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[Aurumae]

So before I get into this, I think I should point out that my main interest in fixing this is mechanical and improving how things feel moment to moment in combat when it does happen. I notice that almost all of your arguments ArcaneArts deal with the overall themes and feel of the game. I also feel like the current regeneration doesn't support those as well as it could, but we may be fundamentally at cross-purposes here.



Normally I might agree with you, but this is Werewolf. You don't talk to the claimed, or the Beshilu, or the things that used to be normal Spirits until...

[Aurumae]

I'm looking at tweaking a few aspects of Werewolves in 2e based on several years of play experience.

One of the first areas I want to focus on is their regeneration. Werewolf regeneration got a fairly hefty boost in second edition, with the amount of bashing healed per turn now scaling with Primal Urge (instead of fixed at one), the ability to heal an equal amount of lethal damage for one essence, and the incredible power of Gauru form to heal all lethal and bashing each turn.

Although Werewolves are on paper much better at regeneration in 2e than in 1e, some of the 2e...

[Aurumae]

I mean, this is a great position to find yourself in. I have neither the time nor the talent required to do this, so right now I feel like all the first edition books I own are useful for flavour but not much else.

And it seems to me that there's a big difference between saying "Werewolf already has all of its bases covered" and saying "since I have no trouble converting old material, there is no need to revisit ground covered in 1e".

As to your two questions, I don't think I have ever felt that a new book invalidated books I already own, and suggesting...

[Aurumae]

I disagree pretty strongly on this point. Werewolf 2e has tonnes of open design space.

One area that I would love to see covered is alternate Moon Gifts. The core book says that Werewolves can pick up Moon Gifts other than the ones listed in the core. Unfortunately, none of the books published to date give examples of alternate Moon Gifts. We have just one semi-official example - Chris Allen made a 2-part open development post on the blog about designing Werewolf Gifts for 2e, and in that he included an example alternate Cahalith Moon Gift. However it is difficult to even find that...

[Aurumae]

Unfortunately yes. Eating human or wolf flesh is a breaking point towards Spirit (and getting there usually involves other breaking points towards Spirit) while violating the Oath of the Moon is a breaking point towards Flesh, so it is a violation in both directions.

In our game, we don't roll any breaking points until the end of the scene, or sometimes the end of the session. If you have multiple breaking points in one direction, we just make a single roll with an increased penalty. If you have breaking points in both directions, you roll both (and we count them as having occurred...

[Aurumae]

In addition to this, the number of references to Vampires, Werewolves, and Mages in chapters 1-4 makes it seem like those creatures are what a Hunter should expect to see as core antagonists....

[Aurumae]

This seems at odds with some of the other purposes of 2e. OPP have stated that the reason they're reprinting the core rules in every 2e book is so that groups only need one book to run the game. If you're going to do that, then reprinting core abilities from 1e seems like a necessity too. I don't expect them to reprint every Compact and Conspiracy from 1e, nor do I expect them to reprint every Dread Power. But I do think the Dread Power list that we got lacks some of the essentials. There are other problems too, like is a chapter on mysterious places really a better use of space in the Hunter...

[Aurumae]

This was my point, it's not easy. If you're a new storyteller with nothing but Hunter 2e and you want your players to go up against a classic Vampire you have fewer tools to do so in 2e compared to 1e because they took the relevant Dread Powers out as well as the advice. As I keep pointing out, there isn't a single Dread Power that can represent a Vampire drinking blood, but there was a Dread Power designed to do just that in 1e. Why didn't they reprint it and rename it if necessary? I have no idea.

When I backed Hunter 2e on Kickstarter one of the taglines was "more monsters...

[Aurumae]

I'll be frank, I was already aware of the Infernal Dread Power and the Sea Trow. There are multiple problems with each of these.

First, having the explanation (if it can even be called that) of demons exist in a Dread Power is just silly. If I am looking for information on how demons work the Dread Powers section isn't where I would start looking. This, if nothing else, is incredibly poor layout and should be called out as such.

Beyond that though, Hunter 1e had a separate section in chapter 5 after Dread Powers where it explained in detail how demons work. Much of this...

[Aurumae]

Secrets of the Tribes. It ended up getting canned...

[Aurumae]

Can you? Sure. Is it easy? No. Does the book provide any guidance on how to do so? No.

The really odd thing is that it wasn't this way in 1e. Hunter 1e had the following to say about Vampires:



This is not a lot of text, but provides most of the guidance you need. Furthermore, if you were to try to apply this to 2e you would quickly find that several of the suggested Dread Powers - including the most important one Drain - are not to be found in Second Edition. There is a Numen called Drain but it is not a valid replacement. The Numen is only capable of stealing...

[Aurumae]

Werewolf is a particularly bad example of something a lot of CofD books are guilty of: hiding important rules inside of conditions and powers. As an example, the rules for standing up in combat are hidden in the resolution mechanic for the knocked down tilt, rather than in the combat section, and not all of the core books reprint this particular tilt (looking at you Vampire).

The rules for Spirit Ridden are the same way. The Claimed manifestation on page 191 of Werewolf explains what happens mechanically when a Spirit claims a person or object and how it can end. Spirit Ridden can...

[Aurumae]

I agree with wyrdhamster there's already a thread for this, but to put it briefly we are coming up on 1 year since the last CofD book was announced, 2 years since the last kickstarter and at Onyx Path Con, when Dixie was asked what was next for CofD and her response was essentially "if you want more books talk to Paradox"....

[Aurumae]

As far as additional content, the stretch goals covered a player's companion with 3 chapters - Cells, Compacts and Conspiracies. The Compacts and Conspiracies chapters would each feature 8 entries, so there is a possibility for several first edition Compacts and conspiracies to make a return...

[Aurumae]

I only gave the original backer manuscript a very quick once-over but now that the backer PDF is out and I've taken the time to read it, I'm honestly pretty shocked at how 2e has completely dropped any mechanical framework for representing the other major splats. One of the things I liked best about 1e was the simplified rules it gave for representing Vampires, Werewolves, Mages and so on as targets of the Hunt. This was great, both because you didn't need to purchase another book to represent some of the most popular monster types out there, and because those books contain a lot of ancillary...