So the best character I played in the huge ass LARP I played in was a follower of Set, posing as a toreador. There was a peace treaty between the werewolves and vampires. I had been allied to the brujah primogen, but then he started asking too many questions, suspecting I wasn't a Toreador. There was a big meeting between the various supernaturals, and I put out some disinformation that the vampires were going to attack the other supernaturals at the meeting, and oh my allies if you'd be so kind to stake the Brujah primogen and bring him back to me for sharing this information with you? The werewolves and other supernaturals wiped out the city's vampirc leadership that night, and I got to drop a generation when they brought me the staked Brujah primogen. In the ensuing power vacuum, I took over as Toreador primogen. This was with a neonate Setite, just playing the jihad, really well. What was hilarious was everyone just started assuming I was an elder. I was actually incredibly weak and just manipulated the power characters at each other and did shady stuff like blood bonding a mage to me.
So the best character I played in the huge ass LARP I played in was a follower of Set, posing as a toreador. There was a peace treaty between the werewolves and vampires. I had been allied to the brujah primogen, but then he started asking too many questions, suspecting I wasn't a Toreador. There was a big meeting between the various supernaturals, and I put out some disinformation that the vampires were going to attack the other supernaturals at the meeting, and oh my allies if you'd be so kind to stake the Brujah primogen and bring him back to me for sharing this information with you? The werewolves and other supernaturals wiped out the city's vampirc leadership that night, and I got to drop a generation when they brought me the staked Brujah primogen. In the ensuing power vacuum, I took over as Toreador primogen. This was with a neonate Setite, just playing the jihad, really well. What was hilarious was everyone just started assuming I was an elder. I was actually incredibly weak and just manipulated the power characters at each other and did shady stuff like blood bonding a mage to me.
I wonder, how a vamprire manages to negotiate this threat? I mean, werewolves are feral creatures that see vampires as wryvn corruption and all vampires, except low gen ones fear werewolves more than any other creature.
So the best character I played in the huge ass LARP I played in was a follower of Set, posing as a toreador. There was a peace treaty between the werewolves and vampires. I had been allied to the brujah primogen, but then he started asking too many questions, suspecting I wasn't a Toreador. There was a big meeting between the various supernaturals, and I put out some disinformation that the vampires were going to attack the other supernaturals at the meeting, and oh my allies if you'd be so kind to stake the Brujah primogen and bring him back to me for sharing this information with you? The werewolves and other supernaturals wiped out the city's vampirc leadership that night, and I got to drop a generation when they brought me the staked Brujah primogen. In the ensuing power vacuum, I took over as Toreador primogen. This was with a neonate Setite, just playing the jihad, really well. What was hilarious was everyone just started assuming I was an elder. I was actually incredibly weak and just manipulated the power characters at each other and did shady stuff like blood bonding a mage to me.
I wonder, how a vamprire manages to negotiate this threat? I mean, werewolves are feral creatures that see vampires as wryvn corruption and all vampires, except low gen ones fear werewolves more than any other creature.
So that game had allowed in these other creatures from another game setting called Penitents. They were basically people back from Hell. Those were the allies I used to feed the disinformation in. In a big LARP you can wind up with with more supernaturals working together, than might be the norm, since you have so many people playing different things interacting together and not wanting open war between everyone.
Other thing that WoD do different than other settings is that only very strong vampires can produce child on most settings. On WoD, only thin blooded can produce dhampirs.
And high gen vampires are not exactly powerful. In fact, they are weak if compared to other vampires, if compared to werewolfes, if compared to mages, if compared to demons and most other supernaturals. They are just humans with few disciplines weak to sun and unable to become an true mage or a mummy.
Be constantly weak with almost no room to improvement is IMO the greatest curse of vampirism in WoD. The weakness to sun, the bloodthirsty, the risk of frenzy, none of this matters compared to be eternally one of the weakest forms of supernatural. In constant fear of anything. You can spend an milenium trying to become better at dominating. Will never dominate your sirer, even if he spend all time in a "topor" state.
And if you are a low gen vampire, your soul is at risk. You can't even sleep without the fear of someone trying to find an way to diablere you. Doesn't matter how much powerful you are, one time you "lower your guard".
But one question for those who know more games; a 5th gen tremere vampire can easily take out an werewolf?
Other thing that WoD do different than other settings is that only very strong vampires can produce child on most settings. On WoD, only thin blooded can produce dhampirs.
And high gen vampires are not exactly powerful. In fact, they are weak if compared to other vampires, if compared to werewolfes, if compared to mages, if compared to demons and most other supernaturals. They are just humans with few disciplines weak to sun and unable to become an true mage or a mummy.
Be constantly weak with almost no room to improvement is IMO the greatest curse of vampirism in WoD. The weakness to sun, the bloodthirsty, the risk of frenzy, none of this matters compared to be eternally one of the weakest forms of supernatural. In constant fear of anything. You can spend an milenium trying to become better at dominating. Will never dominate your sirer, even if he spend all time in a "topor" state.
And if you are a low gen vampire, your soul is at risk. You can't even sleep without the fear of someone trying to find an way to diablere you. Doesn't matter how much powerful you are, one time you "lower your guard".
But one question for those who know more games; a 5th gen tremere vampire can easily take out an werewolf?
What I thought was cool were the Revenant families. Families that had been ghouled for so long, it became hereditary, and they produced their own blood points. They still were really restricted as to how many levels in disciplines they could get, and they cost more xp. They're kind of similar to dhampyrs. Until they get at least a century or 2 on them, vampires really were one of the weaker super naturals in the world of darkness. Mages and werewolves could really wreck them, and an experienced mage was god like, and they had ways to extend their lives, too.
A 5th gen tremere would probably be able to take most werewolves, just because they can't live as long. It would really depend on how the Tremere's specced, what disciplines and paths they have and the exact situation. The Tremere could have a ward against lupines to keep it out of where they're at and prevent it from harming them. High level path of flames gets to be some seriously difficult stuff to soak, plus blood boil, plus telekinesis, the list goes on. One big thing is they'd need some celerity if they want to keep up with the werewolves extra actions.
I honestly think that if Tremere(mages, before the vampirism) manages to become revenants, they will be much more stronger than they as a vampire. Mainly because in WoD, vampirism limits your power instead of increasing your supernatural power like in other setting. They lost the hability to cast spells and even after they developed blood magic, is too limited by generation.
If I remember my WoD Lore correctly if you become a ghoul (of which revenant is sort of a hereditary sort) it is enough to affect your Avatar enough, that you are not able to perform true magic after some time.
If I remember my WoD Lore correctly if you become a ghoul (of which revenant is sort of a hereditary sort) it is enough to affect your Avatar enough, that you are not able to perform true magic after some time.
So, yes, WoD is the unique setting that i saw where becoming an vampire makes you weaker by limiting your potential forever(or until you manages to lower your gen)
I mean, in Legacy of Kain, vampires are far more stronger than regular humans, on TES, from Daggerfall/Morrowind to Online/Skyrim, makes you stronger and on DnD? IS so op that few DM allow PC's to be vampire and often don't give all vampire template benefits
Some benefits
Increase all current and future Hit Dice to d12.
The base creature’s natural armor bonus improves by +6.
Create Spawn (Su)
A humanoid or monstrous humanoid slain by a vampire’s energy drain rises as a vampire spawn 1d4 days after burial.
Damage Reduction (Su) A vampire has damage reduction 10/silver and magic
Fast Healing (Ex)
A vampire heals 5 points of damage each round so long as it has at least 1 hit point. If reduced to 0 hit points in combat, it automatically assumes gaseous form and attempts to escape.
Gaseous Form (Su)
As a standard action, a vampire can assume gaseous form at will as the spell (caster level 5th), but it can remain gaseous indefinitely and has a fly speed of 20 feet with perfect maneuverability.
Resistances (Ex)
A vampire has resistance to cold 10 and electricity 10.
If I remember my WoD Lore correctly if you become a ghoul (of which revenant is sort of a hereditary sort) it is enough to affect your Avatar enough, that you are not able to perform true magic after some time.
I don't recall anything like that. Making a mage a vampire did destroy it's avatar, but ghouling didn't affect your ability to do magick. At the storyteller's discretion, it could piss off the mage's avatar, and make it much more difficult to raise their Arete and progress, though. I suppose if the storyteller wanted to, they could decide it pissed off their avatar so much it interferes with magick, but I don't think I ever saw mention of it anywhere, and I'm pretty sure the books said they could be ghouled without hampering their magick. It also invites all the issues that come with becoming addicted to kindred vitae and the possibility of blood bonding. A little Life, mind and prime magick could break the blood bond and addiction and purge the vitae from the mage, though.
Becoming a Vampire didn't limit the potential for the vast majority. Very few mortals could awaken and do true Magick. Technically anybody could learn hedge magic, but that's not much different than Thaumaturgy. To a normal mortal, becoming a vampire makes them much more powerful, they live longer and don't age, they get disciplines and can spend blood to increase their physical attributes. Even at high generations, they're still more powerful than most humans, despite the inherent weaknesses to things like sunlight.
So the deal with the Tremere gets into the Mage: The Ascension mechanics. Mages can more easily do magick and get away without negative effects if people around them believe what they're doing is possible. They refer to the general belief about what is and isn't possible as the paradigm. During the late middle ages, the paradigm was beginning to shift away from magic and superstition to science and reason, thanks to The Order of Reason (the group that would become the technocracy). Lots of magical creatures were dying or disappearing, magick was becoming harder to do, and the life extension magick was getting harder and garnering paradox. Paradox makes bad things happen and spells can blow up in your face if you accumulate it. Tremere and the other high ranking mages in his house realized their death was imminent, so started looking into other methods of extending their lives. Some supernaturals, like vampires, werewolves, changelings and wraiths are not susceptible to paradox and paradigm shifts. So they realized if they became vampires, they wouldn't die. A lot of them would have wound up weaker, but the ones that got low gen vitae for their embrace, or in Tremere's case, managing to diablerize an antedulivian, would have been pretty powerful. So the real root of the issue centers around immortality and fear over death, rather than a power grab.
Personally, I really hope our thinblooded protagonist can sign up with the Tzimisce for once. Especially since Bloodlines 2 has this fancy extra buff/debuff that accompanies bloodsucking depending on the victim's emotion. Seriously, those flesh shapers are like the best thing ever for biopunk fans~!
True, they're basically one of the cornerstones of the Sabbat. But that makes it even more interesting in my eyes.
Personally, I really hope our thinblooded protagonist can sign up with the Tzimisce for once. Especially since Bloodlines 2 has this fancy extra buff/debuff that accompanies bloodsucking depending on the victim's emotion. Seriously, those flesh shapers are like the best thing ever for biopunk fans~!
True, they're basically one of the cornerstones of the Sabbat. But that makes it even more interesting in my eyes.
I'd love that, but their discipline gets hard to work into a video game, and was actually crazy powerful with just 3 ranks of it in PnP. I'm sure it could be reworked into something more suitable for a video game, though, it just won't be the freeform flesh and bonecrafting PnP can do. I'm just hopeful that we get more than just the 7 clans. They've said the game is faction based, so siding with the Sabbat might be possible. I'd like to see the Lasombra, with their Obtenebration discipline, the 4th rank got almost like Evard's Tentacles from D&D. I'm also partial to the follower's of Set. Hopefully you can learn more than just 3 disciplines. In PnP, you could technically learn any discipline, non-clan ones just cost more XP. For anything besides the physical disciplines, you generally needed a teacher for, though, which made it really tough for most vampires to learn Thaumaturgy.
If I remember my WoD Lore correctly if you become a ghoul (of which revenant is sort of a hereditary sort) it is enough to affect your Avatar enough, that you are not able to perform true magic after some time.
I don't recall anything like that. Making a mage a vampire did destroy it's avatar, but ghouling didn't affect your ability to do magick. At the storyteller's discretion, it could piss off the mage's avatar, and make it much more difficult to raise their Arete and progress, though. I suppose if the storyteller wanted to, they could decide it pissed off their avatar so much it interferes with magick, but I don't think I ever saw mention of it anywhere, and I'm pretty sure the books said they could be ghouled without hampering their magick. It also invites all the issues that come with becoming addicted to kindred vitae and the possibility of blood bonding. A little Life, mind and prime magick could break the blood bond and addiction and purge the vitae from the mage, though.
Becoming a Vampire didn't limit the potential for the vast majority. Very few mortals could awaken and do true Magick. Technically anybody could learn hedge magic, but that's not much different than Thaumaturgy. To a normal mortal, becoming a vampire makes them much more powerful, they live longer and don't age, they get disciplines and can spend blood to increase their physical attributes. Even at high generations, they're still more powerful than most humans, despite the inherent weaknesses to things like sunlight.
So the deal with the Tremere gets into the Mage: The Ascension mechanics. Mages can more easily do magick and get away without negative effects if people around them believe what they're doing is possible. They refer to the general belief about what is and isn't possible as the paradigm. During the late middle ages, the paradigm was beginning to shift away from magic and superstition to science and reason, thanks to The Order of Reason (the group that would become the technocracy). Lots of magical creatures were dying or disappearing, magick was becoming harder to do, and the life extension magick was getting harder and garnering paradox. Paradox makes bad things happen and spells can blow up in your face if you accumulate it. Tremere and the other high ranking mages in his house realized their death was imminent, so started looking into other methods of extending their lives. Some supernaturals, like vampires, werewolves, changelings and wraiths are not susceptible to paradox and paradigm shifts. So they realized if they became vampires, they wouldn't die. A lot of them would have wound up weaker, but the ones that got low gen vitae for their embrace, or in Tremere's case, managing to diablerize an antedulivian, would have been pretty powerful. So the real root of the issue centers around immortality and fear over death, rather than a power grab.
On ghouled Mages:
I looked it up, and there are some rules in Blood Treachery. If a mage becomes a ghoul he is able to use blood as Quintessence, but becomes addicted after a few uses. Then there is a process of decay that lasts a few years (loss of 1 point of Arete or Avatar per year without being able to spend XP to increase it again) and can still be reversed in that time, but otherwise ultimately ends with the Avatar broken.
On the power of vampires:
Agreed, vampired are much more powerful than mortals, even high generation ones. Experienced mages tend to be more powerful, but have other significant drawbacks. When compared to D&D vampires I would say a somewhat experienced Gen 13 generation vampire is already much more powerful.
Celerity is a much stronger version of Improved Haste. Potence and Fortitude are more difficult to translate, but I would say that they at least rather quickly translate to Str 25 and 50% DR & certainly more than 10% resistance to all elements including Fire.
Dominate does not allow for a Saving Throw in VtMB. Presence is sort of a mass-charm. Obfuscate gives Invisibility, Hide in Plain Sight & the ability to impersonate someone else. If you want the classic animal and mist forms you need to learn Protean.
And that is all without getting Disciplines above five dots (allowed for gens 7 and lower).
Sure, Werewolves and experienced mages (the first two dots are not that great) can be more powerful than a high-gen vampire. But then the Antediluvians themselves are godlike...
I looked it up, and there are some rules in Blood Treachery. If a mage becomes a ghoul he is able to use blood as Quintessence, but becomes addicted after a few uses. Then there is a process of decay that lasts a few years (loss of 1 point of Arete or Avatar per year without being able to spend XP to increase it again) and can still be reversed in that time, but otherwise ultimately ends with the Avatar broken.
On the power of vampires:
Agreed, vampired are much more powerful than mortals, even high generation ones. Experienced mages tend to be more powerful, but have other significant drawbacks. When compared to D&D vampires I would say a somewhat experienced Gen 13 generation vampire is already much more powerful.
Celerity is a much stronger version of Improved Haste. Potence and Fortitude are more difficult to translate, but I would say that they at least rather quickly translate to Str 25 and 50% DR & certainly more than 10% resistance to all elements including Fire.
Dominate does not allow for a Saving Throw in VtMB. Presence is sort of a mass-charm. Obfuscate gives Invisibility, Hide in Plain Sight & the ability to impersonate someone else. If you want the classic animal and mist forms you need to learn Protean.
And that is all without getting Disciplines above five dots (allowed for gens 7 and lower).
Sure, Werewolves and experienced mages (the first two dots are not that great) can be more powerful than a high-gen vampire. But then the Antediluvians themselves are godlike...
Wow, that's an obscure book. None of the core stuff or the ghouls book mentions anything like that. Interesting way to handle it, though. I always thought being beholden to a vampire was punishment enough. Especially since it didn't take long for a mage to surpass a vampire in power.
Also, don't underestimate just 2 dots in a sphere for a mage. 2 dots in forces and you could change the direction of a bullet, with prime you could make anything do aggravated damage, spirit and you could talk to spirits and the dead, correspondence you could find just about anything given enough time.
Oh, one more thing about the Tremere transitioning to vampirism. Not all of them would have been full on true Mages, a lot of them would have been Hedge Mages. In the middle ages, and in some of the houses of The Order of Hermes even in modern times, they didn't make as much distinction and in a lot of cases probably didn't really fully realize the difference. To a lot of them, they just knew that these particular rituals and formulae worked. It's just that the hedge mage did it by strict adherence to the recipe, and the true mage did it through force of will by believing in the ritual. They did the same thing and got the same results, even though it worked differently behind the scenes.
Personally, I'd be happy to get Gangrel and Malkavian. But I know little of the lore, being familiar with just the game. Any of the factions I haven't seen would be pretty cool.
Enoth, Cain, the flood... This is one aspect that i particularly don't like in WoD. Too much cristianism for a slavic folkore creature. The unique "non christian" "primogenitor" was Set and he is not an God. Is just an vampire sired by Zillah(biblical) and even Set, doesn't have the control over storms that he should have.
Even at high generations, they're still more powerful than most humans, despite the inherent weaknesses to things like sunlight.
Well, the fact that you are comparing an supernatural creature maximizing his capabilities with an regular human without any weapon only shows how weak high gen vampires are. I can argue that an mercenary/hitman with an battle rifle, thermal scope, incendiary ammo, silver ammo and underbarrel grenade launcher will be more effective in "assassination", against natural targets or not than a gen 8-14 vampire.
If you look to Blood boil for ex, i believe that in therms of "destructive power", is similar to grenade launcher and despyte gargoyles being much powerful, i still believe that an IFV can easily take then out.
"but if you do that, the police/army can hunt you", so the greatest threat to an vampire hunter/vampire assassin is not the vampire itself. Is the humans around the vampire. The fact that use an grenade launcher can draw attention is no difference that the fact that blood boil can draw attention. Both still very powerful.
I looked it up, and there are some rules in Blood Treachery. If a mage becomes a ghoul he is able to use blood as Quintessence, but becomes addicted after a few uses. Then there is a process of decay that lasts a few years (loss of 1 point of Arete or Avatar per year without being able to spend XP to increase it again) and can still be reversed in that time, but otherwise ultimately ends with the Avatar broken..
Dominate does not allow for a Saving Throw in VtMB. Presence is sort of a mass-charm. Obfuscate gives Invisibility, Hide in Plain Sight & the ability to impersonate someone else. If you want the classic animal and mist forms you need to learn Protean.
That has an problem. Doesn't matter your "saves", if someone who is lower gen tries to dominate you, you will be dominated.
For the advanced disciplines, i wold compare advanced disciplines to high tier magic on D&D. For example, the 9th level Serpentis discipline
- Shadow of Apep: Become a nearly indestructible giant snake of pure darkness
Is very similar to an high level transformation spell
But an Kuei Jin is IMO more powerful than a "western" vampire exactly due the lack of a "hard cap".
Talking about Kuei Jin, what happens if an vampire diableres an Kuei Jin?
Well ya, a human can use a sniper rifle, but so can a vampire, and he can buff his dexterity with blood to shoot better, as well as use celerity to get off more shots in a round if the rifle can fire that fast, or use Auspex to help find that sniper, or obfuscate to sneak up easier. Any mundane tools humans have, vampires can use, too, and often better than regular mortals. Mechanically, vampires started with more attribute and ability points than mortals.
It's been so long since I looked at Kuei Jin, but wasn't there some mechanic that they had to do something to increase in power? Like an age requirement or something like mage's questing?
One thing about dominate, it didn't have a save, but the difficulty for most checks was still the victim's willpower, so it got harder with more strong willed individuals. There was also a merit that made you immune to dominate.
I don't think Nephandi would be any different than a regular mage, but they've already made one Faustian bargain and have a master already, so probably wouldn't be inclined to accept ghoulling willingly. Forcing a Nephandi into a blood bond would probably be a great way to make some powerful enemies.
The Vampire stuff was heavily rooted in the christain mythos, but the other books weren't. Mage really got into different views of reality while werewolf and changeling had a lot of pagan roots.
Well ya, a human can use a sniper rifle, but so can a vampire, and he can buff his dexterity with blood to shoot better, as well as use celerity to get off more shots in a round if the rifle can fire that fast, or use Auspex to help find that sniper, or obfuscate to sneak up easier. Any mundane tools humans have, vampires can use, too, and often better than regular mortals. Mechanically, vampires started with more attribute and ability points than mortals.
It's been so long since I looked at Kuei Jin, but wasn't there some mechanic that they had to do something to increase in power? Like an age requirement or something like mage's questing?
One thing about dominate, it didn't have a save, but the difficulty for most checks was still the victim's willpower, so it got harder with more strong willed individuals. There was also a merit that made you immune to dominate.
I don't think Nephandi would be any different than a regular mage, but they've already made one Faustian bargain and have a master already, so probably wouldn't be inclined to accept ghoulling willingly. Forcing a Nephandi into a blood bond would probably be a great way to make some powerful enemies.
The Vampire stuff was heavily rooted in the christain mythos, but the other books weren't. Mage really got into different views of reality while werewolf and changeling had a lot of pagan roots.
I agree. That is why i wanna play werewolf the forsaken but never was able.
About mages, Archmages are godlike too, look to what an archmage can make with Prime "sphere" on MTA
6 dot - Cancel Paradox: The mage can cancel any and all manifestations of paradox with quintessence.
9 dot - Create Universe: The mage can create a miniature universe from pure Quintessence to their liking. https://whitewolf.fandom.com/wiki/Prime_(MTAs)
But probably there are more 4th gen vampire than archmages capable ot using 9 dot "powers" and is probably easier to diablere an 4th gen vampire than to wake that power(not saying that is easy. Even finding one is hard as hell)
I agree. That is why i wanna play werewolf the forsaken but never was able.
About mages, Archmages are godlike too, look to what an archmage can make with Prime "sphere" on MTA
6 dot - Cancel Paradox: The mage can cancel any and all manifestations of paradox with quintessence.
9 dot - Create Universe: The mage can create a miniature universe from pure Quintessence to their liking. https://whitewolf.fandom.com/wiki/Prime_(MTAs)
But probably there are more 4th gen vampire than archmages capable ot using 9 dot "powers" and is probably easier to diablere an 4th gen vampire than to wake that power(not saying that is easy. Even finding one is hard as hell)
You don't even need to get to 6 dots to be godlike with a mage. Forces 5 was nuclear explosions. Time 4 let you stop time in a small area or on something and 5 let you time travel. With just 3 ranks of correspondence you could teleport anywhere. With just mind and life 3, you could permanently push attributes over 5. With just 3 ranks of entropy, you could make any dice roll fail. I had a mage that made a vampire mortal again, when they pissed him off. I forget the exact spheres involved in doing that, but it was something like life 4, prime 3, spirit 3 and matter 3.
Oh, and it'd be hard to count the number of archmages around, since almost none of them would likely even live on earth anymore. Older mages generally retreated to horizon realms.
I looked it up, and there are some rules in Blood Treachery. If a mage becomes a ghoul he is able to use blood as Quintessence, but becomes addicted after a few uses. Then there is a process of decay that lasts a few years (loss of 1 point of Arete or Avatar per year without being able to spend XP to increase it again) and can still be reversed in that time, but otherwise ultimately ends with the Avatar broken.
On the power of vampires:
Agreed, vampired are much more powerful than mortals, even high generation ones. Experienced mages tend to be more powerful, but have other significant drawbacks. When compared to D&D vampires I would say a somewhat experienced Gen 13 generation vampire is already much more powerful.
Celerity is a much stronger version of Improved Haste. Potence and Fortitude are more difficult to translate, but I would say that they at least rather quickly translate to Str 25 and 50% DR & certainly more than 10% resistance to all elements including Fire.
Dominate does not allow for a Saving Throw in VtMB. Presence is sort of a mass-charm. Obfuscate gives Invisibility, Hide in Plain Sight & the ability to impersonate someone else. If you want the classic animal and mist forms you need to learn Protean.
And that is all without getting Disciplines above five dots (allowed for gens 7 and lower).
Sure, Werewolves and experienced mages (the first two dots are not that great) can be more powerful than a high-gen vampire. But then the Antediluvians themselves are godlike...
Wow, that's an obscure book. None of the core stuff or the ghouls book mentions anything like that. Interesting way to handle it, though. I always thought being beholden to a vampire was punishment enough. Especially since it didn't take long for a mage to surpass a vampire in power.
Also, don't underestimate just 2 dots in a sphere for a mage. 2 dots in forces and you could change the direction of a bullet, with prime you could make anything do aggravated damage, spirit and you could talk to spirits and the dead, correspondence you could find just about anything given enough time.
Oh, one more thing about the Tremere transitioning to vampirism. Not all of them would have been full on true Mages, a lot of them would have been Hedge Mages. In the middle ages, and in some of the houses of The Order of Hermes even in modern times, they didn't make as much distinction and in a lot of cases probably didn't really fully realize the difference. To a lot of them, they just knew that these particular rituals and formulae worked. It's just that the hedge mage did it by strict adherence to the recipe, and the true mage did it through force of will by believing in the ritual. They did the same thing and got the same results, even though it worked differently behind the scenes.
True about the 2nd dot being more powerful - turns out I was thinking about the Dark Age version of Mage, where the 2nd dot tended to still be a fair bit weaker. Still, the issue with the relatively new Mage is that he may run into paradox and that he can't take damage as well, without being explicitly prepared. If you just shoot bullets into a unprepared Mage you have a good chance of taking him down, while a Vampire may well just shrug them off. And to affect a bullet with level 2 forces you would need to see it coming (or explicitly shield against it).
One problem with mages is that mages is the paradox. Sure, you can "circumvent" it, for example, stop bullets in mid air inflicts much more paradox than stop an firearm by causing malfunction and both produce the same result. Prevent you to be hit.
Of of the few advantages of vampires over mage are that you can use disciplines without an paradox risk. But in general, mages > vampires and archmages > ancient vampires
One problem with mages is that mages is the paradox. Sure, you can "circumvent" it, for example, stop bullets in mid air inflicts much more paradox than stop an firearm by causing malfunction and both produce the same result. Prevent you to be hit.
Of of the few advantages of vampires over mage are that you can use disciplines without an paradox risk. But in general, mages > vampires and archmages > ancient vampires
If looking at vampires and mages specifically I think it more like:
It took the technocracy (which is a mage organization) a lot to bring down Zapathasura (the Ravnos antediluvian). The problem is normal mages are restricted too much by paradox most of the time and archmages have too much of a reality distortion field to stay on Earth for long.
One problem with mages is that mages is the paradox. Sure, you can "circumvent" it, for example, stop bullets in mid air inflicts much more paradox than stop an firearm by causing malfunction and both produce the same result. Prevent you to be hit.
Of of the few advantages of vampires over mage are that you can use disciplines without an paradox risk. But in general, mages > vampires and archmages > ancient vampires
If looking at vampires and mages specifically I think it more like:
It took the technocracy (which is a mage organization) a lot to bring down Zapathasura (the Ravnos antediluvian). The problem is normal mages are restricted too much by paradox most of the time and archmages have too much of a reality distortion field to stay on Earth for long.
I wold only add that in order to compare an archmage with an antediluviam, you can't compare just an 6 dot archmage. You need to compare with an 10 dot archmage to be a fair comparison, the peak of magic vs the peak of vapmire discipline. But yes, an 10 dot archamge will probably be outside of this realm. Is probably an God in his own realm.
One problem with mages is that mages is the paradox. Sure, you can "circumvent" it, for example, stop bullets in mid air inflicts much more paradox than stop an firearm by causing malfunction and both produce the same result. Prevent you to be hit.
Of of the few advantages of vampires over mage are that you can use disciplines without an paradox risk. But in general, mages > vampires and archmages > ancient vampires
You're right if you just stop a bullet mid air like the matrix would get paradox, but coincidentally enough, the bullet misses me and ricochets off the walls back at my attacker, does not generate paradox. It might be improbable, but it's possible. The jam you mentioned works, too. Playing a mage well was stringing together a bunch of coincidences. Great fun.
I never understood Mage: The Ascension. Never got the concept of Paradox and what it actually does. I had just one opportunity to play MtA and I was eleven back then, that certainly didn't help.
But I must say that I'm quite impressed with everything that was stated about Mages that far. Seems like something really broken.
I never understood Mage: The Ascension. Never got the concept of Paradox and what it actually does. I had just one opportunity to play MtA and I was eleven back then, that certainly didn't help.
But I must say that I'm quite impressed with everything that was stated about Mages that far. Seems like something really broken.
Compared to other supernaturals, mages can get super powerful. In a mage game, though, they always had a more powerful enemy, the Technocracy. You also had to be really creative to play a mage well. The spheres had crazy amounts of power, but you had to work it into a way that fit your character's paradigm. A Celestial Choruster might pray for a pillar of holy fire, a Hermetic might use incantations and sulfur to conjure a fireball, a Son of Ether could fire his laser pistol. Those are just the easiest examples. I had a Euthanotos who got caught in a fire fight, and he threw bone dust into the air and used entropy to raise the level of chaos in the area. Guns jammed, people tripped over their own feat, I got shot in the leg and had to crane kick somebody, a good time was had by all.
Werewolf The Apocalypse is by far my favorite WoD game - I've suffered enough when Heart of Gaia got cancelled, what is this other game that was supposed to be released last year, @DrHappyAngry ?
Edit: Found it and already hate it.
The game will put us in the shoes of a Fianna tribe Garou named Cahal and set us up against the secretive Pantex organization (run by vampires) that is destroying the natural world through the every-hungry exploitative corporate machine. Cahal will have to overcome the threats posed by this group, all the while having to uncover the fate of his missing son.
I hate games that are supposed to be an RPG but gives us a semibuilt character. That is the exact same reason why I never could fall in love with The Witcher series.
Gonna wait until we have more information before giving in to the hype because so far the trailer looks like generic "cinematic" QTE-based action game. They even use words like "forward-oriented", "melee-focused" on the Steam pre-order page. VTM was never about the combat, even if it has a lot of it near the end due to being unfinished.
Also not very fond of them allowing pre-orders 1 year before release and already announcing DLC.
I think that is impossible to implement MTA in a "computer RPG"
Anyway, i love the myth of vampirism from D&D. In Nutshell, if a man survives the "domination" of a succubus , he becomes an vampire lord. He is only partially corrupted by the the abyss. Of course, is one in one million that survives the kiss of a succubus, the great majority will become an abyssal slave.
On WoD, my favorite clans to play are :
1 - Tremere
2 - Followers of Set
3 - Giovanni
i never got, how Augustus Giovanni managed to learn Thaumaturgy?
According to wikia
Disciplines: Auspex 5, Celerity 3, Dominate 6, Fortitude 3, Necromancy 9, Obfuscate 3, Potence 6, Presence 5, Thaumaturgy 3
Thaumaturgical Paths: Movement of the Mind 3, Path of Blood 3, Lure of Flames 2
Comments
I wonder, how a vamprire manages to negotiate this threat? I mean, werewolves are feral creatures that see vampires as wryvn corruption and all vampires, except low gen ones fear werewolves more than any other creature.
Apparently you will start the game as a thin blooded. I an neutral about it. Has positives and negatives.
So that game had allowed in these other creatures from another game setting called Penitents. They were basically people back from Hell. Those were the allies I used to feed the disinformation in. In a big LARP you can wind up with with more supernaturals working together, than might be the norm, since you have so many people playing different things interacting together and not wanting open war between everyone.
https://whitewolf.fandom.com/wiki/Dhampir_(VTM)
And high gen vampires are not exactly powerful. In fact, they are weak if compared to other vampires, if compared to werewolfes, if compared to mages, if compared to demons and most other supernaturals. They are just humans with few disciplines weak to sun and unable to become an true mage or a mummy.
Be constantly weak with almost no room to improvement is IMO the greatest curse of vampirism in WoD. The weakness to sun, the bloodthirsty, the risk of frenzy, none of this matters compared to be eternally one of the weakest forms of supernatural. In constant fear of anything. You can spend an milenium trying to become better at dominating. Will never dominate your sirer, even if he spend all time in a "topor" state.
And if you are a low gen vampire, your soul is at risk. You can't even sleep without the fear of someone trying to find an way to diablere you. Doesn't matter how much powerful you are, one time you "lower your guard".
But one question for those who know more games; a 5th gen tremere vampire can easily take out an werewolf?
What I thought was cool were the Revenant families. Families that had been ghouled for so long, it became hereditary, and they produced their own blood points. They still were really restricted as to how many levels in disciplines they could get, and they cost more xp. They're kind of similar to dhampyrs. Until they get at least a century or 2 on them, vampires really were one of the weaker super naturals in the world of darkness. Mages and werewolves could really wreck them, and an experienced mage was god like, and they had ways to extend their lives, too.
A 5th gen tremere would probably be able to take most werewolves, just because they can't live as long. It would really depend on how the Tremere's specced, what disciplines and paths they have and the exact situation. The Tremere could have a ward against lupines to keep it out of where they're at and prevent it from harming them. High level path of flames gets to be some seriously difficult stuff to soak, plus blood boil, plus telekinesis, the list goes on. One big thing is they'd need some celerity if they want to keep up with the werewolves extra actions.
Anyway, tremere has the best spells like blood boil
So, yes, WoD is the unique setting that i saw where becoming an vampire makes you weaker by limiting your potential forever(or until you manages to lower your gen)
I mean, in Legacy of Kain, vampires are far more stronger than regular humans, on TES, from Daggerfall/Morrowind to Online/Skyrim, makes you stronger and on DnD? IS so op that few DM allow PC's to be vampire and often don't give all vampire template benefits
Some benefits source : http://www.d20srd.org/srd/monsters/vampire.htm
I don't recall anything like that. Making a mage a vampire did destroy it's avatar, but ghouling didn't affect your ability to do magick. At the storyteller's discretion, it could piss off the mage's avatar, and make it much more difficult to raise their Arete and progress, though. I suppose if the storyteller wanted to, they could decide it pissed off their avatar so much it interferes with magick, but I don't think I ever saw mention of it anywhere, and I'm pretty sure the books said they could be ghouled without hampering their magick. It also invites all the issues that come with becoming addicted to kindred vitae and the possibility of blood bonding. A little Life, mind and prime magick could break the blood bond and addiction and purge the vitae from the mage, though.
Becoming a Vampire didn't limit the potential for the vast majority. Very few mortals could awaken and do true Magick. Technically anybody could learn hedge magic, but that's not much different than Thaumaturgy. To a normal mortal, becoming a vampire makes them much more powerful, they live longer and don't age, they get disciplines and can spend blood to increase their physical attributes. Even at high generations, they're still more powerful than most humans, despite the inherent weaknesses to things like sunlight.
So the deal with the Tremere gets into the Mage: The Ascension mechanics. Mages can more easily do magick and get away without negative effects if people around them believe what they're doing is possible. They refer to the general belief about what is and isn't possible as the paradigm. During the late middle ages, the paradigm was beginning to shift away from magic and superstition to science and reason, thanks to The Order of Reason (the group that would become the technocracy). Lots of magical creatures were dying or disappearing, magick was becoming harder to do, and the life extension magick was getting harder and garnering paradox. Paradox makes bad things happen and spells can blow up in your face if you accumulate it. Tremere and the other high ranking mages in his house realized their death was imminent, so started looking into other methods of extending their lives. Some supernaturals, like vampires, werewolves, changelings and wraiths are not susceptible to paradox and paradigm shifts. So they realized if they became vampires, they wouldn't die. A lot of them would have wound up weaker, but the ones that got low gen vitae for their embrace, or in Tremere's case, managing to diablerize an antedulivian, would have been pretty powerful. So the real root of the issue centers around immortality and fear over death, rather than a power grab.
True, they're basically one of the cornerstones of the Sabbat. But that makes it even more interesting in my eyes.
I'd love that, but their discipline gets hard to work into a video game, and was actually crazy powerful with just 3 ranks of it in PnP. I'm sure it could be reworked into something more suitable for a video game, though, it just won't be the freeform flesh and bonecrafting PnP can do. I'm just hopeful that we get more than just the 7 clans. They've said the game is faction based, so siding with the Sabbat might be possible. I'd like to see the Lasombra, with their Obtenebration discipline, the 4th rank got almost like Evard's Tentacles from D&D. I'm also partial to the follower's of Set. Hopefully you can learn more than just 3 disciplines. In PnP, you could technically learn any discipline, non-clan ones just cost more XP. For anything besides the physical disciplines, you generally needed a teacher for, though, which made it really tough for most vampires to learn Thaumaturgy.
On ghouled Mages:
I looked it up, and there are some rules in Blood Treachery. If a mage becomes a ghoul he is able to use blood as Quintessence, but becomes addicted after a few uses. Then there is a process of decay that lasts a few years (loss of 1 point of Arete or Avatar per year without being able to spend XP to increase it again) and can still be reversed in that time, but otherwise ultimately ends with the Avatar broken.
On the power of vampires:
Agreed, vampired are much more powerful than mortals, even high generation ones. Experienced mages tend to be more powerful, but have other significant drawbacks. When compared to D&D vampires I would say a somewhat experienced Gen 13 generation vampire is already much more powerful.
Celerity is a much stronger version of Improved Haste. Potence and Fortitude are more difficult to translate, but I would say that they at least rather quickly translate to Str 25 and 50% DR & certainly more than 10% resistance to all elements including Fire.
Dominate does not allow for a Saving Throw in VtMB. Presence is sort of a mass-charm. Obfuscate gives Invisibility, Hide in Plain Sight & the ability to impersonate someone else. If you want the classic animal and mist forms you need to learn Protean.
And that is all without getting Disciplines above five dots (allowed for gens 7 and lower).
Sure, Werewolves and experienced mages (the first two dots are not that great) can be more powerful than a high-gen vampire. But then the Antediluvians themselves are godlike...
Wow, that's an obscure book. None of the core stuff or the ghouls book mentions anything like that. Interesting way to handle it, though. I always thought being beholden to a vampire was punishment enough. Especially since it didn't take long for a mage to surpass a vampire in power.
Also, don't underestimate just 2 dots in a sphere for a mage. 2 dots in forces and you could change the direction of a bullet, with prime you could make anything do aggravated damage, spirit and you could talk to spirits and the dead, correspondence you could find just about anything given enough time.
Oh, one more thing about the Tremere transitioning to vampirism. Not all of them would have been full on true Mages, a lot of them would have been Hedge Mages. In the middle ages, and in some of the houses of The Order of Hermes even in modern times, they didn't make as much distinction and in a lot of cases probably didn't really fully realize the difference. To a lot of them, they just knew that these particular rituals and formulae worked. It's just that the hedge mage did it by strict adherence to the recipe, and the true mage did it through force of will by believing in the ritual. They did the same thing and got the same results, even though it worked differently behind the scenes.
Well, the fact that you are comparing an supernatural creature maximizing his capabilities with an regular human without any weapon only shows how weak high gen vampires are. I can argue that an mercenary/hitman with an battle rifle, thermal scope, incendiary ammo, silver ammo and underbarrel grenade launcher will be more effective in "assassination", against natural targets or not than a gen 8-14 vampire.
If you look to Blood boil for ex, i believe that in therms of "destructive power", is similar to grenade launcher and despyte gargoyles being much powerful, i still believe that an IFV can easily take then out.
"but if you do that, the police/army can hunt you", so the greatest threat to an vampire hunter/vampire assassin is not the vampire itself. Is the humans around the vampire. The fact that use an grenade launcher can draw attention is no difference that the fact that blood boil can draw attention. Both still very powerful.
Kuei Jin(Eastern vampires) have no hardcap.
Thanks. But what about fallen mages? like Nephandi? https://whitewolf.fandom.com/wiki/Nephandi
On the power of vampires:
That has an problem. Doesn't matter your "saves", if someone who is lower gen tries to dominate you, you will be dominated.
For the advanced disciplines, i wold compare advanced disciplines to high tier magic on D&D. For example, the 9th level Serpentis discipline
- Shadow of Apep: Become a nearly indestructible giant snake of pure darkness
Is very similar to an high level transformation spell
But an Kuei Jin is IMO more powerful than a "western" vampire exactly due the lack of a "hard cap".
Talking about Kuei Jin, what happens if an vampire diableres an Kuei Jin?
It's been so long since I looked at Kuei Jin, but wasn't there some mechanic that they had to do something to increase in power? Like an age requirement or something like mage's questing?
One thing about dominate, it didn't have a save, but the difficulty for most checks was still the victim's willpower, so it got harder with more strong willed individuals. There was also a merit that made you immune to dominate.
I don't think Nephandi would be any different than a regular mage, but they've already made one Faustian bargain and have a master already, so probably wouldn't be inclined to accept ghoulling willingly. Forcing a Nephandi into a blood bond would probably be a great way to make some powerful enemies.
The Vampire stuff was heavily rooted in the christain mythos, but the other books weren't. Mage really got into different views of reality while werewolf and changeling had a lot of pagan roots.
I agree. That is why i wanna play werewolf the forsaken but never was able.
About mages, Archmages are godlike too, look to what an archmage can make with Prime "sphere" on MTA
6 dot - Cancel Paradox: The mage can cancel any and all manifestations of paradox with quintessence.
9 dot - Create Universe: The mage can create a miniature universe from pure Quintessence to their liking.
https://whitewolf.fandom.com/wiki/Prime_(MTAs)
But probably there are more 4th gen vampire than archmages capable ot using 9 dot "powers" and is probably easier to diablere an 4th gen vampire than to wake that power(not saying that is easy. Even finding one is hard as hell)
1) Put an average vampire and an average mortal in front of a wall
2) Order them to look at the wall
3) Shoot them both with a double barrel .12 gauge
4) Take note of who will be able to get up after the shot
Oh, and it'd be hard to count the number of archmages around, since almost none of them would likely even live on earth anymore. Older mages generally retreated to horizon realms.
True about the 2nd dot being more powerful - turns out I was thinking about the Dark Age version of Mage, where the 2nd dot tended to still be a fair bit weaker. Still, the issue with the relatively new Mage is that he may run into paradox and that he can't take damage as well, without being explicitly prepared. If you just shoot bullets into a unprepared Mage you have a good chance of taking him down, while a Vampire may well just shrug them off. And to affect a bullet with level 2 forces you would need to see it coming (or explicitly shield against it).
Of of the few advantages of vampires over mage are that you can use disciplines without an paradox risk. But in general, mages > vampires and archmages > ancient vampires
If looking at vampires and mages specifically I think it more like:
newly awakened mage < fledgling vampire < ancillae < elder = experienced mage < methusalae < archmage < antediluvian
It took the technocracy (which is a mage organization) a lot to bring down Zapathasura (the Ravnos antediluvian). The problem is normal mages are restricted too much by paradox most of the time and archmages have too much of a reality distortion field to stay on Earth for long.
I wold only add that in order to compare an archmage with an antediluviam, you can't compare just an 6 dot archmage. You need to compare with an 10 dot archmage to be a fair comparison, the peak of magic vs the peak of vapmire discipline. But yes, an 10 dot archamge will probably be outside of this realm. Is probably an God in his own realm.
You're right if you just stop a bullet mid air like the matrix would get paradox, but coincidentally enough, the bullet misses me and ricochets off the walls back at my attacker, does not generate paradox. It might be improbable, but it's possible. The jam you mentioned works, too. Playing a mage well was stringing together a bunch of coincidences. Great fun.
But I must say that I'm quite impressed with everything that was stated about Mages that far. Seems like something really broken.
Compared to other supernaturals, mages can get super powerful. In a mage game, though, they always had a more powerful enemy, the Technocracy. You also had to be really creative to play a mage well. The spheres had crazy amounts of power, but you had to work it into a way that fit your character's paradigm. A Celestial Choruster might pray for a pillar of holy fire, a Hermetic might use incantations and sulfur to conjure a fireball, a Son of Ether could fire his laser pistol. Those are just the easiest examples. I had a Euthanotos who got caught in a fire fight, and he threw bone dust into the air and used entropy to raise the level of chaos in the area. Guns jammed, people tripped over their own feat, I got shot in the leg and had to crane kick somebody, a good time was had by all.
So the game showed up on steam with a March 2020 release date
https://store.steampowered.com/app/532790/Vampire_The_Masquerade__Bloodlines_2/
Think I'll hold off on preordering, considering we still haven't heard anything about the werewolf game that was supposed to happen last year.
Edit: Found it and already hate it.
I hate games that are supposed to be an RPG but gives us a semibuilt character. That is the exact same reason why I never could fall in love with The Witcher series.
Urgh.
Also not very fond of them allowing pre-orders 1 year before release and already announcing DLC.
Anyway, i love the myth of vampirism from D&D. In Nutshell, if a man survives the "domination" of a succubus , he becomes an vampire lord. He is only partially corrupted by the the abyss. Of course, is one in one million that survives the kiss of a succubus, the great majority will become an abyssal slave.
On WoD, my favorite clans to play are :
1 - Tremere
2 - Followers of Set
3 - Giovanni
i never got, how Augustus Giovanni managed to learn Thaumaturgy?
According to wikia https://whitewolf.fandom.com/wiki/Augustus_Giovanni