He's not enlighted. We pray for his soul, Brother.

har har har....

Nah, they've always been in there; it's probably just the brain cancer. Have you been playing d20?

Amen, brothers.

Commence conversion technique 2.

Not as much as we need an Elf!

...yeah, yeah, yeah, right :

Meh. They get Astral Perception and the others don't. So really Ghouls see better than normal. It's just in a weird spectra. If you really care, you can get cybereyes.

All HMHVV causes brain damage, it is most extreme for the Dzoo-Noo-Qua who have such extensive brain damage that they lose the "Sapience" power and aren't on the chooseable list. It's least noticable in Wendigo, who gain the magical power to force other people to regard their behavior as normal (which means by definition that noone notices the brain damage).

Only in the case of the ghoul is the brain damage something which sometimes doesn't happen. Heck, also only in the case of the ghoul is the brain damage treatable.

Remember: people who nearly turn into a ghoul are really sick and then get better. People who nearly turn into any of these other yahoos die and then... stay dead.

In point of fact, ghoul transformation is the only one of these things which involves "you" keeping control of your character. In every other instance you die and then an NPC may or may not get created based on your character sheet. With Ghoul transformation you get some stat mods and may go crazy and lose control of your character. That sounds like the least extensive brain damage of all the available options.

-Frank

Is that new? SR has always steered clear of the undead classification for the HMHVVers. They aren't walking corpses, they're people with a magical disease that are really easy to mistake for walking corpses.

Since first edition HMHVV infection has always involved the character dying and then making a check to see if a new vampire is created. There are some weasel words thrown in there to make it unclear as to whether the new creature (which is not under player control) is "you" or not, but the fact remains that a prerequisite for becoming a vampire, or a bashee, or a Dzoo-Noo-Qua is that you get Essence Drained down to zero - which in those cases where you don't get transformed into an NPC critter is merely fatal.

You can make a perfectly valid case from a continuity of experience viewpoint that a vampire is "you". You can make an equally strong case using exactly the same language that a flesh form termite inhabitation is "you". You can also make a perfectly valid case from a continuity of Essence or continuity of moral action standpoint that the vampire (or the fleshform termite) is not you.

Vampires in Shadowrun are not "undead" in that they are not animate corpses. But they are a newly created critter. You die, and an entirely living vampire is born. If I was willing to accept that as "me", I'd rather just be a flesh form insect merge - then I don't have to eat other metahumans at all.

In the advent that I was not willing to accept that - and I am not at all sure that I am - then I'll take ghoul transformation. That doesn't involve death or even risk of death. Ghoul Transformation Virus infections are never fatal, the worst that can happen to you is a lifetime of madness and canibalism. And since that's the very best that genuine Vampirism has to offer - I'll take my chances.

-Frank

I assume that we're talking about the Ghoul Transformation rulas published in, for example, the SR3 Companion. And while I have a lot of reservations about those rules, and indeed have on numerous occassions lambasted them as "crap", it is probably the only point of reference we have for this discussion.

In those rules, changing into a Ghoul never killed you. The stat penalties were variable, and if they would be enough to drop you to zero, you stop at one and go stark raving looney and become an NPC.

-Frank

~J

I was not aware of that.

Anyone else here thing of Animal from the Muppet Show when facing a wendigo?

In our campaigns, someone infected stays as a pc if the player wants.

Considering how very powerful Vampires are (especially in 3rd ed rules), that seems like a bad plan.

If vampirism doesn't come with a loss of control it just becomes a super serum which requires you to kill people. Considering how many people an average Shadowrun group kills, that doesn't even matter.

-Frank

I thought the question being polled was

Not which would I prefer my PC to be.

For SR3, Banshees are found in Critters, page 22.