The rules given in Changeling: The Lost for oneiromancy are really weak. These alternate rules should help make oneiromancy less boring and more accessible to a wide range of characters. The broad strokes of oneiromancy are left unchanged, and can be found in the core changeling book, as well as Rites of Spring and some other supplements. The most important bits are summarized here for easy reference along with new changes.
Dreams come in many forms, but tend to fall into these categories. Their intensity is determined by rolling the dreamer's Wits + Resolve (natural dream), or the oneiromancer's Wits + Wyrd for created dreams. Some dreams have special rules related to their intensity, which will be noted below. Categories can be combined, too, so a recurring memory nightmare is entirely possible. When combining two dream types that get the 9-again rule on intensity, the resulting dream instead gets the 8-again rule.
Any dream with an intensity of five or higher will be remembered in fairly clear detail by the dreamer. Below that threshold, it's unlikely that anything will be retained. Lucid dreamers have a better connection to their dreams, and remember details in any dream with an intensity of three or higher. Determining the type of a naturally occurring dream requires a successful Analyze the Dream action. Once you know what kind of dream it is, there may be special actions you can take depending on its type. You can also guess at the type of dream or just try special actions anyway; you might be right, you might be wrong, you might get random nonsense disguised as truth.
Intensity Modifier: 9-again
You can make an extended Wits+Empathy check to gain a bonus against the dreamer. Each roll takes half an hour and the target is the dream's intensity. If successful, you gain a +2 bonus on social rolls to determine the dreamer's mood and true intentions for the next week.
Intensity Modifier: 9-again
These dreams often contain factual elements from the dreamer's life mixed in with the typical nonsense of the dreamscape. Telling them apart is difficult and requires multiple nights of study. An extended Wits+Occult+Wyrd task -- taking one night per roll and having a target of 10 minus the dream's intensity -- can reveal whether an element is based on fact. The target is reevaluated every night, so if one night it becomes lower than your accumulated successes, you've stumbled upon some clarifying information and are finished. If the element you're examining does not appear, you cannot attempt the roll that night, though you can always try to coax it into the dream.
Intensity Modifier: None
These dreams are heavily colored by the dreamer's vice, derangements, virtue, and morality. These attributes are therefore easier to discover in a Wish Fulfillment dream than in other types of dream. An extended Wits+Investigation+Wyrd roll, taking one hour per roll, can uncover the above in short order. Every three successes allow you to learn the dreamer's virtue, vice, or one of their derangements. Six uninterrupted successes (meaning you "saved up" from 3) let you learn the details of their Morality trait.
Intensity Modifier: None
As told in countless stories, dreams can hide mystic prophesies of the future. Recognizing them for what they are is tricky business, requiring successes on a Wits+Occult+Wyrd roll at least equal to the dream's intensity. This roll can only be made once per dream. Once identified, it's a good idea to watch a prophetic dream until its close. All who take in such a dream and later see it come to fruition immediately regain their choice of one Willpower or three Glamour.
Intensity Modifier: None
Nightmares are the manifestation of our innermost fears and regrets, and carry heady mystical power. Anyone who finds themselves in a nightmare, including dreamers and oneiromancers, may be overwhelmed. Compare the nightmare's intensity to the Willpower of everyone in the dream, minus the number of derangements each one possesses. If the dreamer is overwhelmed, they do not regain a point of Willpower that night. If a visiting oneiromancer is overwhelmed, they immediately roll their Wits + Wyrd to avoid becoming trapped in the dream. Even leaving is hard, requiring an Instant Action and a Wits + Wyrd test, penalized by the dream's intensity. Failure prevents the oneiromancer from leaving for at least half an hour, and a Dramatic Failure traps them outright.
Despite all this, nightmares are popular targets for changelings who wish to harvest glamour, especially those of the Leaden Mirror. Rolls to harvest glamour from a nightmare gain a bonus equal to double the dream's intensity.
There are an awful lot of actions which can be taken within someone's dreamscape. These are the most common, but it's by no means a complete list.
Roll: Wits + Empathy (or Occult) - Intensity
Action: Prolonged (half hour of study)
Effect: You learn what kind of dream you're in.
Special: Oneiromancers typically get one reflexive Analyze the Dream roll upon entering a new dream.
Roll: Wits + Persuasion + Wyrd - Intensity
Action: Prolonged (once per dream, takes the whole dream)
Effect: All successes rolled on this test are stored for one week. Within that week, you can use the successes to gain bonus dice on Manipulation tests. You can use as many or as few successes at a time as you like, and each one used provides a +1 bonus. Once used, they're gone. These successes do not have to be used while awake, and can compliment further nights' work.
Roll: Wits + Investigation (or Empathy) + Wyrd
Action: Extended (interval of once per dream, takes the whole dream; target varies)
Effect: You learn something about the dreamer. Every five successes accrued against the same target reveals one of the following about them: virtue, vice, derangement, willpower, mental merit, social merit, mental flaw, or social flaw. Three successes can also be used to reveal any mental or emotional control of the subject within the last month.
Roll: Wits + Empathy + Wyrd - Intensity
Action: Prolonged (once per dream, takes the whole dream)
Effect: The dreamer receives psychological therapy (or abuse) which is as effective as an entire week of waking manipulations.
Roll: Int + Empathy + Wyrd
Action: Instant (once per dream)
Effect: Every success reduces the dream's intensity by one. If the intensity reaches zero, the oneiromancer must choose between crafting a new dream, or allowing the dreamer to wake up.
Roll: Wits + Occult + Wyrd - Intensity
Action: Extended (interval one hour; target varies)
Effect: The presence or absence of dream poison is confirmed, as is its intensity.
Roll: Highest Power stat + Occult + Wyrd - Dream Intensity vs. Poison Intensity
Action: Extended (interval 1 night, target equal to poison's intensity)
Effect: The poison's intensity is reduced by the changeling's net successes. The poison inflicts one damage per success on the changeling, regardless of the changeling's successes. If they scored no successes at all, the poison may take root in their own mind.
Roll: Wits + Composure + Intensity
Action: Extended (interval half hour; target varies), once per dream
Effect: Upon beginning this action, you must declare how much glamour you intend to harvest. If you accrue that many successes before the dream ends, you gain the glamour you desired. If you fail the extended task, you gain no glamour at all. This action can only be attempted in dreams with at least some natural components. In a nightmare, double the dream's intensity when harvesting glamour.
Roll: Manipulation + Subterfuge + Wyrd vs. dreamer's Wits + Resolve + Wyrd
Action: Instant, contested
Effect: If the oneiromancer wins, the threshold for discovering his manipulation of the dreamer is now equal to his net successes. If the dreamer wins, rolls to discover that they have been manipulated gain a bonus equal to the dreamer's net successes. Equal results cancel each other and nothing is changed.
Roll: Persuasion (or Subterfuge) + Manipulation + Wyrd vs. dreamer's Resolve + Composure + Wyrd - Intensity
Action: Instant, contested
Effect: Lucid dreamers are inherently harder to manipulate via dreams, because they might notice that something is amiss. Whenever an oneiromancer changes a lucid dreamer's dream, he can try to disguise the change as part of the dream's natural course. If the oneiromancer wins, their changes are accepted by the dreamer's subconscious mind as part of the dream. If the dreamer wins, they become aware that something is amiss and can probably pick out what it is (Int+Investigation or Occult). Unless the oneiromancer was inserting himself into the dream with this change, he remains concealed: only his handiwork is noticed.
Very few contracts have any application within dreams, since most of their effects are replicated by simply manipulating the dream. Certain contracts affect only the mind, and these are still useful within a dream. Activation is as normal, but individual dreams can provide bonus dice or impose penalties on the roll.
Roll: Intelligence + Empathy
Action: Instant
Effect: Dreams normally flit out of mind upon waking, making them very hard to remember. This action allows an oneiromancer to determine exactly when to wake the dreamer so that they have the best chance of remembering the dream's contents. The successes scored add to the dream's intensity for determining how much the dreamer recalls.
An unwary oneiromancer can become ensnared in the mind of a dreamer, forced to play out the events of the dream. This happens most often in nightmares, but tales of powerful prophetic dreams warn of it as well.
Trapped oneiromancers lose any ability to shape the dream. They are compelled to fulfill a role within its surreal story, whether that's a motionless cloth doll or madly-cackling musician terrorist. Changelings with an especially low clarity score sometimes choose to give in and play their alotted part, but most choose to remain aware of themselves.
Trapped oneiromancers can learn a fair amount about the dream, but many fight just to keep their sanity. Dreams test that resolve more often than not by pushing the trapped oneiromancers to perform acts that they would normally never approach. The oneiromancer can try to act against the dream's urgings and plans by making a Presence + Resolve check. Success lets them act as they wish for a few brief moments, while failure forces them into line with the course of the dream.
Especially horrific acts that an oneiromancer is forced to perform take their toll as always, but are usually much easier to stomach: the changeling adds their Composure to any Clarity checks made as a result of actions the dream forces upon them.
It isn't real real, just kinda real. Look in the shadows at the edge of the dream, if you forget. That's where all the hurt and pain looks fake. Remember the look of it fading into nothing as the dream moves on and it won't hit you quite so hard.
-- Jasmine Rossignole, Autumn Court, 1988
Acquiescing to the dream's demands carries its own risks. Each time the changeling cooperates with the dream against their own better judgement, they must succeed at a Resolve + Composure test or succumb to their role. A changeling who succumbs, whether by choice or accident, is swept almost completely into the role the dream picks out. They cannot leave until the dreamer wakes, and have trouble remembering their actions afterward. Succumbing is a breaking point at Clarity 5 and above.
Also called Dreamscaping, crafting dreams is a high art among changelings and a very useful tool. Most changelings who sculpt dreams use the second clause of the Contracts of Dream, as it allows not only easy entry into dreams, but also effortless sculpting of their form. Usually this means that no roll is required to create whatever dream the changeling desires. Some exceptions do exist, as detailed below.
A changeling without that clause can also shape dreams, but the process is much harder. First, he must spend 1 glamour (this cost rises to two glamour if there was a previous dream which he scoured away) and makes a contested roll: his Wits + Empathy + Wyrd vs. the dreamer's Wits + Resolve (+Wyrd if the dreamer is a changeling). Regardless of who wins, a new dream begins with an intensity equal to the difference between the two rolls. If the oneiromancer rolled more successes than the dreamer, then he gets to sculpt the resulting dream as he wishes. If the dreamer rolled as many or more successes than the oneiromancer, the resulting dream springs naturally from the dreamer's mind.
Once an oneiromancer has control of the dreamscape, he can create literally anything he can imagine. There are a few special kinds of dreams which have certain effects on the dreamer. The intensity of these dreams is determined by the successes scored on the listed roll.
Roll: Int + Medicine + Wyrd
Action: Prolonged (takes a full night of active work)
Effect: Healing dreams build upon the traditional idea that one's mind can overcome the pains of the body. A properly crafted healing dream allows the dreamer to heal as though he had gotten an entire day of rest. An exceptional success allows two full days of restful healing. Such dreams do not convey actual surgery, however: health recovery is limited to what would naturally happen over one or two days of bed rest.
Roll: Manipulation + Empathy + Wyrd (requires knowledge of the dreamer's Vice and Virtue)
Action: Prolonged (takes a full night of active work)
Effect: The oneiromancer triggers a relaxing, recuperating dream which helps the dreamer to recharge their mental reserves. The dreamer regains two willpower points that night, instead of the usual 1, assuming that they sleep long and soundly enough. If the dream's intensity is five or more, the dreamer instead regains all of their spent willpower.
Roll: Int + Appropriate Skill + Wyrd
Action: Prolonged (takes a full night of active work)
Effect: The dreamer absorbs some information and experience from the oneiromancer's efforts, gaining a full day of instruction and practice in the skill being taught (the "Appropriate Skill" above). If the dream has an intensity of five or greater, the dreamer learns enough to gain one temporary XP point, which can only be spent on the skill in question. Only one of these points can be possessed by a single character at a time. The temporary XP point is lost if it isn't used within a week.