Vampire The Masquerade Question

[juggalotis]

Just recently tried this system enjoying it a lot. but i wish to inquire whether there is a build anyone knows for a "werewolf hunter" style vampire. Anyone? please?

[Riffington]

Sabbat Gangrel are probably most likely to try something like that. The ability to shake off the wyrm scent will be super useful...

[Dixieboy]

Well hunting werewolfs as a vampire doesn't seem like something that would require a special build, it does however seem like a really bad idea.

I guess if you really want to "hunt" them, as in tracking them down and putting a silver bullet through their brain, I'd go for a clan with fortitude and/or potence. (Or gangrel) so you have a chance of surviving should your first shot not kill it.

I'd furthermore get as many dudes together as possible, and as much equipment as you can get, seeing as you can hardly stand up to it mano y mano. (Barring gangrel)

Oh, and get the help of a tremere, they have a lot of nice abilities in different splatbooks for killing specific enemies.

[GoatToucher]

The unfortunate thing about werewolves in a culture with firearms is that anybody with a gun and a few silver bullets can be a fairly effective werewolf hunter.

The problem for the hunter arises if you fail to kill the werewolf the first time. Then the werewolf will be hunting you, and werewolves make pretty good vampire hunters. You have to be a pretty powerful combat speced vampire to not get torn into gobbets by a starting out werewolf.

[Oracle_Hunter]

Tremere with the Fire Path.

The ability to just set Werewolves on fire can get a lot done on its own

[Set]

A rank 2 Black Fury can do enough Aggravated damage with a single claw hit that an Antediluvian with Stamina 10 + Fortitude 10 won't even need to roll dice. He'll just be ash. In fact, she could do enough damage to kill some random schmuck vampire standing behind him as well (if any sort of blowthrough rules existed), and can do that nine times a round, at the cost of 'blowing her wad' and having to rest afterwards (if, yanno, there happened to be *nine* Sta 10 + Fort 10 Antediluvians all lined up within range). That's rank 2, mind you. The equivalent of a modestly experienced vampire Neonate.

It's pretty much unkillable, and if it touches you, you die forever, and it has automatic free Celerity. So basically, you'll be fighting Wolverine. If he had magic powers, moved like a character from the Matrix, and could come at you from another dimension. Wolverine of Tindalos, basically, only scarier, faster and much, much stronger.

The key to hunting werewolves is to *not* hunt werewolves. They are death machines. Take a 180 lb. man and combine it with a 90 lb. wolf, and you get something that's about the size of a killer whale with legs that irrationally hates you even though vampires really haven't ever done anything to warrant that hate (it's religious for the lupines, which means it doesn't really have to make sense).

Even if you kill it, with like, a LAW rocket or something, it can blow a point of something to not die and just get a battle scar. It's not worth it. Vampires are paralyzed and helpless 50% of the time, and Werewolves can move through a dimension that vampires don't even know exist, allowing them to come wandering into your Haven at high noon, circumventing whatever defensive measures you have, and kill you while you are making a Humanity roll to see if you can wake up before dying.

If you want to survive a fight with a werewolf, take Celerity, and shoot it a bazillion times, combining Celerity actions with split dice pool actions. Using celerity to run like hells might seem like a better solution, but if your ST has put you up against a werewolf, he obviously meant for you to face a werewolf. Werewolves run faster, can track many times better than you, can smell the presence of vampires, and can dig you up in the middle of the day, no matter how deeply you burrow into the ground. Running isn't much of an option. Silver bullets are nice. Fire is nice. Poison might slow it down. Darts that pump silver nitrate into it's blood stream will probably just annoy it. Don't annoy what you can't kill.

Going claw-to-claw with them is crazy. A Tzimisce needs to spend all three of his starting discipline points, and then *ten game sessions worth of experience points* to enter a combat form that is *not as good* as what a a Garou starts out with, *for free.* Gangrel? No. You'd need Fortitude 5 to have a *chance* of surviving a single hit, and that's not a game I'd want to play. If you know that your death-match is with Bruce Lee, don't bring nunchuks and hope that you can keep up. Bring a freaking Uzi. Don't play their game, you'll spend every discipline point, freebie, merit point and experience point you have and still lose, *badly.* For the same reason that a Tremere shouldn't get into a spell-tossing battle with a member of the Order of Hermes, a Gangrel shouldn't get in a melee fight with a Garou.

Other options include brave, brave, brave attempts at using Dominate or Presence (which the lupine will cancel with a point of Willpower, and then kill you) or using Tremere jippery, like flying out of range with Movement of the Mind while setting them on fire with Lure of Flames, hitting them with lightning with the Weather Control path or pumping them full of Ward vs. Lupines-enhanced silver bullets. (Ward vs. Lupines is also a nice nuisance tactic to use to defend your haven from those high-noon raids.) Other paths may or may not have interesting options, depending on what rules you have available. If you must attempt Dominate / Presence shenanigans, sabbat-embrace a dozen neonates, learn 'em up Dominate 3 or Presence 3, and send them to soften up the Garou's willpower. Eventually he'll run out of Willpower points and become somebody's huckleberry, and the blood-bound neonates that got killed only cost you 10 random kidnapped homeless people and some blood points to make. Best way to eliminate an enemy is to make him a friend, after all. Blood Bond fur-boy, and now you have the best defense against Garou jumping out of the Umbra into your haven at high noon, another Garou watching over you...

The best, best, best bet? Play a Giovanni, Samedi, Kiasyd, Nagaraja or other Necromancy-user. Werewolves were designed to surgically dismember anything a Vampire could do, and have access to unbeatable physical combat abilities, the ability to sniff out vampires, the ability to travel through worlds vampires can't even perceive, and, oh yeah, 12 more hours a day, when the vampire is paralyzed, to do whatever they want. So hit them with Wraiths, who can kill them from beyond the Shroud. If they can use rules from another splatbook against which Kindred have no defense, turn the tables and do the same thing to them.

While you're at it, take the 'Awakened Companion' Merit and hit them with a Euthanatos ally. A little True Magick will also help make up for the fact that Vampires pretty much were designed to lose against any other supernatural in a stand-up fight.

Others might suggest annoying tactics like buying up their Caerns and making them into strip mines, but if you know what a Caern is, and where to find it, you're pretty much cheating anyway. Garou Lore doesn't grow on trees, after all. Plus, losing a Caern *doesn't hurt them,* it just pisses them off.

Again, the cardinal rule, don't piss off what you can't kill.

Same rule applies for killing their kinfolk or burning down their forests or organizing a wolf-kill in the state. That stuff just pisses them off, it doesn't take one single measly die out of their dice-pools. One Garou, if it really wanted to, could kill every vampire in a city, probably in a single day (although it would take a week or so for it to figure out where they all lived, depending on it's particular supernatural senses / umbral reconnoitering skills). Getting every Garou in the state pissed at you is just a competition to see whose claws you die on first.

Additionally, no matter how connected your Ventrue thinks he is, the Garou also have business minded werewolves, so cunning plans involving razing Caerns or deporting kinfolk or culling wolves may end up killed at the legislative level, as your Ventrue discovers that he has now pissed off the *city werewolves,* who have been more or less peacefully co-existing alongside his kind for years.

I'd recommend only ever fighting werewolves if forced by the ST, and then only fighting them defensively. Don't go after them. More will show up, as they send out the word, and then, not only will you have dozens of werewolves coming from all over the country to kick your pasty white buttocks into a whole new shape, you'll also have whatever Kindred leader rules your area pissed at you for bringing this furry tempest into his house.

In other words, if you survive the Garou retaliation, by some miracle. The Prince (Bishop, whatever) will feed you your giblets for afters.

[Riffington]

Set, I think your Werewolf games are different from the one I played. Admittedly it's been a while, but... really?

[MickJay]

Well, your avergae, lone werewolf can do a TPK without much effort against a coterie of 4-5 Kindred, unless the vampires are well-prepared and combat-oriented (and even then their chances aren't that good).

[Moriato]

Set, I think your Werewolf games are different from the one I played. Admittedly it's been a while, but... really?

No, it's very exaggerated. A rank 2 werewolf does not stand a chance against an antedeluvian. A rank 5 does, easy, but not a rank 2.

In general, in a physical fight between a vampire and a werewolf of equal power, the werewolf will win.

But then there's many disciplines for vapires that just don't have a counter.

Dominate, for example. If you get dominated, you're done. Game over, vampire wins.

Likewise if you get bitten. Get bitten by a vampire and you're paralyzed. No counter, no real way to save yourself before the vampire drains all of your blood and you're dead.

And some of the 6 dot + disciplines are just stupid powerful, and the tenth dot for all of them are just game breaking, players were never menat to have them, but most of them either make you invincible, or instantly kill your foes, or both.

For example, Protean 10, if I remember right, turns you into fire. You're fire, you can't be hurt by any physical weapons, and you burn everything around you.

When it comes right down to it, disciplines are a lot more powerful than werewolf gifts.

Take rage and celerity, for example. They both give you extra actions, but a werewolf has 1-10 rage, meaning he can get 1-10 extra actions before having to recharge, and you can only spend as much rage in a round as you have dexterity.

Celerity, on the other hand, gives you one extra action for every point of celerity you have for the cost of 1 blood point, no matter what level you're using.

So a vampire with a modest 3 dots in celerity, and the minimum of 10 max blood, can still get.. we'll call it 27 extra actions before needing to recharge, since you don't want to spend that last blood point, really. And this is a brand new, neonate vampire. It's nothing to laugh at.

I love werewolves, and in general, they really are stronger in combat than vampires, but the difference is not so great as the white wolf fluff would have you believe.

[NPCMook]

How to kill a Werewolf in Masquerade: Embrace it.

One of three things will happen: The Werewolf will die peacefully, The Werewolf will die painfully, very painfully, The Werewolf will become an Abomination... which will still die painfully as it has only two choices, become your slave or be killed since it has now been abandoned by Luna for becoming the unliving.

[Riffington]

How to kill a Werewolf in Masquerade: Embrace it.

One of three things will happen: The Werewolf will die peacefully, The Werewolf will die painfully, very painfully, The Werewolf will become an Abomination... which will still die painfully as it has only two choices, become your slave or be killed since it has now been abandoned by Luna for becoming the unliving.

Seeing as how the Embrace actually occurs just after their death, I wouldn't call this a useful technique per se.

[NPCMook]

True, but it also does give you the ability to possibly get a cool little pet, or watch it suffer... or not.

[Moriato]

True, but it also does give you the ability to possibly get a cool little pet, or watch it suffer... or not.

There is another option, though.

The werewolf frenzies when he realizes what you've done, and proceeds to tear you apart with all of his old powers, plus maybe even his newfound vapire ones.

Then possibly kills himself or goes into exile, but that doesn't help your vampire much.

[mostlyharmful]

Set, I think your Werewolf games are different from the one I played. Admittedly it's been a while, but... really?

Yes. Really.

Rank 2 Black Furies can take out an Antediluvian if said Antediluvian is just standing there certainly, however, any level 1 start out Theurge can just summon an Avatar of the Sun to be their bitch... to jump out on their enemies from anouther dimension... after sniffing them down from said other dimension... with zero warning....

And most mental disciplines require the vampire to be concious (sunlight woot!) or to see their opponent coming (Umbra, Woot!!!) and even then can be shaken off with a range of Gifts (Woot Woot!!!) or just ignored with a minimal expenditure of Willpower (you get the picture).

Oh, and it hasn't been mentioned yet that Garou wander around in supernaturally linked teams who will die for each other that are part of a clannish culture that will die for it's members with an international tribal structure that will die for it's members..... Vampires pretty much piss off anyone and everyone they know from day one and it only gets worse with every decade until even their kids want to shishkebab them and devour the remains.... good luck taking on a team of uberkillers dropping out of anouther dimension with no warning led by a burning God onto your comatose ass...

[Moriato]

Unless the avatar of the sun doesn't feel like being your bitch. It probably doesn't. You're going to have to be a bit more than rank 1 to get a spirit that powerful to even listen to you.

A vampire with auspex can see you coming from the umbra, and one with enough auspex can enter and leave it even easier than a werewolf can.

Vampires have their own groups, they're called coteries or packs.

As far as shrugging off disciplines using gifts... what gifts? I've never seen these gifts, apparently

What gift is going to let you shrug off the obfuscated, celerity-using vampire with an uzi full of silver bullets?

[mostlyharmful]

Unless the avatar of the sun doesn't feel like being your bitch. It probably doesn't. You're going to have to be a bit more than rank 1 to get a spirit that powerful to even listen to you.

A vampire with auspex can see you coming from the umbra, and one with enough auspex can enter and leave it even easier than a werewolf can.

Vampires have their own groups, they're called coteries or packs.

As far as shrugging off disciplines using gifts... what gifts? I've never seen these gifts, apparently

Nope. reread the summoning rules, with a specced towards mystic rites theurge (best way to go given their role in a pack) you can summon as well as any elder. After that you just increase the casting time of the rite, it's written right into the rules, the longer you dedicate to it the easier it is until you're pretty much certain (unless you roll ten straight 1s in which case you only end up with two successes) of conjuring up a dedicated to your benefit GOD!!!!! It's like epic casting right out of the gate and it's still not as broken as Mage.

No a vampire with Auspex can't see the Umbra, he can perceive the Astral Umbra not the Middle Umbra if he concentrates.... you need a path of Thaumaturgy power to see the Middle Umbra and even then you've got to specifically activate it (something rather hard to do at two in the afternoon).

They are indeed called Coteries for the most part, those are the ones bound together in the young for entirely selfinterest reasons since their elders will eat them dead if they don't have some kind of backup.. how far do you think that self interest extends? I'm fairly sure the Pack/Sept/Tribe system beats it hands down every time without trying... Sabbat Packs will stay together but the Valauderie breaks the instant each packmate dies whereapon they're in it to survive, best bet for that is to run and hide and try not to draw attention.

The level Four Silver Fang mindblock and the Silent Strider Dam the Heartflood are the two that stand out, the Child of Gaia one that turns you into a living sun is also good for a laugh, and if all else fails you can just go for broke and frenzy... plus you've almost certainly got multiple Garou attacking at once so only Presence is likely to keep them off you and that's resistable with Willpower points.

[Moriato]

In all honesty, combat in the old world of darkness basically comes down to "he who goes first, wins".

Werewolf wins initiative, he blows his rage and tears you apart

Vampire wins initiative, he dominates you or bites you and you paralyzed, or uses whatever other discipline he's good at, and kill you with it.

Mage wins initiative, you are now a lawn chair. Game over

Changling wins initiative... they dance around for a while... werewolf and vampire and mage get bored and leave, changling wins.. I guess

Mummy wins initiative, everyone at the table laughs at you for playing a mummy, they leave to start their own group, and since it's only you at the table, I guess you win there, too.

[mostlyharmful]

In all honesty, combat in the old world of darkness basically comes down to "he who goes first, wins".

Werewolf wins initiative, he blows his rage and tears you apart

Vampire wins initiative, he dominates you or bites you and you paralyzed, or uses whatever other discipline he's good at, and kill you with it.

Mage wins initiative, you are now a lawn chair. Game over.

Yes.. except Werewolves get the drop when they're attacking from another dimension and they get warnings from their spirit allies if you're attacking their homeground. With teamwork, a perfect sneakattack/retreat route, better combat stats and more varied/effective supernatural powers Garou just kick Cainite ass. up, down and sideways.

[LongVin]

I had my players fight werewolves in 2 seperate sessions(the plots were linked though.)

In the first session they were sent by their boss(who was a thousand year old Tremere who had a vendetta against werewolves because they killed his one true love) to negoitate a truce with the werewolves.

The peace talks went bady after the Malkavaian who was speaking insulted Gaia. Basically, the Malkavian kept harrassing them to tell him more about Gaia. Meanwhile the Malkavian was possessed by the spirit of the player's previous character a Salubri little girl who was very worldwise. The Salubri personality managed to take over and gave a very insightful description about Gaia to the other players...the werewolves thought he was just making fun of them.

Fight ensues, players are taken off guard and are captured(the werewolves had a plan for them) Basically, the players were in a situation not to their making, and were taken off guard. They didn't stand a chance.

The next session picks up with the players captured in the werewolves lair(a cave system) now the players had to fight their way out. Which quicly turned into getting the drop on them while they were in human or wolf form, moving quickly and trying to take the werewolves off guard. This helped alot and allowed them to get out of the lair with only minimal casualities(the only major one was self inflicted by the player.) It also didn't hurt that one of the players managed to drink the blood of a werewolf which is much more potent and gave him some insane abilities for awhile(I don't remember if this was in the rules of V:tM or if I houseruled the effects in.)


EDIT: As for the issue of the werewolf just jumping into the Umbra and emerging back into the Vampire's Haven. It might not work that easily. The Umbra isn't like jumping on the train and just going to the next station. There are challenges in the Umbra that are actually even more capable of killing a werewolf than anything else. Also the Umbra isn't a direct physical parrallel to the if I may borrow a term the prime material plane. What might just be an old house in the world in the Umbra can be a foreboding fortress with wraiths gathered about. It depends on the owner in the real world, what actions have occured in the house and a host of other features.

[mostlyharmful]

It also didn't hurt that one of the players managed to drink the blood of a werewolf which is much more potent and gave him some insane abilities for awhile(I don't remember if this was in the rules of V:tM or if I houseruled the effects in.)

There is a rule about potence and celerity abilities from pure bloods but the more you drink the more sure you are to frenzy (each blood point is a -1 on the roll).... and did you use the rage to stay concious and instantly turn to frenzied Crinos or the spirit allies or the hypersenses of the lupus Garou or the kinfolf installed security system or the pack spirit totem awareness of damage to it's members? or anything?

Edit: No the Umbra isn't a direct collerilatory, that's what high Gnosis Theurges are for, with spirit allies and high Cosmology to negotiate to right on top of the bloodsuckers and then drop their whole pack into it instantly.

[LongVin]

The session was awhile ago so I don't remember exactly what I threw at them, but I threw alot of crazy stuff at them. I went through the Werewolf sourcebook the week before to get some goodies out if(we were never really into werewolf.) And they only managed to actually kill 1 werewolf(others were hurt in the process though) in the whole encounter the one that was bloodsucked...whose character then raged a short while later and caused a major incident involving a city bus.

[Dixieboy]

A rank 2 Black Fury can do enough Aggravated damage with a single claw hit that an Antediluvian with Stamina 10 + Fortitude 10 won't even need to roll dice.

No.
Just... no
Basic math says no.
Logic says no.
Also:
Presence 10:
Instant world domination.
Obfuscate: This guy can CHOOSE whether he wants to exist or not.
Potence 10: 10 auto strength successes, that'd be enough to tear the skull off a rank 2 werewolf.
Dominate 10: Mindslave.
Fortitude 10: You can't deal damage to it, firearms are absorbed, it can take a grenade to the face and shrug it off.
Thaumaturgy 10: Rape
Dementation 10: See above
Auspex: Yea, I'm sniping you, from Australia.
Chimerstry: Sooo, which one of the 600 billion vampires standing around you is the real one? You wouldn't know because you're stuck in an eternal nightmare.
Vicissitude 10:
Serpentis 10: Your blood has just been replaced with venom, have fun.
Celerity 10: Stop... hammertime (Or: You literarily can't touch this.)
Necromancy 10: You, your brood, your family, your families brood, everyone they are related to? Their souls have just been eaten.
{Scrubbed}

It's pretty much unkillable, and if it touches you, you die forever, and it has automatic free Celerity. So basically, you'll be fighting Wolverine. If he had magic powers, moved like a character from the Matrix, and could come at you from another dimension. Wolverine of Tindalos, basically, only scarier, faster and much, much stronger.

A rank 2 werewolf can't do anything of that really.
Well except for the killing you.
They are really good at that.

The key to hunting werewolves is to *not* hunt werewolves. They are death machines. Take a 180 lb. man and combine it with a 90 lb. wolf, and you get something that's about the size of a killer whale with legs that irrationally hates you even though vampires really haven't ever done anything to warrant that hate (it's religious for the lupines, which means it doesn't really have to make sense).

Except not really, they tolerate the gangrel due to their similar nature.
There's also that group of hunters who kills vampires for zeh lulz.

Even if you kill it, with like, a LAW rocket or something, it can blow a point of something to not die and just get a battle scar. It's not worth it. Vampires are paralyzed and helpless 50% of the time, and Werewolves can move through a dimension that vampires don't even know exist, allowing them to come wandering into your Haven at high noon, circumventing whatever defensive measures you have, and kill you while you are making a Humanity roll to see if you can wake up before dying.

Except the umbra doesn't work like that, a tremere can set up about a billion defences against it, and a giovanni can insta-**** you up if you try that stuff in their haven.

If you want to survive a fight with a werewolf, take Celerity, and shoot it a bazillion times, combining Celerity actions with split dice pool actions. Using celerity to run like hells might seem like a better solution, but if your ST has put you up against a werewolf, he obviously meant for you to face a werewolf. Werewolves run faster, can track many times better than you, can smell the presence of vampires, and can dig you up in the middle of the day, no matter how deeply you burrow into the ground.

Except if you are a gangrel, a teremere or brought security measures.

Running isn't much of an option.

The true brujah laughs at that preprosterous claim.

Going claw-to-claw with them is crazy.

Anyone who even tries that deserves death anyway.

A Tzimisce needs to spend all three of his starting discipline points, and then *ten game sessions worth of experience points* to enter a combat form that is *not as good* as what a a Garou starts out with, *for free.*

Which is why that the Tzimiche are more of an "Evil overlord" type of clan.

angrel? No. You'd need Fortitude 5 to have a *chance* of surviving a single hit,

Show me the math behind this, fortitude 5 is 5 damage dies removed, assuming that this is a fairly average werewolf he won't be dishing out ANY more than 6-7 a hit.
That's 2 damage dice, which can both be passed or whatever it's called, and even if they do pass the guy will STILL BE ALIVE.
Not well, and he won't win the fight.
But he'll be alive, and probably ready to take one or two more hits.

For the same reason that a Tremere shouldn't get into a spell-tossing battle with a member of the Order of Hermes, a Gangrel shouldn't get in a melee fight with a Garou.

A tremere can actually quite easily win that battle.
They have waaaay, waaaaay, waaaaaay too many "If you get close to me you DIE!" techniques

The best, best, best bet? Play a Giovanni, Samedi, Kiasyd, Nagaraja or other Necromancy-user. Werewolves were designed to surgically dismember anything a Vampire could do, and have access to unbeatable physical combat abilities, the ability to sniff out vampires, the ability to travel through worlds vampires can't even perceive, and, oh yeah, 12 more hours a day, when the vampire is paralyzed, to do whatever they want. So hit them with Wraiths, who can kill them from beyond the Shroud. If they can use rules from another splatbook against which Kindred have no defense, turn the tables and do the same thing to them.

This is pretty solid advice.
But the umbra is not a thing the vampire cannot percieve.
The giovanni messes with the umbra for the lulz, just as the do the veil.

Vampires pretty much were designed to lose against any other supernatural in a stand-up fight.

{Scrubbed}
Mages were designed for that.
Mages can with enough time on their hand become invincible.
But they need time.
One hit, one bite, one spell is all it takes.
They are afterall mortals.

Same rule applies for killing their kinfolk or burning down their forests or organizing a wolf-kill in the state. That stuff just pisses them off, it doesn't take one single measly die out of their dice-pools. One Garou, if it really wanted to, could kill every vampire in a city, probably in a single day (although it would take a week or so for it to figure out where they all lived, depending on it's particular supernatural senses / umbral reconnoitering skills). Getting every Garou in the state pissed at you is just a competition to see whose claws you die on first.

{Scrubbed}
Firstly I'd love to see him track down all the nosferatu AT ALL, in a single day would be impossible.
Then he'd need to stand up to the barrage of pwnage that gonna happen when he busts into the bar where the local brujah hang out.

Additionally, no matter how connected your Ventrue thinks he is, the Garou also have business minded werewolves, so cunning plans involving razing Caerns or deporting kinfolk or culling wolves may end up killed at the legislative level, as your Ventrue discovers that he has now pissed off the *city werewolves,* who have been more or less peacefully co-existing alongside his kind for years.

The city werewolves are not nearly as adept at dealing with that sort of bussiness as a ventrue.
Why?
One word:
Presence.
One more:
Dominate.
Being a shrewd bussinessman won't help you when the opponent has mind control.

I'd recommend only ever fighting werewolves if forced by the ST, and then only fighting them defensively. Don't go after them. More will show up, as they send out the word, and then, not only will you have dozens of werewolves coming from all over the country to kick your pasty white buttocks into a whole new shape, you'll also have whatever Kindred leader rules your area pissed at you for bringing this furry tempest into his house

{Scrubbed}The garou CAN call for support, but who the hell will help them?
The different kinds of garou can't agree on anything (And are in fact infighting almost as much as the vampires), the other shapeshifters (Or whatever) hates their guts,
The chances of the garou launching a serious, planned, strategic assault on a city to take it from the kindred are about as slim as the European vampires coming over for a visit.
And fyi:
If the European vampires do that the garou can do nothing but cry.

[ravenkith]

You know how a vampire hunts a werewolf?

He pays/mind controls someone else to do it for him, while he himself is located on an entirely different continent, with at least 15 witnesses to provide him with an alibi.

[Riffington]

Ever notice how Garou rule the woods and Vampires rule the cities? There's a reason. It's not just that the vampires have mortal servants in the cities (though this is true and strong). It's also that the cool umbra tricks are useful in the woods but not in the city. Cities have been corrupted by man and vampire alike, and are full of banes and other spirits that are quite hostile to Garou. Do not count on walking in the umbra in a wyrm-tainted place unmolested; many vampire havens are in rather nasty areas, spiritually speaking. Even the Bone Gnawers (pathetic and twisted from their years in the city) try to keep to the parks.


As for mages, it totally depends on power level because the mage rules are borked. The difference between 3 dots in Forces (your fireball is as good as a rifle) and 6 (Manhattan Project) is rather unfortunate. But a lot of people overestimate mages because while they technically can do all sorts of things, the DC's and number of successes may often be prohibitive.

[Roland St. Jude]

Sheriff of Moddingham: Please keep it civil in here. It should be possible to disagree with others without resorting to personal attacks or insulting characterizations of each others' comments.

[Fax Celestis]

Ever notice how Garou rule the woods and Vampires rule the cities? There's a reason. It's not just that the vampires have mortal servants in the cities (though this is true and strong). It's also that the cool umbra tricks are useful in the woods but not in the city. Cities have been corrupted by man and vampire alike, and are full of banes and other spirits that are quite hostile to Garou. Do not count on walking in the umbra in a wyrm-tainted place unmolested; many vampire havens are in rather nasty areas, spiritually speaking. Even the Bone Gnawers (pathetic and twisted from their years in the city) try to keep to the parks.

This is true until you come to the Glass Walkers.

Given ample preparation time, four vampires should be able to handily take out a werewolf with equal XP without cheese (and by cheese I mean like being a Potence 5 Nosferatu with Oversized Fangs, Blunt Teeth, and Long Tusks for lolaggravated bite attacks out the gate). Similarly, four werewolves should be able to handle a mage. Four mages can handle a demon. Four hunters can handle a vampire.

It's your basic "rule of four". It's not entirely accurate, but it certainly is a good approximation.

In this particular instance, certain vampiric bloodlines have advantages that others don't (Ravnos have Fortitude and Chimerstry--Horrid Reality can mess someone up, man; Salubri antitribu get an agg-dealing holy sword at Valeren 2 and get Fortitude; City Gangrel and Tlacique get agg damage at Protean 2 and get Obfuscate and either Celerity or Presence; Tzimisce get an agg-dealer at Vicissitude 3; Tremere get Lure of Flames and Path of the Leavenbolt for ranged agg; True Brujah get to tinker with time; Giovanni get Potence, Necromancy, and with the right merit Fortitude), but more often than not you're better off running. Werewolves are built to specifically destroy the beasts of the Wyrm, of which vampires are a part of. It's possible, but it's a losing battle and not one I would willingly take with any sort of attachment to my character.

If I were to do it, I'd play a City Gangrel myself for Protean/Obfuscate/Celerity: Claws of the Beast, Celerity, and invisibility combined is about as potent as you're going to get. Trade some basic knowledge of Obfuscate or Protean for Fortitude and/or Potence (preferably both) from a Brujah, Lasombra, Nosferatu, Ravnos, Giovanni, or Ventrue to give yourself a fighting chance, and don't forget that you're constantly armed with an agg-dealing bite attack. And then pray.

[Nostri]

The best way the kill a werewolf as a vampire is with a high powered anti-vehicle sniper rifle loaded with custom silver rounds. You know, the kind that are meant to blow holes in tank armor. That way when you blow the dinner plate sized hole through their chest they have to pay attention instead of shrugging it off as a battle scar.

A claymore mine might work if you customized it so that the shrapnel/ball bearings that flew out of it were silver instead of steel.

Getting the 4th level power in the Necromantic Path of Bones. "Hey you over there, big and fuzzy. Yeah you. Guess what? I rip out your soul." Granted this doesn't kill but just makes the body go into a coma it's really easy after that, you just walk over and cut their heads off. This is much easier if you've got a silver knife otherwise they still do their whole auto-healing schtick.

[ShneekeyTheLost]

It's really pathetically easy to kill off werewolves as a Vampire. You just don't do it yourself.

You use your contacts to get an APB on them with the local police, then when they start tearing up the local police because they don't want to be arrested, you secretly replace the SWAT team with a crack Werewolf Hunter team, and maybe a H.I.T. or three you purchased. Then go dig up the local Greater Wyrm Spirit and let IT deal with their Caern.

Meanwhile, you are on another continent, sipping blood in your executive suite, and chatting with other vampires about serious matters whilst your minions are taking care of the minor nuisance.

Also, unless you have a Grand Klaive (an exceedingly rare Rank 5 Fetish), you are NOT going to be even affecting anything with that much Fortitude. Even then, good luck.

[Fax Celestis]

It's really pathetically easy to kill off werewolves as a Vampire. You just don't do it yourself.

You use your contacts to get an APB on them with the local police, then when they start tearing up the local police because they don't want to be arrested, you secretly replace the SWAT team with a crack Werewolf Hunter team, and maybe a H.I.T. or three you purchased. Then go dig up the local Greater Wyrm Spirit and let IT deal with their Caern.

Meanwhile, you are on another continent, sipping blood in your executive suite, and chatting with other vampires about serious matters whilst your minions are taking care of the minor nuisance.

Also, unless you have a Grand Klaive (an exceedingly rare Rank 5 Fetish), you are NOT going to be even affecting anything with that much Fortitude. Even then, good luck.

Not all vampires are Ventrue. Or Giovanni. Or Lasombra.

[ShneekeyTheLost]

Not all vampires are Ventrue. Or Giovanni. Or Lasombra.

Hell, I've got a Bruja who can do it. Mind you, I just built him, he's got zero experience earned so far. Of course, most of his contacts are Underworld/Judicial, but hey... not too hard to put a hit out on someone. So a drive-by with silver bullets, ought to be enough to take out any lycan easy.