Vampire Rewrite (Underway)

[Skull132]

Hokay. So, in an effort to fix our antag game modes, it was noted that Vampire is relatively broken and just does not at all. Ever.

So, I started to rewrite it. I am pleased to announce that I finished the largest block of the rewrite: base systems and powers themselves. Now comes tweaking, and extra mechanics.

For the purposes of review, I'll post up the powers and the general approach to vampire that I have taken. Note that while I am looking for input on this as well, it is the second half of this topic which requires more scrutiny at this time.

The Mentality:

Okay, long story short, vampire right now literally states you are from Space Transilvania. While this may befit other servers, I think it's kinda meh for our setting. Instead, after consulting with Kekboot the Lore Meister, I have chosen to make vampires be the spawn of the Veil. For reference: the Veil is he place from which the cult get their power from, and where Nar'sie himself resides. The connection between the Veil and blood, and blood magic, is already very ingrained in mechanics, so adding vampires under that concept most certainly makes sense, and permits us to further expand the mechanical lore behind it.

It should also be noted that my rewrite does not use classical vampire lore as a basis. I am very much, "Meh" about vampires being caped people with fangs, who hang upside down in the ceiling as bats do. Instead, I have chosen to use the White Wolf Vampire pen and paper roleplaying games as a general guide. The changes made to feeding and enthrallment showcase this, as do the new social powers.

And on the topic of social powers, I added them as an experiment. I want to see what happens if we give an antag more tools than simply the threat of violence and death to influence others. We'll see how they play out.

 

The Powers:

• Drain Blood
  
  Desc: Feed on a victim, gain blood
  
  Changes: Instead of using the odd interaction between grabbing and targeting, it'll now work like the ling's absorb power. You just need to have someone in stage 2 grab, and click on the power. As simple as that.
  
  It now erases the memory of the victim about ever being fed upon. This will enable vampires to partially feed on people, and does not force them to kill their victims. As it stands, despite it being mechanically possible to partially feed on a person, you are forced to kill the victim for fear of them telling sec.
• Glare
  
  Desc: An area of effect stun ability.
  
  Changes: None.
  
• Veil Step
  
  Desc: A replacement for shadow step. A targeted teleportation ability. Activated by right clicking on any tile, and then choosing the veil step verb. The target tile must be covered in shadows to some degree! At a higher level, you will also teleport the person you have grabbed with you.
  
  Changes: Refer to desc.
  
• Bats
  
  Desc: Spawns a set of bats that attack folks.
  
  Changes: Bats will no longer target vampires nor thralls. Note that they will not attack the thralls of other vampires, or other vampires in general, making them pointless if vamp v vamp combat.
  
• Chriopteran Screech
  
  Desc: An large area of effect stun and destructive ability.
  
  Changes: Now also destroys lights, in order to provide synergy with veil step.
  
• Veil Walk
  
  Desc: A replacement for Mist Form. The vampire enters the Veil, being visible only as a shade for the people around him. The shade cannot be interacted with, and while in this mode, the vampire can walk through all objects.
  
  Changes: Refer to desc.
  
• Blood Heal
  
  Desc: A replacement for Rejuvinate. A concentrated healing power: you activate it, sit still for a bit, and heal up. This power heals all damage, from organ to brainloss, at a persistent cost of blood. It's balanced so that one full drain from a victim (240 blood) can heal roughly 200 points of damage over the course of about 2-3 minutes. The effects of this healing are visible to passers by.
  
  Changes: Refer to desc.
  
• Dominate
  
  Desc: A social ability. Initially works like hypnotize, whereby you have to stare at the victim for a bit, but instead of stunning the victim, you are now prompted to issue a command to this victim. The victim is required to carry out this command. Note that long term commands will not work, so you cannot order someone to be your slave forever and ever, or what have you.
  
  Changes: N/A
  
• Presence
  
  Desc: Another social ability. Instead of being targeted, this is an area of effect ability whereby people interacting with the vampire will start to feel more comfortable around the vampire. They would regard him as friendly, helpful, what have you. The ability is toggleable, and drains blood over time. It's also coded so that it doesn't spam people, so dw.
  
  Changes: N/A
  
• Diseased Touch
  
  Desc: Infect the victim with a lethal disease.
  
  Changes: None on the front end, works as intended.
  
• Enthrall
  
  Desc: Create a blood bond between your vampire and the mortal victim. The new thrall is required to listen to the vampire's every whim, and the vampire (master) is the most important person to the thrall. Seeking their approval is paramount.
  
  Changes: This shit will actually work, now.
  
• The Embrace
  
  Desc: Bring a new vampire into the fold. By draining your victim dry of blood, and replacing it with the corrupted blood of yourself, you spawn a new vampire. They will start out enraged, hungry; and are by no means slaved to you. While it is risky to try and gain a new ally this way, having another to fight with may prove a boon in the long run.
  
  Changes: N/A

 

The Actual Topic:

I have about 2-3 mechanics which are not yet written, and need to be bashed out before doing so. As such, I'd like us to discuss the thoughts I have about them, the possible alternatives, and adjustments. Once I have a general idea of what is wanted, I can put them down into writing. Here they are, in no particular order:

 

• Progression!
  
  Right now, vampire is handled under linear progression. You have a single level meter, so to speak, and powers unlock as you progress along that scale.
  
  
  
  The alternative is to handle it as changeling does, where you can buy powers with total blood. Quite a simple preference question, really, both can be done easily enough.
   
  
• Frenzy
  
  In the White Wolf games, all vampires have a "beast" inside of them. If a vampire grows too hungry, loses too much humanity, or is for some other reason removed from control, that beast comes up and assumed control. The beast is merciless, and generally kills and uses power without discretion. The most common way to have the beast manifest is by losing all of your blood, and then losing control until the beast has fed on a victim. (The victim usually dies as a result.)
  
  
  
  Ingame, I don't want to tie to the amount of blood you have left. That would be too inhibiting. The triggers I have figured for the beast are the following:
  
  • Chaplain stuff (being in the chapel, being attacked by the nullrod, drinking holy water, etcetera)
  • Drinking the blood of another vampire
    
  • Being a newly embraced vampire (100% chance to trigger, with this one)

 

The way it would work is cumulative. For example: the more time you spend in the chapel, the higher the chance of going into frenzy you have.

The effects of being in Frenzy:

• Locked into harm intent
• Unable to speak intelligently
  
• Feeding requires only level 1 grab, but doesn't erase the memory of the victim
  
• Red overlay for the vampire player
  
• ??? - Write more suggestions here!

 

[*]Vampire v Vampire Mechanics (Diabliere)

I am of the belief that a vampire feeding on another vampire should be a risk-reward type deal. In the White Wolf games, the act is known as diabliere, and it is immensely taboo for the vampire community. It provides extreme power to the vampire that is able to pull it off, but also completely drains their humanity, leaving them practically insane.

Ingame, I'd like to make feeding on another vampire have the chance of triggering a frenzy. Further more, I'd like it to give some sort of immense boon to the winning vampire, if he's able to pull it off. But what? An ultimate form type deal, perhaps? Need input on this!

 

[*]Vampire v Chaplain Mechanics

All of the religious bruhaha surrounding vampires is pretty much gone in the White Wolf games. A vampire can easily walk into a church, be hit with a wooden cross, or even get a stake rammed through their heart to no ill effect. I would still like to have some interaction of mechanics between the vampires and the Chaplain.

As it stands, the Chaplain is immune to Dominate, Presence, Enthrall, and being Embraced. They do not get outright warnings about the former two, but seeing others act strangely should be a clue enough. The chapel is also a place where a Veil walking vampire cannot enter, and as already noted, being in the Chapel, the chance of a vampire frenzying increases the longer they spend there. Religious artifacts also have a chance of triggering frenzy, but it'll be low on if used by themselves.

Is there anything else we can come up with, or is this enough?

 

That's it! Input is welcome, go nuts!

[Gollee]

I have access to the Curse of Stahd (A.K.A Ravenloft), and a principle factor of it is that Vampires do not die easily, if their physical body is killed, they return to their coffin for X amount of time, and must be killed there before they rise again.

[Nanako]

My Thoughts

Stop using blood as a mana for powers, and introduce a seperate mana meter for them. The vampire should lose blood over time merely by existing (because hunger) and should lose it faster when regenerating mana from using powers. Stored blood would have some lower limit. When the stored blood is empty, then the frenzy thing can activate

I don't like the idea of chapel stuff causing frenzy. I'd rather that holy things just deal burn damage to the vampire

Also when a vampire is in frenzy, make that clear and obvious to everyone. Give them glowy red eyes and an aura or something, make it clear to onlookers that the person is inhuman

Also, automatic frenzy at a certian health level might be nice. Instead of falling unconscious at 0% health, the vampire goes into frenzy, and can stay awake until -50% health

also movespeed. Make frenzy increase movespeed, i think thats important

As mentioned ealier, i think embracing could be consensual. Like with the cult, give the victim the option to refuse it, although they'd probably die in doing so. And as discussed, you should be able to force your own thralls.

I like the current linear progression system, don't change it. But make monkeys and other low creatures not increase total blood, and hence not contribute to your progression

For diablerie, I'd say a massive increase in total blood, and the ability to use powers more easily for some time (30 minutes to an hour maybe). Lower costs for powers, or something

Edited April 26, 2016 by Guest

[Skull132]

Stop using blood as a mana for powers, and introduce a seperate mana meter for them. The vampire should lose blood over time merely by existing (because hunger) and should lose it faster when regenerating mana from using powers. Stored blood would have some lower limit. When the stored blood is empty, then the inner beast thing can activate

 

No. This would make playing vampire too hard. In whitewolf, the system works because you can feed very easily: literally just roll a D20 or two to find a victim, and another set of dice to figure out how many points you get out of it. Here, feeding is relatively difficult to pull off, and I do not think frenzy should be linked to it.

 

As mentioned ealier, i think embracing could be consensual. Like with the cult, give the victim the option to refuse it, although they'd probably die in doing so. And as discussed, you should be able to force your own thralls.

 

No. Because setting up a proper Embrace is already hard enough: you need to find and capture two people to do it properly (the target, and a victim with whom to quench the the thirst of the newborn vampire with). It also takes time, setup, and there's a chance of it backfiring immensely by the virtue of the fact that the new childe is not slaved to you.

I could make the act of embracing easier, way easier, however, I do not want to do that. That's what thralls are for: simple slaves. Bringing a new vampire into the fold should be an event and a goal, not just something you do as an afterthought.

Because of the amount of setup required, having the victim nope out of it because of whatever personal preference shit there exists is a butt move and a half. (Read as: awful sportsmanship.) And I do not like the idea of it.

[Nanako]

stuff

 

I edited that post quite a bit, reread it.

I see your point about the embracing though

But i suppose it is still sort of consensual, in the sense that if you embrace someone who doesn't want it they'll just try to murder you as soon as they awake, so i'm okay with that.

[Fire and Glory]

The effects of being in Frenzy:

• Locked into harm intent.
• Feeding requires only level 1 grab.

Just here to point out that ain't gonna work boss.

Otherwise, I do like what I see, but have no useful suggestions.

[Guest]

How about a power that refreshes stuns/removes pain altogether? At the cost of a hefty amount of blood, of course.

I'd also like to bring up the point that Gollee made. Vampires are effectively invincible until properly slain in their set 'home' or sanctuary in most sources of fiction. Are vampires going to still be undead in some manner, or are they still mortals in their own right?

[Snakebittenn]

Perhaps sucking from another vamp gives you some kind of endgame powers? And perhaps control over their thralls when you do it.

Edit

Would thralling need any special grabs?

Perhaps enhanced regeneration could up your passive regeneration, and by default draining blood could make you healthier?

[Skull132]

A standard vampire, IMO, shouldn't be unkillable through the use of standard firepower. Whitewolf makes it quite neat: forget about the ancient bullshit about a stake through the heart and silver swords. Shotguns and grenades are the way to go, if you want to kill one. However, they are immune to disease, pain, don't need organs or limbs, don't die of regular bloodloss, etcetera.

Ingame, my thoughts are to replicate the lack of care for organs, disease, brain damage, etcetera. Basically: as a vampire, you won't be adversely affected by damaged organs, you won't get brain damage, diseases (though you will be a carrier) will not have any effect on you either. This would have the amazing side-effect of a vampire being found out by the virtue of all of their internal organs being destroyed, or something else like that.

As for vampire v vampire thing, I got a bit of an idea. The way it was originally intended, is that you gain "vampire blood" to use for special powers. Instead, I think giving you the other vampire's soul would be better isntead, that you could use to buy one of a special set of powers.

One power would let you become truly undead, making you revive at a place of your choosing.

The others would. Idno, what could they doooooo? And thoughts on that approach of managing vampire eating bonuses?

[Dreviore]

I invision someone of power crawling out of an explosion that should have killed a human with a few minor scraps that heal themselves...

[LordFowl]

A standard vampire, IMO, shouldn't be unkillable through the use of standard firepower. Whitewolf makes it quite neat: forget about the ancient bullshit about a stake through the heart and silver swords. Shotguns and grenades are the way to go, if you want to kill one. However, they are immune to disease, pain, don't need organs or limbs, don't die of regular bloodloss, etcetera.

Ingame, my thoughts are to replicate the lack of care for organs, disease, brain damage, etcetera. Basically: as a vampire, you won't be adversely affected by damaged organs, you won't get brain damage, diseases (though you will be a carrier) will not have any effect on you either. This would have the amazing side-effect of a vampire being found out by the virtue of all of their internal organs being destroyed, or something else like that.

As for vampire v vampire thing, I got a bit of an idea. The way it was originally intended, is that you gain "vampire blood" to use for special powers. Instead, I think giving you the other vampire's soul would be better isntead, that you could use to buy one of a special set of powers.

One power would let you become truly undead, making you revive at a place of your choosing.

The others would. Idno, what could they doooooo? And thoughts on that approach of managing vampire eating bonuses?

 

Something that'd be neat is if you actually received the soul of the vampire, as in a soul stone-like object with the vampire's shade.

[Skull132]

Considering that consuming a vampire is likely to lead you into a rage, binding it to an object is an awful idea, as you are more than likely going to lose it in that rage.

[Snakebittenn]

Perhaps telekinesis as a vampire blood power?

[Skull132]

Is it comparable to respawn at a desired location? Probably maybe is. Though on the lower end, I guess.

[Snakebittenn]

Yeah, if you can do it to things you can see within range.

Perhaps give it the ability to pretty much force choke people but you can't do anything else?

[Skull132]

Doesn't really befit, the force chokey thing.

Think of something relating to blood magic, the Veil, Cult, and Nar'sie.

[Snakebittenn]

Something something boil someone's blood

I'll get back to this a bit later

[Kaed]

I think an interesting 'vampire soul' power set would be themed around a stronger control over blood magic and/or mental dominion. Possibly either or? Here is a list of general ideas I have, not all of them may be viable.

-Long ranged targetted blood theft, with a cooldown. This would be similar to that one xenoarch effect where a wound rips open on your body and blood splatters, but there is no immediately evidence source. The vampire receives a fixed (not huge) amount of blood to their pool, and causes fear and panic among the affected crew members Possibly they can even do this on the other side of a wall, thus alerting the people that there is a blood-feeding monstrosity nearby but they cannot see where.

-Carrying on from the blood boiling, I had the idea of an AOE upgraded version of Screech, that sends all non-vampires around you into pain crit (but not actual damage, or at least not a significant amoutn) as their blood boils inside their body, or something similarly agonizing, but DOESN'T break windows. This should ideally allow you to leave to chomp a few of them before they can get up.

-A mass version of Dominate, affecting everyone in a radius around you, but they all receive the same command. Possibly a restriction on orders like 'kill yourself', limited to simple actions like 'fall', 'flee before me', 'cower in terror'.

-Sensory Attack: The idea of some kind of temporary interface screw, such as inverting the direction of the screen for people around you, making it shake violently, and/or turn blood red (possibly all at once) for a short while (possibly up to a half minute? That seems long enough to inspire terror without being as caustic as hallucinations that last a zillion years). The idea is to make them all roil around in confusion, screaming in terror as their world spins and churns around them from the power the vampire has unleashed on them. This may be AoE or targetted, I"m not sure. I like AOE for the purpose of being surrounded by security, but strategic use of a single target for the purpose of fear tactics might be a thing

-May add more as I think of them.

[Guest]

Those suggestions are a little out of the scope of a vampire, Kaed. Not even an ancient is capable of causing dominating a crowd. If anything, they seem more befitting of either cultists or psions (mind magic practioners, though beyond the scope of magic and more within the fields of science and physics). The blood theft doesn't seem possible nor sane, the pain crit screech seems a bit OP, and the sensory attack just seems to be a better wizard confusion spell.

Diversifying an antagonist's abilities will inevitably cause too much unnecessary clutter and establish an unnecessary meta in relation to what the best powers are, etc.

Should just keep it to the "level up" blood meter function. Makes the progression different from changeling, at least.

[Kaed]

Those suggestions are a little out of the scope of a vampire, Kaed. Not even an ancient is capable of causing dominating a crowd. If anything, they seem more befitting of either cultists or psions (mind magic practioners, though beyond the scope of magic and more within the fields of science and physics). The blood theft doesn't seem possible nor sane, the pain crit screech seems a bit OP, and the sensory attack just seems to be a better wizard confusion spell.

Diversifying an antagonist's abilities will inevitably cause too much unnecessary clutter and establish an unnecessary meta in relation to what the best powers are, etc.

Should just keep it to the "level up" blood meter function. Makes the progression different from changeling, at least.

 

Except that the whole point of my post was in regards to rewards you may get for taking down another vampire and eating their soul, as a separate mechanic to the blood drinking progression. I don't think you're paying very much attention to the context other than saying what you think would be broken - that's kind of the idea. You took out the other antag in a fight, and unlocked a new power you couldn't get otherwise.

See Skull's post a few above mine, before making comments about how 'it seems to fit cultists more than vampires'.

 

Think of something relating to blood magic, the Veil, Cult, and Nar'sie.

 

Or maybe, read the actual opening post, where he says he wants to tie vampires more to 'the veil', and the same source of power as the cult.

[Nanako]

Blood Bond

An everlasting, unshakeable, synergetic bond between two vampires, requiring the sacrificed soul of a third.

The two vampires who bond will both be significantly increased in power, consuming much less blood for their abilities, and gaining major resistance to all forms of damage. They will always know where the other is, and maybe gain a special power to teleport to the other.

However there are downsides

The two vampires in question are filled with a hatred of all other vampires aside from their partner(giving an RP justification to murder them whenever possible) and permanantly lose the ability to embrace new vamps.

Two bonded vampires will share one blood pool, adding to the shared pool when drinking, and casting from it when using spells.

If one frenzies, the other does too

In addition whenever one is damaged, the other will suffer half of that damage,

And most critically of all, if one dies, the other one spontaneously drops dead as well.

It'ss an idea that came to mind for a new vampire power. Maybe it shouldn't even need diablerie. The main idea was to encourage more turf wars between vampires, by getting them to pair off into little factions. Vampires typically come in threes, at least on current code

[Guest]

You took out the other antag in a fight, and unlocked a new power you couldn't get otherwise.

 

Valid other antag = get god power

Don't like the idea of it, sorry.

[Nikov]

I don't know, two vampires colluding to become more powerful, or one stabbing the other in the back... you have to hide from your own, and do you really trust an offer of help?

[Gollee]

Plus; then there is the issue of a vamp using the embrace, then immediately stunning and eating their spawn.

[Skull132]

Make an antag unable to eat his own childe. Or give him the ability to eat one, but just no rewards for that at all.

I also kind of want to keep the mechanic: it's supposed to be something that's done rarely, much like siring a new vampire. Also note that the powers should be preferably single time use, and not just give godlike ability. They should be augmentors, like the death and respawn one. Not just, "Extra power, go nuts and kill everyone."