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DoctorHobo
2011-02-08, 05:28 PM
I have recently discovered a group of D&D players at the local library and been invited to play. Happy day! However, the very next time they convene, they are beginning a V:tM campaign, so I'm making a character for that.

I have decided, upon seeing my options, that I want to make a character of titanic strength, and have made a Caitiff with disciplines as follows:

Protean 2
Potence 2
Fortitude 1
(Yes, I spent 14 of my freebie points on disciplines)

I felt the protean ranks were necessary because of those claws, which deal aggravated damage, as opposed to punching, which deals mostly ignored damage.

What I'd like to know is if there's a way I can eat my cake and have it, too. Could I put those ranks of Protean into Potence and use instead a knife to tear apart my foes? I've never played V:tM and could do with just some general advice on the combat in this system. Thanks in advance!

Set
2011-02-08, 06:36 PM
It's much 'cheaper' to buy high level disciplines with your starting dots and freebies, than it is to try to purchase them later with XP.

For a completely pointless skull-basher, I went Brujah with Potence 5. She later picked up a level of Celerity and a level of Fortitude, but she was pure offense. (I'd started the game with a Tremere scholar / political thinktank sort who considered Thaumaturgy a trap, and focused entirely on Auspex and Dominate, but found that the game degenerated, session after session, into endless fights with ridiculous foes (garou, against starting kindred? Gah), with multiple character deaths per session, so I ditched the academic and played something suited for mindless carnage, which made the experience much more fun for me. She still died, but I didn't care, since that's what she was made to do. Ride the rocket, wave the hat and hoot and holler on the way down.)

If all you wanted from Protean was a reliable source of Aggravated damage, it's easier to blow some resources on a shotgun with dragonsbreath rounds, or use freebies to pick up a Merit that gives you a magic dagger or something.

Nosferatu also make good skull-busters. Pump up the disguise skill and start with Potence 5. Once you can afford it, get the first couple levels of Obfuscate. Assamites will cry at how effectively a Potence 5 vampire can murder someone with a fire axe attack from out of Obfuscate.

IMO, that sort of character is radically missing 90% of the fun potential of Vampire the Masquerade, but sometimes that's what the ST is offering, and it's much, much less frustrating to abandon one's dreams of politicking and machinations and social powerbrokering and adapt to the fighty mcfighty stuff going on.

Loki Eremes
2011-02-08, 07:12 PM
It's much 'cheaper' to buy high level disciplines with your starting dots and freebies, than it is to try to purchase them later with XP.

For a completely pointless skull-basher, I went Brujah with Potence 5. She later picked up a level of Celerity and a level of Fortitude, but she was pure offense. (I'd started the game with a Tremere scholar / political thinktank sort who considered Thaumaturgy a trap, and focused entirely on Auspex and Dominate, but found that the game degenerated, session after session, into endless fights with ridiculous foes (garou, against starting kindred? Gah), with multiple character deaths per session, so I ditched the academic and played something suited for mindless carnage, which made the experience much more fun for me. She still died, but I didn't care, since that's what she was made to do. Ride the rocket, wave the hat and hoot and holler on the way down.)

If all you wanted from Protean was a reliable source of Aggravated damage, it's easier to blow some resources on a shotgun with dragonsbreath rounds, or use freebies to pick up a Merit that gives you a magic dagger or something.

Nosferatu also make good skull-busters. Pump up the disguise skill and start with Potence 5. Once you can afford it, get the first couple levels of Obfuscate. Assamites will cry at how effectively a Potence 5 vampire can murder someone with a fire axe attack from out of Obfuscate.

IMO, that sort of character is radically missing 90% of the fun potential of Vampire the Masquerade, but sometimes that's what the ST is offering, and it's much, much less frustrating to abandon one's dreams of politicking and machinations and social powerbrokering and adapt to the fighty mcfighty stuff going on.


Beware. He is a begginer at VtM.
Ill say something about Vampire system: Defense is the keyword.

Having 5 potence isnt worth it if you could not absorb damage, and remember that this game is about survival. You got only 7 HP (8 with a merit) but thats all youll get.

The Disciplines you choose are great, but those are mostly of the gangrel clan, so, maybe choosing Gangrel will save you XP (buy non clan disciplines with freebies)


Dragonbreath bullets are awesome, but....its not the most common thing to find in the streets, and.... its the worst nightmare for any DM.
I mean, i remember my gangrel obliterating 5 garous in 1 round, alone.
So forget that a DM will give unlimited agravating damage dealing bullets to you.


As Set said, a pure melee character always miss VtM fun: ROLEPLAYING.
everyone out there wants to be Dracula or Alucard xD, but if your DM is hoping to play a normal "realistic" VtMasquerade campaing...bet your money to Social Disciplines and/OR skills.

My Gangrel was almost full melee, but he got some social skills and a bit of a good looking semblance :smallwink:

DoctorHobo
2011-02-08, 07:33 PM
I've noticed these on my character sheet Merits and Flaws. Unfortunately, I can't find anything in the book that addresses them. Am I missing a book other than this pretty green thing with a rose on it?

Actually, right in the middle of writing this, I discovered them in the back of the book. FEAR MY OBSERVATORY SKILLS.

This has not shown me these dragonbreath bullets however, though they sound pretty fantastic. Guns that shoot fire? Sign me up.

Would it be more in my interest to put my protean points into Fortitude? One into both Fortitude and Potence? I admit Gangrel sounded appealing and when I started making this character, he was indeed a Gangrel, but then I read the bit about gaining animal body parts whenever I unleash the beast, and that turned me off it. (Colour me shallow. :smalltongue:)

I may well be making a Fighty McFighty character, but I did take a bit of effort in making him roleplayable! His few points in knowledges paint him as a medical student who wanted to help people, but all of sudden, "Oh no! I'm a giant machine of death! I'll have to help people this way."

Also, magic dagger? Do tell.

Loki Eremes
2011-02-08, 08:25 PM
magic dagger: he was reffering to magical items that appears in a certain book i couldnt remember right now, just forget it if you and your group are starting to play. Its not a bad idea but those are rare in the current time and era, not to mention that you will have plenty of options.

This is not D&D, so try using your imagination. You got technology far beyond D&D age. PCs, cellphones, cameras, chemestry and a lot of crazy stuff that replaces magic.

Protean into Fortitud.... mmmm, i will say...raise both almost at the same time.
Protean powers is what makes a Gangrel a survivor man.
Animalism is the third great Discipline that you are not including, and its awesom to speak and command animals. They are great spyes and you could turn them into a little army of ghouls.

You said your PC were a medicine student? what about a veterinary?

I used animalism and once had 3 dogs: 2 were made for combat, and 1 was a little cute bastard i occasionally used to lure people into my fangs xD.


ONE MORE THING ABOUT POTENCE.
Its magnificent to have automatic damage, but remember that according to your generation, you could BOOST you physical attributes.
EX: an 8th gen vampire could use 3 blood point per round. that equals 3 STR point boost for 3 rounds (i think that was the duration).

Caliphbubba
2011-02-08, 10:20 PM
Extra Actions are KING in V:TM combat if you ask me. You don't NEED to be able to take the damage someone else dishes out if you can DODGE it.

So with that in mind if you want to make a skullbashing out of the box character this is what I would do: Be a Brujah.

Potence: 3
Celerity: 3

so much more deadly than 5 potence in my opinion. The 5 potence guy attacks you once. You dodge. Then you likely hit him 3 times for a minimum of 9 health levels of damage.

Dump all of your Freebies and 7 points of flaws into disciplines and tear stuff up.

Regular Punches do Lethal damage if you have Potence. Or Grapple and then BITE for Agg damage.

Put 5 into Wits and get as much Alertness as you can, 3 probably. to make sure you go first and get to react to everyone else.

You will likely wreck things.

Potence: 0/1
Celerity 3/4
Protean 2 is pretty deadly as well.

Dingle
2011-02-09, 08:03 AM
Yep, extra actions are KING;
brujah (celerity), good combat skill and a weapon of some sort and you should be combat ready for most purposes
dex and wits are good stats (good for initiative, and just generally useful)

Frenzies depend a lot on your ST, mine hardly ever makes us roll for frenzy
(My gangrel's only frenzy was after I botched a self control after diablerie (I did lose a humanity and gain a derrangement though))

Weapons and Potence are generally better than protean.
Protean removes thier Stamina (1-5 points, depending on ST(mine generally uses sta as a dump stat)), but only against other vampires
The claws are also expensive to use (1 blood and 1 turn(ACTION))

A large weapon (axe) adds 2 dice above claws to your damage, and allows parries (parrying hands hurts the other guy), and doesn't cost anything

Potence 2 with a kitchen knife (let alone a large sword) will probably do more damage than claws.

The main benefit of claws is that they can't be healed, and you can always be armed, so noone would want to pick a fight (even if they win, they're spending the next week recovering and they need to find 1-3 full people worth of blood)

Comparisson of gangrel and Brujah:
In a fight, the Brujah would win most of the time.
The gangrel is second best in a straight fight, but it's definately not easy.

and... it's easier to kill a brujah outside of a straight fight:
arson, landmine, drive by shooting, snipers...
none of which work half as well on the gangrel.

So, if you want a gangrel dead, you need to beat the second best in a straight fight, and even if you win, that's your whole week ruined.

Leaving a sort of Rock, Paper, Scissors situation:
Brujah > Gangrel > Backgrounds (Allies, Resources, Mentor...) > Brujah


Be careful about getting a load of flaws (They do help you to be better at whatever you , but they could cripple you one day)

see: for a more general OWOD combat discussion (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=10006552&postcount=5)
There is Nwod stuff in that thread, which uses different mechanics to Vaomire The Masquerade

Chen
2011-02-09, 08:56 AM
As everyone else said extra actions are king. Celerity is going to be needed for combat if you're going toe to toe. Brujah work well since they have celerity and potence in addition to the extremely useful Presence discipline.

Obfuscate can also work since the attack coming out of obfuscate is easier to hit with (I think) and Nosferatu also have potence. You hit someone with a fireman's axe coming out of obfuscate with 3+ potence and they're probably going to die.

I'd be wary of playing a Caitiff as well. Sure you can twink out your disciplines, but RP implications are very large. Caitiff are generally scum in kindred society. A Caitiff who can grow wolf claws is probably not going to make too many friends among the gangrel. Protean is generally supposed to be kept among the clan.

Zuljita
2011-02-09, 10:11 AM
I havent played WoD in a little while but IIRC a switchblade drops your diff for melee attacks down to 3 or somesuch, which means that paired with free damage on potence, you can do a crapton of damage on a celeritied turn. Keep it in mind.

Loki Eremes
2011-02-09, 12:24 PM
the only Problem with Celerity is how your DM rules it.
I mean, after the first time I Dm'd, me, and my players agreed that 1 blood point was too little of a cost compared to the awesome benefits from it, so we decided ruling it as in medieval ages: 1 blood point per Celerity lvl used that round. (obviously, this power is not restricted by the blood limit of each generation)

Caliphbubba
2011-02-09, 12:28 PM
the only Problem with Celerity is how your DM rules it.
I mean, after the first time I Dm'd, me, and my players agreed that 1 blood point was too little of a cost compared to the awesome benefits from it, so we decided ruling it as in medieval ages: 1 blood point per Celerity lvl used that round. (obviously, this power is not restricted by the blood limit of each generation)

Even if you use the Dark Ages version of Celerity, it is STILL the best combat discipline there is, pound for pound. You just have to manage your blood a little more carefully. And it has the added benifit of not counting toward your generational limit of blood per turn, so you could spend blood for celerity and pump dexterity for instance in the same round even if you are 10+ gen.

Fortitude is hands down the worst physical disc. If it gave auto-sucesses like Potence I might re-think my position but as is it's not nearly as good as the other two.

Chen
2011-02-09, 12:38 PM
Fortitude is hands down the worst physical disc. If it gave auto-sucesses like Potence I might re-think my position but as is it's not nearly as good as the other two.

Auto-success would negate potence nicely but would make you far too durable against things without potence.

Caliphbubba
2011-02-09, 12:46 PM
Auto-success would negate potence nicely but would make you far too durable against things without potence.

that might be true.

Personally I always liked the house rule of auto-success against lethal or bashing, and a roll of stamin+fortitude vs. agg.(except fire and sunlight, which only got a fortitude roll).

But that's neither here, nor there. The fact remains that if you are trying to make a skullbusting character for Vampire, Fortitude is not the way to go most of the time.

comicshorse
2011-02-09, 12:51 PM
I havent played WoD in a little while but IIRC a switchblade drops your diff for melee attacks down to 3 or somesuch, which means that paired with free damage on potence, you can do a crapton of damage on a celeritied turn. Keep it in mind.

That was true for the first edition of the game but hasn't been used in any other editions for the simple reason it makes using a switchblade more dangerous than weilding a two handed battleaxe !
One of the ideas that didn't work out, like Clerity giving you extra actions AND adding its level to your Dex

I'd also point out that I believe Dragonsbreath rounds are expensive, hard to find, have lousy range and a tendency to warp the barrel of the shotgun you fire them from ( so can blow up in your face when you fire them)

Lionheart
2011-02-09, 01:21 PM
Just a couple of things to think about,

Firstly buying attributes at character gen is way cheaper than buying disciplines, and disciplines are cheaper later. This might not seem like a big deal now, but it will matter when you want to get your strength to 5 and need to pay 28xp for it.

Secondly, if you really want to smash things and be a melee combat monster, you just have to be brujah. In the brujah clanbook, they have a combination discipline (I forget it's name) so when you have Potence+Celerity 3 you can deal aggravated damage with your fists.
Being able to dish out loads of damage is really great and all, but if it's not agg it just doesn't matter.

If you're not up for that then it has to be gangrel or caitiff with all combat disciplines.

Caliphbubba
2011-02-09, 01:29 PM
Just a couple of things to think about,

Firstly buying attributes at character gen is way cheaper than buying disciplines, and disciplines are cheaper later. This might not seem like a big deal now, but it will matter when you want to get your strength to 5 and need to pay 28xp for it.

Secondly, if you really want to smash things and be a melee combat monster, you just have to be brujah. In the brujah clanbook, they have a combination discipline (I forget it's name) so when you have Potence+Celerity 3 you can deal aggravated damage with your fists.
Being able to dish out loads of damage is really great and all, but if it's not agg it just doesn't matter.

If you're not up for that then it has to be gangrel or caitiff with all combat disciplines.

Attributes are always cheaper to buy than disciplines, AFAIK disciplines are 5 times current level for in-clan. so to go from 4 potence to 5 is 20xp. Attributes are 4 times current level so to go from 4 strength to 5 is 16xp.

Dealing Agg isn't always the best thing to do, depending on your intentions as well... hard to suck the soul of a pile of ash. beating things into torpor is just as effective as ashing them.

Loki Eremes
2011-02-09, 02:07 PM
Even if you use the Dark Ages version of Celerity, it is STILL the best combat discipline there is, pound for pound. You just have to manage your blood a little more carefully. And it has the added benifit of not counting toward your generational limit of blood per turn, so you could spend blood for celerity and pump dexterity for instance in the same round even if you are 10+ gen.

Fortitude is hands down the worst physical disc. If it gave auto-sucesses like Potence I might re-think my position but as is it's not nearly as good as the other two.

Yup, thats what i was saying.
And yeah, i forgot we rule Fortitud as auto-success.
Potence is auto success. So we tought: why not fortitud?

comicshorse
2011-02-09, 02:11 PM
Even if you use the Dark Ages version of Celerity, it is STILL the best combat discipline there is, pound for pound. You just have to manage your blood a little more carefully. And it has the added benifit of not counting toward your generational limit of blood per turn, so you could spend blood for celerity and pump dexterity for instance in the same round even if you are 10+ gen.



And you can always get 'Retain the Quick Blood'

The_Jackal
2011-02-09, 02:12 PM
Okay, a couple of things:

1) Do yourself and your game a favor: Talk with your storyteller on what kind of chronicle he wants to run before your just stamp out a vampire mook. A properly run vampire game should have both intrigue and bloodshed in equal measure, and making a one-dimensional toon will mean AT BEST that you're bored silly half the time.

2) Any Storyteller worth his salt should forbid you from getting 5 dots in one discipline from the word go, and in any case, it also makes you a one-dimensional character that's far less fun to play. It's FAR more fun to grab 1 point in 5 different disciplines than going all-in on one, and it's nearly as cost-effective, from a minimaxing perspective. Plus, any discipline you start out with will get your foot in the door if you want to raise it later.

3) As others have pointed out, Caitiff are cheesers and everyone hates them. Avoid like the plague.

So, if you must play a combat heavy toon, I recommend going with Gangrel, grabbing 1 each in your clan disciplines, plus 1 celerity and 1 potence. After you spend 5 XP, you can still grab your claws very early in the chronicle. You'll be a good, all round physical powerhouse, without being one-dimensional, and in the long run, a more flexible and powerful character.

Chen
2011-02-09, 02:21 PM
Potence is auto success. So we tought: why not fortitud?

Does everything you fight have potence? Imagine a char with 5 Str, 5 Dex and 5 Melee vs a character with 5 Fortitude and 5 Stamina.

10 dice to hit results in ~5 successes (assuming standard difficulty). Damage is then 9 dice which averages to 4.5 successes. All of which are completely negated by Fort 5 they don't even need to roll.

Imagine the same character pumps both their Dex and Str to 10. This is 7.5 successes on the attack and 16.5 dice on the damage.

That results in ~ 8-9 damage, 5 of which is soaked by the Fort and another 2.5 of which is soaked by the 5 Sta they have. Results maybe 1 or 2 damage. And thats with a 10 Str and Dex (10 blood expenditure) and a 5 in their combat skill and no dodging on the part of the defender. And the defender can spend a mere 2 blood and completely heal up.

Potence can be countered (somewhat) via dodge and pumping Sta. Autosuccess on fortitude can really only be countered by Potence.

Loki Eremes
2011-02-09, 02:45 PM
problem here is that Fortitud is a Discipline,
Reaching the 5th lvl is not an easy task if you beging from 1 or 2 points.
Lets assume you begin at lvl 1. you need about 55 XP points to rise it up to lvl 5.
winning 2~3 XP points per sesion... youll need about 18 sesions to do that.
So if im the player, at least i'd expect for that discipline to work that way.


And if you begin from the start with 5 points in it....your character probably is only fortitud personified...and nothing else.

Yeah, you are superman, but you cant do more than that at that point.
You could spend defect points on other disciplines but... i dont know. It feels out of place to start with these abilities at higher lvls when you are supposed to be new to the vampire world an lack from experience...

vegetalss4
2011-02-09, 02:46 PM
you can only boost your attributes to a maximum of one higher than your normal cap, so 6 for generation 8+, so the vampire from your example have to be at most a 4th generation vampire, and really at that point you are way in over your head*



*in most games.

Celebrochan
2011-02-09, 02:56 PM
Potence is the way to go.

Dingle
2011-02-09, 05:02 PM
Fortitude is definately weaker than the other 2 in combat, but it's more useful out of combat.
Fortitude removes your weaknesses.
Fortitude also lets you survive until the fight.
(hit and run, arson, mined doors, drive by shootings, snipers... can all kill a maxed (5 potence, 5 celerity) Brujah, but a decent gangrel or ventrue can survive all of them, and hit you back where it hurts (blood/time and your pocket/friends respectively))

Potence opens doors (literally), but is worse than celerity in combat, unless you use it twice (clinch).

Celerity is balanced by its cost, and its lack of any use if you're not already in a fight and prepared (it kicks in the turn after you spend the blood)
but once the fight starts, celerity is king