Rules Questions

Longing is about manipulating the feelings and senses of mortals.

Transfiguration is about the demon manipulating their own appearance.

Not at all redundant, and indeed potentially extremely potent when used in tandem.

Looks like more limited applications of lore of Radiance and Lore of Flesh, to be honest.

Ah, I see what you're saying, well, Longing is far more subtle and Radiance is therefore far less effective for scheming. Great for commanding and brute force, not great for hatching plans that no one can ever know or detect until it's too late.

And while demons have no "Masquerade", if you're too overt at the wrong time, you can still make yourself a target for destruction - by many different parties.

Also, from that view, Radiance itself is a bit redundant to Humanity - a common Lore.

Is that true? Sure, to some degree. But there are important differences.

And Flesh and Transfiguration are just wildly different, so I don't get the comparison there really. The most that can be said is it takes 5 dots to create a visual doppelganger under Flesh, while Transfiguration can do it in 2 or 3. Does that make Transfiguration redundant? Not at all by my figuring.

Portals can take you to the Shadowlands with the 5th dot. Does that make Realms redundant (which can do it with it's 2nd)? No ofc not. Everything before and after is different. There's some over lap. But not at all a negation of value of any side of either Lore.

And what about Paths and Portals? Is there anything that Paths can do, that Portals can't do with it's 4th dot? Not a whole heck of a lot, but there are some, and they're subtle but important differences.

What about Portals 1 and Forge 2? Does that make Portals or Forge redundant? No, not even close.

...

Is that to say there are no "trap" Lores?

No.

I think the are some balance issues.

But it sounds like our ST is aware of the issues that come with using a largely un-errataed, 1st edition splat, and so if you have specific plans or concerns and want to know how they might play out, you should probably just talk to @Tequila_Mockingbird about them.

Sorry everyone, I’m at work so it’s difficult to respond to posts at the moment. Some of these questions deserve in-depth answers, which are hard to type out on my phone. Once I get home to a proper computer, I’ll be answering questions. Also need my copy of Demon to double check some things.

No problem! We're just eager. :D

Once you get home could you take a look at what you think of Possess Animal as well? I'm off to bed now myself.

@eldarin

As far as the Lore of Patterns, I believe the fourth level evocation - Causal Influence - is far more appropriate to what you are envisioning. My fervent recommendation would be, if you can, to try and scrounge up whatever freebie points you need and get that fourth dot in the Lore. Then you'd be capable of the kind of prediction and fate manipulation that I think you're looking for.

In regard to the Foresee invocation, I'd prefer to keep that limited to combat. I want to avoid tweaking any of the existing material more than I need to. I usually only touch supernatural powers if some aspect of them doesn't make sense, or if a power ends up being very problematic and unbalancing. However, I grant that my house rules make the Foresee evocation less effective. Since no one declares actions anymore, it's more difficult to determine where to insert yourself in the initiative order. For that reason, upon a successful roll for the evocation, I'll give you a run down of the NPCs upcoming actions in that combat. Essentially, I'll be declaring their actions to you. You won't know the results of their rolls, but you'll know they're intended actions. You can then act accordingly based on that information.

I don't mind precognitive abilities too much in my games, so long as players don't overuse or abuse them. My personal approach is that you are typically seeing a possible future. Furthermore, just knowing the future will sometimes alter that future in some way. The act of seeing the future may serve to change it. So if I ever have to provide future knowledge in one of my games, and that knowledge doesn't quite work out (because I can't actually see the future), that's my in-game explanation for such inaccuracies.

Yeah, I suppose we would seldom, if at all, count turns if it wasn't in combat. I also think we shouldn't, it is far too likely to negatively interfere with narration of non-combat scenes. The one thing I see is that Foresee and Causal Influence - from a description point of view - are similar, the former for short-term and the latter for long term (and a clearer focus on actually changing the flow of events). For that point it is more costly to use with Faith points needing to be spent where I might not be looking for the extent of what this cost can enable.

I'd say though that we'll just try it out as it is written. I don't even know yet if I will want to use this for manipulating very short term events very often and maybe the attached cost is actually a great way to make sure I don't overuse this ;)

Given that I will really specialise in Patterns, I will tend to use things a lot anyway...

@tequila, your ideas on Possess Animal?

Sorry, I didn't have internet access most of the day yestrday.

I'm glad you understand. I appreciate that four dots in the Lore of Patterns is a major investment for you, but Causal Influence is a potent evocation. If you take it, I'd be sure to make it worth the points.

In the case of the Possess Animals evocation, the duration and range don't make sense with each other. I've searched online for clarifications but there doesn't seem to be any. I'll change the evocation's duration to a single scene (or one combat encounter, if used for combat). However, I'm adding the same stipulation as Command Animals, in that the animals must be in your presence when activating the Lore.

There does seem to be overlap between some of the Lore. I agree with many of emsquared's points, though I'd also add that each power has a different feel or tone to it. Radiance and Longing both serve to manipulate people, for instance, but one is about authority and the other is about desire.

Perfectly fair! Thankfully I have a power to summon them first.

Ok, minor rules questions/clarifications:

Regarding specialties:

A lot of my Lore activations use Stamina. Would something like "Preternatural Focus" as a Stamina Specialty qualify for rerolling 10s when activating Lores?

Also, if a character has 5 in a trait they would get two specialties, correct?

I'm fine with "Preternatural Focus as a Specialty.

I've checked through the book, however, all it says is that you get a Specialty at 4 dots. There's no indication that you get a second Specialty with additional dots. There is also no way to buy Specialties with freebie points, so it seems as though the intention is only one Specialty per Attribute or Ability. But if you find any official material that says otherwise, let me know.

Eh, it says "4 or more." Considering you can't get to 5 without first reaching 4, the phrasing is either wholly superfluous (which it admittedly could be)... or suggests additional specialties as the score climbs.

I'm good either way, as I've seen it handled both ways. Just wanted to check how we were doing it. 👍