What are people's thoughts on the Professional Training merit? Is it mandatory for a good build? If so should it be free? Do you love it? Hate it?
Also note I am referring to the version in Chronicles of Darkness 2E and associated games.
I'm a rodeo clown.
Hate it, for a variety of reasons.
First of all, I don't like the 'something for nothing' style merits. The first dot of PT, for instance, gives you two dots of contacts. Essentially, you buy your first Contact and then get another dot free. Dislike.
Second, the way that the /9 and /rote stuff work make this almost essential for physical types, and while it gives it to mental and social stuff too, mental and social things are still treated as anathema in MU's when they can effectively determine how another character should behave. So until we fix that problem, this gives even more power to physical types.
This merit is written in such a way that it makes it almost impossible to justify not buying. It's way too good as written, and I see nothing in it (save for the dice tricks and beat-gains when you buy an asset skill) that you couldn't get by spending xp normally.
Until we can make it so that this thing is as good for mental/social builds as it is for physical builds, at least as far as the dice tricks go (and no matter what you do with that, it's gonna piss off a lot of people), it shouldn't be in play.
@tragedyjones said in CofD and Professional Training:
What are people's thoughts on the Professional Training merit? Is it mandatory for a good build? If so should it be free? Do you love it? Hate it?
Hate it. Can it. Only permissible on a mortal-only game, for me.
@tragedyjones I hate it (for non-mortals) for a simple reason: It's one of those must-have merits.
Basically it's like the multi-attack merits of old, where you get a massive return for the investment if you get it and cripple yourself if you don't. So it becomes an auto-buy.
I don't like auto-buys.
PT is an awful merit due to there being 0 reason to not buy it.
Trash it.
I pretty much agree with the general trend, though I would vote to allow it for mortals. It lets the mortals have a nice boost. Though I would definitely make sure to wipe it from the sheet after any sort of becoming or the like.
And my mortal here i pretty much mean stock mortal, not ghoul or blooded etc they get their own toys.
I do not see the need to debate the merit. It was never intended for supernaturals to have. Specifically this was a hunter merit to level the playing field slightly. For the most part supernaturals still have the bigger upper hand. After all they are supernatural, go figure.
However I don't mind it being opened up as a Mortal-Only type merit. Again, level the playing field slightly. Sure remove the multi-attack support etc from the rote ability, let's be honest. They are still mortal. Still squishy.
Personally, I'd make it the 'this is the collection of crap you get for choosing the template' for M/M+ (not ghouls or WB, but just 'mortal with supernatural merits' sort of +).
All of those other things get a similar pile of free crap with template, and it's not a bad way of setting up a standard package of benefits for mortals and non-sphere-affiliated M+ templates.
Edit for some quick math: PT at 5 has, 3x9/again (no XP equiv), 2xContacts (2xp), either one or two specs (2xp, will go for the higher one here), one skill point (2xp), and rote (no XP equiv). That's 6xp of merits, plus two additional and yes, very noteworthy perks. A 2e vamp gets 9xp in disciplines (if they're choosing in-clan only, if not this total could be higher), and a free attribute dot (4xp), plus the various other non-costable vamp perks. I forget the WtF tallies (forcibly expunged from the brain), but they're similar enough. Even ghouls get 6xp worth of free disciplines, which at least on points is on par here.
I don't see the nightmare here. I really don't.
Oh fucking well.
@Templari said in CofD and Professional Training:
I do not see the need to debate the merit. It was never intended for supernaturals to have. Specifically this was a hunter merit to level the playing field slightly. For the most part supernaturals still have the bigger upper hand. After all they are supernatural, go figure.
Unfortunately, in the next edition of the game, Chronicles of Darkness, they made Professional Training a core merit. Theoretically, anyone could take it. Practically, I felt that it left the same arms race feel that the various Resource traits did, like Luxury.
I kind of like what Fallen World did with Professional Training, and that was it could not be higher than (5 - Your Power Trait).
“If you wish to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first invent the universe.”
― Carl Sagan, Cosmos
@Thenomain IMHO of course, but it's mostly the fifth dot that breaks the merit. The rest is nice and very cost effective but that last dot of a fucking rote roll for essentially your skill of choice is amazing. So even if that one dot alone was kept from supernaturals it wouldn't be so bad, as per FW.
@surreality said in CofD and Professional Training:
I don't see the nightmare here. I really don't.
The nightmare is having to explain to people why certain races get it and others do not. The 9-again and Rote ability cracks open a lot of benefits for being a Werewolf.
I mean, go for it, if you want to, but I find that it sort of gnashes the system to pieces in peculiar ways. Lemme just go ahead and take Brawl as a Trained Skill.
“It is better to live doing the things that you like. It is foolish to live within this dream of a world seeing unpleasantness and doing only things that you do not like.” -- Yamamoto Tsunetomo.
@Ganymede said in CofD and Professional Training:
@surreality said in CofD and Professional Training:
I don't see the nightmare here. I really don't.
The nightmare is having to explain to people why certain races get it and others do not.
Not at all, if it becomes, as described, 'the collection of template perks granted for being a m/m+ without sphere affiliation', as described.
The 9-again and Rote ability cracks open a lot of benefits for being a Werewolf.
Not what I'm recommending at all.
@surreality said in CofD and Professional Training:
Personally, I'd make it the 'this is the collection of crap you get for choosing the template' for M/M+ (not ghouls or WB, but just 'mortal with supernatural merits' sort of +).
^ is relevant to the whole.
Oh fucking well.
Wow, even TGG didn't model running, pushups, crunches, rifle lifts... oh, wrong PT. 
@surreality said in CofD and Professional Training:
@surreality said in CofD and Professional Training:
Personally, I'd make it the 'this is the collection of crap you get for choosing the template' for M/M+ (not ghouls or WB, but just 'mortal with supernatural merits' sort of +).
^ is relevant to the whole.
No, I got that. I get it. If you'll note, I thought it was appropriate for a M/M+ game like BITN. But for a mixed-race game (har har har), I simply believe that implementation creates peculiarities when you look at what lines like Werewolf provide. And then the argument of "why can't my vampire have it when his masquerade is a security guy / lawyer / professional stripper?" when you ban it for certain races because you don't want to give them too many advantages, and it's just not for me.
It's for everyone or no one on mixed-race games, for me.
“It is better to live doing the things that you like. It is foolish to live within this dream of a world seeing unpleasantness and doing only things that you do not like.” -- Yamamoto Tsunetomo.
@Ganymede I get that, I just think 'this is what you get for choosing this template' is legit enough as an answer.
There are other merits that are 'sphere only' as written that have been the same.
I mean, realistically, there's no reason provided that someone would, for instance, lose whatever M+ supernatural merits they might have when they get a supernatural template in some cases, and the generally vague explanations of many of them, but it happens and is written as such. Things like Medium, for instance -- a werewolf is even more tied to the spirit world; why would they suddenly lose a part of it like this they always had? 'Oh, it's been redefined', is an answer people are willing to accept despite it not making much sense that 'everything I have always known about this is bigger than I thought, but I have now forgotten how to do some of what I've otherwise always known how to do'.
That's dumb. It's simply dumb. It is also easier for game devs to say: Instead of trying to deal with these things on a realistic thematic level on a one by one basis, in a way that's more or less impossible to future-proof effectively, we'll go with 'all of these things just go away whether there's a good argument for that not happening or not'.
There's a lot of dumb people already have to swallow with things as written, or even as HR'd in various circumstances. If people can't swallow that one, honestly, I sort of feel sorry for them re: so many other things going on in the system.
Oh fucking well.
@surreality said in CofD and Professional Training:
@Ganymede I get that, I just think 'this is what you get for choosing this template' is legit enough as an answer.
There are other merits that are 'sphere only' as written that have been the same.
I think once we start mixing buffs and bonuses is where things can break down. Not that all games are meant to be balanced (or against each other) in the first place, of course.
But being able to do these things some 'builds' benefit a lot more than others. Sure, PT for a mortal lets them shoot with rote and 9-again or whatever, but their pools aren't gigantic to begin with; stack it for a Vampire who can burn vitae to improve the pool and suddenly it balloons.
The same thing happened with splats who could buff others. On TR it was common for Mages and Lost PCs to give bonuses to their friends (since it essentially cost them nothing but copy/pasting into a job for their monthlies) and suddenly that changed the game to the have's and have-not's; it's kinda hard to ignore the difference all that extra armor and dice mean if you happen to have friends in the right places.
I do know there were accusations flying back then about fake characters - PCs created for the sole purpose of buffing, who were rarely if ever played otherwise. They just sat in a room, collected freebie auto-XP to buy dice and cast them on their player's OOC friends.
It's easier to compartmentalize at least a bit, assuming of course you care about balance.
@Arkandel Which is why I'm saying: don't mix them. Make it m/m+ with no sphere affiliation only, as a 'this is your pack of freebies for choosing this template'.
Oh fucking well.
@surreality said in CofD and Professional Training:
Which is why I'm saying: don't mix them. Make it m/m+ with no sphere affiliation only, as a 'this is your pack of freebies for choosing this template'.
What if that M/M+ gets turned into a ghoul later? I suppose we can do a Sanctity of Merits thing and remove PT, but I don't see how to reasonably explain how vitae strips away a person's contacts with their profession or ability with it. In fact, a vampire might want to ghoul a M/M+ professional because of their training.
“It is better to live doing the things that you like. It is foolish to live within this dream of a world seeing unpleasantness and doing only things that you do not like.” -- Yamamoto Tsunetomo.
@Ganymede You lose other things with almost any template change by default, even if it doesn't make logical sense, per the above example.
You lose supernatural merits if you become a ghoul or wolfblooded already, even if there's no logical reason for this to happen.
You lose M+ merits of any kind of you take on a supernatural template.
This is already a thing, and they already leave it without logical justification as part of the existing system as written, as described above.
Oh fucking well.
@surreality said in CofD and Professional Training:
You lose other things with almost any template change by default, even if it doesn't make logical sense, per the above example.
But your examples are supernatural-related. Professional training isn't supernatural.
I think I'm splitting hairs, but there's a difference. And it doesn't answer the question of how a vampire can't have professional training.
SEE I'M CREATING MY OWN HEADACHE. 
“It is better to live doing the things that you like. It is foolish to live within this dream of a world seeing unpleasantness and doing only things that you do not like.” -- Yamamoto Tsunetomo.
What are people's thoughts on the Professional Training merit? Is it mandatory for a good build? If so should it be free? Do you love it? Hate it?
Also note I am referring to the version in Chronicles of Darkness 2E and associated games.
