House Rules

New Albion merges rules primarily from V20 and BNS in order to provide the best social experience. Rules management and play-testing is always a process, so if you feel something is not working as intended, speak to an ST. This page will outline the primary deviations from V20 standard.

## Specialities

Specialties largely work as normal, outlined in the V20 core rules. However, if a character is "double specialized" for a roll, that is both of the traits being rolled have specialties that apply to the roll, then they recieve one automatic success on the roll. Of particular note is that this prevents suffering a Botch.

## Languages

Instead of using Merits to cover languages, we are using Knowledge: Expert Knowledge. Your character's birth-language is free of course, but use this Knowledge to denote their proficiency with others (i.e. Expert Knowledge: French 2)

## Starting Disciplines

Instead of taking 3 dots of disciplines as outlined in V20 character generation, new characters will instead receive a free dot in each of their clan disciplines, and then may raise any one in-clan discipline to two dots, for a total of four free dots.

This is to prevent a great breadth of out-of-clan disciplines from commonly populating among out-of-clan disciples. If you would like to argue using starting dots to take out-of-clan disciplines, you may do so, but you must provide reasonable story justification to your on-boarding ST (usually ST Chaemera).

Arguments for "common" disciplines shared between multiple clans (Potence, Celerity, Fortitude, Auspex, Presence, etc.) will be scrutinized less heavily than those that are clan-specific.

## Background: Alternate Identity

Works as-written for mortal identities. For supernatural alternate identities, however, background dots must be either 4 or 5. Four dots represents changing one aspect of a character's identity, either clan or sect; five dots represents changing both.

## Background: Elite and Underworld

*See also: Homebrew Status*

This is a major change that introduces a new influence system.

You may purchase both of these backgrounds, separately, as they represent the high and low aspects of society. For each dot you buy, you receive a specialty which you should establish at the time of purchase (corporate, thieves, white collar, old money, etc.) When you are operating inside a specialty, you are considered to have one dot of influence higher than you normally would for rolls or actions, described below.

You have a number of "actions" to spend equal to the number of dots you have in a given background. Each level costs one action (so a level 1 costs 1 action, a level 2 costs 2 actions, and so on). Actions Refresh either every time cycle (usually the next Court) or with ST permission. Actions are "spent" by discussing with your clan or plot ST, whichever is appropriate. Your action pool should be tracked on your character sheet.

### General Actions

You may "Boost" someone else's influence action, allowing two characters to team up to receive a greater affect. To accomplish this, spend an action to increase the level of a fellow PC's or "primary influencer's" influence by 1. The primary influencer will not receive the benefits of your specializations.

You may "Defend" against attempts to track or affect your influence. For every action you spend to defend, the "Attacking" influencer or investigator must make an equal number of rolls at a difficulty of 5 + the number of actions you used to defend. Defensive actions are generally made in an attempt to keep one's influencing actions discreet and subtle, or to prevent the influence of others from overwhelming one's own.

STs are required to allow players the opportunity to determine if they are under "attack" with appropriate rolls related to perception.

### Actions by Level

Generally speaking, "Elite" influence is legal (but not always) and "Underworld" influence is illegal (but not always). Elite influence is the sphere of bureaucracy and politics, while Underworld influence is the sphere of criminality and disruption. Either can juggle the use and abuse of money.

* Level 1 (Elite) - "Borrow" something from a wealthy friend. Maximum rental value of $1k per level of elite influence.
* Level 1 (Underworld) - You can freely travel anywhere in the city without being harassed by the criminal element, and police will look the other way while you travel.
* Level 2 (Either)- Harry, harangue, cajole, bribe, persuade, or otherwise investigate for information in your sphere of influence.
* Level 3 (Either) - A "Minor" favor.
	+ Elite: altering government paperwork, fixing up incident reports, detaining someone on false charges, starting a police investigation, getting a registered weapon, or a fake id.
	+ Underworld: arranging a minimum security hail break, acquiring drugs or unregistered weapons, planting evidence, smearing with fake news.
* Level 4 (Either) - A "Major" Favor, as before, but more. There is some overlap here.
	+ Elite: cover up masquerade breaches, pay off witnesses, make news stories go away and alibis come from nowhere.
	+ Underworld: disrupt news agencies, start gang wars, shut down utilities, re-appropriate medical supplies, or assassinate a stock NPC ranked 4 or less.
* Level 5 (Either) - Safe zone - Lock down one square block and make it masquerade safe, and will prevent incursion from any group of people.

## Background: Generation

The Generation background has been altered in the following ways, with some Generations removed from the background and turned into flaws. This is a compromise between V20 and BNS, and also to remove generally underutilized generations in favor of freeing of background points and freebies. Note that the "status" titles in parenthetical are simply there to recommend generation for characters who wish to start at that level.

* 1 dot - 11th Generation (Neonate), 12 blood pool and 1 blood per turn. Trait limit of 5, unless otherwise specified with merits. Neonates receive some progression breaks on learning new skills and backgrounds. Neonates can learn combo powers.
* 2 dots - 9th Generation (Ancilla), Blood Pool of 14, and 2 blood per turn. Trait limit of 5 unless specified by merits. Can learn combo Powers
* 3 dots - 8th Generation (Pretender Elder), Blood Pool of 15, and 3 blood per turn. A single attribute can be raised to 6, and a single ability may be raised to 6 to represent focus from an extended unlife. Similarly, a single discipline may be raised to 6 representing specialization. Combo Powers are still available but much harder to learn.
* 4 dots - 7th Generation (Master Elder), Blood Pool of 20, and 4 blood per turn. A total of 5 dots can be spent over a trait limit of 5, to a maximum of 6. Two Disciplines may start at 6. One such discipline must be in-clan. A Master Elder may raise any discipline to 6. Master Elders cannot learn combo Powers.
* 5 dots - 6th Generation (Luminary Elder), Blood Pool of 30 and 5 blood per turn. A total 7 dots can be spent over a trait limit of 5 to a maximum of 7. Only one Attribute and one Ability can be raised to 7. A Luminary Elder may start with one discipline at 7, and one at 6; both must be in-clans. A Luminary elder may raise any discipline to 7. Luminary elders have a very difficult time bending their blood to learn out-of-clans. Character Progress will reflect this. Luminary Elders cannot learn combo Powers.

## Background: Haven

For Every dot in Haven, take a trait listed below.

* Guards - take 5 levels to build Stock NPCs to defend your haven. See combat rules to see how to make stock NPCs.
* Library - +3 to applicable lore and research tests
* Location - You are in a good neighborhood. people wishing to affect you with indirect actions such as social backgrounds need to use twice the resources
* Luxury - +3 on social tests vs mortals in your haven
* Occult - Must have the occult skill, your haven is warded against NPC intrusion.
* Security - People attempting to break in to your haven are at a -3 penalty
* Size - Your haven can comfortably house up to 10 other PCs
* Staff - You have a waitstaff of level 1 retainers who see to the needs of you and your guests, no combat abilities.

## Blood Economy

This is a hypothetical system that STs are discussing. Stay tuned.

## BNS Techniques

We are using them as outlined, with the caveat that we may overrule or outlaw individual rules or techniques as needed to maintain balance.

These are basically the same as "Combination Disciplines" from the tabletop rules.

## New Merits and Flaws

These are either custom and created for this game, or ported from BNS. None of these override the V20 versions with the same name. You may take either (but not both).

### Merits

Monopoly (1 point)
You receive one additional specialty for each dot your purchase in an influence.

Master of Puppets (2 points)
You receive an extra influence action. If you have both influences, choose one. This merit may be taken once for each type of influence.

### Flaws

Lesser Generation (1 - 2 points)
Note that these are recommendations, and if you want to, for example, be a lower-gen Neonate or a higher-gen Ancilla, those options can of course be discussed.

* Ancilla can take this flaw at 1 point to be considered 10th Gen.
* Neonates can take this flaw at 1 point to be considered 12th Gen.
* Neonates can take this flaw at 2 points to be considered 13th Gen.

Drawback - If you diablerize, instead of increasing from one generation to the next, you must instead purchase off the appropriate level of this flaw.

Inept (3 points)
One of your in-clan disciplines doesn't come naturally to you, and you do not receive a free discipline point in it. This discipline then also costs out-of-clan progression and requires a teacher like an out-of-clan discipline.

Thin-Blooded (3 points)
Only Neonates may take this flaw. You may choose to be 15th or 14th Generation. You are a Caitiff. If you diablerize, you must buy off this flaw and take the Lesser Generation flaw, using any difference as a character progression penalty to be discussed with a ST.

Instead of receiving the normal clan disciplines package at character generation, you instead receive two dots.

The Highest you can purchase any discipline is 4 dots.