QUOTE (LurkerOutThere @ Sep 19 2009, 10:19 PM)

Further yes I do believe it is foolish to allow vampires in games as by necissity they will either be amazing or they will hobble the rest of the team and force them to work around the vampire.
Why is it necessary that they are amazing?
Unlike in other settings, no SR vampire has been a vampire for more than 70 years and even these cases should be rare, and would not be represented properly by a 400BP character.
These are likely the equivalent of an average person who got infected a few years ago, and these are without a doubt far from being the legendary monsters they are presented as in many other works.
A vampire will be stronger than an average human, but that goes for practically all runners as well.
Will a 400BP vampire be stronger than other 400BP characters?
Unlikely, given roughly the same amount of optimization for all players.
There's amazing benefits, but strong drawbacks as well.
No 'ware at chargen, no geneware ever, no less than delta grade 'ware ever either, lower starting Magic, tighter restrictions on BP because 100 points have already been spent, problems with finding medical assistance when they get hit by something they cannot regenerate, need to distribute otherwise needed ressources for spell sustaining on Alleviate Allergy (twice at daytime) or suffering the consequences, need to hide vampiric nature or suffer the consequences, need to come up with nourishment, problems with water.
Many of these restrictions can be worked around and if the player is smart enough, the benefits will outweigh the drawbacks, but that goes for all character types.
Open build point systems like SR4 always entail the risk of unintentionally crippling your character in certain regards, especially if you try too hard to powergame.
It's a bit harder to come up with a vampire who isn't overspecialized or hurt too much by vampiric drawbacks, but it's entirely possible.
QUOTE (Falconer @ Sep 20 2009, 06:51 PM)

That nonregenerable damage doesn't come from any 'nerve' damage. But only from CENTRAL NERVOUS hits.
EG: brain & spinal cord. Even now... we regenerate localized nerves all the time when we cut ourselves and such, it's the central hits which cause of major issues and we don't naturally heal.
But specifically excluding these is kinda problematic in a system that does not have any mechanic for targeting specific body parts (yes, there's called shots, but even they are heavily abstracted).
Most of the time, it will be entirely pointles that this restriction exists.
As i wrote previously : killing regenerating critters by going for a headshot was a rule needed when Regeneration meant that you could heal
any amount of damage done to you at the end of the combat round.
In combination with SRs abstract damage system, it lead to more than wonky mechanics, completely randomizing any fights against regenerating enemies
And not representing "going for a headshot" either.
It was more like "shoot it again and pray it stays down
this time" or "save the stun rounds for the shapeshifters".
Good riddance.
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Even ItNW has a specific condition where any damage caused by allergies bypasses it. Hell as a house rule, I'd suggest that any damage caused by immunities wouldn't regenerate either. (EG: if staked they stay staked until stake is removed).
That's actually already the case : as long as the allergen is present, there's no Regeneration, so they have to pull out the stake first.
Which is why barbed wooden arrows or crossbow bolts work so great against vampires.
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And my comment on munchkinism is more to the effect of. You need to watch your players power levels. Problems come not from powerfull players, but from when one player is far above the others. From the sounds of it, the OP has 1 problem player, and the rest are getting along nicely.
From the sound of it, the OP has no problem player, just a technical question that doesn't really matter in his game, as the vampire PC could easily get medical treatment if necessary.
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Also -4 penalty for being in the sun is a pain yes, but it is a bearable pain. If you view the sun as radiation... then actual radiation from radioactive sources may qualify as light (gamma). In which case, then the radiation damage should have +2DV against the vampire.
Even though the sun emits radioactivity, it's rather doubtful that this is the reason why it hurts vampires...