Vampires, and house rulings. Options

[Sir_Psycho]

An invisible way adept I GM bores the shit out of me. The only interesting thing is his dependant flaw of a girlfriend. I recently had him screwed over and left unpaid and bleeding in the water off a downtown seattle pier and he's looking to track the johnson down.

I've decided for shits and giggles to make this johnson a Vampire or Nosferatu, and the two adepts he has doing his dirty work Vampiric Pawns. I'll keep this a secret for a while, as I have the character going after this guy.

Once Vaziel (the character) doesn't get the point. I'm thinking of having the vampire seduce his girlfriend, and in the process make her a vampiric pawn, dependant on his blood enzymes.

The only way to deal with this and the vampire to get vaziel to leave him alone after a while without his girlfriend dying from lack of vampire blood will be for Vaziel to take on HMHVV to uphold his dependant flaw, and ultimately make roleplaying this character a little more fun due to the aversion to sunlight and of course, nightly need for blood.

Edit: Also, are Vampires dual natured? I know ghouls are, but does HMHVV have the same effect astrally?

However my problem is this, Vaziel is not a muncher, and I don't want to super power him. Obviously I want perks to be added, and he will be more powerful and i'll raise the difficulty and power level of his opposition accordingly. But regeneration? you can nail him with an S wound and next phase it's GONE? Mist form? he's a stealthy guy, mist form will just make his job ridiculously easy, popping through cracks in doors and such. Nosferatu thankfully have no mist form, but they also don't get nailed by the wood allergy, and have a bunch of psychic powers like compulsion, fear and influence.

So what do I do? Vampire or Nosferatu? tone down regeneration to one box of damage per phase maybe? Throw in a silver allergy to boot (even though it's not canon)? Smack him with some flaws?

Has anyone got any slightly balanced house rules on this they can give me?

[Kyoto Kid]

...I also had a GM toy with turning my character Leela's girlfriend into a vamp. Eventually Leela would have the bite put on her, so I immediately retired her several sessions before I planned to because of this. Becoming a Vampire is basically death for the character since they become unplayable as a PC.

The only saving grace for the PC in your campaign is that he is an adept and (hopefully for his sake) he either has a weapon focus or Killing Hands. Still, you need to be careful not to totally frag the character over, Yes it should be a challenge, however it also should be one the character has a chance of defeating.

Leela is a mundane and would have stood no chance since normal weapons do squat against beings like Vampires.

[Wounded Ronin]

[hyzmarca]

So you want to have a vampire PC?


Being a vampire isn't a death sentence. It is only slightly annoying. Really, its like being an albino only with cool powers.

Toning down regeneration is not your biggest issue. Regeneration swings both ways, other PCs may indulge in Immortal Flower and be POed about the change, and Shapeshifters would be completely screwed. Remember that if he becomes a vampire and kills a vampire then other vampires may well be his greatest enemies. Don't screw over the PC enemies. Make the Johnson a high-ranking member of Ordo Maximus or some similar group and he'll have people out looking for his killer.
Also, don't forget that he faces instant death against weapon foci due to his regeneration power.

What you really have to worry about is the fact that he will have +12 to all attributes most of the time. If he also have Improved Reflexes you have a character who will pretty much slaughter anything else before anyone else can lift a finger. Screw the mist form, +12 reaction is better than mist form.

But, if you make him a vampire there is nothing you can do about that except send him against enemies that can tear essence away from him time and time again. And that solution is only temporary. It all comes down to his moral code. If he is a happy murder then he's going going to be an absurdly powerful vampire all of the time. If he is a pacifist who agonizes over every wound he causes then he will be a very weak vampire until he can get over himself.


Nosferatu are dual natured, vampires aren't.

[Kyoto Kid]

...Death by combat, that's one thing. Had it happen before.

In some ways that would have been more preferable since the character's life would be over. Period. Eend of story.

Leela was also a special case for a fairly intricate storyline began to grow around her as I played her. That was when I began to make plans for her as an NPC in the arc I was preparing to run after my current GM finished his campaign. I had set into motion a number of things leading to her retirement. I had already brought a new character in and relegated Leela more to the background. The GM still wanted me to continue running her but with her now living in the UK, her upcoming concert debut, and an planned concert tour of Europe (which launched my campaign) there was no more room for leading the double life (she basically scored a Nova quality performance on her debut). In that one concert alone she made more than in a year's worth of quality runs.

The funny thing is, I actually caught wind of what was going to happen when the GM himself admitted that was his plan & why he had her friend Tracey start turning into a first class bitch with little reason. She (Tracey) hadn't been bitten yet when I retired Leela but their friendship was pretty much on the rocks & she was going to start treading a dangerous road.

Had Leela became a vampire, being the followup GM, I know I could have exercised "fiat" (there's that ugly word again) and say "oh that was another Leela."

I'm just not one for "Rewriting History".

[hyzmarca]

Well, as the follow-up GM you could have Leela hire the team to obtain Shiawase's vampire cure. You know, the one that is pretty much the only reason that there aren't regular exsanguinations at the Japanese Imperial Palace.

[Glyph]

Bull has a set of house rules for vampire PCs. Vampires can still become absurdly powerful, but at least it takes them awhile. He also has house rules for Nosferatu, but I would recommend against it, as they are even more powerful, and versatile, than a normal vamp.

[Kyoto Kid]

[Wounded Ronin]

[Sir_Psycho]

Holy crap. I just read Bull's rules. 12 power points? (for an adept) Becoming a vampire is like becoming a level 6 initiate instantly :S. I think I might disregard that.

I don't understand how PC vampire attributes work? They have the enhanced physical attributes power. So if Vaziel is full of blood then he adds 12 to his strength of 4?! Or does it add 6? It also doesn't specify in bull's rules or in critters how many times a day and specific attributes that can be boosted?

[tisoz]

[Glyph]

The "extra power points when you are over 6 Essense" is part of the rules that I disagree with, too (shapeshifters don't get 8 points of powers because of their higher Essense), although I otherwise like them.

I actually played a forum game with a vampire character, sort of. He got it for "free", but the GM used Bull's rules with no points to start out with, instead of three. So basically, I was a guy with a sunlight allergy. Potentially, we could have become pretty powerful, but the game didn't last long enough for that to happen (it still lasted a decent amount of time for a forum game, though).


The enhanced physical attributes are on all of the time for a vampire, but are limited in number of uses and duration for a nosferatu. Nosferatu also lack mist form, but have the compulsion, fear, and influence powers, and lose Essense more slowly than a normal vampire.

One thing to note is that shapeshifters in the SR companion are significantly weaker than their Critters book counterparts, so there is nothing preventing you from similarly gimping PC vampires (although I hate it when there is one set of rules for PCs, and one for NPCs). Still, simply the costs of improving powers should keep the character fairly manageable. You could do like the campaign I was in did, and start him out with no power points (since he's becoming a vampire for "free"). Also keep in mind that draining victims of Essense should present both some difficulties, and some moral quandries.


Now... one way to possibly keep the guy's power in check would be to use Bull's rules for nosferatu, but say that the mental powers (compulsion, fear, influence) are secrets that need to be taught to the fledgling by a master vampire - and the adept is kind of a renegade vamp due to the death of his creator vamp. That way, you would have limited attribute increasing powers, no mist form, no mental powers, and his need for blood wouldn't be this big all-the-time thing due to nosferatu losing Essense more slowly - it would still be there, but he wouldn't be bogging down the game to hunt down blood all of the time.

[hyzmarca]

[Fortune]

[Angelone]

Near-death-experience-haver?

[Kyoto Kid]

[X-Kalibur]

Psychotrope was probably one of the most interesting SR books I read. The way the matrix is described in it was really well done (gives some insight as to how the Reality Filter works).

Short version minus spoilers, it involves several deckers who all have something in common who get trapped in the seattle RTG and it is designed like hell.

One of them happens to be the above mentioned girl. Read it, its worthwhile.

[Moirdryd]

HMHVV. Whatever the need, we have the strain..... (so long as the need is in a general sort of undead, flesh consuming, blood drinking direction, otherwise your boned chummer!)

[Sir_Psycho]

So what's with the Vulnerability to wood? It stages the damage code up. I'd understand if the material punctured the skin, maybe, but what happens if a vampire is walking through the forest and touches a tree?

I've decided to disallow Mist Form at this point. And enhanced physical attributes will only start being applied past base essence (6, or maybe even 8 or 10 if I feel it's too munching). Also, the regeneration power will not work against damage inflicted by wood, and must be healed over a long period of time. I may also apply this to fire or even magic.

[Fortune]

[Sir_Psycho]

The odd thing is that the specific example is if a wood vulnerable character was hit with a 2L wooden club. Seems odd, just logically, that for some reason, the impact of wood somehow "disrupts the metabolism" of the character.

It's more role-playing nitpicking than a real problem with the game mechanic.

[SL James]

Well, the 2L is a physical wound, so you could presume that it increased the code because it broke skin and made contact with blood and everything else that comes with hitting someone so hard it breaks skin.

[Sir_Psycho]

Clubs do stun damage unless you're specifically using something like Vicious Blow.

[hyzmarca]

It's a magical vulnerability.

[Sir_Psycho]

A unicorn did it.