Bylaws of Charon
Wraith House Rules
Here are house rules, including some for converting Wraith Second Edition to Revised. As I'm writing this, I'm assuming (perhaps incorrectly) that some of you don't know of the minor rules changes that have taken place in the Revised series of games, but may be interested in applying them to your own Wraith games. As Wraith: Revised never happened, I took it upon myself to give you (and me) the tools to convert the material to Revised rules.
Character Creation
Like out of the book, except as follows:
Attributes: 15 points to spend as you like, but no more than 8 can be devoted to any one category. Characters start with the first "free" dot in every Attribute, of course.
Abilities: 30 points to spread, but no more than 3 dots can be invested in any one Ability with initial spread.
Backgrounds: 7 points. Backgrounds cost one Background/freebie point per dot up to three; every dot beyond the third costs two points. (So an Eidolon of 4 dots costs a total of five Background/freebie points, and a rating of 5 cost seven points.)
Advantages: Willpower may not exceed 8 at character generation.
The Shadow: Characters with a strong sense of identity and moral integrity (Eidolon) generally start out with weaker Shadows. When determining starting Angst, roll the wraith's Willpower (difficulty 6) in a contested roll against her Eidolon (difficulty equal to Willpower); the net Willpower successes is the character's Angst. Remember, 1s on either roll don't count against the successes rolled. A character will always have a starting Angst of at least 1.
Reintroducing a rule from First Edition Wraith: players may spend up to five points from their characters' freebie pools to "weaken" their Shadows; for every freebie point spent to this end, the Storyteller (or Shadowguide) has one less freebie point with which to build the character's Shadow.
Merits and Flaws: I set a maximum of 7 points' worth of Flaws. (Be sure to check with me before selecting Merits and Flaws, because some I don't allow -- for example, Dark Fate.)
Basic Rules
Die Rolls: In my games, natural results of 10 on all die rolls counts as two successes, except when the difficulty is 10; in this case, each 10 is one success. This isn't over the top, in my opinion, as the law of averages means 1s will come up as often as 10s.
1s on damage rolls are simple failures, and don't reduce damage successes. 10s on damage rolls are simple successes, and don't count as two damage successes.
Specialties: I do specialties differently than in the book. They apply only to Abilities'; there are no Attribute specialties. Specialties cost two freebie points/ three exp -- optionally, a specialty costs one Ability dot from your initial spread at character generation). A character can have a specialty in any Ability he has, and can have as many specialties as he has dots in that trait. So someone with a Subterfuge of 2 can have up to two Subterfuge specialties.
A specialty allows you to roll an extra die when taking actions or making rolls involving that specialty. For example, a Restless with Subterfuge 2 and the Seduction specialty adds three dice to Appearance when attempting to sweet-talk a wraith into coming home with him, but not when trying to talk his way out of a centuries-dead Legionnaire's manacles.
Botches: As with Second Edition, the Rule of One still applies: every 1 rolled on the die cancels a success. However, botches only occur when no successes are rolled and one or more 1s are showing. If you roll any successes at all, even if all your successes are canceled by 1s and 1s still remain, it's only a simple failure and not a botch. (Which makes more sense than the non-Revised system, which makes someone with a die pool of 10 as likely to botch as someone with a die pool of 2.)
Combat
Initiative: Initiative is now determined by summing the character's Dexterity and Wits, and adding the result of 1d10. This result is kept for the rest of the combat; initiative isn't rerolled at the beginning of each turn. However, initiative bonuses (such as those provided by certain arts) will increase initiative appropriately. The Storyteller counts down from the highest total, allowing characters to act on their initiative results each pass. For example, a character with Dexterity 2 and Wits 3 enters combat. He rolls a 4 on his initiative die, which means he goes on an initiative count of 9 (2 + 3 + 4).
A character may elect to sacrifice her action for the turn to add five to his initiative result for the next turn, and for the rest of the fight. Those with extra actions provided through Tempus Fugit (Pandemonium ●●●●●) may sacrifice one of those actions to gain this bonus next turn, and still act that turn; otherwise, a player must sacrifice his character's action for that turn (and may not take multiple actions). Reflexive actions may be taken during "skipped" turns, such as yelling a short warning or healing with Pathos.
Any effect that gives bonus initiative dice (such as Fatalism ●●●●: Guesswork) instead adds points to the Dexterity + Wits + 1d10 initiative roll. So, two extra dice instead adds a +2 bonus to the roll.
Damage and Soak: Now all weapons and natural attacks (not just firearms) allow the attacker to add extra damage successes to the damage dice pool. A punch (Str +0) that scores four successes to hit effectively does Strength +4 damage for that attack. This doesn't apply to attacks that hit automatically or area effects.
There are now three types of damage in the game: bashing, lethal and aggravated. The "normal" damage of previous editions is now separated into the bashing and lethal categories. Below, I am using my better judgment in deciding what types of damage qualifies as bashing or lethal, and how such damage is handled and healed; if you disagree, by all means, use your own interpretations.
Brawl maneuvers and saps inflict bashing damage; material wraiths also take bashing damage from firearms and melee weapons. Relic and Artifact weapons inflict lethal damage. Of course, these rules of thumb don't apply when common sense dictates otherwise -- a fist Moliated with spikes would inflict lethal damage, and any weapon forged from Stygian steel inflicts aggravated damage.
Bashing Damage: Bashing damage covers those forms of damage that may impair, but that don't cause actual wounds. Bashing damage is delivered by punches, kicks, falls, and damage taken across the Shroud. Material wraiths take bashing damage from most weapons, including guns and knives. Bashing damage is mostly harmless to wraiths and heals easily, as their corpuses shrug off such incidental injuries. Against bashing damage, wraiths take half damage after soak (rounded up); mortals don't take reduced damage from bashing.
Exception: A wraith in the Shadowlands can't soak damage taken from the Skinlands, and such damage isn't halved; from these sources, he always takes one level of bashing damage (regardless of the source).
Lethal Damage: Lethal damage is more dangerous than bashing damage. A soulforged knife, a sword Moliated from a wraith's arm, Maelstroms, relic firearms, and damage inflicted by Stonehand Punch (Outrage ●●●) are all things that cause lethal damage. A material wraith also takes lethal damage from bullets, cars and knives. Wraiths can soak this form of damage (unlike mortals), but damage isn't reduced.
Aggravated Damage: The most severe form of damage a wraith can endure, aggravated damage can permanently destroy a wraith, and is serious business; thankfully, the things that inflict such grievous injuries are rare. In the Shadowlands, aggravated damage is inflicted by Stygian steel, barrow-flame, soulfire crystals, the attacks of some Spectres, and certain arts like Rend (Moliate ●●●●) and Obliviate (Outrage ●●●●●). Also, the natural weapons of certain supernatural creatures like vampires and werewolves cause aggravated damage, though such monsters are not threats to wraiths unless encountered in the Skinlands while the wraith is material, or they somehow find their way into the Shadowlands.
Most aggravated damage can be soaked against a difficulty of 8. However, certain forms of damage, such as that delivered by Obliviate, aren't soakable; the Storyteller is the final judge on what sort of aggravated damage may or may not be soaked.
Healing: A wraith may retire to a Fetter to slumber and heal. A Stamina roll (difficulty 6) is made for the wraith every eight hours. Each success heals two corpus levels of bashing damage, or one level of lethal damage. Also, every one point of Pathos the wraith spends healing himself restores one corpus level of damage. A wraith suffering from aggravated damage may spend three Pathos to heal one corpus level; aggravated damage won't heal without this expenditure.
Arcanoi
Some Arcanos effects have changed with Revised rules.
Castigate ●●● (Purify): This art inflicts lethal damage; however, it cannot be soaked.
Fatalism ●●●●● (Guesswork): During combat, a successful Wits + Fatalism roll (difficulty 8) allows the wraith to add her Fatalism rating to her initiative rolls for the duration of the scene (so the roll would be Dexterity + Wits + Fatalism + 1d10). If at any time the wraith's initiative result exceeds an opponent's result by 10 or more, the Storyteller should tell the wraith's player what that foe plans to do that turn, and allowing her to prepare or react; this information comes in the form of precognitive flashes, not mind-reading. This art costs 2 Pathos, and its effects last for the rest of the combat.
Keening ●●●● (Crescendo): This art inflicts bashing damage.
Moliate ●●● (Martialry): Weapons created from the wraith's plasm cause lethal damage.
Outrage ●●● (Stonehand Punch): This art inflicts lethal damage.
Pandemonium ●●● (Dark Ether): This art inflicts bashing damage.
Phantasm ●●●● (Phantasmagoria): The quasi-real images created by this art inflict bashing damage.
Usury ●●● (Early Withdrawal): This art inflicts unsoakable lethal damage.
Go to the Wraith index.
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