in general do vampires gain additions to all their physical attributes with this power or just some? Also how long does the power last?

The critters book dosent really give specifics on this so I wanna know how you guys play it.

If it states nothing, it enhances all phyiscal attributes (Bod, Qui, Str) by Essence. If it limits to specific attributes or uses, then follow those rules instead.

All their physical attributes are permanently enhanced by their current essence. That is all. Very, very nasty.

Permanent is accurate but misleading. Their increases float along with their Essence. It's still incredibly nasty.

~J

that actually makes it worse... because that means that if they gain essence in mid chase, they can suddenly start tossing cars around. +12 to Str, +12 Q, +12 bod.

At full ess, a vampire can run at a minimum of twleve meters per second for 36 seconds without serious effort. That's just...you know. a smidge scary.

12m/s isn't fast. If the vamp starts at QUI 6 and has Athletics(Running)-6, that's fast -- 21m/s on average. But it'll still lose any running contests to the Night One Adept with Hydraulic Jacks.

The sceariest thing probably is the fact that it has all the physical attributes in the high teens and can still appear quite normal.

Can vampires use Reaction for melee attacks?

Only if they've gone feral, I believe. There could be houserules for bloodlust.

Quickly thinking of them...

On sight of blood, rolls Willpower(Essence). If it fails, it goes into a bloodlust for (Essence)D6 x10 minutes, where it loses all sense of humanity and will attack anything on site. If it can, it drains anyone it attacks. The creature is feral for those minutes and cannot use any skills. It defaults to Reaction for all attacks.

It could definitely use some tweaking, but, eh.

More accurately, at all stats of 3 and full Essence, the vampire can walk at 15 meters/second.

~J

Oops, that's what I was missing. Sorry.

~J, confusing seconds and combat turns since forever

AE: Yeah, that'd be better, true. That or whatever their max Essence (since Nosferatu get an automatic +5, I believe) is (Nos: 17 - Ess, other: 12 - Ess).

Perhaps duing bloodlust you can't gain Essence from draining, or gain it at a slowed rate?

(And what's HC?)

Hardcore.

I think you should gain Essence just as easily during bloodlust. I mean, the whole point of bloodlust is to make sure the thing feeds regularly, right?

Not necissarily, more like just going crazy over the sight of blood.

However, if the rule about not gaining as quickly sticks, I also think an Enhanced Attributes bit should be vamped up some (no pun intended) to reflect their feral nature. Maybe Essence x 2 instead of just Essence until the bloodlust wears down?

Meh. I'll have to reread the description, but I'm iffy on vampires being essentially feral.

~J

Feral vamps do exist, of course, but I like to view there as being 3 levels (4 in my game world):

At the top are the Nosferatu, of course.

Additionally in my world, there are a small number of powerful vampires who have been "alive" for centuries even before the Awakening playing a complex game against each other, the source of several shadowruns, but then I wasn't (and still am not) up to speed on the Nosferatu storylines.

Next come the "normal" vamps. Intelligent as any (meta)human, as psychologically and emotionally diverse; from the vampgangers who tear up Puyallup every night, to the vampire runner who donates a lot of his time to charity runs, to the otherwise ordinary bloke who works at the kosher butchers Downtown.

And at the bottom are the feral ones, the ones who lost their intelligence from the ravages of the disease. Put them down, it's a kindness.

It's extremely important for physads to become vampires so that they can stack all their inherent abilities with the vampire abilities.


Because we love game balance.

Lol Anyone ever play a vamp? I played a vamp magician once in a one-off - let's hear it for Alleviate Allergy. Mind you, the opposition sorceror worked it out eventually, that got hectic

I actually had the (dis?)pleasure of playing a Dzoo-Noo-Qua. Vampiric Troll. That was seriously the best campaign I have played in to date. It's just too bad we never got to finishing it... We were on our way to becoming gods.

Vampiric Wujen phys mages are not a happy thing to have in your life, especially because no rules are given for calculating magic with a fluctuating essence..

Which is why most vampires go NPC according to canon. Too many non-existant rules to make a canon rule.

not to mention game balance.

Depends on your game. When the game is dominated by minmaxers, then a Vampire PC isn't very out of place.

(My rl group plays in a very much higher "power level" than a lot of others. We actually did a comparison between our GMs two groups, our group and another. Each of our characters could take on two of theirs, and maybe then some. Same chargen, same run-styles, same rewards.)

So does mine, Tanka, and we tried a vamp one time... in our context it wasn't really too bad.