12-04-2017, 12:20 PM | #31 |
Join Date: Sep 2008
Location: near London, UK
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Re: [Basic] Disadvantage of the week: Bestial
I think high-IQ Bestial might be interpreted not as "I don't understand civilisation" but "I may understand civilisation, but I simply don't care how the ants feel". It's someone who simply takes what he wants when he wants it. It's the behaviour of the vampire lord just before the PCs show up to kill him, strolling down the street biting everyone he feels like, in plain sight. It needs a fair bit of Overconfidence too.
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12-04-2017, 12:56 PM | #32 |
Join Date: Aug 2004
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Re: [Basic] Disadvantage of the week: Bestial
That's pretty much how it plays in my campaign. Bestial, for this guy, means his concept of society shrinks down to the absolute basics an animal could understand: dominance and submission, territory, predator and prey; all of it enforced by violence or the threat of violence. Most importantly, he loses his grasp of how and why to hide the fact he's a vampire. So, for example, he's not going to put on clothes, because what's that got to do with drinking blood?
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12-04-2017, 12:59 PM | #33 |
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Join Date: Oct 2004
Location: Forest Grove, Beaverton, Oregon
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Re: [Basic] Disadvantage of the week: Bestial
But that's equating bestial with stupid. Inability to hide among prey is a severe disability for predators.
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12-04-2017, 01:07 PM | #34 | |
Join Date: Aug 2004
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Re: [Basic] Disadvantage of the week: Bestial
Quote:
I think Bestial is a particular kind of stupid that humans happened to evolve our way out of. Anyway, he can hide with the best of them, but snakes don't pretend to be frogs and leopards don't pretend to be gazelles. They sneak up and sink their teeth in.
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12-04-2017, 01:21 PM | #35 | |
Join Date: Jul 2008
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Re: [Basic] Disadvantage of the week: Bestial
Quote:
One might expect it to be among the most basic instincts of a vampire, but vampire's a flexible enough concept that deciding otherwise doesn't seem too much a stretch.
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12-04-2017, 01:25 PM | #36 |
Join Date: Aug 2004
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Re: [Basic] Disadvantage of the week: Bestial
Plus, remember the mitigator: this is a problem the guy has and tries his best to keep in check. Other characters have similar "thirst defects", or disadvantages that take effect if they haven't fed properly the previous night: one looks and smells like a corpse, another can't sleep, etc.
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12-04-2017, 01:51 PM | #37 | |
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Location: Forest Grove, Beaverton, Oregon
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Re: [Basic] Disadvantage of the week: Bestial
Quote:
It sounds like becoming a were-cat but developing a fear of mice.
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12-04-2017, 01:59 PM | #38 |
Join Date: Aug 2004
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Re: [Basic] Disadvantage of the week: Bestial
Did you miss the part where I specified that this is a personal disadvantage of the character that kicks in when he hasn't fed enough?
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12-04-2017, 03:00 PM | #39 |
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Re: [Basic] Disadvantage of the week: Bestial
Okay. It's how you've used the disadvantage in an unusual manner.
That doesn't define it any better. If anything, it makes the entire meaning less clear.
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12-05-2017, 04:04 AM | #40 | |
Join Date: Aug 2004
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Re: [Basic] Disadvantage of the week: Bestial
Quote:
The disadvantage description calls out high IQ as possibly problematic to combine with Bestial. You might say, a sapient-IQ character would still understand that they need to wear clothes to blend in... But in my opinion, you're just neutering the disadvantage then. Compare an IQ 15 character with Non-Iconographic: no matter how long they stare at it, they will never be able to figure out a map or an Ikea instruction leaflet, even though they've got the requisite brainpower. It's just not something they can process. Likewise, this IQ 11 guy, when affected by Bestial, just doesn't get the idea that people think clothes matter.
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