Nerfing Aggravated ([V20]

[Natsymir]

I think aggravated damage is a bit too dangerous, and would like to nerf it a bit. The obvious solution would be to let everybody soak aggravated with Stamina, perhaps at difficulty 7 or 8, but this would make the occasional vampire with high Stamina+Fortitude basically invulnerable (thought it wouldn't be that much of a problem in my rather low-powered chronicle) so I dunno if it's a good idea.

Do you have any ideas about what I could do?

[Cynic01]

There are a few options depending on the sources of aggravated that you think are problematic.

• Armor allows its rating to soak vs aggravated damage from sources other than fire and sunlight, If the aggravated damage you are having problems with are things like Protean claws or fanged bites this might be a possibility.
  • You could make rules for Armor that can soak fire, basically armor reinforced with heat and ignition resistant materials.
• In Dark Ages Vampire 20th Anniversary Fortitude has an additional allowance that once per turn the vampire can spend 1 Blood Point to automatically soak their Fortitude rating (except versus fire and sunlight). If the aggravated damage you are having problems with are things like Protean claws or fanged bites this might be a possibility.
  • This doesn't help characters without Fortitude, but at the same time they invested their points elsewhere. Fortitude is only effect for soaking so those who don' t have it should sometimes face the consequences of that choice (though if you heavily limit access to non-clan Disciplines this could be additionally punishing).
• You've already mentioned allowing Stamina to soak at higher difficulty. The only thing I would add is that it wouldn't make Sta+Fort vampires invincible, dice do have low numbers after all.
  • If you find it's too powerful to allow Stamina to soak aggravated you could add an additional cost to it.
    • It could be 1 Blood Point to use Stamina to soak
    • If you really want to limit it make it 1 BP/Aggravated wound soaked.
    • 1 BP and 1 Willpower to soak is another more limiting way.

[Nosimplehiway]

I would hesitate nerfing Fortitude by allowing everyone to soak agg damage. Fortitude is a second tier discipline to begin with, and this would be unfair to pcs who have Fortitude as an in-clan discipline.

There are other ways to turn the "deadliness dial" up or down on an encounter. Most of these operate quietly, behind the ST screen, which is good for when you find you need to adjust the danger level again later.

You, as ST, can increase or decrease the blood supply. If blood is plentiful, healing Agg damage becomes less of an issue.

(Example: Local Giovanni have arranged a meeting in an out-of-business restaurant to "discuss" the pcs hunting without permission in a Giovanni owned nightclub. The Prince has ordered the pcs attend, to avoid insulting the Giovanni. The Giovanni are sending ghouls to the meeting. When the pcs are approaching the meeting location the ST mentions nearby buildings, including a stray animal shelter. Leave it to the players to realize that if the scene goes badly, the pcs can feed and heal there afterwards.)

A second option is to adjust the foes the pcs go against, and how they choose to attack. Most humans don't have an easy means of doing agg damage. Many vampire foes may avoid doing agg damage, even if they can. Attacking another vampire by punching them in the face is barely registered as an attack outside of Elysum, since it doesn't do any lasting damage. Using agg damage against a foe pushes the encounter straight into attempted murder territory, and causes political fallout.

(Example: The Giovanni ghouls have been instructed to use blow torches against the pcs to put the fear of god into them. The Giovanni don't, however, want the pcs dead. The ghouls are told to rough the pcs up a bit and wave the blow torches around to make their point. The ghouls have also been warned that any destroyed Camarilla vampires will be viewed as a declaration of war in the city, and so the ghouls must take care to not seriously hurt the pcs.)

A third option is making sure the pcs have a way to avoid combat or flee the encounter. This might mean jumping out of a fourth story window, or leaping over a guardrail onto a speeding bus on the freeway below. Providing such an exit avoids pc deaths while maintaining a sense of action and excitement.

(Example: The ghouls have cornered the pcs in front of a glass plate wall, and are waving their blow torches around. The pcs are on the edge of breaking into rotschreck, but you tell them there is a way out. The bank of windows looks out over the river, which is roiling like whitewater because of recent heavy rains. Would they rather fight the blow torches, or try their luck with the whitewater?)

A fourth option is to adjust the pace of your games. There's no rule that says there must be combat every night. Giving the pcs time to rest up and heal up can make the game less deadly.

(Example: The pcs decided to try to kill the ghouls, but it went badly. Several of the pcs are on the edge of torpor when they finally jump into the river. They wash up in a storm drain miles away, just moments before dawn. Lucky for them, they came ashore near a Nosferatu fledgling's haven. She offers them shelter from the sun, in exchange for a boon. They survive the day, spend the next few nights running minor errands for the Nosferatu which she can't perform herself because of her appearance. The pcs use the time to feed and heal up, before they kick in the door of Pallazzo di Giovanni, their own blowtorches in hand.)

[Aahz]

We had a house rule were you ad one dot of Stamina for each dot of Fortitude you had to soak roles against agg damage apart from sunlight and fire.

For example if you had Stamina 5 and Fortitude 2, you 4 dice to soak against "normal" aggravated damage and 2 dice against fire or sunlight.

Another option would be to make the existing power that allow you to soak aggravated damage with Stamina+Fortitude more accessible (or to introduce new one).

[jamiemalk]

Dark Ages had a rule that if you had a dot of Fortitude you could use Stamina plus Fortitude to soak fire and sunlight.

[Vamps Like Us]

Dark Ages had a rule that if you had a dot of Fortitude you could use Stamina plus Fortitude to soak fire and sunlight.

I feel the opposite.

Fire and sunlight should really be the only aggravated damage and it should be fortitude dots only to soak. Let fire and sunlight be the big banes. More scary that way. Crap like claws or whatever discipline should never cause aggravated. 2 dots in protean dosen't give instant death damage in my games.

[Heavy Arms]

An entirely different approach?

Decrease the availability of Aggravated damage. Vampire bites do lethal. Have any power below 4 dots that current does Agg not do Agg and add some other benefit to the lethal damage (increase base damage, add armor piercing, etc.)

IME this tones down the deadliness of the game, but makes sure that certain things are still really dangerous.

[Aahz]

Decrease the availability of Aggravated damage. Vampire bites do lethal. Have any power below 4 dots that current does Agg not do Agg and add some other benefit to the lethal damage (increase base damage, add armor piercing, etc.)

The biggest problem are anyway stuff like claws and magical weapons that do Strength+x (+ additional successes from the attack role) agg damage, which reach some pretty massive amounts of damage.

Stuff like Fire and Sunlight usually don't do that much damage, so that Fortitude is more effective against those.

[Undead rabbit]

An entirely different approach?

Decrease the availability of Aggravated damage. Vampire bites do lethal. Have any power below 4 dots that current does Agg not do Agg and add some other benefit to the lethal damage (increase base damage, add armor piercing, etc.)

IME this tones down the deadliness of the game, but makes sure that certain things are still really dangerous.

This. Which by the way was the solution used by Requiem: the only things that really do agg are fire and sunlight.

Agg damage was once something uncommon, there were few powers that could grant you agg, even more once upon a timne agg was easier to soak. 4th Gen could just soak agg as it was lethal (1ed), and fortitude in 2nd ed allowed you to soak using Fortitude + Stamina.

[Pnizzle]

My homebrew:
Fortitude is automatic vs physical.
If the attack is physical you also roll 1 stamina per fortitude dot.

Magic, sunlight, and fire remain the same. This is because their dice of damage doesn’t go past 4.

This has had success. A focused player who devotes everything to soaking feels rewarded for doing so.

[Legendre]

I completely agree that not being able to soak a Potence-Gangrel's claws is ridiculous. As some have suggested, I don't play that only Fortitude can soak aggravated damage -- stamina is added to the soak rolls vs. claws, bites, etc. It is NOT added to fire or sunlight, though.

As to NoSimpleHighway's (entirely valid) concerns, I avoided nerfing Fortitude by making Fortitude automatically reduce damage by 1 point per rank for every attack. You have Fortitude 4 and get hit for 7 points of damage? You just take 3. Autosuccess, like Potence.

(That's not quite as crazy as it sounds in the highly customized combat rules I use.)

[adambeyoncelowe]

I'm with those saying limit aggravated damage. Keep it for fire and sunlight only, and everything else gets downgraded to lethal. That would make characters somewhat more likely to survive.

[Sergeant Brother]

I would also favor removing aggravated damage save for sunlight and fire. I would include True Faith in that category as well. Let claws and teeth do lethal damage.

Fortitude would probably need to be adjusted. Maybe just let it soak lethal damage automatically, like Potence. I realize that this would make a character with Fortitude 5 extremely difficult to damage in a fight - but compare it to other Disciplines at level five and it’s honestly not that overpowered even giving automatic successes.

[Heavy Arms]

I think it's best to consider buffing Fortitude and/or natural soak for vampires as a separate thing from the proliferation of Agg dealing abilities in the game.

I also wouldn't completely cut Agg powers out so it's just sun, fire, and whatever else. But leave them as upper tier powers to keep them rare. Considering some of the shit you can pull with the higher level mental/emotion Disciplines at that level, letting Agg come in then isn't really a big deal.

[PazuzuAxelf]

It seems to me that the problem is not Aggravated damage, but the fact that it is so readily available. Make Sunlight and Fire the only things that deal aggravated damage outside of direct magical attacks (I'm thinking of Mage powers here, not anything physical like Protean claws) and your problems are solved. There's no logical reason why a Vampire's fangs or claws should deal Aggravated damage, it's purely mystical.