[nWoD] Vampire Character Optimization with 150 XP

[savior indra]

So my friend decided he wanted to run a super fight heavy version of Vampire the Requiem set in feudal Japan (Oda Nobunaga period) with the vampire characters being part of a ninja clan.

We've been told we have 150 xp to make a character any and all vampire books, bloodlines, disciplines, Slasher merits, Armory, Armory Reloaded, Mirrors skill tricks and more are all allowed. He has also houseruled that Celerity will give an extra attack per dot of Celerity (so old school celerity).

He's told us that we will be fighting armies of fodder, along with other vampires, and "bosses" and that it will be combat heavy, so I'm asking here for a bit of help on how to optimize this character.

Thanks!

Technically I could get 160 starting XP since the ST is letting us sell 2 dots of morality. (Pre God Machine Rules Update BTW)

[Waar]

With nWoD not allowing soak good old OP celerity and some nice armor might be the only way you could expect your character to survive given the time period i would guess that you could face a mix of guns, bows and melee weapon which makes it a bit more survivable than it would have been in a present day siuation, celerety+ armor still helps thu. does celerity sill give its normal advantages in addition to the old ones (is it OP or OP :smalltongue:) stealth and clever use of Powers may be a (possibly better) alternative to armor (I don't have that many books after all). Should you be interested archery can be found as a separate skill/fighting style in Requiem for Rome. appart from that it's the usual stuff (which i ofcourse don't know very well at this time of day :smalltongue::smallwink:)

[The Glyphstone]

Well, Celerity has become the god-stat Discipline with that little houserule, letting you attack 6 times in a turn with no dice pool penalty at Celerity 5. So maxing that out will be crucial.

NWoD in general is very rocket-taggy, so you'll want a high Dex and Quick Reflexes to synergize with Celerity to max out Initiative. If you really have access to 'everything and anything', then nuts-to-the-wall cheese means taking the clan/bloodline of Akhud (from the VII book) with their amazing proprietary discipline of Praestania, Archery fighting style from Armory, and a good bow (plus the Carthian devotion that adds Celerity to Dexterity if you can get it) to wreck everyone's day as the best archer on planet Earth.

[savior indra]

Ok so based upon recommendations the character I have managed to make (listing all important specs)


Character
Int 2 Str 2 Pres 1
Wits 5 Dex 5 Mani 1
Resolve 2 Sta 2 Comp 4

Health 7
Willpower 6

Speed 12 (w/ Celerity 72)
Def 5 (w/ Celerity 10)
Dodge Def X2 + Prae = 15 (w/ Celerity 20)
Init 10 (w/ Celerity 15)

Celerity 5
Praestantia 5
Vigor 1

Athletics (Archery) 5

FS: Archery 4
Fast Ref 1
Fighting Finesse Brawl

Compound Bow 3L (4L w/ Vigor)
Dex (5) + Ath (5) + specialty (2) + Wep (3/4) + Prae (5) = 20/21 dice

Range 112/224/448 OR 120/240/480 (w/ Vigor)


Our ST said if we weren't optimized we'd die in the first game session, do you think that will be enough?

[The Glyphstone]

Based on the charts and formulae here
http://wiki.white-wolf.com/worldofdarkness/index.php?title=Probability_Math

21 dice per attack means roughly 7 lethal damage per shot, so you'll oneshot anything with less than Stam 3 and deal an average of 42 lethal in one combat turn. It will depend entirely on your ST's idea of optimized, but that is a pretty solid murder machine.


Can you give an XP spend breakdown? 1 dot of out-of-clan Auspex for 7 XP, the Quicken Sight devotion for 5 XP, then the Hair Trigger devotion for 15 XP (27 XP total) will let you spend 1 blood to add your Celerity rating to Dexterity instead of activating Celerity normally, so your attack pool would go up to 26 at the cost of dropping your Defense to 5 for the round. That makes your average damage 8.6/shot, but since you need the bonus attacks, this is a bad plan unless you have BP 4 or can diablerize your way to BP 4 quickly.

Alternately, the Youth Masquerade from Danse Macabre has Athletics as a Asset Skill. Get Masquerade **** as a merit, and you'll get 9-again on Athletics rolls (average damage up to 7.875) (plus a free Specialty in Athletics, four free Contacts, and three free 1-dot Retainers, and a -4 penalty on attempts to uncover your background). That'll run you 20 XP, and you'll still be able to spend for Celerity.

[savior indra]

sold 2 dots in Humanity for 10 xp

160 xp

10 xp for 2nd dot in Str (need for FS Archery)

10 xp for 2nd dot in stamina

10 xp for 2nd dot in intelligence

75 xp for 5 dots in praestantia

45 xp for last 2 dots in Celerity

7 xp for 1st dot in vigor

3 xp remaining

[The Glyphstone]

Shed the dot of Intelligence and the dot of Vigor, and you'll have the 20 XP you need for Masquerade (Youth) 4. Your archery base pool drops to 20, but with 9-again, your average damage goes up to 7.5


EDIT: Also, don't forget the benefit of FS: Archery 1. You're effectively Strength 3 for the purpose of using a bow, so I think that means you can use a Compound Bow that deals 4L, raising your pool back to 21 and average hits to 7.875.


EDIT 2: Though I forgot it takes an action to reload bows after your first free reload...

so shoot, shoot, reload, shoot, reload, shoot.
reload, shoot, shoot, reload, shoot, reload.

4 shots on Turn 1, 3 shots on Turn 2, 4 shots on Turn 3. That's still 31.5 average damage or 23.625 damage on a 'slow' turn.

[savior indra]

Thanks for the help Glyphstone! I went back through and realized I had only used 5 of my 7 merits at Character creation so i use the last two to get the first 2 dots of Masquerade (Youth) so I still have 6 xp left. Should I save those for vigor? or is there something immediate I should get?

[Waar]

I may be a little rusty in the sick optimization of nWoD characters deparment but from over here your character looks extremely nasty, until he/she runs out of blood (still nasty thou), well done :smallsmile:

[The Glyphstone]

I think you might be able to squeeze a bit more out, actually. You have 7 dots, you spent 4 of them into FS: Archery, that should leave 3 available. Use all 3 into Masquerade, then spend the extra XP you have available to get the cheap 1-dot merits you have now, and reassess to see if you can afford Vigor.

[savior indra]

Yup I was able to grab Vigor 1 again and left with 3 xp. so in essence this guy is probably one of the craziest BP 1 Vampires.

[The Glyphstone]

Your other stats are pretty good for surviving ambushes, too, since as a super-glass cannon you will tear like tissue paper. 9 dice to avoid surprise, Initiative 15....not sure where you put your other skills, but Stealth will be good to increase the odds of ambushing someone else, Investigation to spot hidden people and reduce the chance of an ambush to begin with, and probably Empathy to know when someone's lying to draw you into a trap.

[Salbazier]

Now, this is the kind of thing that would make want to play a Vampire game.

[savior indra]

Right so... the ST basically told us that we are going to end up fighting Shinto Gods, things with attributes around 20 and unique abilities and other stuff.

Today "all" we had to do was take out 550 cavalry, archers, and soldiers that got transformed into demons by their general which had resilience 5, armor 8, defense 8 and swung for Agg damage. The general could also pass damage along to people in his army instead of taking it himself. Its pretty lighthearted (and more like Diablo than WoD) but half our group died b/c they didn't take it to heart when the ST said if you don't optimize you die.

I was given 220 xp and I've been told to expect to fight a Mountain God next session he also removed the Blood Potency cap on skills, discipline and attribute dots. Oh joy...

[The Glyphstone]

220 additional XP? Or 220 total, so +70 XP?

[savior indra]

220 additional xp. yeah. i really have no clue what he has in store for us. It kinda worries me that he's tossing out so much xp on a whim.

[Sith_Happens]

Buy ALL the fighting styles!

[Salbazier]

:smallconfused: Lolwut. Sounds awesome. Do vampire have chance against spirit/god stuffs, tough?

[SiuiS]

Your other stats are pretty good for surviving ambushes, too, since as a super-glass cannon you will tear like tissue paper. 9 dice to avoid surprise, Initiative 15....not sure where you put your other skills, but Stealth will be good to increase the odds of ambushing someone else, Investigation to spot hidden people and reduce the chance of an ambush to begin with, and probably Empathy to know when someone's lying to draw you into a trap.

Investigation? I though avoiding ambush was straight wits+composure?


220 additional xp. yeah. i really have no clue what he has in store for us. It kinda worries me that he's tossing out so much xp on a whim.

:eek:

Well, heck. Where to begin? Red Stick is around 1,100 XP or so. It may be worht it to circumvent more neat tricks and just boost the ever loving Hel out of your attributes.

[Fouredged Sword]

Another cool trick is to use archery with the sniper final dot.

Then use the sudden strength devotion mixed with vigor/celerity to get a strength into the low teens.

Then take bodkin arrows for AP 6, and deal 13-15 auto damage with one shot per round.

[The Glyphstone]

Investigation? I though avoiding ambush was straight wits+composure?



Yeah, its wits+Comp to avoid surprise. If you're actively poking around and looking for hidden stuff, a Wits+Investigation could be used to detect that trap door/hidden blind/whatever before they even make the attempt to ambush.




@Savior: Can you Diablerize to gain Blood Potency without spending XP on it? I'm assuming the ST is being very lenient on morality rules, since you just slaughtered five thousand people at Humanity 5 without any ill effects.

[savior indra]

Yeah Glyphstone I diablerized 2 vampires (2 lieutenant of the big 'boss') and got a dot in athletics to put it up to 6 and a discipline which the ST hasn't decided on yet.

[The Glyphstone]

It's the free Blood Potency that's the real important issue, because that's a lot of XP you'd otherwise have to burn. You're BP 3 now, before spending XP?

[savior indra]

Yeah, Im at BP 3 right now. Athletics 6, Strength 2, Vigor 1, Praestantia 5, Celerity 5.

[The Glyphstone]

Okay, time to crunch some numbers.

What were the defensive stats of the demon general you fought? We need a good baseline for what you need to be able to hurt.


In the meantime....

With the sort of opposition you're facing, it'll still be better to focus on offense for now, and shore up your defenses with the next batch of XP. The trick is to figure out what buy gives you the best ratio of attack dice per XP point spent, and right now that is still Celerity because of the crazy bonus-attacks houserule.

First thing to do is buy your BP up to 4 = 32 XP. This lets you spend 2 blood/round (important).
Second, buy Auspex 1 out-of-clan for 7 XP. This is a prerequisite for...
Third, buy the Quicken Sight devotion for 5 XP. This is useless, but a prerequisite for...
Fourth, buy the Hair Trigger devotion from the Carthian book for 15 XP. This allows you to spend 1 blood to add Celerity dots to Dexterity for 1 turn. Since you have BP 4, you can do this and still activate Celerity for the bonus attacks.
Fifth, buy Celerity itself up as high as you can afford...with 223 XP, minus the 59 spent above, leaves enough to get Celerity 9 with 150 XP invested.

You've got 14 XP left. Spend 6 of this for 2 dots of Fighting Style: Boxing, to get the Duck and Weave maneuver. Now, against anyone trying to hit you with Brawl attacks (including people with Protean claws, and probably "mountain gods", you add the higher of your Dexterity or Wits, not the lower....when Hair Trigger is up, that means your base Defense is 14, 23 after Celerity, and you can probably find some good armor to wear.

[savior indra]

resilience 5 (at least most likely 8), armor 8, defense 8. He also had an artifact that allowed him to transfer damage taken to his soldiers instead of himself.

He said that he wouldn't make stuff difficult to hit, but just have ridiculous amounts of damage mitigation, armor, and regenerative abilities.

[The Glyphstone]

Cool. That means we don't need to worry so much about maxing dice pools as total damage.


With the sort of opposition you're facing, it'll still be better to focus on offense for now, and shore up your defenses with the next batch of XP. The trick is to figure out what buy gives you the best ratio of attack dice per XP point spent, and right now that is still Celerity because of the crazy bonus-attacks houserule.

First thing to do is buy your BP up to 4 = 32 XP. This lets you spend 2 blood/round (important).
Second, buy Auspex 1 out-of-clan for 7 XP. This is a prerequisite for...
Third, buy the Quicken Sight devotion for 5 XP. This is useless, but a prerequisite for...
Fourth, buy the Hair Trigger devotion from the Carthian book for 15 XP. This allows you to spend 1 blood to add Celerity dots to Dexterity for 1 turn. Since you have BP 4, you can do this and still activate Celerity for the bonus attacks.
Fifth, buy Celerity itself up as high as you can afford...with 223 XP, minus the 59 spent above, leaves enough to get Celerity 9 with 150 XP invested.

You've got 14 XP left. Spend 6 of this for 2 dots of Fighting Style: Boxing, to get the Duck and Weave maneuver. Now, against anyone trying to hit you with Brawl attacks (including people with Protean claws, and probably "mountain gods", you add the higher of your Dexterity or Wits, not the lower....when Hair Trigger is up, that means your base Defense is 14, 23 after Celerity, and you can probably find some good armor to wear.

No idea what do with the 8 XP you've got left, sadly. Maybe 1 dot of Theban Sorcery, to get the Vitae Reliquary ritual and be able to carry extra blood? Your invocation rolls are going to be absolutely terrible (chance dice, in fact, unless you have a dot in Academics), but if your combats run longer than 6 rounds, and you can perform the rituals in downtime, this might be good.


Oh, and buy Bodkin arrows, for Armor Piercing 4.

[savior indra]

Thanks for the help Glyphstone!

And would purchasing the Quietus discipline in the future be worth it? To get the 4th dot that lets me coat a weapon (or arrows) in my vitae to do Agg damage?

And the way we are doing damage is weird. So I would roll Dex + Ath+ Praestantia + Wep damage as bonus dice, and any successes on that roll over the targets defense get added to the wep damage.

so for example hitting the general who has a def of 8.

Dex (5) + Ath (6) + Specialty (2)+ Praestantia (5) + Wep damage (5) and say I get 13 successes. I would do the wep damage of 5L + the number of successes over the targets def so I would do a total of 10L. I roll 9 Again, and he's counting 6 and above as a success. So I was dealing like 100+ L damage a turn. The boss had about 400 soldiers to redirect that damage towards though so it still took forever to kill.

[The Glyphstone]

Quietus is an OWoD discipline, it doesn't exist in NWoD unless you're using the Masquerade Conversion Guide.

And hey, that just means more damage, if you get the weapon dice plus its rating in automatic successes for damage.


So with the new spends, you're doing Dex (14) + Praestantia (5) + Athletics (6) + Specialty (2? Normally it's 1, this must be another houserule) + Weapon rating (4) = 30 or 31 dice before applying Defense.

[savior indra]

Ill talk to my ST next time to see if he's allowing the conversion guide. If he is, is it worth the investment?

[The Glyphstone]

That depends very much on how long the poison lasts once you apply it, and how many arrows you can coat with each dot. If those numbers are good, it might be worth it if the enemies you fight heal Lethal real fast...otherwise you just overwhelm their healing by doing enough Lethal to wrap into Agg anyways.

Arrows are smaller than Size 1, so it'd be ST discretion how many arrowheads can be coated at a time.

[Salbazier]

In Danse Macabre there is Dicipline Skill and Combat Discipline. They are alternate rules but maybe you can try asking your ST if you can get them as merits. With all the house rules its not impossible. The Discipline skill allows you to add Discipline dots to skill (Celerity add to Athletics and Larceny). Offer to use option four since its the most tame (must spend 1 Vitae to get Discipline skill benefit for 1 scene)