FEEEEEEEEEED ME SEYMOUR!

[ways and means]

Actually, if the vamp lifts cars just for the heck of it (i.e. to get a free regen roll), then he doesnt exert himself either... imho

The reasoning behind this statement being the same as how to decide when to require a skill-roll for any given task.

If there is no interesting outcome, then there is no roll.

A Vamp simply doing weights, or lifting cars for no reason other than gaining a "free" regen roll is totally boring, not to mention illogical, and therefore there is no roll.

Ok well you also have the option of putting the extra stress in to minor or moderate physical consequences which will be healed by the next scene due to inhuman recovery.

[Sanctaphrax]

So we can't even agree on what it means to heavily exert your affected powers. Add another count of vagueness to the power's lengthy list of sins.

I'll post a rewrite later today.

[Silverblaze]

So we can't even agree on what it means to heavily exert your affected powers. Add another count of vagueness to the power's lengthy list of sins.

I'll post a rewrite later today.

I still say if done right, sex totally counts.

[Mr. Death]

I'd say the exertion would be something that required your powers to do/survive.

Lifting something that needs 3 Might wouldn't count if your base Might was already 3, for example.

[Silverblaze]

I'd say the exertion would be something that required your powers to do/survive.

Lifting something that needs 3 Might wouldn't count if your base Might was already 3, for example.

I'll agree with a caveat.

I think anything that is thematically appropriate to the story could work.  I.E. Susan and Harry I'd allow in any game I ran.

 Going and fighting monsters you can't feed on to let out aggression - I'd allow.

Etc.  If it made the story better I'd allow a lot.  Very likely not lifting weights.

[Sanctaphrax]

I reread the power, and I can see no sensible reason to conclude that you need to be involved in something important in order to trigger a feeding roll.

Running in circles at super speed until you collapse is heavy exertion. There's no question about that. Therefore it works mechanically, so far as I can see, as a method to cause a hunger roll.

Which is silly, so most people won't allow it.

When most people break or selectively interpret a rule in order to avoid something silly, the rule is bad.

New, improved Feeding Dependency:

FEEDING DEPENDENCY [+varies]
Description: Some or all of your powers come from eating something. Probably something weird.
Skills Affected: Discipline.
Effects:
Restricted Powers. When you take this power, you must select at least one other power that you possess. You must also choose a thing and an amount of that thing that you must consume in order to use those powers. Which powers and foods may be selected with this power is a matter of the GM's discretion. This power provides a variable Refresh rebate depending on how much power is selected with it. If 0-3 Refresh is selected, the rebate is +0. If 4-6 Refresh is selected, the rebate is +1. If 7-9 Refresh is selected, the rebate is +2. If 10-12 Refresh is selected, the rebate is +3. And so on. The above values assume that the food is rare or morally objectionable, like significant amounts of human blood or huge piles of cash. If the food is acquired easily and without guilt, or only with extreme measures, add or subtract an appropriate amount from the Refresh total before calculating the rebate.
Hunger Is Stressful. You have an extra stress track called hunger. Its length is determined by your Discipline skill. Stress and consequences taken to this track never heal unless you feed.
Feeding. You are capable of consuming whatever your food is. Furthermore, when you do so, you may clear your hunger track, remove any hunger consequences that you possess, and recover any powers that you lost to your hunger. If you consume an insufficient amount of your food, you may receive partial benefits at the GM's discretion.
Limited Reserves. At the end of any scene in which you use one or more of your restricted powers, you must roll your Discipline skill against a number equal to the combined Refresh value of the restricted powers that you used. If you fail this roll, you take an amount of hunger stress equal to the amount that you failed by. If you are taken out in this way you generally die, get incapacitated, or go mad with hunger, but other fates are also possible depending on the character and the situation. You may absorb this stress by taking consequences or by sacrificing restricted powers at a rate of 1 Refresh of power lost per point of stress negated.

This was a pretty major rewrite. In addition to covering the issues mentioned here, I wanted to remove the incentive to take only 2 Refresh under Feeding Dependency while the rest of your powers are unrestricted because that's lame and the rules should not encourage it. And I wanted Feeding Dependency to be equally usable for characters who eat sunlight and characters who eat the hearts of stars.

I'm not satisfied with this. I haven't worked out what an appropriate amount to add or subtract for a given food would be. And I haven't done any testing, not even in simulation.

So call this a first draft. Help finishing it would be appreciated, as would other comments and criticism.

[Tedronai]

I would not have a +0 option for feeding dependency, that's just overly punitive.
Instead, I'd mandate at least 2 refresh of powers be attached to it, and start the bonus at +1.
I also feel that the best method for modifying the value of Feeding Dependency based on the nature of the 'food' should affect the scaling, rather the absolute value, increasing or decreasing the amount of refresh that need be attached in order to gain a greater rebate.

A 2/5/8/11 scale should be assumed to apply to eating humans or other sapient creatures in a manner that does not necessarily kill them (RCV, WCV), but might reasonably include such
A 2/4/6/8 scale, then, would apply to feeding that mandates killing (still-beating hearts, dying breath, etc), or equally objectionable or problematic foodstuffs
A 2/6/10/14 scale, on the other hand, would apply to feeding where the primary cost is little more than enforced downtime (sunlight, enormous quantities of common food); this version could also be used to model powers that are simply exceptionally tiring to use, forcing the character to spend one or more scenes resting after any major exertion.

[Sanctaphrax]

A 2-point Feeding Dependency just isn't problematic enough to give a rebate for. A dude with Good Discipline has a 5/27 chance of taking any stress if he uses his powers. He has no chance of being taken out. He'll hardly ever need to feed.

If his Discipline is Superb, instead, he'll only have a 1/81 chance of taking stress. And that 1/81 chance has to happen five times in order to inconvenience him at all.

That's not worth a rebate.

But I agree that +0 Feeding Dependency is kind of mean. Any suggestions for making it less so?

[Locnil]

Perhaps if you packaged it with some minor benefits for feeding.

[Tedronai]

I see two possible alternatives:
A) Raise the minimum refresh attached to Feeding Dependency, shifting the further rebates back accordingly
B) Change the formula by which the attack is generated, which could be as simple as placing a minimum value on the attack (I dislike this option, as I feel it would likely unduly punish characters in low-refresh, skill-poor games as compared to high-refresh, skill-rich)


@locnil
the benefits from feeding, aside from the clearing of Hunger stress and consequences, are generally spelled out in an accompanying power such as Blood Drinker or Emotional Vampire
moving those bonuses to Feeding Dependency removes the option to have characters who can feed in such a manner, and gain significant benefits from doing so, but who do not need to do so for the reasons represented by Feeding Dependency

[ways and means]

The templates that involve feeding dependency (except for red court initiate)  all have enough refresh under feeding dependency for it not to matter, so if you follow the templates the only ones disadvantaged are the red court young-lings. As for custom character well I have to admit if I was going to get a zero bonus from feeding dependency I would just not take it, which could lead me to build  more PC's who can feed but don't need too (as the feeding powers are awesome).   

[Becq]

It seems off because it is off. The writing on Feeding Dependency is not great.

That's not the only problem with it, by the way. It's rather unclear how the power-losing effect of Feeding Dependency works.

It's on my list of things to rewrite.

This.  Though I'd go as far as to say that Feeding Dependency is badly designed.

I think your proposed changes are heading in the right direction; the single key bit being that hunger effects only recover through feeding.  This is almost enough to make the power work on its own, though I favor going further.

Here's an idea to toy with:

Feeding Dependency [+1]
Description: You gain some of your supernatural abilities by feeding on mortal blood (page 188), emotions (page 189), or something else (in the case of ghouls, massive quantities of meat), defined when acquiring this power. If you take this ability, it “attaches” to most if not all of your supernatural powers except for those from this category (at least 2 points’ worth).
Skills Affected: Discipline.
Effects:
Hunger Is Stressful.  You have an additional stress track called hunger. The length of the track works like those of other stress tracks from Endurance, Conviction, etc., only using Discipline as the base skill. Unlike other stress tracks, you may not clear this out at the end of a scene (see below).  Note that because your hunger stress track will be adjusted frequently, it may prove useful to use tokens to represent lost hunger stress boxes rather than marking and erasing on your sheet.
Limited Reserves. At the end of each exchange in which you have exerted your affected powers, you take one hunger stress.  If you have no available boxes on your hunger stress track when you are required to take a hunger stress, then you clear your hunger stress track and take a hunger consequence instead.  A hunger consequences are treated in every way as a normal physical or mental consequence (your choice) except that it can only be recovered from by feeding as described below.
Feeding.  Any time you inflict stress appropriate to your feeding preference, you may clear hunger stress up to the stress you inflicted; additionally if you inflict a consequence, you immediately recover a Hunger consequence of the same severity.  Killing through feeding allows you to recover all hunger consequences, and may entitle you to additional benefits due to powers such as Blood Drinker or Emotional Vampire.  Alternatively, you may opt out of a scene to feed, in which case you may make a feeding attempt via a Declaration "miniscene" (rolling as appropriate to determine the success of the miniscene).

Thoughts: to a large extent, the penalty for this version is independent of the number of linked powers or strength of those powers.  Because of this, a flat +1 refresh seems reasonable.  Characters with many linked powers get more benefit per stress, but then again such characters have spent refresh for that capability.  Discipline is important regardless of refresh level, and no randomness (or dice rolls at all) are part of this proposal.

[Sanctaphrax]

That is a workable rewrite. But it sacrifices my favourite thing about the canon Feeding Dependency: the way that it encourages you to use only a fraction of your affected Powers.

Having a White Court Vampire hold back his powers to conserve "gas" is narratively appropriate, and making it mechanically appropriate as well would be great.

Plus, I'd like Feeding Dependency not to be limited to foods that one obtains by hurting people. Your rewrite works fine for blood drinkers and emotion eaters, but not for the money-eating monster that I've been wanting to write up.

So I think I'll keep going on the track that I'm on. Your rewrite isn't ambitious enough for my taste, basically.

Alterations I'm considering:

-Removing the Hunger track. You take consequences or you lose powers, you can't just absorb Hunger. This would make Feeding Dependency nasty enough that attaching it to 2 Refresh of Powers might be reasonable.

-Making skills other than Discipline legal for use with Feeding Dependency,

-Flatly requiring people to take enough Refresh worth of Powers to get a rebate. I'd rather not do this unless I have to, but I suspect I'll have to.

Does that first idea sound workable?

[Tedronai]

I would be extremely wary of requiring that all hunger stress be absorbed by way of consequences or lost powers, though it would be mitigated if there were readily accessible consequence slots earmarked for the purpose. (an additional minor consequence slot wherever [given skill] would normally provide an additional stress box?)


One substantial issue with Becq's proposed edit:
Given the steady rate of accumulating stress, and the relatively simple and routine availability of clearing that stress, I can't really see a character going more than one or two scenes carrying stress, and certainly not going so long as to require even a mild consequence except in extreme cases.  And that's all without even having to 'feed' by more than a single roll on any given victim, let alone indulge heavily enough to risk killing.
I don't see an immediate fix for this that wouldn't render Thomas wholly impossible.

[Locnil]

@locnil
the benefits from feeding, aside from the clearing of Hunger stress and consequences, are generally spelled out in an accompanying power such as Blood Drinker or Emotional Vampire
moving those bonuses to Feeding Dependency removes the option to have characters who can feed in such a manner, and gain significant benefits from doing so, but who do not need to do so for the reasons represented by Feeding Dependency

I know that. I was suggesting that those powers be folded into Feeding Depedency, though I suppose it still wouldn't work for those who have to feed but don't gain any benefit, or who would benefit but don't need to.