Nosferatu Beasthandler Mystic Adept, Rife with pitfalls, any helpful hints? Options

[Tymeaus Jalynsfe...]

Assuming your group knows.
Assuming your group is bigoted.
Assuming they can actually do anything to you.
Assuming Infected are so radically alien in thought to mortals that they are fundamentally different (see bigoted, above).

Point in case, the game I play my Blood Lord in has survived many, many encounters where they otherwise probably would have TPK'd (if not then close to it) without the presence of my nosferatu. The Fear, Influence, and Compulsion Powers are astounding, especially with Black Magic as your tradition (so you boost your Charisma).

Essence Drain can easily be handled. You get a 1/6 Contact or find a hobo, right? Then you stack Influence and Compulsion on him/her to stay at your place, right? Then you pump them full of Renfield until they become addicted, right? Now for every point of Essence you pay to make a dose, your new dependent gets 1-6 points of Essence (with no cap listed) that you can siphon straight back off. Welcome to (as Nosferatu) a +6 Magic Rating for 12 hours every 12 hours.

You can "handwaive" away the blood with either: A) (I know you all dislike it but it's perfectly RAW) Nutrition, or B) paying 30% more in lifestyle or using the expanded lifestyle rules from Runner's Companion and choosing at least Medium for Necessities.

You can rationalize anything... You are very good at that. But taking the world view into account, your Nosferatu will be dead shortly after he is introduced to the team. At least in my team anyways. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

[Starmage21]

There's not much point in being nosferatu if you're only draining 1 Essence every 6 months (and I don't understand why the rules make that so low, anyway). Every build I've seen is focused on tearing through human cattle like crazy in order to fuel huge magical boosts. If you're "handwaving" away the blood, you're seriously missing the point. It's also silly to ignore the fact that shooting someone and eating someone's soul are not culturally equivalent, whatever your (mostly metagame) logic says.

To date, outside of a couple magical traditions, Essence does not necessarily equate to a soul that is destined for some religious afterlife that by being essence-drained you are depriving them from. If this was the case, then all cyber/bio/gene/whatever-ware is just as fundamentally bad as having it drained away to sustain a vampire. Instead, it is better thought of as a person's sustaining life-force or life-energy. When it is all gone, you die, even if there is no biological reason for it to be so.

As for handwaving away blood somehow missing the point, apparently youre missing my simultaneously. Because this is not the World of Darkness, such personal horrors as having to feed on what your character probably thinks of as his fellow man is decidedly NOT the point. This is Shadowrun, where you have bigger concerns, such as shooting corpsec guards in the face for money and sticking it to The Man (if youre still into the cyberpunk thing).

[Yerameyahu]

It doesn't matter if it's the same as a soul (… which doesn't exist, at all). Installing cyber against someone's will is *also* bad, by the way. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

No, you're wrong. It's not okay to "handwave" an exotic requirement as 'just lifestyle' in SR. Whether or not this is WOD is not relevant: in SR, you can't "handwave" important things like that.

[Starmage21]

You can rationalize anything... You are very good at that. But taking the world view into account, your Nosferatu will be dead shortly after he is introduced to the team. At least in my team anyways. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

At this point you might as well get up and leave the game table. Being inflexible to the desires of your fellow players puts you* well into the area of the asshole or dickhead of the group. If it is going to escalate to the point of players attacking each other, instead of participating in a cooperative game, youre just as susceptible to the vamp's influence powers altering your world view. A certain amount of metagaming is acceptable, and the extent to which that the other players will go to accept a player's infected PC is entirely subjective to the group.

*you being the general sense of you, not a personal attack or comment at Tymeaus Jalynsfein or his attitudes.

To date, my own Nosferatu PC has fed exactly once. The group accepted a freaking wetwork job during a session I missed, so I figured what the hell.

[Starmage21]

It doesn't matter if it's the same as a soul (… which doesn't exist, at all). Installing cyber against someone's will is *also* bad, by the way. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

No, you're wrong. It's not okay to "handwave" an exotic requirement as 'lifestyle' in SR. Whether or not this is WOD is not relevant: in SR, you can't "handwave" important things like that.

If it isnt OK, then why do we have so many means by which to do exactly that? 30% lifestyle increase directly suggested in the same book the infected are introduced as playable characters and the Nutrition spell in Street Magic are both means by which we can explicitly handwave the requirement for metahuman blood.

[Neraph]

You can rationalize anything... You are very good at that. But taking the world view into account, your Nosferatu will be dead shortly after he is introduced to the team. At least in my team anyways. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

Again, assuming you know and assuming you can.

No, you're wrong. It's not okay to "handwave" an exotic requirement as 'just lifestyle' in SR. Whether or not this is WOD is not relevant: in SR, you can't "handwave" important things like that.

You can by using the Optional Rule found in Runner's Companion, page 78, in the sidebar.

[Irion]

And a childmolester is no concern for your normal bankrobber... Why should he care? There is no reason to.

There is a big red line between metagame Logic and how people react.
80% of all manslaughters and murders are probably not really beneficial to anybody or there is a far better solution for everybody.

We are not a rational bunch. I mean lots of people would like to execute some sorts of mentally sick people, we were burning witches, genocides, rassism is very much alive and most of us do not give a fuck about anything whichs DNA is not Human.

And if there is something what humans do better than hating each other, it is hating somebody else together
So yeah, Tymeaus Jalynsfein is right. If it comes the the gameworld "facts and reason" do not have a good stand, they do not have a good stand in the real world either.

[Yerameyahu]

Adding 30% is not handwaving, it's paying for it. If Nutrition is even allowed, that again is a positive action you have to routinely take. Even then, I wouldn't let the player just *forget* about it after that, like setting their electric bill on autopay. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

[Patrick Goodman]

There's not much point in being nosferatu if you're only draining 1 Essence every 6 months (and I don't understand why the rules make that so low, anyway). Every build I've seen is focused on tearing through human cattle like crazy in order to fuel huge magical boosts. If you're "handwaving" away the blood, you're seriously missing the point. It's also silly to ignore the fact that shooting someone and eating someone's soul are not culturally equivalent, whatever your (mostly metagame) logic says.

When Carl and Marc introduced nosferatu in Paranormal Animals of Europe, their apparent mandate was that everything in Europe had to be biggerer and badderer than anything in North America, because obviously Europe is cooler than North America could ever possibly hope to be. "Well, our vampires are better than yours!" was, apparently, the thought process. That's the only thing I can figure out.

Note that I don't know either Carl or Marc, and I could be 100% wrong in my though process there, but as near as I can figure, that's why nosferatu only need a point of Essence every six months, and why they can drain so much more than a regular vampire, and any of a number of other things that make my life a lot more interesting than I would sometimes like it to be.

[Patrick Goodman]

Nosferatu and Vampires, agreed - no. Ghouls and other "normal" infected? Why not?

I can't remember a time in the past 23 years of playing Shadowrun where I've looked at the core book, and the core book alone, and looked at the character generation options inherent to that core book, and said, "You know, there's not enough variety. I need to play something completely out there for this game to retain my interest." Sadly, though, this is a thought process I see a lot of these days.

While I can see where Tom was coming from, and where I think he intended to go, when he made ghouls playable, I didn't agree with the decision. Even when I broke down and played myself a ghoul back in SR3. I didn't necessarily think it was a good idea. That said, I can see a point being made for ghouls as PCs. I might not like it, but I can see it as a viable alternative even as I actively try to convince people not to do it.

There's no such thing as "normal" Infected, by the way. Ghouls aren't normal. Vampires, wendigos, goblins...they're damn sure not normal.

I don't think, and I never have thought, that any Type I Infected has any business as a player character. They're monsters. Ghouls are bad enough, having to feed on human flesh, but they can get their food from a chop shop. Someone has to die for them to eat, yes, but they don't necessarily have to kill their next meal themselves.

Type I, though...to survive, you've gotta get up close and personal with your victim...and you can't just get lunch second-hand, as it were, from Tamanous. Tamanous doesn't stock Essence...and you can't hand-wave that away as a 30% increase in lifestyle cost. The game stops being about shadowruns and becomes about the vampire getting his Essence fix.

They wanted rules for PC vampires from me 12, 13 years ago when I first wrote the piece for Running Wild when it was still an SR3 book, and I told them no then. If I'd been consulted when the notion of Infected PCs was being put forth for the RC, I'd have fought tooth and claw against it then. It's a Bad Idea.

But you don't have to listen to me, since I know from elsewhere in this thread that I'm just a hater.

[Patrick Goodman]

You want to be a Nosferatu, go for it buddy. The same people who will tell you you're being cheesy are the same folks who will tell you their character has 40/43 armor and 4 passes and not bat an eye. Don't let idiots put down your idea.

I think enough people have seen my characters in enough publications to know that this is not, in fact, always the case. I tell someone their character concept is twinky, I can point them to enough well-done characters to show that I know whereof I speak.

[Irion]

their apparent mandate was that everything in Europe had to be biggerer and badderer than anything in North America, because obviously Europe is cooler than North America could ever possibly hope to be.

Yeah, such attitude seems to go around a lot in Fantasy and Science Fiction.
(Our lasers need to be bigger, our ships need to be fast and the staffs of our wizards needs to be...)
Its like Lord of Rings would mention that Andúril is much, much bigger than Excalibur.

[Cojuzei]

I love how far off topic this has gotten. It's gone from "Can you guys help me with my character" to "OMGFLAMEQQFLAMEFESTFLAMERMCFLAMINGTON!" Seriously, there needs to be an age requirement on this forum.

When you're doing your spell selection, make sure to think about who you'll be facing in a combat scenario. One fight you may be facing trolls with HMGs. Next it may be a cyborg or even a set of drones. Another fight you may be facing mages or even countermages. Try to be as versatile as you can.

The only pitfall I really see is in the animals you train. It takes time and commitment to train an animal, and if it's not done well they can be killed in the first fight. If you train them well enough they can be a huge attribute to the party, but if any of them die it's not like replacing munitions. You have to either train it from a pup yourself or buy a new one...which is vastly expensive and still not guaranteed to follow you explicitly beyond its next meal.

Now, what I might suggest is combining your animal training with spirit summoning. Could be an interesting way to go, summoning spirits to possess the animals you already have, using those to do things for you. Since spirits have immunity to natural weaponry, and since they give their abilities to those they possess, not only will your animals now be guaranteed sentience but also a high enough force spirit will be next to godlike. Even if another mage breaks the summon, your trained animal will still shred them to pieces on its own while you're summoning another. This synergy could work well if you plan for it.

[Starmage21]

I can't remember a time in the past 23 years of playing Shadowrun where I've looked at the core book, and the core book alone, and looked at the character generation option inherent to that core book, and said, "You know, there's not enough variety. I need to play something completely out there for this game to retain my interest." Sadly, though, this is a thought process I see a lot of these days.

While I can see where Tom was coming from, and where I think he intended to go, when he made ghouls playable, I didn't agree with the decision. Even when I broke down and played myself a ghoul back in SR3. I didn't necessarily think it was a good idea. That said, I can see a point being made for ghouls as PCs. I might not like it, but I can see it as a viable alternative even as I actively try to convince people not to do it.

There's no such thing as "normal" Infected, by the way. Ghouls aren't normal. Vampires, wendigos, goblins...they're damn sure not normal.

I don't think, and I never have thought, that [b]any Type I Infected has any business as a player character. They're monsters. Ghouls are bad enough, having to feed on human flesh, but they can get their food from a chop shop. Someone has to die for them to eat, yes, but they don't necessarily have to kill their next meal themselves.[/b]

Type I, though...to survive, you've gotta get up close and personal with your victim...and you can't just get lunch second-hand, as it were, from Tamanous. Tamanous doesn't stock Essence...and you can't hand-wave that away as a 30% increase in lifestyle cost. The game stops being about shadowruns and becomes about the vampire getting his Essence fix.

They wanted rules for PC vampires from me 12, 13 years ago when I first wrote the piece for Running Wild when it was still an SR3 book, and I told them no then. If I'd been consulted when the notion of Infected PCs was being put forth for the RC, I'd have fought tooth and claw against it then. It's a Bad Idea.

But you don't have to listen to me, since I know from elsewhere in this thread that I'm just a hater.

Bolded the important part.

Currently, pop-culture disagrees with you. The monstrous beings who prey on humans for food can be romanticized as has been done by a whole bunch of popular fiction*. The fact that people can still vehemently refuse to accept that the two concepts are not mutually exclusive is pretty much what makes them haters.

In many ways, the group of shadowrunners that features a vampire is the same as any number of predator-prey relations that shouldnt work, but sometimes do in the animal kingdom. Its like the cat & chick picture that still floating around on Facebook shares that says "I love you, food." http://icanhascheezburger.files.wordpress....loves-food1.jpg

*Twilight doesnt count. Those arent vampires. Theyre gay superheroes.

[almost normal]

I think enough people have seen my characters in enough publications to know that this is not, in fact, always the case. I tell someone their character concept is twinky, I can point them to enough well-done characters to show that I know whereof I speak.

I guess I just don't like your feelings on the matter. It makes me think that if you were a writer on the old Star Trek, you'd get pissed Spock was a half-vulcan, since we've got plenty of human options around. I won't even get into Odo. Now, I might be in the same boat as you, and just not know it. I, for instance, feel that restrictions tend to produce the most creativity, especially in writing. As a game though, Shadowrun just doesn't bring that out for me. If the total sum difference between my character and your character is a +/- 1 dice pool on a few skills, it's just not as interesting to me. Making a pacifist Nosferatu? Now there's something I can let the juices fly with.

[Samoth]

My only problem with the Vampire and Nosferatu as written is the Regeneration quality. No PC should have access to that, but if the GM allows it they can.

All the other infected types have some very good positives in terms of stat boots, but also severe negatives that they have to deal with. Of course V/N isn't all positive either, but they have game-breaking abilities that make them stupidly powerful.

[Starmage21]

My only problem with the Vampire and Nosferatu as written is the Regeneration quality. No PC should have access to that, but if the GM allows it they can.

All the other infected types have some very good positives in terms of stat boots, but also severe negatives that they have to deal with. Of course V/N isn't all positive either, but they have game-breaking abilities that make them stupidly powerful.

You obviously havent been playing SR4.

[Samoth]

I haven't played in over a decade - what are you referring to?

If you mean Regeneration, I checked my book and saw many other infected have it as well. Sorry for the error.

[Irion]

I guess I just don't like your feelings on the matter. It makes me think that if you were a writer on the old Star Trek, you'd get pissed Spock was a half-vulcan,

No, it would be like making him a half romulan.

since we've got plenty of human options around. I won't even get into Odo.

Odo was a plot element. It is like putting seven of nine on deep space nine. Odo on the enterprice and Worf with Captain Kirk.
To stay in StarTrek. (There might be even stranger things, but my StarFu is not good enough for that.

Now, I might be in the same boat as you, and just not know it. I, for instance, feel that restrictions tend to produce the most creativity, especially in writing. As a game though, Shadowrun just doesn't bring that out for me. If the total sum difference between my character and your character is a +/- 1 dice pool on a few skills, it's just not as interesting to me. Making a pacifist Nosferatu? Now there's something I can let the juices fly with.

And if you char only defines itself by dicepools, well I guess you have already lost.
There is nothing against I want to play a vampire because this campaign and the situation ongoing fluff explainations....
But to make you character more interesting? It is build to fail, from the start.
Why? Because exactly this won't happen. Why?
Because if your group would really take you for what you are, the game would be about the groups reaction to you and the plot would not matter anymore.
So in order to not have to do that, they just ignore what you are.

It was mentioned early: SR is not WOD. So the whole taiming your inner beast is gone. It burns down to adjust you lifestye, take care of essence loss.
How may the rest of the players react? They shoot you in the head and take the reward or they just ignore it.

[Tymeaus Jalynsfe...]

Again, assuming you know and assuming you can.

Got to pass through a ward sometime. The second you fail the ward is the second you are a dead Nosferatu, at least at my table. And since many establishments have Wards established... it is only a matter of time.

Point is, that even if you are capable of defending yourself, what runner is going to willingly run with you once they know? None at my table, I can guarantee you that one. And if you pay attention to the Fluff, the vast majority are not going to either. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

[Tymeaus Jalynsfe...]

At this point you might as well get up and leave the game table. Being inflexible to the desires of your fellow players puts you* well into the area of the asshole or dickhead of the group. If it is going to escalate to the point of players attacking each other, instead of participating in a cooperative game, youre just as susceptible to the vamp's influence powers altering your world view. A certain amount of metagaming is acceptable, and the extent to which that the other players will go to accept a player's infected PC is entirely subjective to the group.

*you being the general sense of you, not a personal attack or comment at Tymeaus Jalynsfein or his attitudes.

To date, my own Nosferatu PC has fed exactly once. The group accepted a freaking wetwork job during a session I missed, so I figured what the hell.

I do get your point, but why would the Nosferatu player have the privelege of shoving a character concept down the throats of those who do not want one in game?

For the record, Infected PC's are not allowed at our table, so it is not that much an issue for me. You get infected in game play, you are done as a character, make a new one. NPC's are dealth with on a case by case basis, dependant upon circumstance. Obviously, you do not attempt to massacre an Infected if you are by yourself and he has backup. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

[Starmage21]

I do get your point, but why would the Nosferatu player have the privelege of shoving a character concept down the throats of those who do not want one in game?

For the record, Infected PC's are not allowed at our table, so it is not that much an issue for me. You get infected in game play, you are done as a character, make a new one. NPC's are dealth with on a case by case basis, dependant upon circumstance. Obviously, you do not attempt to massacre an Infected if you are by yourself and he has backup. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

It goes both ways, I would never want to deny that. You have as much right to play your character as I do to play mine. The question is, how much effort do you put in to meeting on that middle ground. If that effort is near zero, you are a douchebag.

[Irion]

@Starmage21
Here is something I have to add.
If you play a core book character you ARE in the middle ground.

Not every option is equal. If I want to play a Mary Sue, I have to ask the other players. And they can refuse. And if they do, they are not douchebags, they are well within their rights.
And advanced characters options are Mary Sues per definition. Yes, some Metavariant is the same level as an AI or a free Spirit

[Starmage21]

@Starmage21
Here is something I have to add.
If you play a core book character you ARE in the middle ground.

Not every option is equal. If I want to play a Mary Sue, I have to ask the other players. And they can refuse. And if they do, they are not douchebags, they are well within their rights.
And advanced characters options are Mary Sues per definition. Yes, some Metavariant is the same level as an AI or a free Spirit

No, not really. It is no different than two or more players arguing over a table about who can't play an ork because the other one hates orcs and wont work with them.

[Tymeaus Jalynsfe...]

It goes both ways, I would never want to deny that. You have as much right to play your character as I do to play mine. The question is, how much effort do you put in to meeting on that middle ground. If that effort is near zero, you are a douchebag.

I put no effort into allowing an Infected at our table. They are not allowed, so it is a non-issue.

As a character, if I was to run into an infected that looked at me like I was lunch (and you must admit, they have a hard time NOT doing that), then that would end in a Dead Infected, PC or not. That is not an outlandish mindset, though, in the Shadowrun world. Infected are not your friends, and they would as soon eat you as look at you. Common throughout the fluff. The character would be justified.