What if we updated these cards?

Here here!

OK, more location card updates:

Arcanum Chapterhouse, Alexandria
Master: unique location.
Each of your predator and prey burns 1 pool during his or her unlock phase for each Hunting Ground he or she controls. Any minion may burn this card as a Ⓓ action.

That's the step one. Maybe to make it more fun, we could also add:

Any vampire can steal this card as a Ⓓ action that costs one blood.


Lyndhurst Estate, New York
costs 1 blood
This equipment card represents a location and does not count as equipment when in play. Unique.
Once during each political action, the vampire with this location can burn X blood to gain X additional votes.

Compared to Praxis Seizure cards and similar, Ferraile, or Ventrue HQ, reducing the cost seems like a good start to make the estate a bit more appealing. Not sure if that would be enough...


Cairo Int'l Airport
costs 1 pool
Master: unique location.
Any minion you control may burn 1 blood on an uncontrolled minion in your prey's uncontrolled region as a Ⓓ action.
Any minion you control may add 1 blood to an uncontrolled minion in your uncontrolled region as an action.

Can't confidently tell whether this update is not OP with Jake Washington, other allies, or low caps in general but the Airport as is apparently never saw play anywhere thus far...


Dartmoor, England
costs 2 blood
This equipment card represents a location and does not count as equipment while in play. Unique.
The vampire with this location gets +1 stealth on any action requiring Animalism
or Protean. Once each turn, if such an action is successful, this vampire can get 1 blood from the blood bank or burn one blood to unlock.

Cost reduction and/or a free unlock upon equipping seemed like an easy way to boost this card. But I was thinking about something a bit more unique and useful and this Dabblerification might just do the trick

charmer wrote:

Not done yet:

Sabbat Ritae we got as cards proved to be too expensive to be playable virtually anywhere. My understanding is that a ritus cannot succeed without sacrifice but how about to make them permanent?

Stealth Ritus - [costs 1 blood] Requires a ready Sabbat vampire. Only usable when the action is announced.
Choose another ready Sabbat vampire you control. The chosen vampire burns 1 blood, or this card has no effect. This action gets +1 stealth, even if stealth is not yet needed. Put this card on this vampire. When this vampire announces the same kind of action, it gets +1 stealth, even if stealth is not yet needed.

and in the same vein:

Martial Ritus - [costs 1 blood] +1 stealth action. Requires a ready Sabbat vampire.
Choose another ready younger Sabbat vampire you control. The chosen vampire burns 1 blood, or this card has no effect.
Put this card on the younger Sabbat vampire and unlock this acting vampire. The Sabbat vampire with this card gets +1 strength. During your next unlock phase, burn this card.

Thematically I sorta like their transient nature, so that the rite invites itself to be repeated. Also permanent effects really cascade in power in a way that can get out of hand later on from design elsewhere. I think the easier tweak is to increase the numeric value as stealth and strength is not terribly unbalancing, especially as few Sabbat clans are truly desperate for either. It's a situation where more is more.

Stealth Ritus
1
Requires a ready Sabbat vampire. Only usable when the action is announced.
Choose another ready Sabbat vampire you control. The chosen vampire burns 1 blood , or this card has no effect. This action gets +2 stealth, +3 stealth if a directed non-bleed action, even if stealth is not yet needed.

My rationale: It's to encourage Sabbat harassment of people's permanents at the table, which is thematic, especially for rushes and other naughtiness. It already has a minor advantage in that it is cyclable stealth (clause: "even if stealth is not yet needed"), and at +2 stealth comes out at a wash for old stealth disciplines like Obtenebration as a way to spread out the blood costs. The stealth increase pushes not-stealthy clans into solid stealth at a viable risk, which is a good way to get blood/pool counters off the table -- you get to do what you wanted at the risk of eroding your position. It also has nice complementary resonance to High Aye, as that one does +1 stealth, +2 if undirected.

Martial Ritus
1
+2 stealth action. Requires a ready Sabbat vampire.
Put this card on a younger Sabbat vampire and unlock this acting vampire. The Sabbat vampire with this card gets +2 strength. During your next unlock phase, burn this card.

My rationale: This is a weird one, as the acting minion's action is recovered. In a cascading capacity crypt it works... OK. The bigger issue when I tried it is twofold: a) getting it through, b) getting it to hurt enough matter. The first issue a) needs stealth support, but that then competes with the second issue b) as the meager +1 str also needs combat (and reaction) support.to squeeze out that value. Too much competing support chokes out the deck's limited slots. Here you can save on some of that stealth and combat support to focus on combat and reaction support.

Summary: The fact that you can use both Rituses to burn away 3 blood to get +4 stealth for temporary +2 strength until next unlock phase is not lost on me, and is as I intend. That's a lot of blood off the table, all the while you preserve the bigger vamp's action, can cycle out stealth, and encourage more blocking reactions. It is inflationary, and thus flirts with power creep, but its temporary nature reduces its power concerns considerably. At those numbers I'd even be enticed to splash this Sabbat sect tech, as either card stands solid on its own.

There's probably a broken build I'm missing, but of yet I cannot see it compared to what's already good out there.

I think we can make Cairo Int'l Airport a bit more mischievous than it currently stands.

Cairo Int'l Airport
2
Master: unique location.
Any minion with 2 or 3 life you control may burn 1 blood on an uncontrolled minion in your prey's an uncontrolled region as a Ⓓ action.
Any minion may burn this location as a action that costs 2 or 3 life.

Rationale: Three life is harder to do for most mortal, non-ghouled, non-imbued minions. Two blood prevents most disposable 1 cap vampires, and leaves a clan low-capped vampire thirsty. The blood/life requirement prevents most of the weenie abuse this could have (Tupdogs, etc.), as minions of such resources often have better things to do as a directed action. Annoying, but not brutal, and not easy enough to remove to be a priority. Also fun with cross-table responses to Governs & Enchants down!

Thank you for your ideas, there's certainly more than one way to improve all these underplayed cards. With some luck, Sabbat is coming this year and with it, perhaps some Ritae (as they are part of VtM V5), fingers crossed

Regarding the cascading permanent effects, I'm not sure how big of a problem they are as they always carry a risk of being too slow to assemble them in the first place, or be rebuffed at a crucial moment by a Signet, Pentex, a DI, or a random S:CE...

We even got Monstrous Form in V5 recently, which you can stack as much as you want, it does not cost any blood, and gives you access to 3 modes...

To conclude my block about location improvements, here are two more cards I found:

Jericho Founding
Requires a non-Camarilla vampire.
Successful referendum means each Methuselah loses 1 pool and all locations you don't control are burned. Any Methuselah can keep any locations he or she controls by repaying their pool cost, or 1 pool if the location has no cost.

It would be nice to have more cards with non-symmetrical effects. The TWDA record of Jericho Founding could easily justify the update above.

And in a similar vein...:

Can't Take it with You
Successful referendum means each Methuselah you gains 1 pool. Each Methuselah then burns 1 pool for each equipment, location or retainer card he or she controls.