V5 - Mass Manipulation Question

[Monalfie]

Had a question going over some over the Dominate 5 power for V5 that I was curious about. Part of it reads as such.

The vampire can amplify any of their other powers to affect a group of people, mortal or vampire, at once. All of the victims need to see the eyes of the user. The user makes any needed roll against the strongest opponent in the group.

What I'm curious is, how it interacts with this rule.

Dominate cuts to the core of vampiric mastery and predation. Thus, vampires must resist attempts to Dominate them. A vampire of lower (stronger) generation can resist Dominate attempts from higher generation vampires by spending a Willpower point, negating the effect completely.

Does this mean if the strongest opponent in the group is a lower generation Kindred, and the use willpower to resist, it stops the entire use of Mass Manipulation? As it just says 'negating the effect completely.' As opposed to 'making themselves immune' or 'negating the effect on themselves.'

Further, assuming it doesn't end the effect for others, would you still be using their pool to role? As they would be the strongest opponent, regardless of having made themselves immune? Or go to the next person on the list.

[Murder-of-Crows]

I think the general Dominate rules were written before the specific power "Mass Manipulation" was written. I would rule that the negation only affects the vampire using willpower. But, I could also imagine it otherwise, where a stronger generation Kindred actually nullifies the complete power.

But to activate the power, indeed the person with the highest pool resists. Since that person has to spend a Willpower to negate the effect. Negating can only happen after successful activation.

[Aleph]

I think it could go both ways. It's ambiguous but I don't see why not interpret it literally

Imagine a group compossed by 9 persons that have a dicepool to resist of 2 , and one person with a dicepool of 10. In this case the difficulty varies enormously when you include the one guy with 10, you don't get to dominate the ones with lower resistence if you can't dominate him. One human with 10 dice can "shield" his peers. It's an all or nothing effect, if you bite more than what you can chew all the effect gets trashed. Hence I don't think it would be unreasonable or unbalanced to apply the same beneffit if a vampire of lower generation it's among them.

[pang4]

Here's is how I would rule it:

Any vampire of lower generation may spend a willpower to be immune to domination. That would exclude them from the group you're trying to dominate, which would mean you make your test against the next strongest indovidual in the group.

[Murder-of-Crows]

While we are talking about Mass Manipulation, has anyone considered how Dementation (Dominate 2) will work with Mass Manipulation (Dominate 5)? Speaking from a Malkavian perspective the results could be fun. The system for Mass Manipulation says "any of their other powers", so I assume that Dementation can be used together with Mass Manipulation too.

By the way "any of their other powers" is also an indicator of the poor wording of Mass Manipulation, because as written this could extend to other disciplines (but that is clearly not the intent of the power).

[Illithid]

Yup, Dementation is one of "any of their other (Dominate) powers"

[Monalfie]

While we are talking about Mass Manipulation, has anyone considered how Dementation (Dominate 2) will work with Mass Manipulation (Dominate 5)? Speaking from a Malkavian perspective the results could be fun. The system for Mass Manipulation says "any of their other powers", so I assume that Dementation can be used together with Mass Manipulation too.

By the way "any of their other powers" is also an indicator of the poor wording of Mass Manipulation, because as written this could extend to other disciplines (but that is clearly not the intent of the power).

I think the hard part for knowing if it can work for Dementation is what it actually takes to use that power. Which is to say, it twice references that you need 'casual conversation' and 'after engaging in conversation with a victim.' So it depends what is being premised as sufficient conversation to engage the power, if there needs to be any back and forth. That said, could be a funny idea for a Malkavian stand-up comedian.

[Tubect]

The Malkavian in my group was really excited for Dementation and subsequently found no real use for it.