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Ironically considering how much ES hates Vamp 2e, I think they fixed the Mekhet thing. The Clan Bane is now *new/more* weaknesses, rather than strengthened ones.

Mekhet are the ones who put the truth in all of those other vampire weaknesses from myth that most vampires don't have. Or at least, they have *more* of those weaknesses.
 
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EarthScorpion said:
That's not a real flaw. Oh no, other vampires think I'm a treacherous bastard. Quite unlike all the other treacherous bastards in vampirekind. Hey, why do the Lasombra have a clan flaw on top of "also being seen as a bunch of treacherous bastards"? Is it because they're not the Tremere and haven't had a decade of being fellated by the writers? I have no time for arguments that social, non-metaphysical element should be their unique clan's curse.

And the V20 "flaw" is still a stupid flaw. Because, bluntly, it doesn't actually encourage any specific behaviour you weren't doing already. It's as shit-tier as the Mekhet clan flaw in nWoD.

"Oh no, I get addicted to vitae more easily. Better... avoid drinking the blood of other vampires who might try to enslave me with it. Just like every other vampire."

"Oh no, I take more damage from sunlight and fire. Better... avoid the sun and burning things. Just like every other vampire."

That doesn't actually incentivise any different behaviour. It's boring, and honestly not a real clan flaw - because if someone wants to enslave you, two drinks aren't really very different from three drinks.

By contrast, if they had the Tzimisce clan flaw, quite apart from it being a nice reminder that they're still just a jumped up Tzimisce bloodline, it actually is a meaningful flaw. The Tzimisce flaw anchors you. You are reliant on your prepared sleeping place. You can't just find a place to nap. Everything requires infrastructure and moving a coffin full of earth around if you're away from the area where you were born. It shifts your behaviour, like all the good clan flaws. It's a meaningful, interesting weakness. So too would be a Tremere weakness that actually mechanised their control freakery - a risk of frenzy when things don't go as planned (encouraging them to plan everything out), or a derangement which is shared by the entire clan.
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TBH i give them that asian Saalubri bloodline flaw; the one that makes them make will checks to avoid becomimg absorbed into their field of study or interest
 
EarthScorpion said:
That's not a real flaw. Oh no, other vampires think I'm a treacherous bastard. Quite unlike all the other treacherous bastards in vampirekind. Hey, why do the Lasombra have a clan flaw on top of "also being seen as a bunch of treacherous bastards"? Is it because they're not the Tremere and haven't had a decade of being fellated by the writers? I have no time for arguments that social, non-metaphysical element should be their unique clan's curse.

And the V20 "flaw" is still a stupid flaw. Because, bluntly, it doesn't actually encourage any specific behaviour you weren't doing already. It's as shit-tier as the Mekhet clan flaw in nWoD.

"Oh no, I get addicted to vitae more easily. Better... avoid drinking the blood of other vampires who might try to enslave me with it. Just like every other vampire."

"Oh no, I take more damage from sunlight and fire. Better... avoid the sun and burning things. Just like every other vampire."

That doesn't actually incentivise any different behaviour. It's boring, and honestly not a real clan flaw - because if someone wants to enslave you, two drinks aren't really very different from three drinks.

By contrast, if they had the Tzimisce clan flaw, quite apart from it being a nice reminder that they're still just a jumped up Tzimisce bloodline, it actually is a meaningful flaw. The Tzimisce flaw anchors you. You are reliant on your prepared sleeping place. You can't just find a place to nap. Everything requires infrastructure and moving a coffin full of earth around if you're away from the area where you were born. It shifts your behaviour, like all the good clan flaws. It's a meaningful, interesting weakness. So too would be a Tremere weakness that actually mechanised their control freakery - a risk of frenzy when things don't go as planned (encouraging them to plan everything out), or a derangement which is shared by the entire clan.
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Everyone's entitled to their own opinion. My storyteller made the social ramifications of being Tremere work. He made it matter, he made it affect they way they played the game and operated in the social hierarchy of vampire. Clan Tremere aren't just treacherous, they're treacherous to the point of having a long and bloody history of crippling or outright destroying whole clans and bloodlines in their own quest for immediate magical and also long reaching political power. What they did to the Tzimisce, Salubri, Assamites, and various other clans is unique among the Camarilla.

The Lasombra aren't so adversely affected by reputation because they're the kings of the Sabbat, an entirely different faction of which they make up a large section of the ruling body... and even then they're not as bad as the Tremere. The only clans that come close to being as bad are the Giovanni, who are horrible but have only massively inconvenienced one of the original 13 clans and even then took it over to do so and also actually tended to be men of their word in spite of their unsavory methods, and the Followers of Set, who will keenly remind you that they don't have anything specific on their record so much as a laundry list of little things that prove they're untrustworthy.

My group, and the world around them, always treated Tremere and Setites different from anyone else, because my storyteller made sure to include some NPCs that were actually trustworthy and allowed us to roleplay accordingly. Betrayal was everywhere, sure, but loyalty was there too, and sometimes we allowed ourselves to be fooled once or twice because of valuable loyalty was. But never with a Tremere or a Follower of Set.

Also, with curses, it's not about being super unique or different, it's about orders of magnitude. And while two sips may be not very different from three, two sips is pretty different from one, and if one sip becomes two, then suddenly a level one blood bond is really dangerous. You'd be surprised how often my groups have allowed a level one blood bond in various circumstances to keep chugging along or as a show of good faith in a social encounter with no real consequences. A Tremere can't afford to do that.

Long story short? A good storyteller can make it matter and affect how you play the character. nWoD vampire is still shit though so you're right about the Mekhet.
 
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FFFX said:
Everyone's entitled to their own opinion. My storyteller made the social ramifications of being Tremere work. He made it matter, he made it affect they way they played the game and operated in the social hierarchy of vampire. Clan Tremere aren't just treacherous, they're treacherous to the point of having a long and bloody history of crippling or outright destroying whole clans and bloodlines in their own quest for immediate magical and also long reaching political power. What they did to the Tzimisce, Salubri, Assamites, and various other clans is unique among the Camarilla.
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So what?

Doesn't mean they get to skip out of a metaphysical curse of Caine. The fact that they have social factors does nothing to affect the stupid bullshit of their non-factor of a Clan Flaw. A Clan Flaw which, I note, affects you less and less the more powerful you get, which is dumb. It's as dumb as a hypothetical Lasomba clan flaw which means you become more and more normal in mirrors the more powerful you get, or a Ventrue clan flaw which means your diet gets wider and wider the more powerful you get. I notice, despite your fallacious logic, the Setites still have a clan flaw on top of their "social" flaw. If your logic was true, they wouldn't. But they do. Gosh, looks like it's just another case of the game bending over to offer oral sex to the Tremere - one of many, many instances of it.

The Tremere basically are terrible vampire clan - notable for how they don't actually fit into a classic unique vampire archetypes. They're not "monster vampires". They're not "sexy vampires". They're not "bestial vampires". They're not even uniquely occupying the "vampire as conspiracy" thing, because that's the whole goddamn Camarilla. The fact that the superior Requiem got rid of them shows how they learned from Masquerade's weaknesses - and the Ordo Dracul occupy the Tremere niche in a much more fitting manner.
 
EarthScorpion said:
So what?

Doesn't mean they get to skip out of a metaphysical curse of Caine. The fact that they have social factors does nothing to affect the stupid bullshit of their non-factor of a Clan Flaw. A Clan Flaw which, I note, affects you less and less the more powerful you get, which is dumb. It's as dumb as a hypothetical Lasomba clan flaw which means you become more and more normal in mirrors the more powerful you get, or a Ventrue clan flaw which means your diet gets wider and wider the more powerful you get. I notice, despite your fallacious logic, the Setites still have a clan flaw on top of their "social" flaw. If your logic was true, they wouldn't. But they do. Gosh, looks like it's just another case of the game bending over to offer oral sex to the Tremere - one of many, many instances of it.

The Tremere basically are terrible vampire clan - notable for how they don't actually fit into a classic unique vampire archetypes. They're not "monster vampires". They're not "sexy vampires". They're not "bestial vampires". They're not even uniquely occupying the "vampire as conspiracy" thing, because that's the whole goddamn Camarilla. The fact that the superior Requiem got rid of them shows how they learned from Masquerade's weaknesses - and the Ordo Dracul occupy the Tremere niche in a much more fitting manner.
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Heh, "vampire mages" have a history and are a pretty prominent archetype. It's just not as respectable a one. Instead of Victorian literature and 80s horror flicks and Ann Rice, it's Japanese video games and manga and previous fantasy RPGs like D&D or whatnot.
 
FFFX said:
My group, and the world around them, always treated Tremere and Setites different from anyone else, because my storyteller made sure to include some NPCs that were actually trustworthy and allowed us to roleplay accordingly. Betrayal was everywhere, sure, but loyalty was there too, and sometimes we allowed ourselves to be fooled once or twice because of valuable loyalty was. But never with a Tremere or a Follower of Set.
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My groups usually end up fragging whatever Tremere NPC we're forced to work alongside.
Getting murdered by nominally :turian:allied:turian: coterie is bit of a drawback?
 
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EarthScorpion said:
So what?

Doesn't mean they get to skip out of a metaphysical curse of Caine. The fact that they have social factors does nothing to affect the stupid bullshit of their non-factor of a Clan Flaw. A Clan Flaw which, I note, affects you less and less the more powerful you get, which is dumb. It's as dumb as a hypothetical Lasomba clan flaw which means you become more and more normal in mirrors the more powerful you get, or a Ventrue clan flaw which means your diet gets wider and wider the more powerful you get. I notice, despite your fallacious logic, the Setites still have a clan flaw on top of their "social" flaw. If your logic was true, they wouldn't. But they do. Gosh, looks like it's just another case of the game bending over to offer oral sex to the Tremere - one of many, many instances of it.

The Tremere basically are terrible vampire clan - notable for how they don't actually fit into a classic unique vampire archetypes. They're not "monster vampires". They're not "sexy vampires". They're not "bestial vampires". They're not even uniquely occupying the "vampire as conspiracy" thing, because that's the whole goddamn Camarilla. The fact that the superior Requiem got rid of them shows how they learned from Masquerade's weaknesses - and the Ordo Dracul occupy the Tremere niche in a much more fitting manner.
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Okay, I'll reassess then, I'll take a step back and abandon my previous fallacious logic in favor of rethinking my stance and taking the subject more seriously than I had jokingly done previously. Because you're right, thinking about it, I fell into one of my mental traps of saying something I hadn't fully thought about and then defending it without revisiting my thought process and saying what I really think instead of the shallow justifications I thought up on the fly.

It doesn't really matter to me in the long run if you think the Tremere are overpowered, or work against the tropes of typical vampires, or even if they follow all the rules of the vampires established in the setting. Because... well... yeah. That's because they're not supposed to represent vampires really. I kind of agree that they work better as a secret order of Mages turned Liches than Vampires. I'm just kind of married to oWoD's setting due to a long history with it and honestly have just come to accept it for what it is. Much like how Ghouls and Wights aren't originally vampire related at all in mythology but are totally vampire things here because WoD rolls most of their undead into the same template deliberately (and even some non-undead, such as the Rakshasa-like Ravnos).

In the end, I'm going to agree that they're not balanced mechanically, however I will very much say that that doesn't overtly matter much because pretty much nothing in the oWoD was ever balanced to begin with and it's also very much a game and setting that cares much more about it's fluff, of which the Tremere are fine because they're a bunch of cheating mages who weaseled their way into being a Vampire clan on accident. They're literally just a bunch of pretty liches rather than vampires, and they're pretty much only vampires because white wolf decided not to give them their own template and decided not to make them undead mages at the time.

They don't have the Tzimisce curse because they weren't embraced, and the curse they do have is built upon their reliance on blood bonds to maintain their own social order much like how the Giovanni lack their parent clan's flaw but obtained their own bite seemingly because of their own cruelty. And taking into account it's a relatively new addition they simply had no flaw at all because Caine never cursed them directly and they effectively magically made themselves into Vampires by xeroxing his curse instead of inheriting his blood.

It makes sense in the context of their history and the meta that surrounds them, at least to me. So... *shrugs* nWoD did some things right, and it might even be an objectively more balanced game and better constructed game. However my friends and I pretty much prefer the clans, as well as the overarching plot and themes of Time of Judgement, which is literally non-existent in Requiem so... yeah. Nothing I can do about that.
 
EarthScorpion said:
So what?

Doesn't mean they get to skip out of a metaphysical curse of Caine. The fact that they have social factors does nothing to affect the stupid bullshit of their non-factor of a Clan Flaw. A Clan Flaw which, I note, affects you less and less the more powerful you get, which is dumb. It's as dumb as a hypothetical Lasomba clan flaw which means you become more and more normal in mirrors the more powerful you get, or a Ventrue clan flaw which means your diet gets wider and wider the more powerful you get. I notice, despite your fallacious logic, the Setites still have a clan flaw on top of their "social" flaw. If your logic was true, they wouldn't. But they do. Gosh, looks like it's just another case of the game bending over to offer oral sex to the Tremere - one of many, many instances of it.
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I have to disagree on this. When you first drink from the goblet, you're blood bound to the Council of Seven, but the Council of Seven does not know who you are. They are vaguely aware of the fact that you exist, due to the fact that they get reports from their subordinates, really, it's like you're a teller working the Hobokken branch of a major international bank and they're the CEOs. You're you're making change for the nice widow who comes in every Saturday afternoon, they're in Paris playing golf with the Prime Minister of France. The fact that you're blood bound to them means nothing.

Then you move up in the ranks, and that changes. As you become more powerful, there are fewer and fewer layers of abstraction between you are your domitors.





The Tremere basically are terrible vampire clan - notable for how they don't actually fit into a classic unique vampire archetypes. They're not "monster vampires". They're not "sexy vampires". They're not "bestial vampires". They're not even uniquely occupying the "vampire as conspiracy" thing, because that's the whole goddamn Camarilla. The fact that the superior Requiem got rid of them shows how they learned from Masquerade's weaknesses - and the Ordo Dracul occupy the Tremere niche in a much more fitting manner.
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That's because the Tremere are mages. They were created back when Vampire: The Masquerade was supposed to be Ars Magica Modern. They were, in fact, supposed to be the same House Tremere as the one in Ars Magica. They were kept around when the concept for the book switched from mages to vampires. And that's a point against them, sure. But at the same time, its at least interesting on a meta level.
 
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ManusDomine said:
Demons are really, really weird.

Let's take an example of a perfectly valid Embed, you can start with this thing so it can't be too broke-

Oh.
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Don't forget the one that lets you kill one person per bullet in your weapon's magazine on an Exceptional Success.

You can easily have handguns with 20 round magazines.

Sure it doesn't work against important characters, but "I wipe out an entire SWAT team" can solve a fuck of a lot of problems.
 
MJ12 Commando said:
Don't forget the one that lets you kill one person per bullet in your weapon's magazine on an Exceptional Success.

You can easily have handguns with 20 round magazines.

Sure it doesn't work against important characters, but "I wipe out an entire SWAT team" can solve a fuck of a lot of problems.
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Yeah I was considering that Embed too.

Or the one that lets you go "no i only took one damage fuck you"
 
EarthScorpion said:
Honestly, if you're not sensible and just give the Tremere the Tzimisce clan flaw, then you should probably replace the weaksauce Tremere clan flaw with some kind of control-freakery clan flaw. Since it totally defines them and cripples them.
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It's worth noting Tremere players can't have rather essential Unbondable merit.
Bread-and-Butter to any up-any-coming-but-let's-not-be-shackled-coterie?
 
ManusDomine said:
Yeah I was considering that Embed too.

Or the one that lets you go "no i only took one damage fuck you"
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I think the main thing that makes demons kings of HUMINT is their basic abilities.

Any demon can pretend to be any person, at any time. Every demon can lie perfectly. Every demon speaks every human language. This is shit a demon gets without paying a single point of XP for at chargen.

Even if you make CofD Fite Guy, The D-800 Demonator with a built-in grenade launcher because fuck you we doing this HITMark style, he is a perfect liar who can pretend to be anyone, including that little old lady who you help across the street.
 
While there are still issues with the V20 Tremere clan flaw, I do think one should keep in mind that VTM is a game that has a setting premise - one supported by mechanics - that there are lots of vampires around who can make any Tremere blood-bond to them. Dominate, Presence, ghoul honey pots, the desperation of the really thirsty, threats, Princely orders, simply restraining someone and making them drink...

MJ12 Commando said:
Don't forget the one that lets you kill one person per bullet in your weapon's magazine on an Exceptional Success.

You can easily have handguns with 20 round magazines.
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Beta-C magazines! :3
 
MJ12 Commando said:
I think the main thing that makes demons kings of HUMINT is their basic abilities.

Any demon can pretend to be any person, at any time. Every demon can lie perfectly. Every demon speaks every human language. This is shit a demon gets without paying a single point of XP for at chargen.

Even if you make CofD Fite Guy, The D-800 Demonator with a built-in grenade launcher because fuck you we doing this HITMark style, he is a perfect liar who can pretend to be anyone, including that little old lady who you help across the street.
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He can also pull new Merits out of his ass by using the Legend feature of Cover. Cover is a dice pool of 7 from character creation, meaning that he'll on average get something around 2-3 successes, which means that many dots of Merits as long as they're appropriate to the Cover.

Which means that a fite-Cover can at any time decide that it wants to have a Fighting style and go "GIBE STYLE PLZ".
 
Eukie said:
While there are still issues with the V20 Tremere clan flaw, I do think one should keep in mind that VTM is a game that has a setting premise - one supported by mechanics - that there are lots of vampires around who can make any Tremere blood-bond to them. Dominate, Presence, ghoul honey pots, the desperation of the really thirsty, threats, Princely orders, simply restraining someone and making them drink...
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Okay. Great.

So how exactly do those tricks not work on, say, any other vampire?

That's the issue. If you want to force a given vampire to be blood-bonded to you, two drinks vs three are not a meaningful difference. And if you're a standard PC who's avoiding any form of drinking another vampire's blood (with the usual "unless I'm trying to diablerise them" exception) at basically any cost, then it's a non-flaw. Moreover, blood-bonding is a major violation of character integrity, so "my flaw is that I'm slightly more vulnerable to something which is something which comes up rarely, that all PCs avoid like the plague anyway, and which will cause in-group tension if the ST tries to force it on a player" isn't really cutting it.

Oh, what's that, Brujah? You have +2 difficulty to every single frenzy roll you make? What's that Ventrue? You have to carefully cultivate a herd and can't just refill on the street? What's that, Nosferatu? You're a horrific Appearance 0 monster? Sorry, you're not a Tremere. You have to have a flaw that actually provides significant problems.

Honestly, at this point I'm literally just inclined towards "the antribu Tzimisce call themselves the Tremere, and have the Old Clan disciplines". This has the advantage of actually matching the setting - and hey, Tremere Thaumaturgy just parallels Koldunic Sorcery then. Complete with "paying out of clan costs for it".
 
EarthScorpion said:
Honestly, at this point I'm literally just inclined towards "the antribu Tzimisce call themselves the Tremere, and have the Old Clan disciplines". This has the advantage of actually matching the setting - and hey, Tremere Thaumaturgy just parallels Koldunic Sorcery then. Complete with "paying out of clan costs for it".
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But EarthScorpion! I want to build nukes in my basement!
 
ManusDomine said:
"Oh no, I am unable to buy a shitty merit that makes me unbondable which makes me sad, as opposed to any other vampires who would be totally fine with not being able to get Unbondable."

"Woe is me."
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Unbondable is a good merit for Hunter or Mage-centric games. It's going to the vampires "lol, kings of the night oh god will you shut up about your pretensions."

Not so much in a game of Vampire.
 
MJ12 Commando said:
Unbondable is a good merit for Hunter or Mage-centric games. It's going to the vampires "lol, kings of the night oh god will you shut up about your pretensions."
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If you're looking to punch bloodsuckers and their preconceptions
Poisonous Blood + Potent Blood :p
(Not advised to someone without means of easily replenishing blood)
 
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So W20 Shattered Dreams has dropped for backers today. Just took a quick flip through it before I sit down and start reading it and I have to say the art is some of the best I've seen out of the W20 line.
One of my favorites is this picture of Aztec warriors fight Spanish Conquistadors but the Aztec have modern rifles and a grenade launcher.

Between that and the opening quote of the Introduction:

Remember that Star Trek episode where Kirk has to let a woman he loves die so that Hitler doesn't win the war?Yeah. You're going to want to sit down for this one….

— Tires-Screeching-On-Pavement ("Screech")
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Something tells me this is going to be an amusing read because who doesn't love mucking about with time.

I'll tell you guys more once I've read through some of it. Probably won't have it done tonight as it's a 170+ page book.
 
MJ12 Commando said:
Unbondable is a good merit for Hunter or Mage-centric games. It's going to the vampires "lol, kings of the night oh god will you shut up about your pretensions."

Not so much in a game of Vampire.
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I have to disagree. Blood Bond ploys aren't going to come up in a Hunter or Mage game unless your storyteller is being really nasty. Blood Bond ploys are baked into the Vampire rules are are supposed to be a significant part of the game.

Of course, I played with a GM whose policy was that anything the Players do, he can do, too. Which made us excessively paranoid, given the things that some of us got up to. Like spiking a rival vamp's herd. Ghoul some of his blood donors, find out where he likes to bite, and surgically implant tubes full of my own blood at those locations. Next time he feeds on one of the ghouled blood dolls, he gets a mouth full of my blood. And this is why having a poorly defended herd is a bad idea. Rival vamps can do worse things than just kill them.

Generalissimo said:
If you're looking to punch bloodsuckers and their preconceptions
Poisonous Blood + Potent Blood :p
(Not advised to someone without means of easily replenishing blood)
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There is an oMummy potion that turns your blood into poison. oMummy Alchemy was quite powerful. I suggest always taking a Mummy as your Supernatural Companion, if you take that Merit. Especially if you're going to max out your Generation and just be Diabilere fodder.

EarthScorpion said:
That's that, Nosferatu? You're a horrific Appearance 0 monster? Sorry, you're not a Tremere. You have to have a flaw that actually provides significant problems.
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Eh. Mask of a Thousand Faces comes with free Appearance 5.
 
hyzmarca said:
I have to disagree. Blood Bond ploys aren't going to come up in a Hunter or Mage game unless your storyteller is being really nasty. Blood Bond ploys are baked into the Vampire rules are are supposed to be a significant part of the game.

Of course, I played with a GM whose policy was that anything the Players do, he can do, too. Which made us excessively paranoid, given the things that some of us got up to. Like spiking a rival vamp's herd. Ghoul some of his blood donors, find out where he likes to bite, and surgically implant tubes full of my own blood at those locations. Next time he feeds on one of the ghouled blood dolls, he gets a mouth full of my blood. And this is why having a poorly defended herd is a bad idea. Rival vamps can do worse things than just kill them.


There is an oMummy potion that turns your blood into poison. oMummy Alchemy was quite powerful. I suggest always taking a Mummy as your Supernatural Companion, if you take that Merit. Especially if you're going to max out your Generation and just be Diabilere fodder.



Eh. Mask of a Thousand Faces comes with free Appearance 5.
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Supernatural Companion? Xare to elabirate sirrah?
 
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