Monte Cooks WoD is for 3.5

[Felon]

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.

The need is created by players who want to play humans, and that need existed even before they had the hunters sourcebooks.

 

[eyebeams]

Monte Cook's used racial/template levels before, so I think it'll probably be his method of choice, unless he seriously reworks the base system.

I also have a feeling that the rules for supernatural powers will not resemble the WW rules set much.

 

[eyebeams]

For that matter, when were the various WoD games ever designed to have mundane humans as baseline playable characters?

1995. It was the theme for an entire year of releases. I played in a great RCMP-based Project Twilight game.

The new system uses normal humans as the default.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Monte Cook's used racial/template levels before, so I think it'll probably be his method of choice, unless he seriously reworks the base system.

I also have a feeling that the rules for supernatural powers will not resemble the WW rules set much.

I think both of these are likely spot-on.

 

[Ipissimus]

Sure does. Sounds interesting. And not (competently) done yet.

Sorry, I can't agree with you here. Vampires? Done. Werewolves? Done. In both systems. This isn't flogging a dead horse, it's masticating the bones before steaming the meat off.

Monte Cook's name on the cover does nothing for me and I see no reason to spend hard earned cash for a name.

The Green Ronin book was weak sauce.

Ravenloft is not intended to feature the PCs and protagonists, and the 3e Ravenloft material doesn't live up to the variety in the 2e incarnation.

I think that the assumption that either D&D is purely hack-and-slay and that WoD is purely high brow doesn't bear out in the real world, having been exposed to plenty of counter examples of both.

Taking it further, I find the notion that D20 apart from D&D is solely for hack-and-slash pretty much laughable.

I take it from this, coupled with your negative stereotype of d20, you don't play many third party D20 products, do you.

"EEH! Sorry, Hans, wrong guess. Wanna go for double jeopardy where the scores can really change?"

Please re-read my last posts. To reiterate my position: Both systems can be played either as a hack and slash or as so-called 'real roleplaying', gaming styles have more to do with the group around the table than the system they're using. However, nWoD encourages and supports roleplaying with the Humanity/Vice/Virtue and descriptive combat mechanics while DnD largely ignores roleplaying mechanics. Instead, DnD boils combat down to several rolls of the dice which supports fast and large-scale combats by sacrificing detail and also introducing elements from wargames and facilitating small unit tactics.

WoD does descriptive combat better. You don't just roll a d20 and wish for the best, you choose if you want to throw a punch, a kick, etc. Of course, this level of detail usually means that the GM has more work playing even the henchmen, making combats smaller. In DnD the players can take on a hundred goblins and kick ass in under an hour. But WoD characters tend to be deeper and more fleshed out. The number of times I've been playing DnD with a new player and they've described to me a cool move, leaping off walls while throwing a hail of daggers say, and I've had to turn around and say "Ok, you're 1st level, you've got one attack, roll a d20" and they miss and that's the end of that. It's anticlimactic for the player, just rolling the dice is boring comparably.

Different strokes, my friend. DnD's a faithful old hound, WoD's the kitten that sits in your lap and purrs. WoD d20 feels to me like a dog/cat crossbreed, I've got the other two pets, I don't need to add some sort of mutant version.

As for Green Ronin's vampire book being weak sauce, I must admit that my first reaction was that you've never actually used it. I have and weak is not the way I'd have described the content at all, the Vampire Scion is a wonderful replacement for the SRD vampire. Infinitely more balanced and, with the powers allotted as feats, easily meshed with the class system. I've also used the Bastards and Bloodlines book, Advanced Bestiary, several Mongoose books, BESM d20, Unholy Warrior's Handbook, Witches' Handbook... they're all quality products.

I have Arcana Unearthed but I've never really gotten into it. The advanced racial classes interested me but I could never see my characters actually taking them over more class or PRC levels, and alot of the options seemed too esoteric for my tastes.

An immediate example I have sitting right here... by Monte Cook, published via White Wolf. Arcana Evolved. "Compatible with 3rd Edition and Revised 3rd Edition Rules." "Revised 3rd Edition Rules" is third-party D20 publisher "wink wink" speak for D&D 3.5 when they don't want to use the d20 STL.

Yes, and technically illegal. Try pulling that trick as a small publisher and watch the lawyers descend to pick at your carcass.

 

[EditorBFG]

Sorry, I can't agree with you here. Vampires? Done. Werewolves? Done. In both systems.

Yeah, but not playable by any stretch of the imagination in one system and wandering around in a world I can't force myself to care about in the other.

 

[Maggan]

Try pulling that trick as a small publisher and watch the lawyers descend to pick at your carcass.

Has that happened to anyone? Big or small?

It seems to me that "Revised 3rd edition rules" have been used as a short hand for D&D for a long time. Admittedly, when I think of it, it's mostly from reading it on WW products.

/M

 

[Old Gumphrey]

Kinda weird to review and reject a rules system before you have any idea what it will involve. You noticed that these issues would exist just through casual observation of the product's subject matter - do you really think the people who worked on it for months aren't smart enough to figure it out themselves? (Especially since Monte has addressed the +LA issue previously, way back in Arcana Unearthed.)

Notice my caveat of "unless they don't screw it up". I didn't review and reject anything. I'm also not a Monte Cook fanboy and I don't keep up with what rules he has or hasn't addressed, but it's good to know that he's on top of it. Just because someone is in power doesn't make them smart, and being smart doesn't necessarily mean you can't make mistakes. Look how bugged and clunky 3.0 was. Also look who wrote it...

 

[Old Gumphrey]

Good to know that most people are confident the vampires and humans in the same party using d20 rules will be handled well at the least.

So, let's discuss KOOL BARRET GUN LOLZ:

I don't recall getting all that worked up about it, but ok. My argument is "oversized ultra-power sniper rifles that are designed to rip through tank armor and kill the people inside those tanks should be at the very least reasonably and consisntently effective in blowing an undead body completely apart." It's not "LAWL I GOTZ A GUN BOOM HEADSHOT!!!111oneoneonetwo".

This doesn't account for vampire powers, or speed, or anything like that. This accounts for a 50 caliber slug severing a head by exploding the neck and upper torso. I just didn't understand why swords can do it, but a massively powerful gun couldn't.

If you shoot a vamp with a rocket launcher is it considered decapitated?

 

[eyebeams]

I don't recall getting all that worked up about it, but ok. My argument is "oversized ultra-power sniper rifles that are designed to rip through tank armor and kill the people inside those tanks should be at the very least reasonably and consisntently effective in blowing an undead body completely apart." It's not "LAWL I GOTZ A GUN BOOM HEADSHOT!!!111oneoneonetwo".

This doesn't account for vampire powers, or speed, or anything like that. This accounts for a 50 caliber slug severing a head by exploding the neck and upper torso. I just didn't understand why swords can do it, but a massively powerful gun couldn't.

If you shoot a vamp with a rocket launcher is it considered decapitated?

If the rocket explodes around its head? Sure.

f you want to get into the gory details of the .50 BMG, the whole point of it is to fulfill an anti-material role. The bullet is not in fact smart enough to zip through the wall of a building, hit a person and then "decide" to spin around.

In humans, trauma is caused by temporary cavitation (tissue being pushed aside) and permanent cavitation (direct tissue destruction). Only explosives make things and people explode unless they're exceptionally brittle (watching videos of .50 BMG effects on Youtube, the only thing that "exploded" was a porcelain toilet; even dry the wood of the seat was elastic enough to only suffer a 2" wide hole). The most common effect of temporary cavitation is severe bruising, unless the effects intersect an organ or bones. Nerve damage might also result. If vampires don't suffer any ill effects from temporary cavitation, this seriously reduces the effects of firearms on their bodies. If the bullet misses bones (vampires probably need them for leverage) and doesn't completely severe the head of a muscle, it doesn't mean much.

Of course a bullet that tumbles on impact will cause more traumatic effects, but there's not a lot of evidence that the round in question will actually do this reliably. So while I would say total destruction of the brain would kill a vampire, even a big hole might not do much more than impair his vision -- where it would definitely kill a human. The head and heart are "vital organs," to a vampire, but don't need to have the same delicate structures intact. Rules for things like ripping out the heart and wooden bullets have, over the years, made it clear that even a remnant chunk of ruined tissue is good enough to keep a vampire "alive."

Conversely, people underestimate the effects of edged weapons. Knife instructor Michael Janich does a neat demo called the "pork man" where he surrounds a wooden dowel with 3-4" of pork roast and 1/8 of an inch of saran wrap to simulate the resistance of skin, fat and muscle tissue. Even a 2"-3" blade can cut right to the wooden "bone," with the handle actually entering the wound in a small folding knife to penetrate deeper than the blade length. Cutting weapons typically make transverse cuts across muscles, making it far more likely to sever a muscle head than a piercing attack, even one with a large wound diameter (which in part displaces instead of destroys tissue). ARMA demonstrations show the cutting power of properly constructed and maintained swords, though admittedly, these are not the kinds of things you can pick up without carefully looking for them.

So if I wanted to hurt a vampire, I'd want something that primarily destroys tissue instead of displacing it, at a transverse angle to the length of the bone or orientation of muscle fibers. Edged weapons really are pretty good at this.