werewolf/mage expansion

The owod dice system wasnt as good as the nwod one. Now, all the core games in nwod were AWEFUL if compared to original wod, and all the extra games were nominally better (changeling, hunter, promethean, not so much other ones, mummy was ok, wraith great,hunter meh and original changeling aweful).

But, for reasons James just pointed out, vtes must be seperate.

Now, imbued was in almost all ways an oops. If they had done a small graft on with Risen (who can use disciplines cel, pot, for, obf, and have powers similar to mental disciplines) instead of imbued, no problem. Cant taste of vitae because they are embalmed, they get lets say one counter to pay for cards each untap imstead of conviction, and become a thing you shoehorn in.

Imbued, excepting beatrice tremble, do not mix well in vampire decks, and the conviction recursion is nuts.

Werewolves and mages have a few playable allys, and due to theme dilution its illogical to make crypt cards.
Amenti created like imbued would be less obtrusive than imbued, but still take more dumb additional rules.
Im still in favor of Risen, because they line up better, but more dumb imbued-esque rules are not optimal.

Werewolves (nominally) defend against the wyrm, so have often clashed with vamps. They arent thematically suited other than how currently represented.

Adding abomination crypt who fan recruit wolves like merged Petaniqua is better than making them crypt cards.

Mage is worse, because it fits even worse, and there are "vampire mages" but maybe a Tremere who does all mages at a reduced cost, and better mages (we have 2 playable ones, nephundi and a baali helper) would be neat.

Amenti make illogical allies to vamps, maybe a master card similar to revolt or troublemaker is acceptable.

Better wraiths and zombies are possible, bit we got some in TU, and a mummy.

Its vampire themed, imbued can get small amounts of help with vamp compatability, but allies need to stay allies and just get better support WITHOUT new rules.

I like allies, but they stay greenbacked cards for many reasons.

jamesatzephyr wrote:

- any newborn Gangrel can torporize Sutekh by playing a claw card and throwing down Rotschreck

Amusingly, it happen in the tabletop game too. It's more random of course, but Brujahs and Urban Gangrel are infamous for a reason on the tabletop game.

Ohlmann wrote:

jamesatzephyr wrote:

- any newborn Gangrel can torporize Sutekh by playing a claw card and throwing down Rotschreck

Amusingly, it happen in the tabletop game too. It's more random of course, but Brujahs and Urban Gangrel are infamous for a reason on the tabletop game.

Sort of. That specific thing basically wouldn't happen because claws don't generally provoke Rotschreck, mostly fire and sunlight. Rotschreck doesn't send you instantly to torpor (indeed, it might save you from it), and nor does taking a little agg damage.

More generally, neophyte characters can take down more experienced characters in the WoD. Weapons can help, as can the fact that you have a coterie/pack/gang with you. However, the situation where - in V:TES - a 1 cap can smack down an 11 cap is usually harder in the oWoD. Generation can be a very significant factor in the RPG in determining how powerful someone is and whether your powers can hurt them, whereas it is only relevant occasionally in V:TES. More experienced vampires (not necessarily lower/more powerful generation) typically pick up a smattering of extra disciplines that can be a significant asset to them, which aren't represented in V:TES because we don't have enough notional 'design points' for them. Even one or two levels of Dominate on a low generation vampire can be a potentially extremely potent defence - and in V:tM, most powers don't care too much how many levels of the discipline you have, but what your stats are (e.g. Manipulation+Leadership). Fortitude is sufficiently useful - being one of the few ways of letting you soak agg damage - that in various groups I've played with, it's very common for players to pick up Fortitude and lots of it. Presence is also very good. And Dom/Pre/For aren't - in general - disciplines that are jealously guarded by vampires, in the same way that seeking to learn Necromancy or Thaumaturgy might draw the attention of the Giovanni or the Tremere.

Trying to work out how to take on a sufficiently powerful vampire can be a significant plot device - do we seek aid from others? do we incapacitate him? what other options do we have? - and one which can recur. A significant villain can be thwarted but not necessarily extinguished in an RPG, when in V:TES it's often reduced to extremely brutal instant death.

jamesatzephyr wrote:

in V:TES - a 1 cap can smack down an 11 cap is usually harder in the oWoD. Generation can be a very significant factor in the RPG in determining how powerful someone is and whether your powers can hurt them, whereas it is only relevant occasionally in V:TES.

That's true, but for all intent and matter, a cap 2 in VtES have 2 HP and a cap 11 up to 11 ; while in the RPG everyone have 7. So, while you have direct-to-torpor card in VtES, you don't have Bob the Brujah who fight a fully stocked Francois Villon and put him in torpor. Which is something that happen annoyingly often.

The bottom of the problem is that, when Villon roll 12 soak dices vs the 14 damage dice + 3 auto of a starting player, the variation in dice mean he *still* have a good odds of taking 7 damage and being torporized. It's even worse against aggravated, and an urban gangrel assassin would reasonably hope for 7-9 damage dice vs 3 soak. To actually go to that stage "just" mean finding an opportunity for ambush.

All thoses mean, on the tabletop, as a GM, you have two options. You cheat on dice rolls to make sure flukes don't put someone important in torpor (or ambush never suceed) ; or you make the NPCs very proactive, because the one who have initiative will usually dominate his opponent (the same Villon can completely torporize or burn seven vampire in one turn if he ambush them)

jamesatzephyr wrote:

Trying to work out how to take on a sufficiently powerful vampire can be a significant plot device - do we seek aid from others? do we incapacitate him? what other options do we have? - and one which can recur. A significant villain can be thwarted but not necessarily extinguished in an RPG, when in V:TES it's often reduced to extremely brutal instant death.

Well, only because the GM can refuse to cast dice and give omniscience to his important villain, and especially punish players who try the same way on every opponent (because they are some way of downing a vampire who are very reliable in the RPG). Also, in the RPGs, players can *alway* burn or diablerize a downed villain, while it's a lot harder in the card game.

All that to say that my experience is that, in the tabletop RPG, importants vampires are often more fragile than in the card game. It's in actual lore that they are very hard to take down, but neither set of rules enforce that strongly.

Ohlmann wrote:

a cap 2 in VtES have 2 HP and a cap 11 up to 11 ; while in the RPG everyone have 7.

Sort of.

While everyone has the same number of health levels, more powerful vampires (lower generation) can have significantly larger blood pools and can spend significantly more blood in one turn.

Ohlmann wrote:

The bottom of the problem is that, when Villon roll 12 soak dices vs the 14 damage dice + 3 auto of a starting player, the variation in dice mean he *still* have a good odds of taking 7 damage and being torporized.

No, the problem here is that the WoD combat system (certainly in later iterations) provides multiple ways of reducing the damage, but they are hugely cumbersome. For example, Villon, having numerous levels of Celerity, is in a strong position to use a defensive maneuver - Block, Parry, Dodge - with a large dice pool. If the attacker (Bob the Brujah) gets fewer successes than the defender, he misses. And Francois Villon (as I don't have an appropriate source book to hand) has a lot of Dexterity, Melee and Brawl, which is sufficient to thwart a lot of newbies with very little effort - there's a good chance they miss entirely, with Francois's 13 dice against their attack, before you get anywhere near damage. And if you have multiple actions, you can act defensively and offensively in the same turn, which can be seriously unpleasant.

Ohlmann wrote:

It's even worse against aggravated, and an urban gangrel assassin would reasonably hope for 7-9 damage dice vs 3 soak. To actually go to that stage "just" mean finding an opportunity for ambush.

Block it.

"Block: A Dexterity + Brawl maneuever using your character's own body to deflect a hand-to-hand bashing attacking. Lethal and aggravated damage cannot be blocked unless the defender has Fortitude or is wearing armor." (Francois has Fortitude.) (WW2300.)

Dex + Brawl is 13 dice, making it moderately difficult to hit in the first place. A dedicated assassin who's honed their skills, potentially yes. A 12th or 13th gen newbie, not so much.

Ohlmann wrote:

All thoses mean, on the tabletop, as a GM, you have two options. You cheat on dice rolls to make sure flukes don't put someone important in torpor (or ambush never suceed) ; or you make the NPCs very proactive, because the one who have initiative will usually dominate his opponent (the same Villon can completely torporize or burn seven vampire in one turn if he ambush them)

There are plenty of other options, two of which I already alluded to. Dominate and Presence can be exceptionally powerful disciplines for NPCs to quell problems. Also, important NPCs are often old, with time on their hands. You're a moderately wealthy, moderately influential vampire with a nice house - it's actually not hard to kit it out with cameras and burglar alarms, retainers, ghouls etc. You live in a world where a bunch of burglars could break in during the day while you're out cold and expose you to sunlight (and nick your TV), you'll probably put in some effort to protect yourself. There are Thaumaturgical rituals for exactly this purpose. And Auspex is a thing - Francois has a ton of it.

Ohlmann wrote:

Well, only because the GM can refuse to cast dice and give omniscience to his important villain, and especially punish players who try the same way on every opponent (because they are some way of downing a vampire who are very reliable in the RPG).

Not really necessary - Obfuscate, Chimerstry, a lot of Celerity and a truckload of Presence would give a vampire like Francois a lot of non-lethal options for escaping. Not to mention that being Prince would give them a realistic level of networking and contacts when something is going on, without requiring omniscience.

All your solutions fail pretty easily to surprise. It's why having the initiative is so important : yes, Francois Villon can use Presence or Dominate or Chimestry or whatever to deal with an assassin. He can also just kill him. Majesty is typically not very useful in the tabletop game compared to the card game because of that.

Typically, all defensive maneuver require someone to actually see the hit coming. Attackers typically won't be able to use obfuscate - but they can use anything else and be careful. One need auspex 9 to consistently be impossible to surprise, and then it's all downhill from here, especially if several vampires attacks, since having more action is quickly a big advantage.