Should Potence, Celerity and Fortitude have sinergic effects?

[monteparnas]

But there is a thing I must say. Usually I play mortals, not vampires.

I like the "horror and fear" themes. Vampires should inspire fear, even in veteran hunters. An hunter taking down a single vampire in close fight at night should be an herculean feat, with the hunter barely walking away covered in wounds, not something a beginner could do.

The role of hunters is to plan, train, organize themselves, stalk their prey to their haven and attack while the sun is up.
Night and darkness should be feared, not braved.

This is the World of Darkness after all.

But also darkness to the vampires. The problem here is that your interest lies completely outside the game's intent, not only its current rules.

The rules for how the Disciplines actually work are meant for a game of Vampire PCs. A game where those PCs must contend, among other things, with the notion that mortals can become a threat if the vampires act as fools. Disciplines are extremely powerful and advantageous, but won't save your ass on their own.

Otherwise, the vampire PC would have no stakes in the conflict, no reason to play smart, no drama.

And in this sense, that's one of the reasons why books of other splats, including Hunter, do not use each other rules to represent a given other splat. In a game of mortal hunters against vampires, it is reasonable to tweak the powers of vampires in the directions you propose and even more. But the rules of Vampire: the Masquerade must be thought for a game of Vampires first.

In this, by the way, the problem isn't just how those rules apply against mortals, but the fact that they are rules and govern the use of the power all the time. They'll apply for those vampires when dealing with all the other shit they may come across, that generally is more central to their games. And then they'll be just an unnecessary burden if they get so complex.

[Solomon Draak]

I agree that vampires acting recklessly deserve what they get, but - talking about your example - IMO a single hunter that gets in close combat with a vampire at night and has no True Faith / high technology equipement / magic relics or talismans, and that isn't a supreme master of 5-6 kung fu forms, should become food quickly and painlessly ( painlessly for the vampire ).

Also IMO, part of the personal horror of Vampires is precisely that: you're preying on the weak, people who have no chance to fight back, and are defenseless as children. If they could fight, it would be actually easier. Their weakness and helpness are in stark opposition to the brutal rape of body, mind and spirit perpetuated by a vampire in the act of feeding.

Once I had a character that let deliberately his vessel - a girl with funny colored clothing - repeatedly and futiley hit him with a pocket knife because the physical pain of those tiny wounds soothet his guilt at predation. He also gave the girl a good advantage, altough he knew he would eventually catch her, so she could at least try to earn her life.
After draining her dry, he composed her ragged clothes and disheveled hairs, closed her eyes that were wide shut for the terror and adjusted her face so that she wouldn't look so in agony when her parents or her little brother will find her, delicately laid down in their garden, under a bouquet of roses.
He was deeply remorseful.

[Heavy Arms]

That doesn't sound like remorse... that sounds like a sociopath. That's some serious Low Humanity/on a Path behavior.

[MyWifeIsScary]

I think he knows that. It's the twisted "I'm so sorry" bad guy. There are some RL killers and rapists who've had similar thoughts.

Clever vampires don't need to be strong. I think they'll eventually get strong, but your average neonate is going to lose when surprised by a fit hunter with a dagger. If they don't get enough turns to blood buff themselves, their only advantage is they half bashing and can't be strangled, and they may be stronger than they look, and they can play dead pretty well. The odd rapist doesn't stand a chance, but someone who knowingly hunts a vampire? Dead. Being a vampire will eventually negate the strength difference between men and women, or small men and big men, but a fledgling's still very much in danger from stronger, larger opponents, and enemy ghouls.

[Heavy Arms]

I've gotten lucky and torpored a vampire with a shotgun. The character was a supernatural one, but the only thing that actually granted as a -1 difficulty on the attack rolls. I just rolled well enough with to blasts, and they rolled shitty enough on soak, that it was just enough bashing damage, after halving and everything, to fill up all those boxes and one more.

It was a bit of a fluke, sure, but flukes will happen if you press your luck.

[monteparnas]

One of the reasons for the system to work the way it does is to highlight one of the points to Punk Gothic: the biggest monster around isn't any vampire, but the world itself. The undead stalk the night on streets run down by gang violence that takes a heavier life toll in one night than the entire city's Kindred will take in a year. Ancillae bask in their power to command the absolute love of hundreds of mortals at once, then turn on the TV to watch Oprah with everyone else. Elders capable of turning the inhabitants of a city block to mush with a powerful ritual wake from torpor to learn that 80 years ago humans nuked two cities.

Vampires aren't helpless against the darkness of the world and they can rise to command that darkness. But it is pretty much greater than them. Capitalism is the true Darkness at the core of the game, because that's a key part of the Punk ethos that informs it. And the conflict between new and old, with all its interplay, means that while Elders may have the personal power to be inured against the maladies of the world that can't touch them anymore, Neonates pretty much can be destroyed by a street gang if they're dumb or unlucky enough.

[Solomon Draak]

I'm ok with this. A street gang, brutal thugs with weapons. And a Neonate. Ok.
But not a lone hunter with a sharpened stick.
Unless he's a Steven Seagul tipe.

[adambeyoncelowe]

The synergistic effects are, I think, possible within existing rules but you probably need to actually apply the idea that any Attribute could pair with any Ability (whereas, the RAW often gives a fixed pairing when giving examples).

So, we've already established that Celerity adds dice that can cause extra damage. What I'd probably do next is make Feats of Strength roll Strength + Stamina (if WP is important there, you can still spend it for a bonus success), and allow runners to use Strength + Athletics when appropriate, or calculate their speed as Strength + Dexterity. That way, it all works the way you suppose and there's minimal tinkering needed.

[Heavy Arms]

I'm not sure that really counts as minimal tinkering. "Any Attribute with any Ability if it makes sense," doesn't cover changing systems that use a single Attribute in their rules (Feats of Strength, movement speeds), or justify changing a Willpower roll to an Attribute + Attribute roll (which aren't even a thing in the WoD rules, that's a CofD thing).

Combat also gets completely screwy if you get too loose with Attributes, because instead of synergies (which is ideally how WoD combat already functions), it advantages single Attribute focus. This is already a known issue with how the grappling rule work where you get to use Strength to attack, and Strength to maintain grapples, and Strength to do damage in grapples. While not unbeatable, Potence grapplers are insanely effective (esp. since it allows you to do Agg bite damage).

[adambeyoncelowe]

I'm not sure that really counts as minimal tinkering. "Any Attribute with any Ability if it makes sense," doesn't cover changing systems that use a single Attribute in their rules (Feats of Strength, movement speeds), or justify changing a Willpower roll to an Attribute + Attribute roll (which aren't even a thing in the WoD rules, that's a CofD thing).

Combat also gets completely screwy if you get too loose with Attributes, because instead of synergies (which is ideally how WoD combat already functions), it advantages single Attribute focus. This is already a known issue with how the grappling rule work where you get to use Strength to attack, and Strength to maintain grapples, and Strength to do damage in grapples. While not unbeatable, Potence grapplers are insanely effective (esp. since it allows you to do Agg bite damage).

Well the examples I gave were a bit more specific, so perhaps I shouldn't have said to use *any* Attribute + Ability combo. What I meant was to replace those specific rules in the game, if what you want is Potence helping with running speed or Fortitude helping with lifting.

Grapples have always been an issue. I have always ruled that Potence only adds to the damage there, rather than the attack roll. At least in Revised, the rules said that the auto successes added to the damage dice pool, which I always read as meaning it was a damage bonus not an accuracy bonus (though I see how it could be argued that the rule meant the auto successes on the attack carried over to the damage dice pool too).

[Solomon Draak]

Fortitude shouldn't help with lifting speed but, in my opinion, should mean the vampire's body is harder and hurts more when it hits something.
Celerity should do extra damage if you charge or do a flying kick.

[Heavy Arms]

This just circles back to:

1) The books just don't support these as how things "should" be based on how the setting is described.

2) Changing the Disciplines to suit your tastes is a much bigger balancing act than you seem interested in.

[Solomon Draak]

I just find hard to believe that a vampire who runs against a target at 20 miles / hour is the same as a vampire-projectile that travels at 650 m /hr .

[Heavy Arms]

Because you're applying the logic of physics to supernatural powers extremely selectively.

What about the force on the vampire's leg bones from slamming into the ground hard enough to propel them at 650 mph? Do they go temporarily blind from their eyeballs deforming from such extreme accelerations and speeds? What about penalties to their sense of balance from all the g-forces they're subjected too?

If you want to make vampire powers obey the laws of physics, then they need to obey the laws of physics, not just the ones you want to apply. If you want Celerity to do more damage because it's cool, don't bring physics into it.

[Solomon Draak]

Actually, now that you make me notice... yes, it would be kinda cool. The vampire runs too fast and explodes.

Seriously speaking.
A vampire who uses very hight levels of Celerity should also have some Fortitude to withstand the extreme sollecitations.
We can take in account the innate corpse-like resilience of vampires and the fact they don't die due decompression, organ failure ecc.

I would say that Celerity 1-2 is ok, 3-4 inflicts a point of bashing damage and from 5 on the damage is lethal.
No damage for vampires with Fortitude or Stamina 6+.

What about penalties to their sense of balance from all the g-forces they're subjected too?

That true too.
But I think that through pratice a vampire can learn to deal with that.

Mabye, penalties for vampires who just learned Celerity untill they had some months to pratice it with costance.

Again, vampires have no physiology to speak of, so they would get much less dizziness than a mortal.

A poor ghoul whould have an harder time.