personal masquerade - caitiff

Personal masquerade
master. Trifle.
a vampire can have only one personal masquerade.
put this card on a caitiff.
Choose a clan. This caitiff is considered to be a member of that clan. Clan members of the same sect have -1 intercept to block that caitiff.
any vampire can burn this card as a +1 stealth action.

Source: outcast supplement had one chapter about caitiff and their merit s and flaws. Personal masquerade was an advantage that caitiffs could take to masquerade as members of a clan. However it was not without risk as their disguisement could be pierced through at any time... and more and more as times went... meanwhile it was giving the caitiff more and more informations and influences...

interest: caitiff at the present time have no card dedicated to them. The present would allow them to play cards of clan (ventrue headquarter and so on), or such as cnflict of interest or clan loyalty...
The side effect -1 intercept) is also helping mass bleed...and may be too strong (let me know your advices).
for the moment the only "big" side effect that i spotted was the risk for swarm allies with bleed such as " choosing tremere antitribe and when recruits nephandi on second turn".
Most baali cards needs the minion who plays them to be infernal as well. Blood brothers need to belong to same circle so most of their cards are not usable with this card....

It would be weird if a caitiff pretended to be something not camarilla.
Add a text that says may only choose camarilla clans.
And I don't think the -1 intercept is valid, my first thought was +1 for others to block the minion with the card, due to him not really being a member of the clan. But a more themed thing would be if something bad happens if someone blocks the minion that is the chosen clan.

I thought about this story about "camarilla" clan... i m troubled by 2 things: according to this advantage this vampire could choose any clan as he was posing and masquerading as a member of this clan (ok gargoyle, samedi and nosferatu would be then ridiculous)... the same supplement was considering all caitiff or almost as anarch (and so independent)... for applying this card to the card game i really thought it was better to non restrict the choice of the clan... (and for the card text which would be become much more longer )...

Test with only camarilla clan:

Personal masquerade
master. Trifle.
a vampire can have only one personal masquerade.
put this card on a caitiff.
Choose one of the following clans: brujah, gangrel, malkavian, nosferatu, tremere or ventrue. This caitiff is considered to be a member of that clan. Clan members of the same sect have -1 intercept to block that caitiff.
any vampire can burn this card as a +1 stealth action.

As a reminder, the -1 intercept was an advantage. For example, i do have the ventrue i needed for my ventrue hq. So i may turn my next caitiff into for exemple nosferatu if my prey is playing nosferatu (or if my predator is playing them with intercept/anismalism) to get kind of stealth bleed...

snegiem wrote:

As a reminder, the -1 intercept was an advantage. For example, i do have the ventrue i needed for my ventrue hq. So i may turn my next caitiff into for exemple nosferatu if my prey is playing nosferatu (or if my predator is playing them with intercept/anismalism) to get kind of stealth bleed...

Thing is, if you're planning on playing Ventrue HQ, it's almost always going to be much easier to just... flip out a Ventrue. Stuffing your crypt with a bunch of Ventrue, who will generally have good discipline synergy, is much better trade off. Using your library resources to do something that can be done much more easily with crypt resources is generally a poor trade-off. That's not to say you can't do good things with vampires with your library resources - anything from calling a Praxis Seizure to playing Striga - but if you can do it with crypt resources, it's just easier. Do I flip out Andy, wait a couple of turns to draw this, and then play it, and then play Ventrue HQ, or do I just flip out Rufina Soledad? And if you're using master phase resources instead of using your crypt, think of the things you could be doing with those master phase resources instead - with trifles, that might be anything from a couple of copies of Wider View to Vessel to Wash to The Coven.

I'm also not really convinced by the negative intercept. If your intention is to play Ventrue HQ (or whatever) first and then move on to impersonating your prey's clan, that's something of a delay in getting the negative intercept, and weenie decks typically benefit from speedy action - by turn 3 or 4, your prey (or predator) potentially already has some solid blocking tech in play. Also, if you're using this as a solid plank of your delivery mechanism, you have a problem when:

a) your prey (or predator) isn't playing a Camarilla clan - and while Camarilla decks are obviously quite common due to some (very) good tech existing in the Camarilla (Parity Shift, Anson MMPA, Arika, Ventrue Law Firm, EuroBrujah, AAA, or whatever), they're not ubiquitous. Finding yourself faced with, say, a Sabbat-y stickmen grinder, not so good. And that's probably totally reasonable - not every deck can combat every single possible flaw, obviously - but also...

b) when you oust your prey, you're back to square one. On a table where you have that Gangrel prey playing some light Animalism intercept, you go on to oust that Methuselah. How many of these cards have you played on your Caitiff by that point? 2? 3? More? Okay, now all of those vampires have no advantage against your grand-prey (i.e. now your prey), except in the very rare circumstances where they're also Gangrel. And say you get lucky and your new prey is playing Camarilla - say, Brujah 2nd Tradition - and you'd quite like a bit of negative intercept. If you want to play some more Personal Masquerades, you would need to take the +1 stealth action to burn the old one yourself - which is undirected, so could be blocked by prey or predator - slowing yourself down again.


I'm somewhat unconvinced.

Well, it's cheaper and easier to pull off than Clan Impersonation... But I don't remember the clamour for more of this, let alone filling a void for Caitiff.

First, Masters, even Trifles, are a very highly competitive slot space. Few of the more fun yet middling competitive rarely make the cut. Maybe not the best design place to start — but it does get the whole "harder to interrupt" angle, as someone would have to waste a Sudden/Wash on this.

Second, Caitiff are kinda meant to die. They are strong in their weenie-ness; their cheap action proliferation and disposability is already solid. What would be interesting is to give reason to further invest in Caitiff to grow their capacity, or a "clan card" to show their suffering flunkie nature in the Camarilla.

Something growth-like as:

Unnoticed Maturity
Action
Caitiff
+1 Stealth
This Caitiff increases in capacity by 2, and one of their basic disciplines is raised to Superior. This card allows a once per Unnoticed Maturity card Blood Hunt political action at +1 stealth to be called on this vampire by a titled Camarilla vampire.

or Flunkie-like:

Grunt Work
Reaction
+1 Intercept. If this block is successful this minion cannot play maneuvers or set range in the first round of combat. Allies do not replace this card until the end of this action.
If this minion is Caitiff, and is sent to torpor in this resulting combat, it receives 1 blood from the blood bank.
Sometimes I think they enjoy us being beaten down. But then, they would have to care about us in the first place. — Smudge, the Ignored