From owner-in_nomine-digest@lists.io.com Wed Oct 7 04:32:36 1998 Return-Path: Received: from lists.io.com (majordom@lists.io.com [199.170.88.15]) by pyramid.sjgames.com (8.8.7/8.8.7) with ESMTP id EAA24183 for ; Wed, 7 Oct 1998 04:32:36 -0500 Received: (from majordom@localhost) by lists.io.com (8.9.0/8.9.0) id EAA02847 for in_nomine-digest-outgoing; Wed, 7 Oct 1998 04:08:40 -0500 Date: Wed, 7 Oct 1998 04:08:40 -0500 Message-Id: <199810070908.EAA02847@lists.io.com> X-Authentication-Warning: lists.io.com: majordom set sender to owner-in_nomine-digest@lists.io.com using -f From: owner-in_nomine-digest@lists.io.com (in_nomine-digest) To: in_nomine-digest@lists.io.com Subject: in_nomine-digest V1 #967 Reply-To: in_nomine-l@lists.io.com Sender: owner-in_nomine-digest@lists.io.com Errors-To: owner-in_nomine-digest@lists.io.com Precedence: bulk in_nomine-digest Wednesday, October 7 1998 Volume 01 : Number 967 In this digest: IN> Possible Compendium of rules and Superiors Re: IN> Hellacious stats (& Dodge Monsters!) Re: IN> Possible Compendium of rules and Superiors IN> [FICTION] Harvesting Forces Re: IN> Hellacious stats Re: IN> [FICTION] Harvesting Forces IN> Re: more Lilim craziness RE: IN> More Delurking Re: IN> Hellacious stats (& Dodge Monsters!) Re: IN> More Lilim craziness Re: IN> Possible Compendium of rules and Superiors Re: IN> [FICTION] Harvesting Forces Re: IN> Possible Compendium of rules and Superiors Re: IN> everything ever! IN> re: A New Idea Re: IN> Hellacious stats (& Dodge Monsters!) Re: IN> Possible Compendium of rules and Superiors Re: IN> [FICTION] Harvesting Forces Re: IN> More Lilim craziness Re: IN> More Lilim craziness - Lunches IN> Chatter: Possible Compendium of rules and Superiors IN> Re: IN- A couple of questions Re: IN> Re: IN- A couple of questions IN> Re: IN- [FICTION] Harvesting Forces Re: IN> Re: IN- A couple of questions Re: IN> Possible Compendium of rules and Superiors Re: IN> More Lilim craziness Re: IN> More Delurking IN> A cute and fuzzy bunny, perhaps? Re: IN> A cute and fuzzy bunny, perhaps? IN> Intervention weirdness Re: IN> Hellacious stats (& Dodge Monsters!) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Tue, 6 Oct 1998 19:35:18 EDT From: Pleissez@aol.com Subject: IN> Possible Compendium of rules and Superiors Does anyone out there think that putting the new superiors and and extended superior writeups from the Revelations Cycle under 1 cover, along with the new rules on saints, soldiers etc.? Just a thought. Any ideas Beth or John? Trey ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 7 Oct 1998 02:21:59 +0100 From: Julian Breen Subject: Re: IN> Hellacious stats (& Dodge Monsters!) In message , "Guy M. Dumas" writes >This whole combat discussion makes me smile as half way through my first >game, an experienced GM and player of mine looked at me mid way through the >first combat and grinningly said,"You've got to be kidding right? Is it >possible that you need to re-read the rules?" We chuckled together after >the game saying that you could bury his character up to his neck in sand and >give him the punt of a life time and he'd shake his head and say, "Didn't >hurt!!!" I don't see anything wrong with that. We _are_ talking about angels and demons after all! - -- Julian ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 6 Oct 1998 21:28:13 -0400 (EDT) From: Casca Subject: Re: IN> Possible Compendium of rules and Superiors On Tue, 6 Oct 1998 Pleissez@aol.com wrote: > Does anyone out there think that putting the new superiors and and extended > superior writeups from the Revelations Cycle under 1 cover, along with the new > rules on saints, soldiers etc.? I've had a similar idea. Of course, my idea entails getting an x-acto knife, cutting the books apart, and putting them into binders organized by subject: Superiors, New Rules (Sorcerors etc), and Settings I have yet to work up the courage required for such a maneuver. However, given the way I use my books, it's entirely likely they'll start to fall apart -anyway-, at which point I'll simply accelerate the process. - -- Casca, Seraph of Archives (bertishg@db.erau.edu) "...I saw the Lord seated on a throne, high and exalted, and the train of His robe filled the temple. Above Him were seraphs, each with six wings: with two wings they covered their faces, with two they covered their feet, and with two they were flying...At the sound of their voices the doorposts and thresholds shook, and the temple was filled with smoke." -- Isaiah 6:2,4 ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 6 Oct 1998 21:33:01 -0400 From: David Edelstein Subject: IN> [FICTION] Harvesting Forces I like this! Of course, I have Lilith's darkness-knob turned down quite a bit, so I wouldn't have her being quite so selective and compassionate about which children she kills... - -David ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 06 Oct 1998 21:40:30 -0400 From: neelk@alum.mit.edu Subject: Re: IN> Hellacious stats Walter Milliken wrote: > >>> This is so that Munchkin Fighters can still whip Munchkin Dodgers, I >>> suspect. >>> >>Personally, I don't think it's necessary, on the grounds that dodging >>isn't a contest, it merely reduces damage, and that this is offset by the >>damage bonus for most weapons already. And even without the bonus, my >>combat characters haven't suffered much difficulty in getting badly >>wounded. Seeing a bonus to one type of roll annoys me, because it's >>inconsistent. > >Whether this seems necessary depends on what kinds of opponents you're >fighting. Heavy combat characters can easily have 100+ hit points, a >mere +3 or so Power for the weapon, and assuming equal attack and dodge >CDs, means about 30 attacks worth of damage. The Right Thing(tm) would have been to alter the hit point formula so that huge spreads don't happen, not add weird hacks to the attack rolls. I did this for my own game -- the formula for celestial hits is 6 x Vessel level + 3 x Strength. So the possible range of body hits ranges from 9 to 72, rather than 2 to 144. And typical weak characters (Vessel/1 + 3 Str/2 Corp. Forces) and typical strong characters (Vessel/3 + 8 Str/4 Corp. Forces) range from 15 to 42 hits, rather than 9 to 56. This works pretty well -- I don't think any combat has lasted more than a couple of rounds. Plus I don't need to modify the skill system at all, which is a major plus since it eliminates a special case. - -- Neel Krishnaswami neelk@alum.mit.edu ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 06 Oct 1998 21:52:23 -0400 From: neelk@alum.mit.edu Subject: Re: IN> [FICTION] Harvesting Forces Earl Wajenberg wrote: > >Oh, brrr! Is anyone else on this list the parent of a toddler >or baby? Very evocative. > >This is the old, original Lilith, by the way. That's what >she was famous for, before she was cast as Adam's first wife. Here's another twist to it -- there's a strand of neopaganism/new age mysticism that has taken up Lilith as a goddess, and offer prayers to her. Now think, in an IN universe, this is one of those stunningly huge metaphysical mistakes -- what if a new mother offers a prayer to the desert mother...and she hears? - -- Neel Krishnaswami neelk@alum.mit.edu ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 6 Oct 1998 18:52:14 -0700 From: Tony Zbaraschuk Subject: IN> Re: more Lilim craziness >>b) Does this mean that if she buys him lunch for a week, she can then >>tell him to kill his wife (with a reasonable chance of forcing him to >>do so)? My way to avoid situations like that: Geases don't just add. It takes two Geas/1s to make a Geas/2, all right, but then you need two Geas/2s to make a Geas/3... and you'll need about 32 Geas/1s to make a Geas/6. I figure in a solid month of lunches a competent Lilim can probably make herself Somebody's Best Friend. If, of course, she attaches _all_ the hooks... it'll probably take longer. (Whoever made the point about a simple lunch not being worth a Geas/1 except to a starving person probably has a good idea, too.) Tony Z (P.S. No, you can't trade two Geas/6s for a Geas/7. IMC, anyway.) Special Collections Librarian & Archivist E-mail: tzbarasc@lasierra.edu La Sierra University Et vocavit Deus, "Fiat lux!" ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 6 Oct 1998 21:50:01 -0400 From: "Matthew Stein" Subject: RE: IN> More Delurking Kelly St.Clair asked: >So, anyway... at work today, I happened to glance at the DILBERT calendar, >which got me to wondering: > >Who IS the Demon of Stupidity? I'd have to put down some servitor of Malphas, since I would think that "stupidity" is a factional thing. When one calls someone "intelligent" or "stupid," it usually has to do with the amount that the person agrees with him. Hence, I'd argue that if Lucifer gave out the Word Stupid (as opposed to simply blasting the demon into his Forces for asking for such an idiotic word), it would be to a Demon of Factions (maybe a Balseraph, or even an Impudite). But this is my analysis for the Balseraph / Impudite of Stupidity. Stupidity, generally, gnaws on everyone's nerves, both because it can be very annoying, and this increases Malphas's Word, because people, when annoyed, irritate other people, in effect breaking up tight groups and increase the number of Factions. Second of all - and this is linked into Dilbert - how do people react when they see someone that they view as stupid - hence, inferior - rewarded ahead of them? They get paranoid, and paranoid people trust no one, etc, etc, leads to Factions. I think that the character has to be either a Balseraph or Impudite, because to pull of Stupidity really well, the Demon needs to be able to interact within modern society on a better-than-decent level, and most of the other Bands (excepting the Lilim) strike me as being unbalanced enough to be unable to pull this off well. A Balseraph, come to think of it, probably wouldn't be it, since their lying power makes them seem much more intelligent than they might really be. I guess then, that the Demon of Stupidity would be an Impudite in service to Factions. Matt. [Angel of Weird Ideas, servant of Eli, kind of kicking it for now.] ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 06 Oct 1998 22:24:14 -0400 From: John Karakash - Lucent ASCC Subject: Re: IN> Hellacious stats (& Dodge Monsters!) Christopher Paul wrote: > > Regarding dodge gods and combat monsters: > > I don't tend to have these problems in my game for two reasons: > > 1) As a GM, I always instruct players to "hold the cheese." Anyone who > adds up cheese to get a dodge skill in the 20s is going to be asked, "Do > you want to NEED a dodge skill in the 20s?" I won't approve cheaty skill > adding talismans for characters with high skill, anyone wearing body armor > gets arrested by the genre police, and I categorically rule out using > acrobatics with dodge because it is unbalancing. Heh. I just send someone with appropriate Songs and abilities against such combat gods. 6 CorpForces doesn't do you much good if your butt is hanging out ethereally or celestially. - -- ___________________________________________________ / \ | John Karakash - Lucent Technologies/Bell Labs | | (919)388-2665(COOL) MIB2300 | | | | The power to tax involves the power to destroy. | | -Chief Justice Marshall | \___________________________________________________/ ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 06 Oct 1998 22:31:23 -0400 From: John Karakash - Lucent ASCC Subject: Re: IN> More Lilim craziness Elizabeth McCoy wrote: > >d) Can Geasa be paid off pre-emptively? > > Nope. However, you can refuse to accept her gift, which means the hook > won't settle into your soul. (An immediate exchange of value might do it -- > if a Lilim waitress senses a Need for someone to buy something, she > probably doesn't get a hook for selling it, since she gets paid... Unless > she sells it cheap... Up to the GM.) Beth, can you write up the definite Geas/Hook guide and I'll just link it off of the FAQ? Matters like this shouldn't be harder than pointing at the document and saying 'read'. =) The way we've generally been playing it (although I don't recall whether we put the canon label on it) is that if a Lilim is doing something as per any normal agreement (a doctor curing the sick, a janitor cleaning a room, a guy parking a car for a tip) then it is not usable for a Hook, no matter how much the Need. If it's your JOB to put out fires as a fireman, you can't get a Hook from the homeowner! OTOH, if you deliberately let the house burn because the owner wants to collect insurance when it's your job to put out the fire, then you can get a Hook. (One of the bizarre convolutions where NOT doing something can get you a Hook.) It's a part of a Lilim's nature to keep their debts and agreements. So much so that mundane contracts and agreements can stop their resonance from working. - -- ___________________________________________________ / \ | John Karakash - Lucent Technologies/Bell Labs | | (919)388-2665(COOL) MIB2300 | | | | The power to tax involves the power to destroy. | | -Chief Justice Marshall | \___________________________________________________/ ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 6 Oct 1998 22:43:22 EDT From: Akumsa@aol.com Subject: Re: IN> Possible Compendium of rules and Superiors In a message dated 10/6/98 7:46:41 PM Eastern Daylight Time, Pleissez@aol.com writes: << Any ideas Beth or John? >> me? ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 6 Oct 1998 23:07:11 -0400 From: Kim Foster Subject: Re: IN> [FICTION] Harvesting Forces At 09:33 PM 10/6/98 -0400, you wrote: >I like this! > >Of course, I have Lilith's darkness-knob turned down quite a bit, so I >wouldn't have her being quite so selective and compassionate about which >children she kills... > Seems like anyway you cut it, this turns Lillith's darkness o' Meter down. But she does get a bit of a white wash at times, so this was very refreshing. Great work! I know violence doesn't solve all problems... But it sure feels good! Felicia:DS3:Vampire Savior ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 6 Oct 1998 23:18:07 -0400 (Eastern Daylight Time) From: "Emily K. Dresner" Subject: Re: IN> Possible Compendium of rules and Superiors > I've had a similar idea. Of course, my idea entails getting an x-acto > knife, cutting the books apart, and putting them into binders organized > by subject: Superiors, New Rules (Sorcerors etc), and Settings > > I have yet to work up the courage required for such a maneuver. However, > given the way I use my books, it's entirely likely they'll start to fall > apart -anyway-, at which point I'll simply accelerate the process. Hey, and don't forget the duct tape! It has a dark side and a light side and it holds the universe together. :) Of course, I'm all for three-ring binders. *ker-chunk!* I do find the Revelations Cycle amazingly annoying for the scattershot manner in which rules, settings, and Superiors are placed, but cest la vie, I suppose. I've said this all before, so fill in past emails here. - - Em ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 6 Oct 1998 23:21:38 -0400 (EDT) From: Pee Kitty Subject: Re: IN> everything ever! On Tue, 6 Oct 1998, Martin Arnold wrote: > Um, what does a Shedite of Asmodeus do with his free 12 Cp's - he has no > role being a Shedite, can he spend them on somethng else, free servitor > attunement instead. (Or money back if not completely satisfied!) His Servitor attunement is that he can live in a host for DAYS without corrupting them! For the average Shedite, that means they can slide between two hosts at their total convenience, never risking dissonance or exposing themselves. I think we need errata making it clear (unless I'm wrong) that the SoA attunement is an *exception* to the general attunement. - -- Rev. Pee Kitty, of the order Malkavian-Dobbsian Meow! ::: Thinking about a Tampa Bay Devival in the future - email me! ::: Or go to http://www.cris.com/~pkitty (hell, go there anyways!) ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 06 Oct 1998 22:31:01 -0500 From: Eeyore Subject: IN> re: A New Idea This is a reply to a question that was asked last week. I tried sending it a couple of times back then, but there seemed to be some sort of server problem; I never got it back and I can't find it in the archive. If I am now making people read it for the third time, I apologize. But I thought it deserved an answer. Felipe Pereira wrote: > I didnt like the idea about combat, where the on with higher perception > goes aways first and the one with lower perception, goes last. this leaves > the demons, (that usually gets lower perception) in the back. > Here I the idea that I've developed in my sessions since the first one that > I want to share with you. You'll want to be very careful with a system that involves declaring all of the characters' actions before anyone takes them. This is very similar to the system in the 1st Edition of DC Heroes, though that one was worse. It had characters declare their actions in reverse DEX order and then flip it around for taking the declared actions. The single most boring night I ever spent gaming was as the character with the lowest DEX in a DC Heroes game; every round, without exception, my declared action was pointless by the time my turn rolled around. It won't be _that_ bad with your idea, but the characters with the lowest perceptions are going to find this happening to them on a semi-regular basis and the players will get very frustrated. I did. J. Michael Neal ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 06 Oct 1998 22:25:17 -0500 From: Eeyore Subject: Re: IN> Hellacious stats (& Dodge Monsters!) John Karakash - Lucent ASCC wrote: > > 1) As a GM, I always instruct players to "hold the cheese." Anyone who > > adds up cheese to get a dodge skill in the 20s is going to be asked, "Do > > you want to NEED a dodge skill in the 20s?" I won't approve cheaty skill > > adding talismans for characters with high skill, anyone wearing body armor > > gets arrested by the genre police, and I categorically rule out using > > acrobatics with dodge because it is unbalancing. > > Heh. I just send someone with appropriate > Songs and abilities against such combat gods. 6 CorpForces > doesn't do you much good if your butt is hanging out > ethereally or celestially. How common is this problem in IN? It doesn't look like a system that would be too hard to counter the combat monster. J. Michael Neal ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 06 Oct 1998 22:21:44 -0500 From: Eeyore Subject: Re: IN> Possible Compendium of rules and Superiors Casca wrote: > I've had a similar idea. Of course, my idea entails getting an x-acto > knife, cutting the books apart, and putting them into binders organized > by subject: Superiors, New Rules (Sorcerors etc), and Settings > > I have yet to work up the courage required for such a maneuver. However, > given the way I use my books, it's entirely likely they'll start to fall > apart -anyway-, at which point I'll simply accelerate the process. For a game I don't get to play very much (and it's a _really_ expensive habit to have and not indulge more than I do), I'm referring to Advanced Squad Leader a lot lately. This is how they organize the rules. You start out with a three-ring binder containing the basic rules, divided into different sections (infantry rules, armor rules, artillery rules, weather, DYO scenarios, etc). Then, each module that comes out has the rules explaining how to use the maps, counters and charts that come with it. These rules slip into the binder in the proper place, sometimes replacing previous pages but more often adding onto the end of chapters. Combined with a really superb index, it makes keeping track of the various rules quite easy. Well, that's an exaggeration; with over 200 pages of 'em now, there is no easy way to keep track of the rules. But it's a lot better than the old, pre-ASL method. I'm pushing this, because I recommend it very highly as a system if whatever game your using keeps adding rules. I've been told (by the best of authorities, honest) that it's been tried by SJG and it didn't sell. It's main drawback is a high initial cost which would tend to discourage that initial purchase, though it'd be better than the $100+ it takes to pick up the ASL rules and Beyond Valor to get started. In short, I highly recommend that you try your idea and reorganize the books. J. Michael Neal ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 6 Oct 1998 23:31:31 -0400 (EDT) From: Pee Kitty Subject: Re: IN> [FICTION] Harvesting Forces Beautiful, Beth, beautiful. Thank you for a hint of darkness in the green. I'm using this IMC. - -- Rev. Pee Kitty, of the order Malkavian-Dobbsian Meow! ::: Thinking about a Tampa Bay Devival in the future - email me! ::: Or go to http://www.cris.com/~pkitty (hell, go there anyways!) ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 07 Oct 1998 05:27:45 +0100 From: Jo Hart Subject: Re: IN> More Lilim craziness At 19:34 06/10/98 -0400, you wrote: >At 2:39 PM -0700 10/6/98, Alloni Kramer wrote: >>Okay. Let's assume we have Joe Doe (JD) and Gina Lilim (GL). >>Let's assume they meet, and GL buys him lunch. >>a) Am I correct in assuming this would qualify as a Need 1? (If not, >>assume for the future examples some other slightly more difficult feat.) > >Note that Geas-levels are the difficulty of *the person whose Need it is* >to fulfill it *himself*. So if it takes him an hour to come up with >Lunch for himself, and she just gives it to him... It'll be worse than this if she has the Lilim of Haagenti attunement. An example of a slightly harder task is, assume Joe Doe is a single parent who needs to find a reliable babysitter for a couple of hours a week so that he can work late at the office -- if the lilim proves to be such a person, that would almost certainly count as a decent level of need. If she has decent celestial forces (and most of them probably do) it won't be hard for her to detect needs. Then after she has done it for a few weeks she can even get him to murder his own children. >( Technically, Geases >are additive -- 6 lunches = Geas/6. The GM may easily choose to not >allow this! Yeah ;-) The system is broken, just say no to stacking geases. > >Sort of, the Lilim says, "Dear. Kill your wife." And for a moment the >guy is *considering* this as perfectly logical. Then he makes his Will >roll and we all find out if he can refuse or not... Average human has average essence of about 2.5 at any time (d1-4 from the impudite write-up) and has average WP of 3 (which is reduced by the level of the initial favour for the purposes of resisting the geas). Even assuming he was full of essence, this gives him a total of 7 to resist, which is only a 50% chance of doing so, and the lilim can use songs of Celestial Charm to make it easier... jo - -- Jo's (desperately out of date) homepage --> http://www.tardis.ed.ac.uk/~jhart/index.html Jo's (bland, plagiarised and devoid of ideas) IN page --> http://www.btinternet.com/~jhart/IN.html - -- ** Some of the above is indubitably true ** ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 7 Oct 1998 00:45:05 -0400 (EDT) From: Eslin Subject: Re: IN> More Lilim craziness - Lunches On Tue, 6 Oct 1998, Walter Milliken wrote: > And for most people, I'd say this Need is too trivial for a Need/1. It > might qualify if it was a starving man, or a street beggar -- someone > who had no easy way to get food for themselves without substantial work. > A Need/1 is equivalent to an hour's task for the recipient -- most > people don't have to work for an hour to earn enough for a simple meal. Minimum wage: circa $5/hour, before taxes. Chop off a third of that: $3.33 ... now, admittedly, I feed two people for $20 a week, generally, but most people really really don't want to do that. $3.35 won't get you dinner at Mickey D's :) -- Es. Yes, my role *is* as a cashier or mall retail... when I'm lucky. :) ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 07 Oct 1998 00:45:26 -0400 From: Kirt Dankmyer Subject: IN> Chatter: Possible Compendium of rules and Superiors > I do find the Revelations Cycle amazingly annoying for the scattershot > manner in which rules, settings, and Superiors are placed, but cest la > vie, I suppose. I've said this all before, so fill in past emails here. #include dresner_rant.h Certainly I have to admit some sort of re-organization would be good. I'm not as peeved with it as Em is -- I think this goes for most things in In Nomine ;) - -- but I was particularly annoyed at the rules for golems et al being plunked in the middle of the *adventure* section of _FotM_. -Loki - -- Kirt A. Dankmyer --- Academic Computing Specialist http://www.wfu.edu/~dankmyka/ -- (910) 759-4202 -- PGP public key available. For the Snark _was_ a Boojum, you see. --Lewis Carroll ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 07 Oct 1998 00:15:06 EST From: "Perry Lloyd" Subject: IN> Re: IN- A couple of questions >>>>1. What is the maximum number of forces a Soldier or Sorcerer can achieve. I know they have to have 6 Forces at the begining (either natural or given to them) but can they increase it.<<<< > >Theoretically, yes. I don't think there is a canonical upper limit, but a >mortal with more than 7 Forces should be _really_ unusual. (Like, a >once-in-a-generation event, and decrease the frequency geometrically for >each additional Force.) Can anyone say: Child of the Grigori? >:) Beware, my players... >>>>2. Can Sorcerer's use Ethereal songs? What about Dream Soldiers for example Soldiers of Blandine and Beleth or certain worshipers of Ethereals?<<<< > >Dream Soldiers can, Sorcerers cannot normally. The Ethereal Connection >attunement, in the upcoming Liber Canticorum, is what allows mortals to >perform Ethereal Songs. So, oh In Nomine canon masters, what is the philsophical reasoning behind this? Why can't any mortal learn any song of any sphere? - -Perry Perry M. Lloyd (spook_number_six@hotmail.com) "Remember, false hope is still hope." -Dilbert ______________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 7 Oct 1998 01:38:15 -0400 (EDT) From: Homayoun Saleh Subject: Re: IN> Re: IN- A couple of questions > a > >mortal with more than 7 Forces should be _really_ unusual. (Like, a > >once-in-a-generation event, and decrease the frequency geometrically > for > >each additional Force.) [snip] Hmm... this strikes me a cannonically false. I believe a Class 6 servant (as per main rulebook, pg.45) is "an experienced solider or undead with 7 forces". Hence for 3 character points you can have one as a level 1 servant... surely if a 7 force mortal were THAT rare, it wouldn't be so easy to aquire one... Cheers, Homayoun ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 07 Oct 1998 00:41:47 EST From: "Perry Lloyd" Subject: IN> Re: IN- [FICTION] Harvesting Forces >>Well, ArchBeth, that is one way to creep us all out. Like another on the >>list, I don't have any children, and it made me shiver. >>Sidenote: How does/did this version of Lilith feel about either of the >>Slaughters of Infants, either Arthur's or Herod's? > >Why waste Forces? On somewhat of a side-note, are there any rules concerning "ripping" essence (or forces for that matter) out of other? I recall a scene in one sourcebook or another with a debauch of demons wallowing in essence that was evidently from a bunch of (slain) humans. Can ONLY the Impudites take essence out of someone? Couldn't a Celestial be able to just rip essence out of someone? - -Perry Perry M. Lloyd (spook_number_six@hotmail.com) "Remember, false hope is still hope." -Dilbert ______________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 07 Oct 1998 02:03:31 -0400 From: "Matthew D. Gandy" Subject: Re: IN> Re: IN- A couple of questions Homayoun Saleh wrote: > [snip] > > Hmm... this strikes me a cannonically false. I believe a Class 6 > servant (as per main rulebook, pg.45) is "an experienced solider or undead > with 7 forces". Hence for 3 character points you can have one as a level > 1 servant... surely if a 7 force mortal were THAT rare, it wouldn't be so > easy to aquire one... I think you are relying upon a faulty reading of that phrase. It should be interpreted as a servant who is *either* "an experienced Soldier" or an "Undead with 7 Forces", *not* "an experienced Soldier or Undead, both of which are 7 Forces NPCs". Compare this to the option of the 5 Force mortal with extra character points for skills and the implication of "experienced" in reference to the Soldier balances nicely against that 7 Force Undead. After all, Undead are much more likely to have 7 Forces than even an "experienced Soldier". - -Matthew D. "Demiurge" Schweitzer-Gandy "still looking for the face I had before the world was made" ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 07 Oct 1998 02:03:46 -0400 From: "Matthew D. Gandy" Subject: Re: IN> Possible Compendium of rules and Superiors Akumsa@aol.com wrote: > << Any ideas Beth or John? >> > me? I believe Beth McCoy, IN Line Editor, and John Karakash, IN Netrep were being referred to here, actually. On the subject of compendia, however, I have been taking a somewhat different approach than the x-acto strategy: scanning. I've scanned in large chunks of the main book, and parts of almost all the others, and have been compiling hyperlinked Word documents and HTML pages, to create a finished Encyclopedia Symphonica to use on a laptop during gaming sessions. All the good rules stuff, Choir/Band?Superior powers, all the character tidbits and a few miscellaneous Things to Know, or at least have at one's fingertips. It may even get finished before the end of the year, but my Master's thesis is a slightly higher priority at present. We'll see. Yes, I'm insane *and* a glutton for punishment. Next question? And for those that would immediately ask for a copy of such a collocation of In Nomine information, should it ever be finished, no can do. I'll leave it to Beth and John to explain why (not). :) - -Matthew D. "Demiurge" Schweitzer-Gandy "still looking for the face I had before the world is made" ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 6 Oct 1998 23:32:18 -0700 (PDT) From: -=|horsefly|=- Subject: Re: IN> More Lilim craziness On Wed, 7 Oct 1998, Jo Hart wrote: > At 19:34 06/10/98 -0400, you wrote: > >At 2:39 PM -0700 10/6/98, Alloni Kramer wrote: > >>Okay. Let's assume we have Joe Doe (JD) and Gina Lilim (GL). > >>Let's assume they meet, and GL buys him lunch. > >>a) Am I correct in assuming this would qualify as a Need 1? (If not, > >>assume for the future examples some other slightly more difficult feat.) > > > >Note that Geas-levels are the difficulty of *the person whose Need it is* > >to fulfill it *himself*. So if it takes him an hour to come up with > >Lunch for himself, and she just gives it to him... > It'll be worse than this if she has the Lilim of Haagenti attunement. An ugh, that is an EVIL attunement! i like it, but it's positively hideous! > example of a slightly harder task is, assume Joe Doe is a single parent who > needs to find a reliable babysitter for a couple of hours a week so that he > can work late at the office -- if the lilim proves to be such a person, > that would almost certainly count as a decent level of need. If she has > decent celestial forces (and most of them probably do) it won't be hard for > her to detect needs. Then after she has done it for a few weeks she can > even get him to murder his own children. are you kidding? after a few weeks of babysitting the kids and meeting fulfilling all the needs *they* have--staying up late, eating cookies when Daddy isn't home, watching tv programs they're not supposed to (all the while getting a selfish upbringing and a zeal for Freedom which always helps Mommy Lilith)--she can have the kids kill their *father,* causing grief all around as the kids are faced with grief after the act (what kid has a high enough Will to resist what a *really neat* babysitter says nicely?), possible jailtime, infamy for life, and they'll probably be separated into different foster families if anyone adopts them at all. > >( Technically, Geases are additive -- 6 lunches = Geas/6. The GM may > >easily choose to not allow this! > Yeah ;-) The system is broken, just say no to stacking geases. the system is broken in other places. i like stacking Geases just fine, thank-you. [remainder of post snipped] -=|horsefly|=- "Back off, preacher, I don't care if it's Sunday. I ain't no angel, but I never felt better!" --FREEDOM, Alice Cooper ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 7 Oct 1998 02:47:05 EDT From: BillionSix@aol.com Subject: Re: IN> More Delurking I would make the demon of stupidity a Shedite, for the simple and stupid reason that it would be cool to shake a scepter at the person and shout, "Out! Out! Demons of Stupidity!" Yours, Brian A. Rogers ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 7 Oct 1998 02:59:43 EDT From: BillionSix@aol.com Subject: IN> A cute and fuzzy bunny, perhaps? I have a question regarding Novalis. What does her celestial form look like? I have trouble picturing her in anything other than her retro-hippie look (which I like...It's so her!) But being a Cherub her natural form is an animal of some sort. Any ideas? Yours, Brian A. Rogers ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 07 Oct 1998 01:47:38 -0700 From: Stephen Gingell Subject: Re: IN> A cute and fuzzy bunny, perhaps? BillionSix@aol.com wrote: > > I have a question regarding Novalis. What does her celestial form look like? I > have trouble picturing her in anything other than her retro-hippie look (which > I like...It's so her!) But being a Cherub her natural form is an animal of > some sort. Any ideas? > Yours, > Brian A. Rogers Panda comes to my mind, the soft,lovable, anime sort. I tend to think of Novalis as not only peaceful, but just as much a merciful, nurtureing figure, whatever you've done you, I see Novalis as the kind of gal who would gladly welcome even Lucifer into her arms, eveloping him, and telling him it was all-right, like one might a scared and wayward child. So I'm thinking something big rather than something small, something that could support and protect whoever turned to her, in short a big, soft, mother !@#$&ing STRONG, Panda, welcoming all into her arms, yet still more than capable of protecting the beloved from any harm (she is a cherub after all)... Not a bunny, people rag on Novalis for being to soft and fluffy, but in a lot of ways I think she best exemplifies the Christian ideal as I see it, I can't really see Laurence, for all his Catholicism, "turning the other cheek". I think the core of Christianity is the acknoledgement that we are all sinners and can only get to Heaven through mercy, but not to worry, because however bad we are, however flawed, Christ still loves us and will forgive if only we sincerely ask, and that our duty on earth is to love each other, no matter how hard that is, even our enemies, especially our enemies. Novalis seems to best exemplify this with her doctrine of universal love and aceptance, even for demons. Anyway, there's my two cents on the nature of Novalis, and why I think she really is one of the cooler superiors... - -Stephen, who ran a game where two servitors of Gabriel and one of Michael, struggled between thier natures and the orders they got from Novalis... ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 07 Oct 1998 09:58:20 +0100 From: Sam Kington Subject: IN> Intervention weirdness Hi, Had one of the weirdest interventions in the last session of In Nomine I ran. For various reasons the PCs were falling from the sky (from about 5 storeys high or thereabouts), and one of them, wishing a soft landing to avoid spending Essence on a Song of Motion, asks me: "Is there a foam rubber convention in town?" So I roll the luck dice. And get a 111. So Jesus (who was due to turn up anyway that session) appears, standing on a carnival float, on the back of which is a large bouncy castle. Best bit about it all? The carnival float is now an excellent MacGuffin that I'll be using in the next session. Sam - -- INWO Homebrew: http://www.illuminated.co.uk/inwo/ More of my stuff: http://www.illuminated.co.uk/ Not my employer's opinion, no snappy quote ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 07 Oct 1998 10:06:17 +0100 From: Kevin Walsh Subject: Re: IN> Hellacious stats (& Dodge Monsters!) On Tue, Oct 06, 1998 at 04:30:22PM -0400, Homayoun Saleh wrote: > [snip] > > > > I don't generally see this as much of a problem, because in my view, > > people with stats like these are put in place by GMs on the grounds that > > they are there for the sole purpose of killing people. Most of my combat > > characters have a 3/3/3 spread of Forces, because it seems the most > > efficient way of making a combat character. Plus, they don't tend to have > > combat skills higher than 4 because they can't afford it. > > Really? In the campaign in which I play, players tend to specialize a > little more. There were vert few players that choose the 3/3/3 breakdown, > as the system doesn't lend itself well to jack of trading. I think that for a combat character, it's necessary to have a near-equal spread, though I had one character with 3/2/4. In general, I think my most common spread is 2/3/4, closely followed by 3/3/3. A more common > starting set was to have one 4, a 3, and a 2 (so you specialize a little). > The three combat monsters in the party started off at 5/2/2, and we even > had one 1/4/4... 5/2/2 isn't a proper combat character. Such a person has little hope of surviving Celestial combat, which is a much more effective form of getting rid of your enemies. Their Precision most likely sucks, which means that they have little hope of doing anything more constructive in a firefight than surviving, and if they have a reasonable Precision, then they have low Intelligence, and therefore shouldn't have a good chance of reasoning their way around problems. (Low Intelligence should be roleplayed.) And anyone with the Song of Ethereal Entropy, or with Ethereal Form, can either knock them unconscious or run away quickly. Habbalah and Balseraphs can also mess with their minds like playdough, because of their weak Wills. But back to combat monsterdom, with 5 corp forces, 12/8 > is not unreasonable as a set of stats. If you spend the 18 points for > CorpForm/6, LW:Sword/6, Dodge/6, you dont'need a v. high vessel (Lvl1 will > do). So that's 21 points, and you have 15 left pver for other things... > If that Sword isn't Flaming, Summonable or Concealable, it might just be noticed when you're carrying it around. And that's more points you've sunk. And there aren't all that many to start with. Besides, how reasonable a character development path is it? That you're good at very few things, but that you've reached the pinnacle in those slots? I find it hard to take characters like that seriously. I dislike some things about my combat Habbalah. She has no Acrobatics skill, which I want so she could actually fight on broken ground without tripping. She has no Theology or History skill, despite the fact that I know she'd be interested in those subjects. She has no Move Silently, Emote, Knowledge: Psychology or Fast-Talk skills. Her Detect Lies skill is too low. I'd like her to have skills which fit the character background I've made for her, but I can't afford them without cutting out all her Songs, and she wouldn't fit then either because she'd be dead. > I guess it's a different style of play. The gamers I play with tend to > specialize in their abilities... we have Corporeal combat monsters, > Celestial combat monsters, and non-combat monsters. This is probably > because of the autosuccesses rule... > One of my regular characters is a monster...at lockpicking. It's useful, but not usually gamebreaking. And I'd prefer it if I could make her 2.5/3.5/3 rather than 2/3/4, because the stat spread is too disproportionate. > I'm surprised that's not more common since the system encourages it. As > you know, because of the autosucesses rule, concentration of forces > *REALLY* pays off. For example a Corp.Comb.Monster with 6 Corp. forces, > can generally take down *MORE* than two 3 corp force opponents (i.e. 6 I'd bet for my 3/3/3 Habbalah against your Corp.Comb.Monster anyday. One turn to push resonance, and a couple more to shoot at his retreating back. My 2/4/3 Calabite would just do Ethereal Entropy, and my 2/4/3 Seraph would be strongly tempted to go invisible and put a bullet in the back of his head from 6 inches. Kevin Walsh, Balseraph of Nitpicking, Demon of Off-Topic Trivia. - -- "We have been fortunate enough to live to a time when virtue, though it does not triumph, is nevertheless not always tormented by attack dogs." Alexander Solzhenitsyn, the Gulag Archipelago. ------------------------------ End of in_nomine-digest V1 #967 ******************************* The material here is (C) 1997 Steve Jackson Games, Incorporated. All rights reserved.