Using a Nexus Crawler

[Saur Ops Specialist]

Just tonight, JUST TONIGHT, I threw a NC at two cliath and a rank 1 ananasi. Expecting everyone to put in a couple of punches and then run like hell.

That's what I expected.

Then I expected total party wipe.

One garou was taken down to injured, the other survived with a deep wound scar, and the ananasi was barely bruised by the end of the battle.

How did this happen? A stupidly lucky bunch of rolls. Massively lucky. The NC failed everything except three attacks and only managed to damage because it turned part of its body into silver. And the pc's were massively lucky. It was crazy how many times the NC actually botched and how many times the players managed to get their specializations into the fight. It was crazy.

So here they are, 2 cliath and an ananasi beating a NC is ...7 rounds. Sure, the NC only had 80 essence, but still. One guy activated a fetish that I was perfectly okay with. Knew that on an extremely lucky roll he could conceivably double his 8 damage dice. And there he was, doing 18 dice of damage (after considering his number of to-hit successes.)

So when is it a good time to throw in an NC? Whenever you think your players can handle it.

"It could be dismissed as a fever dream, if not for the corpses."

How much Essence did you give the Crawler, out of curiosity?

[The Laughing Stranger]

"It could be dismissed as a fever dream, if not for the corpses."

How much Essence did you give the Crawler, out of curiosity?

80 essence, which seems like a reasonably challenging amount of HP.

[TheVarulfen]

There you go. That's why you make hidden rolls and don't tell your players you botch all the time. If you don't like your roll as a ST you can always assume something more appropriate. Sometimes the dice just suck.

[Silentline]

I use Nexus crawlers in rooms where the lights are going in and out.. I roll a D10 to see how many seconds the room is blacked out before the lights come back on and repeat the process while explaining how the room is immediately different and or the Nexus crawler is no longer where they thought it was. Characters too close to the nexus crawlers changes which are completely random may have to make sanity checks for warp reality charm. I so do enjoy it when players forget the spiritual quality of the situation and a pack member strays too far from its aids.. Then the players could note hes not behaving like himself all of a sudden with the right rolls because I make secret rolls for possession by the sheer amount of opportunistic banes surrounding the sight they infest.

Nexus Crawlers are an enemy not to be trifled because they are also hauntingly clever.

Whenever I use these it scares the devil out of the players as its supposed to. One good phase of a certain area can completely wipe the party in less than 1 second.

I warn players who attend my games that this is the world of darkness not sit down with D&D setting aids. Here.. I can make Call Cthulu look like a kindergarden class. Enemies with an intellect 3 or higher are going to do their best to screw you over in a very unpredictable manner.

[Thkaal]

"It could be dismissed as a fever dream, if not for the corpses."

How much Essence did you give the Crawler, out of curiosity?

80. It had been tearing up the umbral side of an elementary school that the ananasi was attending (early metamorphosis).She was investigating and the garou were on a patrol of their territory.

But then, I have the nexus crawler intend something then warp reality. Not warp reality and THEN declare what it's doing.