Player: Mark Truman
Fetish Name: Hugin and Munin (Level 3)
Approval #: USA-SW-LF-0801-85447
Fetish Spirit: Norse Raven Spirits
Action: Reflexive Dice Pool: 7
Durability: 3, Size: 1, Structure: 4 (Supernatural 7)
Fetish Description:
This pair of weapons is inlaid with ivory handles and several obsidion runes. When activated the guns echo very loudly and seem to have a life of their own.
Fetish Powers:
1) Adds +5 to any attack roll against Shartha.
Fetish Enhancements:
Major – Fast Activation
Fetish Restrictions:
Major – Extra Cost (1 WP per day)
Minor – Restricted Targets (Shartha Only)
Major – Consequences (-2 to hearing rolls for one hour)
Major – Consequences (Res+Comp roll to avoid pursuing fleeing Shartha)
************************************
Player: Mark Truman
Fetish Name: Suicide Heart (Level 3)
Approval #: USA-SW-LF-0801-85436
Fetish Spirit: Sacrifice Spirit
Action: Instant
Durability: 1, Size: 0, Structure: 1
Fetish Description:
A small red tattoo on the left wrist. Once activated it heals 5 levels of lethal damage. Recharging it requires 5 successes on Crafts+Int+Glory roll with a roll every 1 minute and access to red dye. The user takes one point of lethal damage per minute for every success.
Fetish Powers:
1) Restores 5 levels of lethal damage.
Fetish Enhancements: Fetish Restrictions:
Major – Tattoo Major – Restricted number of uses
************************************
Player: Mark Truman
Fetish Name: Geri and Freki (Level 3)
Approval #: USA-SW-LF-0801-85449
Fetish Spirit: Norse Wolf Spirits
Action: Reflexive Dice Pool: 7
Durability: 3, Size: 2, Structure: 5 (Supernatural 8 )
Fetish Description:
This pair of swords has similar ivory handles and obsidion runes to Hugin and Munin. They are also written in First Tongue on the blades themselves.
Fetish Powers:
1) Ignores all common defenses (but not armor). Any supernatural bonus to defense is not affected by this fetish (i.e. Disciplines, Gifts, Arcana, etc.)
Fetish Enhancements:
Major – Fast Activation
Fetish Restrictions:
Major – Extra Cost (WP per activation)
Minor – Chiminage (Must taste blood once a day)
Major – Actions (Can only be activated after Gavin has been struck)
Major – Consequences (Must make Res+Comp roll to avoid purusing fleeing enemy)
************************************
Player: Mark Truman
Fetish Name: Odin’s Knot (Level 3)
Approval #: USA-SW-LF-0801-85450
Fetish Spirit: Guardian Spirit
Action: Reflexive Dice Pool: 7
Durability: 1, Size: 1, Structure: 2 (Supernatural 5)
Fetish Description:
A large Celtic pendant around Jake’s neck. It’s dark black and almost seems to absorb light if examined closely.
Fetish Powers:
1) Allows Gavin to go on Full Defense without sacrificing his action.
Fetish Enhancements:
Major – Fast Activation
Fetish Restrictions:
Minor – Extra Cost (Costs one essence in addition to activation)
Minor – Chiminage (Gavin must sit in complete darkness for 5 minutes once a day)
************************************
Name: Fear Given Form (Nightmare 2, Obfuscate 3, Auspex 3/4)
Pool: Wits+Empathy+Obfuscate – Resolve+BP
Cost: 27xp
At Auspex 3, the individual needs to be touched and is crippled by
visions of personal fear, but the exact fear is unknown to the user.
At Auspex 4, line of sight is sufficient, and the user knows the fear
of the individual.
Mechanical Effect: If an individual is subject to Dread, a successful
Fear Given Form test will give them an additional -1 to all actions.
************************************
Name: Decoy (Obfuscate 4, Celerity 2)
Pool: Wits+Athletics+Obfuscate – Resolve
Cost: 18xp
Mechanical Effect: On a successful challenge, the individual will be
considered to have remained where they are, when they have, in fact,
have left the area. Each success allows the decoy to remain for a
turn. This power only works in areas of low light, and the user can do
nothing more than move at their full running speed whilst the decoy
remains.
Do YOU have any broken mechanics on your sheet? If so, send them to mark.truman@gmail.com and we will proudly post them!
If you’d like to read about custom mechanics in general, see Step 3: Stop Letting Players Write Mechanics
OK, from the top;
1. Read Lore of the Forsaken. There are specific paragraphs about checking items for balance in comparison to existing fetishes.
2. Hugin and Munin are built incorrectly – the base normal weapon bonus should be included in the cost as well as any benefits the fetish grants. This is why weapon fetishes are so expensive.
Also, you should not take more than one major consequence. This stinks of min maxing, and should be removed for game balance purposes.
Further, WP cost should be for activation, not ‘per day’.
3. Suicide Heart – again, don’t believe this is statted correctly. The healing level seems far to high for the cost.
4. The blades. Duplicating weaknesses is a big no-no. Again, cheese monkery of the highest order. Your VST should be slapped for allowing this into play.
Also, again, the weapon bonus has not been included in the cost.
Oh, and paired weapons should not be a single fetish.
5. Odin’s Knot. Not balanced for game play. Desanction instantly.
6. That they are all level 3 fetishes with vast bonuses shows that the ST and player have willfully ignored the interests of game balance and ‘does this look right’ in the interest of cheese for their character.
In short, they’re an abuse of power.
The problem here is not that the player has been allowed to make custom mechanics, it’s that the ST has blindly cleared them without thought to game balance or reason.
These would be caught within a week by the UK ST team, and desanctioned on the spot.
Tim Edwards
UK NST
I’m not sure I like the word “broken” in reference to this sort of thing – it’s rather idiomatic. Could you use “unbalanced”, “abusable”, or something along those lines? The exact words escape me – I’d just prefer you to avoid Camarilla jargon as much as possible.
Holy shit.. Im with Tim on this..
those things should never have seen play, the “weaknesses” are minor inconveniences at best.. a joke at worst. the weapons could be reworked to be reasonable, at a likely cost of 12 to 15 dots between the 3 of them.
Odins knot is flat out broken and should never have been sanctioned past the “wouldnt this be cool” stage of application
the tatoo fetish is the most reasonable, the cost for use is far far too low, and unrestrictive, remember when you can heal lethal reflexively it means nothing. have recharging it inflict Agg , up the dots cost.. and you have something much more reasonable
Thanks for keeping discussion of the specific fetishes to this page guys! It really helps keep the whole blog on track!
Tim –
1. Lore of the Forsaken is vague at best. Pointing to it and saying it fixes the problem doesn’t help. Neither do the rules in the Red Book. We need experienced people who are accountable to these rules…
2. Agreed, they are min-maxed. However, they aren’t klaives (meaning can’t be used in Garou) and don’t need to take the weapon bonus.
3. “Don’t Believe” highlights the weakness of the system. There is genuine room for interpretation here!
4. Duplicating weaknesses is wrong because? They are linked items in background. Again, not a klaive. And there is no textual evidence saying that two swords can’t act as one fetish.
5. Fair enough. Odin’s knot is really bad.
No, the problem isn’t that my DST let them through. It’s that I as a player was allowed to push for certain mechanics. Why would I ask for anything less than “wonderful” fetishes?
Keep in mind that while these are egregious, they aren’t the worst things in the game. I guarantee that opening up the Custom Items list would reveal some things far worse than these…
Phil – Hmmm. Good point? Perhaps we will change it if you can propose something worthwhile.
The duplicated weaknesses mean that the effect each weakness has on the character is lowered, so either you shouldnt get the points break for any duplicated weakness past the first, or all the weaknesses should be downgraded a step. even if they are linked items in the background, a the same weakness with no stacking effect or penalty is flagrant abuse of the rules.
I dont have a book to hand, however whilst i cannot recall anything saying that twin weapons cannot act as a single fetish, they should be costed as such – with the bonus from each weapon adding to the cost – which for most weapon fetishes would be enough to force them to be built as two fetishes given that the effects of the weaknesses would not also stack.
Broken isn’t camarilla specific it’s used widely in the entire gaming world including video games and card games. It all means the same thing though, “this is abusable almost beyond belief, how did this ever make it in?”
Matthew – I get it. Having two double weaknesses that don’t stack means you really have one weakness only. Fair enough. Again, you make a logical point, but I don’t think it’s fair to call it “abuse.” Building the item isn’t abuse. Using it to wreck another player’s good time is.
As for the twin weapons, they aren’t klaives. Only klaives have a weapon cost.
I believe the point they were trying to make is that this kind of thing is fairly common in the US chronicles.
Nicholas Jacob
ADST Chief of Staff
US2007039607 in OH-010-D
No, a Klaive is any weapon used by a Forsaken, not something that can be used in Gauru.
Duplicating weaknesses is bad because in effect, you are getting the weakness point for free on one of them. You’d already have that problem if it wasn’t there.
You’re right, you shouldn’t have done this. So don’t. You’re standing up and saying “I wasn’t a responsible player”. Lore of the Forsaken says to look at things for balance – that means you shouldn’t be getting something better value XP wise than things you can get in canon. These break those rules.
Tim -
Can I get a page # for “a Klaive is any weapon used by a Forsaken?”
Agreed on the duplicating weaknesses part. In my defense, I don’t think I envisioned using both fetishes at the same time, but it could happen.
However, I think a vast majority of people are confused as to why we put these up here. I’m not bragging that I got something approved that I shouldn’t have; I’m noting how easy it is for good players to go astray when mechanics are created by the player and not the STs. Obviously there are a few reasons why these shouldn’t be in play…but they are difficult to see when the player is trying to get the “best” weapon approved that he can.
I’ve NEVER activated these fetishes. Not once. Because I don’t play Forsaken. I ST Forsaken. That’s my priority and what I love to do. I’ve only played Killing Joke 3 times. That said, it’s pretty hard to turn down items that will make your character awesome when the STs approve them.
Imagine this: The STs give you an item that allows you to use Full Dodge and still attack for the cost of 1 Essence/Blood/Mana. Will you hand it back to them and say “This is bad for the venue, I shouldn’t have this?” or will you play on while trying not to abuse it? I got some items approved that shouldn’t be approved while trying to be a responsible player…think about the people who AREN’T trying to be responsible players.
You know what you can do?
“I no longer have these items in play, I released the spirit of the items.”
If they are so “broken” and are “the example of the problem.” Cure the example, remove the items from play.
~”Can I get a page # for “a Klaive is any weapon used by a Forsaken?”~
Not a Forsaken buff, but I know that Klaives are any weapons -forged- by a Forsaken, oft with minor spirits of war inside.
Hi,
As the DST of NM-001-D at the time that Mark apped for these fetishes, I was the one who approved all of them.
It appears that a majority of of players and STs who have seen them believe that I was an irresponsible ST at best, and idiot at worst, to have done so. And having looked at them for the first time since I’ve approved them (as Mark said, he’s never used any of them and certainly has not done so in our home domain), I’m not inclined to disagree with that assessment. I made a couple of bad calls.
However, without making excuses for these bad calls, I believe that they highlight a couple of Mark’s points. Contrary to what one might think after only having seen these fetishes, I like to think of myself as having been a reasonably responsible DST, and would have loved a resource such as a comprehensive listing of all custom fetishes to have used while I was reviewing these. I like to think I would have noticed a discrepancy as large as that which Tim and others lead me to believe exists between Mark’s fetishes and others that had been approved and taken steps to close the gaps. But hey, I might not have. However with a Custom Mechanics Team that would oversee all custom mechanics, even those that are currently set as Low Approval, my bad calls would have been caught sooner and rectified.
Now, as I’ve said, I’m not here attempting to make excuses for why I did this because a LOT of people have taken issue with some of the things I’ve approved. I’m here because I’m not a big rules guy. I know the rules, know most of them quite well in fact, but am horrible when judging the applicability of custom rules. That’s a reason why I believe that there should be none in the Cam.
However, since there are custom rules in play, and when one has to deal with an ST who is equally as deficient as me when it comes to them, it would help greatly for a couple of things to be put in place, like that which Mark and James have suggested. When we can hear from those who are actually good at creating balanced custom mechanics, or can at least see precedent, it gives STs who are not as up to snuff on (what I consider to be) some of the least important, but potentially most game breaking aspects of the game a better footing when they inevitably have to deal with them.
J. Derrick Kapchinsky
former DST NM-001-D
US2005075735
Well said, sir.
I was going to do a step by step analysis of why each of those fetishes should not have been cleared for play, but Tim pretty much summed it up. I’ll only re-iterate one thing:
If you are making a fetish weapon, you *must* pay for the damage rating of the weapon in addition to any powers it has. Thus, an ordinary broadsword costs 40 creation points (30 points for a +3 and an additional 10 for reflexive activation).
Finally, from Lore of the Forsaken:
“It’s easy to talk yourself into a restriction that really isn’t there. For example, look at the four-dot fetish, Man’s Hammer. It’s a powerful fetish that completely destroys man-made objects. It does have some limitations that are easy to pick out. The object cannot be larger than the Uratha himself (in Hishu form), and cannot be composed of more than one material.” Your first guess would be that both of those are pretty restrictive. Think about this fetish in your game. Is this really worth two separate restrictions? Is not being able to destroy the entire Great Sphinx in one blow a restriction? No, clearly not. But being unable to destroy a car, a bomb, or an ATM due to the many materials that make them up is a worthy restriction.”
This is a really, really good writeup on how to evaluate a fetish restriction. In short, it should be a real limit. Saying that a weapon must “taste blood” is not a real limitation because it’s a weapon. That’s what it’s for. Saying that the weapon must taste *your* blood is getting closer (I’d give that a minor because it costs 1E to heal a Lethal damage, so I’d say that inflicting a level of Lethal damage on the wielder when activating the weapon is a valid minor restriction). Saying that the weapon drives the wielder into a red-haze of battle fury that goes even above and beyond the Rage and thus imposes a -2 penalty to Death Rage checks is a good example of a major limitation.
Also from LotF:
“There isn’t a single rules system out there that can’t be broken or exploited. Once the final bit of math is done, look at the fetish overall and compare it to the general guidelines for the fetish power (W:tF, p. 204). The storyteller has the final say as to whether the fetish appears to be too powerful or too weak for its final rating. Overall, fetishes should be useful, but they should not contribute more power to the character than his Uratha nature does. The greater focus of the game is on the abilities internal to the character, and fetishes shouldn’t fit that focus.”
To me, this says that a fetish should complement the theme of the character, but it shouldn’t destroy the character if he doesn’t have it. To use a comic book analogy, if you take away the Batmobile, Batman is still Batman. If you take away the Green Lantern’s power ring, Hal Jordan is just a test pilot. Fetishes should be more like the Batmobile and less like the Green Lantern’s ring.
It also says that ST’s need to do a laugh test. If they look at a fetish and it makes them laugh (or cry, depending), then they probably shouldn’t approve it.
Also, there is an ST chain for a reason. If you’re an ST who is not comfortable making the decision as to whether or not a particular custom fetish is good or not, ask someone. You have an ARST Forsaken exactly for that reason.
Jim Lai
US2002021214
Jim Lai steps up to the plate….he digs in, here’s the windup, and the pitch
*WHACK!*
HOLY COW! Did you see that! It’s going…going…Gone!
Jim – Excellent write-up. I love watching you work because you often blend direct quotes from the book with good common sense. Well done.
We’re currently working on a note for Step 3 that will hopefully tackle a bit more about how these fetishes came to be and what I was thinking when I originally proposed them. In the meantime, we are going to post some new custom mechanics!
I don’t see the new custom mechanics (the devotions) as broken.
I would have named the second one “The Picard Maneuver”
and the other one only takes a -1 away from your turns, it’s not like it takes a -50, most of the concepts, a -1 is pocket change… though it does remind me of Desmond (sp) the Judas power that does something similar.
BTW: It’s now in the Wiki …
http://cam-wiki.org/Approved_Custom_Mechanics
Chris, I’m interested in your Sangfroid power – not personally, but in terms of balance. It seems to me to be the flip side of Constance, which again is only balanced because of the Icarian’s willpower regeneration restrictions.
“Weakness: only half willpower with virtue, none with sleep
Cost: 1 Vitae per scene
Each dot of Constance increases the character’s Resolve (and thus willpower) by one while the Discipline is active.
Constance can only be invoked once per scene.
You may not spend a second Vitae to double the benefits of the power.
The character may never have more than 10 dots in Willpower.”
Your power has the balance of not adding to willpower for comparison or use purposes, however it is a permanent free addition rather than a blood spend for a de-facto potential gain of – assuming ludicrous BP – 35xp
Unfortunately, on your well-intentioned wiki site, you don’t disclose the bloodline weakness. Does it have a similar detrimental effect on the uses of willpower as the Icarians? That’s the kind of thing we need to see on a peer review site, really, to assess the balance. Any thing less is just an advert, or ‘pimp’ for your own line, which is groovy, but not in the spirit of the post.
The power was based off of Constance, true.
However, WW changed the rules of Disciplines boosting Attributes from TT to MET (note the differences in Resiliance) and it was exactly by that rule that I created Sangfroid.
The bloodline weakness will be in the MST’s documentation of all customs. I think. Since it’s not a “positive”, I didn’t list it, but I can say it’s gone through the ST chain from VST to MST. Twice. And it’s worst than the Icarians.
I understand your rationale, but – having put your head above the parapet – I hope you’ll pardon a couple of speculative pot-shots.
1. If you feel that Resilience has rewritten the book for all-purpose stat-boosts, which I agree with, surely what’s needed is an addition to the addendum which states that any power offering such works in the same way, or at least amending Constance for the few Icarians. If that was in play, I could see more validity to allowing the power.
2. The second restriction in Constance is that willpower can never go above 10. This makes it a matter of flavour rather than an extra boost to the min-maxer; you only get WP rewards if you keep working for them. Even though sangfroid has the admirable downer of not adding to willpower, it does allow for a permanent level 7 (35) at a cost of five xp, and then ludicrous levels from then on. Again, I understand that Resilience does the same thing, but if we look at the number of poworz that can be resisted with stamina and the number that involve composure – PLUS the fact that wits+composure is used to determine awareness and dex+composure determines initiative, I think that this power is far too top-heavy in terms of the advantages that it brings. That said, I still don’t know what the downside is, and as you’ve decided not to pre-empt the MST’s open release of custom mechanics, I’ll have to assume it’s as nasty as you say it is.
3. Of course I understand that it’s been through the MST – that’s kind of the point we’re making here, that EVERY non-grandfathered custom power or group has been through them, and that these peer reviews will give us confidence in whether they’re making balanced decisions or not.
1) I’d be just fine if Constance got the same TT-to-MET conversion. I don’t know if any of the affected players have asked for it or not, though…
2) Sangfroid shares the same Willpower restrictions as Constance, and adds to Composure just as Resiliance does to Stamina. I think that a permanent 5 Health levels is pretty chunky, myself.
I’ve listed the custom mechanic because it’s a positive modification to the PC, but I’d just as soon not wear the negative modification on my PC’s sleeve. Check the wiki after the US National.
3) Actually, it’s gone VST through MST on three distinct occassions. I’m not listing this as a “See? I’m an example that you can trust the ST chain!” because that isn’t the intention of the Wiki project. Rather, I’m listing it as a “This is what my character is capable of doing, because rules that can be used to affect other characters shouldn’t be secret.” thing.
Remember that willpower is unable to go above 10 for any reason in core game mechanics. so the willpower restriction on these disciplines only serves to remind, not enforce any restriction that wasnt already there
Willpower -isnt- capped to 10 in core mechanics. the phrasing is clunky in the MET book and no such restriction exists in tabletop: A PC with Resolve+Composure of more than 10 has more than 10 permanent willpower. the ‘cannot go above 10′ restriction is a limit on the use of Constance, specifically. It is not otherwise stated anywhere in the rules.
Willpower, in the met book is described as a trait rated 1 to 10 in the same way that, elsewhere, the book describes attributes, skills, and merits as traits rated 1 to 5: all kinds of circumstances change this.
There are examples of canon npcs with more than 10 willpower as a result of this: Maxwell Maurey in chicago has 11, just off the top of my head.
Willpower is a trait that varies between 1 and 10 It CANNOT be raised above 10 by any means, a resolve and composure score of over 10 gives you permanent willpower dots of 10 and any excess is lost. there is no 11th dot of willpower possible.
Where exactly does it say that Matthew? Chris does bring up the point since Willpower is a Resolve+Composure stat, if someone wants to drop there xp at BP 6 to Resolve and Composure to have a Willpower of 12… that’s their.
p.39, MET. “dot: The incremental measurement of a permanent trait. Most traits range from 1 to 5 dots, but some (such as Willpower) range from 1 to 10, and others (Health) can go higher.”
p.108, MET. “Willpower is rated on a scale from 1 to 10 and has both permanent dots and temporary points.”
However, the waters are muddied a bit by this baby:
p.110, MET. “If for some reason your character’s Resolve and/or Composure temporarily increases during a game, perhaps as a result of a mystical spell, he gains one Willpower point per dot increase.”
I’d take the latter to mean that your pool is less than ten initially, though.
There’s nothing in Requiem which counters this, either, so it looks like 10 it is, according to the rules.
WW’s description of limits on Willpower is inconsistent; it’s no surprise there’s argument over it.
On the one hand, MET says it’s rated on a 1-10 scale (under the definition of “dots” on page 39 and the description of Willpower on page 108), and the Willpower track on every character sheet only has ten “holes” (then again, all attributes and skills have five).
On the other hand, there’s no specific mention (at least none I can find) of Spirits being an explicit exception to a capped-at-10 rule, yet most books that detail Spirits (eg. Predators, Book of Spirits) have some with Willpower greater than 10.
Don’t blame the Camarilla for this being broken, blame White Wolf.
Spirits, however, aren’t mortals with a template slapped on, and they’re certainly not designed to be player characters, so applying their constants to the MET rules is a bit of a stretch too far.
I’d say that it’s certainly not within a player’s right to automatically allocate themselves another willpower point just because they buy their comp or resolve above 10.
The rules say 1-10, and for good or ill, until we get a rewrite, or alteration in the addendum – 10 is the cap.
Oh, and I’d draw attention to the first quote:
“Some (such as Willpower) range from 1 to 10, and others (Health) can go higher.”
This already acknowledges the case that there are ways in which an individual stat may rise. For a start, there’s the Giant merit, which boosts size and thus health, but there are also supernatural augmentations to stamina, such as Resilience, Life Magic and Level 6 stamina.
IF there was to be a change to that rule, it would be expressly spelled out in the Requiem and Mage books. As it isn’t (or at least certainly not in the Requiem MET book by my reading) then the rules don’t support it at this juncture.