User Profile

[Saur Ops Specialist]

V:tM has been heavy-handed enough with the metaplot and other various measures in the past, so there should still only be an implicit limit inflicted by not having the reserves to do much. It doesn't need to actually hit the player over the head with a shovel before playing a vampire.

[Saur Ops Specialist]

Correlation vs causation. Hormone levels have been known to fluctuate wildly throughout the day, and by the time prisoners would have their levels read for whatever study this was, they were likely in a high-stress environment with a lot of environmental factors that drive up production of what people were looking for. There's a reason that US prisons are said to be finishing schools for criminals, and it isn't because people are biologically wired from birth to end up in them. Also, single studies with potentially spurious methods aren't really good places to look for anything.

As...

[Saur Ops Specialist]

But if you were making a similar substitution, would you not go with a Pooka that can turn into a seal?

[Saur Ops Specialist]

Don't underestimate the danger of exploding glass. It's way harder to break than people think and more likely to cause some rather extreme damage just from showering everyone in what amounts to falling shards of flint.

[Saur Ops Specialist]

You're too kind. I think that she's inherently uninteresting and overdone concept - one part Khorne mixed with debunked shark fears from the post-Jaws era, which before her coalesced into D&D's Sekolah. The method of sacrificing humans to sharks to gain her favor is also bad, not just because of the mustache-twirling factor, but because humans are worse than nothing for larger sharks when it comes to food, the shark equivalent of Big Pink from Futurama. I wouldn't even expect siaka to respond to human-sized splashing in the water, or even blood in amounts less than what would already kill...

[Saur Ops Specialist]

This is such an "Exalted 2e change to Advaita Iraivan" decision....

[Saur Ops Specialist]

The situation of the Garou is a lot like the terrible shit that goes on in Exalted - the worst decisions, carried out with the utmost competence. That's part of the danger of having superhumanly-capable monsters making a society.

[Saur Ops Specialist]

Generally, the math is on Hispo's side. Crinos only becomes preferable after factoring in the "hands, less likely to get dosed with something via bite, has a fetish weapon" factors.

[Saur Ops Specialist]

Revised had it at no more than half your permanent rating per turn. You're also soft-capped in how many actions you can get, as more than the lower of Dex or Wits (only Dex in a frenzy) increases the difficulty of each action by 3.

Edit: It's the same limit in W20. See page 266, "Spending Rage".

[Saur Ops Specialist]

At least it doesn't drop you off at WoD: Combat. I mean, unless you pick up Demon Hunter X, which suggests using the former even though its system for maneuvers and such isn't particularly compatible with the system that it uses. And from there, you're literally half a step from the old, officially licensed Street Fighter storytelling game... sometimes, it boggles the mind to take in what influenced the development of the WoD.

[Saur Ops Specialist]

I can now only think of H5 as a game to play Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei....

[Saur Ops Specialist]

Also, for all that W5 wanted to pillage Forsaken, it skipped over the opportunity to make everyone Kinfolk/Wolf-Blooded and restricted to one other non-Crinos form! It... might not be street enough, as-is......

[Saur Ops Specialist]

In-character, sure. Out of character, we're outright told that the Defiler aspect of the Wyrm finds it really, really easy to slip between the webs and corrupt things, compared to the outright wild tearing of the Beast of War or the hungry, hungry munching of the Eater of Souls. The Weaver recognizes that these bits of rogue pattern are twisted and tries to purge them when they're detected, but it's still a case of one of the beings born of the Wyrm's psychological fracture managing to make the world worse....

[Saur Ops Specialist]

This has been known for months. You can still find that picture in the W5 Q&A thread, which has been open for ages. Having a singular Gorgon for the BFs really makes me think of Fate GO and little else, too. Note that in 1e and 2e, they called the Gorgons collectively the Medusae (found in the 1e-era tribe book), while the Revised tribebook split them up and added two more Gorgons, as they were taken as the first pack of BFs. Not sure how that's going to shake out in W5.

Also, what Thor aesthetics for the Get? From Revised on, they were presented as sworn enemies of the Aesir,...

[Saur Ops Specialist]

Though, really, we already had the Dancers as an example of why Rage could be bad for a long time before the White Howlers got a tribe book. The presentation in Book of the Wyrm 2nd and Past Lives was that the White Howlers were Rage-maniacs beyond even the typical Get standard, and ended up opening themselves up for running after that fire that burned them. They celebrated nothing else but battle and fury, and so, well, yeah. So, we really don't need a second tribe as an example.

...Are they keeping the Dancers in W5? I can't recall....

[Saur Ops Specialist]

That's primarily a product of 2e angst. 1e didn't have Thrall of the Wyrm, and any conjecture that Rage came from the Wyrm was just that - in-character speculation. Also, a number of Fera do have TotW mechanics, in that there's nothing that differentiates their frenzies or Rage from that of the Garou. Rokea attributed their lack of control to the Wyld and called it Kunmind, and Nagah are cooler-burning and balanced, but that's about it....

[Saur Ops Specialist]

The description of the Thaumaturgist merit specifies that it's only Exalted who get that benefit. Mortals would have to buy both at full cost.

[Saur Ops Specialist]

The stated idea behind how tribes work in W5 means that the GoF should have been removed, along with the Fianna. That's less about fairness and more about inconsistent half-measures....

[Saur Ops Specialist]

According to the Nagah's accounting of it, they were meant to kill and make war, as simple as that. Trying to do everything else as well just exposes how bad they are at not killing other monsters or engaging direct threats in battle. Of course, they have different arms of this, just as many military forces that stick around and endure have other avenues of service; infantry for most, but some need to be in recon (necessary adjuncts to the Fera that do this), some need to process the information from recon, and others need to ensure that the spirits are on their side in a conflict.

...

[Saur Ops Specialist]

"I might not be visible or solid by the light of the day
but by night, I'm one hell of a lover!"