AshenFox
Copy Control, we are a go.
- Location
- Sector 13
My only regret is that I have but one like to give, but let it be known that I pledge no less then a major boon upon you for this service.
White Wolf's World of Darkness
Realism depends on you and your Storyteller (the person running the game). As for which is more deadly it's kind of a tossup and in both cases can have a lot to do with relative power levels. For example, an oWoD Lasombra Vampire with enough experience and low enough generation can sprout a bunch of shadow tentacles and then pick you up so you can't escape and beat you to death with the rest from across the room. Likewise an oWoD Tremere Vampire with enough experience could split their mind in two, telekinesis you into the air so you can't escape, then use the other half of their mind to blast you with fireballs until you're dead. (These are pre Vampire the Masquerade 5E examples.)
By comparison, in nWoD a Werewolf can attack you, deal some damage to you, take a bunch back in turn, and as long as the damage they took isn't aggravated they can come back in a couple hours at most ready for round two. 1st Edition nWoD Mage has a rather notorious example, once posted on the internet that I've since lost links to, allowing you by RAW conjure up a football field's worth of (again iirc) chlorine trifluoride to be dumped on someone from the other side of the planet. Or technically anywhere in space. You could be on Pluto and drop it on them when they're on Earth.
Basically the higher you go, the more deadly things can become.
Depends on how much experience you've got. At base character gen you're basically a mortal with some tricks, though those tricks can be quite good. But put in enough time and effort and you'll definitely feel powerful.
One. They need to be good and prepare but someone hitting you from a well prepared position with a barrett 50 cal with knowledge of what to hit you with or how to hit you can end you in an instant.
For just regular average people in nWoD that's probably a dice pool of 4 (attribute+skill, Human Average for Attribute and Professional level skill)
This then comes down somewhat to luck, so we'll say average of 1.5 successes per person rolling plus 1.5 damage per roller (as pistols are either 1 or 2 damage). So that's 3 damage per attacker. For vampires that's 3 bashing damage per attacker. For Mages, Werewolves, and Changelings it's 3 lethal damage. "Average" health is 7, 5 for size factor and 2 for stamina.
Changelings are likely the first to drop as they don't have healing powers quite on par with the big 3 (Vampire, Werewolf, Mage). But as long as they can get some kind of 'threshold' they can open a portal into the hedge to escape. Assuming there's no escape, you're looking at 2-3 (luck variance for some random attack hitting the +1 damage needed) attackers all hitting before the Changeling is unconscious and bleeding out (assuming no body armor). (Others who know more about 2E or who want to bring up something I'm forgetting about 1E feel free to chime in and correct me.)
A Mage is likely to be a bit more difficult, though how much so depends a lot on the Mage's powers. A Mage is incredibly likely to have some form of Mage Armor as of 2E Awakening where Mage Armor is something you get just by getting to 2 dots in the appropriate Arcana, so lets go through each Arcana's Armor. Death will let the mage take damage more easily as it downgrades a number of lethal from kinetic attacks to bashing equal to their dots in Death. Fate adds their Fate to their defense and allows that defense to count against Firearm attacks. Forces applies Forces dots as general armor (which is to say, Forces Dots as Armor against all attacks). Life gives you half your Life Dots as both General Armor and as a bonus to your Defense which is now calculated with the higher of your Wits or Dexterity. Matter gives you your Matter dots in general armor against all physical attacks and this armor is immune to armor piercing. Mind adds your Mind dots to your defense. Space lets you add your Space dots to your defense for attacks you're aware of, lets you apply your defense to firearms attacks, and if they miss you can spend mana to redirect the shot to another applicable target with successes equal to you Space dots. Spirit downgrades a number of points of damage from kinetic attacks from lethal to bashing equal to dots in Spirit (same as Death). Time adds your Time dots to your Defense and lets you apply you defense to firearms attacks. Prime gets you nothing.
These are all before the Mage starts slinging spells.
If we assume just the 2 dots and that there are enough attackers to shoot them down before they can react then you have 4 categories of +Defense on Firearms, +Armor, Death & Spirit, and Life.
+Defense Mages with the default 2 Average human means that the starting attack pool of 4 is now down to 2 dice without any training in Athletics. This significantly increases the necessary amount of attackers necessary for an overwhelming alpha strike. Because I'm lazy, we'll literally just half the success average down to .75 and assume that all Mages being attacked are anemic nerds who sit around playing RPGs literally all day long.Now we get 1.5 successes every 2 attackers, meaning we're immediately doubling the number needed to take down the changeling from 2-3 up to 4-6. (Again, I'm being incredibly lazy in calculating this.)
+Armor Mages don't get their Defense, so we're back up to the 4 dice pool, but now that 3 damage per attack is down to 1 thanks to the 2 points of General Armor. Meaning, again by lazyogic calculations, you need 7 to drop the Mage.
Life Mages don't get to apply their defense to firearms, so they only get 1 armor instead of 2. Meaning attacks hit with 2 meaning you need 3-4 attackers to drop the Life Mage.
Death and Spirit Mages downgrade the first 2 damage they're hit with into bashing, which just pushes it to a confirmed 3 minimum to drop the Mage (as this downgrade mostly has the effect of giving them what amounts to 2 additional health levels).
Now moving onto Werewolves. The toughest killing part for a werewolf is when they go to Gauru, so we'll just start there (lazyogics). First, we're now up to 11 Health levels (+2 stamina and +2 size). Second they get defense on Firearms attacks now. Third Lunacy kicks in so every attacker might flip out and run off screaming into the night, but chances are lower the more people are all there together to gun down the monster. As such due to lazyogics we will ignore Lunacy and assume there's a large mob and as such any screaming runners are just easily replaced with people hardened enough to not run. So going back to the dice pool of 4 the Werewolf has full defense on firearms attacks and their defense is now 3 minimum (assuming average 2 Wits and Dex). Oh my. We'll invoke lazyogic calculations again so now the .75 is halved to roughly .3 which in turn means that we're now getting 3 damage roughly every 4 attackers. Given that the werewolf is likely going to death rage and likely stay conscious to keep murderizing the attackers we're looking at 32 attackers to 100% drop the Werewolf.
Now Vampires, who are somewhat more complicated again due to discipline variety. Celerity can be used as Defense against firearms attacks and can let them just reflexively act before you all can so they can attack or run, Resilience gives its rating as additional Stamina and can then be invoked to just ignore incoming damage (Resilience+1 for each invocation). This is before we get into devotions (example, Body of Will lets you invoke Resilience for free for a number of rounds equal to your successes on Body of Will's activation roll, meaning ignoring incoming damage as though you had general armor equal to Resilience+1). If we assume none of this then we're back to 1.5+1.5 for 3 damage per attacker with a total of 5 attackers minimum to take down a vampire by pumping them full of bullets until they fall into Torpor.
Note That both Vampires and Werewolves of higher power stat (Blood Potency for Vampires and Primal Urge for Werewolves will mean they can spend their energy to heal more damage and therefore increase the number of attackers needed). Also note that I've completely skipped out on how each attack degrades your Defense by 1 due to Lazyogics and the fact that many of these supernatural beings are going to have things to help counter attacks somewhat. As such it feels like a decent trade off from my perspective to ignore degrading defense in return for ignoring that the Mage might be able to banish all the attackers to the Shadow Realm, or how the Changeling could trick many to following them through a door into the hedge to die, etc.
In general supernaturals range from 'maybe slightly less squishy then normal people due to some supernatural tricks' to 'omg we literally can't shoot the mage, and every time we try one of us gets hit instead!'
Also again, if anyone isn't nearly as lazy and tired as I am they're more then welcome to do the actual math on all of the above, or to correct me where I'm wrong or forgot something so long as it's not to correct me about things I've specifically Lazyogiced.
Wow, thats comprehensive. Thank you.
How the heck are Hunters supposed to fight any of these groups?
I suppose a hunter campaign could dig into the hopelessness of it all.
They're not. Hunter supplements include watered down versions of the above for a good reason.
AshenFox
Copy Control, we are a go.
- Location
- Sector 13
With prep work.
Note, shooting vampires to death sucks.
Grabbing a long lighter and a can of hairspray however can make it SIGNIFICANTLY easier. Or, you know, the fan favorite of Dragon's Breath Rounds or just plain Tracer ammo.
Fire deals Aggravated damage to Vampires, and can make them flip out and loose their shit and therefore not act smart.
Likewise if you take a sword or knife to them, it's still lethal damage as opposed to bashing.
Werewolves take Aggravated from silver.
True Fae take Aggravated from cold iron, and it rips through Fae magic. Meaning iron is great against Changelings too.
Mages take Aggravated from being run over by a train.
Hunter at the low end tends to involve a LOT of prep work and trying to find information. Discover what the weaknesses of what you're hunting is, then exploit it.
The top 'Conspiracy' Tier (WoD has 3 tiers that roughly equate to street / city / local level, regional level, and world spanning) guys all get some kind of special thing. Task Force: VALKYRIE which is an org that spun out of NATO nations with its oldest roots in the USA come packing with a lot of gadgets like the Gungnir Multi-Function Targeting System that lets you target supernaturals without endangering non-supernaturals (which field agents are noted for usually modifying to make it STOP working, because it can sometimes give false positives toward 'non-supernatural' or supernaturals might use human minions as meat shields), Etheric Rounds which let you shoot incorporeal entities, or the Mjolnir Cannon which shoots god damn lightning bolts.
Others include the Cheiron Group who's agents capture supernaturals which are then harvested by the corp and turned into implants, the Aegis Kai Doru who run around with magic artifacts, the Malleus Maleficarum who invoke sacred christian benedictions to get powers, the Lucifuge who's members call upon their infernal heritage thereby manifesting demon powers, the FBI's Vanguard Serial Crimes Unit (VASCU) agents who use psychic powers unlocked by the unit, and many many more.
As well Hunters in nWoD/Chronicles also get to call upon Tactics, which are sort of like a group power and include things like, "Everyone grab a pitch fork or a source of fire!" and then everyone corals the monster and burns it to death. Another involves smashing the monster's claws, thereby rendering them useless temporarily. There are a LOT of Tactics.
But, I will also note that Hunter: The Vigil has a whole system for making monsters that aren't quite as overwhelmingly lethal, but personally as a major Hunter fan I RELISH the challenge of actually taking WoD splats head on.
Azrael
Sakura Saber
- Location
- Throne of Heroes
I recall someone mention in one of these threads that they represented a literal god-like being in their Hunter game by giving them some Mage Spheres/Arcana.
Mages are bullshit.
grommile
nasty-minded old cynic
- Location
- NERV-Mercia
- Pronouns
- Traditional/Animate
But only a Mage can cast "I like trains".Mages take Aggravated from being run over by a train.
And only an ST can scream "he could!" at the top of their lungs when the GMPC mage obviously didn't know the hunter was getting ready to elbow him into the subway and has no "lalalala, trains can't hurt me" praxis spell. (I see the joke, but I feel this needs explanation.)
Thing is, mages? Are arrogant. It's why Wisdom is a measurement of how much a specific Awakened can tell the difference between her own opinions and the real effect she's having on the world, and why a Rapt (Mad One, a Wisdom 0 mage; the name's been changed, because ableism sucks) is a mage who literally cannot pay attention to the world beyond her mystical obsessions, to the point her Nimbus is a roiling mystical storm focused on satiating those obsessions. They literally think they're the mystical 1%, and they're pretty close to the mark. Nice mages are just the ones who recognize "holy shit, Spider-Man was right" and at least try not to hurt people when sharpening their powers.
And their powers are all they are. A vampire, hit by an unexpected train, would be fine in the long term assuming blood access. A werewolf would probably maybe need to wait a few minutes to get his legs working again. A mage is just dead, and depending on where he casts a spell to avoid being dead? It could be it is instantly unraveled because a janitor caught on - and then releases an evil squid from beyond time and space to eat the mage (and the train, probably). You really don't need a specific strategy to kill a mage; they're human. They are hurt like humans are - and can be just as easily tricked because they were too arrogant to check if the person hunting them was another mage or not.
Remember, Masters of Death can open Underworld Gates, and Masters of Fate can hack Hedge Gates. Something Sin-Eaters and Reapers do as an aspect of daily life takes a Moros to be at the peak of her profession to pull off reliably, and godlike Acanthus can maybe pull a poor man's substitute for a changeling key. All is situational.
- Location
- United States
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I wouldn't conflate Wisdom with morality. It's a code of ethics that generally happens to lessen the chance of a poor mortal being destroyed or harmed by a mage's work and a good person will aim for having high Wisdom, but a mage can do awful things for the good of the Pentacle or the Pyramid and still retain a pretty high Wisdom score (especially if they're a Guardian of the Veil).
I can answer these for oWoD:
1. oWoD is more deadly because it has a huge disparity between offensive ability and defensive ability, and multiple action powers to make fights even shorter.
2. It depends on the mage. Mages are ridiculously variable dependent on how you build them and how well you're prepared for the situation. @EarthScorpion's Imago is nWoD, but Taylor in Imago is just as valid a mage as, say, Kessler from Panopticon Quest or another hyper-exojock. One of them runs away from a guy with a big dog because they're scary, the other looks at a guy with a rocket launcher and goes "your mistake was bringing only one rocket launcher."
3. Depends on the character, and the answer is probably anywhere from 'one' to 'arbitrarily large numbers.' Werewolves are by far the most reliable because they have an incredibly flat power curve, mostly due to the fact that Delirium is horrifically powerful and will instantly incapacitate most normal humans, and Crinos form turns even a middling werewolf into a superlative combatant when the enemy is running around in a panic. Vampires have fast regeneration, are resistant to injury from firearms, and have Blood Buff, so they're also reliably good at beating on normal humans. Mages can range from being chased off by one guy with a gun to just walking through your gunfire like the fucking Terminator, disarming everyone, and shooting them in the kneecaps.
Though when played in a Mage frame of reference (rather than a crossover-friendly or Hunter-enabling frame), the question "How many normal humans with guns are needed to take down a mage?" is the wrong question because put simply, regular humans with guns aren't playing the same game as the mage. In the same way that an AWAC plane isn't playing the same game as a main battle tank.
Yes, the tank could kill the plane if it could shoot it, but getting into a position where that can happen is an extreme challenge.
There's a reason that in nMage, Banishers occupy the Hunter niche as "the people who will go after you because you, or people like you, hurt them". And that's because to seriously, as a recurring thing, be able to track down and simply find a Mage and have a reason to go looking, you need the superlative Mage intel set. Banishers are basically Mage-powered Hunters anyway - they're not just depicted as sympathetically in Mage as Hunters are depicted in Hunter.
(Though I do note that none of the Banisher cults in Banishers are as awful as Cheiron or the Ashford "We're Arguably More Depraved Than The Hunt Club And That Is Actually Literally Made Of Slashers" Abbey)
And that's why for a single given mage, the answer to "How many normal humans with guns are needed to take down a vampire/mage/werewolf/fae?" can be "That question isn't even the right one", but they're also potentially in life threatening danger if some asshole shows up at their favourite bar and starts shooting the place up indiscriminately because they're pissed at the bartender sleeping with their boyfriend.
For Mage, just pick up 2e. Some 1e choices that will help flesh things out are Astral Realms, Imperial Mysteries, and Sanctum and Sigil.
- Pronouns
- They/Them
I can really recommend the Mystagogue and Silver Ladder books, too, while I think Sanctum and Sigil is in some ways necessary, but... very flawed?
In one sense you only need 2e for the Orders, but the Order books include all sorts of details that help? But I suppose that's not strictly necessary.
In one sense you only need 2e for the Orders, but the Order books include all sorts of details that help? But I suppose that's not strictly necessary.
FourthWall
May The Sun Never Blind Your Eyes
- Location
- Chiraq
The Dotman was one of the original designers for Ars Magica. He then had the idea of bringing it to the Cyberpunk Future of 1999, but switched it to a dice pool system (because Shadowrun) and made it about vampires instead of wizards (because Ravenloft).
That got us VtM, and the Tremere are a shoutout to AM. The OoH in Awakening is also a shoutout.
I'llNameThisL8r
Bad at names
- Location
- Here
- Pronouns
- He/Him
It depends on what you need, I'd really recommend the book on the astral (Astral Realms) if you plan on using it in a meaningful way, Same goes for nWolf 2e and Predators if you're doing stuff with the Shadow on the mage side of things (and also there's a bunch of Lovecraft adjacent plot-device monsters in the back of Predators you can use).
Also, Summoners has a mechanics for making pacts and contracts with strange entities that I haven't been able to find elsewhere for mage, and *might* be useful as a source of antagonists in a Hunter game, maybe.
Edit: I say all of this with the note that if you don't need what's in those books, don't read them. I find them useful and a helpful resource, but you might find differently.
Also, Summoners has a mechanics for making pacts and contracts with strange entities that I haven't been able to find elsewhere for mage, and *might* be useful as a source of antagonists in a Hunter game, maybe.
Edit: I say all of this with the note that if you don't need what's in those books, don't read them. I find them useful and a helpful resource, but you might find differently.
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mothematics
How wide is the concept of "you"?
- Location
- the bottom of a coffee cup
- Pronouns
- She/Her
1e nMage, Intruders. 100%. Hunter - while I don't like it that much - has some very good stuff in Slashers and Witch Finders.
So apparently in Chronicles of Darkness the damage rating on a weapon are considered bonus successes, rather than something you roll. My GM and I found this out recently.
This means that previously I had been attacking everything with the equivalent of a BB gun. Now that I'm using the damage stats of actual guns, this has turned me from "the most capable fighter of the group," to "literally death incarnate."
PS: Professional Training and Asset Skills are the best thing ever and I forgot how fun being Joe Mortal could be in this game.
This means that previously I had been attacking everything with the equivalent of a BB gun. Now that I'm using the damage stats of actual guns, this has turned me from "the most capable fighter of the group," to "literally death incarnate."
PS: Professional Training and Asset Skills are the best thing ever and I forgot how fun being Joe Mortal could be in this game.
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Legend of Ruina
Growing eyes on the inside
Yeah, that was one of the major changes in 2E. Conversely armor now reduces the damage you take instead of being a penalty on the roll.
Eukie
Powered by furious Canadian redheads
Damnation City. Yes, it's for Requiem and about half of it are rules for vampire territory control you don't need. The other half is what you want: guidelines and rules for how to bring a city to life, World of Darkness-style.
- Location
- Italy
Predators
It's technically a Werewolf book but if you wanna do anything with the Shadow and Spirits it's the best sourcebook there is. Plus it's got Hosts, which are really cool.
Se we have a really good supposedly-Vampire book, a really good supposedly-Werewolf book, and Slashers is a really good supposedly-Hunter book.
Are there any more books that are good for an any/all game that are supposedly for a specific Line?
edit:
I guess that Intruders also counts?
Eukie
Powered by furious Canadian redheads
GURPS: Horror and GURPS: Mysteries are excellent guides on how to run games set in the World of Darkness, even if you have to ignore that they're not written for the setting or system.
I mean, if I have to I can sift it through Gurps: VTM and the Wod-CofD Translation PDFs.GURPS: Horror and GURPS: Mysteries are excellent guides on how to run games set in the World of Darkness, even if you have to ignore that they're not written for the setting or system.
Eukie
Powered by furious Canadian redheads
Nah, Horror and Mysteries are just really good guides on how to run horror and mystery in roleplaying games in general. It's the stuff that's not specific to GURPS anyway that's really useful.