While the book itself is impressive, the systems content unfortunately leaves a very bad taste in my mouth. I'm a little disappointed at the needless self-nerfing, as my fears have been confirmed after I had a chance to review my buddy's pdf. To clarify, over the past decade and a half in various conversations with the community, I got the perception that there was a vocal minority that somehow decided certain arcanoi were too powerful at level 5. This was really quite arbitrary and not in-line when you compare the iconic level 5 abilities of various other powers in the greater World of Darkness.
Here are some examples of these changes in Wraith 20:
a) Obliviate now requires you to touch the target, and can be soaked with the appropriate "art", and grants 3 angst minimum (if not 4 depending on how you read it). Really? Nothing in Spook's book indicates touching anything - and not to mention you will never really touch any important target... let alone touch it multiple times. So much for this being scary.
b) Tempus Fugit now affects only a 10-yard area (for both speeding up and slowing down), you can no longer "carry it" with you. You are also only limited to 1 extra action c) and successful use only provides this bonus for 1-turn per success. This pretty much was nerfed in every possible mechanical manner. Less Actions. Less Duration. Forced area of affect so it's hard to pick out who it affects and who it does not. Wow.
d) Aggravated damage can only be soaked by armour/arts (yes I know the player base was split on this - but the official errata for second edition wasn't).
e) There are several other downgrades that I'm sure you'll all notice to various level 5 and level 4 Arcanoi (take look at Masquers, Monitors, heck even Chanteurs)
With some pretty impressive level 5 traits available across WoD - its disheartening to see this trend. The arbitrary weakening iconic powers makes me happy I did not contribute to the product. I was really looking forward to some system clarifications for Arcanoi - not this random nerfing with no logical premise (other than perhaps, wraiths should be weaker? Because you definitely can't draw reasons to reduce level 5 Arcanoi effectiveness when compared to mage, werewolf, vampire, demon, changeling or anything else I can think of to be honest).
Have you folks noticed this? Thoughts?
Here are some examples of these changes in Wraith 20:
a) Obliviate now requires you to touch the target, and can be soaked with the appropriate "art", and grants 3 angst minimum (if not 4 depending on how you read it). Really? Nothing in Spook's book indicates touching anything - and not to mention you will never really touch any important target... let alone touch it multiple times. So much for this being scary.
b) Tempus Fugit now affects only a 10-yard area (for both speeding up and slowing down), you can no longer "carry it" with you. You are also only limited to 1 extra action c) and successful use only provides this bonus for 1-turn per success. This pretty much was nerfed in every possible mechanical manner. Less Actions. Less Duration. Forced area of affect so it's hard to pick out who it affects and who it does not. Wow.
d) Aggravated damage can only be soaked by armour/arts (yes I know the player base was split on this - but the official errata for second edition wasn't).
e) There are several other downgrades that I'm sure you'll all notice to various level 5 and level 4 Arcanoi (take look at Masquers, Monitors, heck even Chanteurs)
With some pretty impressive level 5 traits available across WoD - its disheartening to see this trend. The arbitrary weakening iconic powers makes me happy I did not contribute to the product. I was really looking forward to some system clarifications for Arcanoi - not this random nerfing with no logical premise (other than perhaps, wraiths should be weaker? Because you definitely can't draw reasons to reduce level 5 Arcanoi effectiveness when compared to mage, werewolf, vampire, demon, changeling or anything else I can think of to be honest).
Have you folks noticed this? Thoughts?
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