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[Hades]

I believe this is addressed in a splatbook somewhere, where they basically say that Ventrue, like addicts looking for their fix, "just know." So a Ventrue, being given five goblets of blood, would know which one they could gain sustenance from....

[Hades]

I mean, it does happen, yeah. Generally though, I find PC's use Dominate to get around Nobodies like security guards or to interrogate defeated enemies, both of which don't tend to stick around in the story. As far as NPC's using Dominate goes, I usually do it in such a fashion that the player doesn't question it. If they start to question it or go against it, that's when I say "Yeah, no, you do what you're told" and only then do they realize it. The character response has typically been to avoid that NPC afterwards, which is understandable....

[Hades]

I have a player in my game who hates it so much (he's a bit of a control freak irl) that he buys Willpower 10 and Iron Will for every character he makes.

My attitude is (as both a PC and ST) that overriding someone's agency like that is a fantastic way to make everlasting enemies, which is probably why Dominate should be used in an exceedingly subtle manner, or backed up with other methods of control like Presence or Blood Bond. When I have players get pissed about it, I simply say "Sounds like this vamp just made an enemy. What are you going to do about it?"

[Hades]

Personally, I'll take a .44 magnum that shoots Aggravated bullets over a .44 magnum that gives +5 dice to a Dex+Firearms roll to deal Bashing against vamps, if the cost to activate is a Willpower roll at Difficulty 8. There are advantages both ways though, for sure....

[Hades]

The real nerf in Spirit Manipulation between Revised and V20 came with the Level 4 power Entrap Ephemera, both of which allow you to create Fetishes.

Revised lets you basically go Full D&D Magic Gear with it, allowing cloaks of invisibility, wands that throw fireballs, and pretty much whatever your hapless story teller can't outright deny.

V20 turns Fetishes into a straight dice pool bonus for a specific skill based on the level of the Fetish, and limits the number you can have.

[Hades]

>World events
1890's, you mean?...

[Hades]

[Brujah] finally, after millennia of lying dormant within Troile, finally resurrects from within Carthage, uses its Level 10 Temporis ability, and resets time to 1998.

[Hades]

You can get around a lot of bullshit with this Path by not being a dick. Chiminage will take you a long, long way.

That said, Chiminage is not a "Cool, now I can play Spirit Pokemon!" If you want to be serious about Spirit Thaumaturgy, get ready to play a Vampire Shaman, for lack of a better term.

[Hades]

I mean, I'm not disagreeing with you. Pretty much every Pagan European culture had a pretty good understanding of differentiating non human spirits from dead humans become shades, and if when you die you either go to Heaven, Purgatory or Hell you by definition must adopt the position the Catholic church took. Medieval magical texts are rife with these kinds of ludicrous ideas brought over from the Church (and not just about necromancy).

An interesting side point, the people I know who actually practice necromancy in real life as an actual spiritual practice and not some new age BS...

[Hades]

Oh boy....

[Hades]

Personal rants are Best rants. I agree with everything you said, Vilenecromancer . Im sure we could have quite the discussion on this.

[Hades]

Wouldn't that then mean the action of causing suffering or killing would provoke a stain? As opposed to the power itself? What's the difference between defending yourself from a violent person and choking him out vs defending yourself from a violent person with some Obtenebration in the lungs?...

[Hades]

It's kind of the D&D equivalent of permanently losing a point in one of your stats for casting a spell. Is it really worth what you're going to lose? No. Add to that the fact that you have to spend xp to take the risk? Hard no.

There's a reason D&D moved away from this model in 3rd Edition, before which things like Resurrection or Haste aged you by a year. It's a bad mechanic.

[Hades]

I played an Abyss Mystic on the Road of the Abyss for over a decade IRL and actually really enjoyed the philosophy of it, given my own personal occult studies in real life. Below are some of the things my character explored:

- The Abyss is a sort of anti-world, similar to the Sitra Ahra or Qliphoth of the Qabbalah, and it is just as conscious and aware as this world. The difference between the two worlds is that where the Sephira (this world) are generative, the Abyss is negating and hungry.
- The vampire (not necessarily ALL vampires; this is only referencing the Abyss Mystic...

[Hades]

Players who think they'll never get political power in a game of Vampire and are raging against the machine should read The 48 Laws of Power.