[V5] L.A. by Night observations

[Japheth]

First of all, I supremely enjoy the Geek and Sundry series, VtM: L.A. by Night. Each episode has not disappointed me yet.

In 402, "Darkness Divide," When Eva uses Zeus' Fury to attack the Gargoyle, is that a Thaumaturgical Path from previous editions of VtM, or is it a specific Blood Sorcery power? And if its the former, might I infer that all Thaumaturgical paths from the previous editions are transferrable to VtM 5th Edition? I ask this because I haven't found Movement of the Mind, nor Zeus' Fury in the text of VtM 5th Edition.


In the larger context, are the Paths of Thaumaturgy, Dur-An-Ki, Sadhana, Akhu, Nahuallotl, Ogham, Sihr, Sielanic Thaumaturgy, Koldunic Sorcery, Anarch Sorcery, and Setite Sorcery even convertible to V5?

[CTPhipps]

In 5th Edition, the Paths have been altered into one use rituals.

So all the Paths no longer exist but also exist as Ritualistic effects.

So you can buy all the previous powers that existed.

[elmerg]

LA by Night uses a lot of (fairly unbalanced, admitted by Jason Carl) homebrew, and has ignored rules both for the sake of the story and because the ST forgot them. The extra powers like fire, lightning, telekinesis and flight that Eva and other Tremere have used are Jason's own homebrew (because LAbN is a show, before it is a guide to use V5's rules).

That's basically all there is to it.

In the large, anything is convertible to V5 mechanics if you put the time into it to care about the balance alongside existing mechanics. It's not directly plug and play; it takes work because of the systemic differences between prior editions and V5, such as V5 only caring about # of successes from the roll, rather than having both a sliding scale of difficulty on the dice and also needing X successes on the dice themselves.

[CTPhipps]

Jason has also said that everything in the show is canon to V5.

[elmerg]

Jason has also said that everything in the show is canon to V5.

Honestly, it's even worse because he claims that, yet it's not in a book or somewhere that is a signed off by the WW creative team. He's a marketing manager, and not in charge of what gets approved. I would use any 'canon' from that with a hefty dose of salt, since as we know, books can come out that can contradict anything he's done or stated (and he's been pretty straightforward about calling things like the lightning power homebrew, so it's not even the speculative' oh he's probably playtesting stuff' that people pull out whenever this comes up).

[Japheth]

In 5th Edition, the Paths have been altered into one use rituals.

So all the Paths no longer exist but also exist as Ritualistic effects.

So you can buy all the previous powers that existed.

I am curious to know which page numbers it stated that. Also, I am curious to know what other clans' Blood Sorcery traditions are transferable. For example, I understand that the Banu Haqim have Blood Sorcery as an in-Clan discipline, but there's no way to differentiate between Tremere's version of the discipline and the Banu Haqim's.... it's a little confusing and not clear.

[elmerg]

I am curious to know which page numbers it stated that. Also, I am curious to know what other clans' Blood Sorcery traditions are transferable. For example, I understand that the Banu Haqim have Blood Sorcery as an in-Clan discipline, but there's no way to differentiate between Tremere's version of the discipline and the Banu Haqim's.... it's a little confusing and not clear.

It's not 'outright stated' on a page, it's the way the mechanics for what we've seen so far work. For example, there are rituals in Cults of the Blood Gods that mimic a number of abilities from Paths; thus, the precedent/evidence that further Paths aer going to show up as Rituals. It's just going to take time for more and more stuff to come out, because V5 wasn't built as an omnibus edition, it was built as a growing new edition like pretty much every other RPG on the market.

As far as different clans' Blood Sorcery traditions (I won't touch mechanics, since you seem to be veering away from what I thought your original question was, re: mechanics and homebrew), it's all about the fluff, which is (to a great extent) what it was in prior editions anyway. You might have a couple of weird, variant mechanics here and there but, largely it was 'use this same pool that this other Discipline uses to do its thing, and oh yeah, X uses A, B and C paths but calls them K, L and M'. So you can easily have the various clan flavor, using the blood sorcery mechanics as they exist. It'll be easier when you have things that are more varied to play with, but even with what's released, it's not hard to refluff (for example, Scorpion's Touch refluffed to the Bloodlines' Blood Shot power is a trivial flluff change but differentiates Tremere ways from Banu Haqim methods, or the way they activate/do the powers done through the cultural lens of each clan's historic methodology, that sort of stuff).

[CTPhipps]

I am curious to know which page numbers it stated that. Also, I am curious to know what other clans' Blood Sorcery traditions are transferable. For example, I understand that the Banu Haqim have Blood Sorcery as an in-Clan discipline, but there's no way to differentiate between Tremere's version of the discipline and the Banu Haqim's.... it's a little confusing and not clear.

You can see a lot of the altered Paths to Rituals in CULTS OF THE BLOOD GODS.

[Japheth]

elmerg and CTPhipps, thank you both for the information. This will help tremendously.

[Japheth]

On a separate note, I'm now wondering when Season 5 of LA by Night will be streamed?...