Some Disciplines questions[V20]

[monteparnas]

If i might ask what does Daydreaming aura mean in Auspex table? i guess someone under the powers like Dementation can have Psychotic aura but i am not sure i understand DayDreaming here.

Auspex's primary function isn't to find out supernatural interference, it is to evaluate mental state. Most people with a psychotic aura isn't under Dementation or anything, just going through a mundane psychotic episode. Trying to tie each result to a given form of supernatural intervention is already to miss the point since noticing this is its own thing.

Instead, with aura reading the point with those results is to find use to the information itself. A daydreaming person is unfocused to begin with, and coupled with other emotional readings you may have even more data to draw conclusions and understand what the person is going through.

Now, this is more complex to wrap your mind around than it should, that's why both VtR and V5 changed Auspex to a question-based approach, but the point is to gather information about the person, not about magic at play. This information is naturally harder to use, but useful on a greater range of situations.

[adambeyoncelowe]

Thanks.

If i might ask what does Daydreaming aura mean in Auspex table? i guess someone under the powers like Dementation can have Psychotic aura but i am not sure i understand DayDreaming here.

Daydreaming means they are literally in a day dream. Probably focused on things away from the present. Perhaps imagining things. Temporarily distracted by some interior world.

[burnforme]

Basically. While level 2 makes some details clearer, this explanation is on the opening of the Discipline.

On the matter of Mask of a Thousand Faces, there's no roll on the part of the observer because the vampire already did it at the Discipline's activation. As long as B got enough successes, A simply can't force the power to fail, their brain simply accepts the image at face value and since there's no detail about physical interaction on the Mask (and old editions had examples of users keeping it even during sex), there's no reason to think physical interaction of any sort would dismiss it.

There is a caveat, though. At no point it forces the observer to believe. A can't see through the Mask, and no action will do so. But it doesn't means A can't suspect and even be certain that it is an use of the Mask. Notice the mechanics on the Mask talk several times about the risks of being caught by odd behavior, yet it gives no rules on that. It basically means that the rules are acknowledging such situations, but at no point the power forces confidence on the viewer, just the illusion itself.

Thanks.

If i might ask what does Daydreaming aura mean in Auspex table? i guess someone under the powers like Dementation can have Psychotic aura but i am not sure i understand DayDreaming here.

[monteparnas]

Thanks i thought this only works for second level Obfuscate, as for why player A does this, perhaps A thinks that a certain person might not be who he claims to be. so all of these would be gone in case of someone using Obfuscate regardless of level. i think i got it.

Basically. While level 2 makes some details clearer, this explanation is on the opening of the Discipline.

On the matter of Mask of a Thousand Faces, there's no roll on the part of the observer because the vampire already did it at the Discipline's activation. As long as B got enough successes, A simply can't force the power to fail, their brain simply accepts the image at face value and since there's no detail about physical interaction on the Mask (and old editions had examples of users keeping it even during sex), there's no reason to think physical interaction of any sort would dismiss it.

There is a caveat, though. At no point it forces the observer to believe. A can't see through the Mask, and no action will do so. But it doesn't means A can't suspect and even be certain that it is an use of the Mask. Notice the mechanics on the Mask talk several times about the risks of being caught by odd behavior, yet it gives no rules on that. It basically means that the rules are acknowledging such situations, but at no point the power forces confidence on the viewer, just the illusion itself.

[burnforme]

Thanks i thought this only works for second level Obfuscate, as for why player A does this, perhaps A thinks that a certain person might not be who he claims to be. so all of these would be gone in case of someone using Obfuscate regardless of level. i think i got it.

[monteparnas]

I have to ask another question, how do you guys handle Obfuscate 3 in case someone touches you? lets say player a suspects player b is using Obfuscate 3, can he try to touch him to wear off the effect? how does that work?

Not like that at all. Those questions are all addressed in Obfuscate itself in no uncertain terms, but I'll try to make them even more clear.

Obfuscate does not conceal the user. It doesn't even clouds other people's perceptions. Instead, it deceives the mind into refusing to acknowledge the Vampire.

What it means is that no one affected will touch the vampire unless forced to. If Player A tries, he'll miss on purpose every time. Player B will need to avoid contact according to the circumstances, like not bumping into the other, but A will never be able to force such contact to begin with while under Obfuscate's effect.

The caveat, though, is what gave A the idea to begin with? If B did something to draw attention, then a roll is called for immediately, no matter how subtle, although the subtlety may affect the difficulty. Some actions cease Obfuscate completely at once, either just for one person or for everyone around. Touching may very well be one of those.

But that's it. It's all covered by the rolls already present in the Discipline's description. Outside that, a person affected is incapable of forcing themselves against the effect, which compensates the weaknesses of Obfuscate (not working on electronics or at great distances).

[burnforme]

I have to ask another question, how do you guys handle Obfuscate 3 in case someone touches you? lets say player a suspects player b is using Obfuscate 3, can he try to touch him to wear off the effect? how does that work?

[adambeyoncelowe]

Right, ROTB, I'll make the fix.

As for Forget
Human memory is believed to work a little like computers. There's a separation of short term memory and long term memory. "Forget" could conceivably delete the uncertain amount of short term memory that has yet to be encoded into long term memory.


Nosferatu can increase their appearance with Obfuscate, and IV is temporary (and costly; a whole point of virgin blood? We gotta find a lot of virgins to keep that sustainable)

But wouldn't 'delete all your short term memory' require more than just 'forget'? The RAW specifically call out ambiguous meanings as failing or taking longer. I don't think it's a reasonable use of the power.

[monteparnas]

Little off but I do have some of my own questions.

As monteparnas mentioned, Aura perception is really hard to pull off (difficulty 8). Is this meant to be made easier by heightened senses reducing the difficulty of perception rolls?

Does a command like "forget" work for Command in V20.

Do you allow Awareness talent to sense that something's wrong when someone is Obfuscated, even if they don't have the Auspex levels to compete with the Obfuscate? I believe that , provided a fairly difficult roll, they should at least feel off or uneasy with no indication why.

Can Ugly bloodlines benefit from the Impressive Visage ritual (ROTB* 146)

As adambeyoncelowe I think Aura Perception is too clearly dif 8 despite Auspex, not before it. But I also agree that it wouldn't be too big a problem if you apply the reduction, although 8-Auspex (in practice 6 to 3 for High Gens) seems too low. Another option would be to make the application of the benefit somewhat conditional, then you go with your gut feeling and the bigger benefit won't be a problem either.

"Forget" has three problems. First of all the question of ambiguity, although context can certainly help, but even if the application of the command was narrow (lets say, it only works on the last 5 minutes of memory), the command itself isn't (the target doesn't know that you mean that, so it is ambiguous even if only one interpretation actually works).

Second and more relevant, despite the distinction between short term and long term memory, the fact remains that memory itself isn't a thing that we can control that way. It is possible to control ones own memory to certain extent, but not something anyone can do at any time, so I would lean towards it not working like that.

Third and more important, though, it is simply that memory control is explicitly covered by higher levels, so even simpler forms of it I don't think should be achievable with just one command.

But, context matters, and language is nuanced. The word "forget" is frequently used to tell someone to pretend to forget something, pay it no attention and never touch the subject. This is a valid Command on its own, and I see no reason for it to not apply if the context makes your intended meaning clear, and this isn't especially hard here.

I see no reason for ugly bloodlines to not benefit from the ritual, since as you said, they already benefit from Obfuscate. This is not the player trying to erase the Weakness from the sheet, but to burn resources just to be able to function in society, which is what their Ugliness actually do.

On the Awareness matter, I stand again with adambeyoncelowe. As long as it is an indistinct feeling, go for it. It is enough for the character to be alert and look for more clues on what's happening, without completely messing with a power that shouldn't be countered by just an Ability roll.

[MyWifeIsScary]

Right, ROTB, I'll make the fix.

As for Forget
Human memory is believed to work a little like computers. There's a separation of short term memory and long term memory. "Forget" could conceivably delete the uncertain amount of short term memory that has yet to be encoded into long term memory.


Nosferatu can increase their appearance with Obfuscate, and IV is temporary (and costly; a whole point of virgin blood? We gotta find a lot of virgins to keep that sustainable)

[adambeyoncelowe]

Little off but I do have some of my own questions.

As Guest mentioned, Aura perception is really hard to pull off (difficulty 8). Is this meant to be made easier by heightened senses reducing the difficulty of perception rolls?

Does a command like "forget" work for Command in V20.

Do you allow Awareness talent to sense that something's wrong when someone is Obfuscated, even if they don't have the Auspex levels to compete with the Obfuscate? I believe that , provided a fairly difficult roll, they should at least feel off or uneasy with no indication why.

Can Ugly bloodlines benefit from the Impressive Visage ritual (LotB 146)

I would assume there's no difficulty break on Aura Perception, a) because the difficulty modifier is Storyteller fiat anyway, so it isn't universal; b) because my reading is that the RAW refers to mundane perceptions, rather than supernatural ones; and c) the power already takes into account that you have Heightened Senses, as Disciplines are linear in V20, and yet makes no mention of this (e.g., by saying difficulty 8 - Auspex). The difficulty therefore should take your Auspex 2 into account already, if it applied at all.

If it did apply, though, you'd have to also ask: does difficulty 8 include the Auspex modifier (in which case it's difficulty 7 at three dots, difficulty 6 at four and difficulty 5 at five) or not (in which case, it's actually difficulty 6 for anyone with two dots of Auspex, thus is never difficulty 8 for anyone, so why bother mentioning it without any caveats?).

A more lenient reading would be the former of those (it's difficulty 8 at Auspex 2, 7 at Auspex 3, and so on), as that seems somewhere in between the strictest and loosest interpretations. If that encourages your players to use that power, I'd say go for it.

As for the RAI on Command... I'm leaning towards no on that, too. You can make people sleep or laugh, which implies changing their consciousness, but it seems like forgetting is something the text would call out (especially because level three expressly does deal with memory changes, further implying lower level powers can't).

The rules also specify that you can't give an ambiguous command, RAW. With 'forget', the obvious question is, 'Forget what?' Everything? The last minute? One word isn't enough to clarify that.

Next up, I'd allow Awareness to sense Obfuscate, but more as a vague sensation, 'The hairs on your neck raise. Something unusual is nearby.' But you'd get no detail like with Auspex.

Finally, Impressive Visage is in RotB, not LotB, if anyone else couldn't find it. Anyway, I would read the intent of the Nosferatu Weakness ('All Nosferatu have an Appearance
score of zero, and they may never improve it') as literal and all-encompassing. The word never is an absolute. As that ritual boosts Appearance, it should simply fail on a Nosferatu.

But, personally, I could be convinced to allow it for shits and giggles, if the player knew how to roleplay it. It could be hilariously funny!

[MyWifeIsScary]

Little off but I do have some of my own questions.

As monteparnas mentioned, Aura perception is really hard to pull off (difficulty 8). Is this meant to be made easier by heightened senses reducing the difficulty of perception rolls?

Does a command like "forget" work for Command in V20.

Do you allow Awareness talent to sense that something's wrong when someone is Obfuscated, even if they don't have the Auspex levels to compete with the Obfuscate? I believe that , provided a fairly difficult roll, they should at least feel off or uneasy with no indication why.

Can Ugly bloodlines benefit from the Impressive Visage ritual (ROTB* 146)

[adambeyoncelowe]

Dominate causing sleep was replaced with the ability to remove short term memories in V5. I think the rationale is the same: both powers allow you to avoid a Masquerade breach with an easy application of Dominate against a mortal. They just go about it in different ways--V20 by allowing you to make them sleep and V5 by allowing you to remove the memories after the fact. I think either is fine, and not particularly overpowered. Sleep is perhaps slightly easier, as the mortal can't escape or attack you before you remove their memories.

[monteparnas]

how does Auspex work against level 3 Obfuscate?

As others said, you just do it. You have the ability to sense the unseen from level one and your overall Auspex level just defines what powers you can try to counter. No other power is used in this.

Another Auspex related question, you can see the Aura of ghosts with Auspex. how does this work?

Just as with anything else, keeping in mind that Sense the Unseen may help you finding the ghost. Other than that, it is the ST's call when you have enough of a "line of sight" to see the aura. I would personally avoid letting the aura be read without first being able to pinpoint the ghost's location by something other than just luck (or activating it to see if it works).

When you use Aura reading does that only work for one turn per scene?

By RAW it doesn't seems to be the case, but it is irrelevant. It isn't so much that you can't read the aura for a longer time, but that doing so doesn't affects the result. Auras are hard to read even with the power active, so 1 success means you can only glimpse that little information no matter if you spend the whole scene watching it.

Subtle changes in the aura are useful to read deeper into emotional cues, and certainly indicate that the power stays active for a time at least. Most of the time we're under far more complex emotional states than we think, as we have emotional responses to a lot of simultaneous aspects of our context and many aspects can elicit more than one emotional response or bring memories that elicit their own responses even if just half-remembered.

i know you need to see the eyes in order for it to work, but how long is the range of this?

As long as you can meaningfully see their eyes.

Dominate allows you to use a command like Sleep. how does this work?i

Any way you want to roll with, because that was just dumb rulling, yet it is hardly an actual problem.

I think for first level of Dominate this might be alright(Sleep command) but with this logic it might open a lot of other roads to abuse Dominate in higher levels. like,maybe someone can argue a command like go in coma to send a mortal into a coma.

Even at first level Dominate you can give commands that have no foreseeable end, locking a mortal forever. You can also do far worse to mortals with other Disciplines. With some initial Str and maybe pumping blood to increase it, Potence 1 is enough to pop out a head as if it was a beer bottle's cap.

We have an instinctive impression of power coming from Dominate at first because it affects something dear to us: personal agency. But in actual game play it isn't actually all that of a problem.

You should watch out for using it against PCs, though. Dominate and Presence against PCs aren't overpowered, but are problematic, and should be done sparingly until everyone is able to express how much they're comfortable with it. This is a game and should first be fun, and that's the only real concern with those two Disciplines, they're not overpowered and don't worry about abuse for now.

I don't think our unconscious mind controls comas, though. They are caused by outside factors damaging your body until your brain glitches in a way it was never meant to as opposed to sleep being a natural function performed by a healthy brain.

Actually comas are defensive mechanisms a healthy brain activates against some forms of trauma. It is not an outside cause, but an internal one just like sleep in this sense.

Dominate is a fictional power. It affects sleep and not coma in V20 because the authors thought it would made sense and because this is balanced from a game perspective, but as phenomena they would make the same sense, and there are actually methods to induce coma that work precisely because convincing your brain to go comatose by itself is a thing.

[adambeyoncelowe]

Ah, okey this makes more sense.
Thanks.

The sidebar states that
"When a vampire tries to use her
heightened perceptions to notice a Kindred
hidden with Obfuscate...
"
Doesn't this mean you must have Auspex activated? the problem with what you stated is that Auspex requires you to activate it in order to get the benefits and thats why i always thought breaking through Obfuscate works with second level Auspex.



Yes it seems so, as one of Malkavian combos(Days of Passions Past) also states " Vampires with Auspex can take their chances and try to interpret a person's mood at that very moment from an aura."
Which seems to suggest is a one turn thing. thanks for info i might use this my own.

You're overthinking it. Seeing the unseen is an inherent power of any level of Auspex. You have even a single dot of Auspex? Then you can attempt to see the unseen without any other Discipline activation. Just consider it a bonus power on its own.

V5 does just that, and explicitly makes it its own power. But V20 just makes it a passive benefit of Auspex.

If you feel that's overpowered, then just say the character must activate Heightened Sense to do this. That makes the most sense to me. Requiring the second level of Auspex to use it is expressly a nerf, because the ability is no longer possible from the first dot.