Darloth/HouseRules

2nd Edition / DarSys Houserules

Character Creation:

• Base willpower is Essence+3, and it cannot be increased beyond 8 or (sum of highest two virtues), whichever is higher. Virtues cost only 1bp to raise.

Familiar:

• • see the wiki, currently Telgar/Familiars

Arsenal:

• • This is underpowered and funky - progression changed to (0),3,5,7,9,12,15,20 (yes, I went up to rating 7) but there is no tradein for resources dots, and does not interact with other people's arsenal backgrounds. Dots can still be pooled to buy large artifacts, however.

Requisition:

• • This is a new background, designed for equipping large amounts of troops. It has two uses. Firstly, you can buy requisition to give every single one of your troops one extra dot of resources per dot of requisition. With requisition 2, you could upgrade all of your troops (bought with Command perhaps) with an extra 2-dot purchase on top of whatever they had, likely making weapon and armour exceptional grade, or buying them all a thaumaturgic talisman. You may not buy items which cost more than resources 3 in this manner.
    
    In the other mode, requisition buys artifacts for a smaller scale of unit. It will provide one artifact dot per dot of requisition for up to 25 troops, with none of the resulting artifacts being higher than rating 3. As such, this background can justify your five gunzosha officers, or your crack squad of a dozen ashigaru.

Other:

• Exalts buy Degrees of thaumaturgy as non-capped specialities
• Exalts buy craft fields after their first as non-capped specialities, and they all have the same rating.
• Exalts -may- choose to buy extra languages for linguistics as a non-capped speciality, although they still get 1 free per dot of linguistics ability.

Combat:

• Some, more, or all of DarSys
• Can declare defense charms after the attack roll.
• hesitation rolls in mass combat use Morale + Drill as the pool.
• Strongly considering using base unit average stats for unit's rolls, and letting commanders act independently as if a hero, although adding to, not replacing the unit's action. Would also allow heroes to replace the commander's action instead of the units action, or two heroes to replace both. Unit traits still affected indirectly by commander's traits, mainly war ability-cap, and various war rolls for certain checks. Example drawn from here.
  • other nice mass combat houserules at Teflonshugenja/HouseRules
• Combo costs(and a couple of other things) changed as per FrivYeti/ComboRules. The limit is still Ess*2, for either slot.

Social-Fu:

• Spending willpower to resist unnatural influence requires a stunt, or an intimacy/motivation being involved, or someone rallying the target.
• Extras cannot spend willpower to resist (can't stunt, after all), unless rallied by someone else (heroic mortals, leaders, etc) who makes a sufficient leadership roll, defined by the ST.
• It is very rare for anyone to resist a non-obvious social-fu effect - they could spend willpower to resist it, but they do not want to. It is only when someone else points out their folly ("Why are you giving him your weapon?! He's a prisoner!") that they are given the opportunity to spend willpower to resist. ST discretion applies, sometimes it will become obvious to the target that they are under mental influence, granting them the opportunity to resist without outside interaction.
• Obvious social-fu is obviously a charm - people raised to know the wiles of anathema will thus have sufficient justification to spend to resist, assuming they have enough willpower - see above, extras cannot resist on their own, even if the effect is obvious.
• Hypnotic Tongue Technique - This should only be tagged Touch when the command is non-vocal. However, vocalizing the command allows the target to immediately choose to spend the 4 willpower to remember and recognize it as unnatural influence. If it is delivered non-verbally, they cannot choose to do so until someone points it out, and so are highly unlikely to spend the 1 per day to resist until they have spent the 4 to recognize it.

Excellencies:

• Everyone possesses all three basic excellencies in all caste or favoured attributes or abilities.
• Infinate Melee and Martial Arts Mastery (and similar charms for other splats) are dual-purpose, and thus end up better than the same motes in any other ability - thus, the cost benefit is split between Offensive excellencies, and Defensive excellencies. Counterattacks count as whatever slot they went in, typically but not always Defensive.

Stunts:

• Stunt bonuses apply as usual (1-3) but the regains for success apply at most once per turn/action/dv refresh.
• Also see DVs, below

DVs:

• Stunting for defence applies a set +1-3 DV, it is not rolled. This makes defense stunts roughly 50% better. To compensate, I am treating mobility penalty (for dodge) and wound penalties (for both) as external penalties to DV, rather than die penalties. I will calculate DV as a pool, then add things on. This may change, see DissectingDefenseValue and SuturedDefenseValue. From SuturedDefenseValue, I am using:
  • SuturedDefenseValue/PacingIntent
  • Some others
• By some readings, DV is an external penalty. I am not treating it as such - it subtracts from the number of attack successes, but it's just DV. It's not difficulty, or penalty, or anything like that, and the only way you can reduce it is with effects that specifically apply to DV.
• If something "cannot be blocked without use of charms" then using an Excellency allows you to attempt a defence, but builds the DV from 0. In essence, this style of attack is treated as a thing which penalizes DV right down to zero, however many penalty points that is.
• If something simply "cannot be blocked" then that is not penalized to zero, it just doesn't apply - even excellencies or other charms cannot attempt to block that attack, unless they can explicitly block the unblockable.

Dragonblooded:

• Terrestrial (Ability) Reinforcement - just not useful enough - upgrade basic effect to (Ess*2) targets, who gain up to +(Ess) dice in the ability. This does count as die-capped dice, mortals caps are raised if necessary to accommodate this. Also can be applied to larger groups, up to a magnitude of (Ess) - in this mode, costs 5m, 1wp, lasts as long as you lead/motivate them, and adds +1 to that ability, not breaking your own ability limit. - not sure about this. Also considering moving the unit-scale effect to a new enhancement style charm, or only altering the basic effect to affect twice the number of possible targets, but not sure. Testing might be good.
• Arsenal background - upgraded to 3,5,7,9,11 dots of magical assets, or 25, 40, 55, 70, 90 dots of resources.
• Elemental Bolt Technique (and descendents) - can use Athletics, Archery or Thrown as to-hit attribute.

Lunars:

• Start with 9/7/5 attribute spread, or 2(not 1) base dots in caste/favoured attributes - not sure which I prefer.
• Bruise Relief Method - The gift version heals 1 bashing level at the end of every turn.
• Halting the Scarlet Flow - Activating the charm normally is reflexive just like Bruise Relief Method, and can be used as much as you like, at 2 motes per lethal level healed. Activating this charm as a gift costs 4 motes committed, and heals 1 lethal level at the end of every turn.
• Pinnacle to Lunar Hero - needs fixing.
• I like these - LiberiLunaris/BodyEnhancement2 and LiberiLunaris/BodyEnhancement3 - but they are not confirmed yet
• Hybrid Body Rearrangement - costs 1m per mutation, noncommitted. To reallocate/add/remove mutations from those that are active requires a miscellaneous shifting action, which may not be folded into a more general formshift. For example, you cannot change from human to wolf and also activate a mutation from Hybrid Body Rearrangement in the same shift. However, if you had activated it as a human, it will remain as you shift to wolf or anything else, until deactivated (for free) as a separate miscellaneous shift.
• Deadly Beastman Transformation is enhanced - at essence 4 or above, you may choose to gain the benefits and penalties of Terrifying Beastman Alteration (which is removed) for no cost. If you decline to assume these benefits and penalties, you must wait until you increase essence again before you can choose to apply them. Once applied, they cannot be removed.
• Devestating Ogre Enhancement swapped to require Essence 4, Strength 5.
• Lunar attribute excellencies directly enhance attributes - this means they end up adding both dice and accuracy to attacks using Claws of the Silver Moon, amongst other things.
• FluffySquirrel suggests Claws of the Silver Moon to do +2 def in base profile, along with their other things, to match moonsilver bonus better. It makes sense.
• Hybrid Body Rearrangement is capped, at a number of purchases equal to Essence.

• Arrows:
  • Frog Crotch arrows inflict +4L damage, but double target's armour soak, and treat armour hardness as 2 greater.
  • Broadhead / Willowleaf arrows inflict +2L damage.
  • Target arrows inflict only +0L damage (no bonus to bow/str) but halve target's armour soak, and treat armour hardness as 2 less.