[2E] Revised Endowments Experiment – Art of Witch Hunting

[wyrdhamster]

When balancing Endowments, I also find you should have different 'costs' mechanics for each Conspiracy. The Kings Raven made idea for 'Area of Expertise' for each Conspiracy and I totally will use it here, as it only have sense here.

I think one thing this system desperately needs is an "area of expertise" modifier in which different Conspiracies get free dots if an Endowment fits a certain theme. So the Malleus Maleficarum might have Area of Expertise: Vampires OO, Witches OO, Demons OO, Clerical Duties OO. (I am fully on board with some Conspiracies flat out having more Area of Expertise dots than others. The Canites for example might just have Vampires OOO)

Thus, a Benediction that only affects vampires (e.g. it allows a Stake through the heart to bypass Resiliance) would have it's cost reduced by OO. An Endowment that boosts expression with the limitation that it only applies while preaching would get a two dot discount, but remove that limitation and you loose the discount.

So here are 'Area of Expertise' for talked groups:

Malleus Maleficarum - Vampires 00, Witches 00, Demons 00, Clerical Duties 00
Knights of Saint George - Witches 000, Beasts 00, Clerical Duties 0
Task Force Valkyrie - Vampires 00, Werewolves 00, Military Duties 00

Those numbers are taken as penalty to end Value, meaning discount on particular powers.

[wyrdhamster]

This is experimental topic for my own homebrew Endowments made specifically to fight Awakened mages ( see here ) – and made them with Open Dev rules for 2E Endowments ( see here ). I will try to describe all the calculations here, step by step.

First, we must decide on the basic difference between Endowments families for each Conspiracy. Let’s call them Concepts and I will base my Witch Hunting Endowments on those hunter orgs.

Step 0 - Concepts
Malleus Maleficarum – Endowments of Shadow Congregations are prayers to hole patron saints for small miracle. ( Instant Action )
Knights of Saint George – Endowments of Dragonslayers are meditations and goetic rituals. ( Instant or Extended Action )
Task Force VALKYRIE – Endowments of those NATO force are special tech that need to activated. ( Instant Action )

Step 1 – Endowment idea
First Endowment I want to create are ‘Witch Killing Bullets’ – if you seen Supernatural latest season, you may know this scene. '

In Hunter and Mage, those powers let you bypass Mage Armors effects on Awakened witch. Now, let’s come to proper power building.

Step 2 - Type
Our ‘Witch Killing Bullets’ are decreasing Armor or Defense possibilities of witch – so they are Scourge Endowments.

Step 3 - Duration
Using ‘magical bullets’ Endowment for less than one combat scene is impractical – so let’s stick with Transitory Endowments. Our VALKYRIE mage-killing weapon could also be made as Indefinite Endowment, so we will look into it if need balance factor.

Step 4 – Toll
From basic Concepts, it seems to point to all three variants as Toll of Action. MM and KoSG makes prayers or mediations. TFV weapons need to be recalibrated for use on witches. Looking on the Toll table, it would -2 Value for all three Conspiracies Endowments variants, as they all are full actions.

Step 5 – Permissions / Bans
This is point of real usage for supernatural power Endowment should be. In our example it’s literally ‘Bullets shot from weapon are bypassing any Armor or Defense from Mage Armor Attainments’. It seems at levels with “You can breathe anything ” and “You cannot be burned”, so basic Value of 3 for Permissions.

Step 6 – Backslash
In our examples, MM version is making people to suspect anyone of being Witch, KoSG are calling distant Faceless Angels for the feast of magic and TFV weapons can overheat. So let’s look in the detail:

MM version – As Backslash, it grants Obsession Condition on user, making him suspect anyone of being witch. Value -2 for this.
KoSG version - As Backslash, Endowment is calling Faceless Angels to character life. She has Watched Condition on her and when fighting with enemy letting large quantities of Mana, there is possible Angels manifestation. It looks once again like Value -2 for this.
TFV version – Using of ‘Witch Killing Bullets’ can make weapon overheat much easier. Treat weapon as one category worse for the Reloads rules from Hurt Locker. It looks once again like Value -2 for this.

Step 7 – Limiters
To be frank, I do not understand here whole ‘If an Endowment has an expendable component, such as ammunition, the read the value as a cost instead of a refund’ – HOW MUCH ammunition is particular Value as cost? For now, let’s assume that one magazine is working as Value 1, two magazines as Value 2, etc.

Step 8 – Prerequisites
This part really should be last, not Value, as Prerequisites are balancing factors. Let’s go in to next step, and we will return to it later.

Step 9 - Value
We want to make ‘Witch Killing Bullets’ as powerful as they can be – but most Awakened characters will not have bonus from their Arcana higher than +4. It gives us basic Value of 4, as we want to penalized witch with -4 to particular traits ( Armor and Defense here ). Range is 0 needed, as bullets will deliver effect. Area is also 0 as bullets need to be blessed, not whole rooms. Basic equation for Endowment creation is this:

Base Value + Toll Value + Permissions Value + Backslash Value + Limiters Value + Prerequisites Value = 0

To balance nicely, I will omit not Prerequisites in equation to see to what level we should strive for.

For now, our ‘Witch Killing Endowment’ looks like this Values:
MM version = 4 + ( -2 ) + 3 + ( -2 ) + 1 = 4

So it looks like our Endowment needs to have very hefty Prerequisites…

Step 10 – Prerequisites, Take Two

So we take our Endowments now and compare them to 'Area of Expertise' from each Conspiracy ( see post below for that ). In MM example we have 'Witch Killing Bullets' being sacred weapon to hunt Witches, so we have discount for that. So our MM version Value looks like this:

MM version = 4 - Area of Expertise Value = 2

So we need 2 more points to even out Value. Let's just use Conspiracy Status 2 needed and we are done here.

Final version of Malleus Endowment will be in post below.