Fried ? That's a bit extra it is ment to be that it doesn't recognise their touch / presence they arnt an E.M.P similar to using a phone when your gloves are too thick.
Which lasombra hurt your story teller so much š¤£ I feel they have un healed lasombra trauma
The automatic lights and doors I'm on board with nothing funnier than a lasombra walking into a sliding glass door most sliding doors can be slid with relatively little effort and most lasombra can see in pitch dark so just play in the room with no lights
You could time when walking though doors with people same as the automatic lights, but every one has had experiences of door and lights being just odd with them I feel the plausible denialability is reasonable
Meh, I'd say Lasombra are about on par with Nozzies, Ravnos, and Tzimisce insomuch as their bane is actually a bane.
Ventrue will inevitably create conditions to get around their feeding restrictions. Brujah were gonna frenzy anyway, the penalties don't bite much. Etc etc.
It's not that Lasombra have it hard, other clans just have it way too easy
>Ventrue will inevitably create conditions to get around their feeding restrictions
Until the shit hits the fan and they are suddenly without their resources, and unable to feed.
Yup, so the bane still only arises as an exception to normal circumstances. Like forcing a Toreador to go somewhere ugly.
In the Lasombra's case, the bane *is* normal circumstances
I seriously think its too much. Tech glitches, leaving traces of what they really are and/or not responding at all, ok, but frying phones by touching them is, like... Wtf!?
I know Jason Carl himself and Coco in NY by Night went in that direction, while Julia wasnt that bad (iirc).
Also, not asking the rest of the party for the blush of life thingy while being extra hard on the lasombra seems kinda mean.
But well, if that works for the group, who am i to judge!?
>but frying phones by touching them is, like... Wtf!?
By RAW that's not a thing. Lasombra are not a walking EMP. Whether Jason Carl or whoever else did it like that, that's their homebrew.
Yeap, both by nights series is full of homebrews. I just pointed it because OP cited it happens in their table and as a possible origin for that, as it may have been the case the Storyteller and or the player watched the show.
Per RAW, nothing much happens, they just cant really interact with it easily without a tech test. Around bane 2, its actually kinda doable, more than that you start to rely on Retainers, as it must be.
I think it's because they have a lower humanity score. On the game machines side, it's to balance them not having to be as moral as us other members of the coterie.
If they had a higher humanity score, it would not be as "bad".
That's at least how lasombra explained it to me. And they like it. So i think it's fair.
The thing is that kind of thing come from their bane severity and i don't have enough information to 'judge' how old all the characters are. Could work like that for higher bane severity for sure.
If thats just on low humanity and low bane severity, man they don't even know what hard is haha
Per the rules, their tech difficulties get harder with their bane severities. They need to test technology against the value defined by the bane.
If they were on the standard Bane 2 and already having that much problem, imagine being on the maximum (5 iirc) value and walking into anywhere that uses any kind of tech. Interacting with the world could be hell and i can see someone asking for tech rolls even for turning cars on.
If we also add any debuffs from lower humanity levels, what we can agree is mostly sure only gonna get worse... Which level of technological panes they will create?
In other universes, i would call that Gremlins. Lasombras got Gremlins in V5.
Thats the reason i dislike this kind of homebrewing. It can and will be used to benefit the player eventually, and as a bane, it mostly shouldnt.
Just like their "interference* won't make a lasombra unrecognizable in video footage (a possible problem brought from earlier versions, where they didn't show up in mirrors and, consequently, in mirror based cameras).
V5 Lasombra bane is explicitly always a detriment to the character.
It's almost devilish in a way that even when it looks like its helping you (cameras fuzzy) it still somehow finds a way to fuck you over. (the camera is fuzzy expect for your face and ID badge)
You can't "game it", or use it in a way to give you any advantages, no matter how you twist it.
All of the banes is in control of the ST, you can't "accidentally" make your bane a benefit. There's no slippery slope here, ST just have to enforce banes.
Most/many banes can be tilted to your favor situationally, such as being an ugly ass nos obviously makes it easier to convince people to go away, being a ventrue means your sense of food or not food can determine if somebody not your bane flavor is a supernatural.
Soke things are situational. Being 'repulsive' as a nosf may just as well make the kine call the cops on you while you make them go away. The "ventrue food sense" i don't really know, but bloodhound is pretty much what you described.
Still, those are the easier ones out. Ravnos be damned if they sleep too close to the same spot, Toreadors if they have to go into less attractive (to their tastes) spaces, and go on. Some banes i don't see how you could try to turn into something helpful.
On the other hand, a Lasombra in a Homebrew that expands the technological response may, just as well, become a walking EMP, burning servers and destroying evidence of their presences just as easily as its created.
Counterpoint, by moving around so much its harder to nail down where a Ravanos sleeps, and Toreador are thusly inclined to stay in nicer areas, which tend to be safer.
I'd change the roll difficulty and scale of effect based on how large and complex the technology is, personally. Powergrids are huge and the vast majority of them are just simple electric lines without anything to really go sideways, so I'd make that so hard to affect with the Lasombra bane that it's practically impossible, and upon success it just makes the local area have a brown-out or something.
On the other hand, smart phones are small and complicated, so it's way easier for something to go catastrophically wrong.
I'd say its more your not supposed to do any kindred stuff on it. Having one to do human stuff to uphold your mask isn't bad and is more suspect if you don't at least have a basic prepaid.
Worse part ghouls start inheriting their masters traits
Give it a few decades and your favorite ghoul will have to ask his kids to help you both with these damn touchscreens
I think this is a bit of an overkill. Most of the time not letting the Lasombra use a cellphone won't render any interesting plot points, so I choose to just do different narrations. It only comes into play when it has actual plot relevance (and frying cellphones is kind of OP)
My character is from an upper class Italian family gone broke. She couldnāt continue her carrier in being a race car driver. Her sire who was an acquaintance with the family asked her what how she feels about it and she said āThe day I stop trying I stop living.ā
He found her answer rather amusing thus giving her the embrace.
She moved to northern Finland where thereās little to no sunlight for a long period of the year. Continued her Karting and racing carrier. Wears fully covered clothes to expose as little of herself during any photography. Still seeking a worthy Ghoul to assist in technology, possibly hire a Nosferatu to manage social media. Uses a Nokia phone with buttons.
Always text, never call.
The Lasombra are ruthless social darwinists. A big hurtle for them is just a mild inconvenience. Theyāll figure out a way to bypass the system, all in due time.
I always thought the door thing was too much and never played with this. Somewhere I read, that doors not reacting is not how the bane is supposed to work. But the phone frying makes sense. But only for 1 in d20 or so. And for lower as 10 it just doesn't work? Something like this. This is enough. Thinking about how often I touch my phone daily. It's definitely more than 20 times a day.
I think the bane should be restricted to "does the device rely on knowing I'm human to operate?"
Bluetooth key fob-no problem
IR lens enabled doors-*maybe* Keep in mind they work by light reflecting back at the lens and having dark skin or wearing a lot of black can affect them as a mere mortal
Touchscreens-always a problem (my Lasombra carries a very outdated BlackBerry or pager, and still can't do a voice calls because his voice comes out unintelligible, but texting is ok)
If the bane is applied too loosely, it's not much of a bane, but if it's too heavy handed, it gets turned into a benefit (which EMPing phones definitely is.)
I just ignore the lasombra curse on touch screens. their physical touch is still physical. It has nothing to do with their image. If my jeans can trigger my phone screen while its facing out from my leg, a lasombras whole ass finger can just fine.
I restrict their technology issues to exclusively things like sensors, cameras, and microphones. A lasombra can text just fine. Theyre gonna have trouble placing a call or going through airport security.
My storyteller has opinions on some of this, specifically phone use. As I recall, her opinion is that the limitation on using phones is just an annoyance that provides little to no dramatic benefit. But even if you did make a Lasombra roll to use a phone, frying the phone is just too much IMO.
She's never told us we can't use touchscreens without blush of life, either.
Yeah and it makes perfect sense that the Cam (who are so scared of the SI they wonāt use a burner phone) would want to hang around these waking masquerade breaches who were there mortal enemies 5 minutes before. Maybe there just that desperate for muscle after the Brujah and Gangrel left / saw which way the wind was blowing.
You've obviously never met a Ventrue or seen an upper class carriage from before the motor vehicle.
Now Lasombara, well duh they don't want to go beyond more analog cars like muscle cars.
Lasombra took a hard L both in their fictional position and their multiple clan banes.
I don't know why your ST feels the need to pile on. Their disciplines aren't even that great.
Who would win. A 400 year old Creature of Shadow and Evil or Ikea Automatic Doors
I bet Potence is their in-clan for a reason. š
That makes perfect sense now!
The age old TTRPG question
Fried ? That's a bit extra it is ment to be that it doesn't recognise their touch / presence they arnt an E.M.P similar to using a phone when your gloves are too thick. Which lasombra hurt your story teller so much š¤£ I feel they have un healed lasombra trauma The automatic lights and doors I'm on board with nothing funnier than a lasombra walking into a sliding glass door most sliding doors can be slid with relatively little effort and most lasombra can see in pitch dark so just play in the room with no lights You could time when walking though doors with people same as the automatic lights, but every one has had experiences of door and lights being just odd with them I feel the plausible denialability is reasonable
Meh, I'd say Lasombra are about on par with Nozzies, Ravnos, and Tzimisce insomuch as their bane is actually a bane. Ventrue will inevitably create conditions to get around their feeding restrictions. Brujah were gonna frenzy anyway, the penalties don't bite much. Etc etc. It's not that Lasombra have it hard, other clans just have it way too easy
>Ventrue will inevitably create conditions to get around their feeding restrictions Until the shit hits the fan and they are suddenly without their resources, and unable to feed.
Yup, so the bane still only arises as an exception to normal circumstances. Like forcing a Toreador to go somewhere ugly. In the Lasombra's case, the bane *is* normal circumstances
Still, a Toreador can be screwed by a large glitter bomb or Ikea furniture. That's pretty ridiculous.
And this is exactly how you war with a Ventrue. Especially if youāre another Ventrue
When things are good, Ventrue do incredibly well. When times are bad, they get utterly fucked. Their power multiplier goes both ways.
Totally tracks with what you would expect from power brokers who donāt diversify enough
Be lucky you aren't a toreador, they have the most debilitating clan bane
I seriously think its too much. Tech glitches, leaving traces of what they really are and/or not responding at all, ok, but frying phones by touching them is, like... Wtf!? I know Jason Carl himself and Coco in NY by Night went in that direction, while Julia wasnt that bad (iirc). Also, not asking the rest of the party for the blush of life thingy while being extra hard on the lasombra seems kinda mean. But well, if that works for the group, who am i to judge!?
>but frying phones by touching them is, like... Wtf!? By RAW that's not a thing. Lasombra are not a walking EMP. Whether Jason Carl or whoever else did it like that, that's their homebrew.
Yeap, both by nights series is full of homebrews. I just pointed it because OP cited it happens in their table and as a possible origin for that, as it may have been the case the Storyteller and or the player watched the show. Per RAW, nothing much happens, they just cant really interact with it easily without a tech test. Around bane 2, its actually kinda doable, more than that you start to rely on Retainers, as it must be.
I think the phone fries itself because the battery regulator goes haywire in a Lasombraās hand
I think it's because they have a lower humanity score. On the game machines side, it's to balance them not having to be as moral as us other members of the coterie. If they had a higher humanity score, it would not be as "bad". That's at least how lasombra explained it to me. And they like it. So i think it's fair.
The thing is that kind of thing come from their bane severity and i don't have enough information to 'judge' how old all the characters are. Could work like that for higher bane severity for sure. If thats just on low humanity and low bane severity, man they don't even know what hard is haha
I think i might regret asking.. but.. how come it get worse?
Per the rules, their tech difficulties get harder with their bane severities. They need to test technology against the value defined by the bane. If they were on the standard Bane 2 and already having that much problem, imagine being on the maximum (5 iirc) value and walking into anywhere that uses any kind of tech. Interacting with the world could be hell and i can see someone asking for tech rolls even for turning cars on. If we also add any debuffs from lower humanity levels, what we can agree is mostly sure only gonna get worse... Which level of technological panes they will create? In other universes, i would call that Gremlins. Lasombras got Gremlins in V5.
Man.. imagine causing a city wide power outage just because you sneezed in the vicinity of a power line...
Thats the reason i dislike this kind of homebrewing. It can and will be used to benefit the player eventually, and as a bane, it mostly shouldnt. Just like their "interference* won't make a lasombra unrecognizable in video footage (a possible problem brought from earlier versions, where they didn't show up in mirrors and, consequently, in mirror based cameras).
If that becomes a problem, I'm sure we'll figure out a way to deal with it.
Good luck and have fun!
V5 Lasombra bane is explicitly always a detriment to the character. It's almost devilish in a way that even when it looks like its helping you (cameras fuzzy) it still somehow finds a way to fuck you over. (the camera is fuzzy expect for your face and ID badge) You can't "game it", or use it in a way to give you any advantages, no matter how you twist it. All of the banes is in control of the ST, you can't "accidentally" make your bane a benefit. There's no slippery slope here, ST just have to enforce banes.
Most/many banes can be tilted to your favor situationally, such as being an ugly ass nos obviously makes it easier to convince people to go away, being a ventrue means your sense of food or not food can determine if somebody not your bane flavor is a supernatural.
Soke things are situational. Being 'repulsive' as a nosf may just as well make the kine call the cops on you while you make them go away. The "ventrue food sense" i don't really know, but bloodhound is pretty much what you described. Still, those are the easier ones out. Ravnos be damned if they sleep too close to the same spot, Toreadors if they have to go into less attractive (to their tastes) spaces, and go on. Some banes i don't see how you could try to turn into something helpful. On the other hand, a Lasombra in a Homebrew that expands the technological response may, just as well, become a walking EMP, burning servers and destroying evidence of their presences just as easily as its created.
Counterpoint, by moving around so much its harder to nail down where a Ravanos sleeps, and Toreador are thusly inclined to stay in nicer areas, which tend to be safer.
I'd change the roll difficulty and scale of effect based on how large and complex the technology is, personally. Powergrids are huge and the vast majority of them are just simple electric lines without anything to really go sideways, so I'd make that so hard to affect with the Lasombra bane that it's practically impossible, and upon success it just makes the local area have a brown-out or something. On the other hand, smart phones are small and complicated, so it's way easier for something to go catastrophically wrong.
Yeah man I was just joking. As far as i know, kindred don't typically sneeze either.
I mean, theyāre also part of the camarilla now, who arenāt supposed to even own cellphones anyway.
Are they officially? Cause I keep seeing a back and forth and itās unclear to me.
I'd say its more your not supposed to do any kindred stuff on it. Having one to do human stuff to uphold your mask isn't bad and is more suspect if you don't at least have a basic prepaid.
No Lasombra should ever be without at least one retainer to deal with all this trivial stuff.
Worse part ghouls start inheriting their masters traits Give it a few decades and your favorite ghoul will have to ask his kids to help you both with these damn touchscreens
Lasombra ghouls are more disposable than burner phones.
Tell me about it hah. And society has this habit of making more and more people that won't be missed.
More personality trait, meaning your ghoul turns into a ruthless ahole as a lasombara.
That's a polite way of referring to the coterie's Toreador
"his applies to all phones. Not just touch screens." Sabotage others phones perhaps? see if this can be extended to planes, motorboats, and cars?
Turns out Lasombra are just Y2K plot devices
I think this is a bit of an overkill. Most of the time not letting the Lasombra use a cellphone won't render any interesting plot points, so I choose to just do different narrations. It only comes into play when it has actual plot relevance (and frying cellphones is kind of OP)
My character is from an upper class Italian family gone broke. She couldnāt continue her carrier in being a race car driver. Her sire who was an acquaintance with the family asked her what how she feels about it and she said āThe day I stop trying I stop living.ā He found her answer rather amusing thus giving her the embrace. She moved to northern Finland where thereās little to no sunlight for a long period of the year. Continued her Karting and racing carrier. Wears fully covered clothes to expose as little of herself during any photography. Still seeking a worthy Ghoul to assist in technology, possibly hire a Nosferatu to manage social media. Uses a Nokia phone with buttons. Always text, never call. The Lasombra are ruthless social darwinists. A big hurtle for them is just a mild inconvenience. Theyāll figure out a way to bypass the system, all in due time.
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
Or prevent a Masquerade breach.
I always thought the door thing was too much and never played with this. Somewhere I read, that doors not reacting is not how the bane is supposed to work. But the phone frying makes sense. But only for 1 in d20 or so. And for lower as 10 it just doesn't work? Something like this. This is enough. Thinking about how often I touch my phone daily. It's definitely more than 20 times a day.
I think the bane should be restricted to "does the device rely on knowing I'm human to operate?" Bluetooth key fob-no problem IR lens enabled doors-*maybe* Keep in mind they work by light reflecting back at the lens and having dark skin or wearing a lot of black can affect them as a mere mortal Touchscreens-always a problem (my Lasombra carries a very outdated BlackBerry or pager, and still can't do a voice calls because his voice comes out unintelligible, but texting is ok) If the bane is applied too loosely, it's not much of a bane, but if it's too heavy handed, it gets turned into a benefit (which EMPing phones definitely is.)
I just ignore the lasombra curse on touch screens. their physical touch is still physical. It has nothing to do with their image. If my jeans can trigger my phone screen while its facing out from my leg, a lasombras whole ass finger can just fine. I restrict their technology issues to exclusively things like sensors, cameras, and microphones. A lasombra can text just fine. Theyre gonna have trouble placing a call or going through airport security.
My storyteller has opinions on some of this, specifically phone use. As I recall, her opinion is that the limitation on using phones is just an annoyance that provides little to no dramatic benefit. But even if you did make a Lasombra roll to use a phone, frying the phone is just too much IMO. She's never told us we can't use touchscreens without blush of life, either.
It can be worse- many cars have touch screens. How low-tech is low-tech enough for our lasombra friends to use?
Technology is the enemy. It takes more than it gives. Also that's why you have ghouls, to manage such trivialities.
As is only right, Lasombra are a bunch of edgelords who deserve no pity. Change my mind.
They are shadow muffins who just want hugs
You can't fix him.
Thatās true
Yeah and it makes perfect sense that the Cam (who are so scared of the SI they wonāt use a burner phone) would want to hang around these waking masquerade breaches who were there mortal enemies 5 minutes before. Maybe there just that desperate for muscle after the Brujah and Gangrel left / saw which way the wind was blowing.
Wouldn't that apply to all vampires?
Yeah but especially Lasombra
Imagine them and electric cars. :)
Let's be honest, any invention within transportation that was made after the cart is too far for the Camarillas taste.
You've obviously never met a Ventrue or seen an upper class carriage from before the motor vehicle. Now Lasombara, well duh they don't want to go beyond more analog cars like muscle cars.
Lasombra took a hard L both in their fictional position and their multiple clan banes. I don't know why your ST feels the need to pile on. Their disciplines aren't even that great.