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Aron Times
2010-04-18, 08:03 PM
Dominate went through the transition from Masquerade to Requiem virtually unchanged. There are, of course, differences in how dice rolls are resolved, but the discipline itself is identical to its Masquerade version. I'm looking for tips on how to maximize the use of Dominate in Requiem.

Here are the five levels of Dominate:

1. Command - The user speaks a one-word command and the subject obeys.
2. Mesmerize - The user is no longer limited to one word, and can also implant commands that remain dormant until triggered.
3. The Forgetful Mind - The user can modify or restore the target's memory.
4. Conditioning - The user makes the target more suggestible over time.
5. Possession - The user possesses the target's body and gains the benefits and drawbacks of a mortal body.

I'm concerned mostly with Command, Mesmerize, and The Forgetful Mind as these are the ones that require the user to issue verbal commands to the target.

For Command, I was thinking that perhaps hiding it in a statement can give context for the target's actions. One example in a Masquerade book I read involved a vampire asking a cop who pulled her over for speeding to FORGIVE her and let her get off with a warning. Another thing I think might work is to order someone attacking you to HALT or STOP. Yet another would be to get someone holding back information to SPEAK.

Would any of these work, provided they are preceded by a normal statement that gives the Command context?

"I'm sorry, officer, I'm just having a bad day. I just got laid off, and the last thing I need is a fine for speeding. Won't you please FORGIVE me?"

"Put the weapon down, man. We don't have to fight. STOP!"

"I know you're hiding something. It's alright; you can tell me. Now SPEAK.

I'm also looking for tips on how to use Mesmerize and The Forgetful Mind.

PersonMan
2010-04-18, 08:06 PM
It would depend on your DM, but Speak! might get results like "Blah blah you are dominated me oh noooo help I'll never tell you anything."

KillianHawkeye
2010-04-18, 09:02 PM
Personally, I'd rule that a one word command must be fully encapsulated (i.e., specific and understandable) within its single word confines. Meaning that I wouldn't allow you to use context to modify the command, since that is essentially what the higher level version allows you to do. You can, of course, disguise a one word command by speaking an entire sentence around it (so that it may not be obvious to people who overhear you), but only the word itself would carry the power of the command.

Riffington
2010-04-18, 09:19 PM
Personally, I'd rule that a one word command must be fully encapsulated (i.e., specific and understandable) within its single word confines. Meaning that I wouldn't allow you to use context to modify the command, since that is essentially what the higher level version allows you to do. You can, of course, disguise a one word command by speaking an entire sentence around it (so that it may not be obvious to people who overhear you), but only the word itself would carry the power of the command.

That's how it works.
Speak gets speech but no specifics.
Halt and stop and silence are usually pretty good.
Forgive will require some DM decision. She might forgive you or her father - whatever conflict is weighing on her mind most closely.

comicshorse
2010-04-18, 09:22 PM
For Command, I was thinking that perhaps hiding it in a statement can give context for the target's actions. One example in a Masquerade book I read involved a vampire asking a cop who pulled her over for speeding to FORGIVE her and let her get off with a warning. Another thing I think might work is to order someone attacking you to HALT or STOP. Yet another would be to get someone holding back information to SPEAK.


HALT and STOP might be okay as there is pretty much only one thing the person can do. SPEAK could get the guy talking about anything and god knows what would happen if you used FORGIVE, the cop might suddenly forgive his ex-wife for divorcing him :smallsmile:


I'm also looking for tips on how to use Mesmerize and The Forgetful Mind.

These are the importent ones, These are the ones that can save your butt when you've just blown the Masquerade wide open and the Prince is going to have you greeting the sun. Nothing is better than gently modifying the F.B.I. agents memory so he didn't see you throwing a bad guy through a wall and then drinking his blood.
Note also one word commands can be misinterpreted, if a guy is walking towards you shooting, saying HALT may only means he stops walking and doesn't stop shooting. THROW YOUR GUN AWAY can't be misinterpreted

Aron Times
2010-04-18, 09:27 PM
My character actually has Dominate 2. Is there any reason I should bother using Dominate 1 outside of combat?

comicshorse
2010-04-18, 09:33 PM
Tricky, once you get the higher levels Dominate 1 tends to get forgotten in my experience.
FLEE can stop a fight before it starts. But yes generally outside combat Dominate 1 diesn't get much use. BTW ifd the G.M. allows it try VOMIT as a handy fight stopper ( against mortals and werewolves only :smallsmile:)

Set
2010-04-18, 09:49 PM
'Confess' is a better one word option than 'Speak,' IMO. Back in the days of the D&D Command spell, it was something of a game to come up with one-word commands like Expectorate or Defecate that would keep someone busy for more than a round. (Of them, 'Flee' is one of the best, since it takes the advantages of 'Run,' and adds the implicit 'away from me.' Most one-word commands would only take someone out of action for one action, but 'Flee' has the advantage of requiring them a second action to get back to you, if they still want to fight.)

Best use of Forgetful Mind is for gathering long-term resources. Anyone with anything you want suddenly 'remembers' that they owe you a favor, that you have blackmail dirt on them from the time you helped them get rid of the body of that dead hooker, that you saved their life in 'Nam, that you are that Internal Affairs officer investigating their boss which they aren't allowed to tell anyone about, etc., etc.

Mesmerism is a great way to have 'Manchurian Followers' who, at specific times, or in response to specific stimuli, perform certain actions for you. Combined with follow-up with the Forgetful Mind, you can even catch up with them the next night and make them forget that action, while implanting a new 'sleeper' command. Need weapons? Have an officer in charge of a scene 'forgetfully' kipe a few and route them your way, and then forget entirely about it after the fact. Need something done during the day? Find the person who does that, and leave them a suggestion to do that when their watch alarm goes off (and then set their watch alarm to go off at noon, so that the fire department ends up busting into your rivals haven mid-day).

Dominate may be limited in its use on other vampires (at least it was in VtM, due to generation caps), but it's pretty much unlimited in applications on mortals. Anything any person in the city can do, through authority or resources, you can look them in the eye and make them do for you, and then forget all about it later.

Need a little cash? Oh, look at that front page news, about the seemingly squeaky-clean dude who turned out to be embezzling money from his company. He's up there on the stand saying he never did it, and the money was never found, but all of the evidence proves that he *did* do it... I wonder if he's gonna try for an insanity plea?

Gosh, I wonder where all that money went? :)

In my experience, a VtM Tremere that spent his points in Dominate was always vastly more effective than one that wasted his points on all that Thaumaturgy crap. Thaum was a huge point-sink, rarely more useful than a hand-gun, and while people didn't generally scream 'It's a trap!' back in those days, it really was.

Dominate is also an amazing way to drive people nuts (or make them fear that they are losing their minds) by adding memories that aren't real, changing memories that are, deleting past events and leaving 'gaps' that coincide with your own bloody nocturnal activities (convincing them that they have a secret life as a serial killer, perhaps to the point of causing an innocent person to turn themself in and confess to your acts of mayhem!), causing them to flip out in the presence of certain stimuli (effectively giving them phobias or prejudices), etc., etc.

Riffington
2010-04-19, 06:30 AM
In my experience, a VtM Tremere that spent his points in Dominate was always vastly more effective than one that wasted his points on all that Thaumaturgy crap.
Well, Dominate is extremely powerful, particularly levels 2/3. You don't need much more than that [admittedly 5 is shiny], leaving plenty of points for Thaum or whatever.



Thaum was a huge point-sink, rarely more useful than a hand-gun, and while people didn't generally scream 'It's a trap!' back in those days, it really was.
There were some pretty nice rituals. Ward against X, anyone?

hewhosaysfish
2010-04-19, 07:57 AM
Note also one word commands can be misinterpreted, if a guy is walking towards you shooting, saying HALT may only means he stops walking and doesn't stop shooting.

Is "ceasefire" a single word?

This is fun :smallsmile:. If I ever play VtM I'm going to be a mind-controlling-type-vampire. With a thesaurus.

Project_Mayhem
2010-04-19, 08:08 AM
I've a feeling our Storyteller ruled it as one short and simple command, rather than one word. So RUN AWAY was fine, as was SIT THERE, or EAT THIS. That was just a house rule though. Made it more versatile

Riffington
2010-04-19, 08:14 AM
Is "ceasefire" a single word?
As a noun. As a command, it's two.
Surrender, on the other hand :smallamused:

Project_Mayhem
2010-04-19, 08:19 AM
How about "Rötschreck"?

Riffington
2010-04-19, 08:25 AM
How about "Rötschreck"?

Not a command. Frenzy is a command, but few vampires have the capacity to frenzy at will, so that wouldn't be followed either.

Project_Mayhem
2010-04-19, 08:45 AM
Why would Rötschreck as a verb not be a command while sit as a verb would?

Riffington
2010-04-19, 10:46 AM
Why would Rötschreck as a verb not be a command while sit as a verb would?

Rotschreck is a verb? We never used it as such "He went into Rotschreck", or "She entered Rotschreck", never "Oh man you should have seen him; he Rotschrecked all over the place."

If it were a verb, it would be a valid command. But to obey it you'd have to have some special ability to Rotschreck at will; few vampires have this. Furthermore, even if you had this ability (say, you are currently holding a torch and are carefully avoiding looking at it)... you still might not obey because it's a worse-than-suicidal command: vampires are viscerally more afraid of the Rotschreck-inducing object than they are of death.

Kalirren
2010-04-19, 10:53 AM
Seeing how you can always find a language in which some given action a "one-word command" (and this has come up before in my campaigns) I've always interpreted the one-word command rule as allowing only commands that have no direct or indirect object, either explicit or implicit.

So "Halt!" works. So does "Shut up!" On the other hand, "Autodefenestrate!" (i.e. throw yourself out the window) doesn't work because it has a direct object (yourself.) Neither does "Kill him," or "Answer (my question.)" "Confess," while it would go through, would likely get you nowhere because the target could confess to anything irrelevant.

Aron Times
2010-04-19, 11:02 AM
For game balance reasons, I wouldn't allow Frenzy or Rotschreck or Wassail as Commands. Animalism 5 causes the target to start or stop frenzying, and allowing a novice user of Dominate to accomplish what a master user of Animalism could would be terribly unbalanced.

Chen
2010-04-19, 11:04 AM
'
In my experience, a VtM Tremere that spent his points in Dominate was always vastly more effective than one that wasted his points on all that Thaumaturgy crap. Thaum was a huge point-sink, rarely more useful than a hand-gun, and while people didn't generally scream 'It's a trap!' back in those days, it really was.


Dominate up to 3 is good. 4 was almost completely useless due to the whole "they are zombie like" clause and 5 is of course good but annoying to get to. And it was nearly impossible to stay awake during the day anyways.

Thaum though was downright broken in combat at 3 (Path of Blood) along with the ritual that allowed you make blood "coins". Thaum 4 was kind useless but allowed access to Ethereal Passage which was also one of the most broken rituals. Path of creation once you hit 3 was also almost completely broken. Movement of the mind was nice for 4 (to allow flight) and possibly broken combat applications (once you beat someone's willpower roll you could just hold them above the ground and they were completely unable to do anything). And thats only main book resources. If you had access to things like Technomancy Thaum was the be all end all of disciplines.

Project_Mayhem
2010-04-19, 11:39 AM
For game balance reasons, I wouldn't allow Frenzy or Rotschreck or Wassail as Commands. Animalism 5 causes the target to start or stop frenzying, and allowing a novice user of Dominate to accomplish what a master user of Animalism could would be terribly unbalanced.

Yeah, in VtM game balance was pretty much not there. We just accepted it - all vampires who wanted to be good fighters took celerity for example.

OldFart
2010-04-19, 11:51 AM
4 was almost completely useless due to the whole "they are zombie like" clause and 5 is of course good but annoying to get to.It's been a while (it was VtM, not VtR), but IIRC my characters used level 4 Dominate to break the will of mortal "patsys" down to the point where the target numbers for dominate ateempts were a "slam-dunk." They would then use level 5 dominate to achieve "serial immortality" when having to deal with the dangers of a world full of other supernatural critters. I cannot count the times fellow players, to say nothing of NPCs, had thought they had eliminated a rival, only to find out that they had in fact only killed a mortal host, and in reality did not know their foe's actual name, face, location, etc.

Aron Times
2010-04-19, 02:22 PM
It's been a while (it was VtM, not VtR), but IIRC my characters used level 4 Dominate to break the will of mortal "patsys" down to the point where the target numbers for dominate ateempts were a "slam-dunk." They would then use level 5 dominate to achieve "serial immortality" when having to deal with the dangers of a world full of other supernatural critters. I cannot count the times fellow players, to say nothing of NPCs, had thought they had eliminated a rival, only to find out that they had in fact only killed a mortal host, and in reality did not know their foe's actual name, face, location, etc.
This tactic got nerfed bad in Requiem. All of the damage taken by your host's body is transferred to your own. Thus, if you host takes lethal damage, you also take lethal damage. Basically, if your host dies, your character gets forced into torpor due to his injuries.

Anyway, I'm looking for specific examples of Mesmerize and The Forgetful Mind that you guys successfully used ingame.

Chen
2010-04-19, 02:35 PM
It's been a while (it was VtM, not VtR), but IIRC my characters used level 4 Dominate to break the will of mortal "patsys" down to the point where the target numbers for dominate ateempts were a "slam-dunk." They would then use level 5 dominate to achieve "serial immortality" when having to deal with the dangers of a world full of other supernatural critters. I cannot count the times fellow players, to say nothing of NPCs, had thought they had eliminated a rival, only to find out that they had in fact only killed a mortal host, and in reality did not know their foe's actual name, face, location, etc.

I should have clarified that I meant Dominate 4 is really only useful for Dominate 5. Its effectively as if Dominate 5 cost the same as 4+5. There's almost no reason to get 4 on its own.

Didn't Forgetful mind get hit pretty hard in VtR? I seem to recall the difficulty being very high to make drastic changes to memory, unlike in VtM.

Riffington
2010-04-19, 02:38 PM
This tactic got nerfed bad in Requiem.

It didn't need to. In a mortal body, you were less vulnerable - but only in certain ways. The mortal's senses are duller than your own, and she can be spied upon more easily. Discover where she's going and what she's doing, and eventually you can track down her Dominator. Make sure to wait until he's having an "out of body experience" before you pay him a visit.

Note that protection of one's inert body is easier for a Thaumaturge than for the average lick.



Anyway, I'm looking for specific examples of Mesmerize and The Forgetful Mind that you guys successfully used ingame.

Getting someone to do your research/spying for you, without having any idea why. It's a spy who can't betray you even if tortured, because he literally has no idea how.

Blood bond is obviously easy. And especially fun to blood bond a physical vampire or combat ghoul, make him forget about it, then tell him to feel blood-bound when [your target] eventually makes him drink her blood. Quite a surprise to both victims when it turns out the real blood bond is to you.

Creating a false memory, then erasing it. Can be too subtle (your intended target may have no idea the memory was there) - but it's hard to tell that the memory was false when obviously there was major tampering in the form of the erasure.

mostlyharmful
2010-04-19, 02:45 PM
may I recomend reading through the Preacher series... hell, that's even a good tip even if you never do play a vamp with dominate at all.

comicshorse
2010-04-19, 03:39 PM
Posted by Joseph Silver

Anyway, I'm looking for specific examples of Mesmerize and The Forgetful Mind that you guys successfully used ingame.

A particulalrly snotty Toreador got Mesmerized with an overwhelming attraction to one of the Nosferatu. ( and then mercifully had her memory erased)

Aron Times
2010-04-19, 07:47 PM
I'm going to watch Code Geass again for inspiration. I remember one instance where Lelouch implants a suggestion on a Britannian mecha pilot to shoot what I think was a blank at Rolo so Lelouch can step in and save him, leading him to believe that Lelouch actually cared about him.

Semidi
2010-04-19, 08:20 PM
Successful uses of Mesmerize:
(dominate in italics)
"For instance, allowing oneself to ride the wave during the prince's announcements would be extremely bad.

Sir so-and-so, you will be prohibited from the use of claws during the duel. If you do so you will lose.

Command:

STRIPTEASE!

Disrobe!

Run!

Leave!

Fun for the whole family.

Forgetful mind:

I mostly just use it to cover up feeding and breaches of the masquerade. Occassionally to clean up mesmerism and to get information from someone.

dragoonsgone
2010-04-19, 09:13 PM
Sleep would be good I think.
Die - Doubt it would work.

Chen
2010-04-20, 08:00 AM
Successful uses of Mesmerize:
(dominate in italics)
"For instance, allowing oneself to ride the wave during the prince's announcements would be extremely bad.

Doesn't this imply they are already frenzied? Just letting dominate cause a frenzy by telling the person to, is broken.


Sir so-and-so, you will be prohibited from the use of claws during the duel. If you do so you will lose.

I was pretty sure the person had to understand exactly what you were telling them. Not obfuscating it in a sentence like that. That would usually lead to some misinterpretation I'd say. Plus in the above example "use of claws during the duel" is not an actual directive to do anything (due to the word "of").

Semidi
2010-04-20, 09:20 AM
Doesn't this imply they are already frenzied? Just letting dominate cause a frenzy by telling the person to, is broken.



I was pretty sure the person had to understand exactly what you were telling them. Not obfuscating it in a sentence like that. That would usually lead to some misinterpretation I'd say. Plus in the above example "use of claws during the duel" is not an actual directive to do anything (due to the word "of").

You're wrong on the first part; riding the wave is an act brought on by the individual. They must decide to ride the wave, thus dominating them and telling them to ride the wave would be as legitimate as dominating them and telling them to kill someone. I am taking away their free will as a directed frenzy is willed by the vampire.

Second part you're correct, I misremembered what I had said, what it should be is:

You may not use claws during the duel.

Riffington
2010-04-20, 09:29 AM
In 2nd edition, at least, Dominate does not affect your emotions.
You can't make someone love someone, be attracted to someone, frenzy or ride a frenzy, or otherwise feel.
You can make someone verbally forgive, which might plausibly help them emotionally forgive. You can certainly make someone use claws during a duel, but note that you'll need 5 successes if it's understood that breaking the rules will result in final death.

This distinction may have been lost in other editions; couldn't say.

Semidi
2010-04-20, 09:49 AM
My experience with masquerade is limited to larp rules where we use rock, paper, scissors and the like so I can't comment on that.

However, this question is about Requiem Riding the Wave is just one choosing to goad the beast into a frenzy. There's nothing emotional about it. The real hope in this case is that one fails and goes into a general frenzy.

Chen
2010-04-20, 10:57 AM
You're wrong on the first part; riding the wave is an act brought on by the individual. They must decide to ride the wave, thus dominating them and telling them to ride the wave would be as legitimate as dominating them and telling them to kill someone. I am taking away their free will as a directed frenzy is willed by the vampire.

I had thought VtM you couldn't just choose to frenzy. Either that or you needed Instinct instead of Self-Control to do so. It may be different in VtR.

Either way, allow dominate to cause someone to frenzy is not reasonable, considering it takes Animalism 4 (or was it 5?) to do pretty much ONLY that.

Riffington
2010-04-20, 11:05 AM
I had thought VtM you couldn't just choose to frenzy. Either that or you needed Instinct instead of Self-Control to do so. It may be different in VtR.

Either way, allow dominate to cause someone to frenzy is not reasonable, considering it takes Animalism 4 (or was it 5?) to do pretty much ONLY that.

In VtM you can't just choose, and it's a feeling, and for both reasons it's not susceptible to Dominate. Don't know about VtR.
So in VtR, is riding the wave a *choice*? Like "Oh, I'll go to the store, pick up some eggs, then ride the wave all the way home"? Or do you actually have to really work yourself up? Cuz Dominate won't really get you worked up - it'll just make you give a half-assed attempt. If it's like a switch though in VtR then I don't see any reason you couldn't Dominate the person to flip that switch.

comicshorse
2010-04-20, 12:29 PM
Posted by Semidi

Second part you're correct, I misremembered what I had said, what it should be is:

You may not use claws during the duel.

Hmm, I see problems with that. Partially because that's probably going to get the guy doing it killed so you need to get 5 successes but mainly because you have to make the Dominate clear and precise which means for it to stand out from the rest of the sentence you are going to have to empathise it. Which means anybody hearing you saying this is going to have a good guess at waht happens when the duellist pops his claws

Riffington
2010-04-20, 12:45 PM
Posted by Semidi


Hmm, I see problems with that. Partially because that's probably going to get the guy doing it killed so you need to get 5 successes but mainly because you have to make the Dominate clear and precise which means for it to stand out from the rest of the sentence you are going to have to empathise it. Which means anybody hearing you saying this is going to have a good guess at waht happens when the duellist pops his claws

Partly. The person hearing it does not actually have to know what part of the sentence is a command. He may believe, for instance, that you are genuinely warning him not to use claws; he would then be surprised when he starts using them. You do have to slightly emphasize that part, which might alert the wary - but that's what Subterfuge is for. The more familiar any audience is with Dominate, the higher difficulty your Subterfuge will have.

comicshorse
2010-04-20, 12:48 PM
Agreed. I just wanted to empathise that it was a risk to the person using the Dominate rather than just an automatic 'I screw with you and there's nothing you can do' power.

Aron Times
2010-04-20, 04:35 PM
Riding the Wave is voluntary in Requiem, as long as it fits the narrative. You can Ride the Wave to take on a pack of gangbangers trying to mug you, but you can't Ride the Wave to be better at climbing (unless you're trying to climb an obstacle in an attempt to reach a foe). It involves spending a Willpower point and several successes on a Resolve + Composure roll, with success letting you do a controlled frenzy and failure causing an uncontrolled frenzy.

I'm currently being grappled by gangbangers in my PbP Requiem game, and I think I'm going to Ride the Wave if the leader succeeds on his Resolve roll against Dominate 1.

Aron Times
2010-04-20, 09:00 PM
Wow, I really got screwed by the STs in my WoD PbP game.

The summary of what happened is that my character was on "patrol," trying to sniff out any gang activity in a neighborhood he has plans for when he encountered a group of four gangbangers. They tell me to get out of their turf, and I respond by punching their leader with all my might (All-Out Attack + Strength + Brawl + Vitae + Willpower) for a total of 12 dice and 4 successes.

The next turn, the entire gang SPENDS WILLPOWER to grapple me, and thanks my my 0 Defense and their Willpower expenditure, I am grappled by three of them while the leader draws his gun.

On my next turn, I look the leader in the eye and say, "You can't take me, fool! Run!" I roll two successes on my Dominate 1 roll. Nice. He probably can't resist that.

The ST rolls the gang leader's Resolve check and spends Willpower again for 6 dice and 1 success. Willpower again? Oh well, at least he failed. And then the ST has the gang leader shoot my character in the head for lethal damage BEFORE having him run away. Also, the three gangbangers use Immobilize on me, and he rules that I am helpless, so they can coup de grace me.

The end result is that I'm knocked into torpor with 1 aggravated damage and 6 lethal.

Can you say Killer DM?

I PM'd the three STs with a complaint about how they were handling this scene, and I'm waiting for their reply. If they're going to be this unfair over a minor scene, I'm out.

comicshorse
2010-04-21, 10:12 AM
I don't have much experience with Requiem but under Masquerade they definitely DON'T get a action before the Dominate works

OldFart
2010-04-21, 03:25 PM
The ST rolls the gang leader's Resolve check and spends Willpower again for 6 dice and 1 success. Willpower again? Oh well, at least he failed. And then the ST has the gang leader shoot my character in the head for lethal damage BEFORE having him run away. Also, the three gangbangers use Immobilize on me, and he rules that I am helpless, so they can coup de grace me.Again, I haven't played WoD since VtM. Can one still use WP to ignore the effects of things like Presence and Dominate for one turn? If so, the leader shooting, then running, while still a bit "killer DM" is still rules-plausible.

What would be annoying me were I in your place is that three people were grappling a person who was shot in the head by a comrade who then ran away. They did not:
a) get upset with said person for shooting someone they were grappling with
b) freak out and drop said person, like any normal human being would
c) run away from the scene of the murder like their leader with the gun did
no, they
d) made sure they guy who was shot in the head was really really out with their bare hands.

If the STs agree that no, this was actually a plausible reaction and if I decided I wanted to continue in a game where bs like this occurred, I would make a point upon recovery to capture and enslave this gang. Once I did so, I would demand the STs acknowledge that I had not acquired 4 run-of-the-mill street toughs as minions, but battle-hardened, highly-disciplined combat veterans, who are extremely unlikely to freak out upon encountering supernatural beings. Because that is, in fact, the only possible explanation for the poorly-adjudicated scene described above.*

*Assuming of course, the gang were not ghouls, dominated by a rival, or otherwise already under supernatural influence. Which judging from their tactics throughout the encounter, I would bet was the case.

Severus
2010-04-21, 04:29 PM
Wow, I really got screwed by the STs in my WoD PbP game.

The summary of what happened is that my character was on "patrol," trying to sniff out any gang activity in a neighborhood he has plans for when he encountered a group of four gangbangers. They tell me to get out of their turf, and I respond by punching their leader with all my might (All-Out Attack + Strength + Brawl + Vitae + Willpower) for a total of 12 dice and 4 successes.

The next turn, the entire gang SPENDS WILLPOWER to grapple me, and thanks my my 0 Defense and their Willpower expenditure, I am grappled by three of them while the leader draws his gun.

On my next turn, I look the leader in the eye and say, "You can't take me, fool! Run!" I roll two successes on my Dominate 1 roll. Nice. He probably can't resist that.

The ST rolls the gang leader's Resolve check and spends Willpower again for 6 dice and 1 success. Willpower again? Oh well, at least he failed. And then the ST has the gang leader shoot my character in the head for lethal damage BEFORE having him run away. Also, the three gangbangers use Immobilize on me, and he rules that I am helpless, so they can coup de grace me.

The end result is that I'm knocked into torpor with 1 aggravated damage and 6 lethal.

Can you say Killer DM?

I PM'd the three STs with a complaint about how they were handling this scene, and I'm waiting for their reply. If they're going to be this unfair over a minor scene, I'm out.

Run, don't walk, away from these GMs. Mooks should just die when faced with a vampire. Your issue should be hiding it, not winning. If these mooks are somehow 'super', then your GMs are just screwing you. My experience is that bad GMs like this never change because they're challenged. Even if you talk them out of this, they'll do it again next week on something else.

Gnaeus
2010-04-21, 05:02 PM
My most successful uses of forgetful mind were either masquerade cover-ups, or in conjunction with other disciplines.

For example, quell the beast (or just run them out of willpower). Then Entrance them. Start talking about their past. "What is your first memory?" "Your 3rd birthday?" "You remember me there, and I gave you the best gift". "How did you meet your first love?" You now remember me introducing you". "What was the thing you did in your life that made you feel the worst?" "You remember me suggesting that you shouldn't do it".

This kind of thing takes a long time and a lot of effort, but it is also hard to undo and it can really twist someone. Not sure if it is still legal under Requiem or not.

Iceforge
2010-04-21, 05:40 PM
I do not know VtR, so maybe there are slight changes in this that makes it not apply to VtR, as I only played VtM, some of it live-action roleplaying, which was great fun.

In a live-action game, I once played a fledgeling under a sire who repeatedly used dominate 2&3 on me, to make me extremely complient, as he had also blood bounded me to the 2nd degree, making me basicly unable to resist any of his dominate attempts (in VtM, blood bound makes you less resistant to dominate, not sure if it is the same in VtR)

He would repeatedly give me many commands and instructions while we was alone, to modify my behaviour to his desire and make me forget I had received these instructions from him and that they were not my own sincere impulses and desires.

This basicly lead to me being his extended arm of force, as I would never deviate from an order that he had given and it took quite a while before anyone caught up with what was going on, as for instance at one point, people suspected my sire of using dominate to orchistrate some actions which was against local codes, so they snatched me and interrogated me, using Auspex to read my aura to detect any untruthfullness in my testimony and ended up clearing the name of my sire, who was actually guilty, because my character did not think he was lying as I relayed that my sire could not even use the dominate power (yes, he had ****ed with my mind that much) and seeing how someone close to him could witness that he was not even able to use dominate without lying, they eliminated him as a suspect.

I thought that was great fun, as the other players were extremely frustrated when they found out, and even initially complained about how I had cheated by lying about what my aura would be showing, until it was explained to them.

Chen
2010-04-22, 07:31 AM
Run, don't walk, away from these GMs. Mooks should just die when faced with a vampire. Your issue should be hiding it, not winning. If these mooks are somehow 'super', then your GMs are just screwing you. My experience is that bad GMs like this never change because they're challenged. Even if you talk them out of this, they'll do it again next week on something else.

A non-combat oriented vampire could easily get his ass handed to him by gang members, especially with no time to pump stats and whatnot. I can't recall of VtR was MORE deadly than VtM or not but I know in VtM a Ventrue with low Fort would probably easily get torpored by a by more combat oriented humans (especially if they're of a gen that can only use 1 blood/turn).

Mejdrich
2010-08-10, 03:18 PM
A few thoughts/ideas:

Forgetful mind: Probably the most useful discipline in the game. You only need one success and victims don't get a resist role, instead you simply take their Resolve out of your dice pool. This means that even elders are at risk to having their memories altered (use a willpower for extra dice). This plus the implications of being able to easily cover up blood bonds are game changing.

Possession: Hard to afford, but I'm keen to try a Possession/Surmounting The Daysleep combo (Coil of Banes). Vampire by night, possessed human by day. Well, every other day, because of the 2 wp cost.

Command/Mesmerize: in combat, it's the one two punch. Command takes them out of combat ("freeze," "sit") for a few turns while mesmerize turns them from foe to friend or primes them for Forgetful Mind.

Awe: helpful stack that is usually character-concept appropriate. Juice targets up before dominate attempts add bonus dice. It's free and can repeat until successful.


Anyone know of a source on what disciplines (if any) can be used through a possessed mortal?

TripperdeCleric
2010-08-10, 08:10 PM
Im not quite sure on requiem rulings,but masquerade I have played for a bit. Bodily secretions cost blood still?


In that case, the words Vomit, Cry could be used to force them into a frenzy?

Riffington
2010-08-10, 09:27 PM
Anyone know of a source on what disciplines (if any) can be used through a possessed mortal?

Mental ones may be used depending on the number of successes.
2: Auspex.
3: Dominate, Presence
4: Chimerstry, Dementation.
5: Thaumaturgy, Necromancy.

devinkowalczyk
2010-08-10, 09:46 PM
Personally as a GM, stay away from anything that can be misconstrued. By placing it in a sentence, any of it can be the trigger.


Sorry I haven't played much vampire, not much use beyond an opinion

Psyx
2010-08-11, 05:26 AM
My character actually has Dominate 2. Is there any reason I should bother using Dominate 1 outside of combat?

Nope!

Dom 1 is for combat. Things like 'speak' will not get the information that you want. 'Forgive' won't really help as regards a law enforcement officer either, as they might have all the sympathy in the world... but still feel obliged to book you because it's the law. It's pretty much good for combat, and that's mostly it. Instead of trying to milk the ability for more than its intended, just use level 2.

May I recommend 'reload' ('unload' can have unpleasant consequences...) and 'procrastinate' as well. 'Flee' is a classic, although Dread Gaze [Presence] essentially does the same thing.

Full sentences is where the money is as, as regards Dominate. It's very powerful. 'Let me in', 'give me your phone', 'don't call the police', 'don't make a sound'. All fantastically useful.
Make sure that if you are diffusing situations with Dominate that you think quickly and are the first to speak, before someone else messes it up for you, or the NPC has time to do something first. Walk right in and do it, because if it goes to combat rounds, your discipline just got a lot weaker.

Forgetful Mind's greatest strength is helping preserve the Masquerade. More specifically; it saves you having to murder everyone you see who sees you breaking the masquerade, or committing a crime. It's absolutely golden. It's also handy for people who come and do work on your haven.

Conditioning might not seem good, but it essentially gets you friends in the right places. Well: Drones. Get a hold and condition as many as possible. It doesn't need to be major: Simply every policeman who sees you or your car, doesn't pay any attention, for example. It's essentially like low-level ghouling, in many ways. It's also great for stealth, given planning-time. Obfuscate can't hide you from security cameras, but following the security guard home and conditioning him to not notice anyone he sees carrying a red balloon certainly does. Conditioning members of the local government to waive all your parking tickets, or rubber-stamp and planning permission or other paperwork is handy.

Possession means you never have to risk your character ever again...

Remember the weakness of Dominate though: It can easily be undone via physical evidence: Those security camera tapes might get looked at later. Or that extra $1000 you commanded the bank clerk to give you will get noticed and probably traced back to you. We live in a surveillance state (my government is just a bit more blatant about it than yours), and physical evidence trumps memory in investigations. You'll get away with it at the time, but always think 'Am I going to pay for this later?'



Thaum was a huge point-sink, rarely more useful than a hand-gun, and while people didn't generally scream 'It's a trap!' back in those days, it really was.


Dominate is great, but Thaum was never a trap. It was ridiculous. Utterly. Essentially there was a path for everything, and to get around every other clan's blag and every weakness you had. Presence? Pavise of foul presence. Stake? Deflection of wooden doom.
It could reliably kick out aggravated damage both ranged (normally a level 5 queitus power... available for mages -better- at level 2) and in melee -at level 1 I believe, as opposed to gangrel getting it at level 2. If you just wanted normal damage, then Levin Bolts did absurd amounts. But of course: If you're just blasting people then you're doing it wrong. Movement of the mind and at least three other paths were great for locking people down. You could ritual up magical weapons, too. Being able to teleport 10m is worth 7 of anyone's XP.

Basically: Every other clan got three disciplines. Tremere got about 50. Plus a bunch of other tricks - like essentially having twice the blood pool of anyone else thanks to Ritual of vitae infusion. And for those pesky low-gen vampires you couldn't Dominate... simply use Blood potency (or whatever it was called) to drop your generation by three.

If I didn't know better, I'd say that the people who write the game all played Tremere.



Can you say Killer DM?

A low-power, non-combat Vampire will get OWNED by multiple foes. So being grappled should not come as any surprise. That's the way it works. However; every NPC you encounter having and spending willpower is decidedly unsporting. sure it's viable, but really, really lame. Because you face more NPCs than you have WP, and if they all have WP, then you are essentially worse off for the system having 'luck points'. It's also not generally possible to fire a weapon and run in the same round, as I remember. And a dominated command should take precedent over an aggressive one.
Also: Firearms do bashing damage NOT LETHAL to Vampires.

Psyx
2010-08-11, 05:57 AM
Is "ceasefire" a single word?


It is, but it's not a verb, so it wouldn't work. 'ceasefire' does not mean 'stop firing'

Cease Fire does. But it's two words.


Rötschreck

...is not a verb. It's a condition. Like saying 'depression'.


Dominate up to 3 is good. 4 was almost completely useless due to the whole "they are zombie like" clause

Eh? Only perhaps when performing the actions. The cop's eyes might glaze over as you walk past, having conditioned him not to notice you, but the rest of the time he's pretty normal. It's only if you condition every aspect of their life that they become useless and loose all initiative.

It's a level 4 discipline. If it's useless then it's being misinterpreted. Likewise Command is a level 1 discipline. If it's causing people to tell you their darkest secrets; it's also being misinterpreted.


use claws during the duel.

Good luck getting away with that in front of a room full of kindred who have half a brain between them. To embed any dominate in command, you'd need to verbally stress the command is some subtle supernatural way while having eye contact. Anyone with a dot of Subterfuge in the room is going to notice.


They must decide to ride the wave, thus dominating them and telling them to ride the wave would be as legitimate as dominating them and telling them to kill someone. I am taking away their free will as a directed frenzy is willed by the vampire.

No: They have to be in frenzy first. They aren't in frenzy. No chance hombre. You are making a command that's dependant on something that hasn't happened, and not putting in any command to make the first happen.

Causing Frenzy is an advanced Animalism power, not Dominate 2.

It's like saying 'It would be bad form to take your seatbelt off during the announcement.' when their car is outside. They don't go and get in their car just to take the belt off for you. Not unless you explicitly instruct them to.


STRIPTEASE!

Also not a verb.



In 2nd edition, at least, Dominate does not affect your emotions.
You can't make someone love someone

I believe that doing so is a post-advanced (level 6) Presence ability. Way outside the scope of Dominate 4.

That's generally a good way of looking at these things if they are nebulous. Ask 'am I using a low level discipline to do something that a higher level one was explicitly designed to do?'



Riding the Wave is just one choosing to goad the beast into a frenzy

I believe that's not quite the case. You don't elect to just go into a ridden frenzy at any time.



Mooks should just die when faced with a vampire.

Vt:R mortals aren't substantially weaker than vampires. It all comes down to who is combat statted and who isn't. the only real difference is combat disciplines and the fact that the Vampire can heal, only takes bashing from firearms, and essentially take twice as much lethal damage. Three combat-stated mortals are easily a match for a vampire. Easily. The situation is even worse if you go by the rules and require that Defence is split between attackers.

Sleep causes people to drop to the floor for a round, normally. It has it's place.



In that case, the words Vomit, Cry could be used to force them into a frenzy?

Both would perhaps cause them to loose a blood point. Better off just shooting them!

Caliphbubba
2010-08-11, 11:51 AM
some of my favorite commands were always:

Vomit
Flee
Sleep

A simple command can be used in conversation to embarrass whom ever you're dominating as well. something like "oh I could just die, wouldn't you just Scream, if he did that to you?"

as for tips on mesmerizm and forgetful mind, I was always fond of forcing people to drink my blood, and then forgetful mind'ing them to remember it as them forcing ME to drink THEIR blood. and playing it up as such a horrible thing to do to me so they felt obligated to drink from me >again< to even the score, as it were. lol

Malkavians were fun lol

subject42
2010-08-11, 12:44 PM
I played an old-west Cowboy Lasombra with Dominate a while back in the oWoD. Combining Dominate I with any obscenity results in a fairly confused DM and a lot of off-the-cuff modifiers to all future checks.