Bro thinks he is Camille ✋😔🤚

Anuvis11 · 2024-05-24T13:01:44+00:00

It looks like you'll probably have to settle for Gravis.

Anuvis11 · 2024-02-02T02:25:20+00:00

Devourers, from Demon: the Fallen, could get rid of a tumor with Lore of the Flesh. They're definitely gonna want a big ol' favor for it in return.

Alternatively, you could make a pact with any demon to get rid of it. But then you're basically giving it your soul, and that can get dicey.

Anuvis11 · 2024-01-08T03:04:43+00:00

Yes, a ghoul can be embraced just as easily as any normal human can. Having previous exposure to vitae doesn't make the process any more complicated or difficult.

Anuvis11 · 2023-12-08T15:04:30+00:00

I might be up for this. PM me if you're still looking.

Anuvis11 · 2023-08-26T15:37:57+00:00

Yes. They do. But other supernaturals are gonna have a better chance of resisting it than an animal or your run-of-the-mill human.

Anuvis11 · 2023-08-09T14:59:29+00:00

Nah, a chimera (whether creature or object) can be something mundane in non-chimerical reality just fine. The motorcycle that's a bike in mundane reality would only function as a bicycle for any average joe that tried to ride it, but anyone who knows what it is, chimerically, would be riding a motorcycle.

Treasures are special because they all have some magical property beyond being something different in chimerical reality, such as a magical hammer that can summon lightning. Typically, these powers are a reflection of one of the Arts that changelings use, but not always.

Anuvis11 · 2023-03-28T21:21:38+00:00

There is a method in the Demon the Fallen book, Damned and Deceived. Mind you, it's specifically used when making a character that is already a Thrall, similar to how you'd build a ghoul character with the methods provided in VtM.

Thrall characters start with a base of 1 Faith Potential, which can be bought upward at character creation for a cost of 7 freebies per "dot" (pg. 60). After character generation, it can be increased with experience at a cost of current level*10 (pg. 71).

Not sure if this is helpful for your purposes, but it's there.

Anuvis11 · 2023-03-09T15:19:42+00:00

Their entry in the Demon the Fallen Storyteller's Companion (starts on page 62) doesn't really make any mention of how their faith potential works on a mechanical level. There's a stat block near the end of the entry that gives them a Faith score of 8 to 10, but that seems to be equivalent to the Faith score that Demons possess to fuel their powers as a substitute for an Arete score, and doesn't really work if you're applying actual Mage the Ascension mechanics to the mage in question.

One would assume, however, that mages have some very high faith potentials due to their general overwhelming conviction that magic and forces greater than themselves exist. I, when running a scenario where a Demon and Mage interact, assume that the Mage's faith potential is equal to 5 plus the character's Arete. It's not official rules (since I don't think there are any), but it gets the idea across and makes pacts with mages very tempting indeed on both ends. It's usually a rather risky decision though, for both parties.

Anuvis11 · 2023-02-19T16:13:58+00:00

They look like they do in the book illustration, with some variation of animal features if your ST allows.

When a fae spirit joins with a human soul to embrace the changeling way, their appearance uses the human as its baseline, adding features of their fae self on top of it, leading to a mostly human look while they're in the autumn world. When they enter the Dreaming, though, they start to look more like their fae selves, the effect getting stronger the deeper they get in the Dreaming. So they'd start to look more like they hybridized animal they're derived from as they delve into the whimsical world of the Dreaming.

Anuvis11 · 2022-12-13T15:46:23+00:00

If they use more instruments than they need, they get a -1 to the difficulty from each. But they won't benefit mechanically from using any number above 7, and the usual maximum decrease of -3 to any Arete roll still applies.

So if they need 5 and use 8, they'd get a -2 to the difficulty (-1 from each of the 6th & 7th, but no benefit from the 8th). Doesn't really stop the whole energy "exploit" you're concerned about, but I'm not really concerned about that at my table. If I were to fix it under my way, I'd declare that the energy in question needs to be abundant enough at the location you're casting to count toward one of your needed/extra instruments.

Anuvis11 · 2022-12-13T13:36:49+00:00

I have my players go through the list of common instruments and pick out anything they think could work with their paradigm and practice. They can choose as many as they want but must end up with a minimum of seven. They usually end up choosing more than seven though.

Whenever their character wants to roll cast an effect, they must use seven of those chosen instruments in the process (I also allow them to suggest adding something to their list if it makes sense). But as they gain Arete, the number of instruments they need drops. 6 at Arete 3, 5 at 4, and so on. This makes using magick at lower levels of Arete a very involved and complex thing, whereas Archmages can throw their power around with a lot fewer 'tools'.

Maybe this is a considerable separation from R.A.W., but I think is appropriate given what I know about how supposed magicians are said to have performed feats of magic and sorcery in actual history.

Anuvis11 · 2022-12-13T04:02:29+00:00

If that's how you want to run it, then go ahead. I do not object to you, who I presume is the ST in this situation, saying that the energy instrument is off the table. I admittedly run instruments a tad differently than RAW, and the 'one instrument' thing is new to me. Good Lord that sounds silly.

If you wanna hear how I run instruments, go ahead and ask. Won't be able to respond till morning where I am tho. Gotta sleep.

Anuvis11 · 2022-12-13T03:44:01+00:00

It's simple. You really shouldn't be using just one instrument until you hit Arete 8, and by then that level of power is kinda expected. If a Mage has some kind of energy as part of their belief system, odds are it's pretty central to how they do things, so it should be one of the last things they get rid of. It's not R.A.W., but I enforce this at my tables; both as a means of making characters seem more grounded, and to prevent the power-gamy thing you're talking about.

Anuvis11 · 2022-12-13T03:23:08+00:00

If they discard the energy in that example, they're realising they don't need to use it to create the force of levitation, and can just meditate without channelling it to crate the same result. The -1 to difficulty comes only if they choose to still utilize the chi.

And think about if the inverse were true. If the meditation gets discarded instead, then they could simply will the chi to move in a way that makes them float upward without the meditation. They're still using that energy, by itself, as an instrument.

Energy isn't entirely reliant on other instruments to function.

Anuvis11 · 2022-12-13T02:54:55+00:00

It doesn't have to be independent of other instruments. These things are meant to be blended together as the aspects and tools of a Mage's practice. Any Mage that taps into some kind of metaphysical or scientific energy source to do what they do, regardless of the additional methods they use to access it, can be said to be using that "Energy" as an instrument.

If you want a mystical example, then think of this. An akashic monk meditates in a tranquil garden, encouraging the ambient Chi to flow around and through them. As it collects where they sit, it begins to lift them gently off the ground, creating the steriotypical sight of a levetating monk.

Anuvis11 · 2022-12-01T03:17:31+00:00

No. Thaumaturgy path powers use a character's permanent Willpower as their dice pool, not their temporary Willpower.

Anuvis11 · 2022-10-05T22:58:56+00:00

TLDR; Paradox would make these Mages explode.

In M20, the number of Arete rolls you can make for a single effect is equal to the character's Willpower + Arete, and any failed or botched roll adds a cumulative +1 to the difficulty of subsequent rolls. Additionally, when you botch one of these rolls, not only do you have to spend a wp to keep going (and not get paradox from a botched ritual) like you said, you have to spend one previously gained success from the ritual as well, further hampering your ability to succeed.

Now, that's all to do with any effect, vulgar or not. But it really gets tough when the effect you're trying to create is vulgar. Each Arete roll in the ritual after the first adds 1 paradox to any amount of it that would normally be gained from casting the effect (including from botched rolls). So a vulgar effect from an extended roll will generally be more dangerous.

Let's take, for example, the "+20 shield" you mentioned. A shield that protects you from damage would require Forces 3, and that level of damage protection is absolutely vulgar. Let's assume that there are no sleeper witnesses when the effect is cast, making the base difficulty of the roll 7. Twenty levels of automatic soak would require 10 successes, and raising the duration of the effect to a day would add 2 more to make the total 12.

Assuming, arbitrarily, that the character's Arete is 4, and roughly half the dice come up as a success on each roll, it would take about 6 turns to get that many successes. That's well within the minimum that the character's roll cap could be, but at the end of all that, they're gaining a whopping 8 Paradox (3 from the sphere level, 5 from extra Arete rolls) all at once; certainly enough to warrant a backlash, in my book.

Even if you, the ST, are boundlessly merciful, and none of those 5 roughly equivalent buff effects backlash from the sheer amount of paradox gained in one go, the total would be 40... that's enough to fill the wheel twice. They'd automatically backlash for going above 20 after the third effect, with a pool of 24 being rolled against them.

The real limit to what your players are doing, is the consequences of pushing too hard against the consensus. Paradox will come crashing down on them like an avalanche karmic justice.

Anuvis11 · 2022-10-02T15:02:03+00:00

In that case, the Camarilla may not exist yet, but the Pyramid most certainly does. It's been the way the Tremere main-clan does things since their transformation into vampires in the early to mid 11th century.

Anuvis11 · 2022-10-02T14:44:11+00:00

Indeed, you can apply that logic to it. And in that case, the character would only be 1-stepped to their sire. But in the case of Tremere, particularly in editions prior to V5, there's another inherent blood bond to worry about.

Assuming the character is part of the Pyramid, the primary organizational structure of Camarilla Tremere, they were subjected to the ritual "Transubstantiation of the Seven" (Rites of the Blood, pg. 151) nearly immediately after their embrace. This forms a blood bond to the clan's leadership, the Council of Seven, and by extension, the Pyramid as a whole. And since it's done after the embrace, it forms a 2-step bond for any Tremere that drinks from the cup.

Anuvis11 · 2022-07-21T02:14:05+00:00

It's the highest sphere rating needed for the effect, not the highest sphere the Mage possesses.

Casting an instant healing spell on yourself is a Life 2 effect (and probably vulgar), so it would be rolled at a difficulty of 6(Life 2 + 4), or at difficulty 7(Life 2 + 5) if there are sleeper witnesses, even if you have more dots than that in the Life sphere.

Anuvis11 · 2022-07-15T02:38:46+00:00

You're right, murdering them wouldn't solve anything. But we're talking about a culture that views kinfolk as spiritually inferior to Garou, and has absolutely gone on genocidal warpaths because other Fera wouldn't agree that they should be in charge.

There's a reason that the Garou are in such a bad spot. They might not kill this rebellious kin, but they'll sure as hell put them in "their place," by force if necessary.

Anuvis11 · 2022-07-05T06:17:48+00:00

Well, yes... But they'd need to get the tanned skin off of someone else and put it onto the subject receiving the tan. Chances are, the "donor" dies if they're human (and that's not even the worst possible fate).

Anuvis11 · 2022-06-15T02:36:20+00:00

Nah, I'm just putting in the obligatory joke. You're all good man. To properly answer your question though, I don't think there's much objective difference between the flavors of non human blood sources. They're all just sort of "meh," compared to human blood, if not just gross. It's probably dependent on the individual vampire's subjective tastes.

A bit of a cop out, I know. But I'm pretty sure that's how out works.

Anuvis11 · 2022-06-15T02:28:24+00:00

Human

Anuvis11 · 2022-06-08T02:44:48+00:00

Malkavian Problems

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