Question regarding weapon cost

Hi,

I'd like to know if the effective cost of a weapon would be increased to fit in "illegal search and seizure text" if I use centralized background check.

Centralized background check
Master: unique location. Weapons cost an additional pool.

Illegal search and seizure
Master. Burn a weapon that costs more than 2 pool or inflicts (with a regular strike) aggravated damage or more than 3 damage. The bearer of the weapon takes 1 damage. This damage cannot be prevented.

If the first is in play, can I use the second to burn a .44 or a sniper rifle?

thanks

Wand wrote:

If the first is in play, can I use the second to burn a .44 or a sniper rifle?

Yes, unless it's on Black Cat.

The "Yes":
[LSJ 20040518]

LSJ wrote:

> #2. Does Centralized Background Check increase the cost of pool that needs to
> be paid for Peace Treaty? Based on the previous ruling for Black Cat and Peace
> Treaty, I'd say that it would. Thus if Hugo had a .44 Magnum, you would need to
> pay 3 pool, if Black Cat had a Deer Rifle you'd have to pay 2 pool, and if Koko
> had a Zip Gun or Weighted Walking Stick, you'd have to pay 1 pool. Correct?

Yes.

So the cost of the weapon in play is increased. It's not just relevant to when you play the weapon in the first place, or anything like that.



The "unless it's on Black Cat". From the rulings :

Rulings wrote:

Black Cat:

The lower pool cost is used for the "cost" of equipment on her. [RTR 19941109]

and the linked RTR :

RTR, wrote:

Black Cat:
The lower pool cost is used for purposes of cards such as Peace Treaty.
If she is equipped with something and that equipment is transferred to
another minion, then it regains its normal pool value.
Conversely, if a piece of equipment moves onto her, its effective pool cost
is lowered by 1.

But... don't play Illegal Search and Seizure. It's pretty terrible. There are almost always much, much, much, much better ways of dealing with weapons - Terror Frenzy, Immortal Grapple, any sort of Strike: Combat Ends, Anarch Troublemaker (better because of its tapping use), Obedience, and many, many others. Master phase actions can do awesome things. Illegal Search and Seizure isn't awesome enough, because it's too specialised. If it were printed today as a Trifle, that might be reasonable enough, but as a non-trifle master it's very rarely good enough.

I'm thinking about use centralized background check, anarch troublemaker and peace treaty. I've played this weekend a tournament and lost in the final because had to deal with 2 justicars alastors with one ak-47 each. Despita I had tons of combat ends, the game got to a moment where I couldn't hold them anymore and lost the game. Perhaps if I had some weapon / equipment destroy mecanism I would have survived to make the GW.

Illegal search and seizure doesn't seem so terrible to me, if used togheter with the CBC, but thanks anyway for the enlightment

Bwahahahahahahhaa.......

Ak-47 should not convince you to play bad cards.

Toublemaker= good plan. Illigal s&s is terrible.

Anochronism is a WAY better solution to yoir problem. And if Anachronism is ever > anything, it should add perspective.

So, ive always had a HUGE problem with centralized baxkground check.....
Premise is, and of course non-united states countries will have thier own views:
Making it harder for guns to get into the "wrong hands" by checkng prints and criminal history against a database, and this can take up to a week, when first implimented.

Its a logical system in the real world, but in the world of darkness:

Any vampire in a position of power can easily obtain any weapons they want, and im talking primiogen and up. Princes will find it easier, and justicars can swing pretty much ANY weapon of ANY value into thier hands, by controlling the legal means etc. Any vamp with presence, dominate, hell, even dementation, can probably just have a 15 minute talk with any human beng selling guns, or a 5 minute talk with someone who owns what they want, and get it free.

As a cost for a methuselah to pit it into a vampires hands, pool cost really shouldnt be effected by something that only matters to mortals.

But, im off the soapbox now,

And if you want to not die to machine guns:

Prevent damage(straightforward)

Steal the damn thing (fast hands has worked once for me ever, but actions are neat probably)

Blow the damn thing up(cant take it witb you, peace treaty, or if you dig RESULTS canine horde, conceal, fractured armament)

Mame it purely a garnishment(draw out thier beast, terror frenzy, etc)

Make it REALLY not worthwhile (play Micty or even better Germain)

Orxlastly, for kicks, outgun them( mass reality plus foldable machine gun is HILARIOUS, and also more efficiemt than other funny stuff, like playing UP YOURS! but theres always mind rape or marionetter and heidleberg or just equip as action to take it.)

Hope ive convinced you NOT to play illegal search and seizure.

Wand wrote:

I'm thinking about use centralized background check, anarch troublemaker and peace treaty. I've played this weekend a tournament and lost in the final because had to deal with 2 justicars alastors with one ak-47 each. Despita I had tons of combat ends, the game got to a moment where I couldn't hold them anymore and lost the game. Perhaps if I had some weapon / equipment destroy mecanism I would have survived to make the GW.

What sort of deck were you playing? There are other, better ways of dealing with this sort of thing. For example:

- Delaying Tactics is a widely-played card that can cause vote decks stress (by cancelling a referendum), and is helpful against many awesome votes. In particular, the text "the acting Methuselah's minions cannot attempt the same political action again this turn" can be really handy. Take out a Parity Shift, take out a Banishment, take out an Ancient Influence - all commonly played cards. And if you find yourself facing a deck using Kine Resources Contested a lot, cancel the first one in that player's turn and watch them work out what to do with the rest of their turn! It's not the answer to everything and experienced players may take wildly different options, but it is a very good starting place when thinking about vote defence in a deck.

- Intercept can be excellent against votes (though stealth-vote decks exist). "Grinder" decks that wall-up, survive well, and grind people down can work very well here - though they are not to everyone's taste. But the Ventrue antitribu work well here, with Auspex, Fortitude, Dominate. Lots of auspex, lots of damage prevention, a bunch of annoying combat offence (a bunch of Weighted Walking Sticks with a couple of Targets, that sort of thing), and a clutch of Dominate bleed modifiers. Very resilient, successful deck strategy, strong on table control. But not a deck to play if you're "impatient" about these things.

- Steal the vampire, and nick its stuff. If you control a minion, you can use another of your minions to take its stuff, using the cardless equip action. (Many players overlook this action.) In 'normal' play, it's supposed to be that you can equip a Laptop with your first vampire out, then have another of your vampire's take it later. But if you temporarily control someone else's vampire, take their stuff! Mind Rape and Temptation are excellent here. Spirit Marionette lets you do something similar here, but you basically need a Heidelberg Castle since you have a mandatory bleed (or hunt) action to carry out (the card text on SM).

- If you face annoying weapons so often that you do want dedicated "anti-weapon" tech in your deck, you can find better options for many, many decks. Destroy it with Canine Horde. Steal it with Fast Hands. Destroy it with Revolutionary Council. Waste their pool with Peace Treaty - re-equipping three .44 Magnums or two Assault Rifles will hurt! Hit it with Shattering Blow or Fractured Armament. Play Conceal, which lets you burn equipment or locations - if you have OBF, it's better than Arson, which sees a moderate amount of play. None of these are awesome cards that you will see packing out tournament-winning decks on a super regular basis, but they use minion phase resources, not master phase resources, and this is almost always a better deal for you.

Wand wrote:

Illegal search and seizure doesn't seem so terrible to me, if used togheter with the CBC, but thanks anyway for the enlightment

So, you need to draw the CBC. And you need to draw your ISS. How many of both do you have in your deck? One of each? Two of each? The probability isn't great. And if you draw the ISS early, you have to hold it in your hand. It's totally okay to hold good cards in your hand for a long time, so you can play them at just the right time - but you usually want to do that with cards that have a big effect. Week of Nightmares is a common example of that, because it can basically make a Ravnos deck win. Pentex Subversion can have similarly game-changing effects.

But the much more pressing issue is that you have a limited number of master phase actions in the game, and you have many, many more awesome cards to choose from. And in most 90 card decks, the conventional wisdom is that you have something like 14-18 master cards, often a few more if using Trifles. So you don't have many master cards or master phase actions to waste.

Here's a basic list of master cards that most players would agree are Really Pretty Damn Good. Not mandatory for all decks, by any means, but a good starting place. Many players will have to justify not putting some of them in a deck.

- Giant's Blood. Getting that much blood back onto an empty vampire can be huge. A number of players pretty much do regard one copy this as a mandatory include. Yes, it can only be played once a game - but if you play it, you can stop someone else playing theirs.

- Pentex Subversion. Play it at the right time, and this can be a Victory Point. Take out your prey's key defence, and lunge really, really hard, ousting him or her.

- Dreams of the Sphinx. Excellent, popular, multi-functional card. Typically most popular for the hand size option. Some other hand cyclers are popular too - The Barrens is simple but good, and Fragment of the Book of Nod turns up a bit. (I find Fragment annoying because of its built-in steal action, but that's just me.)

- Blood Doll, Vessel and Villein. All three good options for moving blood from vampires into your pool. Vessel is a bit divisive, because of the way it compares to Blood Doll. And Villein is insanely good.

- Wash and Sudden Reversal. A couple of these in a deck can really upset your prey, who was about to get 7 pool back with Villein and now can't. Not everyone likes playing them, but they can have major effects on a game.

- Direct Intervention, to cancel minion cards. Some players don't like it, but it's undeniable that it can have a big effect on a game. There are a few similar cards (like Dark Influences), but Direct Intervention is probably the best known.

- Secure Haven. If you have a 'star' vampire, players often include this to stop people rushing it.

- Archon Investigation. If you see big bleeders in your environment (and most places have a few), this can be good for a deck that can't play bleed bounce (Deflection etc.).

- Intercept locations, such as Rumor Mill and KRCG News Radio. Not everyone wants them, but they can be effective.

- Anarch Troublemaker. Not the strongest card in the world, but versatile and can upset applecarts.

- Misdirection. Tapping one vampire can really upset your prey's defence plans. "Oh god, now I only have one Wake so if..."

- Ashur's Tablets. Something of an acquired taste, but very, very solid for pool gain and card recycling.

- Accelerators, like Info Highway and Zillah's Valley. Typically only good for big cap decks.

- Perfectionist is an excellent blood gain source. Hunting Grounds can also be good (pick an appropriate one for your deck).


You could pretty much make a deck using just those cards as masters. Something like:

would be a decent enough base for a lot of decks. Absolutely, you could make a better selection, but it's a decent start.

But many decks then go off into more specialized cards, often clan cards. For example:

- Ravnos breed (creating weenies with Tumnimos and Embrace) with Week of Nightmares, which can tear tables apart

- Ventrue vote decks almost always include a copy of Ventrue HQ

- Toreador antitribu breed with Palla Grande, for excellent bleeding

- Malkavian bleeders using Madness Network to, amongst other things, screw up Archon Investigation

- a wall deck using Smiling Jack and The Rack

- Lasombra breed-vote decks using Power Structure (to pass Consanguineous Boon, amongst other votes)



And many, many of these cards can have a very, very significant effect in every game they're played. Whereas Illegal Search and Seizure will typically have an okay effect in far fewer games. In general, strong effects every game beat modest effects in fewer games, particularly when it comes to master cards.

Wow,

thanks for the huge input. I really like the fast hands idea. It might be functional on my deck, wich is a Toreador Antitribu voting / bleeding with klaus conretch and melusine d'anjou as stars + low cap / embraces / creation rites and palla grande / foundation exibit.

I just got so pissed in this tournament because I got votelocked by the alastors and the weapons / built in rushes destroyed me so I though about some effective way to take weapons down. Fast hands is pretty simple and effective I guess. Gonna try this out and tell you later.

thanks