Numen, Charms, and you

[Berek (ST)]

Discussion of how to run the use of charms granted by numen - how they can be used, lack of prerequisites to activate certain charms, timing of use.

[Travis West]

it says you get the charm for a single use.  nothing says that use has to be the same round as the gnosis spending.  also i would say that any loss of essence for a garou get translated to loss of gnosis.

1) In the Numen write up, it mentions using gnosis to boost a relevant stat which implies at the moment prior to rolling. Using a charm is mentioned as an alternative to the aforementioned ability. It would make sense that borrowing the charm occurs simultaneously. I also wouldn't think it appropriate to use a Heal charm, reform, materialize during rage actions. It would get silly.

2) By making it so essence isn't simply magically replaced by Gnosis to make a charm work, you prevent Garou from getting access to say... Break Reality such that a cliath can't turn the face of an elder Garou into Silver with a static challenge. Or say, a cliath metis unleashing 5 agg blasts, two~shotting and elder bsd without a chop.

Basically, charms that require essence are quite powerful, and while there are plenty of charms useful that do not, balance would be best served by clarifying this distinction. Let's remember, Garou borrowing charms from spirits are from Numen and an ELDER theurge gift.

[Nike 'Slays the Patriarchy' Strilakos]

all charms require essense though, that require anything.  powerful or not.

[Travis West]

False.

Brief list of Charms that do not require Essence by looking in the Core book:

Airt Sense
Materialize
Realm Sense
Reform
Cleanse the Blight
Control Electrical System
Create Fire
Create Wind
Healing
Open Moon Bridge
Peek
Shapeshift
Shatter Glass
Short Out
Swift Flight
Umbra Quake
Updraft

And much more!

[Nike 'Slays the Patriarchy' Strilakos]

note my statement.  or let me rephrase it so you understand.  all charms that require anything, require essense.  even though spirits have tempers. 

[Travis West]

OH!  I misunderstood.

In that case, examples of the contrary are:

Freeze requires spending a variable amount of Rage.
Break Reality, one may spend a variable amount of Gnosis.

There are others as well, however almost every Charm in 2nd ed. uses power points (or nothing)- which was replaced by "essence" so you're correct on that front.

[Conor (Former ST)]

I basically don't think blast should *exist* in a game like this.

When the entire game is based around RPS and retests and traits, when base damage is 1 and doing more than that requires some non-trivial work, having a power that just says "it's my turn, you take a bunch of damage" is incredibly ugly, and I think the only reason it doesn't escalate into a total shitshow is that the power is, usually, solely in the hands of STs.

Even then, it feels incredibly against the spirit of the game.

[Travis West]

Scream of Gaia is also auto damage as written... as is Create Element.

[Conor (Former ST)]

And Electroshock!

I'm similarly not a fan of those, but the spends required are not nearly as cheap as Blast can be, and the "this power is only truly effective if you are totally surrounded by enemies" nature of Scream of Gaia makes it a little bit less terrible, to me.

[Matt (HST)]

I thought Create Element did require a chop? I don't have my book on me, though. I think Scream of Gaia is pretty okay given its lack of IFF and the fact that it's Bashing damage anyway. Electroshock is...yeah. Electroshock is really good, I don't know if I feel it's TOO good, but it's certainly really good.

Anyway, I personally am less concerned with Tribe-specific Intermediate Gifts than with something anyone can do with one dot in a Background. Granted, ST's control this Background, and it might be most reasonable to say that PC's can't have Numena with the Blast or Freeze charms.

[Nike 'Slays the Patriarchy' Strilakos]

or jsut that the numen is capricious and this time won't give yo uthe charm, but htat itme you want to freeze a small lake?  sure...

[Travis West]

I would have less of a weirdness about spirit charms if Auto Damage and Auto Soak were addressed. I don't have a problem with NPCs having access to those powers, but when players do, it gets a little blarg.