Vampire Bloodlines Character Development

[Gosling]

[

Awesome sword by the way.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5_12ygcrqc4

 

[JarlFrank]

It's possible for a young man to swing a tire iron or a bat in combat. Anyone stupid enough to use a sword in a real fight for his life will just cut his fingers and eyeballs off, unless he's a trained specialist. Face it, bimbo, swords are archaic and redundant, there's no room for them in a game set in modern L.A. Tire irons, bats, knives, axes, etc. - maybe. But not swords.

Oh hai you obviously never held a sword in your hand. It's not some mystic kind of super-special weapon that need years of training to wield properly. If you know how to beat someone with a baseball bat, you know how to slice him up with a sword. Sure, you'd be fucked if you fought against a trained swordsman, but that's because he's better than you, not because you slice yourself up.

Swords don't magically swing around and slice off your own hands for fuck's sake. You grab it by the hilt and swing the sharp end towards the enemy, easy as that. I'm not a good swordfighter, but even when I held a sword in my hand for the very first time, I didn't hit myself. If you believe that you cut your own fingers off if you don't know how to use a sword, you're extremely retarded. The only way to achieve that is to hold it by the wrong end.

For fuck's sake.

 

[Liberal]

It's possible for a young man to swing a tire iron or a bat in combat. Anyone stupid enough to use a sword in a real fight for his life will just cut his fingers and eyeballs off, unless he's a trained specialist. Face it, bimbo, swords are archaic and redundant, there's no room for them in a game set in modern L.A. Tire irons, bats, knives, axes, etc. - maybe. But not swords.

Oh hai you obviously never held a sword in your hand. It's not some mystic kind of super-special weapon that need years of training to wield properly. If you know how to beat someone with a baseball bat, you know how to slice him up with a sword. Sure, you'd be fucked if you fought against a trained swordsman, but that's because he's better than you, not because you slice yourself up.

Swords don't magically swing around and slice off your own hands for fuck's sake. You grab it by the hilt and swing the sharp end towards the enemy, easy as that. I'm not a good swordfighter, but even when I held a sword in my hand for the very first time, I didn't hit myself. If you believe that you cut your own fingers off if you don't know how to use a sword, you're extremely retarded. The only way to achieve that is to hold it by the wrong end.

For fuck's sake.

I assume when you held your sword, you were going against an armed opponent who was intending to kill you, in a locked environment with narrow spaces between walls and lots of crates/shit laying around? Because if not, whatever you were doing with the sword doesn't relate to roleplaying in Vampire Bloodlines. I understand that you get your ideas from cheap-ass Hollywood films where a total novice accidentally disarms a sword-wielding opponent, picks it up with a badass look on his face, and magically acquires professional swordfighting skills which help him defeat a centuries-old weapon-master and save the world from evil. It doesn't work that way, Genosse, it doesn't work that way.

 

[Gosling]

Location: Absurdistan

 

[GarfunkeL]

While you are correct that a novice can hardly hope to beat an experienced swordsman, you are also guilty of crazy exaggeration earlier. You probably confused swords with whips. Now admit you fucked up the exaggeration and we can all get back to the actual topic - ie, character builds for VTMB.

 

[Liberal]

While you are correct that a novice can hardly hope to beat an experienced swordsman, you are also guilty of crazy exaggeration earlier. You probably confused swords with whips. Now admit you fucked up the exaggeration and we can all get back to the actual topic - ie, character builds for VTMB.

My point - medieval weapons in Bloodlines look and feel out of place.
Actually, there's just two swords in the entire game - katana and the occult blade (which happens to look just like a katana). All the other melee weapons are perfectly 20/21st century. I was wondering whether anyone wold remember this...

So, any good character builds for a diplomat enforcer?

 

[Raghar]

My point - medieval weapons in Bloodlines look and feel out of place.
Actually, there's just two swords in the entire game - katana and the occult blade (which happens to look just like a katana). All the other melee weapons are perfectly 20/21st century. I was wondering whether anyone wold remember this...

Actually swords were used in bronze age as well. You are saying they were used 800 years ago and thus they should be outdated, even when they were used 2000 years before. Actually it was about 3-6 months I seen a person with sword going into the bus. 10 years from when I heard a person fired burst from assault rifle because his neighbors repeatedly robbed him of his vegetables. (Yes it's about 15 years worth of jail offense, that assault riffle.)

 

[JarlFrank]

I assume when you held your sword, you were going against an armed opponent who was intending to kill you, in a locked environment with narrow spaces between walls and lots of crates/shit laying around? Because if not, whatever you were doing with the sword doesn't relate to roleplaying in Vampire Bloodlines. I understand that you get your ideas from cheap-ass Hollywood films where a total novice accidentally disarms a sword-wielding opponent, picks it up with a badass look on his face, and magically acquires professional swordfighting skills which help him defeat a centuries-old weapon-master and save the world from evil. It doesn't work that way, Genosse, it doesn't work that way.

No, I get my ideas from actually doing swordfighting as a hobby. If you're fighting against someone, using a sword is just the same as using a tire iron or baseball bat. There's not much of a difference, except that it's sharp and you shouldn't grab the sword by the blade. Also, swords can be used to stab, not only to strike, which is a big advantage compared to clubs and iron sticks.

 

[Malakal]

Medieval weapons out of place in a VAMPIRE game, yeah sure. Anyway wasn't there recently a story in the news about british soldiers charging taleebans with close combat weapons and slaughtering them? Even for a human in close combat bladed weapons might be better than guns, for supernaturals with their extraordinary abilities quite more so.

And to answer your original question: stealth is rather weak, unfortunately. If you want a diplomancer having maxed domination is a MUST. Not only because it gives extra dialogues sometimes, it allows to easily kill all common enemies.

 

[Clockwork Knight]

Liberal thinks people go dragonball while fighting and swing the sword around like monkeys on speed.

which is weird since he doesn't seem to apply that to clubs, tire irons, bats, etc. Why only swords demand lightning fast strikes that could will lop off your own hands (even the one holding the sword)?

Liberal's idea of a swordfight

and here we have Liberal himself, which explains how he come to the self mutilating conclusion

 

[Mangoose]

While you are correct that a novice can hardly hope to beat an experienced swordsman, you are also guilty of crazy exaggeration earlier. You probably confused swords with whips. Now admit you fucked up the exaggeration and we can all get back to the actual topic - ie, character builds for VTMB.

My point - medieval weapons in Bloodlines look and feel out of place.
Actually, there's just two swords in the entire game - katana and the occult blade (which happens to look just like a katana). All the other melee weapons are perfectly 20/21st century. I was wondering whether anyone wold remember this...

So, any good character builds for a diplomat enforcer?

So how the fuck are swords out of place when there are only two in the fucking game? Youa re fukctard.

 

[Murk]

... you guys can accept vampires, werewolves, magic voo-doo, but not... swords?

 

[Jaesun]

 

[Overweight Manatee]

If a bunch of guys broke into your house at night and you had a sword with you that you'd never used before, then I'd say whether you're male or female, unless you have a better weapon around the sword's a good bet. You'll certainly be able to swing it around enough to cause real danger to whoever you're swinging it at.

While I agree with most of your post I would say if you someone is attacking you in your house and you are a decently strong person yet have no experience with the sword, you should really just be going with a baseball bat or something. Unlike a sword, even a poorly aimed bat swing with full strength will really mess up whatever is on the receiving end. Though a sword is probably a lot better for scaring someone out. In which case you should obviously be dual-wielding

 

[Clockwork Knight]

... you guys can accept vampires, werewolves, magic voo-doo, but not... swords?

IT RUINS MY IMMERSION YOU DOOSHBAG

To be fair, Liberal's point is that the guys on the setting are modernized, meaning the supernatural creatures and magicks keep existing hidden from people in general, but not frozen in time. Swords are an old weapon they wouldn't be using because they don't live in the middle ages, they use computers, have normal lives, etc. So Lib's a little annoyed over the fact that katanas and the like are pulled outta nowhere in a modern setting.

Then again, they have super strenght and can ignore the weaker firearms, so maybe a sword wouldn't be a horrible choice for a weapon.

 

[Serious_Business]

Warning: long post, and unnecessarily long at that.

You mean like all your posts


YEEEEEEEEEEEAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

No I appreciate your efforts man you have a massive dick and you like to show it, good times for us right?

 

[Murk]

IT RUINS MY IMMERSION YOU DOOSHBAG

To be fair, Liberal's point is that the guys on the setting are modernized, meaning the supernatural creatures and magicks keep existing hidden from people in general, but not frozen in time. Swords are an old weapon they wouldn't be using because they don't live in the middle ages, they use computers, have normal lives, etc. So Lib's a little annoyed over the fact that katanas and the like are pulled outta nowhere in a modern setting.

Then again, they have super strenght and can ignore the weaker firearms, so maybe a sword wouldn't be a horrible choice for a weapon.

That's ... neat, but the game itself fucking explains that bullets do shit against vampires and that you need to do either lethal (blades) or aggravated damage to be effective against vampires. I suppose armor piercing bullets would do the trick too since they're sharp, but they leave such a small wound that the vampiric regeneration would probably nullify any lethality of the bullets' sharpness. That's where vampiric strength and big sharp pieces of metal come into effect.

So uhh, swords serve a perfectly serviceable purpose. Nevermind that the vampires, despite how modern they are, are mostly ANCIENT beings.

also, phallic imagery.

 

[Clockwork Knight]

Nevermind that the vampires, despite how modern they are, are mostly ANCIENT beings.

Well, your guy got turned into a vamp 5 minutes ago and he wields a sword perfectly

/argumentloop

 

[Murk]

Nevermind that the vampires, despite how modern they are, are mostly ANCIENT beings.

Well, your guy got turned into a vamp 5 minutes ago and he wields a sword perfectly

/argumentloop

In that he holds it by the grip instead of the blade? gosh, magical.

Your fledgling also starts with the ability to turn invisible, put people to sleep, summon animals to do their bidding, shoot out bloody hadokens, make people hallucinate, switch their eyes to nightvision, move incredibly fast, etc. etc. etc.

if we are going to accept that vampiric blood carries with it millenia old knowledge and power, maybe part of that is "how to hold a sword [not the sharp part]". Also, you don't even get a goddamn sword until you're fairly into the game (Wesp's non-cannon changes to the Asian dude in Foxy Boxes not withstanding).

 

[Cassidy]

After spotting the old bum shouting about how the storm is the announciation of the end of the world to wash the sins and all in Santa Monica, I realized that a machete would be far more fitting than a katana to this game.

 

[Rod Rodderson]

One might ask "why katanas", but swords, as used in-game, make sense for the most part. The Kuei-jin use them, which stands to reason because, as supernatural creatures in their own regard, they'd come to know that bladed weapons are fairly effective against Kindred, their enemies. Hunters also use them, and it makes sense for the same reasons. As I recall, the only other katanas used in-game are wielded by some of the Tong thugs (or was it just one?), and it seems to me that some would go for style over substance (after all, katanas are just better). Point of the matter is that swords really aren't out of place.

Now, granted, on the whole "knowing how to use a sword" front, going by PnP rules, even if the descriptions are a bit tongue-in-cheek, you'd rightly not actually be able to use a sword about at all without any dots in melee (1 dot: You know the right way to hold a knife). But, y'know, game mechanics.

Bullets aren't effective because they have little to damage, and AP would be even less effective as it would pass through. Shredding a person's internal organs when they don't need them is bad only as far as it impairs mobility (heart is a bit of a special case). Of course, enough damage will leave remarkably little body for the vampire to use, hence shotguns being pretty neat.

 

[KalosKagathos]

So, any good character builds for a diplomat enforcer?

Pick a Toreador. If you want to rape everyone, max out Celerity. Doesn't matter whether you use guns or swords, everything dies. If you want a bit of challenge in the game go for Auspex if you're a gunslinger or Presence if you're into melee.

Feat-wise, you'll want Persuasion (Seduction is a solid alternative for female characters; they get much more opportunities to use it than men), a weapon skill, Defense. Put the rest into Hacking, Research, Stealth. Don't forget about Haggle if you use firearms; you'll need money to buy ammo.

One might ask "why katanas", but swords, as used in-game, make sense for the most part. The Kuei-jin use them, which stands to reason because, as supernatural creatures in their own regard, they'd come to know that bladed weapons are fairly effective against Kindred, their enemies.

The kuei-jin are Chinese. Why would they use gay katanas when their home country has much better looking sword designs?

 

[Clockwork Knight]

All asians use katanas and are trained in ninjutsu, like all americans are blonde and spout random obscenities for no reason during normal conversations

 

[Gosling]

The kuei-jin are not exclusively chinese, they can be japanese, korean, etc. Though they are mainly chinese in the game, and their entire area is a friggin Chinatown. And yeah, it's kinda retarded that they use japanese weapons.
I guess katanas just look cooler to an average westerner.

 

[KalosKagathos]

All asians use katanas and are trained in ninjutsu, like all americans are blonde and spout random obscenities for no reason during normal conversations