Chrysalis

[Dave ST]

I have some questions about Chrysalis. But first I would like to state a few facts.

1. Only Temporary Taint may be converted into Temporary Chrysalis. (Teragen p. 120)

2. Only three canon ways exist for accruing temporary taint. 1. Power Strain. 2. Rapid Recovery. 3. Mental Disorders (Core p. 149)

3. A character must have a Permanent Chrysalis trait of five (5) or higher before entering chrysalis. (Teragen p. 121)

4. You must roll your Permanent Chrysalis Trait against a +2 Difficulty to enter Chrysalis. (Teragen p. 121)

Where my curiosity arises is that under the core mechanics more powerful characters (even the canon ones) get to the point where it would be nearly impossible to incur taint since it focuses on the possibility of botching a roll in one case, and failing a roll in another. (Let's face it; this completely disqualifies Long since we all know he never fails... ever. )

Lets assume for a moment he did (and Long, I'm not attacking your character, I'm merely using him for the sake of the example that's all). Let's review how this works...

1. Power Strain. Long rolls his Quantum Score and spends a point of Willpower. Now if we go by the simple math, statistically speaking Long will gain 1 success for every three dice he rolls. So in this case 2 successes. His chance for a botch is slim but possible (15%). Doing it the longer way and actually rolling the dice, Long would succeed 70% of the time, his chance for a botch (and thus taint) would still be about 15%

This doesn't touch base on the RP reasons as to why someone would go around Maxing their powers for no reason, since you may only use quantum to transfer temporary taint into temporary chrysalis through actions that are a result in line with your archtype. So sorry, no practicing on a sandy beach and waiting to eventually botch.

2. Rapid Recovery. Again we'll use Long. Rolling his Stamina + Mega-Stamina + Node. The simple math says he would average 5 successes every time, so he'd never gain taint and thus, no Chrysalis. The long math (factoring probability) Long chance for success at this roll is 100%. He would never fail it.

I had my dice roller simulate this roll with Long's statistics (even factoring the successes for mega atts). Out of 3,000 rolls Long succeeded 3,000 times.

Rapid Recovery while acting in line with your archtype is difficult at best to justify.

3. Mental Disorders. I have no argument for this one, I don't know what the hell the core book was trying to say.

Now, obviously not everyone is Long, however I'm completely and absolutely confused on what rules and logic are being used for Chrysalis on N!Prime, because they are not canon rules. It seems like people just join the Teragen and two weeks later (one week if Procyon has visited you) are prepared to enter Chrysalis.

So, I’m to understand that characters have amassed 5 dots in Permanent Chrysalis, and amassed enough temporary chrysalis through the botching of max power rolls and sitting around failing rapid recovery rolls (both while acting in their archtype mind you) to qualify for their next stage of evolution? When did this happen? Where were we while all this was happneing, and how did they do it so quickly?

I looked up three of our popular Terats here on the site, I'm sure all guessed who one was and the other two I'm not going to name simply because there is no need. This is not a thread about calling characters out. Two do not even have a chrysalis trait and the one that does have the trait listed does not qualify to have entered it.

Can someone help me understand what book we're using and where I might purchase it please?

You may attack me now.

[Courier]

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This doesn't touch base on the RP reasons as to why someone would go around Maxing their powers for no reason, since you may only use quantum to transfer temporary taint into temporary chrysalis through actions that are a result in line with your archtype. So sorry, no practicing on a sandy beach and waiting to eventually botch.

Actually I think that's pretty much what you have to do. Oh, granted, maybe not a beach, but for the math to work the typical terat needs to power max as many times as he can.

Your generic Q5 nova botches a power max a hair less than 8% of the time. He's limited to max'ing once a day because he gets a willpower point back once a day. Over the course of a year (300 days & 300 points of willpower) he gets about 20 points of tempt taint that he can convert into "C". So he gets +2 C.

This is why it takes years to enter Chyrsolis.

The nasty part is that with this as his lifestyle, he's never going to have time to burn off temp taint that he can't convert. He'd better stay pretty darn close to his archtype. Say he's with it 90% of the time... that's about 20 points of tempt taint that he can convert and 2 that he can't. But if he's only on type 50% of the time...

Although I guess he could just max when it's on point.

[Ravenshire]

The Chrysalis mechanics are bunk. You are right.

The problem is that the Aberrant story leaves it pretty clear that a nova can and does accumulate Chrysalis points if they want to. Caroline Fong and The Apostle both went into Chrysalis in 2004. Chrysalis was only invented in 2003 (for general Terat consumption for those who believe Divis Mal invented it).

If those two novas accumulated at least 5 permanent Chrysalis in a year, why can't a PC?

That's part of the Teragen book, page 12.

How do we make this jive with the stories on N!Prime? That I can't really answer to your satisfaction. My suggestion is that we have to trust the individual players to keep it reasonable.

In the 2009 setting, I suggest we simply keep EXpoints as EXpoints, though those spent in Chrysalis use that special table on pg. 125, Teragen book.

[Courier]

No, correction. When you power max you don't need to roll all the dice you have, it's just that the most number of dice you can roll is equal to your Quantum.

If you actually wanted to fail you could (and should) roll two dice (not one), which would max your chances of a botch (11%). So in 300 days (one year) you could get +3.3 C. So in two years you'd be ready.

EDIT: Heck, since you'd only need 455 power maxes, if you have a way to get back willpower (several ways) and you are devoted, you could do it in one.

[Velvet]

I hope you realize how ridiculous that sounds. "Well, I want to go into Chrysalis, so I'll spend the next 2-5 years deliberately botching at least 1 power-max roll per day."

*headdesk*

This is why I don't play Terat characters.

[Dave ST]

Originally Posted By: Courier

If you actually wanted to fail you could (and should) roll two dice (not one), which would max your chances of a botch (11%). So in 300 days (one year) you could get +3.3 C. So in two years you'd be ready.

And if your intent is to roll less dice just so it increases your chances to fail you certainly are not actiing within any of the terat Archetypes. Thus the temporary taint could not be converted to temporay chrysalis.

I honestly cannot believe you even used that as an angle.

[Hugin]

The mechanics of Chrysalis are total and complete crap. They don't make sense and what's worse, once you've actually GOT the permenent Chrysalis the likelihood of fucking up the roll and losing it all is mega-high.

That said, it's a part of the game and conceptually makes sense. I honestly did it with Hugin because I wanted a good excuse to ditch him for a year.

With Lemmy I've actually got the perfect excuse for when I have him jump in: Node Spark. That collects temp taint like a mo' fo'.

[Courier]

Originally Posted By: Dave OOC

And if your intent is to roll less dice just so it increases your chances to fail you certainly are not actiing within any of the terat Archetypes. Thus the temporary taint could not be converted to temporay chrysalis.

I honestly cannot believe you even used that as an angle.

You're addressing a fairly small part of my reasoning. I'll grant what you said makes sense to me, especially considering what the characters are actually doing. But that only means our generic Q5 terat is stuck with 7% to 8% "growth" rather than 11%. That'll get the job done.

Originally Posted By: Velvet

I hope you realize how ridiculous that sounds. "Well, I want to go into Chrysalis, so I'll spend the next 2-5 years deliberately botching at least 1 power-max roll per day."

From the Terat's point of view it's the whole "push your powers once a day" lifestyle that's probably the root of all this.

But even when I run Terats I don't tend to even attempt to try to go through Chrysalis. It's dangerous. It's supposed to be dangerous. It's creator, Fong, who presumably knew more about it than anyone short of Scripture, is still stuck in it. That's what we call an abject lesson.

[Divine]

Originally Posted By: Hugin

The mechanics of Chrysalis are total and complete crap. They don't make sense and what's worse, once you've actually GOT the permenent Chrysalis the likelihood of fucking up the roll and losing it all is mega-high.

That is why you need a minimum of 5 chrysalis. Nothing says that you can't go up to 9 Chrysalis. In fact, when it's that high, the roll is much easier. Granted you will pick up some moderate and high level aberrations, but you're a Terat; being inhuman is your thing.

[Ashnod]

Originally Posted By: Hugin

The mechanics of Chrysalis are total and complete crap. They don't make sense and what's worse, once you've actually GOT the permenent Chrysalis the likelihood of fucking up the roll and losing it all is mega-high.

That said, it's a part of the game and conceptually makes sense. I honestly did it with Hugin because I wanted a good excuse to ditch him for a year.

With Lemmy I've actually got the perfect excuse for when I have him jump in: Node Spark. That collects temp taint like a mo' fo'.

I'm pretty sure Node Spark has restrictions on using the taint it gives for Chrysalis.

[Robert J. Lambert]

I checked it =D The only restriction on Node Spark is that you can't use the Temporary Taint gained from a Botch and turn it into Chrysails.

Otherwise, it's fair game. But man, that's a pretty hardcore way to get Chrysalis, specially since not all of the uses will fall within your archtype.

[Contessa]

"If the nova botches the roll completely, then the nova gains temporary Taint equal to his entire dice pool that cannot be converted into Chrysalis. Lemmy has this power."

However, any 1's Lemmy rolls (providing he does botch altogether) he may legally convert into Chrysalis.

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But man, that's a pretty hardcore way to get Chrysalis, specially since not all of the uses will fall within your archtype.

Then Lemmy could not convert it. The only you may convert Taint into Chysalis is when you are acting in line with your archetype. It seems like most just think Terats go from 0 - 60 overnight since Chysalis is a fast and easy way to gain power that a good majority of the canon rules are just overlooked.

[Ptesan-Wi]

Once again, we're dealing with the typical split-personality that pervades White Wolf games: establishing a canon with various canon events with canon characters, then making said events a near-impossibility when using the provided rules.

I come down in favor of concept over rules - especially here, on N!Prime 2017, where one can take part in shared story-writing and a shared universe without so much as a character sheet, let alone anything quite so detailed as witnessed die rolls.

Now when I ran Timeslip into her Chrysalis, I did my level best to note, by way of her stories, that she was indeed racking up Temporary Taint at a frightening pace. That's not the easiest thing to do, because it's not like there's a convenient, physical descriptor of Temporary Taint; like writing about a hypermass, all you can really do is try to show what's going on around it. In Timeslip's case, she was maxing - on a near-constant basis - Crosstime Travel with a rather low die pool so that she could drag Long and others with her to explore alternate timelines (back when she didn't have her version with the Affect Others extra). Sometimes, this didn't work... and some of those times were incredibly inconvenient for the travellers, but made for excellent story. As Timeslip's nature is - surprise, surprise - Explorer, she was recovering Willpower for the risks she was taking in this way. Now, did I write some 400 CTT exploration fics? Hells, no. But I very much indicated in the few that I did write that this was something she was doing on a near-constant basis.

So, over the course of a relatively scant year and a half, Timeslip managed to accumulate enough points Temporary Taint (and thus, Temporary and then Permanent Chrysalis) to enter into Chrysalis. Nowadays, with her Affect-Others improved CTT, she's not racking up those points nearly as much (though she still gets the occasional one now and again; she's an Explorer Portent, and all about pushing the limits of her powers to see what is over that next horizon). Do I have the math to back it up? Hard dice rolls? An event log? No, I don't... and I don't need it.

We're telling a story here, rather than playing a game.

[Contessa]

Originally Posted By: Ptesan-Wi

Once again, we're dealing with the typical split-personality that pervades White Wolf games: establishing a canon with various canon events with canon characters, then making said events a near-impossibility when using the provided rules.

Yeah, fun isn't it?

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I come down in favor of concept over rules - especially here, on N!Prime 2017, where one can take part in shared story-writing and a shared universe without so much as a character sheet, let alone anything quite so detailed as witnessed die rolls.

I agree. My purpose only to understand what Teragen book the fellow Terats here on the board were using because when I read the Teragen book (finally, I got bored enough the other night) nothing that was in the book compared to what I had seen players doing with their Terats was accurate.

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Now when I ran Timeslip into her Chrysalis, I did my level best to note, by way of her stories, that she was indeed racking up Temporary Taint at a frightening pace.

And that is something that is completely cool. As a player you seem to play the role as a Terat very well and certainly convincing. Couple that with you and Ashnod in the same fiction and people suddenly feel like buring their T2M spandex and running naked to Malapalooza.

My point is, you at least took the effort to make others understand the how’s and why's of the hell Timeslip had gone through to reach her Chrysalis.

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So, over the course of a relatively scant year and a half, Timeslip managed to accumulate enough points Temporary Taint (and thus, Temporary and then Permanent Chrysalis) to enter into Chrysalis.

Okay, thank you for saying that, because it makes for nearly 90% of my confusion. Is there or should there be some standard on a length of time it takes for a character to collect enough kooky-juice to enter Chrysalis?

A few things that stuck out in my head were characters like Butterfly who rode Procy's Sun Scepter and had mentioned prepping for Chrysalis. Wakinyan, three and a half weeks after meeting Procyon was prepped for Chrysalis... things like that. And no offense to those players but 5 dots of Permanent Pupa Power is not something you just head on down to 7-11 to pick up.

Heck, as it stands Revenant will be in Chrysalis tomorrow and he's not even a Terat. I kid obviously.

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Do I have the math to back it up? Hard dice rolls? An event log? No, I don't... and I don't need it.

And you shouldn't. I don't think we need them either, but I also think that 1) a character should still qualify before being able to go into Chrysalis and 2) it should not be some overlooked low-ball way to improve a character. It's a major stage in evolution and with the exception of a few characters that evolution is not being done any justice.

I wouldn’t think of questioning Ashnod’s Chrysalis (mostly out of fear that she lives with a woman who has my address and I think Ashnod could polly beat me up.). That fiction is so bad ass that it helps you understand how the process should work and what it feels like for the nova. She made it more than: “Okay, going to Chrsalis now, back in time for X-Mas. Hold my calls and tell my wife I won’t coming home.”

Stories like that back up and explain holes that are obviously in canon as well helping other players understand where this nova might be headed. Timeslip is another excellent example, her flaws and weakness are explained and the prices she’d paid for her power come out in the stories that are told.

To make my point using those two examples: they see Chrsalis as a journey, not a tool for 15 EXP per point of temp Chrsalis.

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We're telling a story here, rather than playing a game.

And if I never had to hear the word 'canon' again I'd be oh so happy.