Dietary Requirement, Not So Required Options

[Neraph]

This thread is mainly for all you HMHVV peoples out there. I've long and hard thought about this, and I would like correction if I'm wrong, but I don't see how I would be.

The majority (if not totallity) of HMHVV have one form or another of the negative quality Dietary Requirement, which means they need to eat/consume a specific foodstuff otherwise they starve and suffer malnutrition. Ghouls have Dietary Requirement (Metahuman Flesh), as do Wendigo, and Vampires/Nosferatu have Dietary Requirement (Metahuman Blood). These Infected must eat/consume these things otherwise they starve to death, right?

But what about Street Magic, pg. 170? There's this amazing spell named Nutrition, that states "...This spell prevents starvation and dehydration...", with the only downside being it's addictive. With 4 Body, 4 Willpower, and 4 Logic, you're almost guranteed to buy the successes neccessary for the addiction test (I don't see it being harder than narcotics).

Now am I missing something important here? I understand that becoming Infected doesn't make you a Magician, but it is a documented fact that the Infected have a much higher chance of being a magician or mystic adept, and therefore having access to this spell.

Discuss.

[Da9iel]

This isn't just about freeze dried people is it?

[Neraph]

No, this actually removes the need to eat at all; your Infected Ghoul Mystic Adept, Wendigo Shaman, or Vampire Magician now quite literally subsists off of pure mana itself, without dirtying the process with all that flesh and blood. Straight to the source.

[Ancient History]

Next up for errata - "Nutrition doesn't meat dietary requirements."

Heh. Okay, seriously: you could try running this past your GM. It's a fair cop. Granted, you'll go slowly mad from hunger and "The only downside" will, at least statistically, bite you in the ass over a prolonged period of time, but you're really just replacing hunting down the right kind of blood or meat with whatever drain you get from the spell (or whatever favors you have to trade for it).

[TheOOB]

Really, if it was that easy you don't think people would be making such a big stink about it after all these years.

Nutrition prevents starvation and dehydration, but it does not provide any of the benefits you would get from eating or drinking.

Unfortunately, the dietary requirement weakness says "The critter must consume a certain type of unique substance at a regular interval to sustain it's life"(BBB pg. 290), it does not say they must eat a certain type of food or starve. If a ghoul doesn't get human flesh they don't starve, they just get sick and die, they are not fulfilling a magical requirement necessary to sustain their life force. Now a ghoul could use the spell to make it so they only had to each a small bit of human flesh here and there(and reduce their raw meat intake), but no sorcery is going to fix them, if it could ghouls wouldn't be in the bad straights they are in.

[Isath]

Aside from all that there are two things to note.

As Storyteller, it is up to ou to allow buying success, it is not something you as a player, can just decide on. Personaly I would not allow to simply buy success on addiction tests, based on dice-pool-size.

Also the spell, be it working or not, will not be pleasing your urges, I guess. Else there would not only be no mage eating anymore, magic would and could be used to get rid of hunger all together. Neither mana, nor "Soylent Green" are as tasty as a good steak, fresh veggies or...human blood/flesh. Still we are talking about a special requirement, not about being a vegetarian or a carnivore. So I do not think that this spell would work all to well, if at all.

Aside from all of that, there will be one thing that the spell simply doesn't cover - the hunger for essence.

[Neraph]

From what I understand, Dietary Requirement changes the type of food an Infected must eat in order to survive. the Nutrition spell feeds you for a couple hours off pure mana, with one hit being needed to get the effect, and every net hit improving the "quality" of the meal. Nutrition does not check for what you need to eat, only that you need to eat, and it feeds you.

Essentially, Nutrition is an equal-opportunity foodstuff.

EDIT: Note that I'm not using the Fast spell, which makes you not feel hunger; I'm using Nutrition, which magically feeds you.

EDIT 2: No it doesn't cover essence, and I never said you won't eat blood or flesh, just that you won't need to. It just fulfills the basic requirement of eating actual food. They would gain no Essence, or any other benefit from eating. Coincidentally, they wouldn't gain weight either..

[Rad]

Addiction gets nasty at higher levels--particularly burnout where you're dealing with essence loss. I don't think anyone should be allowed to breeze past the addiction tests because A) it's one of the main balancing factors, and B) It makes a much better story if you're constantly fighting off your hunger with magic, while simultaneously fighting the pull of addiction. Skipping over that kind of drama and character development is cheating your game of some real depth...

...besides, aren't vampires supposed to be all angsty about having to feed? (IMG:style_emoticons/default/ohplease.gif)

[Neraph]

Addiction gets nasty at higher levels--particularly burnout where you're dealing with essence loss. I don't think anyone should be allowed to breeze past the addiction tests because A) it's one of the main balancing factors, and B) It makes a much better story if you're constantly fighting off your hunger with magic, while simultaneously fighting the pull of addiction. Skipping over that kind of drama and character development is cheating your game of some real depth...

Why not? It makes sense that someone with the stamina and willpower would be able to quit any time he wants, never truely getting addicted.

...besides, aren't vampires supposed to be all angsty about having to feed? (IMG:style_emoticons/default/ohplease.gif)

Says who? We're obviously talking about a powerful vampire mage here. What's to say he can't control himself at all times, or at least most of the time.

Besides, Essence loss from Burnout Addiction is "cured" by more Esssence Drain.

[Dr Funfrock]

Why not? It makes sense that someone with the stamina and willpower would be able to quit any time he wants, never truely getting addicted.

Umm... I think the point everyone is trying to make here is that, IRL, addiction doesn't work like that. It takes incredibly dedication and willpower just to throw off an addiction at all. It's still going to be struggle, no matter what. Addictive behaviours are nasty because they sneak up on you. You think you're doing fine until you try to go without, and find out that you're not.

((Edited wording for clarity))

[Ravor]

Personally I think addiction tests should be based off an ever increasing threshold that would slowly decrease over time to half value (But never lower than that.), it doesn't matter how fragging tough you think you are, if you keep using an addictive substance you are going to become addicted to it, and in my opinion, the stronger willed you are the easier it is to become addicted in part because you don't think it can happen to you but also because you can ignore the standard day-to-day cravings.

[Wanderer]

Hmm, if I had a resourceful vampire/nosferatu/wendigo magician/mystic adept PC, I certainly wouldn't bother dealing with the uncertainetes and risks of hunting my flesh/blood dietary requirement from random strangers (I'm not even deeming the setting up of a wendigo cannibal cult as worthy of any being seriously taken into consideration). That would be perforce reserved to Essence gathering. But I'd be also rather wary of using an addictive Nutrition spell as the main regular way of satisfying a dietary requirement, I'd reserve it for emergencies, when the vagaries of shadowrunning cut me off from usual lifestyle resources for prolonged times.

Instead, I'd simply pay to set up an handful of clones kept unconscious on life maintenance in some hideout, from which the character could nibble bits of flsh or blood on a regular basis, as many clones as it may be needed to set up a rotating "donor" schedule among the clones who doesn't harm the long-term health of any of them. Either that, or to bribe technicians of biotech firms to have regular access to blood banks and organ banks for meals. Either option would be good realization in setting terms of the abstract rule which lets Infected PC have their dietary requirements fully satisified if they accept a 30% increase to their Lifestyle.

[Rad]

Why not? It makes sense that someone with the stamina and willpower would be able to quit any time he wants, never truely getting addicted.

No matter how high your dicepool or how low your TN, you can always critically fail.

[Neraph]

You can only critically fail if you roll dice. What I'm saying is there's no good reason not to buy successes if you have the dice, just like the book says you can (with DM permission, of course). If the DM allows it, a 6 Bod, Log, Wil will allow you to always auto-succeed on addiction tests versus Narcotics and less.

[Ravor]

Except you aren't allowed to buy successes when trying to scale a building no matter how many dice you have because failing a climbing test can really frag up your day, addiction tests are the same so no buying successes there either.

[Neraph]

Except you aren't allowed to buy successes when trying to scale a building no matter how many dice you have because failing a climbing test can really frag up your day, addiction tests are the same so no buying successes there either.

Where are you getting that? The rules may suggest that you disallow buying successes if there's a penalty for failure, but then again the rules suggest that you allow buying successes.

The rules suggest things in most cases, especially where there's so much debate on these forums.

[Platinum Dragon]

Why not? It makes sense that someone with the stamina and willpower would be able to quit any time he wants, never truely getting addicted.

I've known people like that in real life. It's not that they don't get addicted - they do - it's just that they're stong-willed enough to go cold turkey regardless of the withdrawal symptoms. Sure, technically they can quit whenever they want, but they still pay the consequences (withdrawal). No matter who you are, frequent long-term use of an addictive substance will get you hooked.

Where are you getting that? The rules may suggest that you disallow buying successes if there's a penalty for failure, but then again the rules suggest that you allow buying successes.

The rules suggest things in most cases, especially where there's so much debate on these forums.

Actually, the rules suggest disallowing purchasing successes in stressful situations, such as combat. I don't see a GM letting you buy successes on addiction tests simply because no matter who you are, you smoke for long enough and you'll be addicted to nicotine.

[Drogos]

The rules may suggest that you disallow buying successes if there's a penalty for failure...

You defeat your own argument right there. The penalty is addiction, therefore, no buying hits for addiction tests. Just like you shouldn't do it for Drain tests, combat, etc. It's really only meant for obscene dicepools that are impractical to roll.

[Neraph]

I wrote that tired, it sounded better in my head. I see you guy's' point.

[Jhaiisiin]

Alternatively, you could argue it from the point that you can't buy successes anytime you're in a stressful situation. Resisting addiction is *always* stressful, thus no buying successes.