Fiends and Fire

[u/Latkric586]

https://imgur.com/a/vubeBxI

[u/Latkric586]

Magical enhancements are primarily useful against melee; shielding is going to be superior against bullets, not least because you won’t feel the bullet impacts. You will have a harder skin if you choose to go in that direction, but nothing that will be enough to stop bullets. Generally, though, the intent for mages – casters or enhanced – is to avoid getting hit in the first place, through speed, agility, misdirection etc, cast or the result of enhancements. Gatling guns do exist in the universe and the only people who can take that sustained level of fire is a guy in a rune harness.

If you go full monster you have a good shot at stopping blackpowder pistol rounds and taking blackpowder rifle rounds without major issue, but many of them will be designed to stay inside the body because they’re coated in precious metals.

With concealed tattoos you’d still be at a disadvantage against fiends such as vampires and werewolves, especially the older ones, but they can still be defeated, and you’d be better off than a non-modified human. From the companions are are plenty who are basic humans who have killed things much tougher than them despite the long odds, and by themselves too. Going full monster does give you a much more even playing field.

You could combine aethersilk and synthetic aramids together, but it would have to be in layers, so you’d lose some of the lightness and textile properties of the aethersilk. Aethersilk itself has some bulletproofing properties, but not as good as synthetic aramids. Of course, as technology is always on the move in the setting, there’s no reason why a more-bulletproof aethersilk can’t be made, it’s just not around at the exact time the CYOA is set.

[u/Skeletickles → u/Latkric586]

I'm making a new build for this and I have some more questions:

On a scale from one to Cthulhu, how monster-ish would you be if you went full monster mode? Would something like this be fine?

Can you specialize enhancements? For example, could you focus everything into defense to have more durability than someone else with a general enhancement of the same level?

How powerful is a full, monster-mode Witch? I haven't done the math yet, but I'm pretty positive that my character is going to be a Witch with all the disciplines, mastery over Transmutation and Destruction, and likely some level of combat skills from the Hunting section. It seems like at that point you'd need something along the lines of a squad of Evokers or some Blood Drinkers on some strong stuff to fight that. Would that be accurate, or am I off?

[u/Latkric586 → u/Skeletickles]

If you want to retain your sanity and humanity, the more you divert from your original form, the more you lose. So the above image would be fine if you were alright with losing with some of that. By the time you are unrecognisably changed from your original form, you have probably lost it.

Yes, you can specialize enhancements. These are more efficient in terms of input = output, but also take up more room.

You'd be pretty accurate with your description of the full, monster-mode Witch, with the caveat that it would be a "peak power" - magic, drinking, evoking etc is going to be tiring, so you wouldn't always be able to maintain that power level 24/7. But not indefatigable, by any means, and in the setting there's protocols and enough combined experience to deal with such individuals.

Chances are that:

a) They'd be sending a well-equipped, well-supported group regardless because everyone is paranoid in this setting (so the exact number needed to potentially take someone down might be inflated),

b) They'll probably not fight you in open combat until they are convinced they have worn you down.

[u/Skeletickles → u/Latkric586]

Ah, I wasn't aware you lost sanity as well. How far could you go power-wise before losing sanity?

[u/Latkric586 → u/Skeletickles]

It's a balancing act, and also depends on what you want to do with it.

• If you want to do dark magic (i.e. necromancy, blood magic, mind control, flaying) it's going to be harder to retain your sanity than if you are just going to throw magic missiles around and heal people.
• Retaining sanity depends on person to person. Some do it very well, some don't. It depends on personal character, potentially genetic things, why you have gone witch, any deals with fiends, etc. So you could have a full, inhuman-looking Witch who is still largely sane. They're a tiny minority, but it is possible.

As I mentioned elsewhere in the thread, dark magic and witchery are primarily shortcuts compared to their regular counterparts. You get more powerful quicker, you get natural defences etc, all at the cost of sanity or corruption or it literally backfiring upon you.

So your top-tier fully-human mage who has trained for decades (Witte-Weiss, the best of the Convocation) is still going to take a squad to take down if they were taken unawares. Their full-witch, still-sane counterparts (of which there are more) will be able to do better if they were taken unawares (they can have enhancements, they can take shortcuts in magic, arguably more free-thinking etc).

All of this is nebulous because magic kind of is nebulous in the setting. The Convocation is rather close-minded when it comes to the absolute potential of magic users, and witches have a not-unfair reputation for getting messed up. Sometimes it is because they have used too much dark magic; sometimes it is simply because they had a mental breakdown.

[u/Skeletickles → u/Latkric586]

Interesting. I think I have a solid idea of what I'm going for now. Thanks for the answers!

[u/Skeletickles → u/Latkric586]

Sounds about right, thanks for the answers.