Vampire The Masquerade Bloodlines tips and suggestions

ShapiroKeatsDarkMage

I've finally got to purchase the cult Classic troika game based on the World of Darkness RPG thanks to GOG Summer Sales. I was wondering if somebody could give me tips for my first playthrough.

SethDavis

install the patch! nothing else matters!

other than that everything I tried was fun, maybe Malkavian shouldn't be your first run, but it doesn't really matter.

ThacoBell

Malkavian and Nosferatu aren't ideal for first runs as they are more of an alternate playstyle. The fan patch is required in my opinion. Having a charm/speech based playstyle is incredibly fun and viable for 2/3 of the game. Don't overspecialize though, you will need some combat ability to prevent getting stuck at the very end.

ShapiroKeatsDarkMage

Thank you very much.

DragonKing

@ShapiroKeatsDarkMage
Tremere is the only clan that matters! Level up thaumaturgy and just blood boil and blood purge everything! I freaking blood boiled (or was it blood purge) a golem, I shouldn't have been able to do that, but some bugs are fun.

Plus, we are the coolest clan.

There is no real "bad" clan, but some *coughTremerecough* are jus better than others.

Be very careful with trusting Toreador clan, they are manipulative bastards and if you play one you wont be allowed to feed on hobos and rats. Their special ability is pretty freaking op though. Almost on Tremere level.

ShapiroKeatsDarkMage

Fremere

DragonKing said:

@ShapiroKeatsDarkMage
Tremere is the only clan that matters! Level up thaumaturgy and just blood boil and blood purge everything! I freaking blood boiled (or was it blood purge) a golem, I shouldn't have been able to do that, but some bugs are fun.

Plus, we are the coolest clan.

There is no real "bad" clan, but some *coughTremerecough* are jus better than others.

Be very careful with trusting Toreador clan, they are manipulative bastards and if you play one you wont be allowed to feed on hobos and rats. Their special ability is pretty freaking op though. Almost on Tremere level.

Tremere are kinda like wizards right?

ThacoBell

ShapiroKeatsDarkMage said:

Fremere

DragonKing said:

@ShapiroKeatsDarkMage
Tremere is the only clan that matters! Level up thaumaturgy and just blood boil and blood purge everything! I freaking blood boiled (or was it blood purge) a golem, I shouldn't have been able to do that, but some bugs are fun.

Plus, we are the coolest clan.

There is no real "bad" clan, but some *coughTremerecough* are jus better than others.

Be very careful with trusting Toreador clan, they are manipulative bastards and if you play one you wont be allowed to feed on hobos and rats. Their special ability is pretty freaking op though. Almost on Tremere level.

Tremere are kinda like wizards right?

Yes, BLOOD WIZARDS. They are pretty awesome. Brujah have a nice balance of social/combat stats and Gangrel are the Druids/shapeshifters.

DragonKing

@ShapiroKeatsDarkMage

Basically what @ThacoBell said.

To put it bluntly since we aren't talking the table top game


Tremere= Blood mages
Grenger= shapeshifters (werewolves)/druids
Toreador- Politicians
Brujah- Warriors (berserkers)
Malkavian- Oracles/Espers
Nosferatu- Rogues/Thieves
Ventrue- The 1% ((Sorry, it this clan that doesn't feed on rats and lowlife, not Toreador), This is also the class that has the time slowing ability if I remember correctly.

DJKajuru

Even if you want a social or mental character , please make sure you've got some points in fighting skills, as there are moments where combat is inevitable and you'll really need to use a gun or baseball bat to kill your enemy. Also, lockpicking and computer skills are essential throughout the game.

karl_maulder

Off topic. I've no idea how Troika could release the game without anyone of the betatesters noticing a single one of all the gamebreaking bugs in the game! Should be necessary IMO as a betatester to atleast complete the game you're testing. Also, if my memory serves right, Troika didn't release the game as scheduled, because someone hacked Valve (and either messed with the sourcecode or stole it), and Valve had to redo alot of work (on Half-Life 2), and didn't want Troika to release Bloodlines (that uses the HL2 Engine), long before their own release. So technically Troika had lots of time to fix all those gamebreaking bugs, or atleast releasing a patch at launch.

On topic. You can't really be a jack of all trades and be successfull, so choose your skills wisely. Some lategame sidequests have really high social skill checks, and, if i'm not misstaken hacking/sneaking skills, meaning a specialised fighter can't complete them. But there are only two of them if i remember correctly.
But if you're into fighting, which nets you less XP throughout the game, Brujah can be beasts when maxing Celerity (think Improved Haste on steroids)!

DragonKing

I mostly played the entire game relying on thaumaturgy. Only putting points in melee for when my blood reserves ran low and i had no bloodpacks.

BelleSorciere

karl_maulder said:

Off topic. I've no idea how Troika could release the game without anyone of the betatesters noticing a single one of all the gamebreaking bugs in the game! Should be necessary IMO as a betatester to atleast complete the game you're testing. Also, if my memory serves right, Troika didn't release the game as scheduled, because someone hacked Valve (and either messed with the sourcecode or stole it), and Valve had to redo alot of work (on Half-Life 2), and didn't want Troika to release Bloodlines (that uses the HL2 Engine), long before their own release. So technically Troika had lots of time to fix all those gamebreaking bugs, or atleast releasing a patch at launch.

All three of Troika's games released with bugs. I don't think they did a lot of beta testing or QA. Just consider why all three games have needed community patches to function.