like "simulationist" is a term made up by a known (if talented) flake with no clear definition other than "games which aren't dogs in the vineyard" "Attempting to make the game rules reflect real-world physics, or at least the designer's warped idea of what real-world physics are, especially in pedantic and ineffectual ways." People can misapply it but that doesn't make it unclear.
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Mar 26, 2017 04:00
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3e's core rules can be condensed into a page, too if you pare them enough. It sounds like your actual differentiator is that 3e gave a table of examples instead of a table of synonyms for "difficult"
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Mar 26, 2017 04:50
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megane posted:"Attempting to make the game rules reflect real-world physics, or at least the designer's warped idea of what real-world physics are, especially in pedantic and ineffectual ways." People can misapply it but that doesn't make it unclear. Under that definition, I don't think *any* game tries to be simulationist, except for historical war games, and probably Diplomacy. Even DnD has always prioritized emulating a certain type of storytelling over anything resembling realism. (Although what type of storytelling has changed with almost every edition.)
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Mar 26, 2017 05:31
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the most simulationist game is The Ultimate Game anyone who disagrees may meet me in the forest tomorrow
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Mar 26, 2017 05:39
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Cease to Hope posted:i kinda want to do trollman's diet WOD clone after i do 13a, it's another fascinating failure
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Mar 26, 2017 06:59
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Barudak posted:Theyd love it. I mean theyd never play it play it but its existence as a readable book would only support their position that it can, nay, should be done. Then theyd argue that Pathfinder/3.5 is the perfect harmonious point between ease of play and madness. Coming soon to your local Kickstarter: Death to the Quantum Bear! Tired of lazy GMs whipping out wandering monsters out of nowhere? Appalled by so-called simulationist games switching between clean and perfect combat turns to vague nothing measured in narrative time? Not anymore! In Death to the Quantum Bear, the player characters will never leave the combat turn structure, allowing the GM to accurately simulate the world around them. Using our revolutionary "Bucket full of Dice (tm)" mechanic, the GM can easily track the positions, routes, interests, needs and breeding habits of any monster the players might ever run into. Doresh fucked around with this message at 09:37 on Mar 26, 2017 |
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Mar 26, 2017 09:32
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Halloween Jack posted:Based on skimming it, I fear that might be a lose-lose proposition. Either you review it in such a way that misses the forest for the trees, or you're just endlessly picking on Trollman for his peculiar, acute disorder with regard to understanding fiction. the idea of crossover WOD designed with specific, functional parties with an assumed genre (Supernatural/Scooby Doo Monster Crew) is interesting, and the world he's designed is shaped by the limitations of his goals in ways worth talking about. the idea that solving mysteries involves a significant amount of system mastery is just  though
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Mar 26, 2017 13:12
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Doresh posted:I think the most logical way to convince these grogs of the error of their ways is to write a heartbreaker where the PCs have to dungeon crawl turn-by-turn so the GM can track the positions and behaviors of every monster in the whole dungeon based on their Initiative and Perception rolls.
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Mar 26, 2017 13:23
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Doresh posted:I think the most logical way to convince these grogs of the error of their ways is to write a heartbreaker where the PCs have to dungeon crawl turn-by-turn so the GM can track the positions and behaviors of every monster in the whole dungeon based on their Initiative and Perception rolls. We joke, but the purpose of wandering monster checks is literally to simulate that as though it's happening, just abstracted and abbreviated. And then of course there are people who do try to make it happen unironically.
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Mar 26, 2017 13:33
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Make a game that has two giant custom peg boards like the one used in Battleship, a screen that completely encloses the DM and duplicates of literally every monster and player piece. Each five foot square is its own peg hole, and each medium or small sized character is a peg, with larger monsters taking up more pegs. Every turn the characters declare their move, and move their pegs to different squares--"I take a ten foot step to square Lamda-99." The DM will then move all relevant monster pieces and declare when they are visible to the players, who will then place their own copy of the monster piece on the board.
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Mar 26, 2017 14:57
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marshmallow creep posted:Make a game that has two giant custom peg boards like the one used in Battleship, a screen that completely encloses the DM and duplicates of literally every monster and player piece. Each five foot square is its own peg hole, and each medium or small sized character is a peg, with larger monsters taking up more pegs. Every turn the characters declare their move, and move their pegs to different squares--"I take a ten foot step to square Lamda-99." The DM will then move all relevant monster pieces and declare when they are visible to the players, who will then place their own copy of the monster piece on the board. That's a legitimate Kickstarter right there.
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Mar 26, 2017 15:23
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Halloween Jack posted:Based on skimming it, I fear that might be a lose-lose proposition. Either you review it in such a way that misses the forest for the trees, or you're just endlessly picking on Trollman for his peculiar, acute disorder with regard to understanding fiction. It's not really a disorder. The gaming den (as a collective, but not always individually) approach every game from a frame of reference built around bad experiences with adversarial DMs in 3e D&D. They're very concerned about how much power the DM/GM role has in a game and have generally come to the conclusion that the best way to limit a DM's power is by outlining rules for every scenario. If there's not a rule, that leaves it open to abuse from the DM (aka infinite bears). For instance, one of the complaints Frank raises against 5e is there aren't any specific rules for setting someone on fire. It's all internally logical but very sheltered.
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Mar 26, 2017 15:32
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What I mean, specifically, is Frank seems to only understand fiction as a series of superficial phenomena. He only considers fantasy worlds in terms of how to model technology, magic, etc. with game mechanics, and only understands characters in terms of their character sheets. He has a vague, superficial concept of genre (rayguns equals sci-fi, etc.) and doesn't show an understanding of theme, symbolism, or atmosphere. This is why he does stuff like propose a Shadowrun party consisting of Bane, King Arthur, and James Bond, and his WoD heartbreaker includes Evil Plants (which are literally just called "Evil Plants") and the World Crime League. And everything he writes is in the same off-putting tone.
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Mar 26, 2017 15:47
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Halloween Jack posted:What I mean, specifically, is Frank seems to only understand fiction as a series of superficial phenomena. He only considers fantasy worlds in terms of how to model technology, magic, etc. with game mechanics, and only understands characters in terms of their character sheets. He has a vague, superficial concept of genre (rayguns equals sci-fi, etc.) and doesn't show an understanding of theme, symbolism, or atmosphere. Very strange.
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Mar 26, 2017 15:54
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after sundown (which is a terrible title) is predicated on the idea that you have to fit every supernatural thing in a box for the game to work, so it makes sense some of those boxes are really general and open-ended given that. "oh this tangle of demonic vines is actually a shapeshifter asura that has completely lost its mind, not just an everyday evil plant" is a thing he wants PCs to say. the problem is that that premise is nonsense, and doesn't even make sense given the source material. it almost make sense in a game where the supernatural being bolted into these immutable boxes is thematic: eg shadowrun's environmentalist and pro-native cyberpunk, or o-mage's vision of a world locked down by the technocracy. it absolutely does not make sense to instruct gms not to make rule-breaking weirdness in a game based on supernatural and x-files and anita blake. trollman et al. can only envision player agency in a world where players have a full understanding of the game world and the game rules and can combine those very different knowledges into puzzling out mysteries. FMguru posted:Trollman is also weird in that every "original" idea he has is a reskinned pop culture thing. this is kind of weird and internet diagnosis-y and doesn't match with even a passing reading of his professional work Cease to Hope fucked around with this message at 16:04 on Mar 26, 2017 |
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Mar 26, 2017 15:59
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I imagine some of that is because he doesn't approach writing a new setting from "How would robots enslave humanity?" But from modeling his limited understanding of genre fiction and narrative structure as a whole. .... now that I'm thinking about it, that's same way a lot of people approach generating a specific character in 3e
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Mar 26, 2017 16:02
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Halloween Jack posted:DW at least deserves credit for driving the simulationist crowd to a new level of insanity. The Gaming Den invented the memey phrase "Quantum Bears" because they really couldn't grasp the idea that, since DW embraces fail-forward storytelling, a consequence to the classic problem of "The adventure can't progress because the Rogue can't pick the lock" could be something like getting attacked by monsters. In their minds, that means that in DW you can summon infinite monsters by tapping a lockpick against a door, and therefore DW is insane and incoherent. potatocubed posted:Eh. For my money the problem with simulationism is this: But of course, the hardcore simulationist types can't understand that, because for them the mechanical rules are everything.
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Mar 26, 2017 16:04
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Cease to Hope posted:i kinda want to do trollman's diet WOD clone after i do 13a, it's another fascinating failure e: I made the mistake of going looking for it. God I forgot how terrible that era was. Evil Mastermind fucked around with this message at 16:08 on Mar 26, 2017 |
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Mar 26, 2017 16:05
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Zereth posted:So instead of a WoW Babby MMO On Paper, a Nethack Fogey Roguelike On Paper? Roguelikes and the like are just shallow copycats. Real versimilitudedness cannot be grasped by a mere program. But yeah, it's basically Nethack. Though I guess the GM would run it like Dwarf Fortress. Mmh... "The amulet depicts a [roll] and a [roll]. The [roll] does [roll]. The amulet is made out of [roll] and [roll]. It menaces with spikes of [roll] and [roll]." gradenko_2000 posted:We joke, but the purpose of wandering monster checks is literally to simulate that as though it's happening, just abstracted and abbreviated. Unsurprising coming from this guy. He loves himself sandbox dungeons. lifg posted:That's a legitimate Kickstarter right there. All part of the massive box set! (The "box" actually being the "Bucket full of Dice (tm)").
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Mar 26, 2017 17:03
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Doresh posted:(The "box" actually being the "Bucket full of Dice (tm)"). a bucket is just a round box, when you think about it
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Mar 26, 2017 17:15
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Cease to Hope posted:a bucket is just a round box, when you think about it Nope, they have different stats in the appendix, so they're different items although they are in the same tier on random loot tables.
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Mar 26, 2017 17:26
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 Chapter Two and Chapter Five: The Clans of Caine and the Gifts of the Blood The first clan review will cover one clan but you will found out this is really the equivalent of three clans by the way they're set up. The Assamites Sobriquet: Children of Haqim, Saracens  Editorial Side note: One thing I want to note as well is that the Assamite Alamut is in Anatolia and the real life Alamut is in Iran, which I got wrong before. There is an Alamut in Turkey, it’s by the southeastern coast of Anatolia, but it’s not really noteworthy. The Iranian Alamut is home to the mountain fortress of the Hashshashin. The Hashshashin are active during this time period too btw. The Assamites are a bit of an oddity because they’re a major clan with specialized branches. For that reason, they get their own review because there are three flavors of Assamite. This is mostly done because the Assamite are originally meant to be an NPC and possible antagonist clan. Although they’re not overtly evil or belligerent, they are not well liked by most vampires for obvious reasons. The Assamites during this time period are just coming onto the European scene and had mostly been confined to the Middle East, which at that time is just the East or the Levant to most Cainites. The average kindred younger than an Elder probably doesn’t know who they are but Elders and older vampires are familiar with them. Although they come from the Middle East and are stereotyped as Muslims, hence the Saracen nickname, they are drawn from every background and dislike the nickname Saracen. Older Assamites don’t care because misinformation is great in their eyes. They usually refer to themselves as the Children of Haqim, their Antediluvian. The Assamites exist under the belief that Assamites are charged with keeping other Cainites in line and are charged with dealing with Cainites that step out of line and interfere in the mortal world too much. For this reason, the Assamites believe that they are charged with reclaiming the blood of vampires that abuse their gifts and meddle too much in mortal affairs. This translates to a clan wide allowance of diablerie in certain cases. This makes them very popular among vampires who know who they are. The clan itself consists of three branches, which are pretty much their own bloodlines. Sorcerers handle the communications and arcane matters of the clan, warriors are the soldiers, enforcers, and assassins of the clan, and the viziers are the PR wing of the clan that gathers information, interfaces with vampires on behalf of the clan, and handle the billing and accounting. Most services are rendered in denominations of blood but they don’t mention this in the write up. Most Assamites encountered will be viziers and have sorcerers supporting them. For this reason, the main entry is for viziers. It’s also pretty dangerous for Assamite warriors in public due to their weakness. Appearance: All Assamites, regardless of their origins, has to spend time at Alamut and usually adopt Middle Eastern attire at that time. Outside of Alamut, it’s usually based on functionality but the Sorcerers dress in a traditional, Middle Eastern, fashion. Haven: Assamites tend to choose out of the way, easily defended locations. They also tend to value security over comfort or material wealth but some viziers break this trend to show off. General Assamite Weakness: All Assamites suffer from a darkening of the skin throughout their unlives. It’s not a darkening in a natural sense or fashion but to a point where they’re matte onyx by the time they’re elders. Vizier Weakness: Viziers are essentially obsessed with their highest creative or intellectual ability to the point where it’s a derangement. This allows vampires using Auspex to easier read their auras to learn their Nature and the object of her obsession. Sorcerer Weakness: Sorcerers have a problem hiding their arcane nature and are easy to detect when using Thaumaturgy. Warrior Weakness: Warriors always show up as diablerists under Auspex, even if they’ve never commited the act. This is why they’re not the face of the clan. Vizier Clan Disciplines: Auspex, Presence, Quietus (Hematus) Sorcerer Clan Disciplines: Assamite Sorcery (Thaumaturgy), Auspex, Celerity Warrior Clan Disciplines: Celerity, Obfuscate, Quietus (Cruscitus)  I’m going to cover the first five of each discipline in this write up and I’ll do some posts that focus on advanced disciplines in a later post. Auspex Auspex is a discipline associated with sensation and revelation. It is powered by willpower. Auspex can see through Obfuscate, vampire stealth, and Chimestry, vampire illusions. Sometimes this will work on other supernaturals but it’s not guaranteed. Any character with at least one level in Auspex can occasionally sense that there is a plot against them. It’s essentially spider sense but doesn’t always go off. These flashes can also happen when using the discipline. It is also common to experience overstimulation when using Auspex sense it allows a vampire to read minds or increase their sight or hearing. To use another comic book simile, it’s like Superman or Jean Grey when they first develop their powers. Level One – Heightened Senses: The vampire can increase their senses, or just one if they wish, reflexively and difficulties related to using the sense are reduced based on the number of dots they have. It’s possible to get overstimulated, blinded or deafened. It’s rare to get intuition flashes from this. Level Two – Read the Soul: You can read people’s auras and determine their emotional state, if they are a supernatural creature, and if they committed diablerie. The amount of information you glean is based on successes. Level Three – The Spirit’s Touch: The vampire can sense the psychic residue on an item left by someone handling it or using it for some purpose. The longer it’s used and the stronger the emotions when it was used lower the difficulty. The amount of information gained is based on successes. Level Four – Invade the Mind: The user can read the mind of a target and take away one detail per success. This can be tricky since minds are constantly moving so Storytellers are reminded to keep this mind. Level Five – Soul’s Flight: The vampire astrally projects from their body and can travel quickly to any location they know of. The difficulty is based on familiarity and if they’ve actually been there. This leaves their body in torpor. If this is botched, the vampire’s soul goes flying to an unknown, possibly supernatural, location. The user cannot interact with their location and cannot be affected by it physically, though can still suffer frenzy from seeing the sun or fire. The vampire can appear as an apparition and speak to people for a willpower point. Celerity Celerity is a discipline that passively modifies a vampire’s dexterity dice pools and they can spend a blood point to get a number of actions equal to their level of celerity. Celerity also adds to the vampire’s initiative rating and to the number of yards they can move a turn. The actions gained from activating celerity do not invoke a penalty, like extra actions gained through blood expenditures, and a number of them equal to half the vampire’s celerity levels can be combat actions. A vampire for one blood point can also multiply their move speed by their celerity level for one turn. As you can imagine, at level 5 this discipline is crazy powerful. Obfuscate This is the stealth discipline. It’s only really trumped by Auspex when it comes to vampires but most mortals can’t counter it. Sometimes animals, children, and religious visionaries aren’t affected.  Level One – Silence of Death: The vampire can reflexively create a zone of silence around themselves that can extend to 7 meters. No sounds can be created in the zone but sounds from outside can be heard. A vampire can leave behind the zone for as long as they wish for two blood points and concentrating for 5 rounds. Level Two – Unseen Presence: The vampire can reflexively move around unnoticed as long as they don’t interact with the world around them. Those who encounter the vampire will reflexively move out of the way of the vampire. A Cainite can extend this to a small object after a test. Level Three – Mask of a Thousand Faces: The user of this discipline can make onlookers see them as someone else based on the number of successes the Cainite has made on the test. The vampire’s body doesn’t physically change as well, just people’s perception of them. At one success the vampire is stuck with their physical mass to work with but at 5 successes they can change everything. Improvements to appearance costs blood points, such as one per Appearance dot gained, and it is incredibly difficult to fool someone familiar with the person the vampire is appearing to be. Level Four – Vanish from the Mind’s Eye: The Cainite who uses this power can fully influence what others see and can completely disappear from the sight. If the vampire rolls three or lesser successes, the vampire appears ghost like. With more than three, the vampire completely disappears. If the vampire scores more than the victim, the victim forgets the vampire was there and does not reflect on the memory of their interaction or conflict. If the vampire is seen at the lower result, they are harder to interact with and penalties are taken after a failed roll to interact with them. Seeing a vampire disappear can mechanically cause an onlooker to freak out if they fail their roll. Level Five – Cloak the Gathering: The vampire can extend their Obfuscate powers to a number of others equal to their number of stealth dots. Larger objects, a horse or a house for examples, can be extended to for an expenditure of a stealth trait. All normal restrictions apply to those extended obfuscate. Presence Presence is a discipline of subtle, emotional manipulation that a vampire can use on individuals and crowds. This discipline is powered by blood. Unlike Dominate, which is direct command and control as a vampire exerts their will over another, Presence only controls emotions and requires some maneuvering to get what you want.  Level One – Awe: This power grabs the attention of onlookers and directs it to the Cainite and influences the perception of onlookers when they look at the user. The vampire can make them feel the vampire is honest or dangerous for example, something that can be summed up in one or two words. This powers range of effect is determined by success and can be resisted with willpower. Level Two – Dread Gaze: This power allows the vampire to reflexively induce fear in targets by revealing their predatory nature in a dramatic way, such as barring their fangs. Those that fall the opposed roll to this test flee in terror and successes against them are subtracted from their future dice pools. The target attempts to flee as best they can but if their dice pool is reduced to zero, they break down and can’t perform any actions. Level Three – Entrancement: This power entrances the target, this should be obvious, for a period of time equal to the number of successes they achieve. The target will be compelled to serve the vampire but once the power’s duration ends, the target will most likely realize what was done to that and not be happy about the situation. This power can last for up to a year, 5 successes, so it does have some weight to it. The test’s difficulty is based on the target’s willpower and the sway can be broken temporarily through spending a willpower. Level Four – Summon: The vampire can summon a target they’ve encountered before to them. The target doesn’t know who is calling but will come at a rate determined by the amount of successes made and the difficulty is based on familiarity, topping out at a 7. The power lasts until dawn so it’s not something you could conceivably use on someone far away in the Middle Ages. Level Five – Majesty: This power allows the vampire to spend a willpower and boost their appearance to such a degree that no one will act against them, socially or physically. If an individual wishes to, they may roll their courage against the vampire’s combined Charisma and Intimidation. If they fail, they go to absurd lengths to make up for it. Quietus Quietus is the signature discipline of the Assamites and at this time it’s divided into two disciplines. Quietus Cruscitus is the Latin name for the Warrior version of Quietus and Quietus Hematus is the name for Vizier version. Sorcerers don’t get a version but there’s a Thaumaturgy path in Tome of Secrets. The Assamites don’t refer to it as Quietus or the branch terms but use Phonecian terms. It talks about the meaning and etymology of these terms, which is cool, but I’m not going to go into it.  Quietus (Cruscitus) “The settling of debts by the science of murder through blood” is the meaning they give for the name. Level One – Blood Essence: This power allows the Assamite to drain a victim down to one blood point and then rip out their heart for later. It’s a difficult test, a 9 difficulty willpower test, and the victim can fight back if able to. The heart is in a grayish, preserved state but if the vampire bites into it, they can treat it as draining the mortal dry or diablerizing the target if they were a vampire. Level Two – Scorpion’s Touch: The vampire can convert an amount of blood equal to their generational spending limit to a poison that damages the target’s stamina. If the target is reduced to 0 stamina, mortals die and vampires go into torpor. The poison must be ingested but the vampire can use it as a trap by letting a vampire bite them, can release it by biting or filling their mouth with it, or by coating their weapons with it. It pretty much has to be delivered to the Cainite or mortal’s bloodstream to work. Vampires and ghouls can reflexively purge the poison by succeeding at a test and spending a blood point. Mortals cannot recover from this poison. Level Three – Dagon’s Call: The vampire delivers a dab of blood to a target, again entering the target’s bloodstream, and after an hour can attack the target vampire from within. The difficulty to activate this power is proportional to the distance from the target and can range up to difficulty 10, which is ridiculously high in a d10, no exploding dice system. After a contested willpower challenge, unsoakable lethal is delivered to the target based on the number of successes. A botch delivers the opposite. Level Four – Baal’s Caress: This power works the same as Scorpion’s Touch but delivers regular aggravated damage. Coated weapons deal aggravated damage as well so it has a greater utility in combat. Level Five – Quicken the Mortal’s Blood: The vampire gains double nourishment when feeding from mortals and this translates to each blood point taken being equal to two. Quietus (Hematus) “The settling of debts by an offering of blood” is the meaning they give for this name. Level One – Blood Tempering: The vampire instills their blood into an item, giving it can amount of soak dice based on the character’s stamina. The number of successes determines the length it lasts, 6+ is indefinitely, but the item takes on the Cainite weaknesses to fire and sunlight. Level Two – Truth of Blood: By filling a container with a target’s blood, the user can determine if the target is lying or not. The number of successes gained on a test against the target’s willpower score determines the level by which the user can determine the truthfulness of their statements. Level Three – Cleansed in Blood: The user anoints a target in blood and after an hour of concentration with them can cleanse them of any Cainite mind influencing powers. The user has to spend blood equal to the level used and this affects Dominate, Dementation, and Presence uses. This doesn’t protect against future uses by the Assamite mind meld is still pretty useful. Level Four – Ripples of the Heart: The user imbues the blood of another with an emotion after drinking one point from the target. The targets blood will now be imbued with that emotion, such as fear or hatred, and drinkers of it will be afflicted by a version of that emotion. The severity is based on the number of points they drink. It can be used to lock down the drinker in fear, a blind rage, or to bolster allies by giving them preternatural courage. Level Five – Blood Sweat: The user, after coming into contact with the target’s blood, can cause them to lose an amount of blood equal to the number of successes the user rolled on a willpower test. This requires three turns of concentration and the target must be in line of sight of the user. The target is also wracked by feelings of guilt or a spiteful compulsion to boast, it’s all based on their Road and morality system.  Assamite Sorcery (Thaumaturgy) No specific Assamite paths are given in the core book, they can learn most the paths in the Thaumaturgy section and there is one in Tome of Secrets, but two Assamite specific rituals are presented. Level Four - Return of the Heart: This ritual returns a portion of a vampire’s soul to them and treats them as though they are following the Road of Humanity at a level of 9. This will cause the vampire to suffer guilt and degeneration for the most minor of transgressions. It requires the targets blood, 5 minutes, and lasts for one hour per success. Level Five - Rite of Marduk Slain and Risen: A vizier names a target for a sorcerer and they, along with three other participants who know the ritual, probably sorcerers, work a ritual directed at the target. The casters act out the myth of Marduk, donning robes and masks to portray the parts within it. If successful, if the target is diablerized before the next sunrise, the victim’s sire, all of the sire’s other childer, the victim’s childer, and any vampire they have a Blood Oath (blood bond) to lose one blood point and three willpower points as they feel what the target is feeling. These go to the diablerist, and if the diablerist is full, it goes to the vizier, and then the sorcerer in the same fashion. All of these vampires negatively impacted by the ritual also lose one willpower for every ten minutes they’re in the presence of the diablerist, vizier, or sorcerer and this lasts for 13 nights. RocknRollaAyatollah fucked around with this message at 18:42 on Mar 26, 2017 |
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Mar 26, 2017 18:20
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Did they change the bit where Assamites turn blacker as they get stronger? E: ah, no, I see they did not. That was always, um, unfortunate.
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Mar 26, 2017 19:05
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Mors Rattus posted:Did they change the bit where Assamites turn blacker as they get stronger? E: ah, no, I see they did not. Could work out if their leader was Blacula and believed that white men can't suck blood.
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Mar 26, 2017 19:06
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IIRC one of the authors of this book, David Hill, regged on SA recently.
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Mar 26, 2017 19:12
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temporarily yanked because of a huge copy-paste error
Cease to Hope fucked around with this message at 19:42 on Mar 26, 2017 |
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Mar 26, 2017 19:16
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If my OUT is 'beloved and only daughter of the Three' then you bet I want all my relationships in positive Three dice.
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Mar 26, 2017 19:30
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Mors Rattus posted:Did they change the bit where Assamites turn blacker as they get stronger? E: ah, no, I see they did not. They turn unnaturally black though, not to a natural skin tone. It's also something that's only been around since Revised I think, I don't remember it being in older editions. It's unfortunate and I don't really know the mythological origin of it, if any. I imagine the purpose was that it makes Assamites easy to spot after a point and unable to live among humanity since they can't pass for human. Even if you're pale, you can spend a blood to look human but with their curse, they can't. This would make them more difficult to play and give them more downsides since they have a lot of easily abusable powers. Maybe someone knows the origin but I don't really know why it exists and what it's supposed to represent other than the above. Cease to Hope posted:IIRC one of the authors of this book, David Hill, regged on SA recently. Yeah, I saw that when some of the recent WW drama exploded. If he's reading my review, they did a great job and I feel that my backing was money well spent.
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Mar 26, 2017 19:33
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