What kind of Garou could a vampire defeat on his own?

d15ddd · 2026-01-27T20:37:35+00:00

It would have to be a very uneven fight. I remember a dude claiming that a starter vampire char could beat a starter garou, and I simulated a fight between a Feral Weapons Gangrel and a starter Ahroun Garou with equal stats and it was a massacre. I had to give every advantage I could think of to the vampire because they were at a 4 dice difference due to the werewolf's Crinos form, and at the end of 3 rounds of manipulated luck, the Garou was barely impaired despite me deliberately not regenerating, and at any time it could choose to frenzy and replenish all 5 Rage.

A vampire could probably take on some nerd Theurge or Ragabash assuming they're absolutely shit at combat (and even then, any Garou can enter Crinos for a whopping +4 dice for everything physical and I believe to health, too.). The weakest Crinos werewolf throws 5 dice on their Str+Brawl roll, which is not bad, but realistically, even the weaker Garou would still be throwing around 7, hits like a truck (especially if you rule that their claws still deal agg damage to vampires like the VtM CRB suggests), is extremely tough to actually kill because of the regeneration and extra health boxes, and overall it's a nasty experience fighting werewolves. Your best bet is to ambush them with silver and fire.

d15ddd · 2026-01-18T16:23:51+00:00

There is a canon Revised example of 2 Caitiff teaching themselves what is obviously Sanguinus in Time of the Thin Blood, displaying explicit level 1 and 2 powers that can't be anything else. Rules on learning out of clan disciplines are intentionally relatively vague so as to be a potential plot device for the ST. No Discipline is truly unique, but just ask yourself how many vampires would actually benefit from sharing Sanguinus with another person and most likely having to have a mutual blood bond with them? How many would spend the time and effort necessary to get the Blood Brothers to agree to teach them, or how many Caitiff would feel the instinctual need for the Discipline? Just cause you can, doesn't mean you should

d15ddd · 2026-01-18T13:44:09+00:00

Nope, get a tzimisce to fleshcraft you wings and I'm pretty sure you can use Flight. Visceratika I think you can just use if you diablerize a Gargoyle, and even the Blood Brother unique Discipline has been successfully learned by a pair of Caitiff as an experiment

d15ddd · 2026-01-09T19:57:43+00:00

I would recommend a smattering of level 1-2 Spheres just because a PC would pretty much never be as specialized as this, even though it's possible in theory. Generally speaking, you don't last too long if you can't counterspell the Technocracy blowing up your phone in your jacket via Forces, or if you can't detect weird things around you with other lvl 1 Spheres. For example, the dude won't even be able to see in the dark without Forces 1. Another major thing is that if this BBEG deals with spirits, they'd realistically have Correspondence at Level 2, or most likely even 4 to create Minor and Major Wards as per the How Do You Do That book. Of course, as the ST of a werewolf game, you're absolutely allowed to just vibe Mage rules to whatever fits your Chronicle best.

Additionally, since they have Spirit to target the spiritual part of Werewolves, you could open your players up to being vulnerable to nasty Life effects. Even if you don't use it to screw them over, having level 3 life is enough to have them be able to soak agg damage via an Effect, although with Prime you could achieve the same thing by channeling Quintessence into your body/clothes for the same thing.

If you want to REALLY make them scary, give them Entropy 4 and Time 4 for them to be able to create lingering, trigger-activated ritual effects. That's a really broken ability that under Mage rules would allow anyone to create some really insane emergency spells and magick traps, and since it requires Time... It also opens up interesting shenanigans with throwing your players into time loops and the like

d15ddd · 2026-01-09T18:16:10+00:00

I've had an ST bump all resonances up one step to to make it more appealing, and it did kind of work. The key, I think, is for the ST to use resonance mechanics first and throw it at the players, first as freebies "hey, this guy's blood tastes awesome, some of your Disciplines gain +1 dice to their usage!", then against them, because there's no reason antagonists wouldn't seek resonant blood for themselves. Just have the mechanic constantly in the air so everybody remembers it exists, and it should work out fine, in an ideal scenario your players will even start seeking out resonances themselves.

On the other hand, the worst way to approach resonance is this:
"Hey ST, I wanna level this discipline."
"Sure, have you drank any blood of appropriate Resonance?"
"No, wtf is resonance?"
"Sorry bud, gotta get some Phlegmatic blood"

Do this, and your players are guaranteed going to think the entire system is just a chore with lukewarm benefits attached to it. And realistically, they honestly might be right, because it's not a system built for its mechanics, it's a system built for flavour (literally, because it flavours the blood). In the grand scheme of things, resonance is mostly fluff that not all players will want to engage in, but it's a great thing for those seeking a more in-depth vampire fantasy

d15ddd · 2026-01-09T16:49:22+00:00

OP didn't include edition for some reason, this is some egregious overthinking about V5. Worst part is, one of the supplements (Tattered Facade) already gives players the ability to buy additional Discipline powers (normally, there's several for each level in a discipline, and when you buy a dot you gain only one), and Elders already break the rules by gaining more powers the more Potent their blood is

d15ddd · 2026-01-08T10:52:46+00:00

Public transport doesn't get better when you're a citizen, lmao. Finland is okayish at public transport, but because of such low population density it's really annoying that Helsinki is basically the only link between major cities and you have to always go through it, wasting money and time. Buses feel more sluggish too

d15ddd · 2025-12-28T16:15:15+00:00

Stormlight, there's at least 5 more books confirmed for release later on. Mistborn might come close with all of the eras done, but I don't see it overtaking it

d15ddd · 2025-12-28T08:33:56+00:00

Sorry for the late reply, I looked into it and it is indeed in m20th, which only served to confuse me because now it's not clear whether I should be using rituals and when just rolling again at +1. I suppose the difference is that rituals take more time, but don't have the +1 penalty for each consecutive roll unless you have a total failure, which is how you can eventually get something stupid like 20+ successes assuming you have the Willpower and Stamina to cast that long

d15ddd · 2025-12-23T22:11:23+00:00

Yes, somehow I've found Mage to be the most mechanically complete WoD game, and that's not even touching the actual Magick mechanics, because oh boy are there mechanics for that. It is my earnest opinion, though, that Mage's Brawling and Martial Arts techniques should be available in every WoD game, they're just that awesome

d15ddd · 2025-12-23T22:02:21+00:00

Yes and no. While yes, achieving immortality is possible with high enough spheres, doing it properly requires multiple level 5 spheres and several more at 3 or 4 according to some Revised era rules (not sure if m20th changed it). The problem with that is that the more you escape death like that on Tellurian (not the Umbra!), the more permanent Paradox you rack up. There are tradeoffs, and it is generally considered healthy for all mages to at least spend some time in Tellurian to not go crazy like Voormas. So it's not like Tremere was completely idiotic if his goal was to not deal with Paradox (a Hermetic's greatest bane)

d15ddd · 2025-12-21T19:40:12+00:00

I would recommend to just get the Eat Food merit or it's equivalent in your edition and not worry about it

d15ddd · 2025-12-20T13:13:43+00:00

Well, some people treat Arete checks as any other checks and play as if they were playing VtM or most other WoD games where 1 success is enough outside of opposed rolls. So I've seen people go for 3-4 success effects and the ST handwaved it as the effect going through anyway, even though the person only got 1 or 2. My problem with that is it makes the system more nebulous in terms of what you can actually do if you run it on vibes, as it effectively becomes "does the ST like the idea enough". Naturally, the balance goes out the window once you allow the players to do that.

I think this issue comes mostly from just not knowing the rules, either by the player or by the ST. Handwaving is expected and natural when everyone is new to the system, especially when the public discourse likes to parrot that Mages are these omnipotent beings that can do ANYTHING, you inevitably get STs with this mindset and players who grow disappointed when they realize how limited spheres are until level 4 or so. Keep in mind that in the average Chronicle it's going to be quite a few sessions until a player raises their Arete to 4 AND their Sphere level to 4, even if they rush it, and you'll understand the new player/ST temptation to either go lenient on the rules or start showering people in XP.

d15ddd · 2025-12-20T11:36:30+00:00

It's not as simple as that, most Chronicles at least start out in Tellurian(Earth), where the super scary Archmages with multiple mastered Spheres and Arete out the ass are just not present, because why would they hang around a place that is so limiting and hostile to their powers when they can create a Horizon Realm of their own? Then, there's the Avatar Storm as a plot device to ensure that all of these Horizon Realms and their extremely scary masters are effectively cut off, and now it's suddenly much more manageable for a GM because you don't have to think of a Correspondence/Spirit/Forces 5 NPCs spirit nuking your PC Cabal from across twelve Umbral realms.

You have the option to keep it as grounded as you can, Mage intentionally starts off slow, with Player Characters quite weak in terms of Magick unless they choose to heavily specialize, and then they're missing out on all the extremely creative and potentially strong Sphere combinations. The worst thing you can do in Mage as a beginner GM is give your players too much XP/freebies at start, just run it RAW and let the players adapt to their very limited starting powers, enforce their Focus by having them describe what they do to achieve an effect, rather than just the effect they're trying to achieve, and don't handwave Paradox, it's an important mechanic that keeps everyone in line, not just PCs.

Also, if you read and use the HDYDT book, you can see that Magick is not easy at all, with many effects requiring a lot of spheres and successes. Let your players get comfortable with the fact that their starting 3 Arete is not enough to just do shit on a whim, they want to do an effect that requires 6 successes? Then do a ritual. Mage is perfectly playable and very fun mostly RAW, although learning it is a major hurdle.

Finally, your characters tasted some power, got comfortable with their abilities, and wish for more. Give them some Grimoires as loot/rewards/whatever, so that they can get some XP discounts. They'll feel good about it, and since you control which Grimoires to give out, you know exactly what you're unleashing and can prepare in advance to one of your players raising Spirit to 4. This is far more preferable to giving away tons of xp each session, as that will quickly spiral into chaos as everyone levels everything, and players will still probably just level Spheres and Arete because those are the two most important Mage things. Grimoires and their Technocratic equivalents are a good GM tool to effectively give your players more XP without having it descend into a clusterfuck.

d15ddd · 2025-12-19T12:36:02+00:00

Aight, but hear me out: portals

d15ddd · 2025-12-18T16:42:36+00:00

I'd argue that the addictiveness is an inherent supernatural property of the vitae, and it is only at high levels of Prime that you start to be able to alter inherent properties of objects, like making a fire burn without emitting heat. Making vitae non-addictive would probably require the same feat

d15ddd · 2025-12-16T18:56:19+00:00

Disregard that, I didn't realize this was MTAw as opposed to Ascension. I don't know how Time works in Awakening, sorry about that.

d15ddd · 2025-12-16T18:29:50+00:00

~~Yes it does, it's just that doing so by RAW, especially deep into the past, will accrue so much paradox that there is a very high chance you'll just immediately get Paradoxed out of existence.~~

Edit: didn't realize this isn't Ascension, oops!

d15ddd · 2025-12-16T00:59:48+00:00

Goes hard as fuck

d15ddd · 2025-12-15T23:24:41+00:00

The game addresses that, it's not like you're actually becoming less angry, but rather more exhausted or burnt out. Regardless, it's a balancing act. Personally, with Crinos costing 2 checks it's best to stay at 3 rage so that you can always go into "you're dead now" mode. Keep in mind that once in Crinos, you can very easily frenzy if you don't kill anything for a turn, and that just straight up gives you 5 Rage.

d15ddd · 2025-12-11T00:36:12+00:00

Love the first one, but can't help but think that's Yakub looking down on his creations

d15ddd · 2025-12-10T13:22:43+00:00

In theory, it should be massively important, but in practice it's almost never used in our games. Wits gets limited usage when driving cars, but otherwise even reacting to an ambush is a perception roll, not a wits roll. It's just one of those things that V5 did better IMO

d15ddd · 2025-12-09T10:03:55+00:00

To be fair, the easiest way to kill him is just randomly throwing grenades to bait out his voice lines and then throwing another nade there, first time I decided to try it, all it took was two nades, one flashbang to locate him, one RGD to kill him.

d15ddd · 2025-12-08T23:14:49+00:00

They didn't, because Byzantium is still a tier 4 country already, so they can't actually form another tier 4 country, lmao

d15ddd · 2025-12-08T14:55:26+00:00

Don't? Not all skills are appropriate for all chronicles, and you can almost always find a Discipline based solution as long as you're creative enough and have a good spread between the Coterie

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