Logistics of Blood Potency 6+

[Elfive]

Actually, speaking of breath drinking, does it bother anyone else that the power becomes totally useless after blood potency 7, as written? It just doesn't seem right to do that with something a player has paid for.

[wyrdhamster]

So at Blood Potency 6+ vampires need to drink other vampires? But they can consume still humans if they paid Willpower? Could you point me where are those rules in 2ED Requiem corebook?

[Elfive]

Certainly. Page 89, right-hand column, about halfway down the page.

And note that it's one willpower point per vitae, so it's not exactly cheap. And it also works for animal blood if you're a blood potency 3+.

[Resplendent Fire]

Actually, speaking of breath drinking, does it bother anyone else that the power becomes totally useless after blood potency 7, as written? It just doesn't seem right to do that with something a player has paid for.

I haven't read the book but it does seem problematic. Probably easy to house rule.

I suspect most players don't get to BP8 though.

[malonkey1]

Hang on, did anybody mention the Coil of Blood's 2nd-tier benefit? I know it's first edition, but it seems relevant, seeing as it lifts feeding restrictions. If anybody is interested, I also ported it to the new 2E format:

Coil of Blood:
• Blood Sleeps Slowly: The Dragon’s undead body doesn’t demand as much Vitae to animate itself as do those of other, less enlightened Kindred. The player need spend only one Vitae for his character to wake for a number of nights equal to the vampire’s Resolve + 1. So, a Kindred with a Resolve of 2 loses a Vitae every third night for rising.
•• Eternal Blush: The Blush of Life requires half the normal Vitae, meaning that you must only spend Vitae with every other use of Blush of Life
••• Blood of Beasts: No matter what the vampire’s Blood Potency is, she can take sustenance from animals and humans without spending Willpower, although each category below what the Dragon's Blood Potency demands halves the Vitae yielded, rounded down (So a BP 8 vampire feeding 6 lethal damage would get only 3 Vitae from a human, 1 from an animal).
•••• Quickening of the Blood: The Kindred can choose not to spend Vitae to awaken for a night, instead spending a point of Willpower. This is usually a tool to remain active when food is sparse or dangerous, but more than one Dragon has used it to stay in his lab experimenting for longer without needing to hunt, so he can run just one more test. Regardless of your Resolve, spending Willpower to remain awake only keeps you up 1 night, ignoring Blood Sleeps Slowly.
••••• Perspicacious Blood: The character gains one and a half times as much Vitae from a feeding upon a human as normal(after Blood of Beasts is factored in, if applicable), and receives double the Vitae consumed from Kindred or other supernatural vessels.

[Resplendent Fire]

It was mentioned early in the thread and it was pointed out that it was not in 2e.

[Hastur00]

whereas BP10 elders need to remain active and maintain sources of vitae so that they wouldn't have to go into torpor. I tend to think they'd have the ability to do this in sufficiently large domains but I also think there couldn't be more than a handful of such creatures. But from there it goes down to BP6.

Personally, I've come to imagine the Methuselah equivalent as having a kind of... distributed presence, through the vitae of nearby kindred. Either through continued presence, or possibly placing their own vitae in the target, a growing number of kindred serve as both a metaphysical refuge (not necessarily a perfect one) against diablerie and final death, a source of metaphysical power and information, and unwitting tools waiting for only the faintest nudge in the right direction. Think PC transitioning into cloud.

This would of course allow it to perform terrifying acts of deception and control in any given city. I can only imagine that the most stable state for such an ecosystem would be either total absence, or total infection ]:-)

[Resplendent Fire]

Hang on, did anybody mention the Coil of Blood's 2nd-tier benefit? I know it's first edition, but it seems relevant, seeing as it lifts feeding restrictions. If anybody is interested, I also ported it to the new 2E format:

Coil of Blood:
• Blood Sleeps Slowly: The Dragon’s undead body doesn’t demand as much Vitae to animate itself as do those of other, less enlightened Kindred. The player need spend only one Vitae for his character to wake for a number of nights equal to the vampire’s Resolve + 1. So, a Kindred with a Resolve of 2 loses a Vitae every third night for rising.
•• Eternal Blush: The Blush of Life requires half the normal Vitae, meaning that you must only spend Vitae with every other use of Blush of Life
••• Blood of Beasts: No matter what the vampire’s Blood Potency is, she can take sustenance from animals and humans without spending Willpower, although each category below what the Dragon's Blood Potency demands halves the Vitae yielded, rounded down (So a BP 8 vampire feeding 6 lethal damage would get only 3 Vitae from a human, 1 from an animal).
•••• Quickening of the Blood: The Kindred can choose not to spend Vitae to awaken for a night, instead spending a point of Willpower. This is usually a tool to remain active when food is sparse or dangerous, but more than one Dragon has used it to stay in his lab experimenting for longer without needing to hunt, so he can run just one more test. Regardless of your Resolve, spending Willpower to remain awake only keeps you up 1 night, ignoring Blood Sleeps Slowly.
••••• Perspicacious Blood: The character gains one and a half times as much Vitae from a feeding upon a human as normal(after Blood of Beasts is factored in, if applicable), and receives double the Vitae consumed from Kindred or other supernatural vessels.

I almost forgot - thank you for posting this. I may indeed use it.

[Resplendent Fire]

Personally, I've come to imagine the Methuselah equivalent as having a kind of... distributed presence, through the vitae of nearby kindred. Either through continued presence, or possibly placing their own vitae in the target, a growing number of kindred serve as both a metaphysical refuge (not necessarily a perfect one) against diablerie and final death, a source of metaphysical power and information, and unwitting tools waiting for only the faintest nudge in the right direction. Think PC transitioning into cloud.

This would of course allow it to perform terrifying acts of deception and control in any given city. I can only imagine that the most stable state for such an ecosystem would be either total absence, or total infection ]:-)

This is an interesting idea but I am not sure I understand it properly. It kind of reminds me of Tzimisce toward the end of Masquerade's run.

[Claire Redfield]

I almost forgot - thank you for posting this. I may indeed use it.

I can't be sure without Rose or someone coming in to verify, but Coil of Blood didn't make it into the core 2E stuff. I often wonder if it's because of the fact that it makes Ordo Dracul elders singularly immune to one of the biggest drawbacks of increased Blood Potency. Whether this is a feature or a bug is up to individual interpretation, but it makes them able to persist where other elders simply choose to diminish in power through torpor.

In my own setting, the Prince of the area is an ancient Ordo Dracul, one of the oldest active vampires in the Western Hemisphere and one of the most powerful, because of this. However, since I'm not sure if that power is intentionally left out or downplayed, I assume at the moment that it's because he preys on spirits, some of his Lupine allies, or some other, more mysterious method.

[malonkey1]

I almost forgot - thank you for posting this. I may indeed use it.

No problem. I have a bunch of 2E-converted Coils.

[Resplendent Fire]

I can't be sure without Rose or someone coming in to verify, but Coil of Blood didn't make it into the core 2E stuff. I often wonder if it's because of the fact that it makes Ordo Dracul elders singularly immune to one of the biggest drawbacks of increased Blood Potency. Whether this is a feature or a bug is up to individual interpretation, but it makes them able to persist where other elders simply choose to diminish in power through torpor.

In my own setting, the Prince of the area is an ancient Ordo Dracul, one of the oldest active vampires in the Western Hemisphere and one of the most powerful, because of this. However, since I'm not sure if that power is intentionally left out or downplayed, I assume at the moment that it's because he preys on spirits, some of his Lupine allies, or some other, more mysterious method.

I think it probably was left out for that reason - at least that was my assumption.

There is a scale in 2e that lets Ordo Dracul make one person drinkable without penalty. So your Prince could prepare a person to feed from them as needed and still get around the feeding restriction. It just requires more work.

[Hastur00]

This is an interesting idea but I am not sure I understand it properly. It kind of reminds me of Tzimisce toward the end of Masquerade's run.

Kind of. It seems like a repeating theme for evolved or high-level templates is proximity to or communion with their "power source"; mages rummage around in the universe's source code, werewolves deal with increasingly high-level spirits, changelings, the Wyld, and the Gentry, and so on.

The most literal interpretation of that trend is that a vampire gets close to Vitae, close to the Curse... as power grows, so does the ability to affect blood sympathy as the vampire slowly transitions from an ordinary individual vampire to an entity that blood-rides every vampire between them and city limits. Moreover, it organically transitions into the kind of elder-play game that you would expect from such an ancient. Instead of politics, or mortal dupes, or Covenant vs. Covenant, this creature would have reached the point where it would eventually only have to resort to these as part of a more complicated, small-scale goal- with the ability to flex an ever-increasing number of unwitting vampire puppets at will, the only opponent for an even moderately developed Methuselah would be another Methuselah, or the strix themselves, at least as far as vampire society goes.

[Resplendent Fire]

Ah, thank you for the elaboration. That is an interesting take.

[Badinplaid75]

Well thinking on it with just 2ed rules I really can't see a elder vamp maitianing the dance as those of lower BP of 5 or less. 6, 7 BP the vamp is doing tricks to keep things going the way it see it. By 8 or 9 this same vampire been feeding off the locals for quite awhile and now it starting to look at it is food. By BP 10 it's a supernatural force of its own, it's presence itself would probably disturb local area it dwells in. The big question to ask is why is it avoiding torpor in the first place.

How the elder would see things.
BP 6-7 just fine meal to get by on the long nights every so often. Something to recharge the passions.

BP 8-9 surrounded by food preying upon lowly and weak of the All Night Society. The Beast hunger calls. Vampires are hamburger and mortals are veggies.

By BP 10 there is nothing but supernaturals to feed on. Mortal concerns are so far removed from it they are meaningless.

To those of BP 5 and less view.

6-7 BP: Being asked to contribute to something they been told is a perversion and wrong. Trust starts to fade.

BP 8-9: Fear starts to spread when fellow Kindred start go missing or memories conflict with others memories.

BP 10 hunker down until evil omens, strange weather patterns subside and ill feeling goes a ways.