Vampires vs. Werewolves!

[Ever Professional]

Typically when it comes to vampires versus werewolves, the vampire part of the equation typically loses, whether it be social or physical. In physical combat it's obvious, but for social I remember playing a social vampire and the werewolf's spirit gifts kind of outdid me. Really, a vampire's real specialty is the ammount of merits they can get over the ages. Vampires can be very deeply entrenched in mortal society, and they can have allies anywhere. And if a werewolf pack takes on a vampire, they might be dealing with the vampire's covenant mates.

So in general, a vampire could win with prep time, but a werewolf with prep time is also dangerous, so they could win. Also, a werewolf dropping a fire spirit into the vampire's haven is a dick movie.

[Yossarian]

Vampires are leeches.

They don't care about anything but the next meal. They're murderous little parasites that create death spirits wherever they go; Luna help you if you find one digging its fangs into someone (or someones) in your territory, because they're goddamn kudzu: even if you kill one, she might just come back anyway. Fighting? Hah. Easy enough. Fire and gasoline, light 'em up and let God sort 'em out...but they can breed like rabbits. Their taint can turn even your kin, those Wolf-Blooded you rely so much on. Imagine everyone you ever loved in utter thrall to a dead thing, and you'll only scratch the surface of what they can do to you. Fighting doesn't matter if they won't let you do it.

If you must fight, and pray to Urfarah you never do, you're going to have to eradicate them. Salt the earth. Offer no quarter.

...Except if you need one.

If you need a vampire, it's the only thing that'll do. What werewolf do you know that can erase memories, read minds, charm whole crowds, and spread fear like a plague? A single night and a drop of Vitae here and there, and those fuckos at the Parks Board will stay the hell away from the locus you've been trying to protect with protests for the last eight months. Need to hide something? They don't call it a Masquerade for nothing. Need the kind of blood magic the petty lords of the Shadow won't know the first thing about? They can do it for you wholesale.

So really, try not to need one.

[Spencer from The Hills]

Funny you say that! My friend uses Crone/Predator King packs so often they are frequently called the Pure Crone in his games and Hunters in the area are confused as to the line between vampires and werewolves (Many Gangrel Dead Wolves in the wilderness near his cities).

I got the idea after reading a suggestion on the recent Crone thread that they could have influence over gangs in particular. You know where a young and successful Pure Crone would fit in beautifully? Streets of Rage. Think about it. A modern glass and steel city, full of neon and other sources of light pollution, turned feral with thugs using the whole place as their playground. And I think the panache of the setting would be something that the Circle could get behind, especially in defiance of a more austere Lancea et Sanctum. But that's more of a topic for the other thread, if either of these.

[Ever Professional]

Yossarian At first, I wasn't sure to be on board with said analysis, but then I looked at it from a werewolf's perspective and promptly agreed.

Also, can't werewolves mess with whole organizations with spirit magic? So why couldn't they do that with the Parks Board?

[Yossarian]

Yossarian At first, I wasn't sure to be on board with said analysis, but then I looked at it from a werewolf's perspective and promptly agreed.

Also, can't werewolves mess with whole organizations with spirit magic? So why couldn't they do that with the Parks Board?

Well, I'm being slightly facetious for dramatic effect; there's plenty of spirit magic that could do the job, I just tend to think of spirit magic being a lot more contractual and give-and-take. A vampire'll do it because she's bored...though you'd probably owe her too, if setting her up with a bunch of thralls weren't enough... But then, like I said, try not to need one.

Edit: And really, my analysis is from a far more conservative werewolf perspective. There are plenty of Uratha who'd be like "So you can mind wipe my enemies and all I have to do is let you have a sip of blood? Rad!" (Those ones don't live long.)

[Ever Professional]

Well, I'm being slightly facetious for dramatic effect; there's plenty of spirit magic that could do the job, I just tend to think of spirit magic being a lot more contractual and give-and-take. A vampire'll do it because she's bored...though you'd probably owe her too, if setting her up with a bunch of thralls weren't enough... But then, like I said, try not to need one.

Edit: And really, my analysis is from a far more conservative werewolf perspective. There are plenty of Uratha who'd be like "So you can mind wipe my enemies and all I have to do is let you have a sip of blood? Rad!" (Those ones don't live long.)

Generally the werewolf games I've been in have had the pack breaks oaths with the vampire coterie and hunting them down with lots of murder involved.

[wyrdhamster]

I got the idea after reading a suggestion on the recent Crone thread that they could have influence over gangs in particular. You know where a young and successful Pure Crone would fit in beautifully? Streets of Rage. Think about it. A modern glass and steel city, full of neon and other sources of light pollution, turned feral with thugs using the whole place as their playground. And I think the panache of the setting would be something that the Circle could get behind, especially in defiance of a more austere Lancea et Sanctum. But that's more of a topic for the other thread, if either of these.

Should not Predator Kings not jive with that on basista their Tribal Ban stoping them from entering city or using things in it?

[Malus]

Should not Predator Kings not jive with that on basista their Tribal Ban stoping them from entering city or using things in it?

Because every Predator King faithfully adheres to his tribal ban & oath. No, really. Wait, there's a whole section in the Pure handbook about how a sizable population of them don't have the Harmony or care to give a damn about it.

[nofather]

There's even a lodge devoted to eschewing it. They keep in touch by carrying something they made themselves, which means it's not of human craft. Making Penance is a big thing in the Predator Kings.

The Pure, p100, 'Sarah Grey-Howler skips from corporation to corporation, leaving a trail of hidden fraud dealings behind her and racking up influential contacts in many companies just as she builds up huge savings scattered across several bank accounts. She tries her best to make her own clothes, but her initial good intentions waned and now she breaks her tribal ban every morning as she dresses and drives to work in her BMW. Her one attempt to stave off penance as long as she can is her pale leather jacket, made from the skin of a would-be rapist in the city park. She regrets that her position draws her away from Dire Wolf’s favor and that she must struggle to maintain Harmony, but she believes the advantages of such a lifestyle outweigh the negative aspects. Every year, she tells herself that it’ll be just one more year before she goes into the wilds for good, but the vow is half-hearted and always ignored, if never quite forgotten.'

There's also more urban monsters, living like homeless thus not receiving shelter made by humans. And of course if you have wolf-blooded and werewolves with Crafts you could probably get a nice house built.

[LokiRavenSpeak]

So i am running Hunting Grounds: The Rockies, which has a Pack of Storm lord posers name Black Moon Extreme who hunt vampires because.....XP? The PC pack joined them in a hunt and one of them, the Ithaeur, fought a vampire (Daeva). The situation was simple and went as White Room scenario as it can get so i will share my experience with Vamp Vs Werewolf.

If one has read the intro to the Rockies it more or less the initial scenario presented there with Black Moon Extreme crashing the car with the Daeva inside, difference here was that there was no trap just 3 ghouls with machine guns and the Daeva.

Black Moon Extreme and the rest of the PC pack were dealing with the Ghouls while the Ithaeur went ahead and face the Daeva who just was getting out of the wreckage of the car. It was desert street at night.

Ithaeur: Freshly change Ithaeur who was a biology teacher so she had Brawl 0, defense 4 and only her lunar gift at 1.

Daeva: Club goer/socialite. To give her a chance, she had brawl 1. But aside from that she had defense 5 (Dex 3, Wits 3 and Athletics 2) but here is where system/Setting wise things start getting interesting because Werewolves has to ALWAYS justify their gifts (except lunar), they cant just spend their XP and get gifts. They have to RP finding a spirit to teach them and even getting the properly renown if they lack it.

Not such things with Vampires, a Neonate can boost her core disciplines up to five with the XP she gets and nothing in the setting stops her. So this Daeva had the following disciplines: Potence 2, Celerity 4 (3 dots from disciplines in chargen + 3 more as she was "Rising Star" levels of XP (10) same as the Werewolf).

So then there is the issue of the Predator jaws. Vampires are stupid durable that ALL damage (no counting banes) is Bashing, to kill a Vampire through conventional means you have to hit overflow twice so a regular vampire (lets assume Stamina 2) would have 21 health boxes before dead (7 + 7 + 7). Not so much with Predator jaws which inflict vampires with lethal so that reduces the amount of damage to 14 (7 + 7).

Primal Fear is another issue, in Gauru Werewolf strips opponents of their defense. So thats a BIG plus on 1 on 1 combat, however the wording of it seems poorly written and what the intent/correct application of it is vague. It seems to imply to affect humans setting wise but seems to affect everyone. The idea of two gauru in the stripping each other of their defense because they both fear each other seems stupid. And an argument is to be made whether it would apply to vampire. But at the moment i made a ruling that it applied to the current situation.

So this was a fight between 2 Supernatural not made for combat in which the whole fight was carried over by their supernatural powers. Not going to go into turn-by-turn because that was months ago and it would take too long but the main highlights of the fight were:

• Contrary to what other has said a fight between a Werewolf and a Vampire is slow. The quantity of overflow nescesary to kill a vampire make it so.
• The time limit of the Gauru form is a non issue in 1 on 1 but the extra regeneration makes Vigor a must for a vampire. The very lucky hits that reached overflow from the vampire to the werewolf were because of the extra dices and damage that potence gave. And while the regeneration does wipe aways all lethal damage once you reach overflow each turn it becomes easier.
• Celerity is useless for Vampires unless one houserule that primal fear doesn't work on vampire or that only the defense given by celerity counts. The lack of defense makes.

In conclusion Vampire vs Werewolf has a pretty interesting synergy to it between Predator jaws and the way Vampires process damage in general.

[Malus]

LokiRavenSpeak Couple of things:

7 Lethal from jaws damage would have created a torpid vampire, at which point their destruction is trivial.

Primal Fear doesn't completely depletes defense: just the skill part of the equation, nevermind Celerity does adds to defense. So the vampire's defense would be a whooping 3 + 4 equating 7. Regarding how to portray it, I just mention that Gauru is just THAT faster than even the bullet dodging hybrid forms of Dalu and Urshul.

Note also, that at Celerity 4, escaping with unholy speed in an empty street would have been trivial as well. Why exactly did the vampire fight to her death? Frenzy?

[Cainite]

Or since it's called Primal Fear, maybe rather than just fast, it's more like the sight of a 3 meters tall 600 kg hulking creature of muscle, claws, teeth and fur charging at you and towering over you strips an intelligent creature of all they had learned and they react on pure instinct alone.

[LokiRavenSpeak]

Couple of things:
Primal Fear doesn't completely depletes defense: just the skill part of the equation, nevermind Celerity does adds to defense. So the vampire's defense would be a whooping 3 + 4 equating 7.

You are right i miss-wrote that rule in my notes. It should have been a battle of chance dies then.

7 Lethal from jaws damage would have created a torpid vampire, at which point their destruction is trivial.

Also right, i skimmed on the vampire rules and i miss that one. However i do think is a bad rule and i would remove it for future Vamp Vs Werewolves fights.

Note also, that at Celerity 4, escaping with unholy speed in an empty street would have been trivial as well. Why exactly did the vampire fight to her death? Frenzy?

IC was because of frenzy and it was either fight the lone ithaeur of climb a flaming wreck of a limo. OOC was because if the vampire had fled there would have been no game, in that particular instance the Ithaeur joined Black Moon Extreme´s hunt against the wish of the rest of the PC pack, and said PC pack was racing through trying to extract her before she did something stupid. Had the vampire fled the nothing would have happened, maybe Black Moon Extreme would have chased the vampire but the PC pack would remove the Ithaeur by literary grabbing her by the back of her neck like a puppy and put her on the corner. There was no room for even the vampire to know who the Ithaeur because she change form to Urshul before the Daeva exited the vehicle.

Or since it's called Primal Fear, maybe rather than just fast, it's more like the sight of a 3 meters tall 600 kg hulking creature of muscle, claws, teeth and fur charging at you and towering over you strips an intelligent creature of all they had learned and they react on pure instinct alone.

Except that against other Werewolf in Gauru form it doesnt follow. "Oh no! He is a 3 meters tall 600 kg hulking creature of muscle, claws, teeth and fur.....just like me! and i kinda see that everyday so shouldnt be surprised at this point!"

And an argument is to be made if a Vampire who has fought an Gangrel riding the wave with aggravated claws is not more scarier.

[USER="2179"]Regarding how to portray it, I just mention that Gauru is just THAT faster than even the bullet dodging hybrid forms of Dalu and Urshul.

Except that doesn't follow why it does remove athletics from other Werewolves. If both are in Gauru then they both shouldn't strips each others athletics from their defense. Also if it was thing of speed then Celerity should do the trick too. Its just a bad written rule, wording only making sense when used against humans and probably there just to balance the short time of the gauru form.

[nofather]

Except that against other Werewolf in Gauru form it doesnt follow. "Oh no! He is a 3 meters tall 600 kg hulking creature of muscle, claws, teeth and fur.....just like me! and i kinda see that everyday so shouldnt be surprised at this point!"

And an argument is to be made if a Vampire who has fought an Gangrel riding the wave with aggravated claws is not more scarier.

It's not about what's scarier now. It's called Primal Fear, it's a fear that's been bred into people since before they started building things called homes and deciding a long piece of wood could be used for something. Vampires aren't afraid of the dark, usually. They are afraid of the Final Death.

Except that doesn't follow why it does remove athletics from other Werewolves. If both are in Gauru then they both shouldn't strips each others athletics from their defense. Also if it was thing of speed then Celerity should do the trick too. Its just a bad written rule, wording only making sense when used against humans and probably there just to balance the short time of the gauru form.

And even in gauru there's a human part of you that feels the same. When Kuruth occurs, though, werewolves don't target one another when raging, so even a Predator King and Iron Master will start hunting together.

It's only badly written in that there's no separate paragraph explaining that the Defense loss part isn't just for 'lesser enemies.'

[MCN]

Or since it's called Primal Fear, maybe rather than just fast, it's more like the sight of a 3 meters tall 600 kg hulking creature of muscle, claws, teeth and fur charging at you and towering over you strips an intelligent creature of all they had learned and they react on pure instinct alone.

Which is kind of odd, when you get right down to it. Those kinds of movements end up being shoved into your hind brain, not your frontal lobe. Dodging is instinctual. But this and that is a separate matter; the exact mechanics can be reflavored in any number of ways, including as a function of long reach, or a trick of Lunacy messing with the victim's perceptions and mind to dull their reactions.