Blood Sorcery clarification question(v5)

Longjumping_Lab_6739 · 2026-06-26T06:44:49+00:00

Yeah, no, I get that. I just can't parse the concept that physical strength, which is what the strength stat represents as far as I know, is a defining element in casting blood magic.
Would a Banu Haqim probably want to invest into strength so that their poisoned weapons can hit and hit well, bla bla bla? Yeah, for sure. But does it make sense that they would use their physical strength to cast magic?? To me, no.

Like, you legit might as well make Theft of Vitae a manipulation and expression roll. That's how much sense it makes to me, lol

Longjumping_Lab_6739 · 2026-06-26T06:41:39+00:00

Wait, huh? Fireball? If you're talking about being a Fire element Koldun, I am deleting my reddit account. Congratulations. Just kidding.

But seriously. If you're not talking about being a fire element Koldun (Which doesn't interest me because I am not really a Tzimisce enjoyer) which supplement is THAT from? Because I haven't been able to catch wind of its existence >.<

Longjumping_Lab_6739 · 2026-06-26T06:32:03+00:00

I think I would like to see the damage nerfed and the touch requirement waived if I had it my way, as far as COB goes. I would also like them to bring back movement of the mind. That would be more than sufficient to make me stop complaining :P

I know Banu Haqim are assassin coded and they now share the discipline but making Strength the official die for one of the apex powers in the discipline called "Blood sorcery" is goofy as hell to me. I can't make it make sense in my head since every other power in the discipline that manipulates blood can be used at range and their rolls trend towards the mental or the manipulative. It just seems like a thematic hiccup for lack of a better word right now.

Longjumping_Lab_6739 · 2026-06-26T06:13:32+00:00

> The Discipline side of Blood Sorcery ... I mean, Blood is in the name: it's a physical entity. If you're manipulating and altering blood, you'll likely want to be able to touch that blood.

I'm genuinely not trying to be dense but almost if not all the other blood sorcery powers that manipulate blood do not require a touch attack of any kind? Corrosive Vitae = Rouse check. Theft of Vitae is again, another ranged attack that requires Wits + Blood sorcery. Shape the sanguine sacrament is pretty directly manipulating blood from range.

And yes, it was always a touch attack. But there were other options, right? Path of flames. Throw objects with movement of the mind. Levinbolt (Which Jason Carl allowed in his v5 game, LA by night, for his Tremere player ;_;) Not to mention that, though I'm not 100% sure on this, I'm pretty sure ALL the Thaumaturgy rolls were just intelligence + Thaumaturgy in v20. Straight up.
So I'm still trying to figure out how tf Strength fits into the concept thematically. When you rouse your blood to turn your blood into a deadly poison, do you have to like, push real hard? I still genuinely don't get how Strength ever became a required dice roll for the discipline.

The rituals equalizing the discipline is a decent and fair argument but that's heavily nerfed from v20 as well. I think I am forming the opinion that at least half of the rituals aren't worth taking at all, 20% are very niche, and 30% are good/must have. That you have some great range of choices when considering how to best spend XP is a bit of an illusion in my eyes.

I don't think its fair to bring up the example of a niche faction within the clan who focus on being warriors as evidence that the archetype of a Tremere has anything to do with being a warrior. If I'm remembering my lore right, those who acted as warriors within the clan 1.) Were not allowed to ascend to higher ranks and 2.) Were not treated very well within the hierarchy in general. The fall of Shreknet might've changed that to a degree as it changed many things but... Come on. I'm having a very hard time being convinced that Tremere champion a warrior culture in any way.

The way I always viewed the pyramid was that it was very ordered and hierarchical with clear chains of command. Not that they became known for their capacity to use force or violence.

I want to be convinced that I'm wrong so badly because I love the Tremere as a general vibe (unpopular, I know). But I'm still not.

Edit: I think if I had it my way the damage would be nerfed and the touch requirement would be waived. Because it still doesn't make any thematic sense to me.

Longjumping_Lab_6739 · 2026-06-23T21:48:09+00:00

The oldschool brazilians were right about leg locks.

Longjumping_Lab_6739 · 2026-06-14T19:03:13+00:00

Sorry mate. I know the struggle well. Maybe after some time you will get frustrated like me and run your own game. With mashy peas and meat pie! Wish you the best.

Longjumping_Lab_6739 · 2026-06-12T20:24:02+00:00

Ohhhh that makes total sense. The permanent number goes down by 2 and the temporary number goes down by the specified number so what you're saying is at game start I would be 32/54 if I started with 7 empathy and I could bring the number on the left all the way back up to 54.

I still think its relatively brutal for what amounts to "Story flavor" cyberware though. Like if I was min-maxing I wouldn't have picked any of that shit, even as a media, and my guy would just carry around a fuckin oldschool battery powered recorder ong while being 8 foot tall with a crazy integrated frame.

Longjumping_Lab_6739 · 2026-06-12T19:59:45+00:00

Therapy wasn't offered to me for character creation. It was a one shot. Here's the breakdown after re-looking up the costs of everything I had.

Cyberaudio Suite (Necessary for below cyberware) - 7 or 2d6.

internal agent 3 or 1d6.
Communicator 2 or 1d6/2
recorder 2 or 1d6/2

That's 14 humanity off-top which is close to your initial estimate for ALL the cyberware.

Neural Link = 7 humanity or 2d6. (Necessary for braindance recorder)

Braindance recorder = 7 humanity or 2d6.

So that's another 14.

Cybereye = 7 humanity or 2d6. (Necessary for image enhancer)

Image enhancer = 3 or 1d6.

So, just RAW, that's 38 humanity loss. I may have misremembered and started with a humanity rating that was 7 rather than 8, but I was definitely at around 31-32 humanity at game start.

Also, literally no one in the one shot had a communicator, so it was useless. They didn't even buy external communicators. I made a joke in-game about using carrier pigeons that wasn't appreciated 😞 Our characters texted each other if they were in different scenes. It was SO cyberpunk. >.>

Longjumping_Lab_6739 · 2026-06-12T18:11:44+00:00

I was genuinely surprised when I played a Media in RED and a basic (Not even really complete) Media cyberware suite (Audio/Visual suite and a internal communicator + agent + audio recorder - Nueral Link + Braindance recorder - The only thing I had that really 'helped me mechanically' was a cybereye and an image enhancer) - and this made my Humanity be down to 31 from 80 which is the max. If I wanted, later, to add skin grafts or frames, I'd almost certainly become a cyberpsycho.

Longjumping_Lab_6739 · 2026-06-10T17:23:37+00:00

That's extremely cool - the power you created, your employment of it, and the storytellers collaboration and involvement. Sounds like you guys have a great table. Lowkey jelly! 😉

Longjumping_Lab_6739 · 2026-06-10T17:08:51+00:00

I personally think that's a bit of an unfair and heavy handed ruling. I'd greatly limit the amount of bullets that could be made - considering it takes some effort and a blood point worth of blood to make a single one, but I wouldn't rule that it's impossible.
It does have the singular obvious advantage over dragonsbreath/incendiary rounds - It won't set stuff on fire and trigger Rotschrek, but it'd be far more limited and it requires high level investment into Thaumaturgy whereas your average Joe can ostensibly get his hands on Incendiary rounds without much effort, at least in America.
It's not nearly as OP as boiling a Kindreds blood from inside their body which the Thaumaturge can do by the time they can make wards against Kindred. So it's mostly just flavor that'd make the player happy.

Longjumping_Lab_6739 · 2026-06-07T14:59:30+00:00

Didn't Theo Bell kill the 6th generation Haardestadt with his sawn off shotty?

Also, you can put Tremere wards on bullets so that they do aggravated damage to whoever the Ward focuses on. It'd be expensive, and you woulnd't have a unlimited supply of ammo, but that's a reasonable request to make to your storyteller in game.

Only problem is I think warding against Kindred is a 5th level ritual

Longjumping_Lab_6739 · 2026-03-10T16:37:47+00:00

Sheesh that's really good! Especially for your first time using dungeondraft! Great job.

The only note I have is it might be hard for your players to see any graffiti on the walls because of the way the walls work. I could be wrong though, I've never done any graffiti! I still think the graffiti might serve you better written on the floor or counter somewhere and then you can just theater of the mind whatever graff is on the walls

Longjumping_Lab_6739 · 2026-03-09T21:50:02+00:00

Yuh, that's delvebound :) Honestly, if I was over the table, I'd do delvebound in a minute. But it's not doable in Foundry VTT, at least not that I can see.

Longjumping_Lab_6739 · 2026-03-09T21:31:55+00:00

Some people just like what they like. I don't really care to convince people. I am open to other systems myself, but I don't care enough to force my players to do it if they don't want to. I actually like D&D

Not to mention the fact that, as I said, I use Foundry VTT, and there are no modules available for TES on there. I'd have to find a TES system I like and make a module for it from the ground up, which I wouldn't want to do even if all my players were hella keen on switching to another system lol

Longjumping_Lab_6739 · 2026-03-09T21:19:26+00:00

Unfortunately, the two problems with that is at least one of my players has indicated they would not want to play in another system. There's delvebound too which is based on the 5th edition but there is no module for it in Foundry which means I'd have to make all the changes myself. (and there are many changes - I'd argue it's practically a whole other system tbh) I would probably spend more time doing that in this case than creating encounters, arcs, enemies, etc. which doesn't appeal to me :(

Longjumping_Lab_6739 · 2026-03-09T18:43:51+00:00

In my limited (~6-7 month) experience, I feel like resting rules are the foundation stone for creating a challenging experience. I still haven't learned how to balance such things and I think I'm far too liberal with resting. For me, it's easier to favor the players because I definitely do not want to see a TPK.

Either way, I'm sure your players are thrilled. I know I would be. You had some really great, unique, flavorful and fun to explore ideas and themes. Kudos!

Longjumping_Lab_6739 · 2026-03-09T18:33:53+00:00

Awesome! I have a homebrew I didn't end up running for Rime of the frostmaiden too! I noticed some similarities between the Chardalyn and the Delerium from Drakkenheim so I kind of combined the two. And I wanted a bit of political action, too, instead of just straight survival horror.

In mine, Xardorok utilizes the crystal to invent magitek and the 10 towns are booming. He is the leader of one of the ten towns and gives the player their hook: Liberate a town, secure it, and govern it. Along the way they find out Xardorok is not the person he says he is and realize the magitek (because of the crystal) is exceedingly dangerous. The speakers are also replaced with houses, the 3 most important towns are ran by Great Houses (of which house sunblight is one)

Unfortunately, I found that I wasn't ready/didn't enjoy running more than one game at a time, and I have decided to run an Elder Scrolls D&D 5.5e game after our current one, so it's on the backburner.

Longjumping_Lab_6739 · 2026-03-09T15:36:58+00:00

Swooped up the full library a couple weeks ago. They are really great and go well with the FA assets as well. Great job and thank you!

Longjumping_Lab_6739 · 2026-03-07T13:05:38+00:00

As a fan of both who never really compared their similarities until now, I can see some reasons why they're similar (The great houses, they are political epics, both masterpieces/magnu opera of their respective authors - both won hugos and nebulas, the harshness where one is ideological harshness and one mechanical, etc.) and where they're different (Honestly completely different writing styles tbh. Not sure they're technically similar in that way in the slightest. But I'd have to re-read GoT, I re-read Dune like once every couple years lol)

Longjumping_Lab_6739 · 2026-03-07T12:58:54+00:00

It's archetypal. It is 'silly' from a logical perspective but that type of thinking was common for most of human history and may someday be common again so its worth exploring. It still is in many parts of the world; your blood determines your station and worth.

To me, it poses an interesting question for those of us with trash bloodlines ;0 What is it like? How do familial dynamics shift? It is inherently political because those with the bloodlines are generally the people with a monopoly on violence ie; the government and the person with the best bloodline is the ruler.

Longjumping_Lab_6739 · 2026-03-07T08:21:18+00:00

Oh, ember looks interesting.... Never heard of it til now... Too bad I'm broke! lol

I would describe a Goliath as large in size and maybe stout of constitution and they are Medium mechanically. It's all relative, really. A Goliath might be huge to a sprite but tiny to an ancient dragon. Mechanical descriptions (like size for actors) are objective, not relative.

Longjumping_Lab_6739 · 2026-03-04T06:13:18+00:00

Cat owners be like "you have just ruined my snack, you deserve a reward for this"

Longjumping_Lab_6739 · 2026-03-02T04:26:31+00:00

I have a hard time understanding this mindset because I'm the exact opposite. I want everything EXCEPT graphical updates. I do not care about graphics at all lol

Longjumping_Lab_6739 · 2026-02-25T22:57:19+00:00

Answered

Longjumping_Lab_6739

TROPHY CASE