With this ritual, the effects are as follows:

The Flesh Shaper grants one of the following
Traits to the subject: Amphibious, Blind, Burrower (X),
Crawler, Dark Sight, Fear (X), Deadly Natural Weapons,
Flyer (X), Machine (X), Multiple Arms (X), Natural Armour
(X), Quadruped, Regeneration (X), Size (X), Sturdy, Toxic (X)
or Unnatural Characteristic (X). For each Degree of Success
after the first, the Flesh Shaper may increase the value of any
Trait listed with an ‘X’ by 1 (to a maximum of 6). Each donor
sacrificed adds an additional Trait (to a maximum of 6).

This brings up a few questions.

Does each trait added require its own roll (in this case, Very Hard Medicae/Difficult Scholastic Lore Occult) to determine degree of effect?

If not, does the DoS of the single roll effect all traits (ie, 4 donors + 4 DoS = 4 "(X)" traits @ 4), or only single traits as desired (ie, 4 donors + 4 DoS = 4 "(X)" traits @ 1; with additional +3 spread out as desired across those 4 traits)?

Seems kind of important - a nifty little ritual if its the latter (Regen 4, Unnatural Agility/Strength/Toughness 1 is nifty), a really powerful ritual if the former (Regen and Unnatural Agility/Strength/Toughness 4 is awesome).

I'm guessing its just a vague aspect of the non-errata'd material and open to interpretation, but was curious if there had been any past discussion on the matter (and couldn't find any by searching around).

I would say yes to needing multiple tests but only just. It basically says that on a pass you grant the subject one of those traits. Each DoS allows you to increase an X value. I don't think you can technically have Regeneration (0) or anything like that to increase, you dont have those traits so you cannot increase them. It's like how you can't take Interrogation +10 without taking Interrogation first. If you used it a second time you can unlock a second trait and spend the DoS on either that one or the one previously unlocked.

There are of course some exceptions such as Size, humans count as Size (4) right off the bat (Marines as 5). And there are also Flyer or Unnatural Characteristics for those with gifts of the gods/mutations. So you can always increase those.

At the same time though I really also think it just needs one and then allocate points to them however you want so I'm torn on my own judgement! I had to ask Tzeentch to sort a tiebreaker, he called me a halibut and said go with the first one. The first is probably better on balance reasons else in one test you could net yourself a bunch of traits in one go.

X traits, if chosen, always start at 1 (Size seems like a special case I believe, where the baseline's probably your current size +/- 1 (for choosing the trait), and then +/- additional DoS. It could also be that you start from 1 and work your way up, but that seems a little strange, but it prevents someone from going gargantuan too easily?) . You use additional DoS to increase them, if you wish. It's similar to how you make minions and choose their traits, as it's optional to to increase some by sacrificing traits per se.

Example: 3 bodies sacrificed, 5 DoS rolled on the ritual. That means you got 1+3=4 traits total, and 4 DoS to spend on "extra stuff".

This ritual is ridiculously overpowered to be honest... The players can just buff themselves to incredible degrees. As far as balance goes I am so very incredibly torn on this ritual. As an old fan of Tzimisce vampires I love it, the powergamer in me loves it... But the person who gets bored when ***** to easy hates it.

If it bothers you then you can have it come with a hidden cost.

e.g. Make the character(s) unable to stop moulding..have them turn themselves them into grotesqueries of their former selves, see how they like it.

Or just disallow it. No need to screw over players without warning just because they wanted to use a cool ritual.

This ritual is ridiculously overpowered to be honest... The players can just buff themselves to incredible degrees. As far as balance goes I am so very incredibly torn on this ritual. As an old fan of Tzimisce vampires I love it, the powergamer in me loves it... But the person who gets bored when ***** to easy hates it.

Agreed. It is severely overpowered. Permanent buffs with no downside, and you can potentially get up to six of them? Without even any fun corruption or insanity for going once too often to the well?

Still, it's no worries, mate. If I run a BC game, I'll allow it... and not because I like munchkin powergames. It's easy to balance if you just remember one rule: if the players can do it, the NPC's can do it too. I already have some ideas for what the Exospectre's pet flesh shaper has got up to...

Cheers,

- V.

Who says they are permanent? the book?

*GM-Handwavium*

"Maybe you did something wrong, but the effects of the ritual appears to only last for a few moons"

>

They're obviously permanent, seeing how they're not expressively duration based.

Anything otherwise is a house rule and should be conveyed to players beforehand.

RAW, fleshmoulding is explicitly permanent: "Duration: The Rite takes six hors to perform, plus one additional hour for every degree of failure on the test. The modifications inflicted upon the subject are permanent ." - ToE, top of page 55. < emphasis mine>

Remember, it's good taste to announce houserules in advance, even if it's a patch to something horridly broken.

Cheers,

- V.

Especially in a case like this where there's the danger of dying if something goes wrong. Usually not worth it for a temporary effect.

Yet people in-game smoke, do drugs, summon Daemons, etc. for temporary effects.

Yet people in-game smoke, do drugs, summon Daemons, etc. for temporary effects.

Characters in-game don't usually factor in if it's mechanically worth doing something.

Yeah, this should never have been printed.

Yet people in-game smoke, do drugs, summon Daemons, etc. for temporary effects.

Characters in-game don't usually factor in if it's mechanically worth doing something.

Then I'd be so bold and claim that they aren't really roleplaying, but are instead roll-playing.

Isnt there a general combination of the two? If using combat drugs, one takes the drugs with the best effects... When one summons daemons, one summons the best daemons for the situation at hand - which would be none since most daemons are weak as hell and would do little good considering the effort one must go through to get it into real-space.

Generally a PC will not go through something that is painful, time-consuming, resource-consuming and may very well end up with them dead for a temporary buff. Especially if there is no glory to gain from it, and unless the ritual itself is a compact or something like that, that is unlikely.

This ritual is ridiculously overpowered to be honest... The players can just buff themselves to incredible degrees. As far as balance goes I am so very incredibly torn on this ritual. As an old fan of Tzimisce vampires I love it, the powergamer in me loves it... But the person who gets bored when ***** to easy hates it.

Agreed. It is severely overpowered. Permanent buffs with no downside, and you can potentially get up to six of them? Without even any fun corruption or insanity for going once too often to the well?

All Rituals of Chaos incurr at least some corruption (1d5, again IIRC).

I reckon this particular ritual could use a bit more however, given its nature - at least, that's how I'm rolling with it in my games.

That said, ignoring that semi-implied hazard of corruption, the ritual isn't totally without downsides.

First, it may take several days of recovery before the character can be active post-ritual (1d10-WPBonus days, though exactly how limited such an individual is seems vague).

Second, while unlikely in a prepared case, the chance of failure is certainly a possibility, resulting in a roll on the rending damage critical effects table (with a +1 for each additional DoF) for the subject and 6 wasted sacrifices (in addition to 6+ hours wasted time).

Frankly, while I had considered one or two applications in my character's career, it seems a risky venture - better suited to augmenting minions or servants than doing to oneself.