System Clarifications (House Rules)

[WoDBerlin]

Everyone has them, I want to be popular.
Here we go.


Alternate Rule for Stun
Stun goes on your base stamina, no matter what form you're in. So if you take more damage in one blow than your stamina in homid, no matter what your form is, you will be dazed for a turn. You can spend Rage or Willpower to ignore stun, as usual. I have been applying this for a while anyway, since I've always played it like this and was only recently made aware that it is a house rule.


Learning Gifts out of your Tribe, Breed, Auspice
Personally, I think gifts are exclusive and should be treated that way. So in addition to raising the cost of these gifts to 6xp per level, I am making the circumstances to learn them increasingly difficult. Learning these gifts can only be done if taught by a spirit, and even then it has to be left up to the ST (me) what the price will be.
This of course does not apply to gifts learnt by your totem (like Bear's pack gaining mother's touch).

Silver
Here the corebook contradicts itself on one occasion. This is is the rule I will be going with:
Garou in non-breed forms can soak damage from silver weapons, but they will always take at least one level of damage for being touched by silver. A silver weapon will cause a minimum single level of aggravated damage with each hit, but can be soaked up to that point. Silver damage is always aggravated for metis Garou, and for other Garou unless they're in their breed form.

[WoDBerlin]

On those Sensing Gifts
This one isn't exactly a house rule, but recently it has come to my attention that some STs tend to treat this one differently.
In a nutshell, you need gifts like Scent of the True Form to smell other Garou, and Sense Wyrm to detect taint. This is not inherent to all wolves. This is why we have these gifts.
Additionally, Garou can't tell when these gifts are being used on them.

Gifts in General
Gifts aren't common knowledge. People who aren't Glass Walkers don't usually just know that Glass Walkers can control a machine remotely or shoot a gun out of your hand from six miles away. A non-Fian seeing Fairy Light being used for the first time would probably be rather shocked to see a small orb of light appearing out of nowhere.
Please treat gifts as they are: something special and exclusive. It might be common knowledge that Children of Gaia are healers in general, and Get of Fenris are able fighters with gifts to match, but in my opinion, people shouldn't have specific knowledge of their gifts.

Spending gnosis to step sideways
When in a fix, players can spend one point of gnosis to immediately step sideways. Just remember that gnosis is not as easy to gain back as rage or willpower. Spend it wisely.

[WoDBerlin]

Rage Actions
Because a rage action is primal, instinctive action without slowing down for thought, firing a gun or bow on a rage action increases the difficulty of the roll by one for each extra action. This does not apply if you're splitting actions. This does not apply for more primal tasks like biting or stabbing. It only applies for rolls that require a little bit of concentration and skill.
Additionally, since Rage actions go last, one cannot use a Rage action to counter a normal action (e.g. dodge a blow).


Modified Rules for Firearms
I use some modified rules for firearms which makes them somewhat more effective. For a full listing, you may see Seph's Rules Den.

[WoDBerlin]

Calling your totem:

For those wishing to call upon their totem (without a Rite of Summoning or Totem Binding), I have devised this system to decide if they answer (at least I think I devised it, it might be somewhere in a book I read.)
I will roll the character's current totem background (if more than one character joins the call, I will add up their totem ratings) and roll it against the gauntlet difficulty. The number of successes determine how long it takes your totem to respond. On a failure, they won't hear the call. On a botch, you've pissed them off.

[WoDBerlin]

Personal Totems

Players can come into play with a personal totem. However, I do not allow players to have two totems (pack and personal totem), so advise players not to come into play with their own totems unless we have already discussed otherwise, since all PCs are expected to join a pack.

[WoDBerlin]

Retracting House Rules:

Willpower:
From now on, it is no longer allowed to spend willpower for automatic successes on gifts. I'm retracting the house-rule that that allowed it before, because I'm a meanie.

Silver:
See the note on Silver above. This is now no longer valid. Garou can now only soak damage from silver in their breed forms. Metis cannot soak silver at all.
Touching silver always does at least 1 level of aggravated damage to Garou. This is unsoakable.