Tap this on to my previous response

-Also, there is a limit on virtue! I found it in the book. First of all, the maximum for any virtue is 10. Additionally, you gain a derangement at 7, 8, 9, and 10 of each virtue. If anyone ever maxed out their virtues (which won't happen for a PC for reasons I'll get to), they'd have 12 derangements from their virtue.
This is in the book, btw. As you get so much virtue, you become little more than a machine, bent on nothing more than your path of virtue, everything else in your world -- family, money, food -- fading into the background.

Any character whose virtue brings their max trait past 18 (the max trait for elder garou) MUST BE RETIRED or be converted to NPC status. That's 19 virtue traits, by the way.
Unless the player is exceedingly confident that they can play a exceedingly deranged character, the character would probably be retired before that. With my system, no hunter can possibly get a max trait beyond 17 without gaining derangements, and they can only wait that long if they perfectly divide their virtues, which is unlikely for the character to do and is therefore probably just a cheap player who needs a beating from the storyteller. A fair player would be getting derangements quite a while before that. As such, a fair player will either play a powerful but PSYCHO character or will eventually stop cashing in their Conviction, maintaining a sane and not extremely powerful character.



Yea, Conviction can be spent for other purposes. An Imbued can spend a Conviction trait and see through all illusions, recognize anything supernatural (tho they wouldn't have any clue what it is even if they've seen it before unless they have and use an appropriate Edge), renders you immune to supernatural terror like Delerium (which otherwise effects even an extremely powerful Imbued!!), renders them immune to any form of supernatural emotion or mind control, and renders them immune to possession.
That trait of Conviction is the most potent thing the Imbued have against the Supernatural -- The ability to avoid being decieved or manipulated if they steel their will and bolster themselves with their Conviction.

I want to make note, tho, that the massive list of stuff above is not as cheap as it looks. A Conviction isn't like Gnosis or Blood. Unlike most traits, first of all, you can't buy conviction in game. At all. Ever. And you can only sort of buy it at character creation, and the hunter really might as well not waste the freebies, cuz this starting Conviction isn't good for anything, really.
Not only that, but it is NOT easily refreshed. To get Faith back, you pray or show reverence. To get Gnosis back you meditate, kill spirits or the like. To get Rage back, you have your moon rise, get pissed at someone, or get in a fight. To get willpower, wait a while -- some things can steal it from others. To get blood, you just grab a pedestrian.
Conviction DOES NOT have something like that to get it. Every way to get conviction back is something that must be actively done in game, and it is NOT easy to do, either. It's not spend 10 minutes medetating, it's requires serious in game activity. The only exception is if, at the end of a game, your Conviction is lower than the piddling Conviction rating of your Creed (pretty much only possible if you Botch a Conviction risk and end up with NO conviction and pretty much become a normal human), you then start the next game with your creed's piddling Conviction rating.
Furthermore, if someone EVER intends to raise their virtue, they can't be spending much Conviction at all, since they need to save it so badly.
Then, keep in mind that no matter how powerful your imbued is, they all have the same limit on their conviction -- the limit doesn't change like blood does for generation, and god knows they can't jsut buy infinite like gnosis.

So, while yes, the immunity to illusion and control is powerful, it's cost is a really big deal... so before anyone bitches about that, keep that in mind, please. I wanna pre-empt any problems with this lecture. I don't mean to be obnoxious, really.



Okae. I'll shut up now and keep the rest of my Imbued stuff private in E-mails and AIM.
Besides, everything I've said is Moot if Jim doesn't like my conversions for the Innocent's Edges.