CofD and Professional Training

[surreality]

@Ganymede That's the problem, really. The system already really just doesn't care about things making logical sense most of the time as it is.

A vampire might have reason to really want to ghoul that psychometrist or medium, but they can't without them losing that ability, and so on.

The reasons for this come down to the above: it's just easier to make a blanket rule and throw in handwave-handwave-handwave-bullshit-bullshit-bullshit to explain it if anybody asks about something that doesn't make any sense; it's how the game developers have thus far handled it for the most part. That model is set and accepted by players as it is.

TR's explanation for this I think was actually quite good: once you start having to deal with sustaining your reality as part of a non-mortal sphere, with all of its high maintenance requirements and secrets and new things to contend with you never had to handle before, you simply do not have the time to maintain those former professional connections in the mundane world you did when you were, yourself, mundane.

[Ganymede]

@surreality said in CofD and Professional Training:

TR's explanation for this I think was actually quite good: once you start having to deal with sustaining your reality as part of a non-mortal sphere, with all of its high maintenance requirements and secrets and new things to contend with you never had to handle before, you simply do not have the time to maintain those former professional connections in the mundane world you did when you were, yourself, mundane.

I didn't buy the explanation on TR, and I still don't buy it. At least, not realistically. That's sort of like saying that I've become less proficient as a lawyer because I have a family now. Or, said another way, an architect that gets turned into a ghoul because his domitor needs an architect will lose that which makes him proficient at being an architect because magic.

Fallen World's explanation is sensible because it's a single-sphere game involving humans that toss magic missiles, and how Mysteries do, in fact, swallow up your life. But the explanation falls apart when you consider how odd it would be for a banger to suddenly become less proficient in brawling when he goes from Snoop Dogg to Snoop Wolf.

So, yeah, I prefer PT off of multi-race games as staff to avoid the inevitable oh why oh why.

[surreality]

@Ganymede I do. A near complete life change? Yeah, that's gonna harsh most people's stride. And it's less stupid than many of the ones that are system canon.

Bear in mind, I see so many holes and problems with WoD I thought it was better to just write something else than ever try to patch the broken parts enough to even try to use it somewhere.

It is actually less work.

[Arkandel]

I prefer to not try and explain things we do purely for balance's sake in in-game terms. That's just how it is.

In some cases the actual explanation is easy; it overlaps with other stuff. So part of what makes that Rahu able to smack people overlaps with Personal Training for brawl, that's why they don't have it - or, rather, they already do have it under a different name, with slightly different strengths and weaknesses.

But IMHO there's no point in explaining it. It ends up sounding exactly as made-up as it is.

Edit: Erm, professional training. Personal training is something else.

[Lithium]

Honestly, I don't think it's that horrible of a merit. I've only taken it with one character, and that was a Hunter. There are a /ton/ of other things to spend my XP on that I find way more valuable than 9/again and rote quality. Why? Because any solid build shouldn't /care/ about rote quality, and if you do care about rote for a skill, then personal training is probably a good way to fill the gap.

To wit:

A werewolf can /easily/ get upwards of 20+ dice on brawl just to start. Even subtracting defense that's still going to get an exceptional success most of the time, and rote doesn't matter.

I assume the same things can be done for Vampires and other splats. I think I recall hearing some nonsense about Sin-Eaters being uber dice happy. Don't know, never played one or read their stuff.

9 again quality is nice sure, but I don't find it incredibly game breaking either.

So to me, Professional Training is fine, contacts are good sure but that depends entirely on the plots on how you can use them.

[Auspice]

I just learned about people stacking specialties.

Like. I don't see how that's less broken than PT.
But we fight over PT so much more.

[Ganymede]

@Auspice said in CofD and Professional Training:

But we fight over PT so much more.

An extra-stacked specialty gives you +1 dice.

Professional Training can allow you to make a roll with an Asset Skill a Rote action by spending 1 WP. That skill remains 9-again.

One tilts a result far greater than the other.

[Auspice]

@Ganymede said in CofD and Professional Training:

@Auspice said in CofD and Professional Training:

But we fight over PT so much more.

An extra-stacked specialty gives you +1 dice.

Professional Training can allow you to make a roll with an Asset Skill a Rote action by spending 1 WP. That skill remains 9-again.

One tilts a result far greater than the other.

Yeah, I was told people are stacking for up to +3.
Not +1.

[surreality]

There are also, from what I half-recall, anyway, a shit-ton of things that give supers 9-again and sometimes even 8-again. Not so much the case for mortals.

FC's current version of PT is... well, why bother, IMHO. The only way to get 9-again or anything similar there for any M/M+ apparently involves requesting a relic, while plenty of supers get piles of 9-again and 8-again perks available. Lots of bleah for that.

[Arkandel]

@Lithium said in CofD and Professional Training:

A werewolf can /easily/ get upwards of 20+ dice on brawl just to start. Even subtracting defense that's still going to get an exceptional success most of the time, and rote doesn't matter.

I don't understand what you mean. Sure, if you have 15+ dice then you're pretty likely to score an exceptional success on average but the number of successes still matters in combat.

Would you rather score 6 successes or 10?

[Lithium]

My point is dead is dead. It doesn't matter how much it's dead, just that it's dead. An exceptional success is an exceptional success for everything else.

Rote is not something that matters most times because you're already hyper specialized to the point that dead is already dead.

[Ganymede]

@Auspice said in CofD and Professional Training:

Yeah, I was told people are stacking for up to +3.
Not +1.

Right, but if you already had the specialty, then you can get up to +2 dice. And that's still not really close to 9-again or Rote actions in reasonable pools.

Me? I don't allow the stacking of specialties when I GM. I don't care if it's not consistent with the rules: stacking is one of those "judgment call" things that ought to be removed if possible.

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@surreality said in CofD and Professional Training:

There are also, from what I half-recall, anyway, a shit-ton of things that give supers 9-again and sometimes even 8-again. Not so much the case for mortals.

I don't recall those shit-ton of things. I can think of a couple, but they are limited to circumstances, not the use of a common dice pool. And they would also be supernatural powers.

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@Lithium said in CofD and Professional Training:

A werewolf can /easily/ get upwards of 20+ dice on brawl just to start. Even subtracting defense that's still going to get an exceptional success most of the time, and rote doesn't matter.

I assume the same things can be done for Vampires and other splats. I think I recall hearing some nonsense about Sin-Eaters being uber dice happy. Don't know, never played one or read their stuff.

I wouldn't mind if someone constructed a werewolf that starts with 20+ dice on brawl. Let's give that PC 10 XP to do it, and have them use CoD rules.

And then do the same for a vampire and/or mage.

If you don't believe that PTraining can unbalance concepts, that's fine, I'm okay with that. We're trading opinions. I'm just hearing a lot of outlandish conjecture regarding builds which I have honestly never seen, and I believe that what I do see will require some tortured reading of an obscure provision in Book X that we've all sort of went along with without thinking: is my interpretation absurd?

Either opinion is fine with me, and will probably not deter me from playing on a game.

[surreality]

@Ganymede Like I said.. this stuff is more or less the reason I just went 'fuck it' and am doing something NotWoD/NotCoD. It's a basic logical framework that people could set up in a (mostly) balanced way, or a hopelessly unbalanced way, depending on what they choose to build with it. My thing was just one example of how it could be set up. (At the moment, project plans are more to just write up the system because my fatalism is at a higher than average point, which means technical crap is a better option than creative thinking.)

[Lithium]

@Ganymede I don't know the ins and outs of vampire or mage in CoD, I don't even know it really that well for Werewolf, there are plenty of more bad ass werewolves than me on Reno for example.

Let's say you were going with an all out rahu build: 5 into physical, 4 into mental, 3 into social.

STR 4 DEX 1 STA 2
Brawl 5 to start, specialization in martial arts or street fighting or Claws or grappling or whatever
Purity 2 to start with gift that adds purity to str for 1 essence for the scene.
Dalu form is +2 STR
All Out is +2 dice
Willpower is +3 dice

Right there we have 19 dice (More in Gauru) with zero xp spent.

Starting Merits
Hurt Locker - Body as Weapon **: I admit not really a die, but just +1 damage
Hurt Locker - Martial Arts ***: Trapping, set aside any successes on one brawl check to add them as dice to the next one. With 16 dice
Hurt Locker - Dual Swipe for dex based builds.

GMC - Cheap Shot (Requires Street Fighting 3) - Remove targets defense on successful feint

W:TF - Warcry - Reduces targets defense by 1 and initiative by 2.

And there's a lot more that reduce defense of the opponent which in effect, add to your dice pool.

Then with 10 xp, buy two more purity and strength to 5. That puts you at 20 dice, in human form, all out with willpower. If you invest in something like relentless assault you don't even lose your defense while doing so.

So I have to assume that Vampires have a way to get more strength than a mortal, and that mages can do something similar with magic if they wanted to.

[ThatGuyThere]

@Lithium said in CofD and Professional Training:

My point is dead is dead. It doesn't matter how much it's dead, just that it's dead. An exceptional success is an exceptional success for everything else.

But exceptional success doesn't equal dead. Any human sized character will survive one exceptional success blow if that blow was 5 successes.
Exceptional Successes really only have meaning on non-combat non-extended rolls, for combat or extended roles the number of successes matters very much even if both numbers would count as an Exceptional Success.

[Ganymede]

@Lithium said in CofD and Professional Training:

Let's say you were going with an all out rahu build: 5 into physical, 4 into mental, 3 into social.

STR 4 DEX 1 STA 2
Brawl 5 to start, specialization in martial arts or street fighting or Claws or grappling or whatever
Purity 2 to start with gift that adds purity to str for 1 essence for the scene.
Dalu form is +2 STR
All Out is +2 dice
Willpower is +3 dice

Okay, so just the above: anyone, including a Mortal, can get +5 dice to an attack if they go All-Out and burn a WP. So, that's not unique to the race, that's just something you can do.

The gift you're referring to, I think, is Bloody-Handed Hunter. That requires Purity 3, which you can't start with. It also requires that you have the Siskah-Dur condition. But let's suppose you do the below, and sink 8 XP into getting Purity 3 and Strength 5. Then, sure, I will grant that you have made a PC with 21 dice for a Brawl roll.

On review, you can't get Body as Weapon because that requires Stamina 3. You also can't get Martial Arts, which requires Dexterity 3 and other stats. And you can't get Berserker 3 because that requires Iron Stamina 3, which you can't get without Stamina 3. Can't get any of the Fighting Merits, actually, not even Relentless Assault.

But, yes. You've got the build. Which is made all the more lethal with Full Moon 1 (8-again on Brawl rolls). And that's Lethal damage in Dalu, presuming you're using claws.

So I have to assume that Vampires have a way to get more strength than a mortal, and that mages can do something similar with magic if they wanted to.

Well, sure. Strength 5 + Brawl 5 for a vampire to begin with. You can buy Disciplines up to get Vigor 5 with 6 XP if you're a Nossie or Daeva. And then, you can go All-Out and spend a WP, and get 20 dice too, 21 with a specialty in brawling. And you could make that really painful by spending a BP, which'd give a +5L bump, if you hit. Still only a 10-again roll, though.

And, yeah, I guess you could get a Mage up there; I think that my PC, who didn't max out her stats all the way, could pull 16 pool with +2L in a strike (with no magic or magic-related merits). And I guess the Shrike could have had Brawl as an Asset Skill (she doesn't), which means that a mortal could have an 16-die, +2L attack at 9-again without supernatural means.

But the cost. For the supers, it takes the spending of XP to get where you want. For mortals, it doesn't: just 7 merit points to get 16 dice and +2L.

As an aside, let's say you have Professional Training, and you permit it across the boards (which I think Reno does? and which the CoD rules imply). As a Werewolf, you could take a profession that gives you Brawl as an Asset Skill. Then, you could take Moon-Kissed to bump that up to 8-again. You could easily build a very, very deadly Dex-based Irraka that can dish out 15L with 8-again that doesn't need to strike from shadows, but, if it did, then that could make the attack a Rote action. Which is way over-and-above what Rahu do, and are pre-destined to be really good at.

That's why I said before, the merit kind of unbalances things for vampires and werewolves (especially vampires). And then, if it is applied in a discerning fashion, you get the complaints. And then, you get the complaints that you aren't following the rules (which you aren't), and there's all this yelling and screaming and blah.

Then, you get me and @surreality, who have our opinions and reasons and simply decided: fuck it.

I know why others have their opinion, and I'm trying to express mine. But you're right, the builds are possible: I just hadn't sat down to do so until now.

[Lithium]

@Ganymede

No the gift I am referring to is one any werewolf can get, it's called Primal Strength, it adds Purity to your strength for a scene, costs 1 essence.

You're just nit picking at other stuff, the fact of the matter is that a character CAN start with a 20+ dice pool with starting xp. The other stuff is just icing on the cake.

As for Irraka vs Rahu, you are not quite right. There are many places in the book where Irraka are supposed to be the pre-eminent /killers/. They are /assassins/ and many Rahu rightly respect their ability to kill and there are book quotes where they are going 'Leave something for me to kill too Irraka'. The place where a Rahu shines, is in the big fights, where you can't just one shot assassinate something, or when there's more than one target and you need a meat shield out there making things go: Oh fuck.

Moon-Kissed only works on Auspice skills by the way, so a Rahu could take PT and Moon Kissed to get 8 again on brawl, or they can just spend 1 essence on a gift they get anyways for being a Rahu.

[Ganymede]

@Lithium

You're right; you definitely can; and Moon-Kissed only applies to Auspice skills, yes. It's been a long while since I've exercised my W:tF-fu.

[Coin]

On the topic of stacking Specialties: it's always bugged me that the only example in the books we have of Specialty stacking makes sense--but everyone else interprets it in a way that allows for abuse, instead of what--to me--is obvious.

The example is Medicine.Surgery and Medicine.Cardiology, for a +2 in Heart Surgery. Makes sense. Why does it make sense? Because these are two separate things that just happen to intersect. Surgery doesn't encompass Cardiology, nor vice-versa.

But then, people (and I was guilty of it on TR, but then, I don't mind breaking a rule when people are willfully blind to it) decided that they could do things like Melee.Thrusting, Melee.PointedWeapons, Melee.Swords, Melee.Rapiers...

Newsflash, genius, if you're using a Rapier, you're using a pointed weapon, called a sword, that is primarily for fucking thrusting.

Anyone else see where the difference lies?

This isn't the same as, for example, Melee.Swords, Melee.Disarm; you can disarm with a sword, but it isn't its primary function.

It's also not like Crafts.Decorating, Crafts.Baking, Crafts.Desserts--not all desserts are baked or decorated, but if you have these three, guess fucking what, you're probably a bitchin' fucking wedding cake maker!

God damn.

[Derp]

To me, specialty stacking implies additional levels of specialization. So to use a fairly blah example:

Brawl: Street Fighting --> Cheap Shot
Weaponry: Knives --> Butterfly Knives
Academics: Philosophy --> Postmodernism --> 20th Century German Postmodernists

It implies that you are progressively narrowing your field of focus until you're very, very good with that one thing.

As for 'there are not a lot of things that grant mortals 9/8-again', bullshit. Sorry, but it is. Many firearms have these qualities, for instance, as well as do some less-gun-type weapons. There are merits that can give you 9-again on a range of things. The options are out there. They just tend to have a particular focus, and aren't quite as broad as some supernatural powers.