First law and were creatures.

[BumblingBear]

Where's the line drawn with were creatures and the first law?

White court vamps have souls - we know this for a fact.  White court vamps are ok for wizard to kill.

Were people like Billy have souls too - but they may not be ok to kill.

Should we just arbitrarily say that unless a person is a pure mortal with +2 to their refresh rate they are pretty much considered a supernatural creature?

Otherwise, how is it possible for a wizard to figure out when he can defend himself or not?

Are things only kill-able with magic if they look "scary"?

[Tsunami]

One single question:

Is it human in the eyes of the council?

Yes makes killing it a No-No.
No makes it acceptable.

That's really all there is to it. Were-People like Billy are nothing more but "Wizards" able to cast one single transformation spell.
Hence human, hence NoNo.

Pure mortals only... no, because if so, why would harry have been made a 1st lawbreaker for killing Justin.

Well, it's really difficult to know when you can use lethal magic... sucks eh? 

[BumblingBear]

One single question:

Is it human in the eyes of the council?

Yes makes killing it a No-No.
No makes it acceptable.

That's really all there is to it. Were-People like Billy are nothing more but "Wizards" able to cast one single transformation spell.
Hence human, hence NoNo.

Pure mortals only... no, because if so, why would harry have been made a 1st lawbreaker for killing Justin.

Well, it's really difficult to know when you can use lethal magic... sucks eh? 

I'm more worried about the lawbreaker stunt than the white council.

[jybil178]

Well, unfortunately at this point, the err... Point gets a little muddled...  Billy and the Alphas are a definate no on the kill list, but thats already been mentioned...

But maybe...  And I don't know, I COULD be going outa the water on this..  Maybe, while the White Council may not bat an eyelash at killing most White Court Vampires, you also wouldn't have to normally worry about the lawbreaker stunt...  But if you were to kill someone like Thomas, who has a positive refresh, and attempts to keep a hold on his hunger, THAT would be breaking the First Law..  The Council may not do anything about it, but you might still walk away from the encounter with a Lawbreaker Stunt...

Maybe it could follow along the idea, that if a "creature" that could be considered fairly alien still has a positive refresh, it may fall under lawbreaker territory?

[BumblingBear]

Well, unfortunately at this point, the err... Point gets a little muddled...  Billy and the Alphas are a definate no on the kill list, but thats already been mentioned...

But maybe...  And I don't know, I COULD be going outa the water on this..  Maybe, while the White Council may not bat an eyelash at killing most White Court Vampires, you also wouldn't have to normally worry about the lawbreaker stunt...  But if you were to kill someone like Thomas, who has a positive refresh, and attempts to keep a hold on his hunger, THAT would be breaking the First Law..  The Council may not do anything about it, but you might still walk away from the encounter with a Lawbreaker Stunt...

Maybe it could follow along the idea, that if a "creature" that could be considered fairly alien still has a positive refresh, it may fall under lawbreaker territory?

That is awfully complicated.

Who is to say that Lara Raith is not a positive refresh?  If Thomas could do it, so could she.

I mean, what if you meet one ghoul who tries to be a good... person, an that makes you wonder if every ghoul might not be?

I think that since magic comes from what you believe, second guessing whether it's right to kill something or not based on what decisions they've made instead of their nature is a slippery slope to carebear-land.

I mean, it's a great roleplaying opportunity, but my character is a war hardened x soldier.  He can and has disassociated himself from vanilla mortals enough to kill them.  I doubt he'd have second thoughts about blasting a werewolf of any sort.

My question is if you think it's right, would that be a lawbreaker stunt?  I don't think so.

The more we talk about the subject, the more I think that anyone who does not have that extra 2 points of refresh is fair game as long as the PC believes it's justified.

Perhaps Harry got the lawbreaker stunt for killing a wizard because it was a wizard (like him) and someone he knew and raised him for a time.

There's a big difference between killing a stranger in self defense and killing a family member.

[sjksprocket]

I think that it might have to do something along the lines of whether or not it stains your soul. Harry killing Justin definitely did something negative to Harry. Hence the Lawbreaker. Does the kill spiral the character into more darkness?

[bitterpill]

You can kill white court vamps under the first law period, killing Thomas would be wrong but not against the Law as to killing Were Creature it is probably something stupid like you can kill them as long as their not in human form.

[Moriden]

Unfortunately the only way to be safe on this is to sit down with your st and figure out how they interpret lawbreaker. Due to Mr. Hicks dislike of universal consolidated rules they where written in a very nebulous manner meaning that you will find a different interpretation every time you play the game.

[Imp]

look as it from an old D&D rule.   the spell "hold person", if it the spell wont work on it it aint people and doesn't fall under the law.

[BumblingBear]

Unfortunately the only way to be safe on this is to sit down with your st and figure out how they interpret lawbreaker. Due to Mr. Hicks dislike of universal consolidated rules they where written in a very nebulous manner meaning that you will find a different interpretation every time you play the game.

I think this is the "correct" answer.  Whatever that means. lol

I suppose if it comes up I can ask at the table.

[Moriden]

I suppose if it comes up I can ask at the table.

id actually suggest that you talk to the gm before hand. its not the kind of thing you want to be surprised by.

[BumblingBear]

id actually suggest that you talk to the gm before hand. its not the kind of thing you want to be surprised by.

Well, I partially want to get a community consensus because I may be stepping in and GMing if/when our GM wants to play a character.

Plus, since everyone in my group is new to this system and I have read the book 6 times and lurked in these forums so often, I've kind of found a niche as the "rules guy".

While the GM gets final say, the sheer expedient that I've spent so much time trying to understand the rules and I don't play favorites (even with myself) means that my opinion is at least listened to.

That's actually why I post so often of late.  I'm trying to understand the community's agreement on everything - not just the things that affect my character.

[MrobFire]

Well, I partially want to get a community consensus because I may be stepping in and GMing if/when our GM wants to play a character.

Plus, since everyone in my group is new to this system and I have read the book 6 times and lurked in these forums so often, I've kind of found a niche as the "rules guy".

While the GM gets final say, the sheer expedient that I've spent so much time trying to understand the rules and I don't play favorites (even with myself) means that my opinion is at least listened to.

That's actually why I post so often of late.  I'm trying to understand the community's agreement on everything - not just the things that affect my character.

Yeah, even if people are free to come to their own conclusions I agree that I do like finding the community's consensus on these topics which I think are the most interesting. My personal favorite interpretation is that Harry did get a +1 to the bonus from lawbreaker and that

(click to show/hide)

Ramirez also gained lawbreaker when they had their duel with the wampires (come to think of it though I can't remember if he actually killed a wampire).

It's more interesting to me to think that you gain lawbreaker when you kill anything that has a soul and that the White Council simply hasn't realized that wampires count since they've never engaged them in large scale combat (and they tend to take the traditional view that monsters are bad).

Alternatively the ensouled and positive refresh is an ok idea but it fails when you consider that most warlocks probably would have gone into negative refresh based on how lawbreaker works. I find it hard to believe though that wardens (or ancient wizards for that matter) wouldn't eventually notice that there were no metaphysical consequences for using magic against warlocks.

[Bruce Coulson]

Well, there is no 'community agreement' on much of anything, except for the Golden Rule that whatever ruling works for your group is the right one.

As far as the First Law... WCV are genetic in nature, and so inhuman from the start (although they have a chance of becoming human).  Mortal spellcasters in general are considered human (hence Wardens with swords).  Were-creatures are 'humans with a spell' (as far as game mechanics and Harry/Bob are concerned; the reality may be different) and so are off-limits.  Changelings could eventually be mortal; the subject hasn't come up, but I'd play it safe and say Changelings are human enough until/unless they Choose Fae.  Red Court Vampires are infected with a demon, lose their soul, and hence are fair game.  (Where Red Court Infected fall under this is an interesting question; I'd say they count as human until/unless they turn completely.)

[BumblingBear]

Yeah, even if people are free to come to their own conclusions I agree that I do like finding the community's consensus on these topics which I think are the most interesting. My personal favorite interpretation is that Harry did get a +1 to the bonus from lawbreaker and that

(click to show/hide)

Ramirez also gained lawbreaker when they had their duel with the wampires (come to think of it though I can't remember if he actually killed a wampire).

It's more interesting to me to think that you gain lawbreaker when you kill anything that has a soul and that the White Council simply hasn't realized that wampires count since they've never engaged them in large scale combat (and they tend to take the traditional view that monsters are bad).

Alternatively the ensouled and positive refresh is an ok idea but it fails when you consider that most warlocks probably would have gone into negative refresh based on how lawbreaker works. I find it hard to believe though that wardens (or ancient wizards for that matter) wouldn't eventually notice that there were no metaphysical consequences for using magic against warlocks.

I think I can see where you're coming from.  Unfortunately, the books and the RPG are never going to truly line up parallel to each other.

For the purposes of the RPG, it would be pretty crappy if PC defended themselves from a White Court Vampire (notice the "vampire" in the name) and lost a point of refresh from it, effectively making them lose their character for most wizards.