More gaming thoughts - Thaumaturgy

[jdotmi]

Been looking at the different paths of Thaumaturgy listed in the Guide to the Camarilla to determine what path Lisa will learn next. Right now I'm saving up for Thaum/Blood 5 and then working on finishing Lure of Flames. I've been seriously considering Path of Technomancy or Movement of the Mind. Sorta considered Weather Control. In character it fits.

Of course, I'm also pondering saving up and raising other things than disciplines. Cuz, you know, T/S/K traits are your friends too. As are P/S/M traits.

Oddly enough, I'm not too concerned with Miranda's progression. I guess that's because I have the next two weeks planned out already. And, boy, it's going to be one hell of a ride. This weekend she has a Seeking to go through. Here's to hoping I don't fuck it up. The next weekend she should have Mind 4 and then Amy's character gets to have a mental explosion of epic magnitude. Probably write the rote to have an incantation to Mnemosyne in it..

Anyrate. Back on subject.

Thaumaturgy... Sorta thinking of pulling up Path of the Levinbolt. ;-) Would be perfect for Lisa. Fire and Lightning! Or maybe Neptune's Might, but she's never been much of a water character. She's more of a "flash bang boom" kind of character.

I suppose it wouldn't hurt to round out her other disciplines... Still more interested in other things...

Comments

Re: Path of the Levinbolt

[nullslashvoid.livejournal.com]

Well, I was originally baffled when I was looking in the Guide to the Camarilla for that path and couldn't find it. Needless to say, I found it in Clanbook Tremere Revised (WW 2357) Anyway - Reading a little bit before the Path of the Levinbolt is mentioned, the book states how rare, time consuming, and difficult Thaumaturgy is in general, not to mention that Path of the Levinbolt is listed under "Failed and Lost Paths". I guess what I'm saying is in my opinion, Path of the Levinbolt should be much harder to acquire then say... Lure of Flames, or even Movement of the Mind.
Not to mention how blatantly the side-effects are, the path itself might be considered a danger to the Masquerade. (Which is why I mentioned about watching out for the Prince)

What ever would make you think I'm a rules lawyer? :)

Oh, can I ask, since I must admit to little in-game experience - what roleplaying does your ST require for increasing the Path of Blood and Lure of Flames?

Re: Path of the Levinbolt

[jdotmi.livejournal.com]

<-- rules lawyer for 14 years and running heh

For this particular chronicle he isn't requiring any "in-game" hooplah for raising traits (aside from Mages going on Seekings).

I actually flat out asked him before I raised any disciplines, pointing out to him that raising thaumaturgy requires massive amounts of time (something like 1 year for the 4th dot, 10 years for the 5th dot, etc).

I actually found it interesting that they never mentioned why Levinbolt was a failure (other than the spectacular displays of light, I mean, come on, Lure of Flames makes fire!). My guess is electrical rebound, personally. :-p

And, yes, I did grab it from clanbook Tremere. ;-)

Re: Path of the Levinbolt

[nullslashvoid.livejournal.com]

Ahh - hrmm.. okay, that's a style of ST'ing completely different then what I would envision my own. (Still haven't had the courage to do it myself, figure I should PLAY a game first.)

So, what you're saying is that the 5th dot in your Thaumaturgy takes... how long to acquire? (Besides experience cost, of course.)

I think that Levinbolt was a failure in it's original time because of the lack of access to electricity to harness. Which the book slightly implies. The Dark Ages didn't have any sort of man-made generator, let alone even a general understanding of the phenomenon as a natural occurrence.

Re: Path of the Levinbolt

[jdotmi.livejournal.com]

True that...

I sort of base it on how long it would take to acquire dots of spheres in Mage. The process is similar, albeit with fundamentally different results.

The time frame assumes that you don't have a mentor to teach it to you. Developing something on your own takes ages. (Thaumaturgy paths require 5 successes on a Intelligence + Rituals roll, difficulty of the path rating +1, and an expenditure of 5 blood points per path level, if I recall correctly. The time it takes, per roll made, is 1 year.) If you have a teacher, I would look at the paths as being 1 month per dot. ie - Gaining the first dot takes 1 month, gaining the second takes 2 months, etc etc. The only thing that has a hard and fast rule in any of the books that I've seen is actually ritual creation, which can take up to a year for a level 5 ritual.

The way I run my games (when I run them) really depends on the story I want to tell. If I want the story to be very dark and very creepy, I force time-frames on everything. Downtime is a must, and you better be planning ahead. If I want a more fast paced game, I say, "Oh, you have enough xp for the next dot! Take it!"

ST'ing can be a lot of fun. If you're good at writing story outlines and can be spontaneous with different characters, just dive in and go for it! I forced my current ST to run a game of D&D when he first got the books. I had been running the games until then (not that we ever had an honest game, it was always just the two of us back then). So, I told him he was running it. Right then. And he did a very good job and has been doing it ever since.