[RPG] How are Werewolf traits balanced

werewolf-the-apocalypseworld-of-darkness

I'm not a skilled Werewolf: the Apocalypse player. One thing that has always surprised me is that Gnosis, Willpower and Rage are calculated from Breed, Tribe and Auspice. But I don't know how it is balanced.

Well, I know homids have less Gnosis than lupus and metis, but the lupus can chose less abilities and the metis have deformations. Ok, I see the balance.

But why some Tribes have more Willpower than others? How is it balanced? And auspices?

The only element that I can think of are the Gifts, but, are the Ragabash gifts so much better that the Ahroun's ones that they balance the fact that Ragabash has 1 Rage and Ahroun 5?

EDIT: I must clear something after reading the responses. I'm not talking about combat balance. WoD games are not balanced in combat since the moment you choose attributes priorities in physical, social and mental. I was looking for that kind of balance, or the kind of balance a Brujah, a Ventrue and a Malkavian can have. or the kind of balance of having a high Humanity versus having a high Willpower. That is, that your choice have advantages and disadvantages.

Best Answer

There are a few issues at work here:

  • It's not balanced, or at least not with the hair-trigger fineness that, say, D&D4 attempts to achieve. The characters are not meant to be equal, they're meant to be comparable. (Ultimately so much of what a Garou can do in a fight depends on their inherent Garou resilience, form changing, Gifts and aggravated-damage-claws that how the tribes and auspices balance is a detail on top.)

  • It's about area of specialty. This is the World of Darkness; fighting is important to werewolves, but in the long run it's the least important decision they make. Ahroun are combat monsters; if you're looking for combat balance between a Black Fury Ahroun and a Glass Walker Theurge, then sorry, it's not there and it's not meant to be. The Ahroun would wipe the floor with the Theurge... if the Theurge is so poor at his job that he lets the challenge get to a klaive duel instead of a ritual or riddle-game or having spirits warn him about the threat.

    (Compared to any non-Garou, of course, even a Bone Gnawer Ragabash is a lethally dangerous killing machine.)

  • Rage, in particular, is not all good. The balance between Rage 2 and Rage 6 is that a Rage 2 character only has 2 rage. He won't frenzy, he won't panic and run in fear at a Nexus Crawler, he won't get taunted into a berserk cannibalistic charge every time the moon is full. (Combat characters that run high-rage also need to spend plenty of freebie points and xp on Willpower, if they want to stay alive for long.)

  • You've left out any mention of skills, but WoD is a modern-world roleplay and skills are very important. All characters get the same number of skill points, yet High Primal-Urge, for example, is a major Lupus advantage... because wolves aren't spending all their skill points on Drive and Law and Language and all those other pointless things the homids all seem so worried about.

    With the exact same tribes, rage and willpower, I promise you that the fight between a Brawl 4, Melee 5, Dodge 4 Get of Fenris berserker and a Brawl 1, Melee 0 Dodge 2 Ragabash will be... one sided.

    (Which serves the Ragabash right for letting it come to a fight. The Ragabash has Stealth 4, Empathy 4, Law 3. So the warrior isn't going to like the mysterious disasters that happen to him over the next few weeks. Which might just drive him into a frenzy next full moon moot. Which will seriously jeopardize his position in the sept. Being a trickster is about not needing to hit things to make your point.)

  • Tribe / form Rage and Willpower are only meant to be starting points anyway; both are cheap to buy up with freebie points during character creation.

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