How Does Tremere Clan Fight against Garous?

[Monalfie]

In all fairness, the only reason I'd think silver armor wouldn't that much of an expenditure is because the chantry probably has access to Path of Conjuration (because it is absurd). So it probably isn't going to take much effort at all to outfit their fighters with it. I don't think it is that useful, given making them use fetish weapons hardly seems a 'combat advantage' against them. But it'd probably be a rather simple addition.

[Saur Ops Specialist]

You are reducing their options in any case. If they would have been using brawl without the armor, then clearly that's their preference.

I don't think the rules are really built to handle specific weapon types vs armor, or anything else for that matter.

No, you didn't restrict them, because there's a good chance that they never planned on using that to begin with, and you can just void the armor or use an adaptation of called shots and increase the damage to compensate for the armor value.

[Aleph]

In all fairness, the only reason I'd think silver armor wouldn't that much of an expenditure is because the chantry probably has access to Path of Conjuration (because it is absurd). So it probably isn't going to take much effort at all to outfit their fighters with it. I don't think it is that useful, given making them use fetish weapons hardly seems a 'combat advantage' against them. But it'd probably be a rather simple addition.

Yeah, you're right. That path it's cheap, still, it's not free. I took that in count, that's why I said that there probably are better things to do with those resources instead of saying that it was unrealistic for the Chantry to have them (I even joked about paving the chantry with silver, which it's actually possible with Path of Conjuration and something to melt the silver, or maybe with Alchemy).

Conjuring an armor probably would need the Path at 3, because it has moving parts and probably several materials. That's 5 bloodpoints per suit. If you have, say, 30 capable combat Ghouls, you need 150 blood points to equip them. Of course, you don't need to go fetch 15+ guys, you can use Chantry reserves, I imagine that Tremere have bigger reserves than that (but how big?, after all, thay have to use lots of blood with frequency).

The thing is, you're already spending several hundreds of blood points in lots of silver ammunition and traps. Also you need blood for rituals, combat, healing, and feeding several vampires that probably feel more safe inside the Wards. We agree in that this thing isn't going to shift the balance. The question would be,do you really can't find better things to do with hundreds of blood points?

[Monalfie]

Yeah, you're right. That path it's cheap, still, it's not free. I took that in count, that's why I said that there probably are better things to do with those resources instead of saying that it was unrealistic for the Chantry to have them (I even joked about paving the chantry with silver, which it's actually possible with Path of Conjuration and something to melt the silver, or maybe with Alchemy).

Conjuring an armor probably would need the Path at 3, because it has moving parts and probably several materials. That's 5 bloodpoints per suit. If you have, say, 30 capable combat Ghouls, you need 150 blood points to equip them. Of course, you don't need to go fetch 15+ guys, you can use Chantry reserves, I imagine that Tremere have bigger reserves than that (but how big?, after all, thay have to use lots of blood with frequency).

The thing is, you're already spending several hundreds of blood points in lots of silver ammunition and traps. Also you need blood for rituals, combat, healing, and feeding several vampires that probably feel more safe inside the Wards. We agree in that this thing isn't going to shift the balance. The question would be,do you really can't find better things to do with hundreds of blood points?

I feel that's a big exaggeration, even. You just use Path of Conjuration 2 with the level 3 ritual Major Creation to make a giant room sized sheet of silver that you just cut up to attach to the armor in question in places. And silver that can be used to craft things like bullets as well or what have you. At that point it's just a question of how much time is needed/being spent with mundane crafting.

Again, seems like a fairly simple addition. Also, Alchemy is horrible. I'm not sure if they changed it in V20, but trying to break something turns it into sludge.

[Aleph]

Sure, but you need to have that time and the people, because you likely want the preparation to be done before the furries make their move. Note that not all guys who know how to craft bullets know how to craft armor, being a smith isn't rocket science but you still need to have the know-how. After we've cleared that, do you want to waste time in silver plated armors when your team of guerrilla style smiths & gunsmiths could be crafting more silver bullets, explosives, traps or something else? .

I think that the best approach may be to combine approaches...You could use your team of military crafters to create part of the items and use blood to conjure some more to save time (after all, Tremere do tend to have awful quantities of that in their basements). I imagine a mercenary knows how to handle bullets, but I'm not so sure most "fighters" know how to make armor, also armor will need a separate mold and it's arguably more complex if you want the user to have mobility (note how, by the raw, armor can get in the way of Dextrety, I imagine a poorly crafted one will get in the way even more), so it would be better to conjure those (and spend the hundred or so of blood to get the "advantage" of Garou having to use weapons that could be better or worse than their claws).

[Monalfie]

Sure, but you need to have that time and the people with the know-how, because you likely want the preparation to be done before the furries make their move. Note that not all guys who know how to craft bullets know how to craft armor, being a smith isn't rocket science but you still need to have the know-how. After we've cleared that, do you want to waste time in silver plated armors when your team of guerrilla style smiths & gunsmiths could be crafting more silver bullets, explosives, traps or something else? .

I think that the best approach may be to combine approaches...You could use your team of military crafters to create part of the items and use blood to conjure some more to save time (after all, Tremere do tend to have awful quantities of that in their basements). I imagine a mercenary probably knows how to handle bullets, but I'm not so sure most "fighters" know how to make armor, also armor will need a separate mold and it's arguably more complex if you want the user to have mobility (note how, by the raw, armor can get in the way of Dextrety, I imagine a poorly crafted one will get in the way even more), so it would be better to conjure those (and spend the 150 or so blood to get the "advantage" of Garou having to use weapons that could be better or worse than their claws).

Sure, as I noted, 'At that point it's just a question of how much time is needed/being spent with mundane crafting.' I can't much approximate how long is necessary to cut out the silver and attach it as necessary, but it really doesn't feel like much of a time-sink at all. It comes down quite a lot to the specifics on the compound, who is necessarily on hand, how frequent the attacks are, etc. Or even if this is being outsources to non-combat based ghouls/kindred/etc. It seems a very small investment.

As far as armor, I'm just imagining they're bolting silver onto vests and such. Because it doesn't need to be full plate, chainmail, or what have you. Just substantive coverage so that a general strike is likely to cleave through a plate. Because the silver isn't likely to stand up to an attack anyone, it just needs to get in the way.

[idpersona]

As far as armor, I'm just imagining they're bolting silver onto vests and such. Because it doesn't need to be full plate, chainmail, or what have you. Just substantive coverage so that a general strike is likely to cleave through a plate. Because the silver isn't likely to stand up to an attack anyone, it just needs to get in the way.

And at that point, you'd have spent these resources and time to do 1 Agg to a single Garou before they switch to aimed shots with a bite attack for a similar difficulty to clawing and bypass the armor completely. This just seems like a lot of effort to maybe inflict 1 or 2 Agg against an assault of Garou imo.

And the protected ghoul is still dead either way, not that it really matters to anyone.

[Illithid]

Yeah, you're right. That path it's cheap, still, it's not free. I took that in count, that's why I said that there probably are better things to do with those resources instead of saying that it was unrealistic for the Chantry to have them (I even joked about paving the chantry with silver, which it's actually possible with Path of Conjuration and something to melt the silver, or maybe with Alchemy).

Conjuring an armor probably would need the Path at 3, because it has moving parts and probably several materials. That's 5 bloodpoints per suit. If you have, say, 30 capable combat Ghouls, you need 150 blood points to equip them. Of course, you don't need to go fetch 15+ guys, you can use Chantry reserves, I imagine that Tremere have bigger reserves than that (but how big?, after all, thay have to use lots of blood with frequency).

As Monalfie mentioned, just summon giant Blocks of Silver and work from there, 3BP per (Bodyweight) of silver without the ritual
I’m not sure I’d use the Ritual; it costs an extra 3 BP and willpower point (or successful roll, that honestly most Tremere should be able to deal with) but it’s cutting off your thumb for success multiplier volume. 1 success is effectively a loss.
You just need pretty crude plates that could slot into the pouches normal armour goes into, since pure silver is very malleable, you could almost certainly cut it with regular steel knives and need just the skill to not cut yourself with a knife. (Give me $70,000 USD worth of 99.99% Pure Silver and I’ll try it out for you… for science)
Yes there is an economy on time too, what else you could do with that time. For the original proposition; Axel Dovidjenko is being allowed by his ST to build his character around the knowledge of a Lupine threat; years of Thaumaturgy study in that dedication… We can assume that the time to create deterrents and protect the Chantry are negligible for most possibilities

[Aleph]

Well, if you really have spare time I guess there's no harm in building the armors under those circumstances. I just say that I would do everything else before that, from useful rituals (perhaps create another set of Wards within the Chantry as to have more than one place where my ghouls can shot and Garou can't enter) and melting silver to craft bullets, to brokering a deal with banes and elementals (to asure no Umbral surprises) and making peace with the mages. But if everything its done and I have a "free night", I guess silver armors it's better than normal armors. Nothing wrong in wanting to squeeze all the bonuses you can get.

That being said, full armor does take from Dexterity (I imagine that crudely inserting silver in the armor/crudely pouring it into vests, won't help), and that's a relevant stat for shooting Garou. It's not a crippling penalty (I think), but it's not a huge advantage either.

[Sergeant Brother]

Silver isn't that strong as metals go but I still wouldn't want to try to cut it with a normal knife. For any silver work I wanted done, I would outsource it to a ghoul who I created deliberately to be an expert in working with silver and/or weapons. I don't know how effective silver plates would be. Maybe somewhat, but silver is also quite heavy, almost as heavy as lead. Carrying it all over your body would be inconvenient. Maybe really thin layers or a wire mesh wouldn't be that heavy, but they may not inflict much damage on werewolves either. Werewolves have such insanely powerful offensive abilities, I might focus on offense rather than defense. Ghouls with machine-guns or shotguns with silver bullets - hard to go wrong there.

There are other interesting silver options too. Like grenades or more improvised explosive devices that are filled with powered silver. For a human, this could be annoying or even painful, but to a werewolf this would be like being in a cloud of red hot metal dust, it would burn out their eyes, burn their lungs, burn their skin off. Not only massive damage of likely disabling injuries.

I think that any vampire haven belonging to a reasonably rich or well connected vampire should have some kind of last resort defense system which involves releasing some highly toxic gas - nerve gas for example - into the haven. Maybe ghouls could be prepared with suits and gas masks or maybe they will just be collateral damage, but nerve gas would be highly effective against almost any non-vampire creature. Including but not limited to werewolves and hunters. A device which filled the air with clouds of finely powered silver would be even better against werewolves and less harmful to ghouls.

[Saur Ops Specialist]

Silver isn't that strong as metals go but I still wouldn't want to try to cut it with a normal knife. For any silver work I wanted done, I would outsource it to a ghoul who I created deliberately to be an expert in working with silver and/or weapons. I don't know how effective silver plates would be. Maybe somewhat, but silver is also quite heavy, almost as heavy as lead. Carrying it all over your body would be inconvenient. Maybe really thin layers or a wire mesh wouldn't be that heavy, but they may not inflict much damage on werewolves either. Werewolves have such insanely powerful offensive abilities, I might focus on offense rather than defense. Ghouls with machine-guns or shotguns with silver bullets - hard to go wrong there.

There are other interesting silver options too. Like grenades or more improvised explosive devices that are filled with powered silver.

Powdered silver isn't actually much of a thing for weapons, since it's going to react with oxygen and become impure with great speed, especially if you're distributing it via an explosive combustion reaction.

For a human, this could be annoying or even painful, but to a werewolf this would be like being in a cloud of red hot metal dust, it would burn out their eyes, burn their lungs, burn their skin off. Not only massive damage of likely disabling injuries.

It'd be about as irritating as capsaicin, maybe, and cause a rash... which would rapidly heal. To actually cause serious damage, you need a coating (which will wear off in a few hits, or in the process of trying to injure a target in the case of the odd Mokole that you meet) or actually be made of solid silver. Ridiculous schemes involving powder or liquid silver aren't going to go over too well... not that vampires necessarily know this.

I think that any vampire haven belonging to a reasonably rich or well connected vampire should have some kind of last resort defense system which involves releasing some highly toxic gas - nerve gas for example - into the haven. Maybe ghouls could be prepared with suits and gas masks or maybe they will just be collateral damage, but nerve gas would be highly effective against almost any non-vampire creature. Including but not limited to werewolves and hunters. A device which filled the air with clouds of finely powered silver would be even better against werewolves and less harmful to ghouls.

Resist Toxin and we're done here. Nerve gas isn't worth the trouble you'll get from the authorities, and the bribes you'd have to pay in order to sweep it under the rug would be exorbitant, assuming the prince didn't just burn you as a pre-emptive safety measure if he or she knows about your plan to store a highly toxic weapon banned under international law in your haven.

(The caveat about powdered silver above also continues to apply.)

[Sergeant Brother]

Powdered silver isn't actually much of a thing for weapons, since it's going to react with oxygen and become impure with great speed, especially if you're distributing it via an explosive combustion reaction.



It'd be about as irritating as capsaicin, maybe, and cause a rash... which would rapidly heal. To actually cause serious damage, you need a coating (which will wear off in a few hits, or in the process of trying to injure a target in the case of the odd Mokole that you meet) or actually be made of solid silver. Ridiculous schemes involving powder or liquid silver aren't going to go over too well... not that vampires necessarily know this.

Silver doesn't oxidize in air. Hence, why it is one of the noble metals. Look it up. The moderate heat generated by a largely concussive blast isn't going to change that. Even the touch of silver causes an aggravated wound to a werewolf, being in a cloud of silver dust will likely cause multiple aggravated wounds every turn in addition to nearly instantaneous blindness and inability to breath. If I were running a W:tA game and the players were subjected to such an attack, I might give them some extraordinary means of escaping, but unless they had a Gift which provided resistance to silver, being in close proximity to such an attack should be a death sentence.

Resist Toxin and we're done here. Nerve gas isn't worth the trouble you'll get from the authorities, and the bribes you'd have to pay in order to sweep it under the rug would be exorbitant, assuming the prince didn't just burn you as a pre-emptive safety measure if he or she knows about your plan to store a highly toxic weapon banned under international law in your haven.

(The caveat about powdered silver above also continues to apply.)

I presume in your werewolf games, all werewolves have all Gifts and all fetishes too. Also, all merits including silver resistance. They are always and constantly immune to everything. It seems like all of your replies basically revolve around the idea that werewolves are just immune to every possible strategy and form of attack, it's getting pretty silly.

[Illithid]

I think that any vampire haven belonging to a reasonably rich or well connected vampire should have some kind of last resort defense system which involves releasing some highly toxic gas - nerve gas for example - into the haven...... A device which filled the air with clouds of finely powered silver would be even better against werewolves and less harmful to ghouls.

Powdered silver isn't actually much of a thing for weapons, since it's going to react with oxygen and become impure with great speed, especially if you're distributing it via an explosive combustion reaction.
Resist Toxin and we're done here. Nerve gas isn't worth the trouble you'll get from the authorities, and the bribes you'd have to pay in order to sweep it under the rug would be exorbitant, assuming the prince didn't just burn you as a pre-emptive safety measure if he or she knows about your plan to store a highly toxic weapon banned under international law in your haven.

Last resort system - Absolutely, but I agree with Saur ops that Nerve Gas is a terrible idea.
Not that the Tremere might know about Resist Toxin (Which is common but not everyone has it) but for the rest of the criminal/political fall out.

Powedered silver - Well, im not sure whether from the Tremere in quetion's perspective if silver's oxygenation would be a known issue.
Also, depending on the GM's ruling; since Stirling Silver could be considered pure enough to be an issue for werewolves and if silver Oxide isn't an issue, all silver will have that tarnish that somehow prevents it reacting to the werewolf on contact?

Solution for it all though - An Oxygen deprived atmosphere. Vampires don't have a problem if there is nothing to breathe, but everything else that's not already dead does.
Carbon Monoxide. Have the level that the vampires rest in have no ventilation but filled with CO. (and double door sealing to keep the level of CO high)
Even if the lupines can resist the "Toxin" there's still no oxygen to breathe; sleepy time for werewolves. Powdered silver would not oxidise (as there's no oxygen and the oxygen would be more readily taken up by the Carbon Monoxide to become Carbon Dioxide.
Could also use Helium or Argon for lighter than air or Heavier than air noble gases that don't cost a fortune.

[Metalrift]

Powedered silver - Well, im not sure whether from the Tremere in quetion's perspective if silver's oxygenation would be a known issue.
Also, depending on the GM's ruling; since Stirling Silver could be considered pure enough to be an issue for werewolves and if silver Oxide isn't an issue, all silver will have that tarnish that somehow prevents it reacting to the werewolf on contact?

As Sergeant Brother said, there is no issue with oxidation of silver because silver does not react with oxygen under atmospheric conditions. Silver does tarnish, but this is a reaction to form silver (I) sulphide, and happens at a very low rate. It is entirely plausible that the Tremere could cover werewolves in a cloud of silver dust and that the werewolves would be seriously injured. I wouldn't find it strange that a Tremere who realises this will devise a way to generate such clouds at will.

[Illithid]

As Sergeant Brother said, there is no issue with oxidation of silver because silver does not react with oxygen under atmospheric conditions. Silver does tarnish, but this is a reaction to form silver (I) sulphide, and happens at a very low rate. It is entirely plausible that the Tremere could cover werewolves in a cloud of silver dust and that the werewolves would be seriously injured. I wouldn't find it strange that a Tremere who realises this will devise a way to generate such clouds at will.

If there was a reliable way to keep it suspended in the air; you could breath it in and just exhale on lupines.