Limits on Demonic lore usage?

[Talakeal]

Hi all!

My group is going to be playing Demon: The Fallen for the first time today, and I have a question about the Lores.

Does it cost anything to use them? The book implies that it takes faith at a couple points, but the specific powers only tend to mention a faith cost for the higher levels.

Likewise, is there any limit to how often a lore can be used? And if you fail the roll to use one, can you just try again on your next turn?

The lores themselves seem pretty well written, if not especially thematic, but the reliability and ease of use seems to be a bit excessive, to the point where they can do things like teleport hundreds of miles or heal aggravated damage which would make an arch-mage jealous, and I have to feel like we are missing some sort of limitation.

Thanks!

[Stupid Loserman]

The chance of your Torment exceeding your successes and warping the evocation into some kind of hideous backwash that causes collateral damage.

If you don't mind echoes of hellish torment twisting all your miracles into destructive tantrums of some kind, you are welcome to throw as many tantrums as you want until you make the news and the cults of the Earthbound send somebody to make you an offer you can't refuse.

[Talakeal]

Ok, I might be getting this wrong, Demon is a very confusing book, but afaict demons don't have to roll faith dice to use lores, and even if they choose to, there is no chance of torment altering the effect unless the demon has a high torment score.

is that right?

Edit: Ok, saw the errata. That makes it clearer, but its still impossible for torment to warp an evocation at normal torment levels, so not really much of a drawback.

[Reasor]

The heavy hitting four- and five-point Lores require a point of Faith to use every turn, but everything below that works with just a dice roll, no resources spent.

This makes them characters who have a LOT of leeway to do supernatural stuff, especially out of combat, but who run out of gas pretty fast in a fight if they don't use mortal weapons or the environment around them to their advantage.

I like that. It sells the fantasy that these creatures weren't designed to jockey for position, they were designed to sculpt fjords and light the stars on fire; they just need to find something new to do in the modern day because Creation moved on without them and doesn't need them anymore.

[Aleph]

Hi all!

The lores themselves seem pretty well written, if not especially thematic, but the reliability and ease of use seems to be a bit excessive, to the point where they can do things like ... heal aggravated damage ... and I have to feel like we are missing some sort of limitation.

Thanks!

Correct me if I'm wrong: But don't you need a level 4 power to heal lethal? , One that costs Faith and also specifies you can't heal Aggravated with it?

Perhaps the limitations you're seeking are to be found in the fact that the Lore powers themselves are limited in what they can do ... unless there's something I'm missing.

Much like what Reasor said, these limitations tend to make instant powers useful in combat to be more limited & less reliable, while powers that are used to alter the world tend to be more potent. So: traveling hundreds of miles it's good, instantaneous heal of aggravated damage not so good

---

Another limitation of note it's that skeptics watching the Lore effects increase the difficulty. This makes using Lore in public a bit (or a lot) harder depending on the amount of people watching.

I remember this being mentioned as a deterrent for doing stuff like animating the Statue of Liberty (how many people are capable of seeing that monument at any given time?. To be honest, I don't know . But I would imagine a lot).

[Talakeal]

Correct me if I'm wrong: But don't you need a level 4 power to heal lethal? , One that costs Faith and also specifies you can't heal Aggravated with it?

Perhaps the limitations you're seeking are to be found in the fact that the Lore powers themselves are limited in what they can do ... unless there's something I'm missing.

Much like what Reasor said, these limitations tend to make instant powers useful in combat to be more limited & less reliable, while powers that are used to alter the world tend to be more potent. So: traveling hundreds of miles it's good, instantaneous heal of aggravated damage not so good

---

Another limitation of note it's that skeptics watching the Lore effects increase the difficulty. This makes using Lore in public a bit (or a lot) harder depending on the amount of people watching.

I remember this being mentioned as a deterrent for doing stuff like animating the Statue of Liberty (how many people are capable of seeing that monument at any given time?. To be honest, I don't know . But I would imagine a lot).

My copy of demon reads:

••• heal
This evocation allows the Scourge to heal even the worst injuries of demon and mortal alike.
System: Roll Stamina + Medicine. The Scourge can heal all of a target’s bashing damage or one health level of lethal or aggravated damage per success. The character must be able to touch her target to perform this evocation.
Torment: Monstrous Scourges use this evocation to poison a victim’s body. Each success lowers a target’s Stamina temporarily. If the target loses all of her Stamina, she falls into a coma and suffers one health level of aggra- vated damage (or lethal damage if a victim is not subject to aggravated damage) per hour per success remaining unless she receives medical attention immediately. Stamina is lost for a number of days equal to the demon’s Faith score.



I guess my problem is that its such a shock to go from playing a long term mage game (and mages are generally considered top tier amongst the various power levels) to a new game where starting characters can easily do things that our previous archmages would struggle with..

[Aleph]

It seem I was looking at the wrong Lore :P

(Guess Lore of the Flesh isn't that good at healing. Maybe because it does more stuff)

I guess my problem is that its such a shock to go from playing a long term mage game (and mages are generally considered top tier amongst the various power levels) to a new game where starting characters can easily do things that our previous archmages would struggle with..

This is not rare. A vampire's Dominate 1 can do stuff that requires a Mage to use Mind 4. Powers aren't lineal between a single splat, much less between different games.

[Reasor]

It seem I was looking at the wrong Lore :P

(Guess Lore of the Flesh isn't that good at healing. Maybe because it does more stuff)



This is not rare. A vampire's Dominate 1 can do stuff that requires a Mage to use Mind 4. Powers aren't lineal between a single splat, much less between different games.

D:tF's version of the vampiric Celerity discipline, Manipulate Acceleration (Lore of the Fundament 4) is a really good example of this. Potency of the affect is based on dice successes instead of points in the discipline, successes can be used toward extra actions *or* bonus damage, damage is improved from Bashing to Lethal - but it's a rank four power, out of reach to starting player characters under the character creation system given in the core rulebook.