Fortitude reaction card

Right now, there are some clans that seem intended for use with bloat as a defensive strategy. Some of them have Fortitude - Daughters, Samedi, maybe Ishtarri.

Right now, bloat just loses to heavy bleed.

I think it's reasonable for people to want to play those clans, and to use their cards in the way they were intended. Right now, though, they can't - at least not at a serious table. It's reasonable to wish there was a card that fixed this.

I don't think that a bleed defense card needs to be as strong as Deflection in order to see play in this context. Bloat is already pretty reasonable if given the chance to set up. What they really shouldn't get is a global bleed reducer. Something that is strong enough to blunt a DOM offensive could utterly negate a more moderately built predator.

So, what is needed is something that selectively works against heavy bleed. My thought is:

Stoicism
Reaction.
for: reduce a bleed against you by 1.
FOR: Play when a successful bleed would cause you to burn more than 2 pool. Burn 2 pool instead.

I also think it would be interesting if there was a Fortitude reaction set up the same way as a Sense the Savage Way, ie only available to 7+ vampires. From a design point of view this lets you make a card that is "for" elder vampires, without being unreliable because it says "younger". That might look something like:

In the Way
Reaction
Requires a vampire with capacity above 6.
for: Play when a political action would cause you to burn pool. You may burn blood from this vampire as though it were your pool.
FOR: Only usable during an action directed at you or a card you control. Usable by a tapped vampire. This vampire untaps and attempts to block.

jAvel wrote:

Paranoic Vigilance
[reaction]
Only usable by a tapped vampire.
[for] Reduce bleed by 1. -- defence
[FOR] As above, and put this card on reacting vampire. He can burn this card to untap. -- defence+offence

MUCH more in line with the discipline than any of the other attempts in this thread; although inferior should be limited only to the metusalah himself (Reduce bleed AGAINST YOU by 1.)

Superior version should limit the number of Paranoic Vigilances the vampire an have. Most likely to one. Untap anytime later on it insanely strong, especially as there is no cost (other than that you have to reduce a bleed by 1).


Fortitude is already an insanely strong discipline due to untaps, but also for damage prevention. Many players consider big caps that aren't able to multiact due to lack of fortitude a vaste of time. The disciplinen doesnät need to be made stronger with absurdly powerfull reduce (five or whatever) or bounce.


Not that my weenie fortitude horde wouldn't just love such a card...

jAvel wrote:

Paranoic Vigilance
[reaction]
Only usable by a tapped vampire.
[for] Reduce bleed by 1. -- defence
[FOR] As above, and put this card on reacting vampire. He can burn this card to untap. -- defence+offence

Paranoic Vigilance

1 blood
Only usable by a tapped vampire with capacity 6 or more.
Reduce a bleed against you by 2.
As above, and put this card on the reacting vampire. The minion with this card may burn 1 blood and this card to untap after a successful action or to untap and attempt to block an action.

That feels a little more balanced and playable. (Reduce by 2 for 1 blood, 1 blood for inferior Freak Drive or an "eluding the arms of morpheus" prepared in advance)

finbury wrote:

Right now, there are some clans that seem intended for use with bloat as a defensive strategy. Some of them have Fortitude - Daughters, Samedi, maybe Ishtarri.

Right now, bloat just loses to heavy bleed.

I think it's reasonable for people to want to play those clans, and to use their cards in the way they were intended. Right now, though, they can't - at least not at a serious table. It's reasonable to wish there was a card that fixed this.

Not only do they loose to heavy bleed they also have a tendancy to time the table. The games as a whole has during the last years become slower and slower and time is always an issue.

Further more I dont like decks that play to stay and not to get any VPs, if your deck poolgains as defence and gets ousted the ousting deck will prolly have a very hard time getting the next oust because the deck has run out of resources

Poolgain: not a good way of playing the game IMO

Randy wrote:

Further more I dont like decks that play to stay and not to get any VPs, if your deck poolgains as defence and gets ousted the ousting deck will prolly have a very hard time getting the next oust because the deck has run out of resources

Poolgain: not a good way of playing the game IMO

I'm not saying bloating like crazy is the best way to win a game, but it is a better way to get VPs if you're not going to use Dominate or Auspex. It might only be 0.5VPs, but that's more than you get by bringing something else.

Juggernaut1981 wrote:

Randy wrote:

Further more I dont like decks that play to stay and not to get any VPs, if your deck poolgains as defence and gets ousted the ousting deck will prolly have a very hard time getting the next oust because the deck has run out of resources

Poolgain: not a good way of playing the game IMO

I'm not saying bloating like crazy is the best way to win a game, but it is a better way to get VPs if you're not going to use Dominate or Auspex. It might only be 0.5VPs, but that's more than you get by bringing something else.

Thing is you're most certainly better off grafting on dominate and deflections or just not playing that deck if you want to be competitive, for example Ravnos often do this. As it stands not only does a bounce 'reduce' any bleed fully, which blows any of the reduce by X or 1 or 2 out of the water, it even sends it to your prey. The bigger the bleed you 'reduce' the harder the hit you inflict. This combined with dominate being easily the strongest bleed discipline in itself. Any of the untaps or reduce for anything short of the whole bleed is way to weak, simply put.