Monte Cook's WoD - Downloaded from the Wizards Community, all coding removed by Solauren

Monte Cook's WoD

Post/Author/DateTime Post
#1
warm8ker
Feb 11, 2009 9:45:30 Howdy all, I am an avid 3.5 player. My band of merry adventurers is lookin for somethin new. We had a little interest show up in Monte Cooke's D20 WoD.

Have any of you out there played it? Is it worth getting into?

We like the Dark setting and the magic point system seems neat.

We have one book for 5 people to pass around so far. We haven't played yet. I am looking for some objective evaluations of the system/setting. Hell, I'll take some subjective evals as well.

-Pelor Bless you all!!
#2
thakowsaizmu
Feb 13, 2009 1:43:37 To be honest, I flipped through it when it came out, saw it was nWoD and put it down. A few months later, stranded in a bookstore with nothing to do, I broke down and picked it up again. I read through it a bit and to me it looks a bit broken. From what I recall Garou (or whatever they're calling them now) start level one with a BaB of +4! What?! Seriously, broken.

But that is just my opinion. If you and your players like the setting / book, have fun! I'd suggest getting into oWoD (the Storytelling system that White Wolf used to have) if you are looking for something non-d20, but that is mostly because I like it better than the nWoD.
#3
Cyber-Dave
Feb 13, 2009 10:24:25 I love it when people make assumptions out of context. The werewolf starts out with a BaB +4, its seriously broken!!! Oh, wait... every first level class starts out as if it was actually a 4th level class in regular d20 terms. Every single one. Werewolf, vampire, mage, demon, awakened, all of them. The game is not supposed to be fully compatible with other d20 Products. You are ONLY supposed to use classes from McWoD (actually, races, since the game does away with classes and makes you gain levels in a race). So really, that BaB +4, in context, is no more broken at 1st level, for a werewolf, than a BaB +4 is for a fighter at 4th level. The game just starts you at 4th level and calls it 1st level. The races are no more broken, in comparison with each other, than the classes in the D&D players handbook.

I have bought McWoD. Its one of the three d20 RPG's I will still play (Star Wars Saga, 4e D&D, and McWoD). Its a great game. It is broken, but it is broken on the level of all 3e products (for the most part. There are some issues with the save DC of most monster abilities. They are written as level+key score sets the DC in the book when they really should have been written as 1/2 level+key score sets the DC. I am pretty sure it was an editing mistake though)... which is to say that the reason it is broken is not because of anything new introduced in McWoD (as I said, for the most part), but because of the inherent failings of the 3.5 system. If you like the 3.5 system you should not have any major problems getting into McWoD. Me personally, I felt I needed to write a few pages of house rules to make everything run smoothly. After that, however, I am very happy with the game. A great all around World of Darkness style d20 game.

If you want my McWoD house rules feel free to send me a PM (and include an e-mail address you would like me to mail them to). I will warn you in advance, however, some of my changes are meant to make the game run more like Star Wars Saga edition. I changed the skill acquisition rules to get rid of skill points, and changed the grappling system to mirror the grappling system of Star Wars Saga. Other rules, however, are designed to fix broken elements of racial powers. Make mages a tiny bit weaker, demons and awakened a little stronger, and change the way a couple of broken vampire and werewolf powers work (to make them mesh with the rest of the game a little better). So, one way or another there might be something in there that you want.
#4
thakowsaizmu
Feb 13, 2009 13:53:38 I love it when people miss very important quantifiers, like "MY OPINION", and go off on longwinded fanboy tangents.
#5
ranger_reg
Feb 13, 2009 16:53:33
To be honest, I flipped through it when it came out, saw it was nWoD and put it down. A few months later, stranded in a bookstore with nothing to do, I broke down and picked it up again. I read through it a bit and to me it looks a bit broken. From what I recall Garou (or whatever they're calling them now) start level one with a BaB of +4! What?! Seriously, broken.

Meh. Doesn't bother me. May have to tweak it if I want to put them in other settings, but mcWOD is a unique setting of its own, not a toolbox.

Tweak the Rules to Fit the Setting, Not the Other Way Around.
#6
Cyber-Dave
Feb 13, 2009 22:03:44
I love it when people miss very important quantifiers, like "MY OPINION", and go off on longwinded fanboy tangents.

And your opinion was made on an assumption out of context.

Saying that something is broken because it has a BaB +4 at first level makes no sense. The only way something can be broken is in the context of the rest of the game. In D&D 3.5, a class with a BaB +4 at first level would be broken because in the context of that game NO other class has more then a BaB +1 at first level. Such a class would not be broken because it has a BaB +4 (which is not inherently broken in and of itself) but rather because of what the other classes do not get. But, in the context of McWoD, it doesn't make sense to call the game broken because of a class that gets a BaB +4. All the classes have BaB's that are comparable to 4th level characters. The game intentionally starts you off as a 4th level character at level one. A first level McWoD character is pretty much a 4th level D&D character. So, your opinion was baseless. It was made on a totally out of context, and thus illogical, statement.

I don't mind you saying that McWoD is broken. It has some major issues (which I had to house rule to fix). There are some very good reasons to call it broken. The dichotomy between saving throw bonuses and saving throw difficulty classes is a good example of something very broken in McWoD. Within a few levels, pretty much all characters fail on a saving throw against a supernatural ability unless they roll a natural 20 (making their saving throw bonuses worthless, no matter what they are). In order to fix this you need to change the saving throw DC value for any supernatural ability that uses a characters level to set the DC to 1/2 the level instead. Pointing this out would be a GOOD example of how the game is broken.

My issue was not that you called it broken. Certain aspects of the game are broken (though I found them easy enough to fix with house rules). My problem is when people use really baseless logic to make a statement. The fact that a class has a +4 BaB, without a framework of context, is meaningless. Using that as an example to support your opinion that the game is broken thus makes your opinion meaningless. Especially since in the context of the rest of the game, that is actually one of the areas where the game is definitely (and provably) not broken (unless you consider different classes having base attack bonuses to be a broken mechanic from the get go, and thus consider the different BaBs of 3.5 D&D broken. But, if that is the case, you should state that to create a framework for your statement).

I just wish people would think a bit before they post stuff.
#7
thakowsaizmu
Feb 16, 2009 16:41:24 If the intended starting level is four, then perhaps the characters should start at level four, not at one-is-four. It breaks the mechanics of the d20 system. I like Monte Cook. I have a bunch of Malhovic Press and Necromancer Games stuff. It's great stuff.

I understand that it a unique setting in and of itself using the d20 mechanics. Fantastic. But the assumed conventions should still be followed. Taken out of setting context perhaps, out of mechanics context it is not. It violates the simple math behind the system and therefor the system is strained and suffers.

It is unfortunate that it is broken because, as I said, I like the other stuff he's put out. It could've added to a d20 modern game greatly, but it can't because of the violation of mechanics. So great, here is a modern setting using the d20 rules that can't be used with other modern settings using the 2do mechanics. And let me just state this one more time, I understand that it is a unique setting in and of itself.
#8
thakowsaizmu
Feb 16, 2009 16:42:07 ...
#9
Cyber-Dave
Feb 16, 2009 17:21:19
If the intended starting level is four, then perhaps the characters should start at level four, not at one-is-four.

Why should it have to do this? The game is designed to run by itself, not in conjunction with other d20 games. You are not supposed to have a D&D fighter running alongside a werewolf, or a d20 Modern smart hero playing in tandem with a vampire. As only the "races" from McWoD are supposed to be used, why would it arbitrarily call the first level of play level four? The intent was to make first level characters in McWoD more powerful. It does this. All characters gain skill points like a 4th level character, hit dice like a 4th level character, defense and saving throw bonuses like a 4th level character, and a BaB of a 4th level character. Thus, the math of all characters works against each other (at least in this particular area of the game).

It breaks the mechanics of the d20 system.

No, it really doesn't. If all race-classes have all of their basic "level" related abilities boosted to 4th level at level one, then all race-classes receive an equal boost in power. The mathematics of the d20 system work fine. The only way it breaks the d20 system is if you expressly try and include level 1 McWoD characters with level 1 D&D or d20 Modern characters... and the game specifically tells you not to do this. I quote, from page 380:

GMs might allow players in other game worlds to create Awakened, demon, mage, vampire and werewolf characters from this book. Note that supernatural characters in this book begin at a much higher power level than characters in other game systems. A level 1 Awakened, for example, is approximately the same power as a 4th level character in most other games.

It warns that that in other games, a level 1 character from this book is actually a level 4 character. And it warns you that even this is only an approximation of power to other games, not an actual equality of power. It tells you right off the bat, this game is supposed to be run with its own race-classes, not with other race classes. Mixing the race-classes from this book with other d20 system classes creates problems. As long as you avoid doing this, as long as you run the game as intended (only with its own race-classes) the game will not be broken at all. And if you insist on mixing and matching the race-classes with other d20 system classes, the game lets you know that the race-classes from McWoD are approximately the same as 4th level characters (and thus should be used as such).

I understand that it a unique setting in and of itself using the d20 mechanics. Fantastic. But the assumed conventions should still be followed. Taken out of setting context perhaps, out of mechanics context it is not. It violates the simple math behind the system and therefor the system is strained and suffers.

This statement doesn't even make any sense. Why should it follow any assumed conventions? And how does it make sense that it does not need to follow these assumed conventions only when it is viewed out of context? The only reason to assume that it should follow assumed conventions is to take the setting out of its context, to view it in the context of other d20 system products, and to assume that they should all be able to work in tandem. When you view the setting, the game, in its own context there is no reason to assume that it must follow the conventions of other games. Sometimes you need to break conventions in order to more accurately capture the flavor of the specific setting/genre you are working on. d20 Modern and D&D classes certainly don't work well together, for example. They might be closer in power to each other then either would be to the race-classes of McWoD, but the difference in damage threshold, defense, item, and magic rules between those two systems would cause a game that uses classes from both of them to be quite broken indeed.

It is unfortunate that it is broken because, as I said, I like the other stuff he's put out. It could've added to a d20 modern game greatly, but it can't because of the violation of mechanics. So great, here is a modern setting using the d20 rules that can't be used with other modern settings using the 2do mechanics. And let me just state this one more time, I understand that it is a unique setting in and of itself.

What you seem to not understand is that it is not just a setting that is unique in and of itself, its a game that is unique in and of itself. It is not a d20 Modern setting (like say Urban Arcana), its a d20 system game. It is its own game. McWoD is not d20 Modern, it is not 3e D&D, its McWoD. McWoD has as much to do with d20 Modern as either Star Wars Saga or 4e D&D do. All it is is a game developed in the same system, that is it. The system is altered to fit the genre of that game, however.

If you buy McWoD in order to use it with other d20 system products you have made a mistake. Certainly you can use elements of other 3.5 edition rules based games with McWoD, but the process will require jury rigging. How much depends on what you are trying to add. Feats are pretty easy to port between any 3.5 edition rules. Classes much less so. Items are more in line with feats, though some consideration between their final effect on the games system is still required. And all of this is explicitly stated on page 380 of McWoD.

Post/Author/DateTime	Post
#1 warm8ker Feb 11, 2009 9:45:30	Howdy all, I am an avid 3.5 player. My band of merry adventurers is lookin for somethin new. We had a little interest show up in Monte Cooke's D20 WoD. Have any of you out there played it? Is it worth getting into? We like the Dark setting and the magic point system seems neat. We have one book for 5 people to pass around so far. We haven't played yet. I am looking for some objective evaluations of the system/setting. Hell, I'll take some subjective evals as well. -Pelor Bless you all!!
#2 thakowsaizmu Feb 13, 2009 1:43:37	To be honest, I flipped through it when it came out, saw it was nWoD and put it down. A few months later, stranded in a bookstore with nothing to do, I broke down and picked it up again. I read through it a bit and to me it looks a bit broken. From what I recall Garou (or whatever they're calling them now) start level one with a BaB of +4! What?! Seriously, broken. But that is just my opinion. If you and your players like the setting / book, have fun! I'd suggest getting into oWoD (the Storytelling system that White Wolf used to have) if you are looking for something non-d20, but that is mostly because I like it better than the nWoD.
#3 Cyber-Dave Feb 13, 2009 10:24:25	I love it when people make assumptions out of context. The werewolf starts out with a BaB +4, its seriously broken!!! Oh, wait... every first level class starts out as if it was actually a 4th level class in regular d20 terms. Every single one. Werewolf, vampire, mage, demon, awakened, all of them. The game is not supposed to be fully compatible with other d20 Products. You are ONLY supposed to use classes from McWoD (actually, races, since the game does away with classes and makes you gain levels in a race). So really, that BaB +4, in context, is no more broken at 1st level, for a werewolf, than a BaB +4 is for a fighter at 4th level. The game just starts you at 4th level and calls it 1st level. The races are no more broken, in comparison with each other, than the classes in the D&D players handbook. I have bought McWoD. Its one of the three d20 RPG's I will still play (Star Wars Saga, 4e D&D, and McWoD). Its a great game. It is broken, but it is broken on the level of all 3e products (for the most part. There are some issues with the save DC of most monster abilities. They are written as level+key score sets the DC in the book when they really should have been written as 1/2 level+key score sets the DC. I am pretty sure it was an editing mistake though)... which is to say that the reason it is broken is not because of anything new introduced in McWoD (as I said, for the most part), but because of the inherent failings of the 3.5 system. If you like the 3.5 system you should not have any major problems getting into McWoD. Me personally, I felt I needed to write a few pages of house rules to make everything run smoothly. After that, however, I am very happy with the game. A great all around World of Darkness style d20 game. If you want my McWoD house rules feel free to send me a PM (and include an e-mail address you would like me to mail them to). I will warn you in advance, however, some of my changes are meant to make the game run more like Star Wars Saga edition. I changed the skill acquisition rules to get rid of skill points, and changed the grappling system to mirror the grappling system of Star Wars Saga. Other rules, however, are designed to fix broken elements of racial powers. Make mages a tiny bit weaker, demons and awakened a little stronger, and change the way a couple of broken vampire and werewolf powers work (to make them mesh with the rest of the game a little better). So, one way or another there might be something in there that you want.
#4 thakowsaizmu Feb 13, 2009 13:53:38	I love it when people miss very important quantifiers, like "MY OPINION", and go off on longwinded fanboy tangents.
#5 ranger_reg Feb 13, 2009 16:53:33	To be honest, I flipped through it when it came out, saw it was nWoD and put it down. A few months later, stranded in a bookstore with nothing to do, I broke down and picked it up again. I read through it a bit and to me it looks a bit broken. From what I recall Garou (or whatever they're calling them now) start level one with a BaB of +4! What?! Seriously, broken. Meh. Doesn't bother me. May have to tweak it if I want to put them in other settings, but mcWOD is a unique setting of its own, not a toolbox. Tweak the Rules to Fit the Setting, Not the Other Way Around.
#6 Cyber-Dave Feb 13, 2009 22:03:44	I love it when people miss very important quantifiers, like "MY OPINION", and go off on longwinded fanboy tangents. And your opinion was made on an assumption out of context. Saying that something is broken because it has a BaB +4 at first level makes no sense. The only way something can be broken is in the context of the rest of the game. In D&D 3.5, a class with a BaB +4 at first level would be broken because in the context of that game NO other class has more then a BaB +1 at first level. Such a class would not be broken because it has a BaB +4 (which is not inherently broken in and of itself) but rather because of what the other classes do not get. But, in the context of McWoD, it doesn't make sense to call the game broken because of a class that gets a BaB +4. All the classes have BaB's that are comparable to 4th level characters. The game intentionally starts you off as a 4th level character at level one. A first level McWoD character is pretty much a 4th level D&D character. So, your opinion was baseless. It was made on a totally out of context, and thus illogical, statement. I don't mind you saying that McWoD is broken. It has some major issues (which I had to house rule to fix). There are some very good reasons to call it broken. The dichotomy between saving throw bonuses and saving throw difficulty classes is a good example of something very broken in McWoD. Within a few levels, pretty much all characters fail on a saving throw against a supernatural ability unless they roll a natural 20 (making their saving throw bonuses worthless, no matter what they are). In order to fix this you need to change the saving throw DC value for any supernatural ability that uses a characters level to set the DC to 1/2 the level instead. Pointing this out would be a GOOD example of how the game is broken. My issue was not that you called it broken. Certain aspects of the game are broken (though I found them easy enough to fix with house rules). My problem is when people use really baseless logic to make a statement. The fact that a class has a +4 BaB, without a framework of context, is meaningless. Using that as an example to support your opinion that the game is broken thus makes your opinion meaningless. Especially since in the context of the rest of the game, that is actually one of the areas where the game is definitely (and provably) not broken (unless you consider different classes having base attack bonuses to be a broken mechanic from the get go, and thus consider the different BaBs of 3.5 D&D broken. But, if that is the case, you should state that to create a framework for your statement). I just wish people would think a bit before they post stuff.
#7 thakowsaizmu Feb 16, 2009 16:41:24	If the intended starting level is four, then perhaps the characters should start at level four, not at one-is-four. It breaks the mechanics of the d20 system. I like Monte Cook. I have a bunch of Malhovic Press and Necromancer Games stuff. It's great stuff. I understand that it a unique setting in and of itself using the d20 mechanics. Fantastic. But the assumed conventions should still be followed. Taken out of setting context perhaps, out of mechanics context it is not. It violates the simple math behind the system and therefor the system is strained and suffers. It is unfortunate that it is broken because, as I said, I like the other stuff he's put out. It could've added to a d20 modern game greatly, but it can't because of the violation of mechanics. So great, here is a modern setting using the d20 rules that can't be used with other modern settings using the 2do mechanics. And let me just state this one more time, I understand that it is a unique setting in and of itself.
#8 thakowsaizmu Feb 16, 2009 16:42:07	...
#9 Cyber-Dave Feb 16, 2009 17:21:19	If the intended starting level is four, then perhaps the characters should start at level four, not at one-is-four. Why should it have to do this? The game is designed to run by itself, not in conjunction with other d20 games. You are not supposed to have a D&D fighter running alongside a werewolf, or a d20 Modern smart hero playing in tandem with a vampire. As only the "races" from McWoD are supposed to be used, why would it arbitrarily call the first level of play level four? The intent was to make first level characters in McWoD more powerful. It does this. All characters gain skill points like a 4th level character, hit dice like a 4th level character, defense and saving throw bonuses like a 4th level character, and a BaB of a 4th level character. Thus, the math of all characters works against each other (at least in this particular area of the game). It breaks the mechanics of the d20 system. No, it really doesn't. If all race-classes have all of their basic "level" related abilities boosted to 4th level at level one, then all race-classes receive an equal boost in power. The mathematics of the d20 system work fine. The only way it breaks the d20 system is if you expressly try and include level 1 McWoD characters with level 1 D&D or d20 Modern characters... and the game specifically tells you not to do this. I quote, from page 380: GMs might allow players in other game worlds to create Awakened, demon, mage, vampire and werewolf characters from this book. Note that supernatural characters in this book begin at a much higher power level than characters in other game systems. A level 1 Awakened, for example, is approximately the same power as a 4th level character in most other games. It warns that that in other games, a level 1 character from this book is actually a level 4 character. And it warns you that even this is only an approximation of power to other games, not an actual equality of power. It tells you right off the bat, this game is supposed to be run with its own race-classes, not with other race classes. Mixing the race-classes from this book with other d20 system classes creates problems. As long as you avoid doing this, as long as you run the game as intended (only with its own race-classes) the game will not be broken at all. And if you insist on mixing and matching the race-classes with other d20 system classes, the game lets you know that the race-classes from McWoD are approximately the same as 4th level characters (and thus should be used as such). I understand that it a unique setting in and of itself using the d20 mechanics. Fantastic. But the assumed conventions should still be followed. Taken out of setting context perhaps, out of mechanics context it is not. It violates the simple math behind the system and therefor the system is strained and suffers. This statement doesn't even make any sense. Why should it follow any assumed conventions? And how does it make sense that it does not need to follow these assumed conventions only when it is viewed out of context? The only reason to assume that it *should* follow assumed conventions is to take the setting out of its context, to view it in the context of other d20 system products, and to assume that they should all be able to work in tandem. When you view the setting, the game, in its own context there is no reason to assume that it must follow the conventions of other games. Sometimes you need to break conventions in order to more accurately capture the flavor of the specific setting/genre you are working on. d20 Modern and D&D classes certainly don't work well together, for example. They might be closer in power to each other then either would be to the race-classes of McWoD, but the difference in damage threshold, defense, item, and magic rules between those two systems would cause a game that uses classes from both of them to be quite broken indeed. It is unfortunate that it is broken because, as I said, I like the other stuff he's put out. It could've added to a d20 modern game greatly, but it can't because of the violation of mechanics. So great, here is a modern setting using the d20 rules that can't be used with other modern settings using the 2do mechanics. And let me just state this one more time, I understand that it is a unique setting in and of itself. What you seem to not understand is that it is not just a setting that is unique in and of itself, its a game that is unique in and of itself. It is not a d20 Modern setting (like say Urban Arcana), its a d20 system game. It is its own game. McWoD is not d20 Modern, it is not 3e D&D, its McWoD. McWoD has as much to do with d20 Modern as either Star Wars Saga or 4e D&D do. All it is is a game developed in the same system, that is it. The system is altered to fit the genre of that game, however. If you buy McWoD in order to use it with other d20 system products you have made a mistake. Certainly you can use elements of other 3.5 edition rules based games with McWoD, but the process will require jury rigging. How much depends on what you are trying to add. Feats are pretty easy to port between any 3.5 edition rules. Classes much less so. Items are more in line with feats, though some consideration between their final effect on the games system is still required. And all of this is explicitly stated on page 380 of McWoD.