Prohibitive Penalties for Opening Primordial Pathways

[lnodiv]

According to the 'Accessing Your Lair' section, and the really horribly placed and named 'Chambers and Lair Traits' section, the total dice penalty for trying to open a Pathway from a place similar to your chamber (ie, graveyard to graveyard) is -8.

If you recreate the circumstances under which you formed the original chamber perfectly, it's still -5 (-3 for material world, not the location of chamber, and -2 for Spiritual similarity).

This is ludicrous.

Are people actually playing with these penalties?

[espritdecalmar]

I believe the "Chambers and Lair Traits" and "Accessing Your Lair" sections are talking about two different things. For the latter, the modifiers are for moving between your Lair and a different realm via the Primordial Pathways. The wording in the former is a bit muddied from repeated use of the term "Primordial Pathways," but refers to imposing Lair Traits on a location that isn't currently resonant.

[lnodiv]

I believe the "Chambers and Lair Traits" and "Accessing Your Lair" sections are talking about two different things. For the latter, the modifiers are for moving between your Lair and a different realm via the Primordial Pathways. The wording in the former is a bit muddied from repeated use of the term "Primordial Pathways," but refers to imposing Lair Traits on a location that isn't currently resonant.

That was my initial reading as well, but I can't fathom why it would explicitly call out the term opening a Primordial Pathway if it was only talking about Lair Traits.

[ElvesofZion]

That was my initial reading as well, but I can't fathom why it would explicitly call out the term opening a Primordial Pathway if it was only talking about Lair Traits.

It certainly feels like an editing mistake given the position of the section as you mentioned. I will be running it as Chambers and Lair Traits is for imposing traits only, and the 'Accessing Your Lair' section will be for Primordial Pathways.

[Satchel]

According to the 'Accessing Your Lair' section, and the really horribly placed and named 'Chambers and Lair Traits' section, the total dice penalty for trying to open a Pathway from a place similar to your chamber (ie, graveyard to graveyard) is -8.

That's the idea. Lair Traits and/or being Gorged serve to offset those penalties and Beasts are pretty strongly incentivized to funnel their Experiences into Attributes in the first place.

The mechanical intent of the Pathways has never been to shortcut to places with only a tangential relation to your Legend and if you intent to use your Lair to get around a lot you're encouraged to develop Traits that are persistent or easy to recreate.

[Elfive]

Opening a pathway from a location other than the one corresponding to the target chamber is nigh-impossible for a starting beast and utterly trivial for one at Lair 10, where the presence of any of their 7 lair traits lets them impose the other 6 and drag the penalty down to -1. Most characters will find them somewhere between these two extremes.

[lnodiv]

Opening a pathway from a location other than the one corresponding to the target chamber is nigh-impossible for a starting beast and utterly trivial for one at Lair 10, where the presence of any of their 7 lair traits lets them impose the other 6 and drag the penalty down to -1. Most characters will find them somewhere between these two extremes.

If that was meant to be required, I feel like the example should have been a lot more involved than the sample Beast running into a location with mere descriptive similarity and calling down a Pathway on the first try.

[Elfive]

It's an example. Making it too involved would have been confusing.

[HelmsDerp]

The entire Chamber and Lair Traits section doesn't make a whole lot of sense, honestly. It's supposed to provide a way to impose Traits without finding or creating one naturally, but if an area has a strong physical resemblance to one of your Chambers it probably has at least one of those Traits already, rendering the whole penalty/satiety expenditure thing moot. It also doesn't clarify if the penalties are supposed to work both ways, exiting the Lair to a location in the material world doesn't have any coverage in that section. If resonance really is the key factor then you're pretty stuck. It's not even possible to achieve narrative or spiritual similarity, or to impose any of your Traits that aren't prexisting, on the external end being as you're in the Lair until you succeed on the roll. That leaves Beasts in the Lair with huge penalties and no way to mitigate them, which I doubt is the intent.

I just ignore that section and use the bar for Accessing the Lair.

[Satchel]

If that was meant to be required, I feel like the example should have been a lot more involved than the sample Beast running into a location with mere descriptive similarity and calling down a Pathway on the first try.

"Tries to do the thing" means "does the thing on the first try" now?

The entire Chamber and Lair Traits section doesn't make a whole lot of sense, honestly. It's supposed to provide a way to impose Traits without finding or creating one naturally, but if an area has a strong physical resemblance to one of your Chambers it probably has at least one of those Traits already, rendering the whole penalty/satiety expenditure thing moot.

Having a Chamber that you formed in Blizzard conditions or during a Darkness-inducing blackout isn't going to make any given abandoned shack resonant by default.

It also doesn't clarify if the penalties are supposed to work both ways, exiting the Lair to a location in the material world doesn't have any coverage in that section. If resonance really is the key factor then you're pretty stuck. It's not even possible to achieve narrative or spiritual similarity, or to impose any of your Traits that aren't prexisting, on the external end being as you're in the Lair until you succeed on the roll. That leaves Beasts in the Lair with huge penalties and no way to mitigate them, which I doubt is the intent.

No, that's absolutely the intent. The point is to spread your Legend to places that are similar to your existing Chambers so that you establish shortcuts and waypoints, not to be able to freely jump into anybody's home just because you have a house-based Chamber.

[lnodiv]

"Tries to do the thing" means "does the thing on the first try" now?

Unless you're disputing that the immense difficulty of doing something like this isn't accurately represented, I don't understand why you're pushing this angle. The example doesn't accurately represent the actual process, and makes it look like the intent is, in fact, to be able to open pathways with relative ease in locations that are similar to your Lair. The entire section of expanded penalties isn't even included in the section about pathways (it's shoved in with Lair traits), and reads like an editing artifact from when the system worked differently.

Regardless, I respect your ability to parse ChroD rules, and I can absolutely accept that you're right - this is probably intended.

Part two of this question: do you have actual play experience using these penalties? Does anyone that's supporting them here have actual play experience with them?

[Satchel]

Unless you're disputing that the immense difficulty of doing something like this isn't accurately represented, I don't understand why you're pushing this angle.

Unless you're conflating the recurrent Eshmaki-in-a-pine-forest example with the Anakim-in-the-abandoned-school-that-is-their-Chamber-seed example of simply opening a Pathway, there's no reason to mention try-count at all, which is a point of legitimate confusion irrespective of the way the penalties are arranged in the book.

Opening a Pathway is an Attribute task whose greatest utility in circumstances where high penalties can't be offset (due to lack of preparation and/or power) is buying a few turns of acting with the full strength of your Horror, which necessarily serves as a reason to limit its chance of success and duration of effect.

[lnodiv]

Anakim-in-the-abandoned-school-that-is-their-Chamber-seed.

I actually didn't realize the school in question was his seed. I'm really glad you pointed that out.

I'd still like to hear from anyone that has experience with these in actual play.

[Elfive]

I generally assume the -3 for getting out when you don't really care where in the destination realm you end up covers the similarity factors. Aside form that you either need cooperation from brood members (they can all impose one of your lair traits on an area) or just exit via your real-world chamber analogues.

[ElvesofZion]

Satchel has convinced me that it is intended to be both, and I think that it is thematically appropriate for it to work the way he says. That being said, I don't yet know how that actually plays out in game as far as difficultly goes and I still think that the editing isn't then best (granted, I think that about the whole book; I think mostly caused by the Kickstarter backlash and re-working).