Question about Vampires, because one of my players is planning to become one:
One of the “usual” ways to become a vampire is to become a ghost and then find a body to occupy. So, its human –> ghost –> vampire.
Rules say that changing from human to ghost you keep your actions and get bonus dots from the ghost playbook:
“When you transfer your character to the Ghost playbook, add all of your
current action ratings to the ratings on the Ghost playbook. You may not have
an action rating greater than 4.” (hunt, prowl, attune)
Next step is the change to the Vampire playbook. Again you add action dots from the new playbook. This time it’s a loooooot of additinal dots: Hunt, prowl, skirmish, attune, command, sway.
So, the transition from human to vampire gives you a max of 3+6=9 dots.
Wow. Maybe some are capped at 4 dots… still wow.
Are there any of you who already saw that in your games? Is it is powerful as it seems? Is it over-the-top or manageable? What about the other players? Do they switch to puny mortals or can they they keep up somehow?
Start a clock….
Special Vampire hunter Branch of the Spirit Wardens catching up with you….
I would figure to get to that level of power there would have been a lot of clocks ticked.
That kind of power attracts attention.
.
How easy do you want the transition to be? How much of the story do you and the player want to be about becoming a vampire?
I also got the impression, though I may be projecting, that the host body needs to be prepared to make a good vessel. I think listening to The Last Word and Bloodletters gave the idea that corpse had to be properly hollowed out spiritually. Some treatment of the body might be required to preserve the flesh. But then any excuse for Egyptian style corpse prep is a go in my book.
Thanks everybody for the input. My question was more about the impact on the meta level of the game and less about the story, because…
How hard should it be to become a vampire? As hard as possible. Hey, you have to die for it first and then you have to have all the weird stuff in place to make the second transition. Maybe becoming the next emperor is a bit harder but not that much. You need tons of resources and luck to pull this of. If not, every second power player in Doskvol would be a vampire.
How hard should it be to stay a vampire? See above. Spirit Wardens and all the status quo want to see you gone for good. Maybe even the other vampires don’t want you. So, you better be prepared for that.
How much story to get there? A lot(!!!) The PC will no longer be part of the human species and there should be a lot of story in it. That might be boring for the other Players when a lot of the story is going to make one dream come true.
I’m eager to “play, to find out what will happen” but it should be fun for a group of players and not only for the vampire. I don’t want to force to other players down that road, too. If they want to, fine. If not, fine.
Just from looking at those 9 dots + special abilities it will become a totally different game with one vampire in the crew. Will the crew hold up? Will the faction game hold up? Will the status quo hold up?
Don’t get me wrong here: These are all good questions if the group find this fun to find out. And I will play them if the group says, that they want to find out.
My question was more: Do someone of you already has this experience? How did it work out? Does it destroy the game for the rest of the crew? Or was it the next level of awesomeness? 🙂
So why is the player switching to the Ghost playbook if they are planning, on purpose, to be a Vampire?
They can just be a fictional ghost in the time span they get transferred into their ritually prepared hollow (which is probably just for the scene they get implanted).
I also think that preparing a hollow shouldn’t be any cheaper in time/resources than crafting a hull from scratch; and we all know how intensive that is. By the time their hollow is ready then the mortal PCs should be pretty beefy as well (or have enough resources to do so).
Those are all great questions! Play to find out what happens.
Also:
How do the other players feel about this transition?
How do they feel about the results?
Do they support their companion or undermine their process?
What do the others do in the meantime?
How much attention does this raise from other entities in the city, who are comfortable with the status quo (including other vampires, the nobles, the watch, etc)?
How does the death and rebirth affect the character going through it?
So, I’ve never had / seen this happen, but I suspect the balance disruption is going to be linked to how early it happens in the game, and if the player has been preparing for it.
Say the player wants to become a spirit almost immediately–they probably take a “Ghost _” special ability, then die [somehow] and pick up Ghost Form, which is more of a description than an ability, another ghost playbook ability, and 3 action dots. But they’ll need to advance once to get Possess.
And once they become a vampire, they trade Ghost Form for Undead, lose Possess and their other freebie, and gain 6 more action dots and a Vampire playbook ability (+1 stricture). They’re maybe +9 action dots in front of their party and about even on ability dots, but now all their xp tracks are longer, as a Vampire, so the party should catch up (it’s possible that for the first couple of sessions the Vampire may be a little dominating, so that may need to be managed–the stricture and vulnerability to arcane should help–but being dominating is also the Vampire’s deal, so).
If it happens later in the campaign–unless they only ever took “Ghost _” abilities–the player stands to lose a lot more special abilities, and might over-cap on some of the free action dots, so it’s likely more balanced.
That’s my best guess, anyway. I will defer to anyone with first-hand experience (and am curious to hear it).
Steven Dodds
“But they’ll need to advance once to get Possess”
Why do they NEED to get Possess? They can’t that ability once they switch to the Vampire playbook.
Because the Ghost playbook (or page 215), within the “Possess” ability entry, says: “You may easily and indefinitely possess a hull or hollow that has been ritually prepared for you (change your playbook to Hull or Vampire, respectively).”
This reads that possessing hulls or hollows still requires the ability, otherwise the entry would say “you do not need Possess to …”
And no, they don’t get to keep it, that’s part of the whole process, and I imagine one of the balancing factors for becoming a vampire.
Steven Dodds
I’m coming from the perspective of the OP’s player, they seem like they want to permanently become a vampire which is “finding, learning, and performing an ancient ritual” (page 213). It’s also implied that a host body needs to be found/made in the first place…
That’s quite a different process and intent then just using an ability to posses a shell that you don’t get to keep; and probably why there is no mention of the Possess ability being a requirement in the Vampire section/playbook or the Spirit Characters section.
Yes, page 213 specifies that preparing a hollow body requires a ritual. And no, Possess is not specifically a requirement for becoming a Vampire. But neither does the Vampire playbook say that a ritualistically-prepared hollow is a requirement. (However, the Possess ability does mention the process of possessing a hull or hollow, a I pointed out. And it’s also a requirement for the Ghost to indulge in their vice, so they’d have to get it anyway.)
Page 14 says “Being possessed by a spirit inflicts a level of trauma at the end of every week. Once the possessed body suffers its fourth level of trauma, it can no longer sustain its life. The possessing spirit must either bond with the corpse (becoming a vampire) or abandon it and seek out a new host.” Page 211 also says “When a possessing spirit bonds with a living body, it becomes a vampire. This can happen if a ghost possesses a victim for too long, thereby destroying its original spirit, or when a hollow is specially prepared for the purpose by ancient ritual.”
So, players can definitely make the transition in either way–arguably, preparing a hollow could skip the Ghost playbook step entirely, and it’s totally fine to cut to the chase like that. However, Stefan Struck mentioned his player gaining 3 action dots from the Ghost playbook, and 6 action dots from the Vampire playbook, so they were likely imagining the Human to Ghost to Vampire route.
(Also, if a player possesses someone and takes over their body, they absolutely get to keep the shell: if they choose to become a Vampire, that’s their new body.)
Frankly, I feel like wanting to play vampires and spirits is kind of missing the point of a game about grimy steampunk thieves. It’s like how True Blood started out being a neat social commentary about the tensions caused by a historically closeted minority becoming mainstreamed, but because vampires weren’t interesting enough, we had to keep piling on fairies, werewolves, Greek gods, and ghosts until it just became a White Wolf refugee camp.
Thanks everybody for the input (game mechanics and story-wise). The transition has not started yet in my game and I see a bit clearer now, especially about different routes to create a vampire. We will play to find out and we’ll see what happens.
Rebecca W From a player’s POV I’m 100% on your side about setting and which characters to play. I always chose “mainstream” playbook/characterclasses because I felt that this is what the game is about… but as a GM I won’t ban those choices. If they want to play a vampire that’s fine … as long as they can stand the consequences, too. And there will be a lot of them.
Stefan Struck Another big concern for me with “unique snowflake” character classes in just about every game I’ve seen with them is they either overpower or overshadow the rest of the players by dint of their scale, weirdness, or uniqueness… or else they don’t, and are marginalized because the GM can’t balance screen time because the character’s nature is so fundamentally different from the rest of the group (the lone Netrunner in a party of Solos) and that player feels screwed, because that choice had been left open to them. It’s tricky, is all I’m saying, and I hope your players are all equally happy with the outcome.
Steven Dodds
“The possessing spirit must either bond with the corpse (becoming a vampire) or abandon it and seek out a new host.”
Yeah, by having the ritual performed… There is no explicit effect written that the spirit automatically bonds just by hanging out longer than 4 weeks. That outcome lines up perfectly with the temporary nature of Possess; after 4 weeks the Ghost needs to vacate the body it just wore out.
If you want to house rule that the ritual doesn’t happen, that’s fine but it is explicitly presented as a requirement for permanent Vampirism.
The spirit inhabiting a shell (full or empty) becomes a Vampire because otherwise you have to do fictional gymnastics justifying how abilities like Dissipate and Poltergeist still make since manifesting in a physical body…
Omari Brooks Actually, I think that is what’s explicitly written. After being possessed for too long, the original body “can no longer sustain its life,” becoming a corpse. Then the possessing spirit either chooses to bond to that corpse (note that it doesn’t mention a ritual, or hollows, on page 14), or leave it.
The quote from page 211 mentions an either/or case: either posses a victim for a certain period of time then take over, or perform a ritual.
I’m also not sure what you mean by “permanent Vampirism,” but there is a difference between a Vampire and a Ghost who is possessing someone (the book mentions “possessing spirits” a few times). In the latter case, they’re still a spirit inside someone else’s body (and I think the abilities’ effects seem straightforward: they affect the spirit, rather than the body. Dissipate and Manifest would vacate the body, Poltergeist would be unnecessary unless the Ghost wanted to use telekinetic force.)
Steven Dodds
“The quote from page 211 mentions an either/or case”
The OR is a very important distinction.
OP didn’t clarify if the player said they wanted to play a Ghost and then transition into a Vampire.
“Question about Vampires, because one of my players is planning to become one”
If the player states that they want to transition from a living character to a Vampire it’s important to clarify BOTH paths, and offer the choice rather than assume/force the GHOST path on them.
“I’m also not sure what you mean by “permanent Vampirism,”
I’m assuming a Ghost could choose to posses a hollow temporarily and then exit at will.
Permanent Vampirism means the characters spirit can’t leave the hollow at will anymore. The player is gaining XP with the Vampires triggers and improving the Vampire’s stats.
Is possession (using the Possess ability) of a hollow a one-way trip?
That’s true, the OP didn’t mention what the player wanted to do. But the post was about the possibility: specifically, if the player decided they wanted to transition to a Ghost, and then to a Vampire, would they be exceptionally more powerful than the other players due to the free dots? So I think the question was more about game balance than paths to Vampirism.
Also, within the fiction, the player must still become a spirit, at least briefly, before becoming a vampire. But that’s a nitpicky detail, because I’m a nitpiky kind of person, and I agree that it’s reasonable to skip over this step if a hollow is made available, and they don’t want to spend time as a Ghost.
As for possessing a hollow, I personally think it should be a one-way trip, but you could probably play it either way, if you wanted to. A hollow is defined as “a body without a spirit,” so it stops being a hollow as soon as a Ghost occupies it, and I’m not sure it would go back to being a hollow if the spirit could leave, but maybe? (Perhaps you’d have to design it with that purpose in mind, or perform an additional ritual?)
The Possess ability says the player “may easily and indefinitely possess a hollow” which I read as “they may choose to do this, it doesn’t require an action roll, it’s permanent, and they immediately change their playbook to Vampire.” And since they lose their former abilities from the Ghost playbook, it stands to reason that they can no longer leave the body (since they no longer have the Possess or Ghost Form abilities).
That being said, I suspect that it’s possible to go back to being a Ghost, after becoming a Vampire, because the Bound stricture says “Your spirit must remain in this body, or be destroyed utterly,” which suggests it’s an option. But there’s no in-game rule for a Vampire leaving their body that I’ve seen, so my best guess would be a new ritual.
Alternatively, maybe there’s a player who wants to stay a Ghost, but also wants to temporarily possess a hollow sometimes. It seems like a valid way to play, though I’d argue that they couldn’t use a hollow to indulge in their vice/need.
Stefan, we said we want our own criminal Empire, not a vampire.
Oliver Smock Oh, damn. Should have put a SPOILER ALERT for my players on this post 🙂
Would you believe me that this question was for my other crew? 🙂
Stefan Struck Alright, I’ll bite.
But when I show up tonight and Darien or Vey are behaving… odd, I can’t guarantee anything.