On Hunter

[Jared Thaler]

Okay, I've just started reading Hunter, and I'm skipping around a bit, mostly to look at certain things. But I feel like I need to throw some things out here. (And I need to bitch before my head explodes.)

All these positions are preliminary, till I can discuss them with the rest of Staff

Task Force: Valkery and Advanced tech

Yeah, the government probably has some good stuff they are keeping under wraps, and yeah in a WoD conspiracies are everywhere style game, there are probably some groups who have put together some very sweet little toys for hunting and fighting super naturals. But can we please stick to "near future hard Sci Fi" and not "Magic Words Sci Fi" I mean, a sonic gun that makes you leak blood is bad enough. But a sonic gun that makes you leak blood only if that blood has been charged with vampiric essence? I mean, I could see there *possibly* being some frequency that would make vamipirc blood break down but not mortal blood, maybe. But come exploding out of you? No, just no. And the idea that this sonic frequency can then be retuned to cause glamour to be expelled from changelings, or mana to be expelled from mages just becomes really, really bizarre.

Oh and then there is the equaliser grenade.

"So, we found this set of brain frequencies that only occur when some one shape shifts, and we determined that they were a symptom of the shape shifting. So we developed this grenade that if you set it off suppresses the symptom. And that stops them from shape shifting. Cause you know, stopping an effect *totally* stops the cause of that effect from happening..."

Sigh...

TF: Valkryie (if we decide it exists) will get some awesome cool weapons. And they aren't going to look anything *like* whats in the book.

Demons

So... After spending all this time building up a beautiful little gnosticly inspired cohesive cosmology... Apparently WW has decided that the WoD is in fact actually christian, That there actually is a Satan, and that he has minions of evil to send out into the world.

Yeah.

So, um, we won't be using that part of the book.

Spirits and goetic conjurations fill that knitch just fine already. Certainly, while PC's are welcome to believe in whatever deities and anti deities they desire, neither Satan nor God, nor any of their direct servitors will be appearing in game.

(This doesn't necessarily rule out people or beings who claim to be god, believe they are god, or just plain feel they *ought* to be god from putting in an appearance.)

It's probably safe to assume that any references to Demons in the Hunter book refer in actual fact to Goetic inner demons, manifesting some person's vice. Either ones created by a mage, or ones which have found some other way to be made manifest.

[Jared Thaler]

The section on mundane equipment is pretty kick ass however.

The section on Tactics, unfortunately, simply illustrates the remaining holes in the WoD rule set. (Tactics vary between being useless, as in, you could do the same thing with a simple team work challenge, and being rule breaking, as in they let you do things that no one else can do such as make a called shot in order to cripple a limb. I would much rather they had simply given us rules for crippling limbs, and then given us rules for how a team that works together on a regular basis can learn to get a bonus to a single type of teamwork action. Oh, I also think it is stupid that it is as easy to cripple a stamina 5 person as it is to cripple a stamina 1 person, at least if I am reading the tactics right.)

[Maestro]

Assuming that we mere mortals are allowed to jump in and discuss here...

My thoughts will be up later; for now, though, there's an extremely helpful thread from the White Wolf forum: Hunter Template Clarification

[Jared Thaler]

If I wanted a staff only discussion, this would be on the staff forum

The link helps a little, but the tech armory section still makes me cry.

[Maestro]

Fair enough.

For Advanced Armory... Well, I have to admit that I kind of like the stuff there simply because it's cool. Making a vampire's Vitae rip out of its body in a bloody spray? The mere idea makes me giggle. The fact that it hits Vitae only also makes a little sense given that, according to various Vampire supplements, Vitae does indeed have a distinctly different viscosity and nature than normal blood.

That said, it seems like it makes a lot more sense for Advanced Armory stuff to be mystically enhanced. I imagine R&D doesn't advertise this much, especially to the grunts who go into battle reassured by having nice, trusty science on their side, but most of the Advanced Armory pretty much has to have a mystic component or two, likely recovered from the battlefield or created by certain... gifted members of the conspiracy (*coughmagesandthaumaturgescough*). At that point, their gear starts making a lot more sense; I'm pretty sure plain technology won't let you turn electricity from a lithium-ion battery into Unseen Senses-triggering etheric energy, and the Mjolnir Cannon, while technically viable (to my knowledge), can't be practical without supernatural help. It also opens up juicy plot hooks, in terms of where TF:V gets their stuff and what they have to do to create it--plot hooks possibly related to their source of funding.

Or, y'know, I'm just being an apologist because I like the Bleeder. Not a possibility to be discounted out of hand.

[B.L.]

mm.. okay, lets think here, I am good with these sorts of knowings. Suppose blood and vitae are different in viscosities, densities, and that sort of thing.. but are they chemically different? that might be something..
Assuming that the sonic gun in question is not of the Dr. Who genera.. which would make this moot but then we would ask, why not a laser bleeder? .. then we are left with a device that emits some sort of compression wave frequency that increases the osmotic pressure of the blood so that it seeps through human pores.. that would be awesome if fluids had specific frequencies like that (it would make things.. pretty darn interesting actually), but I suppose on the other hand it could weaken the vampire skin only, e.g. stretching it.
Now, if a vampire's skin couldn't relax at the same rate.. because they are dead, then it stands to reason I might be able to vibrate the molecular fiber patchwork of the skin to loosen it up so it makes a vampire bleed, but it would be like a painless paper cut over an area.. sure it has a really thin layer of vitae, but I don't think it would be lethal, it would make a fun vampire detecting ray though
okay, its just a game, but I am bored, adios.

[Jared Thaler]

On the topic of Feasable, I believe last I heard the Lightning Gun was somewhere on par with that new microwave pain ray they have. I.e. It works fine, except that while it is a truck portable weapon, it requires a second truck to carry the generator for it, and a third to carry the cooling towers for the generator... (My little brother works with the non miltary version of the antenna and generator the pain ray uses )

[Delphinan]

I smell MUNCHKIN!

I mean, really, from the weapons I've heard so far, their primary purpose is to make it possible to strip the abilities of the supernatural to allow for hand-to-hand (or gun-to-head) combat. After all, there are so many better weapons and uses of these technologies that the rationale of what's offered becomes obvious, to make a human a more than equal match for a given supernatural but not to actually defeat the monster with the weapon.

Make blood come out of a body? Machine gun and/or Dirty Harry's pistol does quite an effective job on any creature. Feeling lucky, vamp?

Equalizer grenade to stop shapeshifting? How about stopping eyesight, or breathing, or heart action? Heck, fuzzy heart action is so different from human it should be easier to 'isolate'.

Hmmm, speaking of stopping shapeshifting, what's the effect on humans going through puberty?

Ok, my 4 cents.

[Maestro]

On the topic of Feasable, I believe last I heard the Lightning Gun was somewhere on par with that new microwave pain ray they have. I.e. It works fine, except that while it is a truck portable weapon, it requires a second truck to carry the generator for it, and a third to carry the cooling towers for the generator... (My little brother works with the non miltary version of the antenna and generator the pain ray uses )

...Hence why there must be a supernatural component to make it man-portable, nie? Making a Forces battery able to produce enough energy for that would only take, what, Forces 3/Prime 3 and a Willpower point? A lot more viable than the admittedly-silly idea that the US government has a whole array of gear that's far more technologically advanced than anything out there, that's viable enough to arm TF:V, but that it's not using in the regular military.

I mean, really, from the weapons I've heard so far, their primary purpose is to make it possible to strip the abilities of the supernatural to allow for hand-to-hand (or gun-to-head) combat. After all, there are so many better weapons and uses of these technologies that the rationale of what's offered becomes obvious, to make a human a more than equal match for a given supernatural but not to actually defeat the monster with the weapon.

The thing I've noticed is that a lot of the Advanced Armory gear is aimed not at slaughtering and maiming (they have frag grenades for that); rather, they're much more geared toward capture and detaining for study. That probably says more about TF:V's modus operandi than anything else; when you have a satchel charge that scares the vampire with fake sunlight, rather than just blowing the leech to bits, it's pretty obvious that the leadership's assumption is that when slaughtering is necessary, standard gear is fine. The Advanced Armory is for the rather-more-difficult task of detaining ENE's.

[Jared Thaler]

IIRC the grenade only works for a couple of rounds. So unless you can go through puberty in 12 seconds....

But yeah, I think I may need to build my own project valkyrie "load outs"

We already established 2 in game.

Anti vampire offensive load out.
(Permitted only for daylight operations)
5 man squad
4 Rapid dispersal, high rate of fire weaponry. flash bang and Frag grenades, short barrel machine guns and shot guns. (For taking out human minions.)
1 Specialist. Specialist carries Stake, Hammer, and Machete or bone saw ( for staking the vampire and then slicing off it's head.) A machine pistol (for surprises) and a set of tools for bypassing hardened security barriers.

Anti Vampire Defensive load out.
5 man squad.
1 Man Portable flame wall defensive barrier (based on technology developed in Africa to deter car jackers, the Flame Wall system works like a flame thrower, but concentrates on putting a wall of flame horizontally between the target and the wielder. This can cause the vampire to flee, but also shields the user from the vampire's multiple gaze based attacks, as it is very hard to meet someones gaze through a wall of fire, while the thin wall still leaves enough visual resolution for target acquisition. At a significant reduction in magazine capacity, it can be disguised to look like a Lawn Blower...
3 Anti Corpse Weaponry units. Modified Shotguns, using discarding saboted Flechetes, the projectiles these weapons fire are slightly less damaging to a normal target, especially one wearing armor, however their sharpended edges and tumbling action on entering a body means that these projectiles do lethal even to creatures such as vampires who normally only take bashing from bullets. -1 to weapons damage rating, and +1 to opponents armor rating if they are wearing any form of bulletproof armor.
1 Specialist. Specialist carries Stake, Hammer, and Machete or bone saw ( for staking the vampire and then slicing off it's head.) A machine pistol (for surprises) Some specialists dispense with stake and hammer and upgrade to the modified shotgun, above.