[Open Dev] 2e Revised Endowments

[Second Chances]

Link

Monica's posted a document about how she wants to revisit Endowments. Haven't read through it yet, will do so later.

[Arcanist]

This is very, very cool. Gives some concrete frameworks to work around and, for me, anyways, solid structure like this that is easily understood in terms of a zero sum game of addition and subtraction means less time agonizing over mechanics, and more time figuring out cool effects. This sort of frame-working is probably why I can use Creative Thaumaturgy in Mage 2E no problem, but I could never get a grip of it for 2E. It's also easy enough to open this up to basically make any supernatural effect a mortal could do (with the right knowledge and know-how).

Probably going to toy around with this and the Occult subsection of Violent Skills from Hurt Locker. See what kind of nastiness I can come up with, maybe translate some Endowments over.

[wyrdhamster]

Trying to understand how to rather quickly rewrite one Endowment in to another. Like I have basic idea for 'witch killing bullets' Endowment - How to remake it quickly version for Malleus Maleficarum, Knights of St. George and Cherion Group, for example?

[Omegaphallic]

Interesting approach, but it leaves me with the question what does Hunter 2e consider He'll and Demons?

The Inferno? Dominions? The Unchained?

[LostLight]

ohhhh that looks very interesting. It both gives a solid, shared mechanical structure foe Endowments, yet allow a great level of flexibility. Changing Endowments from Supernatural Merits to the new structure also kinda solve certain thematic problems, IMO. Also, it seems to remind me of my old idea of human "free sorcery", which is kinda cool. I still need to give an in depth look at the exact mechanics (and I do plan on making a few example Endowments using the template presented to get them better)- but the first impression is that they look very cool.

[LostLight]

Interesting approach, but it leaves me with the question what does Hunter 2e consider He'll and Demons?

The Inferno? Dominions? The Unchained?

Following Hunter's way of doing things up until now, probably all and none of the above.

[LostLight]

Trying to understand how to rather quickly rewrite one Endowment in to another. Like I have basic idea for 'witch killing bullets' Endowment - How to remake it quickly version for Malleus Maleficarum, Knights of St. George and Cherion Group, for example?

looking at the template, it seems like different Endowments from different conspiracies may have the same effects and still have drastically different feeling thanks to Limiters, Tolls, Concept, etc. While it does look much more fluid, I can't say for certain until I'll try.

[Morty]

I didn't see that coming. Not sure how I feel about it yet, but I can see what the purpose here is. They want to make Endowments more consistent and streamlined, as opposed to eyeballing them around a general theme.

[YeOfLittleFaith]

Crossposting from from the blog and adding to my words: It's a interesting structure for Endowments with a lot of potential in how it streamlines their workings and adds risks with rewards to their base framework. I can see this working out very well, in particular for the groups that use physical resources and loadouts such as the Ascending Ones or Valkyrie. It looks like a good scheme for players to make up their own Endowments as well.

The values (no pun intended) seem well figured out, but in the current draft some points like duration might require refinement. I’m not certain of the weight of the Duration and Type keywords, since they don’t mechanically affect Value and the descriptive pieces of the other components seem to make them at least a little redundant. Some other pertinent comments about the consistency of the sample endowments:

– Breath of the Dragon is classified as *Instant*, which might be misleading as the toxic cloud generated lasts a longer and unspecified time (I would assume a scene) and it is unclear if the roll to direct it takes a full action, as the Willpower-Action toll only applies to the effect of generating it.

– Since Endowments are Condition-alikes, does resolution of Mandate of Hell imply the characters then loses it completely and is refunded the XP? Its separate listing of the condition to *Resolve* and the *Resolution* while they both seem to refer to the same thing is a little confusing.

– Part addendum to the above: the Duration section seems to only attribute traditional Resolution to Indefinite endowments, but accordingly to how it functions, Mandate of Hell is Transient. In the same line, it seems unintuitive for all Valkyrie endowments to be Indefinite as explained per the Loadout sidebar. For the sake of clarity, Duration should reflect on the mechanics of the effects, since the authorization to use the relevant technology already seems represented by simply acquiring the Endowment.

Another detail: although no example is coming to mind, there might be Endowments for which duration longer than a scene or hour is pertinent, and it seems coherent with the design paradigm that this would a factor that modifies Value, but in the draft is unaccounted for.

[Vent0]

Trying to understand how to rather quickly rewrite one Endowment in to another. Like I have basic idea for 'witch killing bullets' Endowment - How to remake it quickly version for Malleus Maleficarum, Knights of St. George and Cherion Group, for example?

Sounds like the basic effect would be the same, along with whatever limiters on are there to represent it as ammo. Where they would differ is in the Conspiracy specific Limiters and Prerequisites (and Tolls) necessary to bring the value to 0. MM might only be able to Renew them on holy days, or need to say a prayer first, while the KoSG might need a costly sacrifice, and TCG needing more supporting Endowments.

[Vent0]

Another detail: although no example is coming to mind, there might be Endowments for which duration longer than a scene or hour is pertinent, and it seems coherent with the design paradigm that this would a factor that modifies Value, but in the draft is unaccounted for.

Since Duration seems to be Instant, Transient, or Indefinite, duration extension only matters for Transient. I'd say an additional +1 Value per additional interval (+2 for 3 Scenes/hours) or interval step (+1 for day-long, +2 for week-long, +3 for month-long, +4 for 3 months/season-long, +5 for year-long)?

[Reaper Verse]

Admittedly, as excited as I am to have concrete rules towards Endowment creation, I am awaiting the time in which the Endowments from non-core Conspiracies are translated through the new system and posted onto the forums. I will say though that the fact that each Conspiracy has its own Concept that affects how their Endowments are handled is a very interesting way of handling uniqueness in terms of Endowments. It even changes up how a baseline "shareable" Endowment may be handled from Conspiracy to Conspiracy [VALKYRIE can only use a set amount of concussive spirit grenades, Ascending Ones Hunters can only throw energy balls from their hands if they have access to phosphorus and hair from a long-dead witch, Lucifuge Hunters can slowly damn themselves with soul-eating energy blasts, etc.]

– Breath of the Dragon is classified as *Instant*, which might be misleading as the toxic cloud generated lasts a longer and unspecified time (I would assume a scene) and it is unclear if the roll to direct it takes a full action, as the Willpower-Action toll only applies to the effect of generating it.

I believe that by "Instant", they mean that the Breath of the Dragon cannot be prepped and then activated; once the Hunter uses the Elixir, they must expend the ability immediately. It seems that, upon consuming Breath of the Dragon, the Hunter may use one of the two powers: Stoke the Fires or Release the Dragon. Once they do, the effect of the Elixir is Resolved and the Hunter cannot call upon its power again unless they had a second dose of the power.

– Since Endowments are Condition-alikes, does resolution of Mandate of Hell imply the characters then loses it completely and is refunded the XP? Its separate listing of the condition to *Resolve* and the *Resolution* while they both seem to refer to the same thing is a little confusing.

From what I understand, Mandate of Hell may be like a temporary buff to the Hunter, like a buff in a video game. For an amount of time upon activation, the Hunter has the ability to spend Willpower to effectively convince a lesser demonic entity to submit to their control. By issuing an actual command, the power is expended and deactivates, rather than being lost.

– Part addendum to the above: the Duration section seems to only attribute traditional Resolution to Indefinite endowments, but accordingly to how it functions, Mandate of Hell is Transient. In the same line, it seems unintuitive for all Valkyrie endowments to be Indefinite as explained per the Loadout sidebar. For the sake of clarity, Duration should reflect on the mechanics of the effects, since the authorization to use the relevant technology already seems represented by simply acquiring the Endowment.

Indefinite seems to relate to the fact that, no matter what, a VALKYRIE Hunter that is authorized to use their Endowment will always be able to use their Endowment as limited to their Loadout. Their Endowment only expires when they decide to trade out their Advanced Armory when they return to their base of operation. In comparison to the Elixirs, I would assume that a Hunter who uses Elixirs are not "locked in" to a specific Elixir and may freely choose which Elixir they want at, say, the beginning of a Chapter or so. Granted, it would serve better to have more clarity in terms of the definitions of the Durations, but I believe that was the intention behind the words.

[Teatime]

Range Table:
"Knowledge of Target's Location" isn't clearly superior to "Sympathetic" - it's much more circumstantial. For instance, when a target tries to keep their head down, using a sympathetic connection is a game-changer, while learning the target's current location might be impossible. A rough fix could make Value 4 require both location and sympathy, while Value 5 could require only one of them.

Grammar:
Many Limiters are phrased as double negatives, which makes them a bit uncomfortable to read. "The target must be associated with Hell, for the Endowment to work" should be easier on the eyes than "If the target is not associated with Hell, then this Endowment does nothing".

[Matt-M-McElroy]

Grammar:
Many Limiters are phrased as double negatives, which makes them a bit uncomfortable to read. "The target must be associated with Hell, for the Endowment to work" should be easier on the eyes than "If the target is not associated with Hell, then this Endowment does nothing".

Note that this isn't even a first draft yet...it is an open dev post. I'm certain there will be a time for editing after Monica and her team have time to go over all of the feedback and see what parts they are keeping and what they are not.

-MMM

[nofather]

I like that there's a difference between Passive and Active Prerequisites. So I may not be able to get the Supergun but if John has it and is knocked out I can potentially grab it and blast away.

Really liking what I'm seeing with this, it's so suited for Hunter.

My only questions so far were regarding the backlash. One, I'm reasonably sure the answer is yes, but I want to make sure. Is the backlash always in place? If I throw use the grenade, do I always get the -2 to Mental?

Secondly, it says it's always targeted at the user of the Endowment, but doesn't mention whether it includes the Area. So, like, the example Grenade, it only causes the -2 to Mental rolls to the one who used the grenade, not everyone in the area? Would a group be able to make that a potential backlash? I ask because I've always been a fan of collateral damage and friendly fire in these games and there's not many opportunities to take advantage of it.