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Brock Samson
2010-05-08, 09:35 AM
For those who were trying to help me last week in the thread I started, here's what we can apply to our starting character. I'm getting a copy of the book today, and will soon be spending many an hour reading up. No Sabbat, can be Independant if we want though.

Right now the Disciplines I'm leaning toward would be good Celerity, Potence, Obfuscate, maybe some Fortitude. Probably wielding a large two-handed sword. Basically: I'm not here I'm not here I'm not here YOU'RE DEAD! Again, this is a much more hack-and-slash game, less story, and we're trying to take over a city. So I figured I could play an assassine-y-type character, or maybe a bodyguard for one of my buddies. Just thoughts, might change my mind entirely soon.

Attributes – (7/5/3) +2 that cannot be in the same set

Abilities – (17/13/9) +2 dots/set in secondaries

Disciplines – 7

Backgrounds – 12 (5 must be in Generation), Will be Generation 8 then I believe.

Virtues – 7

Freebies – 30

No 5’s in Attributes/Abilities

No Will Power over 8

Up to 2 dots of disciplines may be out of clan

Max of 3 Merrits/Flaws or up to 7 points

Kurald Galain
2010-05-08, 09:43 AM
Right now the Disciplines I'm leaning toward would be good Celerity, Potence, Obfuscate, maybe some Fortitude.
The amount of Obfuscate it takes to hide reliably (considering that your target may have Auspex) would likely cut into your combat disciplines. Also, never underestimate the power of Dominate, Presence and Thaumaturgy, even in combat.

The standard optimization trick (if you really want to optimize VtM) is to max out on flaws, stick all your freebies into disciplines, and top off your celerity.

comicshorse
2010-05-08, 10:11 AM
If you're going for an assassin-type how about an Assamite. Obfuscate and Clerity as a clan discipline and Quietus, to give you the ability for your sword to do Aggravateed damage.

Though if you want to play a killer, forget disciplines and learn how to make and plant a bomb

Brock Samson
2010-05-08, 10:17 AM
I'm pretty sure Assamite is not an option for us. I'll definitely load up on flaws. I'll make sure to top Celerity out and then Potence. I love the idea of Presence and Dominate of course, but I think another character is going that route. And I frankly don't know near anything about Thaumaturgy.

Iceforge
2010-05-08, 01:46 PM
Sample Brujah Build:


Attributes:
Physical:
Strength: 2
Dexterity: 4
Stamina: 4

Social:
Charisma:2
Manipulation: 2
Apperance: 4

Mental:
Perception: 2
Intelligence: 2
Wits: 2

Abilities:

17 in Talents, 13 in Skills, 9 in Knowledges

Talents:
Brawl: 4
Dodge: 4
Empathy: 4
Intimidation: 4
Left overs: 1

Skills:
Melee: 4
Firearms: 4
Stealth: 4
Left overs: 1

Knowledges:
Left Overs: 9

Backgrounds:
Generation: 5
Left overs: 7

Disciplines:
Presence: 3
Celerity: 5
Potence: 4 (assuming you got at least 5 freebie points from flaws, if you do not get 5 freebies from flaws, then leave it at potence 3)

Virtues:
Left overs: 7

Humanity/Willpower:
If you got leftover freebie points after spending 35 on disciplines, put them in willpower


Strategies:

Pretty straight forward hack'n'slash build, pump 1 blood into celerity and 2 into dex at the start of combat, to get 6 rounds and 6 temporary dex for the rest of the scene (combat), then cut away with your sword or punches at the enemy with massive damage due to potence making up for the low strength (which makes the attribute points better spend in dexterity (hit chance) and stamina (soak) than strength, as those are not helped by disciplines)
If needed, keep spending 1 blood pr. round to keep celerity going, if the combat is easy, think about resource management and go without celerity, but always start with celerity until you can determine a given opponents difficulty

Presence 3 helps disable troublesome opponents, for instance if a thaumaturge user decides to levitate you up into the air and hold you helpless, entrance the person and ask them to put you down; Then chop them to a bloody pulp before they get to act again.
The roll for Presence 3 is Apperance + Empathy, which is why both of those are at 4, giving you 8 dice vs. their permanent willpower and a single success is enough to make them entranced with you for an hour, which compels them to do what you request due to loving/admiring feelings towards you.
If your GM plays with the optional rule of automatic 1 success (much like take 10) if your dice pool exceeds the difficulty instead of rolling, it is a sure fire way to make almost any opponent put your back down

Presence 2 is can be used as extended action, rather than to just scare people off, it is keyed off Charisma + Intimidation (6 dice) and difficulty is targets Wits+Courage, each success takes off 1 dice from any dice pool of any rolls they are attempting to perform, as they get paralyzed from fear of you. So if someone is a troublesome target to hit due to high celerity and dodge, you just dreadgaze them until they don't have that much resistance against your attacks


Flavour Changes:

For flavour, you can change 1 or 2 apperance into charisma, that makes presence 3 weaker, but makes presence 2 stronger

Removing a point from either or both Perception and Intelligence and putting into Wits (for 3 or 4 Wits), will help you win initiative more consistently but will make your defense against some abilities weaker.

If your character never goes into melee without a weapon, the 4 points in brawl can be spend on maybe subterfuge, which can help land blows as you can then choose to hide your attack / misdirect your opponents attention

Maybe shave a point or 2 off from either Potence and/or Celerity and investing those in Fortitude 1 or 2 might also help the build, as that makes you more resilient while not nerfing your offensive combat output to oblivion, if you do this,
If you have 3 potence due to lack of freebie points from flaws, then the first point invested into fortitude should come from Celerity; If you got 4 in Potence, then it wont matter much from which you shave the first point. If you want Fortitude 2, take a point from both Celerity and Potence instead of 2 points off either one

Brock Samson
2010-05-09, 05:55 AM
That was incredibly helpful and a fun-sounding idea IceForge. Having some Presence I'm sure will help me out in other ways too.

Iceforge
2010-05-09, 07:25 AM
Yeah, in a room filled with enemies, firing off presence 1 prior to combat can be quite effective as well. Make them turn against each other, and if they want to avoid that, they need to burn some willpower, which can screw up their resource economy.

In my honest opinion, Presence is one of the, if not THE, most powerful discipline in the system.

Vissicitude comes in a close second through, but you are not allowed to play Sabbat, but watch out, a cleverly played sabbat vampire with Vissicitude can disable any opponent extremely quickly. They can easily have 6 strength, 7 dex, 5 stamina, a few points of potence, a offensive hit dice pool of 11+, damage dice pool of lethal damage of 6 dice + a few automatic, if they score more than 4 lethal in a single blow, you loose half your remaining blood as well (basicly a single 4 lethal damage hit on a 8th gen vampire reduce them to Wounded (-2), reduce their blood from 15 to 8, meaning the 8th gen vampire can do either of the following:

1) Heal 3 wounds (reduce blood to 5, and still have -1 dice pool penalty from damage)

2) Heal 1 wound (reduce blood to 7 and the penalty is still reduced to -1), and have 2 blood to spare for other boosts.

3) Ignore the wound, take the -2 penalty and save blood / use it for something else

Either of those are risque, seeing as if your blood pool is reduced to 10-humanity you risk going into frenzy.

With any of those, you are pretty much screwed if it hits you the following round for 4 lethal more.

in case 2 and 3, you are knocked down incapacitated due to damage and in case 1 you are reduced to 3 blood, meaning anyone with 7 or lower humanity will go into frenzy, and even if you don't frenzy, you are at 3 blood with a damage penalty of -2

Gnaeus
2010-05-09, 07:45 AM
For flavour, you can change 1 or 2 apperance into charisma, that makes presence 3 weaker, but makes presence 2 stronger

Removing a point from either or both Perception and Intelligence and putting into Wits (for 3 or 4 Wits), will help you win initiative more consistently but will make your defense against some abilities weaker.


If you plan to play the character for a while, and if you can support it RP-wise, for mechanics I would go Charisma 3, Manipulation 1, and go to 3 or 4 Wits as Iceforge suggested.

Reason: WOD is one of those systems that makes it cheaper to buy from 1 dot to 2 after play starts, but ranks them the same at character creation (Shadowrun does this too). It is cheaper, XP wise, to start with Manipulation 1, Charisma 3, Intelligence 1, Wits 3, then buy up your Manipulation and Intelligence to 2 in play, than it would be to start with them all at 2 and buy up Wits and Charisma to 3.

The RP justification might be that your character is a little naive when he becomes a vampire, but quickly catches on and becomes more manipulative when faced with vampire society.

Brock Samson
2010-05-17, 07:29 PM
So... after some thinking and re-thinking, I came up with a character concept, which altered how I allocated my points. I'm a speed/goth/industry-metal singer, named Komiko Rampage, my band: Kamikaze Guttersluts. I was super-prissy in life and was always reserved, even "dying" a virgin, never having any fun. I was taken by a Brujah who wanted me to, well, loosen up (not to mention I was HAWT!). So now I'm all about emotions, trying to get myself, and all the humans I meet, to experience the intense emotions I never let myself know in life. So in the end I went ahead and went Presence 5, Celerity 1, and Potence 1. My main stats are Str 3, Dex 4, Stamina 4, Charmisa 4, Manipulation 2, Appearance 4, and Perception 1, Int 2, Wits 4 (my DM wouldn't let me have manipulation at 1 or int at 1.

My question: just how useful is Presence 4 and 5? 4 seems very situational, but 5 seems like it COULD be great. However, it's not too difficultly blocked. As I raise my Intimidation and Charisma it'll get harder to resist, but when people can just shirk your ability by spending a Willpower, is it worth yet? Has anyone ever played a character with Presence 5, and have any stories or advice?

Also, I figured out if I dropped my Strength score by 2 I could up my Potence by 2 if I find 4 points somewhere else, and then can later by up strength cheaper than buying up Potence. But I also feel like I'm missing out by not having a high Celerity, although that's the FIRST thing I'd be increasing. I could instead only do Presence 3, then Celerity 3, Potence 3, but I feel like I'm missing out on something. I dunno, just looking for some ideas. I don't have my sheet, so this is all off of memory, and I don't know all my abilities, except that all the combat ones are pretty much 4's.

comicshorse
2010-05-18, 12:35 PM
but when people can just shirk your ability by spending a Willpower,

FOR ONE ROUND

Next round they must spend another one or be affected

Brock Samson
2010-05-22, 09:37 PM
Good point, though how long do combats last in most scenarios? Honestly, I don't know, though it seems like any character/villain with a high celerity or potence and many other abilities can end the combat in one or two rounds. How long do most people's combats take on average?

Kalirren
2010-05-23, 02:54 AM
Presence 4 is one of the most broken powers of the game.

You can summon -anyone- you've met, from -anywhere-, as long as you've seen them even just -once-; this includes an enemy down on his luck, or someone who's trying to avoid you, or a wayward party member. It costs you nothing but time, and they have to spend willpower or succumb to its effect. There have been multiple situations in one of my previous games where someone would rather be staked in a dungeon than be able to respond to Presence 4.

Chen
2010-05-23, 11:16 AM
I'm surprised no one has mentioned Tremere much here.

- Path of Blood 3: Lets you lower your gen. Start at 8th gen. Profit.
- Ritual to store blood in items (Vitae Infusion, level 2 I believe). Infuse coins with blood points. Pop them like candy. Since you're reliably lower than 8th gen you can keep your stats pumped above 5 for full scenes.
- Burning Blade ritual (also level 2 I believe): Yes your greatsword now does aggravated damage for a couple of hits. At this point though you don't need many hits to kill someone though.
- Only thing you're missing is out of clan discipline for celerity and you'll likely destroy most things, especially if you're prepared for them (which you should be).

There are numerous other useful rituals like Protection from Wooden Doom, Ethereal Passage (though thats level 4). Splinter servant is also level 4 I think, but combined with burning blade makes it pretty damn simple to stake someone. Other Paths are useful too. Path of Creation is horribly broken. Movement of the Mind can let you lift people up with a contested Willpower check (your willpower should be high). If someone is floating in the air they really can't do anything to you if they don't have some sort of ranged attack.

Brock Samson
2010-05-23, 01:24 PM
Hm, I suppose Presence 4 could also be used to bring back a fleeing enemy couldn't it?

Thaumatergy is indeed awesome, but I think I'm gonna stay away from it with this character. If I die and make a new one though, I'm definitely thinking about it.

Gnaeus
2010-05-23, 02:42 PM
We (my vampire larp chapter) made a list ranking clans in terms of friendliness to new players, and Tremere sat right at the bottom, for a bunch of reasons.

1. All the other clans hate the Tremere. An action which in a brujah would be taken for youthful inexperience, and in a malkavian would be seen as madness, if performed by a tremere will be viewed as part of some plot and punished.

2. You are in real danger from your own clan. If you frack up, your clan will either kill you, or punish you in a way that removes you from play (You are confined to chantry for the next 25 years. Then we will talk.). There is very little room for error in clan tremere. If you leave the clan, going rogue, you get hunted by badass elders with auspex.

3. Tremere thaum is powerful, but many paths are extremely un-masquerade friendly. Things like presence, auspex and dominate will rarely spark a breach. Even the low levels of the physical disciplines can often be written off as just someone really strong or fast, or maybe the wound wasn't as bad as it looked. A tremere who finds himself in combat in public can't run, and can't fight. (yes, a tremere could load up on dominate or auspex, but most new players seem to aim right at the flashy thaum powers that will get them killed.)

Set
2010-05-23, 03:33 PM
Hm, I suppose Presence 4 could also be used to bring back a fleeing enemy couldn't it?

Thaumatergy is indeed awesome, but I think I'm gonna stay away from it with this character. If I die and make a new one though, I'm definitely thinking about it.

With the exception of Spirit Thaumaturgy 1 (give people botches!), the bulk of Thaumaturgy is a huge point-sink, and, IMO, something of a trap.

You can make a much more politically, socially and combat-capable character by focusing on Dominate (and having the generation to back it up), with a much smaller 'budget' of XP. Check out the occasional Elder NPC in the books, and you'll note that the Tremere tend to have Thaum 5 and a half-dozen paths, which, in XP, is just ridiculous. You'd take years of playing the same character to have even half that stuff, and you'd still fall down in a cold second to a well-designed Brujah or Nosferatu *starting character.*

Depending on the rules, Celerity is either ridiculously overpowered or a waste of points. In either case, some house rules can bring it down (or buff it up) to somewhere in the middle, where it becomes useful, but not crazygood.

Potence is surprisingly useful. A starting character with Potence 5 *and nothing else* is very playable. Make the character a Brujah with a level of Celerity or a Nosferatu with a couple levels of Obfuscate, and you have a scary effective combat character. Throw on whatever social skills you want to be more than 'Punches Stuff Lad,' and you can make a decently rounded character.

Fortitude is probably never a bad idea. No matter how much you want to be the manipulative schemer who plots all Godfather-like from behind the scenes, you are going to be dragged kicking and screaming into gunfights, werewolf attacks and exposures to fire, holy water and sunlight. (Yet another reason that Tremere are frustrating in play. You *never* get to actually play a Tremere. At best, you get to play a dude who blew half his freebies and XP to have a flamethrower up his sleeve.)

Presence and Dominate and Obfuscate are all, in different ways, bread and butter disciplines (with Animalism also having potential).

The 'sexy' Clan-exclusive or rarer Disciplines of Thaumaturgy, Protean, Obtenebration, Dementation, etc. are, for the most part, over-rated, because the things that one wants to do in Vampire, amass resources, collect favors, hoard influences, groom followers, etc. those disciplines are utterly unsuited towards. (Indeed, if you are playing a Malkavian, taking Dementation will make you *less* effective at driving people crazy than if you had Dominate, and a Nosferatu who skimps on Animalism is just wrecking his ability to perform the clan's self-appointed role as information brokers.)

If Necromancy is available, run, don't walk. It's one of the few 'rare' Disciplines (well, as rare as you can get when you are a Clan discipline for the Giovanni, Samedi, Kiasyd, Nagaraja and / or Cappadocians...) that is awesome for spying on people (ghosts!), attacking people (ghosts!), influencing people's actions (ghosts!), etc. It's like having some insane combination of Thaumaturgy, Auspex and Dominate, in the right hands, and if Wraith rules are in play, it's like having a Discipline called 'Summon and Control Werewolves,' in that it puts in the Kindred's hot little hands the power of an entire rules system that their fellow Vampires *don't even know about,* and are utterly unable to effectively plan against, let alone resist.

Chen
2010-05-23, 06:57 PM
We (my vampire larp chapter) made a list ranking clans in terms of friendliness to new players, and Tremere sat right at the bottom, for a bunch of reasons.

1. All the other clans hate the Tremere. An action which in a brujah would be taken for youthful inexperience, and in a malkavian would be seen as madness, if performed by a tremere will be viewed as part of some plot and punished.

This depends on your city I'd imagine. Not sure if you were saying it as a general Tremere thing or just your city.



2. You are in real danger from your own clan. If you frack up, your clan will either kill you, or punish you in a way that removes you from play (You are confined to chantry for the next 25 years. Then we will talk.). There is very little room for error in clan tremere. If you leave the clan, going rogue, you get hunted by badass elders with auspex.

When we play Vampire most clans are like this. You do something to make the Ventrue look bad in the city, and the Ventrue primogen is going to have your ass on a platter. Unless you're an elder yourself, the elders of your clan are always going to be able to **** you. Now granted the other clans don't have a vial of your blood in Vienna to Chill of the Windsaber you if you REALLY get out of line, but that doesn't usually come up for most neonate/ancillae Tremere either.



3. Tremere thaum is powerful, but many paths are extremely un-masquerade friendly. Things like presence, auspex and dominate will rarely spark a breach. Even the low levels of the physical disciplines can often be written off as just someone really strong or fast, or maybe the wound wasn't as bad as it looked. A tremere who finds himself in combat in public can't run, and can't fight. (yes, a tremere could load up on dominate or auspex, but most new players seem to aim right at the flashy thaum powers that will get them killed.)

Path of Blood 3 is the broken discipline and is perfectly Masquerade safe. Vitae Infusion and Burning Blade (which doesn't actually burn for some reason) are both also safe. I'll grant things like Lure of Flames are pretty Masquerade breaking. But things like Creation and Movement of the Mind are fairly easy to use subtly enough. I do agree they are tougher to use.

Brock Samson
2010-05-23, 07:19 PM
Btw, the story goes: we were specifically bred to take over San Francisco. It's mostly filled/controlled by Anarch's and there's not a lot of Camarilla influence there. So the 7 or so of us (if everyone shows) are the strike force sent to go in and, well, try to take over. We've got a Nosferatu with Obfuscate 5, so he can cloak the party. One member with a high Auspex, a Ventrue with some Presence and Dominate, myself and another Brujah who's got high Potence and a little Presence. Possibly a tremere if she shows doing what path I don't know.

Chen
2010-05-23, 09:52 PM
Btw, the story goes: we were specifically bred to take over San Francisco. It's mostly filled/controlled by Anarch's and there's not a lot of Camarilla influence there. So the 7 or so of us (if everyone shows) are the strike force sent to go in and, well, try to take over. We've got a Nosferatu with Obfuscate 5, so he can cloak the party. One member with a high Auspex, a Ventrue with some Presence and Dominate, myself and another Brujah who's got high Potence and a little Presence. Possibly a tremere if she shows doing what path I don't know.

Cloak is capped to a number of people equal to your stealth. A full 5 people cloaked (3 of which have potence) will likely destroy practically all reasonable opposition that can be put towards them. Only real problem is dealing with Majesty if you don't kill the Presence users outright.

Quincunx
2010-05-24, 06:12 AM
[A bunch of good advice on optimizing common disciplines]

. . .The 'sexy' Clan-exclusive or rarer Disciplines of Thaumaturgy, Protean, Obtenebration, Dementation, etc. are, for the most part, over-rated, because the things that one wants to do in Vampire, amass resources, collect favors, hoard influences, groom followers, etc. those disciplines are utterly unsuited towards. . . .


This, on the other hand, isn't quite true. The heart of Vampire is better expressed as "screwing other people over" and "not getting screwed yourself", and the unique disciplines can do that just fine. (I'll grant you the middle levels of Dementation being weak in mostly being ways to express roleplay in measurable stats, but meddling with people's level of agitation, with just one level, is quite fun. Demagogues get so annoyed when their firebrand speeches fail to rouse the hotheads to action. Animalism users always seem to receive the blame for this failure to react, as well.)

The houserule of "one of everything" from diablerie (one generation, one physical stat etc., one ability etc., one level of closest-matched discipline. . .) pastes a sizable target on every silly newbie who goes straight unique-discipline and makes the problem self-correcting after awhile. I don't know how well it would hold up in a game where diablerists weren't under death sentences, though.

Brock Samson
2010-05-24, 07:32 PM
So anywho, with my current character, does anyone have a suggestion for general tactics I should use?

Obviously when we want to confront someone and know where they are, we can use the Nosferatu's cloaking, but when someone comes to us unawares, should I fire off Level 3 Presence round one, spend 2 points to buff my dex, and another blood point to use celerity, and if it appears they're somehow not affected by Presence, just hit/shoot them?

I take it for large groups I want to use Majesty.

For someone trying to dominate me they're going to have to be at least my generation 8, can I spend a willpower to negate(perm or temp) dominate?

Basically, what should I do when confronted with lots of less powerful enemies, a few very powerful enemies, enemies who aren't vampires, or any other potential threats.

comicshorse
2010-05-24, 08:08 PM
Why do I get the feeling you're not quite getting into the idea of Vampire as a game of personal horror and subtle political manouevering. :smallsmile:

Chen
2010-05-25, 08:02 AM
So anywho, with my current character, does anyone have a suggestion for general tactics I should use?

Obviously when we want to confront someone and know where they are, we can use the Nosferatu's cloaking, but when someone comes to us unawares, should I fire off Level 3 Presence round one, spend 2 points to buff my dex, and another blood point to use celerity, and if it appears they're somehow not affected by Presence, just hit/shoot them?

Presence 3 just makes the person treat you as a trusted friend and ally. You start killing his other friends or your friends start killing his friends/him and he'll likely still fight back. Probably buys you a round or something. Also I'm pretty sure you can't activate 2 disciplines in one round, so no Presence + Celerity. If you have Majesty, just start with that and win the combat if you have to. Course if there's a Tremere in the group that is attacking you, this can screw you if they have Pavise of the Foul Presence (which really any self-respecting Tremere would have). You can start with Awe to get rid of that, but that wastes a round too.


For someone trying to dominate me they're going to have to be at least my generation 8, can I spend a willpower to negate(perm or temp) dominate?

I'm pretty sure you can't use Willpower to stop dominate. Dominate is harder to use in combat though.


Basically, what should I do when confronted with lots of less powerful enemies, a few very powerful enemies, enemies who aren't vampires, or any other potential threats.

How strong are the random vampires you'll be facing? Remember you can use cloak to vanish the entire coterie (well 5 of you) as well if need be, as long as the people arn't experts at perception-alertness. If the weaker opponents don't have Auspex 5 they're going to get screwed because attacking out of Obfuscate is likely going to one shot people.

VtM is a mechanically BAD game for combat. Its realistic in that whoever gets the jump on the other side will likely just win unless there's a MASSIVE power disparity. If you have a coterie of 7ish people all with 30ish freebies available you're already at game breaking levels of power with respect to combat, unless you're just fighting 8th gen and lower vampires.

Gnaeus
2010-05-25, 08:43 AM
This depends on your city I'd imagine. Not sure if you were saying it as a general Tremere thing or just your city.

The list was made as a guide by and for my city. However, I was the Tremere lord of 2 states for the camarilla larp for a couple of years, and I can tell you that at least in the Cam (The nationwide white wolf fan club) the Tremere were certainly and by far the least trusted and the least new player friendly of the clans. My primary job was bringing down the hammer on new players, which was NEVER, EVER fun for me or them.


Path of Blood 3 is the broken discipline and is perfectly Masquerade safe. Vitae Infusion and Burning Blade (which doesn't actually burn for some reason) are both also safe. I'll grant things like Lure of Flames are pretty Masquerade breaking. But things like Creation and Movement of the Mind are fairly easy to use subtly enough. I do agree they are tougher to use.

See above. I have seen Tremere do every stupid thing with Thaum you can imagine, and some that will blow your mind (The thought of path of elemental mastery still makes me twitch). The common reaction among new players is Tremere=3.5 Wizard > 3.5 Wizard=Fireball > Tremere=Fireball. When in fact far more common is Tremere=Fireball > Tremere=ash. New players should try very hard to use the awesome, quiet tremere powers. Dominate, Auspex, Low Level path of blood.


When we play Vampire most clans are like this. You do something to make the Ventrue look bad in the city, and the Ventrue primogen is going to have your ass on a platter. Unless you're an elder yourself, the elders of your clan are always going to be able to **** you. Now granted the other clans don't have a vial of your blood in Vienna to Chill of the Windsaber you if you REALLY get out of line, but that doesn't usually come up for most neonate/ancillae Tremere either

Yeah, ventrue will do that too, although they don't have your blood, and they might not be able to find you since they don't have auspex in clan.

Brujah, Gangrel and Malkavian are generally the most forgiving of new player mistakes. They are kind of expected to mess up sometimes, and the clans aren't big hierarchies, so if you can work things out with/escape from your sire or the local guy, you are clear. You can also jump sect with few repercussions.

Nos you are usually OK as long as you don't go way over the line. Again, you can freely jump sect, sometimes even go back and forth.

Toreador and Ventrue will punish you for errors and you will be expected to behave. But it is usually more a matter of house/lineage than clan. They DO punish people severely for error, but it is usually your sire doing it, who at least thought you were useful at some point, and probably still has plans for you, so he isn't likely to bury you. They might try to kill you for jumping sect, but lots of vampires do with little trouble. Their disciplines are very masquerade safe, so you probably didn't accidently frack up the masquerade.

Tremere you probably have to deal with the local regent, who may or may not even like you. If you really fracked up, you have to answer to the lord, who certainly has a hit squad on hand and can totally have you kidnapped and transported to a tremere run praxis for speedy execution. You may ALSO have to deal with your sire. They have your blood. You WILL be killed if you jump sect, because they are very jealous about thaum secrets escaping. You can also be killed for just keeping quiet, moving away and dropping off the radar, which is usually a good defense in most clans, but in clan Tremere is considered going rogue.

Brock Samson
2010-05-27, 07:05 PM
"Why do I get the feeling you're not quite getting into the idea of Vampire as a game of personal horror and subtle political manouevering. "

With the group we're playing in, I doubt very much that a lot of anything will be handled very subtly.