Previous thread: >>53807482

I bailed when it became "tumblr but somehow more retarded" I'd assume the other sane people did too.

Are there any here?

I think that's an issue of tumblerites falling into everything.

How strong are BP 10 vampires compared to PU 10 werewolves?

RPG.net is a special case though.

Why do people only care about power levels?

I thought WoD wasn't solely focused on combat?

Not all violence is physical.

Sometimes people say mean things to monsters of legend on the internet.

>Sometimes people say mean things to monsters of legend on the internet.

>sad werewolf

people are incapable of having a game without knowing what its power level is. And why people who like the highest power level thing are shitty people who don't play a real game like XYZ

...

I've always liked the Sorcerer books [Revised and Original] for the Old World of Darkness, since they captured the real occultic feel of Mage without the over the top power level. The Paths are interesting and the division of successes to alter effects on the fly is pretty flexible without being as strong as the Spheres.

I wish the mechanics were better though, it'd be a useful tool to run alongside Masquerade or Werewolf.

I just wish all the gamelines were balanced and equal

Like they should be. No reason not to be.

>No reason not to be.
Except for minor reasons like lore or setting flavor or any of that stuff.

I never liked Sorcerer, at least when compared to Mage.

Both gain their power from arcane knowledge and studying the arcane. Yet one is Static and the other is Dynamic, the latter being the more powerful of the two.

Why make an essentially weaker version of Mage? There is practically no difference regarding the source of their power.

Sorcerers don't piss off the universe by working their craft. Nor do they brute force their magic via an Avatar

>I just wish all the gamelines were balanced and equal
>Like they should be. No reason not to be.

Life ain't fair.

Some threats and monsters are worse than others.

Different gamelines have different themes and design priorities (e.g., Mage is about privilege and corruption of power).

RPG.net is actually run by SJWs and the easily offended. It's worse than them just stumbling into something.

I like Sorcerers, but they work better as a replacement to Mages then anything else. For instance, if I wanted to run a crossover chronicle, a slightly buffed Sorcerer Template would give me EVERYTHING I wanted to run with Vampires and Werewolves, without shitting all over everything. And they fit more with the Tremere and the Masassa War fluff by not being so OP they make the decision to become vampires utterly asinine.

I do include them in my own Mage games, but not using the Sorcerer rules, instead I just give them lists of Rotes instead of Spheres.

The notion of including one in a Vampire Chronicle has always appealed to me though. For instance once a DM was going to run a Victorian Vampire game, and I wanted to play as a Mage [because up until that point I had never played Mage]. However to make it work I would have had to have really really held back to avoid dominating the story.

A Sorcerer would have let me play into Hermeticism and Theosophy and so on as much as I desired, without the vast chasm of power shitting all over the game [but I didn't know of Sorcerers at the time, and it didn't matter since the game never ran]

Me too, they are awesome. I always saw them as the backbone of the traditions on mage. But i started with Revised when they dropped the Magick bullshit.

No I hated their fluff, they shouldn't be the backbone of anything and the idea that any True Mage could look upon sorcerers as anything more then half-formed abortions was ridiculous to me. They're shit in comparison.

They work much better as a replacement to Mage in crossover chronicles, if you employ every single "Make them stronger" rule option they give you and then give them a bit more too.

You realize that the Traditions are full of sorcerers, right? Awakened willworkers are rare individuals.

Mages are the privileged sorcerers.

Only in Revised, which also has shit fluff like the Avatar Storm and thus should be ignored anyway. That whole edition was a series of trying to tone down and step away from the original premise of Mage and make it some street-level crap.

Except it was always canon that the vast majority of magicians in the Traditions were sorcerers, not mages.

It's somewhat the same in Awakening.

Again, only as of Revised, and the fact that its canon there does not make it any more ridiculous of fluff. I mean just read Sorcerer Revised, they go through half the book telling you that no one, not even most Mages, can tell the difference between Sorcerers and Awakened, and that the two stand on mostly even footing, and then the entire last chapter is nothing but advise on how to run a campaign with the extremely low-powered Sorcerer rules.

No, the sorcerers should not be part of the Traditions. No, they are not hard to tell apart, any casual observer can quickly determine the difference.

So stupid.

The Order of Hermes label sorcerers as "eternal children"

That said, they're still the backbone of the Order. They outnumber true wizards 3 to 1 and only the more experiences mages can tell the difference.

Ummm, no. It's not stupid. Nobody bothers to tell the difference because it doesn't fucking matter.

They also flat out mention that sorcerers are inferior to mages in the same goddamn passage.

>only the more experiences mages can tell the difference.

Any one with Prime 1 can immediately tell they aren't Awakened. Any Mage who asks even the most basic of questions or demonstrations can tell.

A Sorcerer's effects RAW take several turns to cast, and are far smaller and far weaker then the same result with Sphere magick, and they don't cause paradox.

I'm well aware of the supposed fluff in Revised, but given its stupid ass fluff I've elected to ignore it.

>No, the sorcerers should not be part of the Traditions. No, they are not hard to tell apart, any casual observer can quickly determine the difference.

How? This isnt awakening in which mage just close their eyes and wank very very hard. Both have a series of ceremonies and/or instruments they gotta do with do their magic. Just that Mages advance more quickly in their power and flexibility.

But if i see hermtic sorcerer and hermetic mage and both chant in enochian and cast a fireball there isnt much difference a casual observer can quickly determine.

He's an idiot. Ignore him.

Sorcerers have always been heavily ingrained within Mage society. They're actually useful to have around..

Here's something interesting

No, they've only been thus as of Revised. You can read the original Sorcerer book and it goes to great lengths to explain how "hedge mages" are looked down upon by the Awakened.

Just because their foci are superficially similar doesn't change the GIGANTIC gap in power, flexibility, scale, and effect between a Sorcerer and a Mage.

A Hermetic Adept will know dozens of spells, the strongest Sorcerer will likely know less then 10, its not hard to tell the difference when Arete 3 can throw a fireball in one turn that kills three people while the sorcerer is still preparing his, significantly weaker, fireball for three more turns.

If you invoke every single optional upgrade in Revised to buff up the Sorcerer template, you MIGHT be able to fool a casual observer, but again Prime would immediately reveal the distinction if the power gap somehow failed to.

I{m going to test V5 this weekend, what am I getting into?
Anyone here try it out yet?

No, you're right. Revised just has a better picture of sorcerers than the former.

It actually gives them meaning regarding occult societies.

The original Sorcerer is also the same supplement comparing Mages to sorcerers from D&D.
Apparently from their point of view Mages don't work at all for their magic, which is entirely preposterous.

True wizards are easily more academic and obsessive than mundane sorcerers.

Any particular reason you forgot to actually give the thread a subject, like say WoD General or Chronicles of Darkness General?

Some unnamed thread with a Samurai Jack pic is practically invisible in catalog view.

Is the the return of World of Fagness no one asked for.

chronicles of fagness is a total faggot

fag

That's the thing though, its still schizophrenic, because Sorcerer Revised spends the first half of its page count telling you nobody can tell the difference except autists obsessed with metaphysics, and yet that is so blatantly false that the book itself tells you in the second half of its pagecount that Sorcerers are so weak you may want to consider giving them several major power ups, and how even then you're better off having them fight ghouls and kinfolk then true supernatural templates.

Its silly. When I use Sorcerers in Mage, I make them outside the Traditions [or on the very periphery of them] and I ignore the rules given in favor of just making them Mages who only know Rotes, not Spheres.

What I'd like to do, is use Sorcerers [slightly upgraded] as a replacement template in a game of Vampire or Werewolf, because they balance much easier with a group of neonates then a True Mage does.

It would be easier to switch "can't tell the difference" with "don't care to tell the difference"

Problem solved.

fag

Samurai Jack (Dark Hero Version)

Virtue: Determined/Stoic
Vice: Wrath

Mental Attributes: Intelligence 4, Wits 6, Resolve 6
Physical Attributes: Strength 4, Dexterity 6, Stamina 4
Social Attributes: Presence 3, Manipulation 3, Composure 4

Mental Skills: Academics (Strategy) 3, Crafts 1, Computer 0, Medicine 1, Occult 2, Politics 1, Investigation 3, Science 2

Physical Skills: Athletics (Jumping) 7, Brawl (Neutralize) 6, Drive (Motorcycle) 2, Firearms 2, Larceny 3, Stealth (Ambush) 5, Survival (Hunting) 4, Weaponry (Katana) 7

Social Skills: Animal Ken 6, Empathy 3, Expression (Wisdom) 2, Intimidation 3, Persuasion 1, Socialize 0, Streetwise 0, Subterfuge 2

Merits: Area Of Expertise (Jumping, Katana), Common Sense, Danger Sense (Advanced), Direction Sense, Eye For The Strange, Fast Reflexes 3, Indomitable (Epic), Meditative Mind 4, Multilingual (Several), Professional Training 5 (Samurai: Athletics, Weaponry, Survival), Trained Observer 3, Virtuous (Advanced 3), Ambidextrous, Demolisher 3, Fleet Of Foot 3, Greyhound, Iron Stamina 3, Parkour 5, Quick Draw (Katana), Seizing The Edge, Fame 3, Inspiring, Iron Will, Striking Looks 1, Armed Defense 5, Defensive Combat (Brawl, Weaponry), Fighting Finesse (Katana), Iron Skin 2 (Advanced 2), Light Weapons 5, Martial Arts 5, Unarmed Defense 5

Masteries: Weaponry (Counter, Powerful Success, Rapidity x 2, Sublime Stunt, Skill Trick: Butcher), Athletics (Counter, Powerful Success, Rapidity x 2, Incredible Leap), Brawl (Counter, The Guild, Rapidity x 1, Skill Sense) Stealth (Beyond The Limit, Skill Sense), Animal Ken (Powerful Success, Skill Trick: Whisperer), Survival (Skill Trick: Homemade Tools/Master Tracker)

Health: 17
Willpower: 10
Defense: 13
Initiative: 13
Speed: 18
Integrity: 6
Arete: 7
Conditions: Obsessed (Defeating Aku)

Except you'd obviously care, because compared to Mages Sorcerers suck, and several of the traditions [notably, the Etherites] couldn't easily have sorcerers in them at all, since sorcerers literally can't carry out their philosophy.

It makes no sense to say there's sorcerers in many Traditions, especially if you assume they're the majority.

>Athletics(Jumping)

kek

>several of the traditions [notably, the Etherites] couldn't easily have sorcerers in them at all

>Doesnt know what Extraordinary Citizen are.

Except canonically sorcerers make up the majority of the Traditions and Conventions.

Philosophy doesn't really matter when mages define it for them.

I seem to remember several of the independant crafts having way more unawakened sorcerers than the proper traditions

Only canon for Revised, and the fact that its canon there doesn't change the fact that its stupid and makes no sense.
The Extraordinary Citizen is Technocracy you dumb idiot. Obviously there is Technocratic sorcerers, since you can learn by rote their Procedures, the entire Etherite philosophy is that every Etherite composes his own theories for how the world works and builds devices based on those theories.

Etherites are by definition individualists who rely heavily on the whole "set your own reality" thing, so the idea of an Etherite sorcerer is almost a contradiction in terms. At best you could have a kind of lab assistant who replicates inventions designed by an existing Etherite. But that is less a true Etherite and more a lackey.

Makes complete sense to me, actually.

I think you're just a bit biased.

So what's Dark Era's:to the strongest about?

When i have use them in mage they are the backbone of the Traditions. Doing work and living with them on a somewhat even footing but the awakened status being the thing that make some pass through the ranks to comet speed.

For example: There was a chantry of mostly hermetics on the game. 1 master hermetic, 3 zelators (Hermetics sorcerers), and 2 other mages from 2 other traditions. Then one of the PC "joined" as he was an hermtic.

So there was this situation in which the Zelators who were 2 middle age persons and a 30 something one took orders from a 20 something because he outrank them and was just "better" at mastering the hermetic magic than them.

However the 3 Zelators were a highly effective team of investigators using their few paths in productive ways. While the hermetic was better at blowing stuff up. So there was this fine line of the hermetic mage having to walk a fine line because while he outrank the Zelators, they handle a lot of the day to day business of the chantry and they got 20 years more of experience on them that could be use to make the hermetic mages life more difficult.

mages in the time of the successor kingdoms to Alexander the Great's empire

Or you know, you could have etherite citizen who subscribe to various or one "published" theory of the etherites. But why would i correct your idiocy?

Actually Sorcery Revised itself says as much, saying Etherite Sorcerers are an extreme minority among the Tradition.

So a fluff book? Worth the 5 bucks?

On the other hand, the etherites themselves have little organization.

I literally said that was a possibility in the post you linked to, only that it wouldn't be a true Etherite in philosophy or outlook.

You can be a Hermetic in philosophy and still be a Sorcerer, you can't be an Etherite in philosophy and be a Sorcerer.
Not remotely how I use them. In my games they're kind of on the fringes of Tradition society. Akashics may use Sorcerer-thugs who channel chi, Hermetics train people in sorcery hoping they'll awaken, an Etherite may have a sorcerer lab-assistant, but there is no proper placement in the Traditions unless you Awaken.

There is also no pretense of them being equal or remotely approachable to the Awakened. A major event in my chronicle was when a Mage PC's brother, who was a Sorcerer, awakened.

So they're the odd one out? That's about it.

I don't think they were referring to sorcerers there.

>Not remotely how I use them. In my games they're kind of on the fringes of Tradition society. Akashics may use Sorcerer-thugs who channel chi, Hermetics train people in sorcery hoping they'll awaken, an Etherite may have a sorcerer lab-assistant, but there is no proper placement in the Traditions unless you Awaken.
>There is also no pretense of them being equal or remotely approachable to the Awakened. A major event in my chronicle was when a Mage PC's brother, who was a Sorcerer, awakened.

Kinda boring setting you got there mate. You really thing everyperson living in the Tradition strongholds has arete? All of them? Even the guy doing the accounting is an adept of forces or something? How your traditions work, who does the necessary menial work then?

i dunno, are you interested in PHALANGITES and the origin of how so many greek and indian terms got into the modern mage lexicon?

Yes they are, you can download the book in the OP. They crux of the issue is that all Etherites have their own theories on literally everything, they create their own model of the universe and build inventions based on it using their Avatar to make the inventions work. That is how Etherites work.

A Sorcerer walks a linear path, thus he has no place among the Etherites. The closest a Sorcerer can be to an Etherite is someone who uses the theories of an Awakened Etherite to build functioning inventions, but he isn't so much following their philosophy or worldview as pantomiming it.

This isn't the case with a Hermetic Sorcerer for instance, for whom the distinction in THEORY is far more nuanced.

Or some sleeper who gets his hands on some old issues of Paradigma

Sleepers or more rarely Umbroods, when such a thing is a concern at all. The Traditions in my setting aren't nearly so monolithic that they require a huge task-force of sorcerers to do their work for them.

The precise demographics are as follows.

There are around 30,000 Awakened on Earth, divided into 33% Technocracy 77% Traditions and Crafts. 35% of Mages are Arete 1-2, 64% are Arete 3-4, and less then 1% are Arete 5-6. I've heavily rebalanced many of the successes required for effects and I don't use Masters of the Art as I view it as too OP even for my tastes.

There are 80,000-90,000 Sorcerers on Earth many of whom are employed by the Technocratic Union. The rest are usually very weak, and don't use Sorcery rules, instead having a handful of Rotes instead of Spheres and otherwise mostly functioning as Mages. They aren't usually formally integrated into the Traditions, but serve on the periphery. An Akashic Master for instance in my setting has hundreds of Sorcerer-thugs working for him who mostly just buff their unarmed and act like wuxia goons. Otherwise they're the petty Mages, the half-Mages, the mooks of the setting and everyone familiar with magick knows it.

A Cainite on the street may not be able to tell the difference, but nobody in the Order of Hermes is calling a sorcerer their Pater.

Stop acting like your opinions have any weight.

Jesus

Stop being a huge faggot.

>Sorcerer walks a linear path, thus he has no place among the Etherites
Not according to canon lore

:^)

>Canon lore says exactly what I just said
Read the thread.

I don't see "sorcerers"

:^)

He might as well argue that no sorcerer has any place in the Traditions/Conventions.

Which just isn't true, of course.

>Jesus

>Probably was a mediocre mage

Good. Religious figures piss me off in OWoD.

>Good. Religious figures piss me off in OWoD.

Then you must really hate Masquerade as it is Old Testament-tastic.

Despite being the first of the splats, Masquerade has honestly shit all over the metaplot/cosmology due to its religious aspects.

The religious aspects is what really held the Masquerade meta-plot back. That and the weird tonal shift with low generation vampires being something closer to jojo's bizarre adventure than say Dracula.

I'm pretty sure those are actually the best parts and the real problem is that you should be playing nWoD with the other edgeteens, buddy.

Shouldn't you be in bed by now grandpa?

Just ran the playtest. All the characters and the plot McGuffin survived, which is something I didn't expect in my wildest dreams.

Combat was super fast, feeding and blood were interesting and involved without being overbearing.

Some rules oddities cropped up (ties?) and the structure of the scenario made it hard to evaluate when scenes changed. My PCs should've likely been a lot hungrier than they were.

Overall, very enjoyable. Loved the details provided from a ST's point of view. Felt very V:tM.

>Felt very V:tM.
That's not very assuring senpai.

Alright, to elaborate, it felt very much like the mood of early game VtM: Bloodlines.

Sounds good, though I think I'm gonna miss blood pool as a concept if not always as it was executed.

You still have to keep an eye out on your blood use, but it's never going to be "because if I use it all up, I can't use my spechul powers".

You can always use your cool shit. You just might not like where it takes you.

>You can always use your cool shit. You just might not like where it takes you.

So if you use your powers without enough vitae in your system, problems crop up?

Once you hit 5 Hunger and 5 uses of Rouse the Blood in a scene, every new use forces a frenzy check and all the dice that show up 1 result in a Compulsion. You quickly run out Composure and go ballistic.

I presume you Rouse the Blood in order to activate Disciplines? Or as preparation there?

Actually one feedback question we got was related to whether Rouse the Blood is limited to the first time you hit 5 and then every 5 afterward, or every 1 afterward.

Quick math with every 5 rouses, without WP:
Starting at 0 Hunger, you use Rouse the Blood five times and get a hunger check for 2.5 average extra hunger. At 3.5 avg hunger, you rouse the blood five times again for a total of 10 roused - avg 5 extra hunger which forces a frenzy check at -1 avg penalty which is still beatable by all the pregen chars on average. The next rouse at 15 gives a 7.5 hunger increase on average, which is a 100% Frenzy.

With Willpower expenditure on the increased hunger check, you gain average 1.25 hunger at 5 rouses, 2.5 at 10 rouses and 3.75 at 15 rouses. This would put you at 7.5 hunger average, which is a -2.5 dice penalty to your Frenzy check. You could rouse blood 15 times and still be able to resist frenzy on a luckier roll.

This means that the non-combat pregen characters could heal through four +1 success assault rifle bursts with their stats bumped by 3 dots for the scene with blood alone before they start frenzying at any certainty.

Rouse the Blood is used for:

• Rise every evening
• Temporarily increase an Attribute by one dot for the remainder of the scene (up to a maximum of 5)
• Use a Discipline
• Heal damage
• 5 x Rouse: Heal impairments incurred from Aggravated damage
• To appear human for one scene (simulate breathing, skin warmth, eye blinking, etc.)

There is no limit to how many Rouses you can do in a turn and using blood doesn't take up an action. You just have to check for hunger at 5 rouses.

>I presume you Rouse the Blood in order to activate Disciplines?

You Rouse the Blood every time your vampire does *anything* supernatural, basically.

Every time they wake up in the evening, every time they use a discipline, every time they increase an attribute, every time they heal damage, every time they try to appear human for a scene, and so on.

Anything that blood was used for in the old VtM rules is now "Rouse the Blood", basically. Personally, I'm not very fond of it.

Hm. That's not quite as big a divorce from previous fluff as I was worried about. Not bad.

Now, if only the character design didn't put me off so much...

Here's an Anydice.com script to oogle at the expected values for normal rolls and rolls to which you spent WP on.

anydice.com/program/c07c

With 8 dice and WP spent, you're looking at a 67.85% chance to get at least six successes.