Game/Rules

Game-Wide House Rules & Character Policies

Alternate Identity

While the Alternate Identity merit doesn't require justification, a system is now in place for someone who is repairing a damaged Alternate Identity.

The roll is Manipulation+Politics, extended. 5 successes are required for basic IDs--this is for people getting Alternate Identity 1-2, and for the Lost who have no IDs at all, and just want their base one made official. If you're creating an Alternate Identity 3, the target is 10 successes.

This process requires Allies (Legal), and will draw upon them. PCs can create ID per dot of Allies (Legal) per week. Getting an Alternate Identification 3 level ID will take 2 Allies dots per week, however. So you can get 2 basic IDs done (at max Alt ID 2) a week, or one Alt ID 3 a week.

Changelings who are getting their first identification will have it covered by the Freehold, they don't have to pay anything. For any changelings getting further IDs, or for people outside of the Freehold, getting basic IDs (up to Alt ID 2) is Availability 2 and Alt ID 3 is Availability 3. These Availability costs can be lowered with the Fixer merit as per usual.

The Freehold will pay for anyone who is getting their IDs fixed/replaced after the Gentrification plot.

Armor Stacking

A character can benefit from one mundane and one supernatural source of armor at a time, per the rules in the God Machine Rules Update p. 206. If you have more than one mundane or supernatural source of armor, you can choose which one applies for the scene but can't change it for the duration of the scene without removing the chosen armor.

"Intrinsic" armor, like the Iron Skin merit or a werewolf's Fortified Form merit, or anything of that sort is either mundane or supernatural armor depending on its source. Iron Skin would be a mundane armor source, and Fortified Form would be a supernatural one.

All of this, of course, is subject to the fact that specific rules outweigh general ones. If a source of armor says that it stacks in a way that contradicts this HR, then follow the text of the source (merit, power, etc).

Character Age

Your character must be, look, and in all ways act 18+. You may not mention that your character 'looks underage', state or imply your character is childlike or underage mentally. This is grounds for immediate banning.

Clash of Wills

Please see Changeling Clash Of Wills for information on how to handle the instances of Clash of Wills which either require a House Rule or were written in an unclear fashion.

Crafting System

From Dusk Till Jawn uses a modified crafting system similar to what you will find in the Chronicles of Darkness core book and in the Hurt Locker supplement. You can find the details here.

Arts System

From Dusk Till Jawn uses a modified art crafting system similar to what you will find in the Chronicles of Darkness core book and in the Hurt Locker supplement. You can find the details here.

Equipment Houserules

• The Bomb Suit provides coverage to the legs, arms, and torso. Head coverage requires a helmet, with the usual -1 to defense and -1 to perception rolls for sight and sound. This is a change from how it is listed in the books, and is done to bring it in line with the rest of the armor.
• Because 2.0 presently lacks stats for watercraft and aircraft, or availability for land vehicles, please feel free to use the following tables:

Aircraft
Vehicle	Dice Modifier	Size	Durability/Structure	Speed	Occupants	Availability
Light Aircraft
Single-Engine	-2	18	2/20	180	1+3
Twin-Engine	-2	21	2/23	370	2+14
Stunt Plane	0	15	3/18	220	1+1
Glider	0	15	1/16	160	1+1
Commercial Aircraft
Business Jet	-2	25	2/27	660	2+10
Airliner	-4	35	2/37	700	3+180
Light Transport	-3	30	2/32	270	2+6
Heavy Transport	-5	40	3/43	700	3+9
Helicopters
Observation	-1	17	2/19	180	2
Service	0	20	3/23	210	2+8
Transport	-1	25	3/28	160	2+2

Watercraft
Vehicle	Dice Modifier	Size	Durability/Structure	Speed	Occupants	Availability
Small Craft
Canoe	-2	7	1/8	Str+Stam	3
Kayak	-1	6	1/7	Str+Stam	1
Jet Ski	+2	6	2/8	50	1+1
Inflatable Boat	0	8	1/9	25	1+7
Motorboats
Fishing Boat	0	9	2/11	15	1+3
Motorboat	-4	10	2/12	60	1+5
Racing Boat	+2	18	2/20	120	3+2
Houseboat	-3	18	2/20	20	1+7
Sailboats
Day Sailer	-2	8	1/9	Wind Speed	1+2
Yacht	-1	20	2/22	Wind Speed / 15	2+8
Racing Yacht	0	25	3/28	Wind Speed	6+6

Land Vehicles
Vehicle	Dice Modifier	Size	Durability/Structure	Speed	Occupants	Availability
Motorcycle	-1	7	2/9	100	1+1
Compact Car	-2	8	3/11	90	1+4
Family Car	-3	12	3/15	80	1+4
Sports Car	-1	10	2/12	140	1+3
Limousine	-4	20	3/18	60	1+8
Van	-3	18	3/21	80	1+7
Pickup Truck	-2	15	4/19	80	1+3
SUV	-2	15	4/19	100	1+5

Exceptional Successes on 3

Any time you have a 'three successes means exceptional' roll and you are comparing successes, you count that as having 2 higher, but not in any situation where you are just getting Exceptional and not comparing successes with a contesting roll.

Example: Alice and Clarice are rolling for a contested roll in which Alice's Kith blessing applies. Alice rolls 3 and Clarice rolls 4. This is counted as though Alice had rolled 5 successes. Later, Clarice is rolling her on a non-contested roll in which her Kith blessing applies. She achieves 3 successes and receives the benefits of an exceptional success, but doesn't count it as 5.

Fighting Style Damage

Fighting styles that say that you can inflict extra bashing damage in certain circumstances, like when someone in reach rises from prone, always do bashing damage regardless of the normal damage that your character may do. This includes, but isn't limited to:

• Boxing 2 (Defensive Jab)
• Chain Weapons 1 & 2
• Close Quarters Combat 5
• Grappling 2 (Small Joint Manipulation OR Takedown), 3 (Joint Lock) and 5 (Positional Dominance)
• Kino Mutai 2
• Kung Fu 3
• Street Fighting 3 & 4
• Trunk Squeeze
• Unarmed Defense 4
• Weapon and Shield 1

Professional Training

We do not use the Professional Training merit.

Prosthetics

Using a prosthetic allows you to temporarily replace the condition with the rules of the prosthetic. It does not relieve the condition per se, but replaces one set of rules with another. Your character then reverts to the condition once they are no longer wearing the prosthetic.

Sexual Assault

Sexual assault in backgrounds is permissible; that is an unfortunate reality and also can be a part of CtL theme. This must happen off-camera. Mentioning that your character was assaulted at seventeen = okay. Writing it out in detail so staff has to read it when staff reviews your background = WHY WOULD YOU DO THAT, don't.

Sexual assault committed by STs in a plotline, or by PCs on either NPCs or other PCs, regardless of OOC consent, is grounds for immediately being permanently banned from From Dusk Till Jawn.

It's one thing if you want to, say, hunt rapists for sport outside a bar at close, but no actual assault can occur as part of RP in any way, including plots, on-screen Durances, etc.

Addendum/Clarification: Vampiric feeding requires OOC consent under our Sexual Assault House Rule, and we prefer IC consent, though understand there may be times when a vampire ICly hides feeding from a Mortal PC, etc. However, if other players or staff are required to deal with Blood Rape Drama after the fact, that's a Problem(tm).

A vampire feeding their blood to another PC of any splat always requires IC and OOC consent, and failure to obtain IC and OOC consent will be considered a violation of our Sexual Assault policy. The often-sexualized nature of blood bonds/blood addiction and the issues of PC agency around these acts makes consent necessary; "I consented OOC but not IC and now everyone else has to deal with weeks of unenjoyable drama and seeking vengeance/justice" is just not a plotline the staff of FDTJ want to deal with under any circumstance.

Shared Merits

Any group may take shared mundane merits (Resources, Contacts, Allies, Safe Place, etc.) even if their core book does not specify that they are able to do so, with the following restrictions:

• The group has three or more members.
• The group has a linking merit such as Mystery Cult or Hobbyist Clique, or a sphere-specific family group such as a coterie.
• Only members who possess the above merit(s) or are in the group and have contributed to the merit in question can directly access it.
• For groups who natively are able to share merits, the contribution rule applies, too. If Bob, Clarice and Alice are in a motley, and Bob and Clarice have both purchased Resources 2 and declared it shared, and Alice has purchased no Resources or has decided not to share her Resources (see below), then only Bob and Clarice can purchase things directly with the shared Resources. Bob can, however, buy a car for Alice and give it to her.
• The group has a single shared Resources pool for purchases; when that Resources pool is spent for the month, it's spent for everyone. You don't get to make 3 Resources 5 purchases if you have a group of 3 with Resources that add up to 5. Once the merit is shared, the Resources pool is treated the same way as if it was a Resources pool for an individual, e.g. the group has one pool totaling the number of dots that they have; the individuals no longer have separate Resources pools.
• Regardless of the number of members, shared merits cannot ever go above 5 in effect unless specifically written in the book that it can go above 5. This may mean in a group of six or more, that some members do not have access to the shared Resources pool. You may purchase dots above five for access purposes only, that is, if you have seven people in a group, and each has Resources 1 (shared), you still only have Resources 5, but everyone has access to it directly. Members may choose to maintain their own Resources or if joining an existing group, may choose to invoke Sanctity of Merits and use those dots for something else, or may keep dots for access purposes.
• Example: Seven Changelings, each with Resources 2, create a motley. They may choose to split their Resources pool, having 1 (shared) and 1 (mine), or Sanctity that second dot, or keep it, but that would honestly be a waste.
• An existing group may have only one shared Resources pool. You cannot have ten members and have two Resources 5 (shared) pools.
• Characters may choose to share some, all, or none of their share-able merits. It is up to a character to determine, when the group is formed or when stats are purchased, whether that stat is shared. You may change your mind later. Staff may decline to let you change your mind a bunch if you keep saying 'yes it's shared,' 'no it isn't.'
• The obvious exception to this is things like Safe Place, Hollow, etc. If Bob buys Hollow dots for the Shiny Things Hollow, and Alice also buys dots for the Shiny Things Hollow, those are shared by default, since they're for the same physical location.

Specialties

Per Chronicles of Darkness p. 73, Specialties function as a bonus to rolls made where the Specialty is applicable; they do not increase the base stat. That means that Specialties don't factor into anything where a roll isn't being made, including stats like Defense.

The largest bonus that a single roll can receive from Specialties is +3. That can be 3 different applicable Specialties, or two Specialties where one has Area of Expertise. If multiple applicable Specialties with Area of Expertise apply, the roll's bonus from Specialties still caps out at +3 total.

You may take a specialty in a single supernatural power, such as Medicine (Gift of Warm Blood), but not Medicine (Spring Contracts).

Status

• At character creation you may have one status as high as 3, a second status as high as 2, and any additional statuses no higher than 1.
• Status may be used like Resources for aquiring equipment related to the status concerned. Someone with Education Status 3 might be able to acquire lab equipment using their status alone, but would be hard pressed to justify a firearms purchase. Similarly, someone with Philly Mob status 3 could easily justify acquiring a hand gun, but lab equipment would be a stretch. This may be done once per story. (Once per month.)
• Status may be added as a bonus to social roles for actions where that status is pertinent. The people at the country club might be impressed by your Politics status, but may not think too highly of your Union status. Similarly, the guys in that alley you're trying to talk out of mugging you are probably more likely to think twice about your mob status than they would about your tenure at Drexel.

Status Actions

We have a system in place for using your status to effect change within the game. You can read about it here.

Timekeeping

For purposes of our game, we define many of the terms used in the books for periods of time in an ongoing game in the following ways:

• Scene = Scene
• Session = Day
• Chapter = Week
• Story = Month
• Chronicle = A year and a day

Tiebreakers

If there's a contested roll (like Stealth vs Perception, or contested power activations) that results in a tie, the both parties reroll the same number of dice as on their original roll until one or the other is the winner. For determining how many successes were achieved on the roll, look only at the first roll.

For example: Bob is trying to sneak past Sam and rolls 3 successes on his Dexterity 2 + Stealth 3. Sam rolls Wits 3 + Composure 3 and spends a willpower for 3 more dice, for a total of 9, and gets 3 successes on their roll.

Since this is a tie with 3 successes each, Bob rolls his 5 dice and Sam rolls their 9 again for a tiebreaker. This doesn't cost Sam another point of willpower, even though willpower was spent on the initial roll, since they both roll the same pool as their original roll. Both of them get 2 successes on their reroll.

Because they were still tied, they both roll the same number of dice again: Bob rolls 5 and Sam rolls 9. This time Bob gets really lucky and gets 6 successes, while Sam once more gets 3. While this would be an exceptional success for Bob normally, the only roll that counts for determining his actual successes on the roll is the first one, which had 3 successes, so it's not an exceptional success in this case -- the roll with 6 successes serves only as a tiebreaker.

Weapon Damage: Mundane vs Magical

If something specifies that it works with weapons that have a damage rating above or below a certain threshold, like the Light Weapons fighting style which only works with weapons whose damage rating is 2 or lower, this is based on its mundane, non-magical damage rating. If something magical increases its damage rating later. If you have a switchblade and you make it sharper magically, but it's still the same weapon, it stands to reason that the same techniques still work with it.

Workshops,Tools, & Instruments

Workshops are static locations containing tools and equipment geared towards a specific purpose. They provide a +1 to +3 equipment bonus to rolls to create, repair, jury-rig, or modify items within their specific area of focus. They breakdown as follows:

1. +1 Workshop. Availability 1. Size: A small room.
2. +2 Workshop. Availability 3. Size: A single room.
3. +3 Workshop. Availability 5. Size: A garage or large room.

Tools are portable equipment containing tools geared towards a specific purpose. They provide a +1 or +2 equipment bonus to rolls to create, repair, jury-rid, or modify items within their specific area of focus. They breakdown as follows:

1. +1 Tools. Availability 2. Size: 2
2. +2 Tools. Availability 4. Size: 3

Musical Instruments vary in quality from a 0 bonus to a +3 bonus. This bonus only applies to performances made while playing the instrument, and potentially to social rolls made while holding it at the ST's discretion.

1. +1 Instrument. Availability 1.
2. +2 Instrument. Availability 3.
3. +3 Instrument. Availability 5.

Appropriate descriptions for tools and workshops include: Archaic Weapons, Firearms, Armor, Sewing, Leatherworking, Painting, Electrical, Automotive, Bowyer & Fletcher, etc.