Chamomile wrote:Reading White Wolf rules makes me vomit blood. Anyone want to summarize the new blood mechanics for me?
Instead of spending blood points, you add 1 die to a pool that gets rolled at the end of scene, or when it reaches 5, whichever comes first. When you roll this pool, every success adds to your Hunger, rated 0-5. If your Hunger pool is already full, you make a frenzy roll at a penalty equal to the extra successes.
Hunger dice replace notmal dice in your pool, and are colored red. If a Hunger die rolls a 1, you suffer from a hunger related compulsion, which you can resist by spending Composure, which is a new pool that works like Willpower.
Feeding removes a number of hunger dice depending on what you're eating. Humans remove 3, unless you kill them, then they remove 5. Blood packs are only worth 1 die. Killing a human is the only way to drop the hunger pool to 0.
Lower generations have a blood potency stat. Their blood potency is subtracted from their end of scene blood rolls, so they become hungry much more slowly. However, it makes their hunger compulsions stronger and more extreme, and reduces hunger loss from feeding.
Feeding is tracked per act, rather than per point. It doesn't matter how much you consume, only what the source is, and if you kill. Killing a premature newborn is going to be more satisfying than drinking an adult to the edge of death, even though the adult has more blood. It's the act that matters, not the volume of fluid.
Incidentally, this is taken advantage of in the backstory of one of the pregens.
There's also a new "you are what you eat" mechanic to help encourage in-scene feeding. Basically, when you feed off of someone, you get a small bonus that varies from victim to victim. Drink a junkie high of meth, your next use of Celery is free. Drink a chairming yourg woman, get a +1 on your next Presence test. Drink from a stout, though, guy, next use of Fortitude is free. Drink from a baby, get a free Blush of Life for the rest of the scene.
This requires the DM to make up small bonuses pretty much on the spot whenever you feed, or to only let you feed on pregened characters.
Actions that add to the roll to see if you're hungry are refereed to Rousing the Blood, and the term can be used in character, which is an advantage over blood points.
These include most things that would have cost blood in previous editions. Waking up, activating powers, adding a +1 bonus to any stat, or healing, or using Blush of Life.
Also, I think that they 're a bit too enamored with the fact that t's 2017 and saying "fuck" in an RPG book is no longer transgressive. The playtest scenario has multiple pregened child and infant NPCs that you can feed on for that free blush of life bonus.
It also explicitly states that one of the pregened PCs is a pedophile. Not in a Ventrue Clan Flaw and oblique feeding as rape metaphors sort of way. Nope. The description of one of three characters that you're required to play explicitly says that she likes to fuck children.