/CofD/ & /wodg/ Chronicles of Darkness and World of Darkness General

>Sounds like a really useful merit desu
Xp discounts and easy dimension shifting are pretty good, i guess.
>Iirc they can only use some arcanoi
I'll go look around.

>What's the composition of your current game's coterie/pack/whatever?
-Mastigos Mystagogue who's pretty sure she's read about this in a book before.
-Obrimos Adamantine Arrow who's on a mission to determine which supernaturals make the best kindling.
-Moros Adamantine Arrow that's only loosely associated with her order. Mostly spends time exploring the Underworld and Shadow, trying to develop a Legacy that unifies the two worlds.
-Ex-Malleus Maleficarum Hunter that spontaneously developed into a Proximi. The resulting crisis of faith drove him to question his alliegences, and he ran into the rest of the group on a solo vampire hunt.

>can't sleep in your old room because your dad converted it into a study / ritual chamber

Typical.

>that one player who wants to play but doesn't want to be an icky werewolf joins
>her character immediately devastates the pack balance

This feels strangely familiar.

Question for magefags. Does active mage sight recognize whether the target is sleeper?

No, there will be no overt sign that the target is a normal human.

Well, as far as a I can tell nothing prohibits you from using arcanoi while possessing something.

But if you are in a physical form there are obviously going to be some thing you can't do.

I'm asking because Death spell Suppress aura kinda implies it does:
>The mage suppresses the personal aura of her subject. The sub-
>ject’s Nimbus disappears and magical resonances around her are
>dampened, including the resonances of spells currently affecting
>her. She appears as a Sleeper to Mage Sight.

It just means they show up with no supernatural effects on them, as in they register as a normie through the LACK of any special signs.

So is there any way of recognizing a sleeper aside of Prime's Supernal Vision?

I suppose, if you've really gotta know, that the best you can do is throw all your Knowing and Unveiling spells at them and look at them with all of your Mage Sights and if you don't see anything supernatural, take the chance.

That doesn't sound like it would tell between sleeper and sleepwalker.

>What's the composition of your current game's coterie/pack/whatever?
Ivory Claw Saturi: The sneering leader of our force, works as alpha alongside Marisi. Has eye patch with silver on it. Very tough, has ghost familiar.

Ithaeur Iron Master Marisi: Our spirit mastermind. Just came back from Persia where he was on the spirit warfare side of things. This is sort of rest duty for him but he seems interested in building a lot of fetishes. Much more laid back than the Saturi, still very Roman.

Ithaeur Blood Talon Foederati: Only woman in group, is basically Marisi's bodyguard. Think she's Egyptian, was a hunter (Vigil hunter) before her first change, acts very mysterious, has weird sword. We do the grunt work.

Predator King Foederati: Me. Raised under the Night Tribes but taken before his first change. Intimidated by the spirit stuff but very dominant with humans and non-Roman werewolves, inspired a little by Conan and Simon Magus.

Aquila totem: We're on special business so we have this wolf-lightning thing. It reminds me of the electrical gremlin from Gremlins 2. It sometimes manifests as a priestess, seems to like hanging out with us if we're not in the spirit world.

Oh, well that's an easy one. Cast any overt spell and see if you suffer Paradox.

>Pure and forsaken in the same pack.

What? How?

SOP in Rome.

I am running a forsaken game. So far is great all the PC are slowly choosing tribes.

Here is the thing though, the book says tribes are a net of information about preys with secrets and shit.

And one of my players wants to visit the local hunter in darkness (he just joined the tribe) but I can't think of any "info about prey with secrets and shit" for them beyond, "learn and area of damage gift"

The pack already encounter a rat and spider host. Any suggestions?

Rome (and later, Thailand) had aspects that made werewolves put their issues to the side and focus on the greater glory. The Roman Empire was ruled by a protectorate of IM Marisi and IC Saturi.

Have a pack of just Hunters in Darkness who act like part of the watchers council from Buffy. They watch/record mystic stuff for occasions like this. Or more scientific take, they can be like scientists.
Unless player has a mentor merit make it cost something.

>both Storm Lords got cucked

Well, one thing they can teach him about are the rarer and more insidious types of Hosts. They're the HiD's chosen prey, after all.

Go into the pastebin and get WtF: Predators, it has a big section on hosts.

Beshilu will crawl inside your chest cavity, eat your heart (controlling your body) then merge with you, gradually turning you into a rat man.

Azlu will go into your ear or nose and start eating your brain, taking control of your body as they do it, eventually turning you into a Spider-man, then a drider.

While pretending to be human they can cause a lot of trouble.

When you kill them, they burst into swarms of rats or spiders, which all run away in different directions so they're hard to kill.

What's the /CofD/ consensus of the new Changeling manuscript stuff?

Question, in mage: the ascension do you have to join one of the factions.

Cause quite frankly, most of them suck.

Does being a part of a faction give special benefits I’m unaware about, or does something really bad happen to those who fly solo?

I suspect the action was intended to avoid precisely that.

>do you have to join one of the factions
No. You can be a Hollow One, but you won't have a dominant Sphere.

Gangrel lady who was Embraced in the 50's but something went wrong, and has been asleep merged with the Earth for sixty years. Woke up in a feral state and slowly regained her Humanity over 2-3 years. Now she's acclimating to a new era, watching over her sister's descendants, and trying to find out what happened after her Embrace.

Lasombra antitribu. Former detective from a prominent family, Embraced for his wits and connections. Couldn't reconcile the Path of Night or the Sabbat's savagery with his faith and fled the clan. Being tutored by the local Sheriff, who is also antitribu.

Mekhet larcenist who was Embraced recently by an ambassador from her clan. Kinda superstitious even by vampire standards, has lots of criminal connections, acts very jaded. Treats the whole vampire thing like being in a crime family or a cult.

Toreador actually a Lamia whose Sire helped facilitate the Lasombra's flight from the Sabbat. Tasked with working with him in his local efforts actually working to destroy the local Giovanni branch, and has the Lasombra onboard through gratitude.

Effeminate Brujah dude who most people mistake for a Toreador. No known Sire, no status, but he's intensely likable so far to pretty much everyone he meets. Genuinely too attractive for his own good, has drawn our group into trouble due to two ancilla fighting over him.

There is a "faction" for those who dont want to join factions. But its kinda weird.

>Effeminate Brujah dude who most people mistake for a Toreador. No known Sire, no status, but he's intensely likable so far to pretty much everyone he meets. Genuinely too attractive for his own good, has drawn our group into trouble due to two ancilla fighting over him.
thats pretty gayyyyyyy

It's less gay if it's two female ancilla, right?

How would I kill a vampire elder as an Obrimos with Forces at four, Prime at three and Spirit at three?

The vampire has two disciplines at five, Dominate and Celerity.

>forces four
>create fire

If you can hold on for a while the advantage should shift to your favor. Disciplines (Celerity especially) are powerful but get expensive. No joke, you have at least Gnosis 3 so one of those slots should go to a Creative Thaum'd Kinetic Shield spell, you should see about getting your hands on a Mental Shield, maybe trade favors with a good Mind Mage or see about an imbued item with your Order Status, and use Thunderbolt but styled to be fire damage instead. Just say you're Patterning the energy into fire instead of electricity. Don't be scared to set everything on fire, because your Forces 4 Attainment should protect you from extreme environments. Naturally that means you have to pick the battlefield. And get good mundane armor so you can stack it with your Forces armor.

First, only a fool engages in a one on one white room battle.

Why does the Obrimos want to kill vampire (other than good moral character)? Do either of the parties have allies, servants or cults, etc., to avoid getting their hands dirty or for support and assistance?

If the Obrimos wants to get really nasty and maintain deniability, he has more than sufficient means to protect himself from and negotiate with a strix and point him in the direction of the vampire.

Forces 4 alone is more than sufficient to render a mage virtually immune to physical harm and control fire, sunlight and other forces to utterly annihilate an opponent. Also note that dominate, to the extent that creative use of Prime cannot counter, requires eye contact. Forces can render nullify light to make such contact impossible while still providing more than ample sensory compensation (infrared and heat-sensing vision, motion detection, etc.). Forces can similarly nullify celerity with ease. Besides speeding up the mage, celerity is not much use against someone who controls gravity.

It's not a matter of how the mage would win, but how badly he wants to humiliate the vampire.

>Obrimos want to kill vampire (other than good moral character)

Indeed. No self-respecting Obrimos needs a reason or excuse to take out the blood-sucking undead trash.

No idea about mage but advice against elder with disciplines like this
a) don't go for directly hiting him with stuff he can probably dodge it(also watch out for him interrupting your actions)
b) you need a way to counter his dominate because he is faster on a draw and this is what he would likely go for

Be aware that the vampire can conceivably use Celerity to push himself to the front of the Initiative cue, and Dominate or strike before the mage can do anything.

So definitely try to get a mental shield from an outside source beforehand.

This is fucking retarded. Vampires have absolutely no way of dealing with spirits. Your elder is fucked through and through. You don't even need to be there to kill it.

There's multiple rituals and even a whole discipline devoted to spirit dealings.

>So definitely try to get a mental shield from an outside source beforehand.
Or just be out of sight. Casting from sensory range doesn't mean it has to see you, just you have to see them. Plus you're not flailing your arms around screaming spellwords. Stand on a building and use your spell, use reach for duration, and it's engulfed in flames for the entire scene, more than long enough to kill it.

Can't you counter dominate by silencing the room with forces so the vamp can't issue commands?

Not in Requiem. Certain ones can affect certain spirits, albeit minimally.

Blood sorcery would definitely work. Though not many are going to have the means for a situation such s this.

>Not in Requiem. Certain ones can affect certain spirits, albeit minimally.
There's a spirit-based discipline in Requiem and a ton of rituals, they just wouldn't be that useful if a mage was sending waves of spirits to kill you. Maybe some of the rituals, but user already said the vampire has dominate and celerity and made no mention of it being a spirit-witch

How do you make your angels/demons terrifying to your players in hunters? Bones and flesh have an appeal but... gears and steel?

>There's a spirit-based discipline in Requiem

You're thinking of a Devotion

Are your players really pissing their pants over skeletons and rolling their eyes at clockwork monstrosities that shoot lasers made of annihilation?

Terrifing to look at or terrifying because of the powers the wield?

Skeletons aren't a joke, bro.

Why discuss this? It's already been acknowledged that Mages have more advantages than everybody else.

Terrifying to make my players shiver. Description-wise

>You're thinking of a Devotion
No, I'm thinking of Blood Tenebrous, the spirit-based Discipline.

Well even providing just a little bit of stats makes it a more interesting scenario to think about.

Oh that. That's not going to be useful at all.

Don't fight him directly, find out where he lives and send spirits at him. He'll probably survive but have to flee.

If you fight him in a direct conformation he'll use celerity to act before you, and either dominate you into putty or kill you. An elder vampire most likely has enough dots in strength to kill you outright in one hit.

Is there a campaign setting where vampires are above spellcasters in power?

>If you fight him in a direct conformation he'll use celerity to act before you, and either dominate you into putty or kill you. An elder vampire most likely has enough dots in strength to kill you outright in one hit.

Do you pretend that all Mages are retards?

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Just use Blood Sorcery and make it more widespread.

That supplement won't change anything

Dubai has a pack that's half Pure and half Forsaken too. Apparently the two sides hate each other but work together for their family's overall power. Wealth > factions.

No? But then again the vampire probably isn't retarded either.

All I'm saying is that if you fight him straight up, with no countermeasures active beforehand, he'll win instantly simply by moving way faster. A lot of countermeasures are risky, too, in case he has merits that fuck with them. It's best to just mob him with spirits.

>but I can't think of any "info about prey with secrets and shit" for them beyond, "learn and area of damage gift"

I mean, that's a pretty good starting point. Have the Hunder go over some of the really basic shit just to doublecheck the new guy knows what the fuck he's doing - aoe damage, fire control talens, One Step Ahead to check where the Shard is going to run to, and all that.

Those aren't typically mutually exclusive categories.

Mechanically speaking the Mage will likely survive via Mage Armor. Only needs to tag the Vampire once to kill it.

Realistically speaking, the Mage is going to walk into the fight immune to kinetic assaults.

Mobbing him with spirits is the lazy method.

Vampire can't use Celerity when gravity is up its ass.

>Discussion has shifted from "How can it be done with my skills?" to "The Mage is going to undeniably destroy the Elder without getting a scratch on him, no two ways about it".
Aaaand it's not fun anymore.

Thing is this elder won't likely try to punch him to death. Pop celerity before mage can turn away, dominate, tell him to turn of the armor, shot in the face

I dunno I would be scared shitless by a guy who can kill everyone in the room with a simple gun before they can react in any way.
But anyway - look for phyrexians from magic the gathering. Disturbing enough

There are many other Host types. Snake Host, Locust Host, Crow Host, Fungus Host, Worm Host and Wolf Host. They're scattered among the supplements.

Some of the writers published extra Hosts on the Onyx Path forums. Those are Lamprey Host (a real good one) and Mosquito Host.

Some advanced Host-victim fusions are implied to have unique magics, and London Beshilu were confirmed to have a society and religion. Those are tidbits that may be useful to know.

The second edition books mentioned two Lodges that focus on Hosts. The first Lodge utilizes the cycle of seasons somehow, to fix the aftermath of infestation. The other detects Hosts before they spread, to nip infestation in the bud.

Also, since Hosts mess with the Gauntlet, Hunters in Darkness should be most informed about how the Gauntlet works, how to get into it and how it can go awry.

Other than that, make stuff up.

>implying someone with 4 dots in forces doesn't know how to kill a vampire
It was a troll from the first post.

>Pop celerity before mage can turn away, dominate, tell him to turn of the armor, shot in the face

Sorry, the non-dumbass mage prepared for that too.

And if you start the combat without that active, he'll use celerity to kill you before you cast that gravity null.

I've seen this happen. Mage player thinks he's about to win easily, vampire pushes his initiative ahead of his, then dice spikes and does way more damage than he can armor off in one hit. Ded mage.

Don't get into fights you don't have to. If you DO have to, don't do it stupidly.

As a vampire player and with his skills I would say nuke the place with fire and hold a spirit as a backup. Also do not turn of the lights with forces because he can still see you. Also with dominate it is you who has to avoid even seeing his eyes not him that has to lock gaze with you

>dominate

>mage silences sound
>mage merges with spirit of lucid thought
>mage uses prime to see through the lies

you're a funny guy, guy.

this is assuming the vampire can even use celerity in the vicinity to begin with

The thing is, you're assuming the mage is a moron. If the mage knows what he's fighting the elder is finished.

Vampires don't win against prep Mages.

Look if we stick adventages and what is possible for people one way or the other we can push some absurd stuff like mage getting evicted or having hot water shut off in his apartment.

You're assuming the Mage knows how to perfectly counter the Elder, and that the Elder can't be prepared in turn.

>If you fight him in a direct conformation he'll use celerity to act before you, and either dominate you into putty or kill you. An elder vampire most likely has enough dots in strength to kill you outright in one hit.

I'm hardly a mage supremacy fag, and generally don't care about featureless white room one-on one splat duels, but virtually no kinetic-type attack or tactics, regardless of strength or speed, pose much of threat to a Obrimos mage with Forces 4, Prime 3 and Spirit 3. The Arcana spread also permit more than ample defense against Dominate.

An Obrimos Adept, even a stupid and incompetent one (**cough** Free Council **cough**), is practically a purpose-built vampire killin' machine.

>people acting like the mage will definitely oneshot the vampire

With celerity 5 is defense is likely insane, and if he's an elder he's going have a very high resistance trait to direct effect spells.

>Vampires don't win against prep Mages.
>I'm hundreds of years old and your parents are blood bonded to me. If I die, they will reveal all your secrets and commit suicide.

The fact that you guys are arguing over Celerity and Dominate, the two best Disciplines to use against Mages, is evident proof of how weak Vampires are.

Trying to get into Changeling: the lost. What's everyone's reccomendation as far as seeming/court for someone just starting out?

>You're assuming the Mage knows how to perfectly counter the Elder
You're assuming it's hard for a Mage to find this out, or ask his peers, or the Mysterium.
>and that the Elder can't be prepared in turn.
Prep for a vampire is far different than prep for a mage.

>I'm hundreds of years old and your parents are blood bonded to me. If I die, they will reveal all your secrets and commit suicide.
I don't think the Mage is going to care because 'muh hubris'

>if he's an elder he's going have a very high resistance trait to direct effect spells
Depends on what trait. Direct damage spells don't have a Withstand rating, and indirect spells aren't Withstood at all.

Hmm I do nto think one seeming or ocurt is more difficult to play then another. I would start with some reasonably simple character story tho.

>>I'm hundreds of years old and your parents are blood bonded to me. If I die, they will reveal all your secrets and commit suicide.
Mages have no connection to humanity beyond proximi, this wouldn't work.

>With celerity 5 is defense is likely insane, and if he's an elder he's going have a very high resistance trait to direct effect spells.

Sensory and area of effect range spells ignore defense entirely, and there's no Withstand to direct damage spells, and even many indirect damage effect.

>m-my celerity will prevail!
>r-right guys...?

No.

Prime will make you invis to a vampire.
SpiritTwilight + create fire makes it a non issue.
Why are you even asking this question.

Oh wait, to start a fucking argument. Fuck off troll.

The best Discipline is probably Nightmare, desu.

The five dot ability is only really countered by Mind, is direct damage, doesn't require sight or sound, etc. But obviously it's completely countered by Mind.

Niggas, the WW themselves counseled us to not mix different games.