Monte Cooks WoD is for 3.5

[mmu1]

I've yet to see a game system where anyone bleeds out and dies after a fight.

I know of one off-hand, Riddle of Steel. It's the sort of game where, if you want someone taken alive, you wrestle them down to the ground and punch them out / tie them up. Actually hitting people with weapons tends to (surprise, surprise) result in a great deal of trauma and bleeding.

(Fun game, but deeply flawed in some respects, and not nearly polished enough for a retail product. Hoping they'll get around to a heavily revised 2nd edition...)

 

[painandgreed]

It's a verisimillitude issue with me, one that got really bad at the end of the OWoD - mortals are supposed to be what the supernatural is afraid of, inverting the usual horror trope in that regard. But when the supernaturals have nothing to mechanically fear, then it breaks down.

They stil have plenty to fear. I've never seen vamps shug off gunfire in oWoD as they do in movies. Those hits, even if halved, add up quick. They may be able to take a calculated risk and figure they can take a hit or two in the combat, but I've also seen them fail that soak roll and be put out of the action way before they expected. I see nothing wrong with verisimilltude.

You really want to talk about how mortals or ther vampires would take out vamps, talk about bombs. Pack a bomb and add an incenerary element to it, and it should prove plenty fatal to vamps and humans. If you go for military weaponry such as white phosphorous gernades or 500# napalm bombs, there isn't really a way even a powerful vamprire should survive. Upper level vampire combat should all be about manipulating their government controled contacts into blasting their enemies.

I've yet to see a game system where anyone bleeds out and dies after a fight.

The Morrow Project

 

[eyebeams]

So what you're saying is that you actually can split your action into two or more, then abort one of them in order to Dodge, yes?

Yes. FWIW, I don't know *anybody* who ever imposed the penalties for aborting another action to defend, even in officially sanctioned chats.

It's just awkward to decide to defend against a single attack before knowing what the attack is. This doesn't apply to just decided to improve your all-around defense for a turn.

Incidentally, in nWoD playtest our group did try a more flexible option where you had tactical points you could split into attack and defense boosts. It was more trouble than it was worth.

Ultimately, the most decisive thing in combat is the desire to prevail. If you go all out/aim and spend Willpower, you get 5 or 6 extra dice, but you're opening yourself up to attack and reducing your chances of success in subsequent actions -- unless you satisfy a Virtue or Vice.

 

[rgard]

This is what I expect as well. I think Monte is too smart to have LAs and all that for a large group of playable characters. He and Sean Reynolds are smart guys, who know their crunch backwards and forwards and are not afraid to screw with d20's holy bovines-- as someone else pointed out, tehy did Ghostwalk and made PC ghosts with no LA.

You could still do LA for vampires and have humans in the game. Just give the vampires a level adjustment of 4 and one class level and start all humans at 5th level. Or something along those lines.

How many first level plebes are hunting vampires anyway?

Thanks,
Rich

 

[Felon]

You could still do LA for vampires and have humans in the game. Just give the vampires a level adjustment of 4 and one class level and start all humans at 5th level. Or something along those lines.

How many first level plebes are hunting vampires anyway?

That would have the same awful net result that you get with LA's in D&D. Your human starts with far more hit points than the supposedly superior vamps, along with more BAB, skill points, better saves, and so on. But the hit points are where folks tend to go "OK, this isn't worth it".

It's probably a better option to simply have the equivalent of racial levels for supernatural creatures, similar to Arcana Evolved.

 

[mmu1]

I'm not sure how the LA would work out like for WoD vampires exactly, but it's a given that it's going to be much different from D&D.

For one thing, they won't be getting any attribute bonuses by deafult. (assuming they're sticking relatively closely to the current WoD background) They also don't actually get many of the standard undead immunities - they have a quasi-physiology, and still have some vital spots (the head and the heart) Finally, they don't get many of the standard vampire abilities - energy drain, gaseous form, dominate...

Considering all the immunities a non-LA race like the Warforged gets, I don't see why a WoD-style vampire would necessarily have to have a LA at all. Certainly not a high one, anyway.

For that matter, when were the various WoD games ever designed to have mundane humans as baseline playable characters? That, and the various magical character types were never balanced vs. one another, either... A vampire was much, much tougher than Hunter, would get its butt kicked by a werewolf, and a Mage, while occasionally insanely powerful, could be incredibly weak and fragile most of the time when compared to any of them.

Whatever the setting ought to have as a baseline starting character, it shouldn't be a normal human... we already have rules for playing that. Also, it's WoD, not D&D - there's no need for rules that makes humans playable alongside vampires. In fact, the flavor of the setting pretty much requires that they are not a balanced match for vampires and other supernatural nasties.

 

[rgard]

That would have the same awful net result that you get with LA's in D&D. Your human starts with far more hit points than the supposedly superior vamps, along with more BAB, skill points, better saves, and so on. But the hit points are where folks tend to go "OK, this isn't worth it".

It's probably a better option to simply have the equivalent of racial levels for supernatural creatures, similar to Arcana Evolved.

Yes it could, but only if the designers let it be an awful net result. Just have to beef up the base creature so that the LA is worth it.

That said, I like your suggestion of racial levels.

Thanks,
Rich

 

[WhatGravitas]

Yes it could, but only if the designers let it be an awful net result. Just have to beef up the base creature so that the LA is worth it.

Or give scaling abilities, combined with a HP-boost. Problem of LA is: Reduced HD/level, meaning less HP (fragility) and massive loss of caster levels and BAB (and thus multiple attacks).

In a WoD, mages will probably get a LA as well, so this could get rid of the caster level problem. And for the BAB - some juicy boosts can compensate for this, especially with scaling templates.

Or it will just have less character classes, like: Hunter, Mage, Vampire and Werewolf, the rest is then probably tied up in specific feats, to allow heavy customization without changing classes.

 

[rgard]

Or give scaling abilities, combined with a HP-boost. Problem of LA is: Reduced HD/level, meaning less HP (fragility) and massive loss of caster levels and BAB (and thus multiple attacks).

In a WoD, mages will probably get a LA as well, so this could get rid of the caster level problem. And for the BAB - some juicy boosts can compensate for this, especially with scaling templates.

Or it will just have less character classes, like: Hunter, Mage, Vampire and Werewolf, the rest is then probably tied up in specific feats, to allow heavy customization without changing classes.

Agreed. We just have to wait and see what Monte did with it! I'll be buying it!

Thanks,
Rich

 

[Felon]

Or give scaling abilities, combined with a HP-boost. Problem of LA is: Reduced HD/level, meaning less HP (fragility) and massive loss of caster levels and BAB (and thus multiple attacks).

In a WoD, mages will probably get a LA as well, so this could get rid of the caster level problem. And for the BAB - some juicy boosts can compensate for this, especially with scaling templates.

Well, LA's were never more than a patch for creatures that simply weren't designed from square one to be balanced with player classes. WoD isn't likely to incorporate that since it can do square-one balancing. It'll make a lot more sense to have racial class levels that provide HP, skill points, BAB, save bonuses, and so forth.