Hey everyone,

It has been a little while since I posted a question, but recently I got to think a little more about mental attacks, the variety of mental attacks, and the targets of these types of attacks.

Question #1: Are White Court Vampires immune to attempts by other White Court Vampire uses of their Invoke Emotion ability? This may have been covered in the books, but I can't seem to recall if this was ever stated explicitly.

Question #2. Would a zombie (undead creation) be immune to the mental attacks of a White Court Vampire? This to me makes sense if they are immune, since they are just animated and are performing actions as directed by the creator thus having no real motivations or mind.

Question #3: Would constructs be immune to the mental attacks of a White Court Vampire? This seems like the would be immune much to the same as my thoughts on question #2.

What does everyone else think? Do I have it right?

Thanks in advance! 

I would think it would depend on whether or not the entity the WCV was directing its abilities at were capable of experiencing the emotions being projected.

1. A WCV would be susceptible to other WCVs. This is proven in BR, when Lara whammies Papa Raith > WCV to WCV directly.  That might be looked at as "same type" meaning Lust vs. Lust = no immunity, whereas Raith Lust vs. Malvora Fear maybe not?  Very hard to tell.  I'll stand on, if they can experience the emotion they're not immune.

2. Can it feel emotion? And, even if so, can it feel the emotion being projected.  For example, while a zombie might feel an emotion we might call hunger, can it feel something like the Lust projected by a Raith, or the Malvora's fear?

3. Like #2, can the construct feel experience the emotion?  Can a Raith "seduce" a truck or a Malvora scare an elevator?  Constructs are primarily machines and don't have emotions, so aren't susceptible to emotional manipulation any more than a camera or a garbage disposal.

I agree with the precept that the target would have to have an appropriate stress track... I'm not sure which one would be most appropriate.  I'm fairly sure the Social one has some applicability, because that's the one where a character can be made to feel shame - an emotion.  Mental is far more for concentration and memory recall so I'm ambivalent whether it would apply.

That may be the answer that sways them... None of us considered the compel angle.

Thanks, you may have saved my game.

I was under the impression that free will is required to break a circle, even with a physical object.  Bob didn't seem to break Harry's circle in StF when he threw the escape potion to him.  Do ghouls have free will enough to break a circle? 


TC also has a lot about the basics of a circle.
Also, beings on the level of the Erlking and Titania seemed to be able to break circles with force of will in a pinch.  Somewhere in SmF, Harry talks about the Archive being able to break free if there was a small flaw in the greater circle on DR.



As a general rule, I would say that circles aren't great catch all defense strategies.  They're only effective in limited circumstances.

That's pretty much what I told them and they were still livid.  I didn't know we had that much of a difference in interpretation of the story info...
But I'm basically right?  If an "accidental" (Harry and Susan in the basement circle vs. Toad Demon, or Harry and Murphy in the storage facility circle in TC) crossing can bring one down, then a free will act can do so... much the way Binder threatened to do in TC, yes?

That being said, it would probably be a good idea to make sure everybody is on the same page about those limits beforehand if possible.  Differences in expectations and understanding can be harder to handle after the fact.

Isn't that God's own truth...?

It is

I know. I'm talking specifically about how to use major thaumaturgy to get rid of a shadow, in order to avoid options 1 and 3.

It would seem to me the easiest solution is to not introduce the problem.  Don't have any loose Coins laying around for the PC's to get hold of.  Those this are Powerful with a capital UBER.  They're essentially Plot Device level Powerful and I personally avoid having anything even near that level of tough even remotely available to the PC's.

Try this one on for size
Developed and used this guy as the antagonist for a scenario I ran.  My players were not happy with me.

Focused Practitioner
High Concept:  Bipolar Orpheomancer
Trouble: Juke Box Hero Wannabe
Aspects:
1.  Pampered Childhood
2.  Phantom of the Opera Syndrome
3.  Music of the Spheres at My Fingertips
4.  The Crowd Follows My Beat

Skills
+5 – Conviction, Performance
+4 – Presence, Scholarship
+3 – Deceit, Discipline
+2 – Athletics, Endurance, Lore
+1 – Alertness, Contacts, Intimidation

Stress: Physical=3, Mental=4, Social=4
(2 extra mild Mental consequences, 1 extra mild Social consequence}

Powers
-2 Channeling (Air)
-2 Incite Emotion (At Range)
-2 Lawbreaker - #1 (3 or more times) - +2 to any spellcasting roll when using magic that would break this same law again.

Stunts
-1 Spellsinger (Performance) – Use Performance instead of Discipline for spell control.
-1 Occultist (Lore) – Music+1, Ancient Music +2
-1 Art Historian (Performance) – Art+1, Music History+2, Rock Music+3
-1 Poet (Performance)- Composition+2
-1 Scholar (Scholarship) – Music+1, Ancient Music+2

Focus Item(s)
1957 Fender Stratocaster (authentic) – Air, Offensive Power+2
Guitar Pick – Air, Offensive Control+2

2 Rote Spells
1.  Riff#1, Wall of Air, Block - Movement border
2.  Riff#2, Feedback, Auditory Attack

Calculate out his Feedback and see how strong it can get.  It doesn’t take many to put someone down…  Heaven help you if he decides to do it zone-wide.  He can’t do this stuff a lot, but when it does… it hurts.


Biography
Musical prodigy who attended Julliard.  His power manifested in his second year and things went heavily sideways.  He was ejected from Julliard before he turned 16. The specifics of his ouster got him blacklisted with both "respectable" musical institutions of higher learning (who refused to enroll him) and much of the entertainment industry (who refused to risk using him).

He only "sort of" understands that he's doing magic.  He's looked into the occult and has enough knowledge to get Lore-2.  He's wandered around the country earning his living first as an independent music teacher, and later as manager/promoter for garage rock bands trying to hit the big time.  So far none of them has made him rich.

He has a vast repertoire of music he can play, from pre-Renaissance to current Top-40.  The man truly is a musical library on legs and a certifiable prodigy with the guitar.

He's heavily bi-polar and long ago stopped taking his meds... because they messed with his concentration too much.

He still dreams of making it big and takes every opportunity to "show off" just how good he is... even if it always goes bad and tarnishes his reputation even more.  Poor dude never learns.

He's well into middle-age and very bitter.  He has grudges and every year that goes by, less compunction about pursuing them.

He is ... not... a nice guy.

Formal education = High School diploma.  But, I'm about to turn 59 and have tons of practical, real world experience in a number of things.

Did one of those "life credit" things at a local college about a decade ago.  Thankfully it was one of those where you test first and then they tell you what it will cost to get all those credits applied to a degree.  I scored in a variety of areas including 4 Bach, 2 Mast and a PhD in subjects I can't even remember any more.  It would have cost me over $50k to get diplomas so I let it drop.

"I don't need no stinkin' diploma" to prove I'm educated.

All the above is good but I have to say the way the OP title is written leads me to think there's a bit of a misunderstanding of part of the game premise.

"Survival" presupposes the possibility of death.  That's not really supposed to happen unless it's stated up front before conflict begins that actual character death is on the table.  Otherwise it's merely a matter of which side get to the Concession stage first.  And "death on the table" should be a mutually agreed condition.  As DM one shouldn't just start a combat sequence with "This guy is out for blood, someone could die today!"  Make sure the players are aware of the possibility and give them an option to avoid that action if they wish.  Consider it a group concession of a sort and give the Big Bad a fate point or two for scaring them off if you have to.  Just don't force the party into it.  If they're on board from the get go then find and dandy. Otherwise there can be some hard feelings and that's never good.

Also make sure the players understand that that condition is a 2-way street.  If you have one or more antagonists that are going to be recurring you don't want them getting bumped off by over-zealous players looking to count some coup on you. They too should be looking to push the antagonist(s) towards concession not the grave.

As the system sits (as said) when the balloon goes up things normally don't last long.  JB's even had Harry tell us that in the stories - how subjective time seems to pass so slowly but objective time is actually very short.  In my experience (with a # of RPGs over nearly 40 years of playing) the longer a fight scene lasts the more likely it is the player's characters will lose.  So getting a fight over with quickly (as the system is designed) actually tends to work in their favor.

Try it as it's supposed to be done.  Dont' take just one session either.  Take several to get used to it and see if you don't prefer it.  If you don't... well you guys played it your way for (how long?) a while and it was working for you.  You can always 'homebrew' it back to that method and just keep on playing.

Either way, good luck and enjoy.

Oh yah!  I'd actually already concluded that it was likely that Thomas was there when LC was fixed.  I'm more inclined to say they had a few conversations, but I'm reluctant to think they interacted more than that

I have a little trouble with Thomas being a knowing accomplice to TTH during PG.  The main reason is his reaction to Harry's "death".  If he knew that TTH was coming from the future, why was he so badly bummed all the way through GS... and still had a beef with Harry on his boat during CD?  His knowledge that Harry had come from the past should have precluded such an emotional response; he'd have known Harry wasn't really dead.

I find it more likely that TTH got into the basement with LC through the same Way that took him out to Lea's Garden once before.  Lea subs for Mab when Mab is busy elsewhere.  But Mab would be busy right at AT for the attack so Lea would be free to take Harry to that Garden and let Harry through to fiddle around in the lab.  Thomas hears stuff going on down there - when no one else is supposed to be home - and finds he can't get the trap door open (possibly Lea keeping it shut or she puts him to sleep as she did with Susan/Martin in Changes).  That would be enough to rattle him and put him on the defensive - armed and dangerous when Harry comes back.

/sigh