((Out of Character (OOC):
Before the print on demand version of the book comes out, and Onyx Path Publishing works out all the Errata, here are my notes about what is cool and different between the new World of Darkness corebook, which originally was published in the early 2000s and the new Chronicles of Darkness corebook (aka new World of Darkness 2nd Edition, I wonder if they should just call it 3rd ed?)
The Devil’s In the Details:
Chronicles of Darkness (CoD) (WoD 2.0 Draft) Corebook Notes
Topic: Character Creation
Page 25 – New Term “Anchors:” Anchors in this sense have nothing to do with Ghosts. They refer to the two traits that normal people have as Vice & Virtue (Or Subvirtue & Subvice in our case). The reason they are now collectively called Anchors. In Mage, one of these Anchors will be called Obsession, it replaces Vice. In Vampire: the Requiem these Anchors are called Dirge & Masquerade.
Page 26 – The Size Chart: Hey guys! We have an honest-to-god size chart now! It goes from Size 1 to 100 with examples!
Page 31-43 – Skills: This is the coolest thing. They literally have what you can accomplish, or your level of proficiency, for every single dot of skills from 1 to 5. Apparently where two dots in an Attribute is considers an average person’s stats, in skills 1 dot is average. Two dots means you are at a professional level of skill. That means all PCs are super good at what they do. For example, Investigation 5 is straight up Sherlock Holms. Are you Sherlock Holms?
Tweak: If any of you want to sell back your skills to make your dots more realistic please get with me and I will work with you to refund you some experience points. No harm, no foul.
Topic: Rolling Dice
Page 69 – Basic Dice Rolls – Hey, if roll an Exceptional Success on mundane dice rolls I owe you some kind of Beneficial Condition.
Page 70 – Extended Action – Hold me to this because I always forget this. Here is how Extended Actions are supposed to work:
- - Dramatic Failure – You take a Failure AND any further attempts take a -2 penalty
- - Failure – You suffer a setback. You must abandon your action or take a detrimental condition.
- - Success – Things go as plan, make progress towards your goal
- - Exceptional Successes – Choose one:
o Reduce the number of successes required by your skill dots
o Reduce the time on each roll by a quarter
o Apply the Exceptional Success condition to the end result of the extended action
Page 72 – Successive Attempts - If you fail an action, and attempt it again I may impose accumulated -1 Penalties.
Topic: Investigations
Page 77 – Main Mechanic: INVESTIGATION – Seriously, this new system is awesome. Use rolls to investigate and get elements. Elements of searching for things using skills, generate Clues. Clues can be spent as Conditions, a special kind of equipment that can be used for all sorts of things. Clues add up to the Truth. Get Dramatic Failures or Regular Failures and clues may be incomplete or have a downside.
Tweak: If you decide to take longer or have less time on Investigations I will apply a penalty or bonus. Normal Investigations take 15 Minutes
o Interval: 5 Mins - -2
o Interval: 10 Mins -1
o Interval: 15 Mins +0
o Interval: 30 Mins +1
o Interval: 60 Mins +2
Topic: Social Maneuvering
Page 81 – Main Mechanic: SOCIAL MANEUVERING – This hasn’t changed, but it has more details and how best to use them against other players or larger groups.
Topic: Chases
Page 84 – Main Mechanic: CHASES – This is made of win. It also can be used as a mechanic to track down someone. The Chase framework is no longer just for Foot Chases. It is much broader and works for any chase you can design.
Topic: Combat
Page 86 – Main Mechanic: VIOLENCE – Let the main event begin!
Page 88 – Initiative – Sad, they actually say explicitly that the die doesn’t explode
Page 88 – Delaying Actions – clarifications on that
Page 88 – Surprise – Straight up, its Wits+Composure vs Dexterity+Stealth
Page 88 – Weapon Damage – Hey, you DON’T ignore the first success. Successes are added DIRECTLY to Weapon Damage.
Page 88 – Defense – Did you know you can choose not to use your defense and save it up for harder hits in the same round? Makes sense but you never see anyone who does that.
Page 88 – Dodge – Cool! You can choose to Dodge any time before your action, just like counterspell, but you give up your action. Dodge doesn’t double the Defense rating. Instead you roll twice your defense rating in a contested roll against the attack. If you Dramatically fail while Dodging you are Stunned.
Page 89 – Grapple – People in a Grapple only get to go ONCE per round and on the highest initiative of the participants. Also, you get your Defense in a Grapple unless you are held with the HOLD Overpower Maneuver.
Page 90 – Aiming – If you use your defense in a round then you cannot Aim. Aiming and Autofire are not compatable.
Page 90 – Firearms in Close Combat – If you are in close (adjacent) combat you get your Defense against Firearms. In fact, you get a bonus if the gun is bigger than size 1 (bonus is increased by the gun’s Size + 1)
Page 90-91 Recommend Brushing up on the Following:
- Cover vs Concealment
- Shooting into Close Combat (Avoiding friends is -2, avoiding a party in a grapple is -4)
- Charging – you can double move and attack. If you already applied your Defense you cannot charge.
- Human Shields
- Pulling Blows – the defender get +1 Defense if you are trying to do less damage. You have to spend a willpower point to do Bashing damage with a weapon.
Page 94 – Armor – When Applying any armor to an Attack that deals Lethal Damage the character AUTOMATICALLY takes a minimium of 1 Bashing Damage from the shock of the blow! Oh! And Agg Damage ignores all mundane Armor!
Page 96 – Medical Care – Better than ever, check it out.
Page 96 – Objects – Aggravated Damage Ignores Durability!
Topic: Sources of Harm Page 96-98
- Electricity does automatic Bashing damage per turn of exposure. Roll Strength to let go of source. Armor provides no protection.
- Falling – its 1 Bashing per meter and Dex+Athletics to reduce damage. 30+ Meters does Automatic flat 10 Lethal and cannot be mitigated. Armor doesn’t help.
- Fire – Amor does help with fire, but only for its rating in turns before it stops working. If the fire persists for more than a turn anything flammable catches fire. A burning character takes full damage even removed from the source. A Fire extinguisher can reduce by one point per turn and Dex+Survival can be rolled to put yourself out.
Topic: Vehicles (Page 99) – All in all these new rules for traits and crashes are awesome, read them!
Topic: Equipment
Page 100 – Equipment Types – Oh the things you can make:
- Physical Objects
- - Organizations – usually disband after one game session unless purchased as Merits
- - Repositories – A gathering of materials for future use. This is represented as a bonus up to +5 that will stack with repository merits like Armory or Library. They also disband unless purchased as Merit dots.
- - Plans – Lets you build a orchestrated plans, essentially gives the team an equipment bonus to carry out your plan. As soon as the plan fails or succeeds and we are off scrupt the bonus winks out of existence.
- - Mystical Equipment – Minor supernatural trinkets, circles of salt, Sacraments, etc
- Btw – all minor magic items (like Holy items) are just referred to as Bygones.
Page 101 – Main Mechanic: BUILDING EQUIPMENT – read the awesome, includes projects and upgrades, repairs, and Jury Rigging. Includes equipment conditions when what you Jury Rigged is unstable or fragile and may blow up.
Topic: Ephemeral Beings (Ghosts, Spirits, and Angels) Page 122-138
The Highlights on minor tweaks:
- - You may not know this but there are waaaay more Ghosts in Twilight then Spirits, always.
- - All three of these beings have completely separate kinds of Ephemera. Without special powers and without being Manifest these three types cannot sense or interact in any way! This also ties into why - Death now only affects Ghosts and Spirit only can harm the Corpus of Spirits.
- - The Rank Table now has recommending Influences and Numina so you know what your limits are.
- - Ghosts on the material plane are almost always Rank 1 (echos and repeaters) and Rank 2 (conventional ghosts). They cannot gain any more rank outside of the Underworld. Though if one escapes the Underworld if can be stronger.
- - These three entities can roll Finesse to disguise their rank, making it look as strong as the observer
- Essence use is a lot different, make sure to take a look. Including how all three feed and how often they feed.
- - Gauntlet Strength now affects Reaching correctly
- - Ghosts now how Influences, Bans, and Banes! Usually the only Influence they have is their Anchor’s though.
- - Specifics on what combination of Integrity/Vice/Virtue they all have and how they work
- - Languages – what these ephemeral beings know or can do
- - Mentions Angels that speak a True Enochian glossolalia that sounds like electronic noise… very cool
- - Better rules for Influence Effects, Durations, and what conditions they can create
Page 139 – Dealing With Ephemeral Beings
- Research: Gives great rules for finding out about Angels, Ghosts and Spirits can how many successes of research are needed to get information. What information you ask?
o How to Summon or Exorcise It
o How to Abjure it
o How to Ward Against it or Bind it
o What its Ban is
o What its Bane is
- Summoning & Exorcism – Page 139
- Merit: Esoteric Armory Merit – hell yes. If you have dots in this Merit that are equal or greater of the Rank of the being you will already have the stuff on hand!
- Abjuration – Page 140
- Warding & Binding – Page 140
What is missing?
The Book makes several references to a mechanic called “Fate” but doesn’t give any rules for how it works. I know it has to do with what the God-Machine has in store for you. Seems like it is another Adjective as Vice or Virtue to describe the future. It also makes references to the Destiny Merit but now rules for it…
THE STORYTELLER CUT LINE- STORYTELLERS SEE BELOW:
Topic: Horrors & Nightmares – Someone finally got smart and came up with newer/better Hunter: The Vigil-esque mechanics for making cryptid-like monsters for mortal gameplay. Also some great new scary things…
- Horrors – are the bosses of a mortal game
- Nightmares – Simplified dice pools for instant minion hordes
- Dread Powers – representing all kinds of supernatural badness
Examples:
- Black-Eyed Kids
- The Horde – Zombies!
- The House that Hates
- Jersey Devil
- Mothman
- Mr. Let-Me-In
- Nibbles the Clown
- Pretty, Pretty Princess
- Rachel Hrafn
- The Swimming Hole
- Vanishing Hitchiker
