From owner-in_nomine-digest@lists.io.com Mon Jan 15 06:10:56 2001 Return-Path: Received: from lists.io.com (majordom@lists.io.com [199.170.88.15]) by pyramid.sjgames.com (8.9.3/8.9.3) with ESMTP id GAA12114 for ; Mon, 15 Jan 2001 06:10:56 -0600 Received: (from majordom@localhost) by lists.io.com (8.9.3/8.9.1a) id GAA23943 for in_nomine-digest-outgoing; Mon, 15 Jan 2001 06:11:01 -0600 Date: Mon, 15 Jan 2001 06:11:01 -0600 Message-Id: <200101151211.GAA23943@lists.io.com> From: owner-in_nomine-digest@lists.io.com (in_nomine-digest) To: in_nomine-digest@lists.io.com Subject: in_nomine-digest V1 #2020 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 Monday, January 15 2001 Volume 01 : Number 2020 In this digest: Re: IN> A thought on Superior Remnants Re: IN> January 13, 2001 IN> Mistletoe Arrows IN> The Song of Waters Re: IN> The Song of Waters IN> The origin of Kronos Re: IN> GURPS In Nomine (feedback) Re: IN> GURPS In Nomine (feedback) IN> January 14, 2001 (ML) Re: IN> GURPS In Nomine (feedback 2) Re: IN> The origin of Kronos Re: IN> GURPS In Nomine (feedback) Re: IN> Can it really be that easy? Re: IN> January 14, 2001 Word of Probability (was Re: IN> GURPS In Nomine (feedback 2)) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Sun, 14 Jan 2001 17:09:29 -0800 (PST) From: Michael Walton Subject: Re: IN> A thought on Superior Remnants - --- The Mage wrote: > the > odds of a Superior losing *all* their Forces, or losing all > their > Celestial Forces and being caught without a vessel, are > actually kind > of slim (I'm acting on the assumption that Superiors have LOTS > of > Forces). Therefore, there may be one or two Superior Remnants > floating around. Unlikely, as Superiors can only be battled effectively by other Superiors -- and a being that old and powerful is certain to "ride its kills" to make sure that the target is really dead. Superiors are also smart enough to retreat if they feel themselves in danger of being taken down, so the only way to kill one is to weaken them a bit and then hit them with a single, devastating attack. Of course, an attack that powerful will at the very least severely weaken the attacker. That's why Raphael died in the process of killing Legion and why Belial was able to take down Oannes after (s)he killed Vephar. None of which says that your scenario is impossible, however. It's just unlikely. There was even a post on this list a while back that concerned the Remnants of Legion and Raphael. If you ask _real_ nice, I'm sure that the author will be happy to send it to you. ===== Michael Walton, #9805-068 "If you want someone to take off their armor, you must first put down your sword." __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Get email at your own domain with Yahoo! Mail. http://personal.mail.yahoo.com/ ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 14 Jan 2001 17:12:37 -0800 (PST) From: Michael Walton Subject: Re: IN> January 13, 2001 - --- Maurice Lane wrote: > Servitor Attunement (Creation, Archaic) > > Sing Back the Sun Oh, yeah, Uriel would've been livid about this one. I can't see Dominic liking it much, either. Gabriel, on the other hand... ===== Michael Walton, #9805-068 "If you want someone to take off their armor, you must first put down your sword." __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Get email at your own domain with Yahoo! Mail. http://personal.mail.yahoo.com/ ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 14 Jan 2001 17:15:10 -0800 (PST) From: Michael Walton Subject: IN> Mistletoe Arrows - --- EDG wrote: > Mistletoe Arrows (Artifact) These are cool. And what the Aesir would do to get them back - -- oh, yeah, serious adventure seed! ===== Michael Walton, #9805-068 "If you want someone to take off their armor, you must first put down your sword." __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Get email at your own domain with Yahoo! Mail. http://personal.mail.yahoo.com/ ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 14 Jan 2001 20:37:31 -0500 From: "Charles Phipps" Subject: IN> The Song of Waters The Song of Water The Song of Oannes was a Song that was used by the Superior supposadly to cause the great flood and bring down the Wrath of God which eliminated the darkness from the Grigori's taint upon the Earth. The song has fallen into disuse with the fall of Vephar and his Master but a number of servitors of Wind, Fire (ironically), Stone, Judgement, and Flowers preserve the power for usage in modern nights. Corporeal This power allows with the expenditure of one essence for a man to be able to manipulate 100 yards of water for every point of essence spent. This can be used to make it rain in the middle of a desert, to cause a tidal wave, to part the waters of certain seas to allow the hebrews to pass and other similar uses. An additional hundred yards can be added for each point of essence expended. The Songs effect lasts for an hour. Ethereal This power is quite literally the Song of Baptism as it causes the Waters poured on a person to wash away sin and disturbance and more properly demonic influence. A victem baptised with this power has any taint from Celestial intervention (song usage, geas, attunement, and mental resonance work) to be washed away with an expenditure of a point of essence per use wiped away and a sucessful resisted will check. The Songs effect is permanent. Celestial This power is one of the most feared of demons and to a lesser extent angels as it causes water to be "blessed" and become baneful like acid to Soldiers, Hellsworn, Sorcerors, Ethereals, and Celestials of the "other" side like acid. The power of the effect is done by check digits and can make even the lowest ammount of water deadly to opposing symphonically aware beings. For every quart of water effected one essence must be spent. Essence Requirement: Varies Degree of Disturbance: The Check Digit - -Charlemagne The Hunger site Help Sudanese refugees by making a donation to the "Bridge of Hope" fund 1800-424-8644 ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 14 Jan 2001 17:54:28 -0800 (PST) From: Michael Walton Subject: Re: IN> The Song of Waters - --- Charles Phipps wrote: > The Song of Water Interesting... but check out the Liber Canticorum on this one. ===== Michael Walton, #9805-068 "If you want someone to take off their armor, you must first put down your sword." __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Get email at your own domain with Yahoo! Mail. http://personal.mail.yahoo.com/ ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 14 Jan 2001 19:25:04 -0900 From: The Mage Subject: IN> The origin of Kronos DISCLAIMER: This is probably extremely non-canon, and if I don't miss my guess, it's probably already been at least partially resolved in some supplement or other. With that said, here's my take on the origin of Kronos. * * * Yves watched, a sigh escaping his immortal lips. Even he could never have foreseen this. Slowly, he shook his head. Lucifer. Free will gone bad. He could feel the Symphony twisting around him even as he watched Michael throw the Morningstar from the gates. Something... new. Something different from what he, Yves, had always known. Like Destiny, but... not. Yves whispered softly. He *Named*. "Fate." The word reverberated throughout the Symphony. "Reverberated" did not begin to do justice to the effect, though. If such things had existed then, it could have been compared to a tone-deaf teenager strumming on a badly-tuned electric guitar, connected to a massive amp and a bank of speakers that would have put Kiss to shame. Yves sighed again. Unpleasant, but necessary. It was then that the second oldest being in Creation felt something twisting inside *himself*. A single tear fell from his angelic eye. It had come to this, something even Yves could never have known. He raised his head, and his eyes caught an angel, an Ofanite of Gabriel's, burning with unholy fury as it Fell from the skies. These were desperate times, and they called for desperate measures. He looked straight ahead, and again he Named. "Kronos." Instantly, he was looking himself in the eye, and in that moment, he saw all the darkest possibilites for the perfect Symphony, all the pain and anger and hatred that was to come. The things that were no longer part of himself, but now something different. The other Yves began to change, the darkness within him beginning to spread to his features. The face that reflected purest kindness and wisdom contorted in rage. Before the newly-created Kronos, lord over Destiny's darker half, twisted reflection of a shining form, Fell, Yves looked him in the eye and whispered, "I'm sorry." In a moment, he was gone. And somewhere in Heaven, the oldest of Archangels cried. * * * The theory here is that when Lucifer fell, Yves *had* to create Kronos out of himself to prevent his *own* Fall. This, to me, explains why Kronos is not really a Balseraph, but the same type of being Yves is, only Fallen (mentioned in the GURPS conversion, but absent from the original core rules). Furthermore, in my campaign Yves and Kronos together represent a link to the mind of God. That is, Yves is not omniscient now, but WAS before the Fall, and had to sacrifice that when evil came into being in order to save his own soul. Basically, anything Yves doesn't know, Kronos will, and vice-versa (there will of course be overlapping areas in their knowledge). Kronos is not aware of this, but Yves is. As I said, this is pretty non-canon, and for all I know may have already been explained somewhere else. Still, I like it. :) If you have any questions or comments, well, you know where to send 'em. - -Kevin ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 15 Jan 2001 04:20:40 From: "Perry Lloyd" Subject: Re: IN> GURPS In Nomine (feedback) [GURPS Attributes] > >A friend o mine says that reflects what the system placed importance >upon. > >The basic attributes depend on what's considered important. He's a WW >fan > >and sites the "equal" physical/mental/social spread as evidence that it > >considers social interaction to be much more important than GURPS, > >obviously. > >Yes and no. It's more of a system philosophy thing, I suspect, knowing >SJ. GURPS attributes are supposed to be things *intrinsic* to the >character, and social stuff like status is generally *extrinsic*, which >is one of the things he wanted advantages for in the system. Hrm. As a student of psychology, I've often wondered to what extent Charisma and other social attributes are inherent or learned. >There *is* some combat-bias in the system, partly because SJ is a >wargamer at heart, still, I believe. Ha ha ha, cool. > >>So it's a resonance rider, not an additional > >>"with a touch" kind of thing. Check out Mercurians of Trade, who also > >>get a rider of probably similiar utility -- they have a +100% >enhancement > >>to their resonance cost, which totals 30 points. > > > >Well, it may be a "rider" but if it's a +100% anyway, it may as well be a > >seperate ability that's tied to another. I dunno. A sticky part of my >way > >of doing it that the base lilim resonance's point cost will be altered > >because of the linking of the powers (which is kinda wacky because [lilim >of > >yves attunement] actually acts an overall limitation, when combinded with > >Yves dissonance condition.) > >Limitation? No -- Yves' people get dissonance for sending someone toward >their fate, intentionally or not. (Which means they need to be cautious, >which suits Yves' style quite well, I think.) *Knowing* which will happen >if the Need is fulfilled is a definite plus for the Lilim. I stand corrected, having read the new writeup of Yves' dissonance condtion. :/ >---- [Attributes and Essence Control levels as Typical Rewards] However, I note that there's a typo in the draft > >>there that eliminated the words "Essence Control" after "an additional > >>attribute level and a level of ", so I'm not sure what the final > >>version reads. > > > >Nope. Only the additional attribute level (which, to me, connects >directly > >to Essence Pool, since its limited by HT.) > >Argh. I need to file errata on that, then. Glad to be of service. :) > >I'm currently hoping that I made the right decision in granting the > >under-aggressive Cherub of Protection the Boxing skill. Boxing is an art > >that requires a great deal of assertion, so maybe it'll help things. > >I wouldn't count on it, since character aggressiveness is usually a >*player* trait. I'm well aware of this, but I also have a hunch that the *player* wishes to learn to be more assertive. So, this may help a little. > >>Actually, I was referring to the HT limit on Essence Control. "Native" > >>characters don't have any limits on Power Investiture that I recall, >other > >>than the fact that it costs a fair number of points. > > > >Yes, yes it does. And it's in no way shape or form worth it unless you >have > >a LOT of songs in a particular realm. > >As a confirmed point-optimizer, I'll point out that Songs are M/VH, so a >generic +1 for 10 points becomes a net win after you have only 2 Songs in >the realm, if you intend to get them at a halfway-high level. Hrm. True. Of course, only, like, one of the group has 3 or more songs in any one particular realm, IIRC, but you make an excellent point nonetheless. [Power Investiture and the -5 Corp/Ethe Penalty] >If you lifted the -5, yes, all the Songs would be at decent levels for >a single point, and yes, then PI would be relatively worthless. However, >the -5 was introduced to simulate the relatively high failure rate of >Songs in the IN mechanics, relative to normal attribute-based skills. >Once there's a significant failure rate, there's a reason to either raise >Song levels by buying up the skill level, or through the general Force/PI >boost effect. This explanation I like. :) > >>If Elizabeth's description of the attunement in her message is accurate, > >>I'd probably put the value in the 10-25 point range, and probably toward > >>the higher end, since it allows the Lilim to more easily avoid Yves' > >>dissonance condition. > > > >Huh? I come to the oppositive conclusion. But, as I read the new and > >different GIN dissonance condition, I understand. > > > >Man, so this means that Yves' angels can be screwed over left and right >if > >they do *anything* to help/hinder/affect a human being's life. > >If the GM feels like being nasty about it, yes. It's not all that >different, >really, from the Kyrio dissonance condition in that respect. Uhhh . . . kinda, 'cept that for the Kyrio, they only have to worry about him"self". The Yves servitor has to worry about /everyone else/. > > Even healing > >someone might be dissonant. Holy Cow!! Krono's dissonance condition is >SO > >MUCH KINDER (and only -6 rather than -11). Man, this is /really/ harsh. > >And this actually fits with the general "non-interventionist" stance >that I see Yves as exhibiting. Essentially this rule boils down to >"Don't meddle in human lives unless you're *really* sure you know what >you're doing is ultimately for their good." It /really/ matters what one means by "meddle" SFAICT. For all servitors wiithout Divine Destiny or who'er Lilim of Destiny, they really can't take any action which would affect a mortal's life much. Advice is certainly out of the question (representing Yves' own enigmatic quality), let alone helping/hurting them to achieve /any/ goal. Damn. I believe I shall replace the word "person" with "human" in my copy of GIN, since I believe "person" could possible include Angels and Demons, and IMG they /also/ have Fates and Destinies. > > A 20 point value would be a +66% enhancement to > >>the Symphonic Knowledge part of resonance, which sounds reasonable to >me. > >>I could also see going with a +50% (15 points total). +100% (30 points) > >>seems too high to me. > > > >Where's the +50% versus +100% coming from? You guys just guessing here? > >Yes. All point values tend to be *someone's* guesses -- playtesters >very rarely comment on point costs, I've noticed. Ok, I guess I meant, "are you basing this guess on a scale of some sort. Which you appear to discuss below. I generally look both >at the percent value and the absolute point value, and try to pick >something >that seems relatively sane for both. In this case, a +100% enhancement >seems high to me since it's the equivalent of the cost of an entire new, >general Symphonic Knowledge, and the effect here strikes me as less >valuable >than that. Hrm. Okay. Of course, I did the same thing, taking cost of an entirely new, general Symphonic Knowledge, and b/c the effect is less valuable than that, slapped it with a -20% Only when using Resonance Modifier. But, I suppose that this would also require the +66% no roll required as well as Linking enchancement for /both/ powers. Yeah, I'll figure it as a tack-on to the Lilim resonance, probably a +50%. - -Perry perrylloyd@hotmail.com pl312993@oak.cats.ohiou.edu http://www.geocities.com/llloyd.geo "And that's the hardest thing for a human being to do - be wrong. Do you know that people would rather die than be wrong?" - --from A Matter For Men by David Gerrold _________________________________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free E-mail from MSN Hotmail at http://www.hotmail.com. ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 15 Jan 2001 04:49:51 From: "Perry Lloyd" Subject: Re: IN> GURPS In Nomine (feedback) >[Destiny/Fate dissonance] >Because the rules of the Game are different for angels and demons: angels >are (in theory) non-interventionist except to counter the demonic >influence; >demons, however, think of humans as fun toys, to be played with until they >break, and then are tossed away. Ah, like Christmas. > >With little to reflect this except the "flashes of insight" to which I >see > >is assigned NO point value GINpg106. > >As far as I know, that's "fluff text" with no real mechanics intended >in the original IN (except maybe that Divine Destiny is common?). Holy Cow, I completely overlooked that in the original. Grrrrrr.... I /need/ to raise my Perception. > > I mean, why not the same cost as > >Danger Sense? > >Because there's no mechanics involved in the main IN version. Because they're no mechanics to support it? :) I envision: Symphonic Knowledge: inherent knowledge of a specific aspect of the Symphony as determined by GM, Unconscious Only (-20%) Total Cost 24pts And just tack it onto the cost to be a Servitor of Yves, bringing total servitor cost to a whopping 17pts. This, in my mind, is wholly appropriate. > >> Now, if the > >>angel whipped out the Great Whacking Flaming Sword and cut down the >demon > >>driver in front of them all, causing Little Jimmy to renounce religion >and > >>become a serial killer... > > > >But that couldn't happen, because Little Jimmy's Fate is tied to >occurances > >that happen in the Symphony *w/o* Celestial interferance, no? > > > >Damn, I've painted myself into an intellectual corner. By this logic, it > >would *impossible* for a celestial to nudge someone towards thier Fate. > > > >Unless a "nudge" isn't enough of Disturbance to count as "celestial > >intervention" > >My take on this is that you can't *force* a human either way (even if >you can apply force that ought to have that effect); the Symphony itself >tends to apply a rebound effect. (I.e., think "karma"....) So pushing >someone one way or the other tends to require more subtle influences, >such as providing a good/bad example, or constantly putting temptation >in the human's path (for a demon), or maybe just suggesting the right >notion to the human at the right time. Get too blatant, and *whong*, >the Symphony self-corrects, possibly by a fortuitous path-crossing >by someone on the Other Side. (Generally this is more likely with >Fate demons than Destiny angels, at least partly due to the dissonance >conditions.) > >At least, that's how I'm handling it in my campaign. In one case, a Fate >Habbalite pushed a Lilim under Geas to Fate too hard in what she asked of >her (to help enslave an underage girl in a prostitution ring, to keep >the girl from growing up to be an important biomedical researcher); said >Lilim was then sort of pushed toward her Destiny as a result. (And >eventually ratted on the Fate Habbalite to her angel friends, thus >partially >negating the Punisher's bad work there, too.) This seems to indicate to me that the likelihood of incurring Dissonace as a servitor of Yves would be nigh-impossible to do knowingly, if any overly direct, deliberate, and seemingly likely to succeed attempt would result in the Symphony "pushing back" >The whole Fate/Destiny thing is a very tricky problem for the GM to >handle right. I'd generally just look at the actions involved, and >the intent, and the probable logical consequences, and give the angel >the benefit of the doubt in the outcome. Intent? Intent??? But to do something /unknowingly/ would mean a serious *lack* of intent, man. In the above case, yes, I'd >probably rule that any reasonable action that stopped the bus without >too much psychological trauma to the passengers would be essentially >just restoring the situation to the proper course. As I may. >Generally, I wouldn't whap a Destiny/Fate servitor with dissonance >unless I felt they were either being too sloppy, or had ignored hints >that I'd dropped. (And I tend to drop hints on players pretty hard if >they don't seem to be seeing them.) Ha ha ha, even without the Common Sense advantage? :P > >>If the teller was a collector of rare monies, and pocketed the stuff > >>and got caught before he slipped extra money back, therefore pushing > >>him towards something like, "Die an obscure migrant worker and petty > >>thief"... Well, maybe the Destiny Servitor had better quickly review > >>what he did recently and work to fix it. > > > >So I imagine that, though its not stated, the Servitor of Destiny might >be > >able to remove the Dissonance by "reversing" the effects of the direct > >action he took? > >In many cases, undoing an action that caused dissonance tends to make it >go away. I'd be inclined to apply that unstated meta-rule here. As would I. Excellent. :) - -Perry, kfc perrylloyd@hotmail.com pl312993@oak.cats.ohiou.edu http://www.geocities.com/llloyd.geo "And that's the hardest thing for a human being to do - be wrong. Do you know that people would rather die than be wrong?" - --from A Matter For Men by David Gerrold _________________________________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free E-mail from MSN Hotmail at http://www.hotmail.com. ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 14 Jan 2001 21:10:35 -0800 (PST) From: Maurice Lane Subject: IN> January 14, 2001 (ML) Servitor Attunement (Dark Humor) Wuv, Twoo Wuvvv... Kobal 'borrowed' this from Andrealphus. Well, actually, he 'borrowed' the last Servitor of Love who remained, slowly took him apart, and reverse-engineered the Attunement. No loss: the bugger was about to Fall anyway. Those demons with this Attunement may, by spending 8 Essence, cause a human to madly fall in love with the absolutely worst member of the opposite or desired sex possible (who will, at the demon's option, either completely disdain or wholeheartedly encourage the poor schlub's attention. It's all about what's funnier). The human may make a Will Roll to resist: if he or she fails, the effects will last a number of days equal to the Check Digit. All parties affected will try to act in a manner straight out of a bad romance novel, soap opera, romantic swashbuckling film, or whatever cliche comes close to hand ... no matter how badly the cliche clashes with real life. Kobal has recently unleashed this Attunement again: he brings it out whenever he feels (even more than usual) that the Prince of Fate needs to be seriously annoyed. Kronos does not like the suggestion that farce can bring people to their Fates, despite all evidence to the contrary: demons with this Attunement should realize eventually that they're dead men. Hey, it's a poor Joke that has only one target... ;) Moe ===== In Nomine stuff: http://www.stormloader.com/users/moelane/innomine.html Last updated 11/25/00 (this is usually way out of date) __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Get email at your own domain with Yahoo! Mail. http://personal.mail.yahoo.com/ ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 15 Jan 2001 05:22:00 From: "Perry Lloyd" Subject: Re: IN> GURPS In Nomine (feedback 2) > >Second Round of Feedback: > > > >First off, just about all of my group is converted now. Pt totals ranged > >from 750 to about 1000. Attributes were a major wrench in that (both >Corp 4 > >Forces characters were those who soared about 1000), but you knew that > >already. > >Yeah, I expected converted characters to tend to run to higher point >totals than "natives"; this is partly compensated for by the wider >flexibility of a native character design. Which is fine. One major snag I ran into last Thursday is what happens when a beginning celestial has servitor attunement. The 10pts for a Servitor Attunement suck down a little less than a third of the total character points. So, when I converted the Mercurian of Stone, his IN 5pts Choir Attunement was GURPS 30pts, and his IN 10pt servitor Attunement was still only 10pts in GURPS. I had always had a feeling that some of those Servitor Attunements weren't really worth twice as much as the choir attunements . . . -sigh- Kinda weird though, and I'm sure you'd forseen it. > >Secondly, I love the page lay-out of the book, seeing a layout using In > >Nomine's boxes rather than GURPS's sidebars is just really, really nice. > >Credit SJ for that one. THANK YOU, STEVE!!! (I think it was also a response to the need to >get more text on a page without making it too ugly -- the book ran >*quite* long in wordcount.) The manuscript was originally written to >"normal" GURPS page formats, more or less. There were some layout >issues, primarily with the Superiors section, which going to the IN >page layout fixed neatly. Nifty-keen. :) > >Thirdly, I have the impression that the players are pleased to be making >a > >lot more of their rolls on a more regular basis. So, that's good >(though, > >it's a bit extreme in the case of our GURPS Perception 26 Bright Lilim, > >who's regularly making critical successes with her Resonance.) > >Ouch. I knew that this was going to happen with some high-stat characters, >but was hoping it wouldn't be common. All the fixes I looked at seemed >too complex. Basically, it was a problem of the stat curves in the >two systems clashing again. Hey, whatch'a dunno do, ya know? > >My questions on artifacts would be: > > > >What modifer is used to give a normal item of "Super Equipment" the >ability > >to leave the Corporeal realm with the Celestial? > >If it's a celestial artifact (and normal IN "super equipment" would be, >as far as I can think of cases), then there's no specific point cost -- >that's just normal for the genre. And for cross-genre settings? >If it were an item of "super equipment" only available in the corporeal >realm (i.e., a corporeal artifact), I might be tempted to give it a >small Accessibility limitation "Only usable by one vessel in the corporeal >realm". Oh, yeah, that's right, Corporeal Artifacts Corporeal Only Ethereal Artifacts Ethe and Corp Only Cele artifacts all three. I always frickin forget about that. Well, I guess that makes it worth it to spend the extra 3 INpts to also have your Ethereal Sword skill/6 be a Reliquary/1. Then, it's usuable as a Celestial Weapon, right? > > Or is there no effective > >point difference in the object because of something else, such as perhaps > >this ability is innate in Celestials/Ethereals or something akin to the >fact > >that there is no "cost" for a human to be exist in celestial form in the > >afterlife (GINpg19). > >I don't entirely follow what you're asking here. Well, humans don't have to purchase the Celestial form advantage since they normally can't return to the Corp realm at all. A celestial artifact, however, can. So, shouldn't it have some points invested in it reflecting the fact that it can exist on /multiple planes/ just as the character does? Like, Insubstantial? > >Why is it more expensive (pts-wise) for a relic to hold 2 points to >Essence > >to *only* power its Song than for a reliquary that holds /and generates/ >2 > >points of Essence a day? Heck, a Reliquary/6 only costs 3pts apparently! > >For 10pts (the equivalent of Ambidexterity or Night Vision) a Celstial >may > >own a jacket with 10 level/1 reliquaries and 5 level/2, more than enough >to > >seriously imbalance a game. Am I missing something here? > >I'd have to go look at the rules in detail, which I can't right now. >There may indeed be a bug there somewhere -- the artifacts costing >section wasn't looked at in a lot of detail, generally. > >They *shouldn't* be that cheap, almost certainly. Urm . . . well . . . GINpg160 "It costs 10 Essence for every point of Essence a reliquary holds." GINpg169 ". . . each character point "buys" 20 Essence of Enchantment." Therefore 3cp buys a Reliquary/6. :) GINpg160 "If a relic allows the /performance/ ofa Song, it may /contain/ - but not generate - Essence, up to the maximum amount of Essence the Song requires (see p. 171). Enchanting such a relic requires (Song's performance cost)x100 Essence, and the relic will be able to contain the minimum amount of Essence needed to fuel its Song. Additional points of Essence stored, up to the maxmimum the Song requires for initial casting, cost 100 Essence each." > >Fifthly, Soul Damage: "make an aging roll (as per B83), substituting Will > >for HT. Thus, his attributes may be reduced! . . . They also roll for > >'aging' of their levels of Power Investiture, seperately for each realm" > >Some of my PCs have Will 18. They're going to fail hardly any of their >Will > >rolls. In IN proper, celestials were guarenteed to lose Forces, and > >therefore attribute levels, in Celestial combat; so I see this as being a > >/significant/ change. > >Comments? > >Yes, this is probably a significant change. However, there was no easy >mechanic for this, and I didn't want to create a new one from whole cloth. >The aging mechanics were actually pretty similar, though not totally >identical. > >Don't forget that a 17 or 18 is *always* a failure, so there's always >a 2% chance of an attribute loss *for each of the four attributes and >three Power Investitures*. Multiply .98^7, and find there's a pretty >good chance *something* will get lost. 0.98 x 7 = 6.86% 2% x 7 = 14% Add to that that a GURPS IN >character's Soul Hits are generally going to be a lot lower than those >of an IN character with a similarly-maxed-out Will, and it evens out >a bit. I don't claim there results are generally the same, though. >The decoupling of Forces from the system strikes again.... - -sigh- yeah. > >Seventhly, a note about converting Ethereal Artifacts. The conversion >notes > >on GINpg213 basically just say to use the item generation rules on page >169, > >without mentioning the fact that characters who already possess 8 or more > >points in a physical skill are NOT going to get the large bonus for their > >Ethereal Artifact/6 if they're only putting an additional 16pts into the > >skills, as the Skills conversion table on GINpg206 directly suggests. > >(knowingly or not :) > >Yeah, well, the skills are also higher to start with. Win some, lose >some.... :) >There are lots of detailed holes in the conversions, when the systems >collide. Generally the GM needs to be lenient in the conversion if the >character is losing something due to one of these synergistic reactions >between different parts of the conversion rules. It's too late at night >for >me to look at the specifics of this case and try to decide if it's >really broken or not. Ok. :) >As a general rule, the conversion process tends to work best with >"average" characters, and produces progressively worse results with >severely one-sided or high-power characters. Again, I didn't see any >good way around this -- fix the extreme cases and the "typical" cases >break, or at least look very wimpy. Which is, IMO, what was happening with humans in In Nomine. Also, GURPS tends to start >producing screwy results if you push the mechanics too far past the >high end of human norm, so I tended to weaken the more powerful end >of the scale deliberately, relative to what happened to the more >middle-of-the-road points. Cool. - -Perry, Kyriotate of Flowers serving Creation (kfc) perrylloyd@hotmail.com pl312993@oak.cats.ohiou.edu http://www.geocities.com/llloyd.geo "And that's the hardest thing for a human being to do - be wrong. Do you know that people would rather die than be wrong?" - --from A Matter For Men by David Gerrold _________________________________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free E-mail from MSN Hotmail at http://www.hotmail.com. ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 14 Jan 2001 23:33:57 -0600 From: "Tafka J." Subject: Re: IN> The origin of Kronos At 7:25 PM -0900 01/14/01, The Mage wrote: > With that said, here's my take on the origin of Kronos. [SNIP] Nice!! The only thing I can see you might want to consider in the vignette is to explain why Kronos didn't show up until about 1,100 years ago. (Theories state that Lucifer held onto Kronos for sometime longer than this, but again an explination of sorts might come in handy.) > This, to me, explains why Kronos is not really a Balseraph, but the same > type of being Yves is, only Fallen Kronos is that, exactly. The same as Yves, but not Yves. > (mentioned in the GURPS conversion, but absent from the original core rules). It's not in the Core Rules, but it is in Revelations II: Heaven & Hell. That Kronos is a Balseraph is more Bal-Prop spread to muddy the waters somewhat. [Yves-Kronos link] Hrmn. Interesting. Though I might consider the fact that Kronos does indeed know that he shares things with Yves. Though he may not be vocal about them for the same reasons the Old Man isn't. Be seeing you, - - Tafka J. = Balseraph of Fate, Marquis of Delusions of Grandeur # http://www.thrifty.net/~tafkaj/in-nomine/ ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 15 Jan 2001 05:24:09 From: "Perry Lloyd" Subject: Re: IN> GURPS In Nomine (feedback) > >Right -- but without knowing it was fateful. > ><no >suffer from this /unknowing/ effect in the least.>> > >Well, they do suffer from it--the just don't suffer /dissonance/ from it. > >"...but Kronos will be severely displeased." I think, all things >considered, I'd rather be a Servitor of Destiny and have the dissonance. ha ha ha, too true, Kish. It sucks to return to Hell and see Kronos /waiting/ for you with a fnord in his hand . . . - -Perry, kfc perrylloyd@hotmail.com pl312993@oak.cats.ohiou.edu http://www.geocities.com/llloyd.geo "And that's the hardest thing for a human being to do - be wrong. Do you know that people would rather die than be wrong?" - --from A Matter For Men by David Gerrold _________________________________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free E-mail from MSN Hotmail at http://www.hotmail.com. ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 15 Jan 2001 05:53:30 From: "Perry Lloyd" Subject: Re: IN> Can it really be that easy? >>So trying to geas someone who has a mental problem -- brain damage, >>Alzheimer's, etc. -- might also fail, if the person didn't remember >>that the favor had been done? > > >That would be amusing if the lilim geased someone who was drinking, and >went >on to get so drunk that the entire evening became a blur :) > >(Am imagining angels following lilim around so as to get their victims >blind >drunk.) YES! Afarof the Lilim slayer rises with vengeance and hard liquor!! - -Perry, Kfc perrylloyd@hotmail.com pl312993@oak.cats.ohiou.edu http://www.geocities.com/llloyd.geo "And that's the hardest thing for a human being to do - be wrong. Do you know that people would rather die than be wrong?" - --from A Matter For Men by David Gerrold _________________________________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free E-mail from MSN Hotmail at http://www.hotmail.com. ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 15 Jan 2001 06:19:43 From: "Perry Lloyd" Subject: Re: IN> January 14, 2001 >The Song of Kites > > >Corporeal: The Corporeal Song of Kites allows a limited sort of flying. It >can be used in two ways. > >The first variation allows the user to glide from a height to the ground >(or a lower height), as though he had patagia; the gliding effect lasts for >(check digit) rounds. This is particularly useful when leaping from tall >buildings or when a Song of Motion conks out in mid-air. Or taking advantage of updrafts at BBQs!!! :) >The second variation allows the character to suddenly fly aloft, as though >he were himself a kite being buffeted by a strong wing. He is tethered to >the ground by an incorporeal tie (CD x Corporeal Forces) yards long; this >tie cannot be severed, and at the end of the Song (after CD rounds) the >tether "winds itself up", slowly drawing the user back to the ground. Cool, turning the (N/D)PC into a "human" weather balloon!!! :) >Ethereal: Ever heard the expression "Go fly a kite!"? The Ethereal Song of >Kites embodies that; its effects cause a target to suddenly believe that a >certain topic, event, place, or person is the single least important >example of its kind /ever/, and to ignore it completely in favor of other >pursuits, for (CD) hours. The target may resist with a Will roll. Dude!! This is frickin' AWESOME! It's like the Ethereal Song of Attraction only for IDEAS. >Celestial: The Celestial Song of Kites allows the user to lighten the >burden on another's soul. For (CD) hours, the target is relieved of all >negative stress, and even when the Song wears off, the stress comes back >gradually, taking another (CD x the singer's Celestial Forces) rounds to >settle fully again. Nice. >For an additional 7 Essence, this Song actually allows the singer to >reverse the course of Fate; for the duration of the Song, if the target had >already achieved his Fate, he is treated as though he had not done so, and >- if he dies within that period - will proceed to eternity as if he had >never reached his Fate. This method does have two major drawbacks, >however: first, if the target /does/ die, the event makes 10 points of >disturbance (as per killing a human) in addition to any disturbance already >generated by the death of the target, and second, in addition to costing 7 >Essence, the user automatically takes a note of dissonance if the target >/does/ die: the cost of meddling with the Symphony. > >Obviously, the Celestial version of the Song is not used much by demons. > >Essence Cost: 2 (3 for Corporeal) >Disturbance: CD + 1 Very nice, EGD. :) - -Perry perrylloyd@hotmail.com pl312993@oak.cats.ohiou.edu http://www.geocities.com/llloyd.geo "And that's the hardest thing for a human being to do - be wrong. Do you know that people would rather die than be wrong?" - --from A Matter For Men by David Gerrold _________________________________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free E-mail from MSN Hotmail at http://www.hotmail.com. ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 15 Jan 2001 22:08:23 +1000 From: "Shane" Subject: Word of Probability (was Re: IN> GURPS In Nomine (feedback 2)) ObIN: I wonder what neat tricks the Word of Probability grants? Especially when you consider that, as a Symphonic Word, it might well encompass everything from the brownian motion of molecules to the quantum fluctuations of the continuum. And then there's the ethereal and celestial realms to the consider... :) On 15 Jan 2001, 5:22, Perry Lloyd wrote: > >Don't forget that a 17 or 18 is *always* a failure, so there's always > >a 2% chance of an attribute loss *for each of the four attributes and > >three Power Investitures*. Multiply .98^7, and find there's a pretty > >good chance *something* will get lost. > > 0.98 x 7 = 6.86% > 2% x 7 = 14% I believe the ^ in "multiply .98^7" means multiply .98 by itself. N^1 = N, N^2 = N x N, N^3 = N x N x N, and so on. So .98^7 = 0.868... It's used in probability computations of this nature - if you've a 2% chance of failure each time you roll, and you roll seven times, then your percentage chance of completely avoiding any failures equals the chance of success to the power of the number of times you take the risk: .98^7, or a bit better than 1 in 8 that something'll be lost. Shane. ------------------------------ End of in_nomine-digest V1 #2020 ******************************** The material here is (C) 2001 Steve Jackson Games, Incorporated. All rights reserved.