Revision as of 16:55, 27 February 2017

House Rules: Merits

Changeling Merits

Bastion Amenities/Battlements/Size

See 'news bastions'

Deep Kenning

To allow for more variety and, frankly, fairness in dice pools given the ridiculous amounts of xp on this game, staff has created a merit to further enhance a Changeling's ability to sense other fae and their powers.

Deep Kenning • to •••••
Prerequisite: Wyrd 5

Like a spider in its web, a Changeling with this merit has learned to be especially attuned to the vibration of fae powers in the Wyrd. He is as at least as close to being fae as human, now, and that sensitivity can be useful.

The separate levels allow enhanced Kenning and, higher, even the ability to better-resist effects which would manipulate his mind and emotions. Each dot level builds upon the one before.

At •, this merit makes Kenning a reflexive action.

At ••, this merit grants a +1 to rolls intended to discern any supernatural powers/entities of a fae nature. This includes Changelings, Hobgoblins, True Fae, Fetches and any powers thereof. This bonus stacks with applicable specialties.

At •••, this merit allows the character to detect two supernatural phenomena per success, instead of one.

At ••••, this merit grants a +2 to rolls intended to discern any supernatural powers/entities of a fae nature. This replaces the bonus from ••.

At •••••, forewarned is forearmed. The character gains a +3 on rolls to resist any fae powers which would manipulate his mind or emotions. If the ability does not allow a contested roll, add a +2 bonus to the resistance stat instead.

For example, when activating Fleeting Spring 2, a Spring rolls her Manipulation + Persuasion + Mantle (Spring) - subject's Resolve. With Deep Kenning 5, the subject's Resolve would be +2 higher for purposes of that activation, as the subject was more aware of the ebb and flow of power in his surroundings.

Divergent Kith

This merit allows a character to have a primary kith from outside his or her Seeming. Examples: Darkling Flowering, Ogre Flamesiren, Wizened Nightsinger

(While staff does not intend to switch to CtL 2.0, staff will shamelessly pilfer interesting ideas from it when they choose to approve them.)

It may be purchased only in CG, as it affects your primary kith, not any subsequent kiths you might purchase for your character. This merit does not affect the Dual Kith merit, which operates off of your Seeming for pricing.

Enchanted Mortal

Mortal and Mortal+ characters may both take this merit.

Gewgaw

Each individual Gewgaw, a 0-dot Token, will be listed individually on your +sheet, and must have a staff-approved +note describing its effects. Send up a +req/fae to request them.

See the Tokens#Gewgaws page for guidelines and instructions.

Goblin Hoard

Custom merit proposed by Soleil.

Similar to Esoteric Armory (GMC p.231), your character is the go-to girl when one needs a flower pressed between mandrake toes until it dried, the salt from an Ogre's boogies after being infected with the mouth-rot flu, or simple 0-dot Hedgespun items to add a bit of flash to a hob's bedroom wall. You have acquired a collection of appalling and awesome, albeit minor, artifacts of Hedge life and the real world trinkets some hobs crave. Coca Cola addiction? A shiny copper 1969 penny? You've got them covered.

This applies specifically to trades and bartering with hobgoblins, more often than not at goblin markets.

When bartering, you may add your dots in this merit to your rolls to persuade the hob to your way of thinking. This could be as simple as sweetening a Persuasion deal with a little honey on the side, or as underhanded as knowing that particular hob is deathly afraid of wind-up toys and pulling one out of your bag for +1 to an Intimidation roll.

A one-dot Goblin Hoard can fit in a large bag, but a 4-5 dot Hoard will fill a house.

This location must be specified on a staff-approved +note.

At levels greater than 1, this merit requires access to the cache itself to gain the full benefit. Without returning to the cache, the max benefit is capped at +1, representing what a person might be carrying with them at that very moment.

ST fiat may raise the cap depending on whether your character is leading a hedge donkey or otherwise traveling through the Hedge with more of his or her belongings for bartering at the time.

Goodwill

Goodwill requires a vote of the Court in question, and the members of that court decide whether or not the merit will be given.

Hollow Amenities/Doors/Size/Wards/Workshop

See 'news hollows'

Hollow Garden

This merit is designed to represent how much of your Hollow has been readied to support growing Hedgefruit. You cannot have more dots in Hollow Garden than you have in Hollow Size. Each dot of Hollow Garden is equivalent to the same amount of space as that number of dots in Hollow Size.
Example: You have a Size 5 Hollow and purchase Garden 1, to represent that an area the size of a small room has been cleared and tilled and fed tasty corpses for growing plants in.

Each dot in Hollow Garden increases the number of plants you may grow in your Hollow. Plants are rated with "plot" values, corresponding to how much space/energy/care they will take. You may not grow more plants than you have plots to support them. See Hollow Gardens for more details.

Mantle

This requires at least a sentence of justification to raise.

Ritual Doorway

Staff has chosen to remove the Hollow Doors 5 prerequisite on this merit.

To explain the rationale behind the decision, look at the merit itself.

Benefit: You can open a gate to the Hedge from anywhere in the world, and step through into your Hollow, instead of having to use an established Hollow Door.

However...

Limitations/Costs:

• Opening a Ritual Doorway costs 2 Glamour, not 1. It's twice as expensive as a regular Hedge gate.
• You can only have one per Hollow.
• ANY Changeling OR True Fae who knows your ritual can bypass every Ward you have and walk right in.
• Rituals require at least one unusual ingredient which is tough or inconvenient to find.
• Said ingredient is used up during the ritual, so to use it again, you have to find it again (or, in the case of things like drops of special oils, you will eventually run out of drops in the vial).
• Rituals, bare minimum, take 5-10 minutes to perform.
• You can't perform them while running/fleeing.
• You can't perform them while fighting.
• You have to have perfect concentration, and if anything interrupts you, you have to do it all again, and that extra Glamour you spent? Wasted. Gone.
• If you ever want to change the ritual used on your Hollow, you basically have to buy the merit all over again, and roll to make sure you don't screw it up.

So. No more prerequisite. ;)

Staff WILL require you and anyone who is sharing dots on your Hollow to send up a +request with the name of a +note you write on yourself, to be wizlocked, as a record of the ritual. If it is not sufficiently unusual, staff will gently suggest alternatives.

Seeming

Must be Fae-touched to take this merit.

Token

Each individual Token will be listed separately on your +sheet and you must have a staff-approved +note on your character with its details. See the Tokens page for more details.

Token Maker

See the Token-Making wiki page for how this merit now functions.

Tokenmaster

The books are a hodge podge (of course, thank you White Wolf) of timings for the creation of tokens. One says a week, one says more likely a month, one says very probably multiple months.

For sanity's sake, the tokens created with this merit are going to be limited to 1-dot strength.

The +tokenmaster command will automatically enforce waits based on 10 - Wyrd for your character, and will not allow you to use the command at all unless you are both Wyrd 7 and have the Tokenmaster merit. It will roll 1 die for you, and it will only create a +request for you if that die is 8 or higher.

These tokens are created by staff. You have no say in what they are. This stance is predicated on making it fair for those with Token Maker, as realistically speaking, TokenMASTERS have a three-in-ten chance of rolling a success every 3 days or less, and Token Makers need, bare minimum, 25 successes to create a deliberately designed token, which can take RL weeks if they are unlucky and don't have certain merits.

Trifle

Trifles may be purchased via standard equipment requests, and are stored in your +inv list. Normal, unensorcelled/unenchanted human beings of any stripe must present a PRP log to staff to prove how their character has gained access to the item. If they are gaining access because a friend is giving it to them, please +myjob/cc your friend to your equip job and have them confirm that they are giving it away.

See Tokens#Trifles for more details. A full list of available trifles is located on the Arcade page, as they may be purchased via tix as well.

If you would like to suggest a new type of trifle, please send up a +req/fae to staff with your idea and a complete description of the object/what it does. If it matches theme and staff agrees, it will be added to the +equip/list type/trifle offerings.

Custom Trifles

Wyrdskill

This has been dropped to 3 dots. Additionally, the specialties are considered Interdisciplinary, per the Interdisciplinary Specialty merit. They must still be due to a PHYSICAL CHANGE your evolution in the Wyrd has caused in you. Staff must approve this.

Rationale: Per the book it is 5 dots (30xp) and at max(at Wyrd 10) gives you 15xp's worth of specialties in a specific skill, along with a hefty penalty of making all other skills/specialties in that category (Social/Mental/Physical) cost New Dots x 4 instead of 3. Given that very few people are actually going to hit Wyrd 10, you would effectively be spending 30xp to get perhaps 3xp or 6xp's worth of benefit out of it, then go on to completely negate that benefit, because after you had it, you would be draining more and more xp every time you tried to purchase any other skills in that category. Penalties are supposed to be penalties, but that was especially harsh for how little benefit you gained, overall.

Psychic Merits

These merits are a blend of Second Sight (SS) and GMC (GMC). Many psychic abilities formerly available were removed in GMC. Fate's Harvest staff thinks they are still shiny, so there will be a few House Rules to make things mesh. If a merit was created for Fate's Harvest by staff, it is marked with (HR) for House Rule.

All "Options" are available in SS merits. All "Drawbacks" are required in GMC merits.

If you have any of these merits, you are considered a Psychic.

If you have any of these merits, but also follow a Tradition (Hedge Witch, Shaman, Apostle, etc.) you are considered a Thaumaturge.

These merits can only be purchased through the automated +XPS system if your +sheet calls you a Psychic. Once you are a Thaumaturge, you will need to +xps/job them to staff.

Animal Rapport

Dot value depends on Size of animal. See book.

Aura Reading

Since the GMC writeup doesn't specifically say so, staff clarifies that the following SS functionality is retained: dematerialized ghosts/spirits/astral projectors show up as faint wispy blobs with this power, enough to show that something is there without showing what, necessarily, it is.

Staff is not going to insist upon a chart of aura colors, but if you prefer to have one, the following chart is based on http://whitewolf.wikia.com/wiki/Aura. Additions have been made.

As a general rule, the more strongly someone feels something, the more brightly that color appears.

Biokinesis

The GMC functionality has been retained (1 Willpower + 1 minute of concentration = shift Physical attribute dots around; only shift as many dots as you have dots in Biokinesis, and no attribute can go above 5 dots).

Of what was possible in SS, the following has been retained: Passive Bonus: +1 dice bonus per Biokinesis merit dot to rolls for entering a trance/beginning meditation

Roll extended Intelligence + Composure to acquire one temporary merit-equivalent, spending successes to 'buy' them.

The psychic must meet all prerequisites for the merit she attempts to give herself.

The psychic must have Biokinesis dots equal to success-cost + 1. (e.g. a 1-success merit requires Biokinesis ••)

Effects last 1 scene unless specified otherwise.

If one of the extended rolls is an Exceptional Success, the psychic may choose a second effect to spend successes on.

Each roll's duration represents minutes equal to the desired trait's success cost. Only one (or two with Exceptional) effect may be active at a time.

Biokinesis Merit List:

• Eidetic Memory (WoD p.108) - 2 successes
• Fast Reflexes (WoD p.110) - 1 or 2 successes
• Fleet of Foot (WoD p.112) - 1-3 successes
• Fresh Start (WoD p.112) - 1 success
• Improved Awareness (SS p.46) - 1-3 successes
• Improved Immune System (SS pp.46-7) - 4 successes - Duration varies depending on illness/drug severity. See book.
• Iron Stamina (WoD p.113) - 1-3 successes
• Iron Stomach (WoD p.113) - 2 successes
• Natural Immunity (WoD p.113) - 1 success - Lasts 1 day per Biokinesis dot or until Biokinesis is used again, whichever comes first.
• Pain Resistance (SS p.47) - 3 successes
• Quick Healer (WoD p.113) - 4 successes - Lasts 1 day per Biokinesis dot or until Biokinesis is used again, whichever comes first.
• Strong Back (WoD p.113) - 1 success
• Strong Lungs (WoD p.113) - 3 successes
• Toxin Resistance (WoD p.113) - 2 successes - Lasts 1 day per Biokinesis dot or until Biokinesis is used again, whichever comes first.

Channeling

When purchasing this merit, please type the three different options as:

+xps merit/channeling (cayce)

+xps merit/channeling (past-life)

+xps merit/channeling (spirit)

Clairvoyant •

This merit allows a psychic to add an alternate method of scrying to her repertoire. It may be purchased multiple times. Specify a new scrying method (crystal ball gazing, etc.) with each purchase.

Death Sight

Brought down to 3 dots instead of 4, to mesh with scaling of GMC Medium ability. Medium is not used in FH due to staff's preference for certain SS psychic merits which it would preclude.

Psychic Empathy

Prerequisites are Aura Reading & Telepathy

Psychic Illusions

Prerequisites are Mind Control & Telepathy

Psychic Invisibility

Prerequisites are Mind Control & Telepathy

Psychokinesis

To keep psychokinesis in line with other psychic powers and compensate for higher GMC Defense ratings, rather than subtracting Resolve from attacks, use: half Defense (round down) for direct physical attacks (lashing out with fire), Stamina for attacks on the body (dropping someone's body temp).

Psychokinetic Immunity

Prerequisite: Psychokinesis ••• - Your character is either highly resistant to or completely immune to manifestations of his psychokinetic element. This merit is based loosely on Second Sight's Pyrokinetic Immunity merit.

•• - Roll Stamina + Resolve. If successful, you have the equivalent of armor against your element equal to your successes. Yes, if you want to elemental Russian roulette, you can roll again after each time you burn/zap/freeze yourself. Liquid nitrogen, not suggested. If a Doubting Thomas is present, this merit does not work at all.

•••• - You have complete immunity to your chosen element. You could stand on a volcano's edge or meditate on the South Pole stark naked if you really wanted to. However... If a Doubting Thomas is present, a successful Stamina + Resolve roll is required to maintain complete protection. If the roll fails, the merit instead provides 1 point of armor that protects only against that element's damage.

• NOTE: You may have this twice. Once for each of your psychokinetic manifestations.

Psychokinetic Shaping

Prerequisite: Psychokinesis ••• - Your character is more skilled than most at manipulating how an existing manifestation of his element behaves. The electricity in a fallen power line might arc out to strike a foe, a line of fire might streak across the earth to form a flaming wall, or a cup of water might be drawn up into a sculpted, tiny horse to 'spill' its way along a table's edge.

This merit acts in concert with standard Psychokinesis rolls.

Whenever your psychic chooses to spend successes on shaping his chosen element, gain a +3 bonus to your Intelligence + Crafts roll.

Telepathic Communication

Thought Projection is now unnecessary, as it is covered by Telepathy. Prerequisite is Telepathy •••••. In addition, activating the power does not require the expenditure of Willpower if the Telepathy merit has already been successfully activated for the scene. Roll Presence + Empathy, succeed, and you can trade thoughts for the scene at will, as long as the target is within sight.

Telepathic Rapport

As Thought Projection no longer exists and Mind Reading IS Telepathy, a rapport may now be made after successfully communicating a message to the target with Telepathy ••••• and spending the requisite Willpower dot. Note: dot, not point. New dots may be purchased for 8xp, as usual.

Telepathy

Staff is retaining some SS functionality. With ••• you cannot read Supernaturals' thoughts. With ••••• you may, subtracting their Resolve + Supernatural Advantage (if it's a player on FH, that'll be Wyrd!) from your regular Wits + Empathy roll.

Thaumaturgical Merits

Dream Travel

The merit itself is the same, but when purchasing via +xps, to avoid conflicts with the Psychic Dream Travel merit, this merit is called 'shamanic dream travel' instead.

Familiar

When purchasing via +xps, use 'familiar (twilight)' and 'familiar (embodied)' to differentiate between the two variations on the merit.

See Auras

Use tables listed under Psychic 'Aura Reading' above.

The Last Spell

This is found in errata at http://www.conradhubbard.com/games/secondsightcut.html

Mild edits have been made to suit the text for this game's use. The HRed text is as follows:

The Last Spell (•) - Prerequisite: Psychic/Thaumaturge template or supernatural merits. Sorry Changelings. You don't have the luxury of forgetting what you are forever. If you're Wyrd 1 and desperately want this merit, we can talk.

Traditions: All

Effects: For supernaturally endowed beings the second sight is a mixed blessing, as the horrors of the World of Darkness are laid bare to them in a manner normal people manage to ignore. For some, insight into the dark secrets of the world is simply too much to bear. Terrified by the truth, or tired of facing it every day, they turn their backs on the revelation that there is more to reality than the unenlightened can explain, and seek to return their previous state of ignorance.

There are no traditions of magicians who actively teach this rite – it is for this reason that the Merit has intentionally not been listed as available to the various Thaumaturge paths. Nonetheless, there are always individuals whose eyes are opened to the supernatural and whose reaction is terror, or at least enormous discomfort. For some, merely abandoning the lifestyle is sufficient. Taoist alchemists might bury themselves in the gross materialism of mercantile drudgery, shamans may crush their sacred visions beneath drunken stupors and practitioners of Vodoun could forsake their spiritual lifestyle in favor of a prosaic cult of modern fundamentalism. For others, willful pretense is not enough – magic got them into this and it must remove them as well. They seek formal renouncement of magic like Shakespeare’s Prospero breaking his staff. Such unfortunates may record their rituals of escape in discarded journals or those following in their footsteps may be forced to collate this wisdom from scattered records.

To enact this ritual the caster must roll his Resolve + Composure and overcome his own Intelligence + Wits in a contested action. Each dot of Occult he possesses subtracts one die from his roll.

Thaumaturges: If he succeeds in his action, the caster loses all access to magical powers, the Thaumaturge template and supernatural merits. The loss is indefinite – unless the caster somehow regains his power it is gone forever.

Psychics: If your abilities are controlled, while you do not lose access to the Psychic template, you may no longer use them. Any use of a psychic power will constitute reversal of this merit. If your abilities are uncontrolled, you must continue to roll as usual under stressful situations. Enough accidental fire-setting will force you to admit the truth, no matter how much you want to believe otherwise.

Changelings: Same as the above, but unfortunately, the template is forever. You can never really go back to being mortal. If, at any time, you consciously harvest Glamour, use a Contract, or start to believe that the strange things you see are more than the effects of an addled mind in desperate need of therapy, this merit's effects WILL be reversed.

Dice Pool: Resolve + Composure vs. Intelligence + Wits (contested) Ritual Length: Long Duration: Indefinite Cost: 1 Willpower

Dramatic Failure: The thaumaturge loses control of his magical powers for at least one day’s time, but does not manage to excise them. The Storyteller should probably have the character exhibit various magical abilities the caster normally possesses in a manner that demonstrates such powers still exist but have passed temporarily out of the control of their user. While the thaumaturge can try again, he cannot do so until his control of magic returns.

Failure: The ritual fails to produce any effect.

Success: The character loses access to all magical traits indefinitely.

Exceptional Success: The thaumaturge removes her access to all magical traits and makes great strides towards truly returning to mundane life. The Storyteller should consider allowing the character to exchange some of her magical traits for Experience to be immediately spent upon suitable mundane traits.

Ritual Details: The caster symbolically destroys his connection to magic in a highly personal demonstration. Some thaumaturges may perform such simple gestures as breaking a sign of power, while others may elaborately bind their magic to a physical emblem and consign it to fire, thereby returning the magical energy to the rest of the world.

Drawback: Forgetting your magical lore doesn’t protect you from the supernatural or from past brushes with the extraordinary. Life as a mundane mortal may turn out peacefully or it may be disrupted by magical beings which still recognize the magician even if she does not recognize them.

Universal Merits

Contacts

For ease of code purposes, rather than having each dot be a separate set of Contacts, we are going to use multiple instances of the merit itself, similar to how Allies work. The dot value of your particular Contacts is still used to contest any opposing Allies, should someone attempt to, say, use their town hall allies to block your town hall contacts from getting a building permit.

E.g. You could have a Contacts (Plumbers) 3 and a Contacts (Technicians) 1.

Good Time Management

We are using the GMC version of this merit (rather than the version in Reliquary or Asylum), which does NOT specify that it must be used on mundane rolls only, and is half time, rather than quarter time. As such, this merit halves the time between rolls for all extended actions.

Hobbyist Clique

Send in a group +request to staff with all prospective members to briefly explain the clique. Staff will set the merit on all members.

Inconspicuous

This custom merit is used to represent the amount of effort your character puts into concealing a particular skill/talent/ability/characteristic, and must be represented through RP. As with Fame, you must select a particular character trait to which this merit applies. For example, Fame (Obscenely Wealthy) vs. Inconspicuous (Obscenely Wealthy), or (Swordsman) or (Contract Master) or (Goblin Friend) or...

Any rolls to find or identify your character as (your trait) suffer a -1 penalty per dot in this merit.

See the Inconspicuous page for full details.

See the XP Tiers page for more details of how this merit is used on Fate's Harvest. This merit is mutually exclusive with Fame of the same type. i.e. if you are Inconspicuous (Ninja), you cannot also have Fame (Ninja)

Indomitable

While GMC has a perfectly respectable variation of this merit, staff is not using it.

The rationale behind this decision is, more or less, that in staff's opinion, if you are strong-willed enough to resist one type of coercion, you are strong-willed enough to resist another. The GMC write-up is, specifically, for supernatural powers only, while the Night Stalkers write-up includes mundane factors.

It is staff's intention that Indomitable be the "catch-all" resistance merit, while Iron Will gives a specific additional bonus to mundane efforts, Psychic Resistance gives a specific additional bonus to Psychic efforts, and Deep Kenning provides a bonus to situations involving fae/Fae/Glamour/the Wyrd.

The HRed version of Indomitable is as follows:

Indomitable • to •••••

Prerequisites: Resolve •••, Composure •••

Effect: Whether due to resolve, strength of will, or sheer bloody-mindedness, some people just won't bend. The character with this merit is altogether less prone to suggestion of any sort, be it mundane or supernatural, and gains a reflexive bonus to resist outside forces imposing their will upon her. Be it by Intimidation, Persuasion, or supernatural abilities, the character gains a positive modifier equal to the dots in this merit on all Composure or Resolve rolls to resist or contest attempts to bend her will to someone else's wishes.

Influence

This custom merit is used to represent a character's influence and responsibilities within a family, court or freehold. Influence has its own page with a full write-up.

Kin

This merit does exist. This is less a House Rule than a reminder that it is useless to anybody who doesn't intend to pursue interactions with werewolf NPCs. There are no player werewolves.

Language/Multilingual

Remember, any time you want to buy the Language merit for any of the languages you have under Multilingual, you get an automatic replacement. Send in a +request and staff will fix your +sheet for you.

Mystery Cult Initiation

If you are joining an existing cult, please send in a +request and CC the cult leader. Staff will not add you to a cult without a comment on your +job from the cult leader consenting that you qualify as an Initiate.

If you are beginning a new cult, your +request must include the following information:

• Purpose - Why does your cult exist?
• Relic - An item which grounds members' faith.
• Doctrine - The rules and traditions which define your cult.

See the book for details and examples of the benefits each level of the cult's merit will provide.

Please include suggestions for your cult along those lines. Staff will help you refine them once they are written, but staff will not write them for you.

Professional Training

The following professions and asset skills are suggested as examples of what players may acquire via this merit.

Psychic Resistance

Since the book was written before Changelings became A Thing, assume that they are on the list with other supernatural beasties this won't work for.

Sleight of Hand

The GMC writers had a brainfart here, as far as staff is concerned. As this merit is not supernatural in nature, there is no reason why other players should be mystically incapable of rolling perception to spot it.

Staff is house ruling the merit to read as follows:

Sleight of Hand (••)
Prerequisite: Larceny •••
Effect: Your character can pick locks and pockets without even thinking about it. She can take one Larceny-based instant action reflexively in a given turn. Additionally, unless someone is trying specifically to catch her in the act, all Wits + Composure rolls to notice her sleight of hand suffer a -2 penalty.

Staff

Seeing as the merit on GMC p.170 is very general, here are some notes about staff's stance on Staff.

• If you are a Changeling, or otherwise associated with the Changeling sphere, your Staff members may be Hobs.
• Yes, you may purchase this merit more than once if you want more than five types of minions.

Since your minion varieties are not going to show up on your +sheet, please write a +note listing them and the skills involved. Staff will lock it for you.

Striking Looks

If you purchase this merit, please include 'SL1' or 'SL2' in your &short-desc. Mechanically you are more noticeable and memorable.

Striking Voice

This merit is a complement and a twin to Striking Looks. Rather than your appearance, your voice is particularly memorable and easy to recognize. Similar to the above, you gain either a +1 or a +2 to applicable Social rolls, and must include 'SV1' or 'SV2' in your &short-desc to let others know.