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
Thaumaturgy is more common than one would think at first. Many older vampires pick up some, e.g. old vampires usually have a version of it. There are Setite, Tzimisice, Assamite and Lasombra versions of blood magic (thaumaturgy) as well. Look at Beckett, he is a Gangrel, but knows some Thaumaturgy as well. It is just very hard for younger (non-Tremere) vampires to pick up, but not impossible for a cunning elder.
The motivation is fairly high, not for the paths, but for being able to learn rituals which is one of the few ways a vampire can be a more flexible than the standard disciplines allow. Specifically, for Giovanni I think Necromancy offers many path to knowledge...
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
The Tremere like to think they have a monopoly on Thaumaturgy and created it, but it's not true. Augustus probably picked it up from the Cappadocians, the now defunct clan that spawned the Giovanni. The Tzimisce, Assamites and Setites all have a tradition of blood magic going back way further than the Tremere have been around. The Tremere do have a natural aptitude for it, though.
Sorry for my consistent criticism towards generation. Is just that i never saw an fantastic literature or gaming setting where when a magician becomes a vampire(like tremere), he actually turned himself weaker and his almost limitless potential become capped mostly to 5 dot discipline(and lets be honest, the great majority of vampires are over 8th gen). In fact, if you look to D&D, an human sorcerer with 15 CHA can only cast tier 5 spells. If he becomes an vampire, thanks to Cha + 4, he can cast tier 9 spells now.
The unique real limitation that an caster has when become an vampire in D&D is on case of clerics. Depending their domain. According to d20std " A vampire cleric has access to two of the following domains: Chaos, Destruction, Evil, or Trickery."
Anyway, talking about vampires, one game that i an testin right now is bloodlust 2. Is a very small budget game, doesn't expect an VtMB 1/2 on bloodlust 2, but is pretty funny
Vampyr is another good vampire game. Is not good as vtmb, has some problems like the dependency of lock on on combat(you can't aim your "disciplines"), but i loved the lore of the game. Usually i prefer create my character, but an doctor that was turned into a vampire was very interesting. Your vampirism is obtained by(spoilers bellow)
An ancient unknow goddess that people in Britain called Morrigan. His son "sired" you, i loved that your power come from an "pagan source", not by a Christian myth and the last battle as amazing epic.
Honestly the reason a mage loses his powers if he becomes a vampire, is to limit their power. They already have insane potential. Same reason a werewolf almost always dies if a vampire tries to embrace them. There's only been a handful of abominations in all of the history WoD, and one the few that I know about immediately disemboweled herself. It took centuries for vampires to get her to stop trying to kill herself, and she's still kept under close watch. A WoD mage with access to blood pool, immortality without paradox, discipline use without paradox is just stupid powerful.
I did not like Bloodlust or Vampyr. Bloodlust just felt like a generic ARPG with wonky combat and didn't seem to present much of a story. Vampyr, I wanted to like, but after a seemingly endless stream of talking heads, most that I just didn't care about, the game felt like a chore, and I realized I was dreading running it again, so just never opened it again. Plus, target and lock style combat sucks. I really wish I had remembered to get refunds on both of them.
Did anybody else play the VtM game, Redemption. It's fun, and done in the CRPG party style. You do have to play the game's character, and it is quite linear, but was pretty good. You started in the dark ages and wound up in modern times eventually.
Honestly the reason a mage loses his powers if he becomes a vampire, is to limit their power. They already have insane potential. Same reason a werewolf almost always dies if a vampire tries to embrace them. There's only been a handful of abominations in all of the history WoD, and one the few that I know about immediately disemboweled herself. It took centuries for vampires to get her to stop trying to kill herself, and she's still kept under close watch. A WoD mage with access to blood pool, immortality without paradox, discipline use without paradox is just stupid powerful(...)
You can create rules to balance it. For example. "When an mage avatar survives the embrace, or an vampire manages to wake his avatar he is still corrupted by Wyrm essence, making the mage into a vampire warlock, an unusual type of undead magician. There are some legends that an vampire can become an warlock by making an pact with demons but few know how the ritual is performed" (so, is up to DM if they wanna allow you to play with it or not)
If you wanna play as a vampire warlock, i wold suggest
- Less blood poll and blood spend/turn that they usually get by his generation
- Two times more the sun damage
- Diablere another vampire insta destroy your avatar and turns you into a regular vampire
- Less damage mitigation than a regular vampire
- Slower healing.
- Loses experience when making an ghoul
- Can only use thaumaturgy and necromancy disciplines and level up to 5 dots regardless of your generation
- Paradox while using magic
- Need to spend blood to cast disciplines AND magic(one point)
- Can't raise physical attributes above 3
- Loses one Arete dot when Frenzy
- Reaching archsphere requires your survival for at least 66 years and costs 3 times more XP to level arete from 6 to 10
- Raising any arete from lv 1 to 5 costs 2x more xp.
- Your avatar can only "survive" the embrace if you have at least 4 dots in any sphere and loses 2 dots
- Considered an Catiff for all clans
Be embraced still something that few magicians will wanna do but will not make an 5 dot mage into an weakling forever. I wold argue that will take some decades for a 4 dot mage to become stronger as "before embraced"...
For bloodlust, i agree partially. I mean, is an good dungeon crawler, but is not an story rich game like vtmb. And vampyr, i agree too. Both has a lot of problems. I probably only like then due the lack of good vampire games, not because they are good games.
A lot of those don't exactly make sense from a lore or mechanics perspective. Sure you can just impose limits like that, or just say embracing them kills the avatar. If you want I can address each of them one by one, but mages were already so much more powerful than most of the supernaturals, there's not really a reason to include mechanics for vampire mages that can manipulate reality and have vampire powers. Admittedly Tremere didn't feel fully fleshed out without some of the extra books that added more paths and rituals, but I don't think allowing full on vamp mages with the mage the ascension rule set was a good way to deal with that. They did take some steps to make sure people didn't create hybrid characters from 2 different systems, because it got unbalanced. Like changelings can't be werewolves, vampires or mages, and any other combination. It unbalances things for other players and gives the storyteller headaches, so from that angle it's just easier to not allow hybrid characters. They did have some limited levels of hybridization, like the kinfolk merit, that let you be another type of supernatural, but related by blood to werewolves, but never let them be fully mixed. If you start to allow hybrids, one player plays one, dominates the game, and everyone else starts playing hybrids and the games begin to lose their individual flare. Everyone wants to be a vampire mage or abomination.
I agree, a lot of these like spend blood to use magic, requiring age time to reach certain magic power, need to spend XP to make ghoul, etc makes no sense for a lore perspective. About hybrid PC's, i believe that few DM's will allow that. At the same way that few DM's allow you to start the game as an low gen elder or as an archmage.
Include an NPC that is an abomination and is killing everyone, so PCs need to find a way to "deal" with an abomination or an "vampire warlock" that the elders wanna you to kill because they fear that he can posses an threat to the world "status quo" can lead to a interesting campaign IMO. Hybrid rules should exist IMO but not be recommended for players. Mainly new players or players that are more interested in power gaming than in role playing. To be fair, hybrids in WoD tends to be shunned by both sides, so a campaign where the PC is hunted on cities and wilderness as a abomination and is in constant fear of losing control over himself sounds interesting.
If well designed, an campaign can include hybrid PC's and be very interesting. But there are a problem. A group of PC's abomination will make no sense and RPG's are played in group. By that reason, if i an a DM, i can't think an campaign to allow PC's to be an abomination. Maybe if is the last session of a player, allow him to be hunted by both sides can be interesting but this is the exception of the exception. I honestly don't have much DM experience to know if it will be a good idea.
According to him, an vampire will probably avoid "any weapon that causes massive blood loss" like swords and establish that vampires will probably look to use blunt weapons
And he talks about vampire hunters(9:25) about vampire hunter, i agree. An heavily armored vampire hunter with
One weapon that i think that wold be effective, is a very heavy warbow, as he've said on ranged weapon part(15:00). Assuming greater strength, night vision and etc, an vampire can easily be the best nigh assassin possible. "An sniper before sniper rifles got invented".
After learning about the metaplot changes in V5 I am wondering a bit in what direction they will take Bloodlines. Seems like the Sabbat is mostly gone & the Camarilla is only a shadow of what is used to be. Humans have become a major threat (2nd Inquisition).
I know I heard a discipline name that didn't sound familiar (can't recall what it was), plus the telekinesis, so it really doesn't sound like the 2nd ed. I know there was a Tremere path that had telekinesis, but it wasn't a standard power. I can't find it now, but I saw something about only having 5 clan choices, too.
Amazing, start as a thin blooded and playing V5 sounds interesting. On the first game, the strongest clan IMO is Tremere. Mainly because domination was OP against natural and thaumaturgy was OP against supernatural. Shield yourself with blood shield and ranged feed at discipline level 1. Domination is a huge buff to stealth and can do things that can't do in PnP like force people to commit suicide and even mass suicide.
About what i've said about hybrids, abominations are insanely rare, IMO an DM should only allow the PC to play it in rare situations, is like give divine rank in DnD to the player, but Gangrel disciplines is clearly "close" to werewolfs powers. Tremere is clearly close to mages. Baali is close to demons, Followers of Set, to mummies, Salubri to Celestines, etc. There are bloodlines for all tastes. The warform of Gangrel(Protean 5 dot) is almost an werewofl
Spoiler - video of a boss fight with Gangrel using 5 dot protean
Glancing at V5, at least they went back to the lore everyone loved. I don't think I've known anyone that thought Requiem was good.
So Protean worked way differently in PnP, every level was a completely different power. Only the first 2 levels are like the video game, gleam of the red eyes and grow claws. Higher levels let you meld with the earth, turn into a wolf/bat, and eventually turn into mist. The game would have really needed to be redesigned to deal with flight and mist forms, and earth meld/wolf form aren't too useful in the video game. The war form more closely resembles the war form from high level Vicissitude. I never liked Gangrels in the first bloodlines. The third attack from the claws almost never could land, and you couldn't pick locks with your claws out.
I don't know about Tremere necessarily being the most powerful. A Malk or Nosferatu can completely ghost whole areas. Brujah and Toreador have the brutal combo of presence and celerity. A few levels of presence can reduce a lot of damage to the point you barely notice it, and with the extra speed your can pour out the damage. I'm talking about bloodlines, and not PnP here.
So if you can only be 5 of the main clans, I'm betting it's Malkavians and Nosferatu that aren't playable. The fact they'd have to rewrite tons of stuff for those 2 clans/provide completely alternate paths, makes me think they won't make the effort. Plus the issues with dealing with mental illness and getting flak for it.
So if you can only be 5 of the main clans, I'm betting it's Malkavians and Nosferatu that aren't playable. The fact they'd have to rewrite tons of stuff for those 2 clans/provide completely alternate paths, makes me think they won't make the effort. Plus the issues with dealing with mental illness and getting flak for it.
I believe I read somewhere (On their forums at paradox) that they were planning to release free DLC to allow you to join the other clans over time.
So. That's a positive. Probably.
Also, I have heard they are using V5. It sounds like v5 was created at the same time as the game's story/premise was being created, and the two apparently informed each other.
So if you can only be 5 of the main clans, I'm betting it's Malkavians and Nosferatu that aren't playable. The fact they'd have to rewrite tons of stuff for those 2 clans/provide completely alternate paths, makes me think they won't make the effort. Plus the issues with dealing with mental illness and getting flak for it.
I believe I read somewhere (On their forums at paradox) that they were planning to release free DLC to allow you to join the other clans over time.
So. That's a positive. Probably.
Also, I have heard they are using V5. It sounds like v5 was created at the same time as the game's story/premise was being created, and the two apparently informed each other.
Maybe, who knows, maybe they fill the slots with Lasombra (who are supposed to eventually join the Camarilla soon) or some other clan.
Looking into the new rules a bit more, apparently now when a thin blood diablerizes a 13th gen or lower vampire, they take on that vampire's clan, and become a 13th gen themself. Perhaps this is how the story in bloodlines 2 will start, and how you get to choose your clan after already being embraced. They've also got a blood potency mechanic, which is tied to generation, as well as age.
The whole second inquisition, and governments hunting vampires, but not publicly acknowledging them, to me, smells of the Technocracy. I'll bet the 5th Ed Mage stuff gets into that when it comes out. Sounds like they finally decided to declare war on the undead. Previously they had generally been willing to let vampires go about their business, and not risk them exposing their powers to everyone, since vampires generally tried not to reveal themselves.
@SorcererV1ct0r So there was an organization that was a hybrid of mages and vampires, The Blackhand. Not the branch of the Sabbat, the True Hand. They had ties to the Euathanatos and Verbena mages. You still couldn't be both a mage and vampire, but they had revenant families and members that were both mages or vampires. They had a big hand in manipulating the Sabbat. They were essentially hoping to suck up to the Antedeluvians when they woke up, and had found Enoch in the world of the dead, which supposedly contained a few antedeluvians in torpor. The Nagarajah were also supposed to be another sect that of mages that stole vampiric power, too. This is also the organization that had an abomination working for them, but had to be carefully watched, or she'd try and kill herself. I think the mention of this, is solely for her use as an antagonist or NPC. So like you said, storyteller material. I know I really wouldn't have let a player be an abomination. In my storytelling days, I had a backup plan in case anybody begged for it to the point of being annoying, let them have it, but every organization would immediately hunt them down. Vampires would be jealous and werewolves wouldn't want a child of Gaia's gifts to fall into the wyrm's hands. Ya, I'm that kind of an evil DM
@DrHappyAngry I do not want or expect the 2nd Inquisition to be closely tied to the Technocracy. It's a central theme of V5 and while there are plenty of crossovers, I think they would prefer the central themes to be able to stand on their own. Moreover, the focus of V5 is very much on the normal human - vampire relationship, as evidenced by the new focus on feeding mechanisms and touchstones. I feel having the Technocracy behind the 2nd would cheapen this.
Anyway, as said I am wondering if they will try to translate those new mechanism and foci to the new game. I am not sure how they would implement the Touchstones in an elegant way, and spending a lot of your time on feeding might not be the best way to go either.
With the new metaplot we can expect very few powerful (elder) vampires still sticking around and little Sabbat presence. I guess given the parallel development it is possible the game advanced the metaplot in a significant way, otherwise we can expect a lot of elder intrigue going on.
(...) I know I really wouldn't have let a player be an abomination. In my storytelling days, I had a backup plan in case anybody begged for it to the point of being annoying, let them have it, but every organization would immediately hunt them down. Vampires would be jealous and werewolves wouldn't want a child of Gaia's gifts to fall into the wyrm's hands. Ya, I'm that kind of an evil DM
Being very honest, the "fate" of any inexperienced fledgling abomination will probably be something worse than death. Like being captured for high rank Tremere and being used in all types of experiments involving this unusual type of blood, for centuries. An quick death by the hands of your former "garou friends" is the best likely scenario IMO. Even if he somehow survives and hides, being in constant fear of himself, in constant hiding, constant fear of another, will lead him to insanity, sooner or later.
Anyway, when i said "closer to a werewolf", i mean shapeshifting into animal/hybrids, animism and the contact with nature. At the same way that Tremere still very different than human magicians, but are the closest vampires to be mages. I wold recommend for someone who wanna be an werewolf in vtmb to be a Gangrel, despite not being 100% similar to pnp.
Other question. Since they will use blood potency, can i learn advanced disciplines on VtMB 2? I know very little about V5
@DrHappyAngry I do not want or expect the 2nd Inquisition to be closely tied to the Technocracy. It's a central theme of V5 and while there are plenty of crossovers, I think they would prefer the central themes to be able to stand on their own. Moreover, the focus of V5 is very much on the normal human - vampire relationship, as evidenced by the new focus on feeding mechanisms and touchstones. I feel having the Technocracy behind the 2nd would cheapen this.
I got to disagree, but then again I've always been a fan of mage and the books that crossed over, like dirty secrets of the black hand. To me, I think it adds depth to the universe, with things going on that even most vampires are unaware of. Plus I liked the idea of different supernatural factions working together or manuevering against each other.
So a new mechanic is hunger dice. For every level of hunger you have, you replace one of your dice with a hunger dice (it should be a different color). Rolling a one results in a bestial failure, a 10 on a hunger dice results in a messy critical.
A lot of things use rouse checks, the same check you make each day when waking up. Failing it when waking up just means more hunger dice, not that you can't wake up. A lot of disciplines use it for checks too. Higher blood potency can give you extra dice for these checks with disciplines, or even reroll. Blood potency also dictates how much damage you heal, and how much blood you get from feeding from different sources. Like at a certain point, animals and bagged blood only give you half the amount of blood points, and higher levels they stop working altogether.
The new core book doesn't have any disciplines over 5, but a lot of levels have 2 alternate powers to pick from, some have synergies with other disciplines. So @SorcererV1ct0r I kind of doubt they'll have anything over 5. I think they want to keep the video game closer to humanity now, and going into the advanced stuff pulls the game further away from the street level.
What I think is most interesting is the resonance mechanic while feeding. It's based off the old 4 humors. So feeding from a strongly Melancholic helps your fortitude and obfuscate.
Yes, probably will not happens. Maybe If you see at 1:20 of official trailer, if this gigantic wave is was caused by a supernatural, certainly was an advanced discipline. The unique powers that can affect an huge area are advanced disciplines, like Bring the Plague(7 dot In Daimonion) but i don't know much about V5 to know any discipline that can do that. In the first game,
If i remember correctly, LaCroix servant(Sheriff) can use advanced discipline . So i believe that LaCroix is stronger than him. Spoilers about him
On VtR, in order to be able to cast advanced dsiciplined, your need to maintain your blood potency so high that you can only feed in supernatural. Can't have an honest opinion about VtM V5.
The best I was able to do was get the game running at 1080p, couldn't get it running at 4k. I'll have to give this texture pack a shot and see how it looks.
The system was a bit weird and not a direct translation of the mechanics, and was a pretty linear story with a premade character. It's still pretty amusing, and it's done in the party based real time with pause combat, more like Baldur's Gate.
The thing that always makes it weird to me is the voice actor for the main character, Christof, was the same guy who was The Brain from Pinky and The Brain. He was also the go to guy for any cartoon that wanted an Orson Wells impersonation in the '90s, like in a couple of episodes of The Critic. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IH1PJTY9AVA
About mods, the final nights was amazing ( https://www.moddb.com/mods/vtm-the-final-nights ), the mod includes a lot of new "clans" to choose and is well made by each flan. Followers of Set has unique dialog options. And play the game as Baali or FoS was an interesting experience. The hardest part of my Baali "run" was against society of leopold. They are too resistant to all of my daimoinon "powers". I an at moment on beginning as a settite. Very good mod.
The mod changes a lot of things and i really recommend. But is not "completely consistent with PnP", for example, Breathe the Sandstorm witch is an advanced discipline in the rules is a 2 dot discipline ( https://whitewolf.fandom.com/wiki/Serpentis )
In spoiler - I using this """advanced"" discipline in a random NPC
Other interesting mod was the PnP mod was amazing. Skills becomes much more similar to P&P
Some changes
- Discipline costs have been altered as follows:
Animalism - Levels 3-4 cost 1, levels 1, 2, and 5 have no cost.
Auspex - No blood cost for activation.
Blood Buff - Costs 3 Blood. Adds +1 Strength and +2 Dexterity. Extended duration.
Celerity - No changes.
Dementation - Level 1 has no cost, levels 2-4 cost 1, and level 5 costs 2.
Dominate - Levels 1, 2, and 4 have no cost, levels 3 and 5 cost 1.
Fortitude - Adds dice to you soak pools. No blood cost, semi-permanent effect.
Obfuscate - No blood cost, extended duration.
Potence - No blood cost, near-permanent effect. End with F8.
Presence - No blood cost, altered durations.
Protean - Extended effect, adds +1 Per instead of +1 Wits, end effect with F8 key.
Thaumaturgy - All levels cost 1 blood.
- Slight changes to Feat requirements:
Hacking - Determined by Intelligence + Computers
Intimidate - Determined by Manipulation + Intimidation
Persuasion - Determined by Charisma + Subterfuge
You can even choose what generation to start(ui in spoiler)
I still loking for a mod that adds more Thaumaturgy paths, for eg, in Path of Conjuring, the vampire can create complex eqquipment(3 dot) or even an artificial life(5 dot), created from nothing. I really wish that there are an mod that increases the number of paths of thaumaturgy.
Anyway, i don't know much about V5, i really wish that an vampire game(video game or pnp) adopt the mantra "you are what you eat" In appearance and disciplines, with minor visual changes from if you feed a lot from redheads, your hair can become red, if you feed upon rats and other animals, lose human traits and become more "nosferatu like", if you feed on diseased blood, it can give some problems, if you feed on werewolf, you can become more prone to frenzy and get points into "shapechange" disciplines, if you feed upon mages(an hard thing to do), thaumaturgy becomes more easy.
One small problem that i have with the vtm is that your sire decide everything about you. The unique way to chance it is via diablere and even diablere will not free you from your clan curse. VtR tried to introduce blood potency, but i really wish an vampire game that follow "you are what you eat" mantra.
The resonance mechanic in V5 is kind of what you're wanting @SorcererV1ct0r. Some of the stuff you mentioned was there in the old 2nd ed and even showed up in Bloodlines. Werewolf vitae did make you more prone to frenzy and diseased blood had issues. The whole resonance system seems kind of neat, since you get a boost to disciplines based off the humor affiliated with who you drink from.
So, I got most of the way through Redemption before getting bored. It starts to just feel like dungeon crawls that drag on too long and begin to feel the same with just different skins over everything. Plus everytime Christof talks I can't help but hear "Full of country goodness and rich green peaness." It did have a lot more disciplines and options, no matter how useless something like earth meld was in a video game.
Yes, sorry for the time to awnser. I readed a little the rules. They still very "limited" IMO an be sired by "6th gen or less/commit diablere" to learn advanced disciplines for thaumaturgy is less interesting than "feed upon 5 mages or one archmage", also an outcast vampire becoming more monstrous by feeding on animals, looking like an "chimera" sounds interesting. Just as an Nosferatu that manages to feed only upon beauty people for decades overcoming his deformity. The blood that made you into a vampire should be only more important than the blood that you feed while you are an fledgling IMO.
Why so few vampire RPG games? An quick search on steam by "vampire" tag shows that they are almost non existent. And most of the results are just point & click(nothing against, i just don't like) or action games. There are some good indie "loot hunters"/dungeon crawlers like bloodlust 1/2, but the notorious games focused on story are just Vampyr and VtMB/VtMR ( https://store.steampowered.com/tags/en/Vampire/ ) and even vampyr, is not good as VtMB IMO. The lockon based combat where you can't aim is really bad IMO.
Honestly, i like almost all types of RPG's, but i have my preferences. FNV is IMO funnier and more immersive than Borderlands for eg but like both games. Seeing to that list, the unique that took my attention and i din't played before was Devoid of Shadows and being very honest, even this game doesn't look that impressive. And there are a lot of people complaining about the translations to English
Considering the myth of Dracula, i think that an interesting vampire RPG should be you becoming an vampire and trying to rule and kingdom and defend your kingdom from an continental country that wanna rule every territory possible. Mixing RTS, RPG and action elements like M&B.
Sounds like a lot of the powers aren't a direct translation of the books. Like the mist form was always a high level protean power. Mentalism sounds a lot like that Thaumaturgy path movement of the mind.
There's also some info about the differences between the editions of the game in the article, like what you get in each version. I do worry about 24 hour early access. Just seems like you'll be playing it in an even less finished state. I mean how often do games get release day patches these days?
I might've mentioned this before, but does anybody remember that TV show from the '90s, Kindred: The Embraced. It only ran for one season, and definitely took some liberty with the source material, but it was based off of Vampire: The Masquerade. https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0115232/
Hah, I totally forgot that guy who played the alien bounty hunter in the X Files and a Romulan from Enterprise was the Brujah leader.
I really wish multiple paths for thaumaturgy. As for not being an perfect translation for the books, i believe that is truth, but the first game isn't either. Domination can't make enemies suicide, on VtMB you can force then to commit mass suicide, protean disciplines are very different, etc.
For the thinblood, looks like thin bloods can use NEBULATION, MENTALISM and CHIROPTERAN
• • • Bat Swarm (Blood Cost: 2), the second active power, allows the vampire to summon a small swarm of bats to attack a target NPC, temporarily disabling them and dealing low damage. The • • • • and • • • • • slots grow this power, until a true Maelstrom of leathery wings surrounds the vampire, harrying and damaging any enemy who dares come too close.
(...)
• Pull (Blood Cost: 0/1, target dependent) is Mentalism’s first active. It allows the vampire to manipulate inanimate objects from afar - whether that’s an inconvenient obstacle, or the knife in the hands of the NPC bearing down on them. The • • slot upgrades Pull even further.
• • • Levitate (Blood Cost: 2), the second active power, suspends a living NPC in the air. Its strength can be enhanced with the • • • • and • • • • • slots, until the vampire can levitate everyone and everything in an area, and throw suspended enemies around like ragdolls.
Comments
Thaumaturgy is more common than one would think at first. Many older vampires pick up some, e.g. old vampires usually have a version of it. There are Setite, Tzimisice, Assamite and Lasombra versions of blood magic (thaumaturgy) as well. Look at Beckett, he is a Gangrel, but knows some Thaumaturgy as well. It is just very hard for younger (non-Tremere) vampires to pick up, but not impossible for a cunning elder.
The motivation is fairly high, not for the paths, but for being able to learn rituals which is one of the few ways a vampire can be a more flexible than the standard disciplines allow. Specifically, for Giovanni I think Necromancy offers many path to knowledge...
The Tremere like to think they have a monopoly on Thaumaturgy and created it, but it's not true. Augustus probably picked it up from the Cappadocians, the now defunct clan that spawned the Giovanni. The Tzimisce, Assamites and Setites all have a tradition of blood magic going back way further than the Tremere have been around. The Tremere do have a natural aptitude for it, though.
source : http://www.d20srd.org/srd/monsters/vampire.htm
The unique real limitation that an caster has when become an vampire in D&D is on case of clerics. Depending their domain. According to d20std " A vampire cleric has access to two of the following domains: Chaos, Destruction, Evil, or Trickery."
Anyway, talking about vampires, one game that i an testin right now is bloodlust 2. Is a very small budget game, doesn't expect an VtMB 1/2 on bloodlust 2, but is pretty funny
Vampyr is another good vampire game. Is not good as vtmb, has some problems like the dependency of lock on on combat(you can't aim your "disciplines"), but i loved the lore of the game. Usually i prefer create my character, but an doctor that was turned into a vampire was very interesting. Your vampirism is obtained by(spoilers bellow)
I did not like Bloodlust or Vampyr. Bloodlust just felt like a generic ARPG with wonky combat and didn't seem to present much of a story. Vampyr, I wanted to like, but after a seemingly endless stream of talking heads, most that I just didn't care about, the game felt like a chore, and I realized I was dreading running it again, so just never opened it again. Plus, target and lock style combat sucks. I really wish I had remembered to get refunds on both of them.
Did anybody else play the VtM game, Redemption. It's fun, and done in the CRPG party style. You do have to play the game's character, and it is quite linear, but was pretty good. You started in the dark ages and wound up in modern times eventually.
You can create rules to balance it. For example. "When an mage avatar survives the embrace, or an vampire manages to wake his avatar he is still corrupted by Wyrm essence, making the mage into a vampire warlock, an unusual type of undead magician. There are some legends that an vampire can become an warlock by making an pact with demons but few know how the ritual is performed" (so, is up to DM if they wanna allow you to play with it or not)
If you wanna play as a vampire warlock, i wold suggest
- Less blood poll and blood spend/turn that they usually get by his generation
- Two times more the sun damage
- Diablere another vampire insta destroy your avatar and turns you into a regular vampire
- Less damage mitigation than a regular vampire
- Slower healing.
- Loses experience when making an ghoul
- Can only use thaumaturgy and necromancy disciplines and level up to 5 dots regardless of your generation
- Paradox while using magic
- Need to spend blood to cast disciplines AND magic(one point)
- Can't raise physical attributes above 3
- Loses one Arete dot when Frenzy
- Reaching archsphere requires your survival for at least 66 years and costs 3 times more XP to level arete from 6 to 10
- Raising any arete from lv 1 to 5 costs 2x more xp.
- Your avatar can only "survive" the embrace if you have at least 4 dots in any sphere and loses 2 dots
- Considered an Catiff for all clans
Be embraced still something that few magicians will wanna do but will not make an 5 dot mage into an weakling forever. I wold argue that will take some decades for a 4 dot mage to become stronger as "before embraced"...
For bloodlust, i agree partially. I mean, is an good dungeon crawler, but is not an story rich game like vtmb. And vampyr, i agree too. Both has a lot of problems. I probably only like then due the lack of good vampire games, not because they are good games.
Include an NPC that is an abomination and is killing everyone, so PCs need to find a way to "deal" with an abomination or an "vampire warlock" that the elders wanna you to kill because they fear that he can posses an threat to the world "status quo" can lead to a interesting campaign IMO. Hybrid rules should exist IMO but not be recommended for players. Mainly new players or players that are more interested in power gaming than in role playing. To be fair, hybrids in WoD tends to be shunned by both sides, so a campaign where the PC is hunted on cities and wilderness as a abomination and is in constant fear of losing control over himself sounds interesting.
If well designed, an campaign can include hybrid PC's and be very interesting. But there are a problem. A group of PC's abomination will make no sense and RPG's are played in group. By that reason, if i an a DM, i can't think an campaign to allow PC's to be an abomination. Maybe if is the last session of a player, allow him to be hunted by both sides can be interesting but this is the exception of the exception. I honestly don't have much DM experience to know if it will be a good idea.
EDIT : HEre is a interesting review
at 24:20 - You start as a thin blooded
According to him, an vampire will probably avoid "any weapon that causes massive blood loss" like swords and establish that vampires will probably look to use blunt weapons
And he talks about vampire hunters(9:25) about vampire hunter, i agree. An heavily armored vampire hunter with
One weapon that i think that wold be effective, is a very heavy warbow, as he've said on ranged weapon part(15:00). Assuming greater strength, night vision and etc, an vampire can easily be the best nigh assassin possible. "An sniper before sniper rifles got invented".
I know I heard a discipline name that didn't sound familiar (can't recall what it was), plus the telekinesis, so it really doesn't sound like the 2nd ed. I know there was a Tremere path that had telekinesis, but it wasn't a standard power. I can't find it now, but I saw something about only having 5 clan choices, too.
About what i've said about hybrids, abominations are insanely rare, IMO an DM should only allow the PC to play it in rare situations, is like give divine rank in DnD to the player, but Gangrel disciplines is clearly "close" to werewolfs powers. Tremere is clearly close to mages. Baali is close to demons, Followers of Set, to mummies, Salubri to Celestines, etc. There are bloodlines for all tastes. The warform of Gangrel(Protean 5 dot) is almost an werewofl
Spoiler - video of a boss fight with Gangrel using 5 dot protean
Hybrid rules IMO should exist much more for NPC than PC Sobek is a 4th gen vampire/werewolf hybrid(, o wold like to see what he can and cannot do.
So Protean worked way differently in PnP, every level was a completely different power. Only the first 2 levels are like the video game, gleam of the red eyes and grow claws. Higher levels let you meld with the earth, turn into a wolf/bat, and eventually turn into mist. The game would have really needed to be redesigned to deal with flight and mist forms, and earth meld/wolf form aren't too useful in the video game. The war form more closely resembles the war form from high level Vicissitude. I never liked Gangrels in the first bloodlines. The third attack from the claws almost never could land, and you couldn't pick locks with your claws out.
I don't know about Tremere necessarily being the most powerful. A Malk or Nosferatu can completely ghost whole areas. Brujah and Toreador have the brutal combo of presence and celerity. A few levels of presence can reduce a lot of damage to the point you barely notice it, and with the extra speed your can pour out the damage. I'm talking about bloodlines, and not PnP here.
So if you can only be 5 of the main clans, I'm betting it's Malkavians and Nosferatu that aren't playable. The fact they'd have to rewrite tons of stuff for those 2 clans/provide completely alternate paths, makes me think they won't make the effort. Plus the issues with dealing with mental illness and getting flak for it.
I believe I read somewhere (On their forums at paradox) that they were planning to release free DLC to allow you to join the other clans over time.
So. That's a positive. Probably.
Also, I have heard they are using V5. It sounds like v5 was created at the same time as the game's story/premise was being created, and the two apparently informed each other.
Maybe, who knows, maybe they fill the slots with Lasombra (who are supposed to eventually join the Camarilla soon) or some other clan.
Looking into the new rules a bit more, apparently now when a thin blood diablerizes a 13th gen or lower vampire, they take on that vampire's clan, and become a 13th gen themself. Perhaps this is how the story in bloodlines 2 will start, and how you get to choose your clan after already being embraced. They've also got a blood potency mechanic, which is tied to generation, as well as age.
The whole second inquisition, and governments hunting vampires, but not publicly acknowledging them, to me, smells of the Technocracy. I'll bet the 5th Ed Mage stuff gets into that when it comes out. Sounds like they finally decided to declare war on the undead. Previously they had generally been willing to let vampires go about their business, and not risk them exposing their powers to everyone, since vampires generally tried not to reveal themselves.
@SorcererV1ct0r So there was an organization that was a hybrid of mages and vampires, The Blackhand. Not the branch of the Sabbat, the True Hand. They had ties to the Euathanatos and Verbena mages. You still couldn't be both a mage and vampire, but they had revenant families and members that were both mages or vampires. They had a big hand in manipulating the Sabbat. They were essentially hoping to suck up to the Antedeluvians when they woke up, and had found Enoch in the world of the dead, which supposedly contained a few antedeluvians in torpor. The Nagarajah were also supposed to be another sect that of mages that stole vampiric power, too. This is also the organization that had an abomination working for them, but had to be carefully watched, or she'd try and kill herself. I think the mention of this, is solely for her use as an antagonist or NPC. So like you said, storyteller material. I know I really wouldn't have let a player be an abomination. In my storytelling days, I had a backup plan in case anybody begged for it to the point of being annoying, let them have it, but every organization would immediately hunt them down. Vampires would be jealous and werewolves wouldn't want a child of Gaia's gifts to fall into the wyrm's hands. Ya, I'm that kind of an evil DM
Anyway, as said I am wondering if they will try to translate those new mechanism and foci to the new game. I am not sure how they would implement the Touchstones in an elegant way, and spending a lot of your time on feeding might not be the best way to go either.
With the new metaplot we can expect very few powerful (elder) vampires still sticking around and little Sabbat presence. I guess given the parallel development it is possible the game advanced the metaplot in a significant way, otherwise we can expect a lot of elder intrigue going on.
Being very honest, the "fate" of any inexperienced fledgling abomination will probably be something worse than death. Like being captured for high rank Tremere and being used in all types of experiments involving this unusual type of blood, for centuries. An quick death by the hands of your former "garou friends" is the best likely scenario IMO. Even if he somehow survives and hides, being in constant fear of himself, in constant hiding, constant fear of another, will lead him to insanity, sooner or later.
Anyway, when i said "closer to a werewolf", i mean shapeshifting into animal/hybrids, animism and the contact with nature. At the same way that Tremere still very different than human magicians, but are the closest vampires to be mages. I wold recommend for someone who wanna be an werewolf in vtmb to be a Gangrel, despite not being 100% similar to pnp.
Other question. Since they will use blood potency, can i learn advanced disciplines on VtMB 2? I know very little about V5
" Blood Potency now determines how well a vampire can use its blood. It is partly determined by Generation." https://whitewolf.fandom.com/wiki/Vampire:_The_Masquerade_5th_Edition
I got to disagree, but then again I've always been a fan of mage and the books that crossed over, like dirty secrets of the black hand. To me, I think it adds depth to the universe, with things going on that even most vampires are unaware of. Plus I liked the idea of different supernatural factions working together or manuevering against each other.
So a new mechanic is hunger dice. For every level of hunger you have, you replace one of your dice with a hunger dice (it should be a different color). Rolling a one results in a bestial failure, a 10 on a hunger dice results in a messy critical.
A lot of things use rouse checks, the same check you make each day when waking up. Failing it when waking up just means more hunger dice, not that you can't wake up. A lot of disciplines use it for checks too. Higher blood potency can give you extra dice for these checks with disciplines, or even reroll. Blood potency also dictates how much damage you heal, and how much blood you get from feeding from different sources. Like at a certain point, animals and bagged blood only give you half the amount of blood points, and higher levels they stop working altogether.
The new core book doesn't have any disciplines over 5, but a lot of levels have 2 alternate powers to pick from, some have synergies with other disciplines. So @SorcererV1ct0r I kind of doubt they'll have anything over 5. I think they want to keep the video game closer to humanity now, and going into the advanced stuff pulls the game further away from the street level.
What I think is most interesting is the resonance mechanic while feeding. It's based off the old 4 humors. So feeding from a strongly Melancholic helps your fortitude and obfuscate.
If i remember correctly, LaCroix servant(Sheriff) can use advanced discipline . So i believe that LaCroix is stronger than him. Spoilers about him
On VtR, in order to be able to cast advanced dsiciplined, your need to maintain your blood potency so high that you can only feed in supernatural. Can't have an honest opinion about VtM V5.
https://www.dsogaming.com/news/vampire-the-masquerade-redemption-gets-ai-enhanced-hd-texture-pack-improving-textures-by-4x-times/
The best I was able to do was get the game running at 1080p, couldn't get it running at 4k. I'll have to give this texture pack a shot and see how it looks.
The system was a bit weird and not a direct translation of the mechanics, and was a pretty linear story with a premade character. It's still pretty amusing, and it's done in the party based real time with pause combat, more like Baldur's Gate.
The thing that always makes it weird to me is the voice actor for the main character, Christof, was the same guy who was The Brain from Pinky and The Brain. He was also the go to guy for any cartoon that wanted an Orson Wells impersonation in the '90s, like in a couple of episodes of The Critic.
The mod changes a lot of things and i really recommend. But is not "completely consistent with PnP", for example, Breathe the Sandstorm witch is an advanced discipline in the rules is a 2 dot discipline ( https://whitewolf.fandom.com/wiki/Serpentis )
In spoiler - I using this """advanced"" discipline in a random NPC
Other interesting mod was the PnP mod was amazing. Skills becomes much more similar to P&P
Some changes
You can even choose what generation to start(ui in spoiler)
I still loking for a mod that adds more Thaumaturgy paths, for eg, in Path of Conjuring, the vampire can create complex eqquipment(3 dot) or even an artificial life(5 dot), created from nothing. I really wish that there are an mod that increases the number of paths of thaumaturgy.
Anyway, i don't know much about V5, i really wish that an vampire game(video game or pnp) adopt the mantra "you are what you eat" In appearance and disciplines, with minor visual changes from if you feed a lot from redheads, your hair can become red, if you feed upon rats and other animals, lose human traits and become more "nosferatu like", if you feed on diseased blood, it can give some problems, if you feed on werewolf, you can become more prone to frenzy and get points into "shapechange" disciplines, if you feed upon mages(an hard thing to do), thaumaturgy becomes more easy.
One small problem that i have with the vtm is that your sire decide everything about you. The unique way to chance it is via diablere and even diablere will not free you from your clan curse. VtR tried to introduce blood potency, but i really wish an vampire game that follow "you are what you eat" mantra.
So, I got most of the way through Redemption before getting bored. It starts to just feel like dungeon crawls that drag on too long and begin to feel the same with just different skins over everything. Plus everytime Christof talks I can't help but hear "Full of country goodness and rich green peaness." It did have a lot more disciplines and options, no matter how useless something like earth meld was in a video game.
Why so few vampire RPG games? An quick search on steam by "vampire" tag shows that they are almost non existent. And most of the results are just point & click(nothing against, i just don't like) or action games. There are some good indie "loot hunters"/dungeon crawlers like bloodlust 1/2, but the notorious games focused on story are just Vampyr and VtMB/VtMR ( https://store.steampowered.com/tags/en/Vampire/ ) and even vampyr, is not good as VtMB IMO. The lockon based combat where you can't aim is really bad IMO.
Honestly, i like almost all types of RPG's, but i have my preferences. FNV is IMO funnier and more immersive than Borderlands for eg but like both games. Seeing to that list, the unique that took my attention and i din't played before was Devoid of Shadows and being very honest, even this game doesn't look that impressive. And there are a lot of people complaining about the translations to English
Considering the myth of Dracula, i think that an interesting vampire RPG should be you becoming an vampire and trying to rule and kingdom and defend your kingdom from an continental country that wanna rule every territory possible. Mixing RTS, RPG and action elements like M&B.
https://www.pcgamer.com/everything-we-know-about-vampire-the-masqueradebloodlines-2/
Sounds like a lot of the powers aren't a direct translation of the books. Like the mist form was always a high level protean power. Mentalism sounds a lot like that Thaumaturgy path movement of the mind.
There's also some info about the differences between the editions of the game in the article, like what you get in each version. I do worry about 24 hour early access. Just seems like you'll be playing it in an even less finished state. I mean how often do games get release day patches these days?
I might've mentioned this before, but does anybody remember that TV show from the '90s, Kindred: The Embraced. It only ran for one season, and definitely took some liberty with the source material, but it was based off of Vampire: The Masquerade.
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0115232/
Hah, I totally forgot that guy who played the alien bounty hunter in the X Files and a Romulan from Enterprise was the Brujah leader.
Looks like there are an discipline that allow you to summon an bat swarm
https://www.reddit.com/r/vtmb/comments/bgwuah/gameplay_of_the_chiropteran_bat_swarm_discipline/
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For the thinblood, looks like thin bloods can use NEBULATION, MENTALISM and CHIROPTERAN
https://www.bloodlines2.com/en/thinblood
I don't know much about V5, but this powers doens't look like thin blood powers to me. Not complaining the first one din't followed 100% of pnp rules.
PCGamer also has some more info on the game
https://www.pcgamer.com/vampire-the-masquerade-bloodlines-2-brujah-reveal/
Looks like you'll be able to keep your thin blood powers if you join a clan.