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  1. - Top - End - #1
    Halfling in the Playground
    Join Date
    Sep 2009

    Default Vampire Requiem 1st: Maxing Presence+ Intimidation pool

    So, I have a friend who’s running a one-shot Vampire the Requiem game.

    For quite some time I’ve wanted to play a Sanctified Spina Grandmother who uses Barbed Words to kill vampires with passive aggressive comments about how they should call more, and why don’t they have more childer yet.

    Since it’s a one-shot I’d really like to max out my presence plus intimidation pool, I mean if I have one night to do what I want I might as well do it as well as I can right?

    I have 80 XP to use to try to min max, can anyone point out any must-have‘s for me?

    There are a few conditions, I don’t want to use the sexualized or striking looks merit that seems like it would get weird real fast. And the ST doesn’t want to use the Requiem or masquerade merits, or equipment bonuses because he forgets about them too often.

    Other than that pretty much anything a Sanctified Spina could have is fair game

    Thanks :)

  2. - Top - End - #2
    Troll in the Playground
     
    Friv's Avatar

    Join Date
    Aug 2005
    Location
    Toronto, Canada
    Gender
    Male

    Default Re: Vampire Requiem 1st: Maxing Presence+ Intimidation pool

    Okay, well, if you can't use Striking Looks, and you can't use equipment bonuses, and you only have 80 XP, your choices are honestly pretty limited. When you say "no Requiem or Masquerade Merits", do you mean no merits whatsoever? Or just no Vampire ones? Or some specific subset I'm not aware of?

    You'll need to spend 45 XP to start with Courtoise 5, so that eats a lot. You can start the game with Presence 5 if you want to be ludicrous, but it means that even after your Daeva boost you're at Presence 5, Manipulation 2, Composure 1. You may want to stick with Presence 4 and go 4/3/2.

    Intimidation 5 is much easier; it just costs 6 of your 11 social skill dots. Your other five dots will go into Expression 3, Persuasion 1, Socialize 1. Grab an Intimidation specialty in "snide insults" for that +1 die.

    Pick up Majesty 1 (5 XP.) That gives you Awe. Your base die pool is going to be 9 (Presence 5 + Expression 3 + Majesty 1) which is great in small-group situations, but you'll need to spend Willpower to use it effectively in larger groups. On average, if you spend Willpower around 20 or fewer people, that's +3 dice to all of your social rolls.

    That gives you an average die pool of 18 - your target's Resolve or Composure to talk them to death, which is pretty brutal. You still have 30 XP, which is enough to round out your social skills and possibly pick up a bit of Celerity for when someone tries to stab you for talking mean to them.

    If you have access to some Merits, you may want to look at the following:
    * Night Horrors: Grim Fears has a social Fighting Style called "Social Maneuvers" on page 63. The first dot requires you to take time to size people up, but you can then knock them off-guard and give them -3 Composure, forcing them to use Resolve to resist your attack. The second dot adds half your target's Presence to your own social rolls against them.
    * The Good Breeding Merit from the Ventrue book gives you a bonus on social rolls with people who respect your bloodline, although it penalizes you around rougher sorts, but that's almost certainly covered under whatever restriction is in place.
    *
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