The !Ventrue need a few good vampires...

Howdy, Continuing along with my unprovoked, unsolicited, and very probably unappetizing run of card suggestions for my ex-favorite clan, here's some stats, some gaps, and some more filler. (Yes, Mike, we know - all holes must be filled!) !Ventrue Crypt + Suggestions Samson dom 2 Juan Cali aus for 3 >Prince Michael FOR 3 vic, - Ingrid Russo DOM for 4 Peter Blaine aus dom for 4 * >Vivian Wang, Apostate aus for 4 val >Alexander, Toady to the Umbradomo AUS FOR 5 Bishop, * Billy AUS dom for 5 Gerard aus dom for 5 obt Vincent Day, Paladin and Paragon aus dom for 5 pot, tha * Dylan aus dom for 6 cel, pro * >Evelyn Milk AUS DOM FOR 6 nec Marlene, The Infernalist AUS DOM for 6 dem, tha Vanessa aus DOM FOR 6 pre Edward Neally aus DOM FOR 7 pre ** Dominique AUS dom FOR 7 ani, vic * Gustav Mallenhous AUS DOM for 8 obt, Priscus ** Kyle Strathcona, Cardinal of Canada AUS DOM for 9 POT, PRE, Cardinal * Quentin AUS DOM FOR 9 cel, obt, Bishop * Lazverinus, Thrall of Lambach AUS DOM FOR 10 POT, pro, Archbishop * 7/7 7/8 10/5 16 8/9 7/9 11/8 20 Prince Michael Clan: Ventrue Antitribu Capacity: 3 Disciplines: FOR vic Text: Sabbat: Prince Michael does not get the usual +1 stealth when hunting. Art: Cross of a disturbing looking gangsta rapper-ish figure and a soccer mom. Is Drew still available? Vivian Wang, Apostate Clan: Ventrue Antitribu Disciplines: aus for val Text: Sabbat Art: Intense Asian woman with third eye in stern pose resting hands on the pommel of a flaming sword with point against ground. John Bolton (Juan Cali) maybe? Alexander, Toady to the Umbradomo Clan: Ventrue Antitribu Capacity: 5 Disciplines: AUS FOR Text: Sabbat Bishop: Alexander gets an additional +1 stealth when taking a rescue torpor action. Art: Founding Fathers/Musketeer-ish guy with long hair, round specs, mustache/goatee. Yet another Christopher Shy portrait. Evelyn Milk Clan: Ventrue Antitribu Capacity: 6 Disciplines: AUS DOM FOR nec Text: Sabbat Art: Black man in expensive suit, smiling, holding a sawed-off shotgun loosely at his side. Tim Bradstreet & Grant Goleash, definitely. Basically, given that the auspex/fortitude combo is what distinguishes the clan, it seems like a good idea to me to reinforce it to the point that it's actually usable. Dominate is so abusable that everyone already has - so why not give the oddballs something to play with? Thus three of the four have aus/for, with Alexander being the centerpiece, and a good addition not only to !Ventrue, but Salubri and HoS decks as well. Vivian is a gift to the !Salubri, but also brings the very useful valeren discipline in clan; Sense Vitality is quite handy, and bruise disciplines can't hurt. Superior fortitude, so badly missed in clan, is heavily supplemented, with three of the four (all 6-cap or below) possessing it. Evelyn is the greatly needed 6-cap with all in-clan; his necromancy again has synergies with the HoS, and a stealth producing discipline can't hurt either. (I thought about giving him inferior serpentis instead of nec...) Prince Michael may be pushing the envelope; he'd be the smallest cap with FOR by far. I don't see his vicissitude as being greatly useful, though the discipline can produce bruise or stealth, and you do start to have some interesting possibilities revolving around him and Christine Boscacci. His disadvantage should make Hungry Coyote abuse rather more difficult, though I suppose he could spend a lot of time Restoring himself. So, what do you think? Balanced? Broken? Wallpaper? All of the above? I realize the chances of even getting this many new !Ventrue anytime soon are just about nil, but just in case, here's the official disclaimer: White Wolf, please, steal my ideas, they're yours for the filching! Thanks, Alex

Alex Broadhead wrote: > Howdy, > > > Evelyn Milk > Clan: Ventrue Antitribu > Capacity: 6 > Disciplines: AUS DOM FOR nec > Text: Sabbat Doesn't need nec. Just give us the 6-cap with all in-clan sups. And you got to love a male vamp called Evelyn (did you know Evelyn Waugh's first wife was also named Evelyn - funny or weird or whatever). chris -- chris shorb <www.vtesinla.org> (A V:TES site in development) prince of torrance, california Ultimate Disc - Hockey - Vampire the Eternal Struggle Ebay page <http://members.ebay.com/aboutme/vtessingles/>

wum...@attbi.com (Alex Broadhead) wrote in message news:<15a537b3.03031...@posting.google.com>... Exaclty. They need a FEW good characters, of which they have. Billy, Vennessa, New !Ventrue whose name I've forgotton, even Quinton and lets not forget Beefcake, that is Lavernus. They have a FEW good vampires, and that's all a clan really needs. A few that work better together, I'd like, but as is, you can make a solid deck, with a few vampire dupilcates. ~SV

In message <15a537b3.03031...@posting.google.com>, Alex Broadhead <wum...@attbi.com> writes: >Prince Michael >Clan: Ventrue Antitribu >Capacity: 3 >Disciplines: FOR vic >Text: Sabbat: Prince Michael does not get the usual +1 stealth when >hunting. >Art: Cross of a disturbing looking gangsta rapper-ish figure and a >soccer mom. Is Drew still available? I'm never quite convinced that "does not get +1 stealth on hunting" is actually a worthwhile drawback. It probably is, it just seems a little... weak. I'm also *slightly* put off by FOR. Currently, the smallest FOR is a 5 cap. With cards like Force of Will, I just don't *like* FOR that small. It's a personal reaction. Also, if you're looking to individualise the !Ventrue towards AUS/FOR, going for FOR/vic seems, hmm, wrong. aus/for would be the obvious candidate, but there's already one of those - though the Giovanni show that you *can* duplicate them. (Though nec/pot is a bit crappy.) If you want to go for the "slight edge with drawback" thing, I'd head towards something like: Someoneorother (3) AUS for All actions cost Someoneorother an additional blood. Clearly a defence monkey. (Maybe make him a Guard or Defender or something.) >Vivian Wang, Apostate >Clan: Ventrue Antitribu >Disciplines: aus for val >Text: Sabbat >Art: Intense Asian woman with third eye in stern pose resting hands >on the pommel of a flaming sword with point against ground. John >Bolton (Juan Cali) maybe? You have the trouble here of bringing in Valeren. Any time a Bloodlines discipline ends up on a vampire (Ian Forestal granted), the trick of Bloodlines being hard to use becomes less (unless you make the vampire a Group 4 vampire). >Alexander, Toady to the Umbradomo >Clan: Ventrue Antitribu >Capacity: 5 >Disciplines: AUS FOR >Text: Sabbat Bishop: Alexander gets an additional +1 stealth when >taking a rescue torpor action. >Art: Founding Fathers/Musketeer-ish guy with long hair, round specs, >mustache/goatee. Yet another Christopher Shy portrait. That's actually really quite nice. I'm not sure the !Ven are supposed to get titles that small but what the hell. >Evelyn Milk >Clan: Ventrue Antitribu >Capacity: 6 >Disciplines: AUS DOM FOR nec >Text: Sabbat >Art: Black man in expensive suit, smiling, holding a sawed-off >shotgun loosely at his side. Tim Bradstreet & Grant Goleash, >definitely. As has already been suggested, drop the nec. It's in theme, true, but it overpowers the vampire unless you notch it up a step. >nec...) Prince Michael may be pushing the envelope; he'd be the >smallest cap with FOR by far. Aye. Very nasty. -- James Coupe PGP Key: 0x5D623D5D EBD690ECD7A1FB457CA2 Hi! I'm Nancy Drew! You must be the Hardy Boys! 13D7E668C3695D623D5D

Yech! I knew using tabs was a bad idea, but I didn't think it would be this bad. Allow me to clean this up some: !Ventrue Crypt + Suggestions Samson dom 2 Juan Cali aus for 3 Prince Michael FOR 3 vic, - Ingrid Russo DOM for 4 Peter Blaine aus dom for 4 * Vivian Wang, Apostate aus for 4 val Alexander, Toady to the Umbradomo AUS FOR 5 Bishop, * Billy AUS dom for 5 Gerard aus dom for 5 obt Vincent Day, Paladin and Paragon aus dom for 5 pot, tha * Dylan aus dom for 6 cel, pro * Evelyn Milk AUS dom FOR 6 nec, ser Marlene, The Infernalist AUS DOM for 6 dem, tha Vanessa aus DOM FOR 6 pre Edward Neally aus DOM FOR 7 pre ** Dominique AUS dom FOR 7 ani, vic * Gustav Mallenhous AUS DOM for 8 obt, Priscus ** Kyle Strathcona, Cardinal of Canada AUS DOM for 9 POT, PRE, Card. * Quentin AUS DOM FOR 9 cel, obt, Bishop * Lazverinus, Thrall of Lambach AUS DOM FOR 10 POT, pro, Arch. * 7/7 7/8 10/5 16 8/9 8/8 11/8 20 As you can see above, I've had second thoughts about Evelyn. If I give a 6-cap all the in-clans, no one will ever use Vanessa or Dominique (and Dominique gets used all too rarely anyway); if I reduce his DOM to dom, he completes the combinatorial puzzle nicely, and then I have an excuse to give him another pseudo-useful off clan, serpentis. (Or, alternatively, thanatosis, though that might be too big a gift to the Samedi...) Evelyn Milk Clan: Ventrue Antitribu Capacity: 6 Disciplines: AUS dom FOR nec ser(/than?) Text: Sabbat Art: Black man in expensive suit, smiling, holding a sawed-off shotgun loosely at his side. Tim Bradstreet & Grant Goleash, definitely. Hopefully that's much better, Alex

Howdy, > Exaclty. They need a FEW good characters, of which they have. > > Billy, Vennessa, New !Ventrue whose name I've forgotton, even Quinton > and lets not forget Beefcake, that is Lavernus. Seems like if they were that good, their names would be a little more memorable. <insert smiley thing here> I'd be one of the first to argue that Edward, Quentin, and Lazverinus are exceptionally good (with emphasis on the 'exception'; those three, plus Vanessa and the rarely used Dominique constitute _all_ of the !Ventrue with FOR), and Billy and Vanessa are certainly mainstays. And I'd also point out that you forgot Samson and Ingrid Russo, who are not to be left out of dominate sleaze decks. (And Gustav is quite good too, although he falls into an awkward hole as an 8-cap without superior fortitude.) But what we've arrived at in saying that is this: the !Ventrue with FOR or dom/DOM at low cap are usable, and Billy is pretty good too. That just doesn't strike me as a ringing endorsement, much less lead to much deck variety. I've been trying for quite some time to put together something workable with aus/for, but the vampires just aren't there, even with the HoS, Salubri, and !Salubri. And, in general, there's just so much more the !Ventrue could do if they could reliably access superior fortitude. Anyway, I don't want this to degenerate into another, "X clan/discipline doesn't need anymore cards, cause if they're better they'll break it, and if they're worse they'll be wallpaper" threads. I recently saw the !Ventrue compared to the !Salubri in terms of suckiness (I thought it was unjustified, but they certainly ain't powerhouses), and so I thought I'd make some suggestions towards fixing that. Kind of like the maps some people made for the Independent clans during the long, dark night between AH and FN... > They have a FEW good vampires, and that's all a clan really needs. A > few that work better together, I'd like, but as is, you can make a > solid deck, with a few vampire dupilcates. Sounds like you know something that few others do (including this former newsletter editor). Care to post a good solid !Ventrue deck, along with its good solid winning record? Thanks, Alex

Howdy James, > >Text: Sabbat: Prince Michael does not get the usual +1 stealth when > >hunting. > >Art: Cross of a disturbing looking gangsta rapper-ish figure and a > >soccer mom. Is Drew still available? > > I'm never quite convinced that "does not get +1 stealth on hunting" is > actually a worthwhile drawback. It probably is, it just seems a > little... weak. For Zoe, it isn't. For Prince Mike, unless he's going to use Changelings (unlikely) or wait for Restoration to appear, it's a bigger deal. > I'm also *slightly* put off by FOR. Currently, the smallest FOR is a 5 > cap. With cards like Force of Will, I just don't *like* FOR that small. > It's a personal reaction. There seems to be a general design principle of avoiding FOR on smaller cap vampires, so I'm a little hesitant about it too, but I'm not sure what's really backing up that principle. If I had to speculate, it wouldn't be FoW I'd be looking at - it'd be Kiss of Ra. And Mikey could do that... Once. And then the hunting not-so-special will become relevant. > Also, if you're looking to individualise the !Ventrue towards AUS/FOR, > going for FOR/vic seems, hmm, wrong. aus/for would be the obvious > candidate, but there's already one of those - though the Giovanni show > that you *can* duplicate them. (Though nec/pot is a bit crappy.) There was the aus/for emphasis, and then there was the 'pump up the FOR' emphasis. I didn't want to do aus/FOR or dom/FOR at 4-cap, as I liked the whole Vivian idea (below). And I wanted more personality than just FOR at 3-cap, so I added a Sabbat-ish off-clan (that has some synergy with Dominique, maybe bringing her back to play more often) and a minor drawback. > If you want to go for the "slight edge with drawback" thing, I'd head > towards something like: > > Someoneorother > (3) AUS for > All actions cost Someoneorother an additional blood. > > Clearly a defence monkey. (Maybe make him a Guard or Defender or > something.) Except that for my money, there's already plenty of AUS/for available (7 at or below 6-cap) - it's the aus/FOR (4 at or below 6-cap, including a slave) and AUS/FOR (7-cap or greater only) that are hard to come by. So I would have gone aus/FOR anyway, and I was already adding Alexander. > >Vivian Wang, Apostate > >Clan: Ventrue Antitribu > >Disciplines: aus for val > >Text: Sabbat > >Art: Intense Asian woman with third eye in stern pose resting hands > >on the pommel of a flaming sword with point against ground. John > >Bolton (Juan Cali) maybe? > > You have the trouble here of bringing in Valeren. Any time a Bloodlines > discipline ends up on a vampire (Ian Forestal granted), the trick of > Bloodlines being hard to use becomes less (unless you make the vampire a > Group 4 vampire). I think the general consensus is that the !Salubri are a little _too_ hard to use. Another 2-4 weenies and we might need to start worrying. And it's just sooo cute to me that their 'utility' 4-cap with all in-clans would be out-of-clan - I couldn't resist. Of course, giving a !Ventrue VAL would be a lot more worrisome - then Sanguine Instruction could come to bear. > >Alexander, Toady to the Umbradomo > >Clan: Ventrue Antitribu > >Capacity: 5 > >Disciplines: AUS FOR > >Text: Sabbat Bishop: Alexander gets an additional +1 stealth when > >taking a rescue torpor action. > >Art: Founding Fathers/Musketeer-ish guy with long hair, round specs, > >mustache/goatee. Yet another Christopher Shy portrait. > > That's actually really quite nice. I'm not sure the !Ven are supposed > to get titles that small but what the hell. Thanks. That's the one I've had around forever, as opposed to making up overnight. I guess if I'm going to put my picture on it, it'd better not suck too bad. > >Evelyn Milk > >Clan: Ventrue Antitribu > >Capacity: 6 > >Disciplines: AUS DOM FOR nec > >Text: Sabbat > >Art: Black man in expensive suit, smiling, holding a sawed-off > >shotgun loosely at his side. Tim Bradstreet & Grant Goleash, > >definitely. > > As has already been suggested, drop the nec. It's in theme, true, but > it overpowers the vampire unless you notch it up a step. That occurred to me within an hour of posting him. But I'd rather drop the DOM to dom than drop the nec, so as not to marginalize Vanessa and Dominique, and to gain cross-clan synergy. The all in-clan superior guy would then go in at 7-cap, preferably with some grotesque special as opposed to a bunch o' off-clans... Something like this: The Marquess Clan: Ventrue Antitribu Capacity: 7 Disciplines: AUS DOM FOR Text: Sabbat: Vampires get -1 intercept when attempting to block The Marquess. The Marquess may burn 1 additional blood to play an action card that requires a Cardinal or Archbishop. Art: Go nuts with the fetish and/or BDSM theme. Top o' the tops. Whoever did Unwholesome Bond(age) would be great here. > >nec...) Prince Michael may be pushing the envelope; he'd be the > >smallest cap with FOR by far. > > Aye. Very nasty. Well, that'd be the reaction I would hope for... Thanks for the comments, Alex

>I've been trying for quite some time to put >together something workable with aus/for, but the vampires just aren't >there, even with the HoS, Salubri, and !Salubri. What would you do if the vampires were there? I think it has more to do with the discipline combo not being that good in the first place rather than lack of vampires.

"Chris Shorb" <chr...@vtesinla.org> wrote > > Doesn't need nec. Just give us the 6-cap with all in-clan sups. And you > got to love a male vamp called Evelyn (did you know Evelyn Waugh's first > wife was also named Evelyn - funny or weird or whatever). Pronounced differently though, is it not? Evelyn Waugh is pronounced EVIL-Linn as opposed to the female EVVEL-Linn. Great writer though. I have pretty much everything he ever wrote. Definitely would have made a good Ventrue Antitribu :) Cheers, WES

"Wes" <gh...@NYETSPAMmnsi.net> wrote in message news:b4r64...@enews3.newsguy.com... > > "Chris Shorb" <chr...@vtesinla.org> wrote > > > > Doesn't need nec. Just give us the 6-cap with all in-clan sups. And you > > got to love a male vamp called Evelyn (did you know Evelyn Waugh's first > > wife was also named Evelyn - funny or weird or whatever). > > Pronounced differently though, is it not? > > Evelyn Waugh is pronounced EVIL-Linn as opposed to the female EVVEL-Linn. http://www.bigbcomics.com/images/toys/evil_lynn.htm Evil-Lynn! Shweeeeeeet! > > Cheers, > WES Kevin M., Prince of Henderson, NV (USA) "Know your enemy, and know yourself; in one-thousand battles you shall never be in peril." -- Sun Tzu, *The Art of War* "Contentment... Complacency... Catastrophe!" -- Joseph Chevalier

Wes wrote: > "Chris Shorb" <chr...@vtesinla.org> wrote >> >> Doesn't need nec. Just give us the 6-cap with all in-clan sups. >> And you got to love a male vamp called Evelyn (did you know Evelyn >> Waugh's first wife was also named Evelyn - funny or weird or >> whatever). > > Pronounced differently though, is it not? > > Evelyn Waugh is pronounced EVIL-Linn as opposed to the female > EVVEL-Linn. http://www.bigbcomics.com/images/toys/evil_lynn.htm [ quoted text not captured ]

"Kevin M." <you...@imaspammer.org> wrote > > http://www.bigbcomics.com/images/toys/evil_lynn.htm > Evil-Lynn! Shweeeeeeet! Yeah, that was his first wife I think. It was destined for failure, what with her being an evil warrior goddess and him just a relatively unknown writer.

>Evelyn Milk >Clan: Ventrue Antitribu >Capacity: 6 >Disciplines: AUS dom FOR nec ser(/than?) >Text: Sabbat >Art: Black man in expensive suit, smiling, holding a sawed-off >shotgun loosely at his side. Tim Bradstreet & Grant Goleash, >definitely. I still think 7 points of disciplines is really pushing it for a 6-cap. At most, I'd go with 6 points and a minor special to compensate for a bizarre off-clan. Halcyan 2

Chris Shorb <chr...@vtesinla.org> wrote in message news:<3E703777...@vtesinla.org>... > Alex Broadhead wrote: > > > Howdy, > > > > > > Evelyn Milk > > Clan: Ventrue Antitribu > > Capacity: 6 > > Disciplines: AUS DOM FOR nec > > Text: Sabbat > > Doesn't need nec. Just give us the 6-cap with all in-clan sups. And you > got to love a male vamp called Evelyn (did you know Evelyn Waugh's first > wife was also named Evelyn - funny or weird or whatever). > Or give him AUS dom FOR nec, so the crossover with Harbingers, Nagaraja and even Kyasid remains. I would hold back on handing out more than six 'points' of disciplines to a 6-cap. Even the three in-clans on a 6-cap is pretty good, usually - although on the !Ventrue, 2 superiors plus fun stuff is almost mandatory, of course :). Patrick Columbus, OH

wum...@attbi.com (Alex Broadhead) wrote in message news:<15a537b3.03031...@posting.google.com>... > > > Also, if you're looking to individualise the !Ventrue towards AUS/FOR, > > going for FOR/vic seems, hmm, wrong. aus/for would be the obvious > > candidate, but there's already one of those - though the Giovanni show > > that you *can* duplicate them. (Though nec/pot is a bit crappy.) Still, giving them crosslinks to other clans is a good idea, although they are all over the place already. Sneaking vicissitude into the !Ventrue is not a bad idea (in the same way that the ongoing presence/vicissitude theme is an interesting development), and they already have one vampire with the disciplines. Adding one more, and maybe a Tzimisce with fortitude, would make a whole new discipline combo viable for deck construction. Sure, it tends to Ueberwall, but not necessarily: Telepathic Vote Counting, vicissitude stealth/utility and fortitude prevention sounds good to me. And I'm sure someone is going to try and build a Tzimisce Force of Will loop deck some day... > > >Vivian Wang, Apostate > > >Clan: Ventrue Antitribu > > >Disciplines: aus for val > > >Text: Sabbat > > >Art: Intense Asian woman with third eye in stern pose resting hands > > >on the pommel of a flaming sword with point against ground. John > > >Bolton (Juan Cali) maybe? > > > > You have the trouble here of bringing in Valeren. Any time a Bloodlines > > discipline ends up on a vampire (Ian Forestal granted), the trick of > > Bloodlines being hard to use becomes less (unless you make the vampire a > > Group 4 vampire). > > I think the general consensus is that the !Salubri are a little _too_ > hard to use. Another 2-4 weenies and we might need to start worrying. > And it's just sooo cute to me that their 'utility' 4-cap with all > in-clans would be out-of-clan - I couldn't resist. Of course, giving > a !Ventrue VAL would be a lot more worrisome - then Sanguine > Instruction could come to bear. > *smiles* He reminds me of a table top roleplaying character I still have good memories of; too bad our city gangrel ran *through* him when he frenzied one day. Harry, Lord Windesmere Clan: Ventrue Antitribu Capacity: 5 Disciplines: aus FOR obe pre Text: Sabbat. Harry gets +1 strength in combat with Malkavians and Malkavian antitribu, and -1 strength in combat with vampires of other clans. Harry gets an additional +1 stealth at actions directed at the controller of a Ventrue. Art: Elegant, though small and slender English gentleman in 19th century 'business suite', unsheating a foil from his silver-pommeled walking stick. I'll have to admit that for V:TES purposes adding valeren to the !Ventrue is a better idea, though. Patrick Columbus, OH

>There seems to be a general design principle of avoiding FOR on >smaller cap vampires, so I'm a little hesitant about it too, but I'm >not sure what's really backing up that principle. If I had to >speculate, it wouldn't be FoW I'd be looking at - it'd be Kiss of Ra. >And Mikey could do that... Once. And then the hunting not-so-special >will become relevant. Yeah, Kiss of Ra is a problem. You influence out your 3-cap FOR and Smudge. When you get blocked, you Kiss 'im and Smudge eats 'im. Not very pretty. FOR can also use Freak Drive, Force of Will, and Daring the Dawn a bit too efficiently. Halcyan 2

[ quoted text not captured ] So make us an example deck that breaks the 3-cap FOR guy. > > Halcyan 2 Kevin M. [ quoted text not captured ]

Howdy, [ quoted text not captured ] Be careful what you ask for... So I've been saving up a bunch o' deck idea on this very discipline combo for use in future editions of the !Ventrue Newsletter, but since some other sucker - I mean dedicated and selfless individual - has hijacked - I mean assumed the editorship of that august journal, I guess there's no reason to keep 'em to myself anymore. The first concept I actually already detailed in one of the issues, albeit in a pretty early and basic form; it's also the one that is most likely to benefit from dominate as well, and so the best match to the standard !Ventrue disciplines. That was the unblockable bleeder. You can do unblockable bleed without auspex, of course, using Cull the Herd or Contingency Planning or some such to keep your bleeds on target, but Revelations (and/or Ed and/or Le) is probably the best way to go. (And you can do the unblockable part without fortitude too, though that's even more of a stretch.) Auspex will give you Pulses too, but there's certainly no reason not to use the dominate on your vampires as well. Next up: !Ventrue bruise bleed via Dawn Op. I can hear you now - why would I need auspex for that? Well, 'cause practically _any_ combat defense will get around Dawn Ops. Maneuver (since !Ventrue don't have the superior fortitude for Unflinching to work), prevent, S:CE, dodge, they'll all allow you to accept a Dawn Op without any real fear of damage, nullifying its already pretty minor threat, in that your prey is already getting to pick which minion blocks. If you throw AUS into the mix, though, you can now at least Telepathic Track, making your prey have to do whatever trick twice in a row or eat damage, while you hopefully have prevent coming out your ears. (Thoughts at superior wouldn't hurt either, but it's pretty expensive...) Again, no reason not to use the dominate on your vampires either. Another: !Ventrue rush(/intercept). Am I mad? (Yes, probably.) The concept: Nose of the Hound plus plenty of wake and intercept. Lots o' Restoration and blood generation (not via hunting, though), a goodly dose of prevent, and... a shedload of Vampiric Disease and Pulled Fangs. Rush and block with abandon - it doesn't really matter if you do _any damage at all_ - as long as you can get to close range. And sooner or later you will manage to hit for 1 while preventing. Finally, the one I've done the most work on: !Ventrue 'aggressive intercept'. The key here is Concealed Weapon. Conceal out a Sawed-Off. Now maneuvers don't matter. Block with Melange, Eagle's Sight, Precognition - your predator's critical offensive actions, and pretty much anything your prey does that you can mess with that isn't bleeding forward. (And bleeding forward if it'll hurt your grand-prey too much, and you happen to have the Sight for it.) Use your actions to bruise bleed forward as well (or Restore). A Sawed-Off is a great equalizer - suddenly any minion looks a lot like Lazverinus... As usual, dominate doesn't hurt, but it's the least critical of the disciplines. Anyway, I can't say that any of these concepts is a world-killer. But they would all be a lot easier to work on if there were a few more low-cap aus/AUS + for/FOR vampires. As it is, it's pretty much just Juan, Peter, Billy, and a bunch of more expensive equivalents until you hit, like, Omaya and Matthias. And, of course, pretty much any !Ventrue deck concept would work better if only they had access to more FOR. Hope that helps, Alex

In message <eJgca.9858$jZ1....@news1.west.cox.net>, Kevin M. <you...@imaspammer.org> writes: >> Yeah, Kiss of Ra is a problem. You influence out your 3-cap FOR and >> Smudge. When you get blocked, you Kiss 'im and Smudge eats 'im. Not >> very pretty. FOR can also use Freak Drive, Force of Will, and Daring >> the Dawn a bit too efficiently. > >So make us an example deck that breaks the 3-cap FOR guy. There's a difference between someone being broken or breakable, and being uncomfortably too powerful. c.f. Anvil, Commander Sela etc. [ quoted text not captured ]

James Coupe <ja...@zephyr.org.uk> wrote: > In message <eJgca.9858$jZ1....@news1.west.cox.net>, Kevin M. > <you...@imaspammer.org> writes: >>> Yeah, Kiss of Ra is a problem. You influence out your 3-cap FOR and >>> Smudge. When you get blocked, you Kiss 'im and Smudge eats 'im. Not >>> very pretty. FOR can also use Freak Drive, Force of Will, and Daring >>> the Dawn a bit too efficiently. >> >>So make us an example deck that breaks the 3-cap FOR guy. > > There's a difference between someone being broken or breakable, and > being uncomfortably too powerful. > > c.f. Anvil, Commander Sela etc. James. Buddy. You're trying to tell me that *from a game standpoint* Anvil, Sela, et.al, are "uncomfortably too powerful"? Jessica is stupidly powerful then too, right? Also, wouldn't it then stand to reason that Ian Forestal is also way way WAY uncomfortably too powerful? Seriously though, maybe from a design point-of-view, you shouldn't make vampires like those, sure... but who cares? I'd say that (off the top of my head) Arika, Sheldon, Anson, the 5-caps with 2.5 in-clan disciplines, Anneke, Brooke, Cardano, Gilbert & Sir Walter, Gideon Fontaine, that loser Gabrin, and even Lazverinus see *way* more action than Anvil and Sela (and Jessica and Ian, too), and no one cares about them, or is saying anything about them being <something> too powerful. I don't even know what your statement means, really. It sounds like one of those things that's just said in mid-air, hangs there, and everyone is staring at it going "I wonder what he's trying to say?..." ;) Maybe you're trying to say that Anvil, et.al., should have never been made? > > James Coupe [ quoted text not captured ]

On Sun, 16 Mar 2003, Kevin M. wrote: > Fontaine, that loser Gabrin, and even Lazverinus see *way* more action Hey man, you got some kind of special love for Gabrin? Been on the wrong end of some needle and thread a few too many times? ;) David Cherryholmes Duke Radiology P.E.T. Facility (919) 684-7714 david.che...@duke.edu

Kevin M. wrote: > James. Buddy. You're trying to tell me that *from a game standpoint* > Anvil, Sela, et.al, are "uncomfortably too powerful"? Jessica is > stupidly powerful then too, right? Also, wouldn't it then stand to > reason that Ian Forestal is also way way WAY uncomfortably too powerful? Well, Anvil and Commander Sela are both too good (as is Jessica) in terms of cost/effect (i.e. 6 point vampire with 7 points in skills and a vote, when most 6 point vampires get only 6 points of stuff). And Ian Forrestal is too powerful. But all of this is from a design standpoint--i.e. Anvil and Comander Sela shouldn't be designed the way they are, but in a practical stand point, they really don't make much difference--it is rare that Anvil is going to use all of his disciplines at the same time. But this being said, he should have the extras anyway. Much like poor old Judah should have some other discipline, as he is weaktackular. > > Seriously though, maybe from a design point-of-view, you shouldn't make > vampires like those, sure... but who cares? Me. Again, is Anvil, Sela, or Ian going to have an overwhelming effect on the game? Probably not, because of the way the game works. But the principal of the thing is key--if someone is willing to make Anvil and Commander Sela, what is to stop them from making a 3 point vampire with 5 superior disciplines? But then, apparently the current design team also cares, as they haven't made any new vampires like Anvil, Commander Sela, or Jessica lately. I'd say that (off the top > of my head) Arika, Sheldon, Anson, the 5-caps with 2.5 in-clan > disciplines, Anneke, Brooke, Cardano, Gilbert & Sir Walter, Gideon > Fontaine, that loser Gabrin, and even Lazverinus see *way* more action > than Anvil and Sela (and Jessica and Ian, too), and no one cares about > them, or is saying anything about them being <something> too powerful. That is because they are designed according to the standard design template. Sir Walter Nash, as good as he is, is just like all other other 7 point guys with 3 in clan superiors and a title. He fits the standard design slipways. Thus, not too powerful. Peter D Bakija PD...@bigplanet.com http://www.myplanet.net/pdb6 "she tore down Paris on the tail of Thom Paine but the left wing's broken and the right's insane" -Bowie

> > What would you do if the vampires were there? I think it has more to do with > > the discipline combo not being that good in the first place rather than lack of > > vampires. > > Be careful what you ask for... > -SNIP- I recently put a deck together that, almost by accident, contains 7 !ven, cos they are the best for the job. It's like a Crypt Machine, except with slightly bigger vamps (5 and 6 caps), and For or Pro on every vampire, to allow a selection of the strongest defence cards - Deflect, Skin of Steel, and Claws + Rotschreck. The Auspex is all about revelations, not intercept. About the AUS FOR agressive intercept - maybe try a mix of concealed grenades and shotguns? My reasoning is that grenades make card cycling easier, and in most combats you won't need to chuck the grenade, if your basic punishment is to prevent and pull fangs. And chuck in Depravity, of course. > > Anyway, I can't say that any of these concepts is a world-killer. But > they would all be a lot easier to work on if there were a few more > low-cap aus/AUS + for/FOR vampires. As it is, it's pretty much just > Juan, Peter, Billy, and a bunch of more expensive equivalents until > you hit, like, Omaya and Matthias. Speaking of whom, I have a rather good Omaya deck (5 copies), that I have tweaked to bitchy intercept perfection. It's fairly heavy on the AUS FOR intercept - I could post that if youre keen. OTOH, it has not one !Ven, cos it uses a poo-load of Animalism.

Well, I suppose it's about time that I chimed in here... The more I postulate about the relationship of the !Ventrue in this game, the more I find the necessity of them upon other clans/bloodlines. In and of themselves the !Ventrue are not particularly potent, at least when we look at them in relation to a lot of other clans. Where their strength comes from is in the ever widening addition of vampires that interact with them. Though the !Ventrue don't have many big FOR vampires, their are ten Ventrue that have have auspex as well. Two of those have AUS, and all but one fit into a 2/3 crypt (sorry, Democritus). The !Ventrue are also good friends of the Salubri, who have excellent vampires, and their Obeah is a wonderful addition to the arsenal. Likewise, the !Salubri, who have struggled, and are IMO the bottomfeeders of the Bloodlines set share similar disciplines. Marlene works masterfully in Tremere with for decks, while Ingred is the lynch pin of weenie dom. Lazveranus is one bad mofo, no matter what deck he's in. So what then are the !Ventrue missing? Worthwhile Clan Specific cards. The !Gangrel get City Gangrel Connections, the !Toreador get Art Scam, heck, even the !Brujah get Gang Territory. What do the !Ventrue get? A couple of cards that change votes. That would be nice, except that they don't have pre, which is the kingpin voting discipline. They're really not capable of much in this department. That's why I'd suggest: The Right to Rule - Unique Master, 1 pool - !Ventrue required - All !Ventrue gain +2 strength when in combat with a titled vampire, this card may be burned as a D action taken by any non-titled vampire. Inheritence - Master, 1 pool - !Ventrue required - Put 3 counters on this card when it is put into play on a ready !Ventrue. The cost for equipment may be paid with these counters. Of Noble Birth - Reaction/Action Modifier, 1 blood - !Ventrue required - Play whenever a younger titled vampire goes to torpor. That vampire loses his or her title. Squire - Retainer with 4 life, 1 blood - !Ventrue required - A minion equipped with this retainer may opt not to strike, if he or she does so any damage inflicted may be redirected to this retainer As for vampires, the !Ventrue lack sufficient quantity to make a diverse deck. Sure a deck with 5 Lazveranus and a smattering of smaller !Ventrue is possible, but unlike the Camarilla clans, there is a far smaller pool of vampires to pull from. Some, like the !Brujah, Lasombra and Tzimisce are have good enough vampires and library cards to encourage mono or near-mono decks. The !Ventrue are however short again in this area. > Prince Michael > Clan: Ventrue Antitribu > Capacity: 3 > Disciplines: FOR vic > Text: Sabbat: Prince Michael does not get the usual +1 stealth when > hunting. > Art: Cross of a disturbing looking gangsta rapper-ish figure and a > soccer mom. Is Drew still available? This guy frightens me, if not for his disciplines at least for his picture... <shudder> The FOR is pretty dangerous at such a low capacity. Though hamless seeming, the day op, force of will combo allone makes me inclined to want to change him in some way. As for the vic, I don't see how it's going to make a bit of difference. There are a grand total of 3 with for and vic, making it quite obscure. I'd be inclined to make him: Sir Steven Coventry Capacity: 4 Disciplines: AUS, dom Text: Sabbat Art: Short, black, spiked up haired, latte drinking, caucasion guy in his early twenties, wearing a turtleneck and a pair of khakis. > Vivian Wang, Apostate > Clan: Ventrue Antitribu > Disciplines: aus for val > Text: Sabbat > Art: Intense Asian woman with third eye in stern pose resting hands > on the pommel of a flaming sword with point against ground. John > Bolton (Juan Cali) maybe? Now this guy is pretty interesting... anything to bolster those !Salubri is ok in my books, especially when the solution is among the !Ventrue. > Alexander, Toady to the Umbradomo > Clan: Ventrue Antitribu > Capacity: 5 > Disciplines: AUS FOR > Text: Sabbat Bishop: Alexander gets an additional +1 stealth when > taking a rescue torpor action. > Art: Founding Fathers/Musketeer-ish guy with long hair, round specs, > mustache/goatee. Yet another Christopher Shy portrait. Not overpowered, definately useful. Definitely usable. > Evelyn Milk > Clan: Ventrue Antitribu > Capacity: 6 > Disciplines: AUS DOM FOR nec > Text: Sabbat > Art: Black man in expensive suit, smiling, holding a sawed-off > shotgun loosely at his side. Tim Bradstreet & Grant Goleash, > definitely. I agree with the others... if it's going to be 6 cap, it shouldn't be any better off then any of the other 6 caps with 3 superiors. Derek Rawlings !Ventrue Newsletter writer guy

Peter D Bakija <PD...@bigplanet.com> wrote: > Kevin M. wrote: >> Seriously though, maybe from a design point-of-view, you shouldn't >> make vampires like those, sure... but who cares? > > Me. Again, is Anvil, Sela, or Ian going to have an overwhelming > effect on the game? Probably not, because of the way the game works. > But the principal of the thing is key--if someone is willing to make > Anvil and Commander Sela, what is to stop them from making a 3 point > vampire with 5 superior disciplines? You're not *really* asking me this ridiculous question, are you? Since I'm not sure what point you're trying to make here, I can't answer. > But then, apparently the current design team also cares, as they > haven't made any new vampires like Anvil, Commander Sela, or Jessica > lately. *Obviously* they care, and it makes sense to *not* make vampires like that in the future. > I'd say that (off the top >> of my head) Arika, Sheldon, Anson, the 5-caps with 2.5 in-clan >> disciplines, Anneke, Brooke, Cardano, Gilbert & Sir Walter, Gideon >> Fontaine, that loser Gabrin, and even Lazverinus see *way* more >> action than Anvil and Sela (and Jessica and Ian, too), and no one >> cares about them, or is saying anything about them being <something> >> too powerful. > > That is because they are designed according to the standard design > template. Sir Walter Nash, as good as he is, is just like all other > other 7 point guys with 3 in clan superiors and a title. He fits the > standard design slipways. Thus, not too powerful. I don't understand. How can Gideon Fontaine be designed according to the standard design template but another 3-cap with a single discipline at superior can't be? Rudolfo Giovanni, Sarah Brando, Chandler Hungerford, Harika Guljan, Isabel de Leon, they're all "too powerful"? Or Masika St. John for that matter, who was designed by the current designers for the most recent expansion? Or did you mean to say that they are designed according to the standard design template *with the understanding of the discipline in question* which is why you are worried about a 3-cap with FOR? > Peter D Bakija > PD...@bigplanet.com > http://www.myplanet.net/pdb6 Kevin M. [ quoted text not captured ]

"Kevin M." <you...@imaspammer.org> wrote in message news:kOjda.8140$8s4.2627@fed1read01... > Peter D Bakija <PD...@bigplanet.com> wrote: > > Kevin M. wrote: > >> Seriously though, maybe from a design point-of-view, you shouldn't > >> make vampires like those, sure... but who cares? > > > > Me. Again, is Anvil, Sela, or Ian going to have an overwhelming > > effect on the game? Probably not, because of the way the game works. > > But the principal of the thing is key--if someone is willing to make > > Anvil and Commander Sela, what is to stop them from making a 3 point > > vampire with 5 superior disciplines? Ian Forrestal is not broken. <snip> > I don't understand. How can Gideon Fontaine be designed according to > the standard design template but another 3-cap with a single discipline > at superior can't be? Rudolfo Giovanni, Sarah Brando, Chandler > Hungerford, Harika Guljan, Isabel de Leon, they're all "too powerful"? > Or Masika St. John for that matter, who was designed by the current > designers for the most recent expansion? Gideon Fontaine shouldn't have been designed, but he was. He was way, way too powerful in the original game and only got stronger until Magesty was rewritten. Presence is definantly a contender for the #2 most powerful discipline in the game. All the other vampires above either have a "trick" dicipline (i.e. Necromany, Protean, Quietus, or Thaumaturgy), a solely combat dicipline (Celerity), or a defensive dicipline(Auspex). Fortitude is another contender for #2 most powerful dicipline in the game with its blood gain, aggrivated damage, unblockability, bleed enhancement, damage prevention and torpor tricks. > Or did you mean to say that they are designed according to the standard > design template *with the understanding of the discipline in question* > which is why you are worried about a 3-cap with FOR? I would worry about a 3 cap with FOR. I would also worry about Ozmo being rewritten with 1 less discipline and superior Dominate. It is a balance issue. -- Comments Welcome, Norman S. Brown, Jr. XZealot Archon of the Swamp

In message <3E758D74...@hotmail.com>, Derek Rawlings <lordra...@hotmail.com> mumbled something about: >So what then are the !Ventrue missing? > >Worthwhile Clan Specific cards. The !Gangrel get City Gangrel Connections, >the !Toreador get Art Scam, heck, even the !Brujah get Gang Territory. >What do the !Ventrue get? A couple of cards that change votes. That would >be nice, except that they don't have pre, which is the kingpin voting >discipline. They're really not capable of much in this department. That's >why I'd suggest: Whoa! I cannot possibly agree with this statement. The !Ventrue are vote monsters. What they lack, much like the Ventrue proper, is the stealth necessary to get the votes to the table in the first place. (and yes, i have a vote deck with them that aggressively uses the Obtenebration scattered around). Consider: They have a 9-cap Cardinal. They have an 8-cap Priscus who's also a +bleeder. They have Quentin, Demonstration, and Telepathic Vote Counting, all of which are the equivalent of an IC member -- and Quentin is actually superior, because he has a built-in vote as well. They have Kindred Manipulation, which is a clan-specific card that is an offensive version of Kindred Coercion... which they also have access to, and is an extremely powerful anti-voter card in its own right. And because their vote-powered vampires are relatively high-cap, they can easily shut down the traditional Ventrue Law Firm and make it scream "mommy!". Note that Demonstration, Quentin's ability, and Kindred Coercion all completely negate the effects of Awe and other individual-vampire vote modifiers. Because they are Sabbat, they can use Cardinal Benediction to generate permanent votes, which automatically excludes the Camarilla titles on the table -- more benefit. No, the !Ventrue are true vote monsters. They will typically pass their votes by 3 to 0, as opposed to 11 to 8, but the margin of victory will still be the same... -- "There's no gray. There's just white that's got grubby." -- T.P.

Kevin M. wrote: > You're not *really* asking me this ridiculous question, are you? Since > I'm not sure what point you're trying to make here, I can't answer. It doesn't strike me as such a rediculous question. If the designers were willing to completely ignore the established design templates for a few vampires, why not do it for more of them? Sure, a 3 point vampire with 8 superior disciplines seems excessive (and is a hyberbolic example), but is it really any more excessive than an 8 point vampire with 3 superiors and 20+ inferior disciplines? The previous design team was willing to make such a vampire. But then they also made a 6 point vampire with 1 superior, 1 inferior, a vote, and a highly questionable special ability (who is woefully underpowered). And a 6 point vampire with 1 superior, 2 inferiors, and a vote (also underpowered by standard design ideas). Given the willingness to ignore standard design templates to create such vampires, why not ignore them even more? Clearly, this is moot, as the current design team seems much less willing to ignore the template, however. > I don't understand. How can Gideon Fontaine be designed according to > the standard design template but another 3-cap with a single discipline > at superior can't be? Umm, what are you talking about? Gideon Fontaine is a standard 3 point with 1 superior, just like Isabel and Chandler (who is actually slightly underpowered, due to his random disadvantage). > Rudolfo Giovanni, Sarah Brando, Chandler > Hungerford, Harika Guljan, Isabel de Leon, they're all "too powerful"? > Or Masika St. John for that matter, who was designed by the current > designers for the most recent expansion? Umm, wha? They are all perfectly reasonable. 3 points. 2 points of discipline. Fits template. All is good. > > Or did you mean to say that they are designed according to the standard > design template *with the understanding of the discipline in question* > which is why you are worried about a 3-cap with FOR? To continue: umm, wha? I'm not worried about a 3 cap with FOR. I'd be perfectly happy with a 3 point vampire with FOR. Where did I ever say such a thing? Are you confusing me with someone else? Peter D Bakija PD...@bigplanet.com http://www.myplanet.net/pdb6 "she tore down Paris on the tail of Thom Paine [ quoted text not captured ]

XZealot wrote: > Ian Forrestal is not broken. In the sense of "Using him breaks the game", no, he isn't. But in the sense of "He completely kicks the standard design paradigm in the face", he is. He is an 8 point vampire with 3 superior disciplines and 20+ inferior disciplines. They wouldn't (even at the time) have printed a vampire who was 8 points and had 24 disciplines printed on him, yet Ian somehow made the cut due to his 20+ inferior disciplines being a "special ability" when in reality, the only practical difference takes the form of two specific cards (Kiss 'o Ra and Speed 'o Thought). Does he dominate play? Of course not, simply because of how the game works and the limited effect individual vampires have on the play environment. But he still is no less busted than a 3 point vampire with 8 superior disciplines. > Gideon Fontaine shouldn't have been designed, but he was. He was way, way > too powerful in the original game and only got stronger until Magesty was > rewritten. Meh. He is a 3 with PRE. Presence is potent, sure, but a 3 with PRE doesn't strike me as any more dangerous than a 3 with DOM, who there should be as well (and a 3 point POT and a 3 point FOR for that matter...) > I would worry about a 3 cap with FOR. I would also worry about Ozmo being > rewritten with 1 less discipline and superior Dominate. It is a balance > issue. I wouldn't so much. Peter D Bakija PD...@bigplanet.com http://www.myplanet.net/pdb6 "she tore down Paris on the tail of Thom Paine [ quoted text not captured ]

Peter D Bakija <PD...@bigplanet.com> wrote: [entire message snipped] Peter, you so badly snipped up your reply to my message (removing all the relevant text IMHO) that, while trying to respond to some of your statements, I realized how hopeless it was without context, and so I gave up. <sigh> [ quoted text not captured ]

"Kevin M." <you...@imaspammer.org> wrote in message news:Ehrda.12$x1.11@fed1read01... > Peter D Bakija <PD...@bigplanet.com> wrote: > > [entire message snipped] > > Peter, you so badly snipped up your reply to my message (removing all > the relevant text IMHO) that, while trying to respond to some of your > statements, I realized how hopeless it was without context, and so I > gave up. > > <sigh> Hey Kevin, I think you're the confused one here. In your last reply to Peter, you started going on about Gideon Fontaine and a 3-cap with FOR. Peter never said anything about a 3-cap with FOR being bad. That was Norm (XZealot). This is probably why Peter's last post didn't talk about what you seemed to think you were talking about. :-) Josh and a bunch of those other vampires *are* overpowered...

"Kevin M." <you...@imaspammer.org> wrote in message news:mZ_ca.5413$8s4.711@fed1read01... > Seriously though, maybe from a design point-of-view, you shouldn't make > vampires like those, sure... but who cares? I'd say that (off the top > of my head) Arika, Sheldon, Anson, the 5-caps with 2.5 in-clan > disciplines, Anneke, Brooke, Cardano, Gilbert & Sir Walter, Gideon > Fontaine, that loser Gabrin, and even Lazverinus see *way* more action > than Anvil and Sela (and Jessica and Ian, too), and no one cares about > them, or is saying anything about them being <something> too powerful. I don't know who *doesn't* think Arika is ridiculously powerful. She's clearly the best of the Inner Circle. She's near the top of the curve among all vampires in the game. The only reason she doesn't actually "break" the game is that she costs 11 and weenies are just plain easier/more efficient than 11-caps. Any vampire with more points than it "deserves" for its capacity is over-strong. Because they're unique and they can't always use all their disciplines, it's hard to break the game with overpowered vampires (unless they're very small). But that doesn't mean they don't matter; if they kept making more "overpowered" vampires, the old "regular-powered" vampires would just get less and less playable. > I don't even know what your statement means, really. It sounds like one > of those things that's just said in mid-air, hangs there, and everyone > is staring at it going "I wonder what he's trying to say?..." ;) Maybe > you're trying to say that Anvil, et.al., should have never been made? Yeah. They shouldn't. Anvil shouldn't have as much stuff as he's got. OK, he's not going to make a "broken" deck all by himself, but that doesn't make it a good idea. Josh good idea... bad idea... i'm the one with the .44 magnum...

"Peter D Bakija" <PD...@bigplanet.com> wrote in message news:BA9BA739.D2BF%PD...@bigplanet.com... > XZealot wrote: > > > Ian Forrestal is not broken. > > In the sense of "Using him breaks the game", no, he isn't. But in the sense > of "He completely kicks the standard design paradigm in the face", he is. He > is an 8 point vampire with 3 superior disciplines and 20+ inferior > disciplines. They wouldn't (even at the time) have printed a vampire who was > 8 points and had 24 disciplines printed on him, yet Ian somehow made the cut > due to his 20+ inferior disciplines being a "special ability" when in > reality, the only practical difference takes the form of two specific cards > (Kiss 'o Ra and Speed 'o Thought). So let's look at Ian Forrestal. He has 3 superior disciplines, no title, a special that lets you play any card at inferior, and he costs 8. Let's not lie to ourselves and say this game is about using every dicipline. Most decks are based on three or less disciplines. Now I am not saying that you can't play a 8 discipline deck, but I would say that 75% of all decks made are based on 3 or less disciplines. Generally you can get those disciplines on a vampire who costs less than eight. Even the really weird stuff (qui/thau, ser/for, nec/thau) can be found on a much cheaper vampire. Sometimes you can get the weird stuff and a really good special (Zahir,Abbt Kindred, Patrizia Giovanni) for less than eight. Usually if you are going into th 8+ range you a going for titles. Ian doesn't have one. When a referendum hits the table, Ian is about as good as tits on a bull. What makes Ian good isn't that when he was printed there was all of these disciplines. What makes Ian good is that they printed Bloodlines and introduced about 10 new disciplines. Those disciplines generally have a higher power curve, card for card, than just about any other discipline. What makes them balanced is the limited number of vampires with access to those disciplines. > Does he dominate play? Of course not, simply because of how the game works > and the limited effect individual vampires have on the play environment. But > he still is no less busted than a 3 point vampire with 8 superior > disciplines. I disagree. A three point vampire comes into play fast and has a much greater effect on the game than a 8 point vampire. Generally a 3 pointer can slip in before the defenses are up and do some damage. A eight point vampire is going to run right into those defenses unless you use a Zillah's or a TORIII to put them into play, and you have to build for that and get lucky. The standard game mechanics put the 3cap in play 50% of the time on round 1. > > Gideon Fontaine shouldn't have been designed, but he was. He was way, way > > too powerful in the original game and only got stronger until Magesty was > > rewritten. > > Meh. He is a 3 with PRE. Presence is potent, sure, but a 3 with PRE doesn't > strike me as any more dangerous than a 3 with DOM, who there should be as > well (and a 3 point POT and a 3 point FOR for that matter...) For a 3 cap to take an action which damages its prey refills to its capacity, and gains you 2 pool with a 3 card combo (KRC, Bewitching Oration, and Voter Captivation) in one action at +1 stealth. If blocked, this minion is immune to 95% of all combat cards because they don't specifically counter Magesty as well as untapping. That beats the shit out of anything I have ever seen Ian Forrestal do. > > I would worry about a 3 cap with FOR. I would also worry about Ozmo being > > rewritten with 1 less discipline and superior Dominate. It is a balance > > issue. > > I wouldn't so much. Generally people don't think of Ozmo as that much of a threat because he is such a massive threat that he dies almost instantly when he hits the table, because even a bounced Ozmo at stealth is still going to do some major damage cross-table. So no one minds when everyone kicks the crap out of him. Giving Ozmo superior dominate no means he can take out a non-deflecting prey single-handedly by burning through 21 pool by turn 5. Think about it. [ quoted text not captured ]

Kevin M. wrote: > Peter, you so badly snipped up your reply to my message (removing all > the relevant text IMHO) that, while trying to respond to some of your > statements, I realized how hopeless it was without context, and so I > gave up. And again, umm, wha? I quoted all the text you wrote. That, and I am firmly convicned that you were responding to me thinking I was someone else, as you made comments refering to things you thought I said that I did not actually say. Confused. [ quoted text not captured ]

Kevin M. wrote: > Peter, you so badly snipped up your reply to my message (removing all > the relevant text IMHO) that, while trying to respond to some of your > statements, I realized how hopeless it was without context, and so I > gave up. And again--I just went back and read what I last posted. I didn't actually remove any text at all--your reply is there in its (as far as I can tell) entierty, split into, maybe, what, 4 nice, easy to read chunks. Kevin. I am deeply confused here. Are you reading something I'm not? [ quoted text not captured ]

XZealot wrote: > What makes Ian good isn't that when he was printed there was all of these > disciplines. What makes Ian good is that they printed Bloodlines and > introduced about 10 new disciplines. Those disciplines generally have a > higher power curve, card for card, than just about any other discipline. > What makes them balanced is the limited number of vampires with access to > those disciplines. Clearly, you misunderstand me. Ian is wrong simply because he has too much stuff for his cost. 3 superiors and 20+ inferiors. That is inappropriate, considering the standard design template (an 8 point vamp should have 8-9 points of stuff, where superiors cost 2 and inferiors cost 1). Ian is an 8 point vampire with 26+ points of stuff. That is wrong. Sure, he's never going to use all of the disciplines at once. Neither is, say, Harrod, but Harrod has to pay for all of his disciplines (by being an 11 capacity vampire). Why doesn't Ian? 'Cause he is a bad idea. Again, does Ian break the game? No, because the impact of individual vampires on the game is extremely limited by the way the game works (uniqueness, crypt draw, whatever). But in the sense of how vampires are costed and desgined in this game, he is wrong. Just like Anvil, Commander Sela, Nakova, and Judah. Just where they are off by 2 points or so, he is off by, like, 20 points or so. There is a basic design template for costing and building vampires. If you aren't going to pay attention to it, what is the point of having it? > I disagree. A three point vampire comes into play fast and has a much > greater effect on the game than a 8 point vampire. Generally a 3 pointer > can slip in before the defenses are up and do some damage. A eight point > vampire is going to run right into those defenses unless you use a Zillah's > or a TORIII to put them into play, and you have to build for that and get > lucky. The standard game mechanics put the 3cap in play 50% of the time on > round 1. Ok. Bad example. And not really the point. How about a 7 point vampire with 12 superior disciplines? A 10 point vampire with 18 superior disciplines? > For a 3 cap to take an action which damages its prey refills to its > capacity, and gains you 2 pool with a 3 card combo (KRC, Bewitching Oration, > and Voter Captivation) in one action at +1 stealth. If blocked, this minion > is immune to 95% of all combat cards because they don't specifically counter > Magesty as well as untapping. That beats the shit out of anything I have > ever seen Ian Forrestal do. Again, not the point. Ian is wrong because he breaks the basic vampire design paradigm. Gideon Fontaine does not. Is a 3 with PRE good? Absolutely, but he isn't wrong in any way close to how Ian is wrong. Gideon Fontaine is balanced in the same way that Duck, Isabel, and Blythe are. Sure, a 3 with PRE is good, but not much better than a 4 with PRE/x. And only slightly better than a 5 with PRE/X/x. > Generally people don't think of Ozmo as that much of a threat because he is > such a massive threat that he dies almost instantly when he hits the table, Really? > because even a bounced Ozmo at stealth is still going to do some major > damage cross-table. So no one minds when everyone kicks the crap out of > him. Giving Ozmo superior dominate no means he can take out a > non-deflecting prey single-handedly by burning through 21 pool by turn 5. > > Think about it. Umm, ok? What does this have to do with a 3 point vampire with FOR? Or Gideon Fontaine? Or Ian Forrestal? This thread clearly exists to do nothing but confuse me... [ quoted text not captured ]

"Peter D Bakija" <PD...@bigplanet.com> wrote in message news:BA9BB6ED.D2D1%PD...@bigplanet.com... > XZealot wrote: > > > What makes Ian good isn't that when he was printed there was all of these > > disciplines. What makes Ian good is that they printed Bloodlines and > > introduced about 10 new disciplines. Those disciplines generally have a > > higher power curve, card for card, than just about any other discipline. > > What makes them balanced is the limited number of vampires with access to > > those disciplines. > > Clearly, you misunderstand me. Ian is wrong simply because he has too much > stuff for his cost. 3 superiors and 20+ inferiors. That is inappropriate, > considering the standard design template (an 8 point vamp should have 8-9 > points of stuff, where superiors cost 2 and inferiors cost 1). Ian is an 8 > point vampire with 26+ points of stuff. That is wrong. You cannot simply look at the vampire and add up all his points and say," x + y=z, therefore this vampire is balanced and ready for play". You have to look at how the crypt interacts with the library. This is why Shane Grimald disciplines are ani dom pot instead of the dom pot pro that he was in the playtest. You have to step back from the vampire and look at how it affects the game. > Sure, he's never going to use all of the disciplines at once. Neither is, > say, Harrod, but Harrod has to pay for all of his disciplines (by being an > 11 capacity vampire). Why doesn't Ian? 'Cause he is a bad idea. Okay would you pay 3 more for Ian to have 4 votes and +2 bleed. Hell yes you would. It's a no brainer. 3 pool for 4 votes and +2bleed that is a great deal. What you are not factoring in is that putting an 11 capacity vampire into play is extremely risky. You are investing alot of time and pool into a vampire that Hesina Kesi, a 1 cap, can enter combat with IG, Disarm, and Amaranth. This is after Hesina Kesi has probably bled you twice while you were influencing out Harrod. So really Harrod's cost was 13 because to get him out you had to accept that you were going to get bled for 2. That is if you are lucky. The same thing with Ian. You basically have to accept that you are going to get bled for 1 by the time you get him out. If you are lucky, then you get him out on round 2 and only take a bleed for 1. Therefore Ian costs you 9 (8 for Ian plus the 1 bleed). Now you are effectively paying 9 for a 8 cap who can play any discipline at inferior and can play Dominate, Thaumaturgy and Auspex at superior. He has no title and no special other than the ability to play any dicipline. That is not so great for an eight cap vampire. The reason why is that you at most are going to put 3 disciplines in a deck. Most of those discipline combonations are found in combonation on clans of vampires that share specific combonations. Ian is only good for the off clan stuff, and he isn't that good. Generally Ian is not as good as a Caitiff/Pander with a skill card. The Caitiff comes out faster and has more game impact. > Again, does Ian break the game? No, because the impact of individual > vampires on the game is extremely limited by the way the game works > (uniqueness, crypt draw, whatever). But in the sense of how vampires are > costed and desgined in this game, he is wrong. Just like Anvil, Commander > Sela, Nakova, and Judah. Just where they are off by 2 points or so, he is > off by, like, 20 points or so. Not really because getting inferiors on a 8 cap without titles is not that great. I can get 2 4-caps for the same price and probably with the disciplines I want. > There is a basic design template for costing and building vampires. If you > aren't going to pay attention to it, what is the point of having it? It is a good guide, but that is all it is, a guide. Look at Ambrosio Luis Moncada, Plenipotentiary. Most people think he is awful. In fact, he is one of the best vampires in the game. He gives his controller virtual immuntity to all methods of attack. Bleed me? I bounce. Vote? Hope you have more than 3 votes. Rush? You are going to gamble a pool to see whether I have an Obedience in my hand. This guy is awesome. Does he stick to the template. Yes and no. He has 10 points worth of disciplines, a 1.5 point title, a 1 point special, a 2 point specials and a 1 point flaw. 13.5 points on on 10 point vampire. Outside the guidelines. Are you going to use everyone of his specials, yes, because otherwise you would another vampire who is cheaper and has what you need. > > I disagree. A three point vampire comes into play fast and has a much > > greater effect on the game than a 8 point vampire. Generally a 3 pointer > > can slip in before the defenses are up and do some damage. A eight point > > vampire is going to run right into those defenses unless you use a Zillah's > > or a TORIII to put them into play, and you have to build for that and get > > lucky. The standard game mechanics put the 3cap in play 50% of the time on > > round 1. > > Ok. Bad example. And not really the point. How about a 7 point vampire with > 12 superior disciplines? A 10 point vampire with 18 superior disciplines? Superior disciplines are much harder to come by and on average have twice as much effect card for card. > > For a 3 cap to take an action which damages its prey refills to its > > capacity, and gains you 2 pool with a 3 card combo (KRC, Bewitching Oration, > > and Voter Captivation) in one action at +1 stealth. If blocked, this minion > > is immune to 95% of all combat cards because they don't specifically counter > > Magesty as well as untapping. That beats the shit out of anything I have > > ever seen Ian Forrestal do. > > Again, not the point. Ian is wrong because he breaks the basic vampire > design paradigm. Gideon Fontaine does not. Is a 3 with PRE good? Absolutely, > but he isn't wrong in any way close to how Ian is wrong. Gideon Fontaine is > balanced in the same way that Duck, Isabel, and Blythe are. Sure, a 3 with > PRE is good, but not much better than a 4 with PRE/x. And only slightly > better than a 5 with PRE/X/x. au contrair, It is exactly the point. The vampire cards do not exist in a vacuum. They interact with your deck which is limited to ninety cards. Pound for Pound Gideon Fontain is twice as good at doing what he does than Ian on any given day. You say that Gideon sticks to a formula and Ian doesn't. Sure you are right. Is Ian broken, no, because Ian can't use everysingle discipline in the game in one game. That is the factor that limits how good Ian Forrestal is. Every discipline that Ian can use but yet that he doesn't is a waste. Most of his special ability goes to waste. That is why Ian isn't that good. He isn't efficient. > > Generally people don't think of Ozmo as that much of a threat because he is > > such a massive threat that he dies almost instantly when he hits the table, > > Really? > > > because even a bounced Ozmo at stealth is still going to do some major > > damage cross-table. So no one minds when everyone kicks the crap out of > > him. Giving Ozmo superior dominate no means he can take out a > > non-deflecting prey single-handedly by burning through 21 pool by turn 5. > > > > Think about it. > > Umm, ok? What does this have to do with a 3 point vampire with FOR? Or > Gideon Fontaine? Or Ian Forrestal? It has to do with how the vampire affects the game as a whole. Gideon has a lot more punch than Ian Forrestal. A 3 cap vampire with FOR would be unbalanced for many reasons, Kiss of Ra, being one of them. > This thread clearly exists to do nothing but confuse me... Confusion is a swift river that one must swim across to reach the island of enlightenment. [ quoted text not captured ]

XZealot wrote: > You cannot simply look at the vampire and add up all his points and say," x > + y=z, therefore this vampire is balanced and ready for play". You have to > look at how the crypt interacts with the library. This is why Shane Grimald > disciplines are ani dom pot instead of the dom pot pro that he was in the > playtest. You have to step back from the vampire and look at how it affects > the game. Certainly, but you also need to take into account said costing system. Ian doesn't. Thus, not a good idea. Yes, particular discipline combos are more effective than others--this is why there is no 4 point DOM obf vampire (and also, presumably, why Nakova is so lame and Gwendolyn has no specials--at one point, pot/for was very difficult to come by. Now, they just suck). This, however, is a different issue. Ian Forrestal is wrong because he completely disregards the existing design rules. > Okay would you pay 3 more for Ian to have 4 votes and +2 bleed. Hell yes > you would. It's a no brainer. 3 pool for 4 votes and +2bleed that is a > great deal. What you are not factoring in is that putting an 11 capacity > vampire into play is extremely risky. ? My point was that Harrod pays for his 6 disciplines. Ian does not for his extra 20+. Harrod fits into the existing design slipways. Ian does not. Harrod has 6 disciplines. He will rarely, if ever, use them all, yet he has to pay for them. Ian will rarely, if ever, use all of his disciplines, as you pointed out, yet why does he *not* have to pay for the 20 some odd disciplines he doesn't use at any particular time while Harrod still has to pay for the 2 or 3 disciplines he doesn't use at any given time. Because Ian is wrong. > The same thing with Ian. You basically have to accept that you are going to > get bled for 1 by the time you get him out. If you are lucky, then you get > him out on round 2 and only take a bleed for 1. Therefore Ian costs you 9 > (8 for Ian plus the 1 bleed). Which can be said for *any* 8 point vampire. Yet all of those 8 point vampires have to pay for their disciplines and Ian does not. Which is why Ian is wrong. Picking a random 8 point vampire: Dr. Jest. He has OBF, aus, pre, dom, for. It is unlikely that you will ever use all of those disciplines in a single deck, yet Dr. Jest is penalized (in terms of capacity) for having them. He is also an 8 point vampire that will cost you 9 (in the same way that Ian does), but only gets 6 points of disciplines rather than 26+ points of disciplines. > Now you are effectively paying 9 for a 8 cap who can play any discipline at > inferior and can play Dominate, Thaumaturgy and Auspex at superior. He has > no title and no special other than the ability to play any dicipline. That > is not so great for an eight cap vampire. The reason why is that you at > most are going to put 3 disciplines in a deck. No one is saying that Ian is that great. He isn't. He isn't that good. He doesn't get used much, 'cause most of the time there is a better vampire for the job. This being said, he still shouldn't exist, as he completely ignores the established design system. > It is a good guide, but that is all it is, a guide. Look at Ambrosio Luis > Moncada, Plenipotentiary. He strikes me as a certainly reasonable vampire. The current template for 10 point vampires is 12 points in stuff. He has 10 in disciplines, a significant draw back (can't block) a semi-wash special (untap another Lasombra during discard), 3 votes, and another conditional special (extra blood cost). At most, he has 12.5 points of stuff on 1 0 point vampire. An extra half point of stuff. Not fantastic, but not, like, an extra 20 points of stuff. > au contrair, It is exactly the point. The vampire cards do not exist in a > vacuum. They interact with your deck which is limited to ninety cards. > Pound for Pound Gideon Fontain is twice as good at doing what he does than > Ian on any given day. You say that Gideon sticks to a formula and Ian > doesn't. Sure you are right. Is Ian broken, no, because Ian can't use > everysingle discipline in the game in one game. That is the factor that > limits how good Ian Forrestal is. Again, the issue is not that he is too good. It is that he is incorrect. A bad idea. > Every discipline that Ian can use but yet > that he doesn't is a waste. Which can be said for every vampire in the game who has to pay for their disciplines that they don't use. > Most of his special ability goes to waste. > That is why Ian isn't that good. He isn't efficient. And again, not the point. Ian is wrong 'cause he gets too much stuff for free. Sure, he isn't going to use most of it at any given time, but neither is Harrod. Or Dr. Jest. Or most vampires with 4+ disciplines. > It has to do with how the vampire affects the game as a whole. Gideon has a > lot more punch than Ian Forrestal. A 3 cap vampire with FOR would be > unbalanced for many reasons, Kiss of Ra, being one of them. What is a 3 point vampire with FOR going to do that so desperately needs to be blocked? Force of Will? If he is FoWing, he is probably Daring the Dawn as well, so you can't block him. Restoration? Calling a vote, with no presence? Bleeding for 1? Not really seeing Kiss of Ra as a particualar threat, especially in the hands of a 3 point FOR vamp, as KoR costs 3 blood... I'd be perfectly happy with a 3 point FOR vamp, m'self. [ quoted text not captured ]

> > You cannot simply look at the vampire and add up all his points and say," x > > + y=z, therefore this vampire is balanced and ready for play". You have to > > look at how the crypt interacts with the library. This is why Shane Grimald > > disciplines are ani dom pot instead of the dom pot pro that he was in the > > playtest. You have to step back from the vampire and look at how it affects > > the game. > > Certainly, but you also need to take into account said costing system. Ian > doesn't. Thus, not a good idea. So what you are saying is that a vampire may be hamstrung by its discipline combonation under the costing system, but never benifit from it. That doesn't make any sense. > Yes, particular discipline combos are more effective than others--this is > why there is no 4 point DOM obf vampire (and also, presumably, why Nakova is > so lame and Gwendolyn has no specials--at one point, pot/for was very > difficult to come by. Now, they just suck). This, however, is a different > issue. Ian Forrestal is wrong because he completely disregards the existing > design rules. Actually he fits in perfectly with the design rules. You just don't like his special. > > Okay would you pay 3 more for Ian to have 4 votes and +2 bleed. Hell yes > > you would. It's a no brainer. 3 pool for 4 votes and +2bleed that is a > > great deal. What you are not factoring in is that putting an 11 capacity > > vampire into play is extremely risky. > > ? > > My point was that Harrod pays for his 6 disciplines. Ian does not for his > extra 20+. Harrod fits into the existing design slipways. Ian does not. > Harrod has 6 disciplines. He will rarely, if ever, use them all, yet he has > to pay for them. Ian will rarely, if ever, use all of his disciplines, as > you pointed out, yet why does he *not* have to pay for the 20 some odd > disciplines he doesn't use at any particular time while Harrod still has to > pay for the 2 or 3 disciplines he doesn't use at any given time. Ian pays for his 6 points in disciplines he also pays 3 points for his special. 3 points for a special is alot. It better be damn special. Ian's is. > Because Ian is wrong. I believe you are the one who is mistaken. > > The same thing with Ian. You basically have to accept that you are going to > > get bled for 1 by the time you get him out. If you are lucky, then you get > > him out on round 2 and only take a bleed for 1. Therefore Ian costs you 9 > > (8 for Ian plus the 1 bleed). > > Which can be said for *any* 8 point vampire. Yet all of those 8 point > vampires have to pay for their disciplines and Ian does not. Which is why > Ian is wrong. Picking a random 8 point vampire: Dr. Jest. He has OBF, aus, > pre, dom, for. It is unlikely that you will ever use all of those > disciplines in a single deck, yet Dr. Jest is penalized (in terms of > capacity) for having them. He is also an 8 point vampire that will cost you > 9 (in the same way that Ian does), but only gets 6 points of disciplines > rather than 26+ points of disciplines. But cannot be said for any 8 point vampire without a title and only 6 points in disciplines. The list of vampires is not long 1) Gabrin- who has 1 super useful special and one marginal special that is super useful when combined with Sensory Deprivation. 2) Haakon Mortenson- who has a super useful special that covers 2 clans. 3) Ian Forrestal That is all the 8 capacity vampires with less than 7 points in disciplines and no titles. That is who you should be comparing Ian Forrestal to. Doctor Jest is a primogen and has a really funky special. Also Dr. Jest is from JYHAD which is a set that was notorious for its underpowered high caps (see Appolonius). So perhaps Dr. Jest is not the best example. What about Muaziz? She is vastly more powerful than Ian Forrestal and costs one less. > > Now you are effectively paying 9 for a 8 cap who can play any discipline at > > inferior and can play Dominate, Thaumaturgy and Auspex at superior. He has > > no title and no special other than the ability to play any dicipline. That > > is not so great for an eight cap vampire. The reason why is that you at > > most are going to put 3 disciplines in a deck. > > No one is saying that Ian is that great. He isn't. He isn't that good. He > doesn't get used much, 'cause most of the time there is a better vampire for > the job. This being said, he still shouldn't exist, as he completely ignores > the established design system. Yet he does exist, and he isn't that great. > > It is a good guide, but that is all it is, a guide. Look at Ambrosio Luis > > Moncada, Plenipotentiary. > > He strikes me as a certainly reasonable vampire. The current template for 10 > point vampires is 12 points in stuff. He has 10 in disciplines, a > significant draw back (can't block) a semi-wash special (untap another > Lasombra during discard), 3 votes, and another conditional special (extra > blood cost). At most, he has 12.5 points of stuff on 1 0 point vampire. An > extra half point of stuff. Not fantastic, but not, like, an extra 20 points > of stuff. It costs Alexandra 2 points for her untap special. It should cost Moncada the same. You are mistaken about the blood cost. It is 1 pool not 1 blood. That is easily worth 1 point. Especially when a potence fanatic like yourself is lurking around. :) Here again, you are mistaken. He does not have an extra 20 points worth of stuff. There are many cards that Ian is useless for (i.e. Sanguine Instruction). > > au contrair, It is exactly the point. The vampire cards do not exist in a > > vacuum. They interact with your deck which is limited to ninety cards. > > Pound for Pound Gideon Fontain is twice as good at doing what he does than > > Ian on any given day. You say that Gideon sticks to a formula and Ian > > doesn't. Sure you are right. Is Ian broken, no, because Ian can't use > > everysingle discipline in the game in one game. That is the factor that > > limits how good Ian Forrestal is. > > Again, the issue is not that he is too good. It is that he is incorrect. A > bad idea. What is your measuring stick? Soley based on a formula which is a guide. You are being entirely subjective when the objective value of a vampire is how powerful/useful a vampire is. Ian is the ultimate in utility, yet very low on the power curve. > > Every discipline that Ian can use but yet > > that he doesn't is a waste. > > Which can be said for every vampire in the game who has to pay for their > disciplines that they don't use. Yet Ian doesn't have those disciplines. > > Most of his special ability goes to waste. > > That is why Ian isn't that good. He isn't efficient. > > And again, not the point. Ian is wrong 'cause he gets too much stuff for > free. Sure, he isn't going to use most of it at any given time, but neither > is Harrod. Or Dr. Jest. Or most vampires with 4+ disciplines. But both Harrod and Dr. Jest have titles which are always useful which Ian Does not. See above. > > It has to do with how the vampire affects the game as a whole. Gideon has a > > lot more punch than Ian Forrestal. A 3 cap vampire with FOR would be > > unbalanced for many reasons, Kiss of Ra, being one of them. > > What is a 3 point vampire with FOR going to do that so desperately needs to > be blocked? Force of Will? If he is FoWing, he is probably Daring the Dawn > as well, so you can't block him. Restoration? Calling a vote, with no > presence? Bleeding for 1? Not really seeing Kiss of Ra as a particualar > threat, especially in the hands of a 3 point FOR vamp, as KoR costs 3 > blood... Oh, how about diablerizing your Arika, or your Basilia, or your Parnassus. It would really suck to be trying to protect your key vampire from a 3 point muchkin, but because your blocking 10 cap doesn't have fortitude then you have to make the choice of either letting a diablerie succeed or having 2 vampires in torpor > I'd be perfectly happy with a 3 point FOR vamp, m'self. I would not. Nor would I be happy with a 3 point ANI, 3 point DOM, 3 point OBF, 3 point OBT, 3 point DEM, 3 point CHI or the existing 3 point PRE. A 3 point POT doesn't bother me nor would a 3 point VIC. [ quoted text not captured ]

>Ian is wrong simply because he has too much >stuff for his cost. 3 superiors and 20+ inferiors. That is inappropriate, >considering the standard design template (an 8 point vamp should have 8-9 >points of stuff, where superiors cost 2 and inferiors cost 1). Ian is an 8 >point vampire with 26+ points of stuff. That is wrong. Why not criticize the design template instead? As has been mentioned, the value of disciplines past 3 is negligible. So, why count them at all? I created my own design point system. Why? You know, I'm not sure why any more. Maybe because I got tired of people saying how Anvil has too much stuff when it's obvious to me that he's not one of the best vampires in the game. Anyway, whether you believe in whichever point system (there's been more than one official one), they are still guidelines. Would you like to see a 5 cap with aus/DOM/OBF or even DOM/OBF (assuming group 1 or 2)? Forestal has only grown more powerful, but IMO, he's only now good where he wasn't pre-Bloodlines. >Sure, he's never going to use all of the disciplines at once. Neither is, >say, Harrod, but Harrod has to pay for all of his disciplines (by being an >11 capacity vampire). Why doesn't Ian? 'Cause he is a bad idea. In my system, Harrod comes out to 13 pts., Forestal comes out to 9. Fall within normal parameters. What I like about my system is that jives with experience. Some of the official ones don't. >Again, does Ian break the game? No, because the impact of individual >vampires on the game is extremely limited by the way the game works >(uniqueness, crypt draw, whatever). But in the sense of how vampires are >costed and desgined in this game, he is wrong. Just like Anvil, Commander >Sela, Nakova, and Judah. Just where they are off by 2 points or so, he is >off by, like, 20 points or so. There are decks built around individual vampires, but the closest Forestal has gotten AFAIA is the Agaitas deckhacking deck. Reason? At most, a couple of those disciplines, whichever you use, add value. >There is a basic design template for costing and building vampires. If you >aren't going to pay attention to it, what is the point of having it? I don't agree with the current one, but I believe it's being used the vast majority of the time. >> I disagree. A three point vampire comes into play fast and has a much >> greater effect on the game than a 8 point vampire. Generally a 3 pointer >> can slip in before the defenses are up and do some damage. A eight point >> vampire is going to run right into those defenses unless you use a Zillah's >> or a TORIII to put them into play, and you have to build for that and get >> lucky. The standard game mechanics put the 3cap in play 50% of the time on >> round 1. > >Ok. Bad example. And not really the point. How about a 7 point vampire with >12 superior disciplines? A 10 point vampire with 18 superior disciplines? The 10 cap would be underpowered. The 7 cap would probably be balanced. >> For a 3 cap to take an action which damages its prey refills to its >> capacity, and gains you 2 pool with a 3 card combo (KRC, Bewitching >Oration, >> and Voter Captivation) in one action at +1 stealth. If blocked, this >minion >> is immune to 95% of all combat cards because they don't specifically >counter >> Magesty as well as untapping. That beats the shit out of anything I have >> ever seen Ian Forrestal do. > >Again, not the point. Ian is wrong because he breaks the basic vampire >design paradigm. Gideon Fontaine does not. Is a 3 with PRE good? Absolutely, >but he isn't wrong in any way close to how Ian is wrong. Gideon Fontaine is >balanced in the same way that Duck, Isabel, and Blythe are. Sure, a 3 with >PRE is good, but not much better than a 4 with PRE/x. And only slightly >better than a 5 with PRE/X/x. At one point, I was seeing Gideon in play more than any other vampire. Suggests to me that he was pretty damn good. >Umm, ok? What does this have to do with a 3 point vampire with FOR? Or >Gideon Fontaine? Or Ian Forrestal? > >This thread clearly exists to do nothing but confuse me... Someone has suggested a 3 cap with FOR. Someone else has suggested that such a vampire is not good for the game. Pointwise, there's no difference whatsoever between an existing vampire - Gideon - and this hypothetical vampire, so there's an argument for there being nothing wrong with the weenie FOR vampire. OTOH, how desirable is it, really, to have Gideons in the game? This seems to be the other side of the argument. BTW, I'm all for a 3 cap with VIC or OBT.

>Superior disciplines are much harder to come by and on average have twice as >much effect card for card. I value superiors closer to three times the power of inferiors, yet another reason I dislike the point systems that have been used. By valuing at 2 v. 1 you either get awesome vampires like a lot of the 5 caps with two superiors or the 6 caps with three or, even, the 3 caps with one or you get generally crummy vampires like a lot of the 4 caps with all inferiors or the 3 caps with two inferiors.

On Mon, 17 Mar 2003, XZealot wrote: > 1) Gabrin- who has 1 super useful special and one marginal special that is > super useful when combined with Sensory Deprivation. Seriously, his "forgotten" special isn't marginal. Not in a vampire that has access to freak drive, or *cough underrated cough* Red Herring. > I would not. Nor would I be happy with a 3 point ANI, 3 point DOM, 3 point > OBF, 3 point OBT, 3 point DEM, 3 point CHI or the existing 3 point PRE. On a related note, I think a 3 cap with CHI would be fine. Nothing worth doing in Chimestry is free. The best action they have, Sensory Deprivation, would fizzle as soon as you played any cards to get it through. If you include the Path in the mix, then that would be a three cap that could really get something done (kinda like Gideon), but now the moving parts have become so huge that I believe it balances. > A 3 point POT doesn't bother me nor would a 3 point VIC. OTOH, a 3 cap with POT could play a ton of hideous stuff; a lot of it is free, and that which isn't can be recouped with a Taste. No thanks, but that's probably just a taste issue (get it... "taste"... nevermind). [ quoted text not captured ]

Howdy, <mucho snippage of relatively redundant argumentation on the merits/flaws of Ian> Re: Ian > > Again, the issue is not that he is too good. It is that he is incorrect. A > > bad idea. > > What is your measuring stick? Soley based on a formula which is a guide. > You are being entirely subjective when the objective value of a vampire is > how powerful/useful a vampire is. Ian is the ultimate in utility, yet very > low on the power curve. Actually, I would have said Peter was being much, much more objective than I would have expected - in the sense of needlessly sticking to the 'objective' measure of goodness that the formula provides, when it seems clear to me that more subjective measures of goodness (like play experience) are more relevant. That he is also misusing the formula somewhat (as Norm has pointed out, Ian's extra disciplines should be counted as a 3-pt. special, not as N points worth of inferiors, where N is increasing with expansions), makes this objectivity even more strange. Anyway, however you want to term it (objective, subjective, subjunctive, pluscuamperfecto, whatever), I just don't see a need to reify the formula, especially given the fact that it has evolved several times now. It seems clear that not all disciplines or discipline combos are equal. The formula gives a decent benchmark for approximate power (though it sounds to me like Curevei may have a better one, so perhaps more evolution is ahead), but it's not a substitute for designer judgement. Put another way: since when does 'correctness' matter, unless you don't trust the designers, in which case, I'd argue, no amount of correctness will help. Re: Prince Michael > > I'd be perfectly happy with a 3 point FOR vamp, m'self. As I pointed out in the initial post, I figured Prince Mike might be controversial. But despite all the back-and-forth, I still don't really have a hard-and-fast reason why. All the usual suspects have been mentioned (Force of Will, Daring, Kiss of Ra), and the usual counter (there's just not much you can do with fortitude only) has also been deployed; I guess I was hoping there might be some sharper rationale against it. I'm still in favor of running it into playtesting and seeing who salutes. > I would not. Nor would I be happy with a 3 point ANI, 3 point DOM, 3 point > OBF, 3 point OBT, 3 point DEM, 3 point CHI or the existing 3 point PRE. > > A 3 point POT doesn't bother me nor would a 3 point VIC. As to the other 3-caps, here's my subjectivity: ANI would be very, very scary - a 4-cap would be powerful enough; AUS is quite balanced in Isabel, Zoe is a tad overpowered (but then she isn't just AUS, is she); CEL was probably a bad idea - Sarah is very strong - disposable rush in general is pretty nasty (see ANI, POT, VIC); CHI would be pretty much more of the same - low cap chimerstry is where the Ravnos are at (I concur with David on cost being the limiting factor here); DEM would probably be a bad thing, what with superior Cloak being in-clan; DOM is ugly, but there's 3 4-caps already, and myriad low-cap dom, so it might not make that much difference; NEC gets an awful lot of play out of Rudolpho - kinda like PRO; OBF again has 2 4-caps already, and so might not be too bad; OBT is awfully flexible to be putting on a 3-cap, comparable to PRO; POT already has _5_ 4-caps - it's not that a 3-cap would be any worse, it's just that there don't need to be any more sub 5-caps. PRE is ugly, but there are 2 4-caps who are almost as bad; PRO is maybe a little strong in Chandler; QUI doesn't stand on it's own real well in Harika; SER would probably be a bad idea, comparable to DEM; THA is pretty strong in it's _3_ sub 4-caps - I think CHI could be comparable; VIC I'd be a little afraid of - it's awfully easy to slap a pot or aus master on that and make a monster; Oh, and there should definitely be a VAL 3-cap sometime, if the !Salubri are ever to stop sucking. Looking it over, I guess Norm and I just tend to disagree on the value of various disciplines, so disagreeing over FOR is par for the course; I'm much more perplexed by my disagreement with Peter over crypt design theory. Hope that helps, Alex

"Curevei" <cur...@aol.commetal> wrote in message news:20030317231642...@mb-ci.aol.com... [Peter Bakija wrote] > >Ian is wrong simply because he has too much > >stuff for his cost. 3 superiors and 20+ inferiors. That is inappropriate, > >considering the standard design template (an 8 point vamp should have 8-9 > >points of stuff, where superiors cost 2 and inferiors cost 1). Ian is an 8 > >point vampire with 26+ points of stuff. That is wrong. > > Why not criticize the design template instead? As has been mentioned, the > value of disciplines past 3 is negligible. So, why count them at all? While it's hard to use more than 3 disciplines at a time, that doesn't (I think) mean that you can slap on 20 disciplines without worries. You wouldn't use all 20 in any one deck, sure, but it would make the vampire useful to like a hundred different decks that wanted to use his disciplines in different combinations. Because of uniqueness, that might not be a "problem". But it would make the vampire annoyingly more useful than a lot of his counterparts. > In my system, Harrod comes out to 13 pts., Forestal comes out to 9. Fall > within normal parameters. What I like about my system is that jives with > experience. Some of the official ones don't. Yah... the different disciplines do have different strengths, which matters for deciding what combinations you're actually going to print, in the current system. You could change how you cost the various disciplines instead for the point system, but then the costs would be subject to alteration as new cards are printed if they alter the relative strengths of disciplines. > >Ok. Bad example. And not really the point. How about a 7 point vampire with > >12 superior disciplines? A 10 point vampire with 18 superior disciplines? > > The 10 cap would be underpowered. The 7 cap would probably be balanced. Heh heh, controversial much? That 10 cap would be the wet dream of a lot of possible decks; if you have that many superiors you could certainly at least try to build a deck around the vamp and using, say, the best cards from 5 or 6 of the disciplines. The 7-cap would be even more attractive to any deck that actually wanted to use any 4+ of its disciplines... > Someone has suggested a 3 cap with FOR. Someone else has suggested that such a > vampire is not good for the game. Pointwise, there's no difference whatsoever > between an existing vampire - Gideon - and this hypothetical vampire, so > there's an argument for there being nothing wrong with the weenie FOR vampire. > OTOH, how desirable is it, really, to have Gideons in the game? This seems to > be the other side of the argument. > > BTW, I'm all for a 3 cap with VIC or OBT. The problem with Gideons, IMO, is that they are weenies. It's true, in my experience, that bigger vampires are pretty hard to "break". Josh almost done "catching up" with the newsgroup (aka flooding it with messages all by myself)

XZealot wrote: > So what you are saying is that a vampire may be hamstrung by its discipline > combonation under the costing system, but never benifit from it. That > doesn't make any sense. Hamstrung? Vampires should pay for the abilities they have, as that is how they are built. The vast majority of the vampires pay the same amount and get the appropriate amount of stuff for their capacity. Ian Forrestal doesn't pay for his 20+ extra inferior disciplines. This is not a good thing. > Actually he fits in perfectly with the design rules. You just don't like > his special. Well, yes, 'cause his "special ability" is "Ian Forrestal has 20+ extra inferior disciplines". If Ian had 20+ inferior disciplines printed on him, that would clearly be wrong. But instead of having 20+ inferior disciplines printed on him, he has a special ability which (except for the existance of 3 cards) is identical to having 20+ inferior disciplines printed on him. Would it be ok to print an 8 point vampire who came with 3 superior disciplines and 20 inferior disciplines? > Ian pays for his 6 points in disciplines he also pays 3 points for his > special. 3 points for a special is alot. It better be damn special. Ian's > is. But Ian's special is "Ian has 20+ inferior disciplines". If any other vampire has extra disciplines, they pay for them with capacity. For those three points, Ian should have gotten 3 extra disciplines at inferior. Not 20. If his special ability was somehow actually different than simply having 20+ inferior disciplines, then he'd probably be fine. If his special was something along the lines of: "When Ian enters play, choose a discipline Ian doesn't have. Ian may play cards that require the chosen discipline at the inferior level." or "Ian may burn 1 blood to play a card requiring a discipline he doesn't possess at the inferior level." Then he'd be fine. Those special abilties are functionally different than simply having 20+ extra disciplines, which is what Ian currently has (for all purposes, except how he interacts with 3 cards--Kiss of Ra, Speed of Thought, Meat Hook). For all other intents and purposes, Ian simply has 20+ inferior disciplines printed on his card. Every other vampire in the game pays (in terms of capacity) for all of their disciplines, whether they actually use them or not. Ian does not. He simply gets 20+ inferior disciplines, for 3 points of capacity. This is a flagrant abuse of the standard design template. > But cannot be said for any 8 point vampire without a title and only 6 points > in disciplines. The list of vampires is not long > 1) Gabrin- who has 1 super useful special and one marginal special that is > super useful when combined with Sensory Deprivation. > 2) Haakon Mortenson- who has a super useful special that covers 2 clans. > 3) Ian Forrestal Of course it can. Ian doesn't have 6 points in abilities. Ian has 26+ points in abilities. There is no difference between Ian's "special ability" and simply having 20+ extra inferior disciplines (excepting 3 cards out of a thousand). > That is all the 8 capacity vampires with less than 7 points in disciplines > and no titles. That is who you should be comparing Ian Forrestal to. Well, no, 'cause Ian doesn't have 6 points in disciplines. He has 26+. If his special ability was functionally different from simply having 20+ inferior disciplines printed on him, then your argument would be solid. But as it stands, it isn't. If there was a considerably larger number of cards like Kiss of Ra, then you'd have a strong argument. If putting a skill card on Ian didn't grant him the superior level of that discipline, you might have a reasonable argument. As neither of these is the case, Ian's special ability is simply "Ian has 20+ inferior disciplines", and as such, Ian's special ability isn't a special ability so much as simply a way to avoid printing 20+ extra inferior disciplines on his card (in place of, say, his portrait). > Doctor Jest is a primogen and has a really funky special. Also Dr. Jest is > from JYHAD which is a set that was notorious for its underpowered high caps > (see Appolonius). So perhaps Dr. Jest is not the best example. What about > Muaziz? She is vastly more powerful than Ian Forrestal and costs one less. But she only has, what, 5 points in disciplines and a powerful special ability suite. Ian Forrestal has 26+ points of disciplines. > Yet he does exist, and he isn't that great. The greateness (or lack therof) is irrelevant. He is an 8 point vampire with 26+ points of disciplines. No one would ever consider that releasing an 8 point vampire with 3 superior and 20 inferior disciplines printed on the card. > It costs Alexandra 2 points for her untap special. It should cost Moncada > the same. Possibly. But that is a minor difference. Having a special ability that is functionally identical to having 20 inferior disciplines printed on the card isn't a minor differnece. > Here again, you are mistaken. He does not have an extra 20 points worth of > stuff. There are many cards that Ian is useless for (i.e. Sanguine > Instruction). Ok. 4 cards. Sanguine Instruction. Kiss of Ra. Speed of Thought. Meat Hook. Out of a thousand cards. .04% of the time, Ian suffers from not actually having disciplines printed on him. The other 99.96% of the time, Ian simply has 20 inferior disciplines printed on his card. > What is your measuring stick? Soley based on a formula which is a guide. A guide that powers every other vampire in the game. Sure, a few vampires are a point or two high or a point or two low, but Ian is 20 some odd points high. > You are being entirely subjective when the objective value of a vampire is > how powerful/useful a vampire is. Ian is the ultimate in utility, yet very > low on the power curve. Oh, I agree. I don't think Ian is particularly useful at all (well, except as the engine that drives that *incredibly* annoying Egotha deck...). He is just wrong in a design sense, and as such, shouldn't exist. > Yet Ian doesn't have those disciplines. But for all practical purposes, he does. Again, if there were a functional difference between his special ability and simply having 20 extra inferior disciplines printed on his card (other than the effect of 4 cards), then I'd be right there with you. But there isn't a functional difference. Thus, he simply has 20 extra inferior disciplines printed on his card. And as such, gets ~20 extra points of stuff, which is *way* outside of the established design slipways. > But both Harrod and Dr. Jest have titles which are always useful which Ian > Does not. See above. The existance of titles or not is irrelevant. Ian is an 8 point vampire with 26+ points in disciplines. This is not ok. > Oh, how about diablerizing your Arika, or your Basilia, or your Parnassus. > It would really suck to be trying to protect your key vampire from a 3 point > muchkin, but because your blocking 10 cap doesn't have fortitude then you > have to make the choice of either letting a diablerie succeed or having 2 > vampires in torpor But you could do that (diablerize Arika) just as well with a 2 point vampire with obf, or a 4 point vampire with FOR, or a 2 point vampire with for and a skill card. That the vampire is a 3 with FOR hardly strikes me a a huge imposition on the game. > I would not. Nor would I be happy with a 3 point ANI, 3 point DOM, 3 point > OBF, 3 point OBT, 3 point DEM, 3 point CHI or the existing 3 point PRE. But there are multiple 4 point vamps with OBF and 4 point vamps with DOM already. Is the 1 pool saving really *that* significant? > A 3 point POT doesn't bother me nor would a 3 point VIC. I'd love a 3 point POT vampire, but when it comes down to it, if I were willing to use a 3 point vampire with POT, why wouldn't I be willing to use a 4 point vampire with POT/x? Sure, if you already have a crypt using them all, a 3 point POT vamp would be good, but another 4 point POT/x vamp would be just as good, and possibly better. -Peter

Curevei wrote: > Why not criticize the design template instead? As has been mentioned, the > value of disciplines past 3 is negligible. So, why count them at all? This is certainly a valid viewpoint. I agree that the design template leaves a bit to be desired. But that is what is used to build all the vampires in the game, and all of them fit within the formula (with what I consider an acceptible margin of error of +/-2 points), *except* Ian, who is outside the realm of error by ~20 points. Could criticize the design template, but that is slightly more futile than criticizing Ian :-) [ quoted text not captured ]

Alex Broadhead wrote: > That he is also misusing the formula somewhat (as Norm has pointed > out, Ian's extra disciplines should be counted as a 3-pt. special, not > as N points worth of inferiors, where N is increasing with > expansions), makes this objectivity even more strange. But as pointed out at length (in some other message :-), the 3 point special ability is, for all practical purposes, identical to simply having N extra inferior disciplines printed on his card. If there were a greater functional difference between Ian's special ability and simply having N extra inferior disciplines, this argument would be solid. There isn't, however, a significant difference. The lack of having the N disciplines printed on his card is detrimental in the case of 4 cards--Kiss of Ra, Speed of Thought, Meat Hook, amd Sanguine Instruction. For the purposes of every other card in the game, Ian's special ability is identical to simply having N extra inferior disciplines printed on his card. [ quoted text not captured ]

-Snip most of your analysis, which I agreed with- > SER would probably be a bad idea, comparable to DEM; (Superior cloak given as the reason given for DEM being too scary) IMO these are not really comparable - a DEM 3-cap would be powerful for a couple more reasons: 1) Pure DEM is workable. Kindred Spirits + Confusion is a strong combo and cycles easily. In theory, games could be won with just these two cards. 2) Vampire selection: as you stated, heaps of Malk/!Malk have OBF for the cloak. 3) DEM on it's own, is a *lot* better than Dem. Most dem stuff at inferior really is inferior. With just Dem, Kindred Spirits / Confusion becomes a pretty crappy combo. But SER on a 3-cap is relatively weak: 1) SER doesn't stand alone so well. It doesn't have a free, repeatable, easily cycleable, two-card, game-winning combo. 2) The FoS mid-caps tend to be crappy WRT disciplines - OBF SER (7,8,8) is rare / expensive compared to OBF DEM (6,6,7,8,8,8,8). 3) Serpentis on it's own is not much improved by having the superior level. A SER 3-cap would be only a little stronger than the existing Ser 2-cap: either way, the vamp would be quite depleted after doing something decent like Temptation + Form of the Seprent. The difference would be just 1 counter on the tempt. ...a new 3 cap with ser & obf, now *that* would be strong.

>> Here again, you are mistaken. He does not have an extra 20 points worth of >> stuff. There are many cards that Ian is useless for (i.e. Sanguine >> Instruction). > >Ok. 4 cards. Sanguine Instruction. Kiss of Ra. Speed of Thought. Meat Hook. >Out of a thousand cards. .04% of the time, Ian suffers from not actually >having disciplines printed on him. The other 99.96% of the time, Ian simply >has 20 inferior disciplines printed on his card. Cards that don't work with Ian's special: #1. Sanguine Instruction #2. Kiss of Ra #3. Speed of Thought #4. Meat Hook (Already listed). You forgot about: #5. Abandoning the Flesh #6. Madman's Quill #7. Summon the Serpent #8. Vial of Elder Vitae #9. Camarilla Vitae Slave #10. Feral Spirit #11. (The special wouldn't work with Soul Painting inferior, if Ian didn't have AUS himself). #12. (The special wouldn't work with Sabbat Inquisitor, if Ian didn't have THA himself). #13. His special doesn't allow him to use Flight cards. He also really can't benefit from the use of any Sanguinus cards since he has no special Circle. So ha! Take that Bakija! You're getting old and slipping! =P Also, note that his special can be shut down by Seeds of Corruption. Halcyan 2

So, in conclusion...how many disciplines does Ian have again? :D Seriously though, I'm not sure if this really breaks Ian as it's rare that you're gonna use all of his disciplines. These extra disciplines, however, do make Ian an extremely flexible vampire and a pretty good addition to almost any deck using Thaumaturgy. I'm not sure really what I'm saying or if I even have a point, but I'd love to get my hands on an Ian if I could.

Peter D Bakija <PD...@bigplanet.com> wrote in message news:<BA9D0E57.D33C%PD...@bigplanet.com>... > XZealot wrote: <snip> > > Yet he does exist, and he isn't that great. > > The greateness (or lack therof) is irrelevant. He is an 8 point vampire with > 26+ points of disciplines. No one would ever consider that releasing an 8 > point vampire with 3 superior and 20 inferior disciplines printed on the > card. Hmmmm, I don't agree here. The greatness (or lack thereof) is very very relevant. Ian, as he moves around the current VTES scene, is not overpowered, and thus a succesful piece of design. Only the decks that really need his special make use of him, and in that case, the use they get out of his special is worth about the same as him having 2 or 3 additional inferior disciplines - which is basically what his special states. I haven't yet really seen a (succesful) deck that uses more of his 'disciplines', except, of course, for the HoS-Ian decks. And that deck may be annoying, but is not overpowered, as far as I can tell. Unless the future holds changes/cards that make Ian's special 'better' than the roughly three points it's worth now, Ian is fairly balanced. Removing Ian from the game due to his design ('flaw'?) is not neccesary, right? Tobias Deventer

> Ok. 4 cards. Sanguine Instruction. Kiss of Ra. Speed of Thought. Meat Hook. > Out of a thousand cards. .04% of the time, Ian suffers from not actually > having disciplines printed on him. The other 99.96% of the time, Ian simply > has 20 inferior disciplines printed on his card. What about all those Daimonion cards, that he cannot use 'cause he isn't infernal...?, well who knows maybe someday the Infernal pact will be errated and make the vamp infernal, it would have sense (maybe removing pool cost...) Greetings, Iñaki, Prince of Barcelona.-

I agree. Ian Forrestal is clearly owerpowered and I've seen his speciel being severely abused in several decks. I really don't know what the contructors was thinking when making him.

na...@hotmail.com (Al) wrote in message news:<649ee5dc.0303...@posting.google.com>... [ quoted text not captured ] Hi there, Anytime you happen to be in/around Belgium (Europe), your problem should be solved. Got lots of Ian's floating around here (same in the rest of Europe I think), and nobody's perticularly fond or emotionally atached to him, so getting them should be nooo problem at all.. This is one of the reasons europeans can't relate realy well to this "Ian-" madness that seems to have gotten hold of other parts of the world.. greetz Jo

halc...@aol.com (Halcyan 2) wrote in message news:<20030318231853...@mb-mo.aol.com>... [ quoted text not captured ] #14 The Call aus/ani/dem deck with Rachel Brandywine, Maris Streck, Little Tailor, Korah and Ian can't use the call to influence Ian out. Same problem for madman's quill above. #15 Summon the Serpent #16 Haven Affinity If it was 20 inferiors on the card, clan impersonate to Tzimisce, Ian blocks anything and has 20 superior disciplines for combat. Ian might bend the costing guidelines, but it doesn't make him uber powerful, just uber flexible.

In message <mZ_ca.5413$8s4.711@fed1read01>, Kevin M. <you...@imaspammer.org> writes: >James. Buddy. You're trying to tell me that *from a game standpoint* >Anvil, Sela, et.al, are "uncomfortably too powerful"? Jessica is >stupidly powerful then too, right? You appear to have conflated "uncomfortably too powerful" and "stupidly powerful". Un-conflating them may aid you. -- James Coupe PGP Key: 0x5D623D5D EBD690ECD7A1FB457CA2 Hi! I'm Nancy Drew! You must be the Hardy Boys! 13D7E668C3695D623D5D

> ...a new 3 cap with ser & obf, now *that* would be strong. Let me introduce you to.... Celine Chevalier ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ---- Clan: Followers of Set Capacity: 3 Independent Group: 2 Artist(s): Christopher Shy Set(s): *Final Nights * Set card was introduced Disciplines : Inferior Obfuscate Inferior Serpentis [ quoted text not captured ]

> > Cards that don't work with Ian's special: > > #1. Sanguine Instruction > #2. Kiss of Ra > #3. Speed of Thought > #4. Meat Hook > > (Already listed). You forgot about: > > #5. Abandoning the Flesh > #6. Madman's Quill > #7. Summon the Serpent > #8. Vial of Elder Vitae > #9. Camarilla Vitae Slave > #10. Feral Spirit > Halcyan 2 And then : #11 Beast Meld #12 Elemental Stoicism #13 Feline Saboteur #14 Iron Heart #15 Muricia's Call #16 Shadow Feint Since he has neither discipline required for playing the card.

"Peter D Bakija" <PD...@bigplanet.com> wrote in message news:BA9D0E57.D33C%PD...@bigplanet.com... > XZealot wrote: > > > So what you are saying is that a vampire may be hamstrung by its discipline > > combonation under the costing system, but never benifit from it. That > > doesn't make any sense. > > Hamstrung? Vampires should pay for the abilities they have, as that is how > they are built. The vast majority of the vampires pay the same amount and > get the appropriate amount of stuff for their capacity. Ian Forrestal > doesn't pay for his 20+ extra inferior disciplines. This is not a good > thing. But he doesn't have 20+ extra inferior disciplines. > > Actually he fits in perfectly with the design rules. You just don't like > > his special. > > Well, yes, 'cause his "special ability" is "Ian Forrestal has 20+ extra > inferior disciplines". If Ian had 20+ inferior disciplines printed on him, > that would clearly be wrong. But instead of having 20+ inferior disciplines > printed on him, he has a special ability which (except for the existance of > 3 cards) is identical to having 20+ inferior disciplines printed on him. > Would it be ok to print an 8 point vampire who came with 3 superior > disciplines and 20 inferior disciplines? Obviously it would break current design rules. > > Ian pays for his 6 points in disciplines he also pays 3 points for his > > special. 3 points for a special is alot. It better be damn special. Ian's > > is. > > But Ian's special is "Ian has 20+ inferior disciplines". If any other > vampire has extra disciplines, they pay for them with capacity. For those > three points, Ian should have gotten 3 extra disciplines at inferior. Not > 20. If his special ability was somehow actually different than simply having > 20+ inferior disciplines, then he'd probably be fine. If his special was > something along the lines of: > > "When Ian enters play, choose a discipline Ian doesn't have. Ian may play > cards that require the chosen discipline at the inferior level." In effect the reality is "When Ian enters play, choose two disciplines that Ian doesn't have. Ian may play cards that require the chosen discipline at the inferior level." > "Ian may burn 1 blood to play a card requiring a discipline he doesn't > possess at the inferior level." This would make him wallpaper. [ quoted text not captured ] Again, he does not have 26+ inferior disciplines. There are a huge amount of cards that he cannot use. They are listed in this thread but I will reproduce them here. #1. Sanguine Instruction #2. Kiss of Ra #3. Speed of Thought #4. Meat Hook #5. Abandoning the Flesh #6. Madman's Quill #7. Summon the Serpent #8. Vial of Elder Vitae #9. Camarilla Vitae Slave #10. Feral Spirit #11.Anathema #12.Archon #13.Beyond Reproach #14 The Call #15 Summon the Serpent #16 Haven Affinity Blood Feast Blood Hunt Blood of the Sabbat Blood Siege Bloodbath Cardinal Sin: Failure of Mission Closed Session Cardinal Sin: Insubordination Consecration Rites Corruption's Purge Creation Rites Eternal Vigilance Fifth Tradition: Hospitality, The Fire Dance First Tradition: The Masquerade, The Fourth Tradition: The Accounting, The Imperial Decree Investiture Judgment: Camarilla Segregation Judgment: Death to the Brujah! Kindred Restructure Legacy of Power Masquerade Enforcement Might of the Camarilla National Guard Support Of Noble Blood Parity Shift Private Audience Protect Thine Own Purchase Pact Reinforcements Sabbat Inquisitor Sabbat Threat Second Tradition: Domain, The Sixth Tradition: Destruction, The Templar Temptation of Greater Power Third Tradition: Progeny, The Tradition Upheld Vaulderie War Party Wrath of the Inner Circle in addition, you may only use these Daimonion cards in the outferior. as they require an infernal vampire, Concordance Condemnation: Betrayed Condemnation: Doomed Condemnation: Languid Contagion > Ok. 4 cards. Sanguine Instruction. Kiss of Ra. Speed of Thought. Meat Hook. > Out of a thousand cards. .04% of the time, Ian suffers from not actually > having disciplines printed on him. The other 99.96% of the time, Ian simply > has 20 inferior disciplines printed on his card. As you can see above, Ian can not play a great many more than 4 out of your 1000 cards. > > What is your measuring stick? Soley based on a formula which is a guide. > > A guide that powers every other vampire in the game. Sure, a few vampires > are a point or two high or a point or two low, but Ian is 20 some odd points > high. > > > You are being entirely subjective when the objective value of a vampire is > > how powerful/useful a vampire is. Ian is the ultimate in utility, yet very > > low on the power curve. > > Oh, I agree. I don't think Ian is particularly useful at all (well, except > as the engine that drives that *incredibly* annoying Egotha deck...). He is > just wrong in a design sense, and as such, shouldn't exist. Actually, it took someone with vision to design him because at first glace he looks to break all the rules, and yet, he doesn't affect play that much. > > Yet Ian doesn't have those disciplines. > > But for all practical purposes, he does. Again, if there were a functional > difference between his special ability and simply having 20 extra inferior > disciplines printed on his card (other than the effect of 4 cards), then I'd > be right there with you. But there isn't a functional difference. Thus, he > simply has 20 extra inferior disciplines printed on his card. And as such, > gets ~20 extra points of stuff, which is *way* outside of the established > design slipways. > > > But both Harrod and Dr. Jest have titles which are always useful which Ian > > Does not. See above. > > The existance of titles or not is irrelevant. Ian is an 8 point vampire with > 26+ points in disciplines. This is not ok. Again, he does not have 26+ points in disciplines. He has 6 points and a special. > > Oh, how about diablerizing your Arika, or your Basilia, or your Parnassus. > > It would really suck to be trying to protect your key vampire from a 3 point > > muchkin, but because your blocking 10 cap doesn't have fortitude then you > > have to make the choice of either letting a diablerie succeed or having 2 > > vampires in torpor > > But you could do that (diablerize Arika) just as well with a 2 point vampire > with obf, or a 4 point vampire with FOR, or a 2 point vampire with for and a > skill card. That the vampire is a 3 with FOR hardly strikes me a a huge > imposition on the game. Because I can intercept a 2 pt with obf without fear of taking a dirt nap. Your 4 pt doesn't exist either. A two point with a skill card still has to hunt to be able to play KoR. > > I would not. Nor would I be happy with a 3 point ANI, 3 point DOM, 3 point > > OBF, 3 point OBT, 3 point DEM, 3 point CHI or the existing 3 point PRE. > > But there are multiple 4 point vamps with OBF and 4 point vamps with DOM > already. Is the 1 pool saving really *that* significant? Yes, it is a savings of 25% or 3% of your initial pool. These are very signifigant. > > A 3 point POT doesn't bother me nor would a 3 point VIC. > > I'd love a 3 point POT vampire, but when it comes down to it, if I were > willing to use a 3 point vampire with POT, why wouldn't I be willing to use > a 4 point vampire with POT/x? Sure, if you already have a crypt using them > all, a 3 point POT vamp would be good, but another 4 point POT/x vamp would > be just as good, and possibly better. I am glad we agree on one thing. POT is good. Otherwise, I think we must agree to disagree. [ quoted text not captured ]

"Alex Broadhead" <wum...@attbi.com> wrote in message news:15a537b3.03031...@posting.google.com... > Howdy, > > <mucho snippage of relatively redundant argumentation on the > merits/flaws of Ian> > > Re: Ian > > > > Again, the issue is not that he is too good. It is that he is incorrect. A > > > bad idea. > > > > What is your measuring stick? Soley based on a formula which is a guide. > > You are being entirely subjective when the objective value of a vampire is > > how powerful/useful a vampire is. Ian is the ultimate in utility, yet very > > low on the power curve. > > Actually, I would have said Peter was being much, much more objective > than I would have expected - in the sense of needlessly sticking to > the 'objective' measure of goodness that the formula provides, when it > seems clear to me that more subjective measures of goodness (like play > experience) are more relevant. I wouldn't call it objective. I would call it myopic. No offense intended to Peter. > That he is also misusing the formula somewhat (as Norm has pointed > out, Ian's extra disciplines should be counted as a 3-pt. special, not > as N points worth of inferiors, where N is increasing with > expansions), makes this objectivity even more strange. Exactly.... > Anyway, however you want to term it (objective, subjective, > subjunctive, pluscuamperfecto, whatever), I just don't see a need to > reify the formula, especially given the fact that it has evolved > several times now. It seems clear that not all disciplines or > discipline combos are equal. The formula gives a decent benchmark for > approximate power (though it sounds to me like Curevei may have a > better one, so perhaps more evolution is ahead), but it's not a > substitute for designer judgement. Put another way: since when does > 'correctness' matter, unless you don't trust the designers, in which > case, I'd argue, no amount of correctness will help. > > > Re: Prince Michael > > > > I'd be perfectly happy with a 3 point FOR vamp, m'self. > > As I pointed out in the initial post, I figured Prince Mike might be > controversial. But despite all the back-and-forth, I still don't > really have a hard-and-fast reason why. All the usual suspects have > been mentioned (Force of Will, Daring, Kiss of Ra), and the usual > counter (there's just not much you can do with fortitude only) has > also been deployed; I guess I was hoping there might be some sharper > rationale against it. I'm still in favor of running it into > playtesting and seeing who salutes. Fire away, and let us know what happens. [ quoted text not captured ]

"XZealot" <x_ze...@cox-internet.com> wrote in message news:v7d4e06...@corp.supernews.com... [re Moncada versus Alexandra] > It costs Alexandra 2 points for her untap special. It should cost Moncada > the same. It's probably kind of nitpicky to get this in-depth about the point formulas for specific vampires, but anyway... Moncada's untap special is *vastly* inferior to Alexandra's. You can use Alexandra's *any time* during your turn. That means you can take an additional action with it. Moncada's is only during discard, which means you can only block with it. As defensive play is inherently less strong than offensive, I really think Moncada should only pay 1 point for his untap-other special. > You are mistaken about the blood cost. It is 1 pool not 1 blood. That is > easily worth 1 point. Especially when a potence fanatic like yourself is > lurking around. :) I'll grant a point for the "pool to (D) action against" ability. That still makes him 10 in disciplines, 2 for specials, 1.5 for title, -1.5 for can't block (IMO). 12 net points for a 10 cap is standard formula these days. (Can't block is a pretty major disadvantage on a vampire, hence my costing it at a 1.5 point disad. Even if it were only 1 point, it'd still make him "close enough" to the formula values.) > Here again, you are mistaken. He does not have an extra 20 points worth of > stuff. There are many cards that Ian is useless for (i.e. Sanguine > Instruction). Look, fine, Ian "doesn't have" the disciplines he can play cards for, and there are a (relatively) few cards that that matters for. But *all other vampires* in the game do have to "spend" their formula points on being able to play cards for various disciplines, even if they will realistically never actually play a single card in particular disciplines. To claim that on Ian it should only be worth 3 points to be able to play cards for 20 different disciplines, while on Vincent Day it's worth 5 points to be able to play cards for 5 different disciplines... well, it's just not sensible. Yes, Ian Forrestal's ability is written as a special ability instead of as discipline symbols. But that doesn't mean it's not comparable to other vampires' inferior disciplines. Josh gone overboard

>Ian Forrestal Slow to notice the thread's title myself and, sure, people have been misspelling the card's name for a long time, but it's Forestal. Would be nice to see it misspelled somewhat less. Maybe it helps to have read the Chronicles of Thomas Covenant where the Forestals are the entlike protectors of the forests. Or, maybe it has helped to have written out decklists with the card.

> Hi there, > Anytime you happen to be in/around Belgium (Europe), your problem > should be solved. > Got lots of Ian's floating around here (same in the rest of Europe I > think), and nobody's perticularly fond or emotionally atached to him, > so getting them should be nooo problem at all.. > This is one of the reasons europeans can't relate realy well to this > "Ian-" madness that seems to have gotten hold of other parts of the > world.. > > > greetz > Jo Hrm...I don't know if I have "Ian Madness," I just really like the Tremere and would like to have as many options open in deck building as possible...granted he is a Tremere-antitribu, but in the card game they're pretty much the same thing, eh?

"Hollowboy" <icantbelievehollow...@hotmail.com> wrote in message news:614f2a39.03031...@posting.google.com... > -Snip most of your analysis, which I agreed with- > > > SER would probably be a bad idea, comparable to DEM; > (Superior cloak given as the reason given for DEM being too scary) > > IMO these are not really comparable - a DEM 3-cap would be powerful > for a couple more reasons: > > 1) Pure DEM is workable. Kindred Spirits + Confusion is a strong combo > and cycles easily. In theory, games could be won with just these two > cards. > 2) Vampire selection: as you stated, heaps of Malk/!Malk have OBF for > the cloak. > 3) DEM on it's own, is a *lot* better than Dem. Most dem stuff at > inferior really is inferior. With just Dem, Kindred Spirits / > Confusion becomes a pretty crappy combo. > ok, beeing the DEM nut that i am i just wanna jump in here and say. GIMME A 3-CAP DEM VAMP Kindred Spirits, Confusion, Deny!, even Passion, are at least twice as good at superior, not to mention you got a nice little Coma bomb walkin around. -- Oscar Garza Prince of College Station, Tx The Crazy Aggie

Howdy, > I agree. Ian Forrestal is clearly owerpowered and I've seen his > speciel being severely abused in several decks. I really don't know > what the contructors was thinking when making him. This is sarcasm, right? If not, could you clue us in as to how those decks were abusive, or even how they worked? 'Cause I have yet to find a really compelling use for Ian, though I suppose Agaitas abuse might be a decent one... Really wonderin', Alex

Sorry Peter, you are still repeating the same fact "Ian has 20+ disciplines, bla bla". But that really doesn't prove, that IAN Forestal is overpowered. Did you ever play with Ian Forestal before? That is the experience, that will show you, that he is not overpowered. OK, let's have some examples> You play a Tremere Antitirbu deck or Tremere using only aus, tha , dom. Nothing else. Ian Forestal i a really bad deck for Tremere if ou don't play some out-of-clan disciplines. He is a 8-cap vampire with 3 superriors, sorry, he is too big. He has no votes. Kij Dansky is much better, than Ian. She has 3 votes and the obtenebration ,that !Tremere use (and she is really hot - see the illustration). Ian Forestal is a vampire, that is useful in decks, that need disciplines , htat he doesn't posses, but can play. But consider, the fact, that those disciplines are at INFERIOR. Decks do not use more than 3 or 4 different disciplines very often. In most of cases you combine some of his superior disciplines with some inferior. But how many inferior discipliunes do you use? Let's say 1 or 2. And then see that you have a vampire vith one or two Superiors and 1 or 2 inferiors for 8-pool. Sorry, but he is as good as any other vampire in such deck, or he is even worse, because he has only inferior version of disciplines you have to use. On one hand, he has many disciplines, but how many of them will he use in a normal deck? Let's say tha you have a vampire, that is like a JOKER, because you can add him into you crypt, when you don't have enough vampires with suitable disciplines. But that does make him as good as any other vampire in your crypt. Also he is not of the same clan as you vampires, if you play a clan-based-crypt, so you can not play some special cards for that clan with him. There are also cards like Kiss of Ra, or other mentioned here, that do harm to him ecause he doesn't really posses those disciplines. I see that Ian is a normal vampire, that can be used in many decks, but doesn't give you any advantage if you have him in play. Also the decision to make him a !Tremere was good idea. If you are really looking for an overpowered vampire, then see Jimmy Dunn. That is a little bastard wit 2 superiors and 1 inferior for 4-caps only. JImmy is not about 5 points in disciplines for 4-pool, but about those disciplines. You have a 4-cap vampire with POT CEL and for? That should annoy you, because he is small and quic and powerful in combat. WIN -------------------- www.gamesweb.sk -------------------- ICQ: 120285202 Mobil: +421/907/165787

Halcyan 2 wrote: > Cards that don't work with Ian's special: > > #1. Sanguine Instruction > #2. Kiss of Ra > #3. Speed of Thought > #4. Meat Hook > > (Already listed). You forgot about: > > #5. Abandoning the Flesh > #6. Madman's Quill > #7. Summon the Serpent > #8. Vial of Elder Vitae > #9. Camarilla Vitae Slave > #10. Feral Spirit Ok, then, what, 10 cards (although the disadvantage to Vial of Elder Vitae is a stretch). That means, what, 1% of the time it is a problem that he doesn't have the disciplines printed on his card, and 99% of the time, it doesn't? > So ha! Take that Bakija! You're getting old and slipping! =P Yeah. and my estimation of 1000 cards is probably wrong too... [ quoted text not captured ]

Tobias wrote: > Hmmmm, I don't agree here. The greatness (or lack thereof) is very > very relevant. Ian, as he moves around the current VTES scene, is not > overpowered, and thus a succesful piece of design. I'm not claiming that he breaks the game, or even has that big of an effect on the game, as he doesn't. I'm just claiming that Ian was a bad idea and should not exist. > Unless the future holds changes/cards that make Ian's special 'better' > than the roughly three points it's worth now, Ian is fairly balanced. Ian is as balanced as any 8 point vampire with 26 some odd points of disciplines would be. > > Removing Ian from the game due to his design ('flaw'?) is not > neccesary, right? I never said he should be removed. Or even changed. Just that in an absolute sense, he should never have been made. And all things willing, a similar vampire will not ever be made again. [ quoted text not captured ]

Matt wrote: > Ian might bend the costing guidelines, but it doesn't make him uber > powerful, just uber flexible. And again, I never claimed he was super powerful. Just wrong. And shouldn't exist. He is uber flexible. As flexible as any 8 point vampire with every discipline in the game would be. He simply shouldn't be that flexible. [ quoted text not captured ]

XZealot wrote: > But he doesn't have 20+ extra inferior disciplines. For all practical purposes, he does. Please explain how his special ability, in practice, differes from simply having 20+ extra inferior disciplines? Yes. There are a handfull of cards, for which it is important. A small handfull. 10? Other than that, please explain. > Obviously it would break current design rules. Yet Ian does not, by virtue of his special being virtually identical to simply having 20 extra disciplines being printed on his card? > In effect the reality is "When Ian enters play, choose two disciplines that > Ian doesn't have. Ian may play cards that require the chosen discipline at > the inferior level." Or three or four. Or all of the disciplines your prey has in their deck when Egotha draws all of their cards. And when you put a skill card on him, he gets the superior version. > This would make him wallpaper. How? He could play any card in the game. Paying a blood to do it strikes me as perfectly reasonable. Heck. Give him a title to go with it. > Again, he does not have 26+ inferior disciplines. There are a huge amount > of cards that he cannot use. They are listed in this thread but I will > reproduce them here. > > #1. Sanguine Instruction > #2. Kiss of Ra > #3. Speed of Thought > #4. Meat Hook > #5. Abandoning the Flesh > #6. Madman's Quill > #7. Summon the Serpent > #8. Vial of Elder Vitae > #9. Camarilla Vitae Slave > #10. Feral Spirit > #11.Anathema > #12.Archon > #13.Beyond Reproach > #14 The Call > #15 Summon the Serpent > #16 Haven Affinity... > As you can see above, Ian can not play a great many more than 4 out of your > 1000 cards. A large number of the cards you mention cannot be played by Ian for reasons that have *nothing* to do with his lack of having disciplines printed on him. Yes, he doesn't have flight. And he isn't Infernal. And he isn't Camarilla. Or a Prince or Justicar. Or Bishop. None of this has any connection to his lack of discipline symbols printed on him. What I am looking at is the difference between an 8 point vampire with 3 superior and 20 inferior discilines and Ian. The difference is extemely minimal. Yet if an 8 point vampire with 3 superiors and 20 inferiors was printed, it would be very clear that it was a mistake. Ian just hides behind a "special ability" that is virtually identical to simply having 20 extra disciplines printed on him. > Actually, it took someone with vision to design him because at first glace > he looks to break all the rules, and yet, he doesn't affect play that much. Not seeing it so much. > Again, he does not have 26+ points in disciplines. He has 6 points and a > special. A special that is functionally identical in the vast, vast majority of cases to simply having 20 extra inferior disciplines printed on him. [ quoted text not captured ]

WIN wrote: > Sorry Peter, you are still repeating the same fact "Ian has 20+ > disciplines, bla bla". But that really doesn't prove, that IAN > Forestal is overpowered. For the love of G'Quan. I have never claimed that Ian Forrestal is overpowered. I have never claimed that he breaks the game. I have been very clear about this. Ian Forrestal was a bad idea. Ian Forrestal sets a bad precident. Ian Forrestal was a complete disregarding of the vampire design templates that run the game. Ian Forrestal should not have been desgined for these reasons. Not because he is too powerful. Ian Forrestal is, for the vast majority of situations, simply an 8 point vampire with 3 superior disciplines and 20+ inferior disciplines. If such a vampire were printed, it would be clear that such a vampire should not exist. Why people don't see that this is the case for Ian is beyond me. [ quoted text not captured ]

XZealot wrote: > I wouldn't call it objective. I would call it myopic. No offense intended > to Peter. None taken. I'm not het up about this or anything. I'm just sure I'm right :-) [ quoted text not captured ]

Curevei wrote: > Slow to notice the thread's title myself and, sure, people have been > misspelling the card's name for a long time, but it's Forestal. Would be nice > to see it misspelled somewhat less. Eh, ya know. Double rr's. I can't get het up about double letter errors. [ quoted text not captured ]

Peter D Bakija wrote: > > What I am looking at is the difference between an 8 point vampire > with 3 superior and 20 inferior discilines and Ian. The difference is > extemely minimal. Yet if an 8 point vampire with 3 superiors and 20 > inferiors was printed, it would be very clear that it was a mistake. > Ian just hides behind a "special ability" that is virtually identical > to simply having 20 extra disciplines printed on him. > It is the same. But they are both worth about 8 pool. Having that many disciplines is next to worthless. I don't think that printing a vampire like that would be a mistake, besides aesthetically. Even if you made 12 distinct vampires like that, they still wouldn't be overpowered or undercosted. They fit right into design standards, in my opinion, it is the 11 caps who pay too much for their useless unless you build a deck around them disciplines. Colin Riggs

> How? He could play any card in the game. Paying a blood to do it strikes me > as perfectly reasonable. Heck. Give him a title to go with it. BING!!! Now you get it. He doesn't have a title. He is effectively a 8 cap with no special who can play any card in the game at inferior. Well blow me over! He sucks. If I am going to spend the time and resources to influence out a eight cap then he better just kick ass or help me politically. Every other vampire in the game is a better spend than Ian Forestal. [ quoted text not captured ] Then you should lower your "1000" cards to about 453 which is less than half of your original number. This is a difference of 500+ cards, making you wildly erroneous. > What I am looking at is the difference between an 8 point vampire with 3 > superior and 20 inferior discilines and Ian. The difference is extemely > minimal. Yet if an 8 point vampire with 3 superiors and 20 inferiors was > printed, it would be very clear that it was a mistake. Ian just hides behind > a "special ability" that is virtually identical to simply having 20 extra > disciplines printed on him. The key word being virtually identical, you know kind of like virtual reality. Is it reality, no. It is identical, no. It is not the same. > > Actually, it took someone with vision to design him because at first glace > > he looks to break all the rules, and yet, he doesn't affect play that much. > > Not seeing it so much. Are you trying to argue that he does affect play alot when he hits the table? Say like Dragos? or Mensheka? or any other 8 cap in the game who is better than him 99.9% of the time. > > Again, he does not have 26+ points in disciplines. He has 6 points and a > > special. > > A special that is functionally identical in the vast, vast majority of cases > to simply having 20 extra inferior disciplines printed on him. But yet is not. Putting Ian Forestal in your crypt is a desparation move. Ian Forestal is a vampire that you put in your deck when one other copy of the 586 other vampires in the game won't do. Because there is almost always a better vampire to do the job than Ian Forestal. I am glad the Agitas deck actually focuses on him. That is cool. [ quoted text not captured ]

XZealot wrote: > BING!!! Now you get it. He doesn't have a title. There are mutliple 8 point vampires without titles. They all have to pay for their extra disciplines, even if they don't use them. Why doesn't Ian? Oh, wait. Cause he has a special ability that does it for him. >If I am going to spend the time and resources to influence > out a eight cap then he better just kick ass or help me politically. This doesn't help, say, Ebaneezer Roush. He neither kicks ass nor helps you politically. Yet he only has 4 disciplines. Not 26. > Then you should lower your "1000" cards to about 453 which is less than half > of your original number. This is a difference of 500+ cards, making you > wildly erroneous. Making the percentage of time his lack of printed disciplines becomes an actual issue into 2%. I'm willing to accept 2% as negligible. > The key word being virtually identical, you know kind of like virtual > reality. Is it reality, no. It is identical, no. It is not the same. Most of the time, it is. The vast most of the time. > Are you trying to argue that he does affect play alot when he hits the > table? Nope. Never have. I believe I started this whole discussion by pointing out that he isn't particularly useful. But that isn't the point. > But yet is not. Putting Ian Forestal in your crypt is a desparation move. Putting a lot of vampires in your deck is a desperation move. Yet all those other vampires have to pay (in terms of capacity or lack of other abilities) to get all of their inferior disciplines. Billy is a 5 point vampire with 5 inferior disciplines. How often is he going to use all of them? Yet for some reason he doesn't gen an extra 15 disciplines to go along with them. Harrod has 6 disciplines. He'll never use all of them at once. Yet he still pays for them. [ quoted text not captured ]

"XZealot" <x_ze...@cox-internet.com> wrote in message news:<v7h4tbp...@corp.supernews.com>... > > ...a new 3 cap with ser & obf, now *that* would be strong. > > Let me introduce you to.... > > Celine Chevalier -<snip cut n pate from Monger>- I guess that's very clever, if Celine fits your definition of new ;-) Being a newish player myself, I didn't pick up the FoS until Final Nights*, so to me Celine is old hat. Another FoS just like her would be fresh 'n' tasty hat. *They were printed in AH, I think. And AH was insanely, prohibitively expensive when I started playing - I think I could get 7 boxes of the original Jyhad for the price of 1 box of AH... no contest, really.

On Wed, 19 Mar 2003 17:04:02 -0500, Peter D Bakija <PD...@bigplanet.com> wrote: >Curevei wrote: > >> Slow to notice the thread's title myself and, sure, people have been >> misspelling the card's name for a long time, but it's Forestal. Would be nice >> to see it misspelled somewhat less. > >Eh, ya know. Double rr's. I can't get het up about double letter errors. Followed the previous thread a bit, and can agree with you (Peter) that Ian breaks the point scale. However, after all the contemplative posts of gloom and doom when he was released back in "The Sabbat", I have yet to see him as the supposed gamebreaker that he was projected to be way back when. It is a bit odd how he can mesh with the Bloodlines disciplines, and yet again I'm not convinced that he's really proven all that good in Bloodlines decks. In theory he should really rock with the independent clans as they were produced with Discipline:Skill cards. One skill card = instant mastery Though I have yet to hear of any dominant Ian deck making the rounds. So while he may screw the point system, but for actual play value I would argue that he is appropriately costed. I would even go as far to say he'd be just as balanced (if not better balanced) as a 7-cap. Putting him out of reach of cards that give benefits to the 8+ crowd, and too old to benefit from the cards for the 6 and under group. >Peter D Bakija >PD...@bigplanet.com BernieTime Lansing, Michigan

Peter D Bakija wrote: > For the love of G'Quan. I have never claimed that Ian Forrestal is > overpowered. I have never claimed that he breaks the game. I have been very > clear about this. > > Ian Forrestal was a bad idea. Ian Forrestal sets a bad precident. Ian > Forrestal was a complete disregarding of the vampire design templates that > run the game. Ian Forrestal should not have been desgined for these reasons. If you add that point to the fact that (as you've conceded) Ian is *not* overpowered, then I think what it says is that the design templates are flawed in some way. And, in fact, that's true: one of the big drawbacks of high cap vampires is the fact that, beyond a certain a point, it's very difficult to make use many more than 2 or 3 disciplines in a single deck. I've never seen a design template that acknowledges that point exactly (though perhaps one or some have, as I don't pay much attention to the design template debates). > Not because he is too powerful. Ian Forrestal is, for the vast majority of > situations, simply an 8 point vampire with 3 superior disciplines and 20+ > inferior disciplines. If such a vampire were printed, it would be clear that > such a vampire should not exist. Why people don't see that this is the case > for Ian is beyond me. Well, maybe it would help if you'd point out a more understandable objection, other than, "Ian demonstrates that the existing design template is flawed." I'm not saying there aren't other reasonable objections to a card besides it being over or underpowered. I just don't think anyone's heard a good one in the case of Ian Forestal, yet. Maybe you're thinking that he turns up in decks that don't make a lot of sense in terms of the backstory (e.g. a Tremere antitribu with, say, Salubri or Baali or something)? Or that he makes certain types of wacky decks possible that really shouldn't work? I'm thinking some people care a lot more about a game making a coherent connection to "real life" (such as it applies) than others do. One reason some people can't into Chess or Go as much as others, even if they might like the strategy. Fred

"Hollowboy" <icantbelievehollow...@hotmail.com> wrote in message news:614f2a39.03031...@posting.google.com... > "XZealot" <x_ze...@cox-internet.com> wrote in message news:<v7h4tbp...@corp.supernews.com>... > > > ...a new 3 cap with ser & obf, now *that* would be strong. > > > > Let me introduce you to.... > > > > Celine Chevalier > -<snip cut n pate from Monger>- > > I guess that's very clever, if Celine fits your definition of new ;-) > > Being a newish player myself, I didn't pick up the FoS until Final > Nights*, so to me Celine is old hat. Another FoS just like her would > be fresh 'n' tasty hat. > Celine was first printed in Final Nights. [ quoted text not captured ]

Peter D Bakija wrote: > Curevei wrote: > > >>Slow to notice the thread's title myself and, sure, people have been >>misspelling the card's name for a long time, but it's Forestal. Would be nice >>to see it misspelled somewhat less. > > > Eh, ya know. Double rr's. I can't get het up about double letter errors. While we're discussing misspellings, might I point out that a few times in this thread 'Agaitas' was misspelled as 'Egotha'? :) Flux

In message <BA9E52CA.D3A1%PD...@bigplanet.com>, Peter D Bakija <PD...@bigplanet.com> mumbled something about: >WIN wrote: > >> Sorry Peter, you are still repeating the same fact "Ian has 20+ >> disciplines, bla bla". But that really doesn't prove, that IAN >> Forestal is overpowered. > >For the love of G'Quan. I have never claimed that Ian Forrestal is >overpowered. I have never claimed that he breaks the game. I have been very >clear about this. > >Ian Forrestal was a bad idea. Ian Forrestal sets a bad precident. Ian >Forrestal was a complete disregarding of the vampire design templates that >run the game. Ian Forrestal should not have been desgined for these reasons. >Not because he is too powerful. Ian Forrestal is, for the vast majority of >situations, simply an 8 point vampire with 3 superior disciplines and 20+ >inferior disciplines. If such a vampire were printed, it would be clear that >such a vampire should not exist. Why people don't see that this is the case >for Ian is beyond me. Because people are not taking it to the logical extreme. They're nitpicking the initial assertion, without identifying the reason Ian should not have been designed. One of the major reasons Ian should not have been designed was because now, all future cards and disciplines are forced to take Ian into account. I can only imagine the design headache that must have gone into Bloodlines, for example -- a number of disciplines with powerful cards, no skill cards, and no way to "graft" them onto other vampires. Good, a clear design field, no problem... except oops, wait, here's Fucknut who can play Vitae Block, Immortal Grapple, Withering, Apportation, and Walk of Flame. Nice. Is it broken? Of course not, especially since Withering isn't that scary at inferior, but you get the idea. SUCH a pain to deal with. Much like Soul Gem and Necromancy must be a total pain. Look at all the cards that have "remove this card/vampire from the game"? Wouldn't it be lots easier to say "burn"? Of course, but... -- "There's no gray. There's just white that's got grubby." -- T.P.

In message <3e78f8d7....@netnews.attbi.com>, berni...@attbi.comHOLDLeSPAM mumbled something about: >It is a bit odd how he can mesh with the Bloodlines disciplines, and yet >again I'm not convinced that he's really proven all that good in >Bloodlines decks. In theory he should really rock with the independent >clans as they were produced with Discipline:Skill cards. >One skill card = instant mastery >Though I have yet to hear of any dominant Ian deck making the rounds. Because if you aren't using his Dominate, Thaumaturgy, or Auspex, then Ian looks just like a 4-cap with all three inferiors. For those clans with such a 4-cap available (many to most), the 4-cap and some other in-clans with the appropriate superiors is better, because you are relying on skill cards less and spending 4 less pool. For the Bloodlines disciplines and clans, he fits in a lot better (esp. with Agaitas since you have a lot better odds of doing something besides randomly discarding stolen cards), but you still have the problem that he doesn't EVER get the superior in those disciplines -- better off just sticking in someone who has superior. For most disciplines, superior really is superior, and that's where poor old Ian is just too expensive to mess with. [ quoted text not captured ]

On Wed, 19 Mar 2003 17:00:58 -0500, Peter D Bakija <PD...@bigplanet.com> wrote: [Peter wrote stuff about Ian Forestal] Peter, I agree with you that Ian is not costed appropriately. However, since he was designed under a previous design team, I don't think there's any chance of him (or something built with a similar costing system) being built again. Heck, he probably won't even be reprinted ever, either. It would probably be good if he was, but I won't complain if he isn't. But anyway, I guess I feel that he hasn't broken the game yet, and he's not likely to at this point, because he'll always be in playtesters' minds when they're thinking about new cards and combos. Xian

Howdy, > > Sorry Peter, you are still repeating the same fact "Ian has 20+ > > disciplines, bla bla". But that really doesn't prove, that IAN > > Forestal is overpowered. > > For the love of G'Quan. I have never claimed that Ian Forrestal is > overpowered. I have never claimed that he breaks the game. I have been very > clear about this. I understand this just fine, and even gave you a platform from which to comment on it in another branch of this thread, but you dodged. I guess I'll just have to apply an Immortal Grapple this time... > Ian Forrestal was a bad idea. Ian Forrestal sets a bad precident. Ian > Forrestal was a complete disregarding of the vampire design templates that > run the game. Ian Forrestal should not have been desgined for these reasons. > Not because he is too powerful. Ian Forrestal is, for the vast majority of > situations, simply an 8 point vampire with 3 superior disciplines and 20+ > inferior disciplines. If such a vampire were printed, it would be clear that > such a vampire should not exist. Why people don't see that this is the case > for Ian is beyond me. Perhaps because such a vampire has been printed - Ian - and it wasn't that earthshattering? Now if you were to print _another_ vampire, this one an 8-cap with three superiors and the rest of the disciplines in the game at inferior, that would be bad. Because then there'd be two, and they might become usable. Plus it'd be really hard to squeeze all the symbols on the card. I just don't see 'precedent' or 'correctness' as being particularly important considerations for players (perhaps moreso for designers, though I'd even debate that), at least inasmuch as you don't seem to be using 'correct' as a synonym for 'balanced'. Unbalanced vampires (over- or underpowered, not demented) are certainly problematic, but no one is arguing that Ian is unbalanced (well, except the few that have suggested that he's a tad underpowered). 'Incorrect' vampires, who cares - if they are balanced. It's only a bad precedent if it gets followed. It's only a bad design if it isn't balanced in play. And bad designers can still be bad designers even when they follow the formulas, whereas good design often breaks the 'rules'. Anyhow, I think that's plenty of time spent on that little debate, so I guess it's time for me to come up with some more new card suggestions to spawn the next great non-flamewar... Hope that helps, Alex

Derek Ray <lor...@yahoo.com> wrote in message news:<me8i7vo57t4npj0ve...@4ax.com>... > For the Bloodlines disciplines and clans, he fits in a lot better (esp. > with Agaitas since you have a lot better odds of doing something besides > randomly discarding stolen cards), but you still have the problem that > he doesn't EVER get the superior in those disciplines -- better off just > sticking in someone who has superior. Don't forget Infernal Pact :o) One Master card => superior skill of whatever discipline you like. Maybe THIS is the right Vampire for an effective !Salubri-deck (if there is one ever).

> > It is a bit odd how he can mesh with the Bloodlines disciplines, and yet > again I'm not convinced that he's really proven all that good in > Bloodlines decks. In theory he should really rock with the independent > clans as they were produced with Discipline:Skill cards. > One skill card = instant mastery > Though I have yet to hear of any dominant Ian deck making the rounds. > >> >Peter D Bakija > >PD...@bigplanet.com > BernieTime > Lansing, Michigan Greetings to all. talking about Ian , IMHO, he愀 better than i.e Unre.Unre has ser, dom as extra disciplines, but trying a deck with thos extra disciplines without Ian is very very hard. too Ian is better than Ulugh beg ( me ? ;-) ) why? why Ian is a 8 cap vampire with any discipline that u wanna play. To the end , the special of Ian is GREAT!! and worthy of pay 8 pool for him why he fix in every deck that rely in discipline combo and as ! tremere he愀 too great. I think in Ian wit Mathias , HoS etc... Best regards a spanish drunk guy.

"Peter D Bakija" <PD...@bigplanet.com> wrote in message news:BA9E6078.D3B0%PD...@bigplanet.com... > XZealot wrote: > > > BING!!! Now you get it. He doesn't have a title. > > There are mutliple 8 point vampires without titles. They all have to pay for > their extra disciplines, even if they don't use them. Why doesn't Ian? Oh, > wait. Cause he has a special ability that does it for him. > > >If I am going to spend the time and resources to influence > > out a eight cap then he better just kick ass or help me politically. Not only does he kick ass, but he would kick your ass... if you were a vampire of capacity below 4. :) > This doesn't help, say, Ebaneezer Roush. He neither kicks ass nor helps you > politically. Yet he only has 4 disciplines. Not 26. Ebanezer Roush has an inherent rush to kill weenies. If weenies are your problems and you want to play Nossies then Ebanezer is your man. I also wanted to point out that you are using another Jyhad vampire as your example. We all know that for the most part the high caps in Jyhad were underpowered. > > Then you should lower your "1000" cards to about 453 which is less than half > > of your original number. This is a difference of 500+ cards, making you > > wildly erroneous. > > Making the percentage of time his lack of printed disciplines becomes an > actual issue into 2%. I'm willing to accept 2% as negligible. The you would be mistaken. 2% is statistically signifigant. Wouldn't you like to be making 2% more interest on your bank accounts. > > The key word being virtually identical, you know kind of like virtual > > reality. Is it reality, no. It is identical, no. It is not the same. > > Most of the time, it is. The vast most of the time. But when it doesn't it really doesn't. > > Are you trying to argue that he does affect play alot when he hits the > > table? > > Nope. Never have. I believe I started this whole discussion by pointing out > that he isn't particularly useful. But that isn't the point. > > > But yet is not. Putting Ian Forestal in your crypt is a desparation move. > > Putting a lot of vampires in your deck is a desperation move. Yet all those > other vampires have to pay (in terms of capacity or lack of other abilities) > to get all of their inferior disciplines. Billy is a 5 point vampire with 5 > inferior disciplines. How often is he going to use all of them? Yet for some > reason he doesn't gen an extra 15 disciplines to go along with them. Harrod > has 6 disciplines. He'll never use all of them at once. Yet he still pays > for them. Billy is great especiallly in combonation with Miriam Benyona. Harrod has +2 Bleed and 4 votes and you can always use those specials. [ quoted text not captured ]

"XZealot" <x_ze...@cox-internet.com> wrote: >"Peter D Bakija" <PD...@bigplanet.com> wrote in message >> Making the percentage of time his lack of printed disciplines becomes an >> actual issue into 2%. I'm willing to accept 2% as negligible. > >The you would be mistaken. 2% is statistically signifigant. Wouldn't you >like to be making 2% more interest on your bank accounts. 2% more interest wouldn't make me want to go through the trouble of moving my account from one bank to another, no. 1% (checking) now vs. 1.02% just isn't that impressive to me. Now, if the interest rate were two points higher (3% instead of 1%), I'd jump. -- L. Scott Johnson (sjoh...@math.sc.edu) http://www.math.sc.edu/~sjohnson

"L. Scott Johnson" <sjoh...@math.sc.edu> wrote in message news:b5ct9t$27q5q1$1...@ID-99714.news.dfncis.de... > "XZealot" <x_ze...@cox-internet.com> wrote: > >"Peter D Bakija" <PD...@bigplanet.com> wrote in message > >> Making the percentage of time his lack of printed disciplines becomes an > >> actual issue into 2%. I'm willing to accept 2% as negligible. > > > >The you would be mistaken. 2% is statistically signifigant. Wouldn't you > >like to be making 2% more interest on your bank accounts. > > 2% more interest wouldn't make me want to go through the trouble of > moving my account from one bank to another, no. > > 1% (checking) now vs. 1.02% just isn't that impressive to me. > > Now, if the interest rate were two points higher (3% instead of > 1%), I'd jump. Even if you had 1 billion dollars? .02% equals a difference of $200,000.00. You could go and buy yourself a Lambourgini. [ quoted text not captured ]

"XZealot" <x_ze...@cox-internet.com> wrote: >Even if you had 1 billion dollars? .02% equals a difference of $200,000.00. Spurious. I don't have a billion dollars. If I did, I doubt if I'd waste time fighting for one fiftieth of a point increase. I'd probably be out manipulating the market to get much better rates, by several orders of magnitude. >You could go and buy yourself a Lambourgini. I could do that at with a billion dollars at 1% as well - a billion dollars goes a long way. [ quoted text not captured ]

"L. Scott Johnson" <sjoh...@math.sc.edu> wrote in message news:b5d3n5$27hpu1$1...@ID-99714.news.dfncis.de... > "XZealot" <x_ze...@cox-internet.com> wrote: > >Even if you had 1 billion dollars? .02% equals a difference of $200,000.00. > > Spurious. I don't have a billion dollars. If I did, I doubt if I'd > waste time fighting for one fiftieth of a point increase. I'd probably > be out manipulating the market to get much better rates, by several > orders of magnitude. What!?!? You don't have a billion dollars. I thought all you rulemonger types were loaded. > >You could go and buy yourself a Lambourgini. > > I could do that at with a billion dollars at 1% as well - a billion > dollars goes a long way. You sure could, but with the extra .02% you could get yourself another one. [ quoted text not captured ]

Flux wrote: > > While we're discussing misspellings, might I point out that a few times in > this thread 'Agaitas' was misspelled as 'Egotha'? :) Oh, yeah. That too. This particular threadkind of cracksme up, as on dejanews, it brought up an Ian Forestal thread from, like, 1998, in which I say essentially, the exact same things. It is good to know I am consistient :-) [ quoted text not captured ]

"Peter D Bakija" <PD...@bigplanet.com> wrote in message news:BA9F9A33.D41D%PD...@bigplanet.com... > Flux wrote: > > > > > While we're discussing misspellings, might I point out that a few times in > > this thread 'Agaitas' was misspelled as 'Egotha'? :) > > Oh, yeah. That too. This particular threadkind of cracksme up, as on > dejanews, it brought up an Ian Forestal thread from, like, 1998, in which I > say essentially, the exact same things. It is good to know I am consistient > :-) As we all know, Peter, (or at least we all should) you are nothing if not consistent. And tenaciously steely. ;-) Josh it's steely! and tenacious! and steely!

Frederick Scott wrote: > If you add that point to the fact that (as you've conceded) Ian is *not* > overpowered, then I think what it says is that the design templates are > flawed in some way. That may very well be the case, but as there are alreadly, like, what, 500 vampires (?) that are built on this formula, and the vast majority of them fit the formula, it isn't really worth worrying about (but then, neither is Ian, really :-) The design template probably is flawed, in that having 6 disciplines isn't really, in practice, that much better than having 5, where having 3 disciplines is generally much better than having only 2. But in theory, having 6 disciplines is advantageous over having 5 disciplines, as the vampire with 6 disciplines is that much more likely to be useable in any given deck. > And, in fact, that's true: one of the big drawbacks > of high cap vampires is the fact that, beyond a certain a point, it's > very difficult to make use many more than 2 or 3 disciplines in a single > deck. I've never seen a design template that acknowledges that point > exactly (though perhaps one or some have, as I don't pay much attention > to the design template debates). I think you are correct. The current template doesn't take into account the diminishing returns of disciplines into account, but then I don't know that it needs to. *Most* vampires don't have more than 6 disciplines (are there any that have 7+?), so the disadvantage of paying for, say, 10 disciplines never comes up, except in one case, and that is Ian, but in his case, there is no disadvantage, just lots and lots of free stuff. > Well, maybe it would help if you'd point out a more understandable objection, > other than, "Ian demonstrates that the existing design template is flawed." My objections is simply that he blatantly ignores the standard design template, and as such, shouldn't exist. I also don't think that Anvil and Commander Sela and Jimmy Dunn should be as good as they are, and that Judah and Nakova should each have an extra discipline tacked on. But as the damage (or lack therof) an individual vampire can do to the game (due to how the game works) is strictly limited, I don't actually worry about it that much. I just don't think Ian should be the way he is. Again, if he could choose a single discipline when he entered play, I'd be fine with him, or if he had to pay a blood to use a discipline he didn't have, I'd be fine with him, as in both those cases, his special ability would be functionally different than simly having 20+ extra inferior disciplines. When it comes down to it, it is basically the principal of the thing. > I'm not saying there aren't other reasonable objections to a card besides it > being over or underpowered. I just don't think anyone's heard a good one in > the case of Ian Forestal, yet. Derek's recent post on the subject brought up a very solid point--every card made in the post Ian world needs to take Ian into account (WWID?) > > Maybe you're thinking that he turns up in decks that don't make a lot of > sense in terms of the backstory (e.g. a Tremere antitribu with, say, Salubri > or Baali or something)? Oh, goodness no. I'm completely unconcerned with the backstory. > Or that he makes certain types of wacky decks > possible that really shouldn't work? Nope. Just the principal of the thing. Just like with Anvil and Sela and Judah. > I'm thinking some people care a lot > more about a game making a coherent connection to "real life" (such as it > applies) than others do. Not me. > One reason some people can't into Chess or Go as > much as others, even if they might like the strategy. I like chess and go... [ quoted text not captured ]

XZealot wrote: > Not only does he kick ass, but he would kick your ass... if you were a > vampire of capacity below 4. :) Meh. He is a combat only vampire with a capacity greater than 5 with no title and limited built in Rush. His only real use is is difficult to find discipline spread (POT/pro), and that is certainly sketchy. > Ebanezer Roush has an inherent rush to kill weenies. If weenies are your > problems and you want to play Nossies then Ebanezer is your man. Sure. And he also has the right points worth of abilities--7 in disciplines and 1 or 2 in special abiltiy. Fits the template just fine. Ian? Not so much. > I also > wanted to point out that you are using another Jyhad vampire as your > example. We all know that for the most part the high caps in Jyhad were > underpowered. ? Ebaneezer isn't underpowered--just not real good. He is built appropriately. Just what he is built for is questionable. > The you would be mistaken. 2% is statistically signifigant. Wouldn't you > like to be making 2% more interest on your bank accounts. Sure, but I'd also be perfectly willing to bet a large sum of money on an event that is only 2% likely to not occur--as in a situation where you are deciding the chance of something happening or not, 2% is insignificant. 98% of the relevant cards treat Ian for all purposes as if he had simply 20 some odd extra inferior disciplines. If Ian paid for all those disciplines, but then got a 2% discount? That'd be fine. > Billy is great especiallly in combonation with Miriam Benyona. Harrod has > +2 Bleed and 4 votes and you can always use those specials. And again not the point. Billy is a 5 point vampire wit 5 inferior disciplines. He fits the template. Harrod is an 11 point vampire with, what, 10 in disciplines and a few more in special abilities. Fits the template. Both of them are unlikely to ever use all of their disciplines at once, just like Ian, yet Ian doesn't have to pay for those disciplines, where they do. [ quoted text not captured ]

Joshua Duffin wrote: > As we all know, Peter, (or at least we all should) you are nothing > if not consistent. And tenaciously steely. ;-) Rarr! And yet not everyone knows that yet. What are you gonna do?

> And again not the point. Billy is a 5 point vampire wit 5 inferior > disciplines. He fits the template. Harrod is an 11 point vampire with, what, > 10 in disciplines and a few more in special abilities. Fits the template. > Both of them are unlikely to ever use all of their disciplines at once, just > like Ian, yet Ian doesn't have to pay for those disciplines, where they do. Then you should understand that if you interperate it that way then you should recognise that Ian Forestal is the only 8+ capacity vampire with no special or title and is one of only 3 vampires in the 7+ capacity range with no special or title. and is one of only 24 vampires in the 6+ range with no special or title. That should tell you something about why we pay for the large vampires. It normally isn't for the disciplines it is for the specials or titles. As I am sure you know, it makes no difference how big a vampire is but rather what level their disciplines are at. [ quoted text not captured ]

XZealot wrote: > Then you should understand that if you interperate it that way then you > should recognise that Ian Forestal is the only 8+ capacity vampire with no > special or title and is one of only 3 vampires in the 7+ capacity range > with no special or title. Yes, I recognize that. He is also the only vampire with (effectively) 26+ disciplines. Ian is special all over the place. Just special in the bad sense. [ quoted text not captured ]

Peter D Bakija wrote: > I think you are correct. The current template doesn't take into account the > diminishing returns of disciplines into account, but then I don't know that It does, after a fashion, if you consider a different expression for the current formula: A vampire gets X-1 disciplines, where X is his capacity. If his capacity is 5+, he gets a freebie discipline. If his capacity is 7+, he gets another freebie. 9+ gets another freebie. Or in other words, for vampires with no other special/title: A vampire's capacity is set based on the number of disciplines: 1 Discipline = 2 capacity 2 D = 3 C 3 D = 4 C 4,5 D = 5 C 6 D = 6 C 7,8 D = 7 C 9 D = 8 C 10,11 D = 9 C 12 D = 10 C Seems to follow a sort of diminishing returns pattern. > it needs to. *Most* vampires don't have more than 6 disciplines (are there > any that have 7+?) No. 6 is the tops. -- LSJ (vte...@white-wolf.com) V:TES Net.Rep for White Wolf, Inc. Links to V:TES news, rules, cards, utilities, and tournament calendar: http://www.white-wolf.com/vtes/

"Peter D Bakija" <PD...@bigplanet.com> wrote in message news:BA9FC588.D438%PD...@bigplanet.com... > XZealot wrote: > > > Then you should understand that if you interperate it that way then you > > should recognise that Ian Forestal is the only 8+ capacity vampire with no > > special or title and is one of only 3 vampires in the 7+ capacity range > > with no special or title. > > Yes, I recognize that. He is also the only vampire with (effectively) 26+ > disciplines. Ian is special all over the place. Just special in the bad > sense. Doesn't that tell you something across the board, like disciplines aren't the end all be all of what vampires are -- Comments Welcome, Norman S. Brown, Jr. XZealot Archon of the Swamp

In message <BA9FAD40.D42E%PD...@bigplanet.com>, Peter D Bakija <PD...@bigplanet.com> mumbled something about: >Joshua Duffin wrote: > >> As we all know, Peter, (or at least we all should) you are nothing >> if not consistent. And tenaciously steely. ;-) > >Rarr! And yet not everyone knows that yet. What are you gonna do? Bring Assamites with 16+ Flash & Pursuit. =D -- "There's no gray. There's just white that's got grubby." -- T.P.

Howdy, OK, I know I already signed off of this (increasingly inane) discussion, but I've got to fix this one bit: > > Billy is great especiallly in combonation with Miriam Benyona. Harrod has > > +2 Bleed and 4 votes and you can always use those specials. > > And again not the point. Billy is a 5 point vampire wit 5 inferior > disciplines. He fits the template. Harrod is an 11 point vampire with, what, > 10 in disciplines and a few more in special abilities. Fits the template. > Both of them are unlikely to ever use all of their disciplines at once, just > like Ian, yet Ian doesn't have to pay for those disciplines, where they do. Billy is _not_ a 5-cap vampire with 5 inferior disciplines - you're probably thinking of Vincent Day? _Billy_ is good in combination with Miriam because they both have AUS for (and one other discipline, dom and obe, respectively). Vincent kind of bends the template a bit, BTW, in that he not only has five points in (inferior) disciplines, he also has a (minor) special, whereas Gerard and Billy only have four points in disciplines each (all inferior in Gerard's case). And yet Billy still gets more use than Vincent... But we all knew that, from the chart of !Ventrue discipline distribution that I had in the post that started this whole thread... Hope that helps, Alex

LSJ wrote: > > Peter D Bakija wrote: > > I think you are correct. The current template doesn't take into account the > > diminishing returns of disciplines into account, but then I don't know that > > It does, after a fashion, if you consider a different expression for the > current formula: > > A vampire gets X-1 disciplines, where X is his capacity. > If his capacity is 5+, he gets a freebie discipline. > If his capacity is 7+, he gets another freebie. > 9+ gets another freebie. Yes, I had already considered that. I mean Ian Forestal proves that the drop-off after the first few is far more steep than that. I also think that perhaps after four points or so more inferior disciplines is weaker than fewer superior disciplines. A high cap with many different kinds of disciplines is extremely flexible - but nobody cares. People almost inevitably choose high caps for their specials, provided the high cap supplies the first two or three disciplines they're looking for. And a corollary would state that giving the high cap yet more disciplines just means he could be used in more decks, not that he'd be more powerful in any one deck. Fred

Frederick Scott <freds64_at_...@removethis.com> wrote in message news:<3E7AABD5...@removethis.com>... <snip> > Yes, I had already considered that. I mean Ian Forestal proves that > the drop-off after the first few is far more steep than that. I also > think that perhaps after four points or so more inferior disciplines > is weaker than fewer superior disciplines. A high cap with many > different kinds of disciplines is extremely flexible - but nobody > cares. People almost inevitably choose high caps for their specials, > provided the high cap supplies the first two or three disciplines > they're looking for. And a corollary would state that giving the > high cap yet more disciplines just means he could be used in more > decks, not that he'd be more powerful in any one deck. I'm basically in your camp on this argument. Who cares about Ian Forestal? Compare him to: Gilbert Duane. 7 cap, OBF DOM AUS, Prince With 'Prince' arguably being the cheapest poweful 'special' for a vampire. I guess titles would be the most frequent special people look for in high-cap vampires. Of course, there are exceptions - built-in rush, bleed and intercept also figure, as wel as a smattering of dom on non-bleedy/non-deflecty clans, or a smattering of fortitude on otherwise fragile or stealthy (freak drive) clans. Hmmm, I'll make a little list of vampires I consider 'good'/'powerful' above 6 cap, and we'll see why and how they come out. Once I started looking, I decided I would have to list WAY too many princes, so I'm keeping them out of the list for a moment. The really expensive princes (9+) generally need a special to still be 'good'. Sarrasine - useful special, and I still want to make a setites with nec deck Tariq - Anyone that can Eat The World... :) - the rush Muaziz - her specials, obviously, though the fortitude doesn't hurt. Theo Bell - the rush Giotto verducci - the special, and the fortitude Gisela Harden - title/special Julia Prima - specials Matthias - special (intercept), and the power of OBE Andrea Giovanni - discipline combo for powerbleed, and Shambling decks Beast - rush Carlotta Giovanni - special Dragos - special Natalia - +1 bleed, access to dominate Greta kircher - access to obfuscate, and the special Iliana - access to dominate Kendrick - Title, semi-useful special for vote deck Tobias Smith - access to presence (good for lasombra vote) Carna, princess witch - specials Edward Neally - specials Meshenka - title/special Gratiano - title Gabrin - special Miller Delmardigan - access to pro, title, specials Ellen Fence - special Anatole - acces to for, (!)Malk crossover disciplines, special Howler - specials Anson - special (so good, I include him, even though he's a prince) Ian Forestal - he almost didn't make the cut, but in multi-disicpline decks, or strange combo's he's the man against jam. Anastazdi Zagred - title, access to celerity, special Hrothulf - for those suprise ventrue fighty decks - access to disciplines (although I never make a deck around him, nor have I seen any - so his power is unclear) Maris Streck - special, title, crossover disciplines Maxwell - disciplines for a deck around him Ingrid rossler - access to dominate, kickass special - megaprince(ss) Oliver Thrace - access to potence, special Casino Reeds - prince, specials Tyler - special for archon-amaranth loophole Cardano - fortitude and prince Sheldon - great discipline combo for a mono-sheldon deck Nu, the pillar - special Cailean - special Anneke - special Wynn - special Menele - special and discipline spread Goratrix - special combines with discipline spread In closing, a special mention to the 'elder ventrue with dominate' - a group where the obfuscate really works as the third discipline in combined bleed/vote decks. In writing this list, I found myself noticing that there are relatively more 'power'vamps in the 7-8 range than above. Sure, the 9+ vamps are powerful due to their 3 in-clan superiors, generally, but they really need a special to shine. Tobias Deventer

Peter D Bakija <PD...@bigplanet.com> wrote in message news:<BA9F9CDF.D41E%PD...@bigplanet.com>... [snip lots] I've figured out why Peter's so "angry" about Ian. He's secretly got 10 different usernames on eBay and is covertly driving up the price with all of this discussion: http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=3214220414&category=32661 http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=3122337011&category=33055 http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=3122337477&category=33055 http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=3121896756&category=33055 http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=3122624768&category=33055 http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=3122337134&category=33055 http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=3122337603&category=33055 http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=3123155001&category=33055 The man's a mad genius. You've all been warned. If he starts in on Tortured Confession, it's nothing but a clever ruse to dump his stock of them online and get rich while we're still trying to by 25$ Wind Dances. -Snapcase

shotgu...@optonline.net (Snapcase) wrote in message news:<3150b71e.03032...@posting.google.com>... > Peter D Bakija <PD...@bigplanet.com> wrote in message news:<BA9F9CDF.D41E%PD...@bigplanet.com>... > > [snip lots] > > I've figured out why Peter's so "angry" about Ian. He's secretly got > 10 different usernames on eBay and is covertly driving up the price > with all of this discussion: > > http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=3214220414&category=32661 > http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=3122337011&category=33055 > http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=3122337477&category=33055 > http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=3121896756&category=33055 > http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=3122624768&category=33055 > http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=3122337134&category=33055 > http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=3122337603&category=33055 > http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=3123155001&category=33055 Yessss I had noticed that as well. Creepy. Are people warming up to the Anarch Expansion or something? Just to make sure they have that one vampire that's bound to be able to play those new cards right off the bat? Ianarch.... > The man's a mad genius. If he was playing malkavian OOT rush all the time, sure. But he plays Nos. So it's more likely he's a deformed genius. > You've all been warned. If he starts in on > Tortured Confession, it's nothing but a clever ruse to dump his stock > of them online and get rich while we're still trying to by 25$ Wind > Dances. $25? Damn, I should unload some of those. :) Tobias Deventer

Derek Ray wrote: > Bring Assamites with 16+ Flash & Pursuit. =D Man. They are always on to me. I gotta start playng a new deck. Hey! I got this cool new Anarch Revolt deck I've been working on... Peter D Bakija PD...@bigplanet.com http://www.myplanet.net/pdb6 "she tore down Paris on the tail of Thom Paine but the left wing's broken and the right's insane" -Bowie

XZealot wrote: > Doesn't that tell you something across the board, like disciplines aren't > the end all be all of what vampires are Of course they aren't. But the design templates price out disciplines in a specific way, and Ian completely ignores this. Thus, he is wrong. [ quoted text not captured ]

Alex Broadhead wrote: > Billy is _not_ a 5-cap vampire with 5 inferior disciplines - you're > probably thinking of Vincent Day? _Billy_ is good in combination with > Miriam because they both have AUS for (and one other discipline, dom > and obe, respectively). Yeah, I was thinking of Dylan, actually (who has 5 inferior disciplines and +1 bleed--so in a sense, he is *also* overpowered, and as such, not a real good example...) It certainly doesn't help my case that I keep making references to the wrong vampires... :-) [ quoted text not captured ]

Snapcase wrote: > The man's a mad genius. You've all been warned. If he starts in on > Tortured Confession, it's nothing but a clever ruse to dump his stock > of them online and get rich while we're still trying to by 25$ Wind > Dances. Damnation! You are on to me! Man. I'm still kind of bitter. My Ian only sold for, like, $15.00. Granted, I turned that $15.00 into a Trachtenberg Family Slide Players CD, so it strikes me as a reasonable trade. [ quoted text not captured ]

In message <b5d3n5$27hpu1$1...@ID-99714.news.dfncis.de>, L. Scott Johnson <sjoh...@math.sc.edu> writes: >"XZealot" <x_ze...@cox-internet.com> wrote: >>Even if you had 1 billion dollars? .02% equals a difference of $200,000.00. > >Spurious. I don't have a billion dollars. Paycheck hasn't come through from White Wolf yet? :( -- James Coupe PGP Key: 0x5D623D5D EBD690ECD7A1FB457CA2 Hi! I'm Nancy Drew! You must be the Hardy Boys! 13D7E668C3695D623D5D

In message <BAA0E1A2.D485%PD...@bigplanet.com>, Peter D Bakija <PD...@bigplanet.com> mumbled something about: >Derek Ray wrote: > >> Bring Assamites with 16+ Flash & Pursuit. =D > >Man. They are always on to me. I gotta start playng a new deck. Hey! I got >this cool new Anarch Revolt deck I've been working on... Don't make me bring the Malkavian Flea Market deck. :) [ quoted text not captured ]

tobiasop...@hotmail.com (Tobias) wrote in message news:<8aa6db00.03032...@posting.google.com>... > shotgu...@optonline.net (Snapcase) wrote in message news:<3150b71e.03032...@posting.google.com>... > > > > [snip lots] > > > > http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=3214220414&category=32661 > > http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=3122337011&category=33055 > > http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=3122337477&category=33055 > > http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=3121896756&category=33055 > > http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=3122624768&category=33055 > > http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=3122337134&category=33055 > > http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=3122337603&category=33055 > > http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=3123155001&category=33055 > > > You've all been warned. If he starts in on > > Tortured Confession, it's nothing but a clever ruse to dump his stock > > of them online and get rich while we're still trying to by 25$ Wind > > Dances. > > $25? Damn, I should unload some of those. :) > Yeah, even though it looks like it was 27 dollars Australian (circa US$ 16) for the bid I checked, that's still a fair amount for a card. Patrick Columbus, OH

Peter D Bakija <PD...@bigplanet.com> wrote in message news:<BAA0E1DB.D486%PD...@bigplanet.com>... [ quoted text not captured ] I think you are ignoring the fact that his 'extra disciplines' aren't actual disciplines. A point I'm certain others have voiced before. If he had 20+ points in disciplines it would set a bad precedent, but he doesn't. He has 2 seperate abilities, one to play every card that requires a discipline at inferior, and one that gives him a superior ability if you put a master: discipline on him. If you want to make a point about the design templates, you should say his abilities are too strong for 3 points, in which I agree, but this doesn't bother me since there are no others with this ability. (He *didn't* set precedent) -Bram Vink

Darky wrote: > I think you are ignoring the fact that his 'extra disciplines' aren't > actual disciplines. No, haven't ignored that at all. In fact, it has been addressed quite a few times (and then a few more :-) if this particular discussion. Ian has a special abiltity that, for the vast majority of purposes, is simply having 20+ some odd inferior disciplines. There are about 10 cards out of the about 500 discipline related cards in the set, for which it matters that he doesn't actually have discilines printed on him (and most of those only care if he doesn't have said discipline printed on him if someone else plays them and Ian then attempts to interact with hthese other minions playing these other cards). For the remainder of the 500 some odd cards, there is exactly zero difference between Ian's ability and simply having 20+ extra inferior disciplines. When you play a skill card on him, he gets a superior version of that ability, as if it were printed on him. 2% of the time, it is significant that he doesn't actually have disciplines printed on him. The other 98% of the time, he simply effectively has 20+ inferior disciplines printed on him. > A point I'm certain others have voiced before. > If he had 20+ points in disciplines it would set a bad precedent, but > he doesn't. There is no significant difference between his special ability and simply having 20+ inferior disciplines printed on him. > If you want to make a point about the design templates, you should say > his abilities are too strong for 3 points, in which I agree, but this > doesn't bother me since there are no others with this ability. (He > *didn't* set precedent) His ability is too strong for 3 points simply because his special abiltiy is "Ian effectively has 20+ inferior disciplines printed on his card". Is Ian a game breaker? No. Does Ian affect play to an unreasonable level? No. Is Ian even particularly useful? No. Is this relevant? Not in my mind. Ian should not exist in the form that he exists for the same reason than Anvil shouldn't have a discipline or two and Judah and Nakova should each have an extra discipline. The design template exists. The majority of the vampires in the game fit into it. The ones that don't are wrong, and should, theorteically, be adjusted to fit in the design template. Do I expect this to happen? No. Do I even want this to happen? Of course not (although I would have been real happy if Judah had been reprinted with obf tacked on...) Do I think that Ian Forestal should be changed in any way? Nope. It is all about the principal. [ quoted text not captured ]

> It is all about the principal. I agree. There is a principal difference between printing inferior disciplines and giving him a special that does virtually the same, and as such i think he fits the design template quite nicely :) -Bram Vink quoting out of context? What's that!?

In message <93148a54.03032...@posting.google.com>, Darky <jja....@hccnet.nl> writes: >I agree. There is a principal difference between printing inferior >disciplines and giving him a special that does virtually the same, and >as such i think he fits the design template quite nicely :) Then you are unfortunately insane. :( I shall give my vampire the ability to make a Methuselah burn 17 additional blood after a successful bleed, and charge them 3 points for it. It is not the same as giving them +17 bleed, so it will fit the design template quite nicely. Hint: The design template includes charging appropriately for special abilities. Since he hasn't been charged appropriately, he doesn't fit it. [ quoted text not captured ]

Darky wrote: > There is a principal difference between printing inferior > disciplines and giving him a special that does virtually the same, and > as such i think he fits the design template quite nicely :) Ok then. I think you are incorrect, but what are you gonna do? [ quoted text not captured ]

James Coupe <ja...@zephyr.org.uk> wrote in message news:<XI9Q+Mmv...@gratiano.zephyr.org.uk>... > In message <93148a54.03032...@posting.google.com>, Darky > <jja....@hccnet.nl> writes: > >I agree. There is a principal difference between printing inferior > >disciplines and giving him a special that does virtually the same, and > >as such i think he fits the design template quite nicely :) > > Then you are unfortunately insane. :( > > I shall give my vampire the ability to make a Methuselah burn 17 > additional blood after a successful bleed, and charge them 3 points for > it. > > It is not the same as giving them +17 bleed, so it will fit the design > template quite nicely. > > > Hint: The design template includes charging appropriately for special > abilities. Since he hasn't been charged appropriately, he > doesn't fit it. Well i disagree with you on that. The ability to play every card at inferior is not worth more then 3 points, since this ability is so widely diversified. If it had 20+ disciplines printed on him this would be principally wrong, because of costing templates and such, but as the ability has very slight impact, I don't think he should be charged 20+ points for it, and with 3 points was charged appropiately. While making a methuselah burn 17 additional pool after a bleed is obviously not diversified, always useful, and obviously overpowered, and at 3 points wouldn't be charged appropiately. -Bram Vink I drool when I think.

Peter D Bakija <PD...@bigplanet.com> wrote in message news:<BAA3435C.D514%PD...@bigplanet.com>... > Darky wrote: > > > There is a principal difference between printing inferior > > disciplines and giving him a special that does virtually the same, and > > as such i think he fits the design template quite nicely :) > > Ok then. I think you are incorrect, but what are you gonna do? > Have pointless discussions just to kill time :P -Bram Vink I never drool.

Darky wrote: > If it had 20+ disciplines printed on him this would be principally > wrong, because of costing templates and such, Ok. You accept that having 20 disciplines printed on a vampire for 3 points is wrong. Given this, and that Ian's special ability is functionally identical, in 98% of all cases, to simply having 20 extra disciplines printed on him, you can't see why one would think Ian is wrong. You are familiar with basic "if a=b and b=c, then a=c" math theory, right? [ quoted text not captured ]

> Ok then. I think you are incorrect, but what are you gonna do? nothing. Maybe quit this insane discussion. Ian is for the most of VTES players as good as he is. For you he isn't. Now it's clear. HAPPY END. WIN ---------------- www.gamesweb.sk ---------------- ICQ: 120285202 Mobil: +421/907/165787

WIN wrote: > nothing. Maybe quit this insane discussion. No one is making you read it, man. > Ian is for the most of VTES > players > as good as he is. For you he isn't. Now it's clear. HAPPY END. Umm, yeah. [ quoted text not captured ]

Peter D Bakija <PD...@bigplanet.com> wrote in message news:<BAA37CBA.D53E%PD...@bigplanet.com>... > You are familiar with basic "if a=b and b=c, then a=c" math theory, right? > > > Peter D Bakija > PD...@bigplanet.com > http://www.myplanet.net/pdb6 > > "she tore down Paris on the tail of Thom Paine > but the left wing's broken and the right's insane" > -Bowie Wow, someone actually referenced the transitive theorem for a CCG...I'm impressed.

Peter D Bakija <PD...@bigplanet.com> wrote in message news:<BAA37CBA.D53E%PD...@bigplanet.com>... > Darky wrote: > > > If it had 20+ disciplines printed on him this would be principally > > wrong, because of costing templates and such, > > Ok. You accept that having 20 disciplines printed on a vampire for 3 points > is wrong. Given this, and that Ian's special ability is functionally > identical, in 98% of all cases, to simply having 20 extra disciplines > printed on him, you can't see why one would think Ian is wrong. > > You are familiar with basic "if a=b and b=c, then a=c" math theory, right? I can see why one would think Ian is wrong, I just disagree. Why I think the difference in costing is appropriate is because of the following: If you would have him printed with 20 inferior disciplines on his card, there would be no reason he couldn't have been printed with 10 superior disciplines instead, as per precedent on other vampires(costing templates and such), and this would be worth more then the 3 points he is now charged for having all disciplines at inferior. But as he is now, he is limited to '20 disciplines at inferior' a special costed at 3 points, which I, and I seriously hope you do as well, don't think is too powerful. If his special would be '10 disciplines at superior for 3 points' I would agree with you that it would be overpowered. But as there is no precedent to say: 'This special giving you 20 disciplines at inferior should cost as much as another special giving you 10 superior disciplines' I don't think it's overpowered. A = 20 Printed disciplines at inferior B = 10 Printed disciplines at superior C = Overcosted since A = B, and B = C -> A = C. now if you sub "20 Printed disciplines at inferior" with "Ian Forestal's special" you would get: A != B, B = C -> A != C which, as far as i can see, using nothing complicated, is correct as well. -Bram Vink

In message <93148a54.0303...@posting.google.com>, Darky <jja....@hccnet.nl> writes: >Well i disagree with you on that. The ability to play every card at >inferior is not worth more then 3 points, since this ability is so >widely diversified. Since there are almost no functional differences between a vampire with every single discipline at inferior, for 3 points? Well, let's be serious here. He does get the ability to count as having Fortitude or Potence for a tiny handful cards. So let's make him pay a *whole point* for that. Vampire 5 cap (A 4 cap gets only 3 points of abilities. A 5 cap gets 5 points. So now we're paying TWO WHOLE POINTS for the ability to count as having Fortitude or Potence etc. for a tiny handful of cards.) Tremere Antitribu ani aus cel chi dai dem dom for mel myt nec obe obf obt pot pre pro qui san ser spi tem thau than val vic vis Looks balanced to me. [ quoted text not captured ]

In message <93148a54.03032...@posting.google.com>, Darky <jja....@hccnet.nl> writes: >But as there is no precedent to say: 'This special giving you 20 >disciplines at inferior should cost as much as another special giving >you 10 superior disciplines' I don't think it's overpowered. The precedent is the costing "formula" that has been researched and loosely given several times. Giving you 1 discipline at inferior costs you 1 point, 2 costs you 2, 3 costs you 3. 15 (picking a large number) does not also cost you 3. See any vampire with a significant number of inferior disciplines: Dylan - with +1 bleed at roughly 1.5 points - shows that 5 inferior disciplines costs you 4.5 points. So how does 15 cost you only 3? Vincent Day - with a minor special, shows you that 5 inferior disciplines cost you 5 points. So how does 15 cost you only 3? Or: Theron - 8 capacity (like Ian). A special that is very hard to pull off (many actions), though which might be fun against weenie breed decks. 3 in clan superiors (like Ian). 8 capacity->9 ish points. So we're paying 3 points for 2 inferior disciplines, and a minor special. So how does 15 inferior specials also cost 3? Precedent shows that everyone else pays pretty much the right price for their disciplines, including multiple inferior disciplines. [ quoted text not captured ]

> No one is making you read it, man. No one is making you write here, man. :) Nothing personal, I was just thinking about the content of this discussion. You are just repeating a sequence of the same senteces all the time. How does that help. It looks like this: Person 1: says A YOU: B Person 2: says C YOU: B Person 3: says D YOU: B etc... This leads to nothing. Really no one is making me read it, but I am trying to help you. You don't come to anything, if you make discussion this way. WIN ------------- www.gamesweb.sk ------------- ICQ: 120285202 Mobil: +421/907/165787

Peter D Bakija <PD...@bigplanet.com> wrote: > Of course they aren't. But the design templates price out disciplines in a > specific way, and Ian completely ignores this. Thus, he is wrong. I'd much rather find the fault in *the design teplate* than Ian. Ian works. I have never seen or heard a deck that breaks or abuses him. A template calls him broken? That template seems to be in error. If your thinking and reality do not agree, *change your thinking*.

In message <2bade41e.03032...@posting.google.com>, Janne HG Hägglund <jhag...@siba.fi> writes: > Ian works. I have never seen or heard a deck that breaks or abuses him. >A template calls him broken? That template seems to be in error. The template suggests he does not fit the template, by quite some way. He 'breaks' the template. That is very different to broken, in the usual sense of "breaks the game". c.f. Return to Innocence Conflating the two ideas is unfortunate, due to the similar use of terminology by many. However, they are quite distinct. [ quoted text not captured ]

w...@gamesweb.sk (WIN) wrote in message > Nothing personal, I was just thinking about the content of this > discussion. You are just repeating a sequence of the same senteces all > the time. That's 'cause different people show up and say the same things that have already been covered. > How does that help. By making my point clear. >It looks like this: > > Person 1: says A > YOU: B > Person 2: says C > YOU: B > Person 3: says D > YOU: B > etc... Actually, it is kind of more like: Person A: X Me: Y Person B: X Me: Y Person C: X Me: Y > > This leads to nothing. Nah. It leads to discussion. > Really no one is making me read it, but I am > trying to help you. Clearly, you are new here. There is no helping me. > You don't come to anything, if you make discussion > this way. Yet I do it anyway. -Peter

> That's 'cause different people show up and say the same things that > have already been covered. yes, that isn't also good. > > How does that help. > > By making my point clear. But your point is clear all the time. > Actually, it is kind of more like: > > Person A: X > Me: Y > Person B: X > Me: Y > Person C: X > Me: Y ok > > > > This leads to nothing. > > Nah. It leads to discussion. But where does the discussion lead? > Clearly, you are new here. There is no helping me. Clearly I have finally no ban on our internet for newsgroups, hurray. That's all :) WIN

WIN wrote: > But where does the discussion lead? Wherever any discussion leads--sometimes somewhere interesting, sometimes somewhere absurd. > Clearly I have finally no ban on our internet for newsgroups, hurray. That's > all :) Cool. Glad to have you. [ quoted text not captured ]

Darky wrote: > If you would have him printed with 20 inferior disciplines on his > card, there would be no reason he couldn't have been printed with 10 > superior disciplines instead, as per precedent on other > vampires(costing templates and such), and this would be worth more > then the 3 points he is now charged for having all disciplines at > inferior. But, see, as the template goes, 10 superior disciplines = 20 inferior disciplines. This may or may not actually be the case, but the template does not make the distinction. As my whole premise is that Ian is fundimentally wrong, based on the design template, then the difference between Ian having 20 inferior disciplines and 10 superior disciplines is irrelevant. Ian's "special" provides way too much compared to what it costs him. Every other vampire in the game needs to pay 1 point for each inferior discipline they get, regardless of whether they actually use them. Ian pays 3 points for 20+ inferior disciplines. This is clearly outside the realm of acceptible error in terms of the template. > But as he is now, he is limited to '20 disciplines at inferior' a > special costed at 3 points, which I, and I seriously hope you do as > well, don't think is too powerful. Powerful is not really a good term here. Sometimes in this discussion, "powerful" seems to refer to "too good in terms of play value" (which does not describe Ian), and sometimes it seems to refer to "too much stuff relative to what the design template indicates is appropriate" (which does describe Ian). Ian is not game dominating. Ian does not provide the person using him a noticable advantage in play. Ian does not "break" the game. But neither does Anvil, who also has too much stuff for his capacity. This does not mean that, in a design sense, Ian is wrong and should not exist the way he does. Just like Anvil should have 2 less disciplines. And Judah should have 1 more. > If his special would be '10 disciplines at superior for 3 points' I > would agree with you that it would be overpowered. The design template does not make the distinction. As the design template provides, 20 inferior disciplines = 10 superior disciplines. In practice, this is not the case, but in terms of that Ian got *way* too much for 3 points, it is irrelevant. > A = 20 Printed disciplines at inferior > B = 10 Printed disciplines at superior > C = Overcosted The template makes no distinction between 20 inferiors and 10 superiors. [ quoted text not captured ]

Janne HG Hägglund wrote: > I'd much rather find the fault in *the design teplate* than Ian. Which is even more pointless than finding the flaw in Ian. The template may or may not be flawed, but as the 500 vampires in the game, give or take a few, fit in the context of the template, finding a flaw and changing it now makes the vast majority of the vampires in the game outdated. Granted, the template was changed significantly twice: -In Sabbat, apparently, +1 bleed, +1 strength, and out of clan disciplines cost half what they did up till then. This is not longer the case. -In CE, big vampires (8+?) get an extra point of stuff over thier predecesors. Both of these are fairly minor (although comparing, say, Adrianne to Shiela Mezzarin seems not minor at all...) and, well, what are you gonna do? > Ian works. I have never seen or heard a deck that breaks or abuses him. > A template calls him broken? That template seems to be in error. Again, semantics are the issue here. I don't claim, and never have claimed that Ian is too powerful, in terms of play value. The amount of damage a single vampire can cause to the game environment is steeply limited by the structure of the game. Ian is wrong because he gets too much stuff for 3 points. Just like Anvil is wrong 'cause he has 2 points extra in disciplines, and Judah is wrong 'cause he is one discipline shy of being good. In a perfect world, all of these vampires would have been fixed. But the world isn't perfect, and as it is more trouble than it is worth, they don't get fixed. Which I accept. [ quoted text not captured ]

James Coupe <ja...@zephyr.org.uk> wrote in message news:<CTvlYM3l...@gratiano.zephyr.org.uk>... > In message <93148a54.03032...@posting.google.com>, Darky > <jja....@hccnet.nl> writes: > >But as there is no precedent to say: 'This special giving you 20 > >disciplines at inferior should cost as much as another special giving > >you 10 superior disciplines' I don't think it's overpowered. > > The precedent is the costing "formula" that has been researched and > loosely given several times. Ian is not overpowered. Following precedent on costing for other -specials-, I think he is underpowered when you would compare him to an 8cap !tremere Cardinal with AUS DOM THA and +1stealth. 3 points worth of special ability is worth more then all disciplines at inferior. Find me any vampire with 3 points of -specials- on who Ian's ability would be more powerful then the special abilities he has now. about the 5caps, i'd prefer a 5cap ventrue justicar with PRE and +1stealth over one with pot for and ians ability. You don't fit 3 points of specials on a 5cap. A valid point could be '3 points worth of special is too much for an 8cap' or something. -Bram Vink

"Peter D Bakija" <PD...@bigplanet.com> wrote in message news:BAA4F533.D5B6%PD...@bigplanet.com... > Janne HG Hägglund wrote: > > > I'd much rather find the fault in *the design teplate* than Ian. > > Which is even more pointless than finding the flaw in Ian. The template may > or may not be flawed, but as the 500 vampires in the game, give or take a > few, fit in the context of the template, finding a flaw and changing it now > makes the vast majority of the vampires in the game outdated. > > Granted, the template was changed significantly twice: > > -In Sabbat, apparently, +1 bleed, +1 strength, and out of clan disciplines > cost half what they did up till then. This is not longer the case. > > -In CE, big vampires (8+?) get an extra point of stuff over thier > predecesors. > > Both of these are fairly minor (although comparing, say, Adrianne to Shiela > Mezzarin seems not minor at all...) and, well, what are you gonna do? > > > Ian works. I have never seen or heard a deck that breaks or abuses him. > > A template calls him broken? That template seems to be in error. > > Again, semantics are the issue here. So this is a big game of semantics to you. Now you have gone from being myopic to intentionally obtuse. > I don't claim, and never have claimed that Ian is too powerful, in terms of > play value. The amount of damage a single vampire can cause to the game > environment is steeply limited by the structure of the game. > > Ian is wrong because he gets too much stuff for 3 points. Just like Anvil is > wrong 'cause he has 2 points extra in disciplines, and Judah is wrong 'cause > he is one discipline shy of being good. We got it for the 15th time. Build a better mousetrap and the world will beat a path to your doorstep. Until then, get used to the mousetraps we have now. > In a perfect world, all of these vampires would have been fixed. But the > world isn't perfect, and as it is more trouble than it is worth, they don't > get fixed. Which I accept. Your problem isn't with Ian. Your problem is with the template that says that Ian should cost 26 pool to influence out. I have a problem with the template as well. For as long as 6 Caitiff oust me even though I have Basilia, who should by all rights just kill them all. Invent a better template. I challenge you to take the time and effort that you have wasted on this thread and redirect it into building a template that works for both Ian Forrestal, Smudge, and Calebros, the martyr prince. Otherwise you are just yelling at the rain. The world does not tolerate fools lightly and this newsgroup is no different. -- Comments Welcome, Norman S. Brown, Jr. XZealot Archon of the Swamp

In message <93148a54.03032...@posting.google.com>, Darky <jja....@hccnet.nl> writes: >James Coupe <ja...@zephyr.org.uk> wrote in message news:<CTvlYM3lmlf+Ew >o...@gratiano.zephyr.org.uk>... >> In message <93148a54.03032...@posting.google.com>, Darky >> <jja....@hccnet.nl> writes: >> >But as there is no precedent to say: 'This special giving you 20 >> >disciplines at inferior should cost as much as another special giving >> >you 10 superior disciplines' I don't think it's overpowered. >> >> The precedent is the costing "formula" that has been researched and >> loosely given several times. > >Ian is not overpowered. You are unfortunately conflating issues of the design template with issues of brokenness and overpoweredness. Unconfusing such issues would aid you. Broken is a very different concept indeed and one which has, over the years, been shown to be very difficult to actually do with vampires, for various reasons, relative to library cards. That doesn't mean that breaking the design template is either useful or defensible. In the strict sense that Ian has too many points for his capacity, he is overpowered. In the same way that Sela and Anvil do. >Following precedent on costing for other >-specials-, Specials have costs relative to their effect. Since he has a special that gives him 15 disciplines, you cost it roughly the same as having 15 disciplines. If a vampire had AUS DOM THA ani cel chi for pro, this would not be costed at 9 points. Inferior disciplines cost points. Ian's special to almost all intents and purposes gives him inferior disciplines. So you cost him the *same* points. You don't just get to say "Well, I didn't put the disciplines down so we won't cost him." That way leads to Vampire: No disciplines. Vampire has Ian Forestal special. 4 cap vampire. Because it's a SPECIAL. [ quoted text not captured ]

Peter D Bakija <PD...@bigplanet.com> wrote in message news: > His ability is too strong for 3 points simply because his special abiltiy is > "Ian effectively has 20+ inferior disciplines printed on his card". Is Ian a > game breaker? No. Does Ian affect play to an unreasonable level? No. Is Ian > even particularly useful? No. Maybe if there was another vampire with an ability similar to Ian, he would be more useful to try some weird discipline-combos. It's just a thought... .- Luis Duarte (Portugal)

Darky wrote: > 3 points worth of special ability is worth more then all disciplines > at inferior. Not according to the design template. The template indicates that 1 point of discipline (1 inferior discipline) is equivelant to 1 point of special ability (a moderately useful, generally conditional ability or a minor voting title). 2 points of disciplines (2 inferiors or 1 superior) is equivelant to 2 points of special ability (useful, less conditional ability or significant voting title). How is it then that suddenly 3 points of special ability suddenly becomes equivelant to 20+ inferior disciplines? Compare Steve Booth (5 CEL, pro, pre, pot) to Marlena (5 POT, pre, cel, moderately useful, conditional special ability). > Find me any vampire with 3 points of -specials- on who > Ian's ability would be more powerful then the special abilities he has > now. Again, "powerful" isn't really the issue here. Too much stuff, and outside the realm of the acceptable limits of the design template is the issue. To make it *very* clear--Ian Forestal is not too powerful, in the sense that he dominates play, breaks the game, or gives a player using him a significant play advantage. That isn't the point. [ quoted text not captured ]

XZealot wrote: > So this is a big game of semantics to you. Now you have gone from being > myopic to intentionally obtuse. No, it is not, and never has been a game of semantics. But folks seem to clearly be misunderstanding me (and James, as the case may be)--I have never claimed that Ian is too powerful, in the sense that he breaks the game. Powerful is not the appropriate term, as folks seem to think that it refers to Ian being play dominating, which he is not. People keep trying to refute my discussion by claiming that Ian is in no way too powerful, play wise. This is not something I have ever debated. Ian is not too powerful play wise. That isn't the point. Ian is wrong as he busts the design template to an exceptional degree. Anvil is wrong for the same reason, but to a much lesser extent, as is Nakova, Judah, and Dodd. All of them are wrong, just like Ian is wrong (although Ian is wayyyy wrong, where Dodd and Judah are only, like, a point wrong). > Your problem isn't with Ian. Your problem is with the template that says > that Ian should cost 26 pool to influence out. Nope. It is Ian. > Invent a better template. I challenge you to take the time and effort that > you have wasted on this thread I don't feel that I have wasted it. I have enjoyed this discussion. That you find it a waste of time indicates that you probably shouldn't be involved in it. >and redirect it into building a template that > works for both Ian Forrestal, Smudge, and Calebros, the martyr prince. But the current template works just fine for Smudge and Calebros already. As well as most of the vampires currently in the game. Making a new template accomplishes nothing (well, at least no more than discussing how Ian is busted)--the existing template works just fine. Ian is the stand out, which is understandable, as Ian was not designed under the current template and was not designed by the current design team. > Otherwise you are just yelling at the rain. The world does not tolerate > fools lightly and this newsgroup is no different. Oh, settle down. This is an entertaining (at least for me) hypothetical discussion about the particulars of game design, not a call to overthrow the government. [ quoted text not captured ]

Luis Duarte wrote: > Maybe if there was another vampire with an ability similar to Ian, he would > be more useful to try some weird discipline-combos. It's just a thought... Yeah. That is a bad idea. By himself, Ian is an example of bad design that has limited actual effect. In numbers, Ian would become quite harmful, I suspect. [ quoted text not captured ]

In message <e0b52d78.03032...@posting.google.com>, Luis Duarte <luis....@netcabo.pt> writes: >Maybe if there was another vampire with an ability similar to Ian, he would >be more useful to try some weird discipline-combos. It's just a thought... I went over this when the "unofficial" Damnans version of Shaitan reared its head (with someone thinking it was a real card). <http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=8vpLQwLq9o87EwQ8%40gratiano.zephyr .org.uk> (The use of 'broken' in that article is tempered with the fact that he is hard to break, but that Shaitan and friends would push him towards broken-ness, by making the rest of the crypt he was in similarly multi- functional.) [ quoted text not captured ]

In message <BAA50FA7.D5D3%PD...@bigplanet.com>, Peter D Bakija <PD...@bigplanet.com> writes: >This is an entertaining (at least for me) hypothetical >discussion about the particulars of game design, not a call to overthrow the >government. Oh, bugger. I thought it was code for that. You didn't get the latest pass-phrases with your secret decoder ring update, did you? [ quoted text not captured ]

Peter D Bakija wrote: > Janne HG Hägglund wrote: > > >>I'd much rather find the fault in *the design teplate* than Ian. > > > Which is even more pointless than finding the flaw in Ian. The template may > or may not be flawed, but as the 500 vampires in the game, give or take a > few, fit in the context of the template, finding a flaw and changing it now > makes the vast majority of the vampires in the game outdated. A while ago I did an analysis of how many vampires deviated from the template used to build them, and found the number was quite significant, much larger than I expected. I'm not sure I kept those numbers around, but they'd need updating to consider BL and CE vampires anyway. > Granted, the template was changed significantly twice: > > -In Sabbat, apparently, +1 bleed, +1 strength, and out of clan disciplines > cost half what they did up till then. This is not longer the case. Disciplines were costed differently. In-clan and out-of-clan disciplines had different costs, accounting for many of the oddities in the Sabbat expansion. Some of the playtesters posted the alleged template, and although the costing seems ridiculous, I tested it and found out it's the one that makes the most sense. Even then there are a few vampires that don't follow the template. > -In CE, big vampires (8+?) get an extra point of stuff over thier > predecesors. It's 7+, and it's the template being used since WW took over IIRC. AFAIK the template used for CE is the same, but I must say I haven't given much thought to the CE vampires. > Both of these are fairly minor (although comparing, say, Adrianne to Shiela > Mezzarin seems not minor at all...) and, well, what are you gonna do? > > >>Ian works. I have never seen or heard a deck that breaks or abuses him. >>A template calls him broken? That template seems to be in error. > > > Again, semantics are the issue here. > > I don't claim, and never have claimed that Ian is too powerful, in terms of > play value. The amount of damage a single vampire can cause to the game > environment is steeply limited by the structure of the game. > > Ian is wrong because he gets too much stuff for 3 points. Just like Anvil is > wrong 'cause he has 2 points extra in disciplines, and Judah is wrong 'cause > he is one discipline shy of being good. He 'gets too much stuff' according to the template. The template exists to maintain play balance, so if play balance can be maintained outside the template there's no reason not to break it. This seems to be the case with Ian (and many other vampires). (I think) I understand you position, but I don't see it as a problem: plenty of other vampires are balanced _because_ they break the template. > In a perfect world, all of these vampires would have been fixed. But the > world isn't perfect, and as it is more trouble than it is worth, they don't > get fixed. Which I accept. Not all of these vampires are in the same situation. Some should be fixed to keep play balance (Judah), others don't need fixing for balance reasons, but they still break the template (Ian). Since the template is simply a construction to help maintain play balance, there's no point in 'fixing' those vampires that break the template and remain balanced. It would make more sense to find a new template that better mirrors the needs for play balance. I don't think that search is pointless, because it would certainly prove helpfull when designing future cards. Flux

James Coupe wrote: > That way leads to Vampire: No disciplines. Vampire has Ian Forestal > special. 4 cap vampire. Ian's special should probably be costed at 6 points, and not 3. The pratical difference between that vampire and Ian is only 3 points (to upgrade 3 inferior disciplines to superior), so he should be a 6 cap. As a 6 cap, I don't think he is unbalanced, though he probably shouldn't be allowed in the same crypt as Ian. Make him a group 4. :) Flux

James Coupe wrote: > Oh, bugger. I thought it was code for that. > > You didn't get the latest pass-phrases with your secret decoder ring > update, did you? Damnation. No wonder I was confused! The letters were all off... Ok. It makes much more sense now. On with the plan ;-) [ quoted text not captured ]

Flux wrote: > A while ago I did an analysis of how many vampires deviated from the > template used to build them, and found the number was quite significant, > much larger than I expected. I'm not sure I kept those numbers around, but > they'd need updating to consider BL and CE vampires anyway. I think the Sabbat vampires, when placed in the context of the current (or Jyhad) design template, were wildly off track, generally speaking, but still I think the majority (if only slightly majority) is in line. Those Sabbat vampires, however, seem to have been designed by, like, throwing darts. > Disciplines were costed differently. In-clan and out-of-clan disciplines had > different costs, accounting for many of the oddities in the Sabbat > expansion. Some of the playtesters posted the alleged template, and although > the costing seems ridiculous, I tested it and found out it's the one that > makes the most sense. Even then there are a few vampires that don't follow > the template. I never really thought about Dodd before (as I never had a reason to use him), but looking at him now, what was he about? A 5 point Sabbat vamp with 1 in clan superior, 1 in clan inferior, and 1 out of clan inferior. And not even a particularly useful discipline combination. He has, like, 3.5 points of stuff. His cool picture *can't* cost him 1.5... > It's 7+, and it's the template being used since WW took over IIRC. > AFAIK the template used for CE is the same, but I must say I haven't given > much thought to the CE vampires. They (the CE vamps) seem pretty consisitent. The big guys ( 9 and 10?) are uniformly better than previous big guys, as they get an extra point of stuff now, but only if getting that extra inferor discipline actually makes them better. > He 'gets too much stuff' according to the template. The template exists to > maintain play balance, so if play balance can be maintained outside the > template there's no reason not to break it. This seems to be the case with > Ian (and many other vampires). Only 'cause he is an oddity. If there were two different Ian Forestals, or three, then he'd probably be problematic--obscure discipline combos would become reliable, rather than larky. > (I think) I understand you position, but I don't see it as a problem: plenty > of other vampires are balanced _because_ they break the template. Oh, it isn't a problem. I don't think Ian should be changed or anything. I just don't think he should have been made in the first place, and I don't think his existance should justify similar design decisions. As this doesn't seem to actually be an issue with the current design team, this is all kind of moot, but I am entertained by the design discussion :-) > Not all of these vampires are in the same situation. > Some should be fixed to keep play balance (Judah) Well, as much as I'd *like* Judah to be fixed, I don't think he *needs* to be fixed. The effect that individual vampires have on the game is minimal--Anvil is too good, but doesn't need to be fixed either, and Nakova doesn't actually need to get another discipline. But as long as the outlier vampires continue to be outliers rather than the norm (as seems to be the case currently), all is ok. But if we don't realize and accept that they are outliers (and as such "wrong"), then mistakes could continue to be made. >Since the > template is simply a construction to help maintain play balance, there's no > point in 'fixing' those vampires that break the template and remain balanced. I don't really think there is much point in fixing any of the "wrong" vampires--they aren't really that significant. I mean, really, that Anvil has tha along with the rest of his stuff is rarely an issue (unless you need him for a CEL/tha deck, at which point he isn't using his POT, which is a reasonable trade off). This being said, however, I don't think it is a good idea to make vampires with Anvil as a model. As long as Anvil (and Ian and Judah, and Dodd) is the exception, the game will be fine. But again, we need to realize that they are an exception and not the norm. > It would make more sense to find a new template that better mirrors the > needs for play balance. I don't think that search is pointless, because it > would certainly prove helpfull when designing future cards. Oh, don't really think it is pointless either (I'm pretty certain that I mentioned that it was "no more pointless than discussing Ian" everywhere I mentioned it...), but then I don't think discussing how Ian is busted is pointless either :-) [ quoted text not captured ]

In message <b5od5n$2bojho$1...@ID-121674.news.dfncis.de>, Flux <fl...@netc.pt> writes: >As a 6 cap, I don't think he is unbalanced, So why do Dylan and Vincent pay so much for their disciplines, but baby Ian wouldn't have to? [ quoted text not captured ]

Hello People! How's this for reality, Ian has a special which is worth 6 points and three disciplines at inferior, but his special allows him to play those disciplines at superior. So they went ahead an printed the inferiors as superiors because there is no functional difference. How about them apples? [ quoted text not captured ]

>Your problem isn't with Ian. Your problem is with the template that says >that Ian should cost 26 pool to influence out. I have a problem with the >template as well. For as long as 6 Caitiff oust me even though I have >Basilia, who should by all rights just kill them all. > >Invent a better template. I challenge you to take the time and effort that >you have wasted on this thread and redirect it into building a template that >works for both Ian Forrestal, Smudge, and Calebros, the martyr prince. What does "that works for Forestal, Smudge, and Calebros" mean? Is there an implication that any are unbalanced? BTW, the template I developed needed additional rules for Caitiff and Pander that I'm not as comfortable with.

"Curevei" <cur...@aol.commetal> wrote in message news:20030324224939...@mb-fy.aol.com... > >Your problem isn't with Ian. Your problem is with the template that says > >that Ian should cost 26 pool to influence out. I have a problem with the > >template as well. For as long as 6 Caitiff oust me even though I have > >Basilia, who should by all rights just kill them all. > > > >Invent a better template. I challenge you to take the time and effort that > >you have wasted on this thread and redirect it into building a template that > >works for both Ian Forrestal, Smudge, and Calebros, the martyr prince. > > What does "that works for Forestal, Smudge, and Calebros" mean? Is there an > implication that any are unbalanced? Yes, I would postulate that if you consider Ian Forrestal unbalanced then all the catiff with the exception of Dan Murdoch are unbalanced and from the capabilities granted to princes then Calebros is as well. > BTW, the template I developed needed additional rules for Caitiff and Pander > that I'm not as comfortable with. I am not comfortable with any of the 1 cap Panders or Caitiff, but yet they exist. C'est la vie. ;) [ quoted text not captured ]

James Coupe <ja...@zephyr.org.uk> wrote in message news:<Nec2rMzo...@gratiano.zephyr.org.uk>... > In message <93148a54.03032...@posting.google.com>, Darky > <jja....@hccnet.nl> writes: > >James Coupe <ja...@zephyr.org.uk> wrote in message news:<CTvlYM3lmlf+Ew > >o...@gratiano.zephyr.org.uk>... > >> In message <93148a54.03032...@posting.google.com>, Darky > >> <jja....@hccnet.nl> writes: > >> >But as there is no precedent to say: 'This special giving you 20 > >> >disciplines at inferior should cost as much as another special giving > >> >you 10 superior disciplines' I don't think it's overpowered. > >> > >> The precedent is the costing "formula" that has been researched and > >> loosely given several times. > > > >Ian is not overpowered. > > You are unfortunately conflating issues of the design template with > issues of brokenness and overpoweredness. Where did i mention broken? > Unconfusing such issues would aid you. > In the strict sense that Ian has too many points for his capacity, he is > overpowered. In the same way that Sela and Anvil do. No, since the costing of his special is up for debate, and it isn't undercosted. > >Following precedent on costing for other > >-specials-, > > Specials have costs relative to their effect. Relative to the effect of other specials. Let me quote: >Ian is not overpowered. Following precedent on costing for other >-specials-, I think he is underpowered when you would compare him to >an 8cap !tremere Cardinal with AUS DOM THA and +1stealth. The effect of his special is less then that of other vampires with 3 points in specials. > Since he has a special that gives him 15 disciplines, you cost it > roughly the same as having 15 disciplines. No, since that would be overcosted. > If a vampire had AUS DOM THA ani cel chi for pro, this would not be > costed at 9 points. Nor would that vampire ever be printed, and since it had no specials it would suck balls. Good 8caps, with some exceptions, have 2 points in specials. > Inferior disciplines cost points. Ian's special to almost all intents > and purposes gives him inferior disciplines. So you cost him the *same* > points. No, you don't, since that would be overcosted. > You don't just get to say "Well, I didn't put the disciplines down so we > won't cost him." No, you don't, since that would be undercosted. > That way leads to Vampire: No disciplines. Vampire has Ian Forestal > special. 4 cap vampire. > > Because it's a SPECIAL. Humm... this really shows how well you read my posts. Lemme repeat for the slow kids in the class: >about the 5caps, i'd prefer a 5cap ventrue justicar with PRE and >+1stealth over one with pot for and ians ability. You don't fit 3 >points of specials on a 5cap. >A valid point could be '3 points worth of special is too much for an >8cap' or something. Next time read my post before you answer. Or try to understand it before you do. -Bram Vink

Peter D Bakija <PD...@bigplanet.com> wrote in message news:<BAA4F35F.D5B5%PD...@bigplanet.com>... <snip> The point where I think we disagree is that you think Ian's ability should be compared in cost to disciplines, and if you do that, he is obviously undercosted. I agree that, if you would compare his ability to the cost others pay for their inferior abilities, he is undercosted. But I think Ian's ability should be compared in cost to other specials, no matter his discipline-simulating effect, and I think every vampire would often be considered undercosted when you give him 3 points of special ability at 8 capacity. I agree with you that he is 'wrong' because 8caps just shouldn't have 3 points of specials. -Bram Vink

Peter D Bakija <PD...@bigplanet.com> wrote in message news:<BAA50FA7.D5D3%PD...@bigplanet.com>... <snip> > Ian is wrong as he busts the design template to an exceptional degree. Anvil > is wrong for the same reason, but to a much lesser extent, as is Nakova, > Judah, and Dodd. All of them are wrong, just like Ian is wrong (although Ian > is wayyyy wrong, where Dodd and Judah are only, like, a point wrong). Ian only 'busts' the design template if the design template's number 1 goals is to wholly correctly design vampires to a point exactly. Given the fact that there's plenty of old vampires out there, slightly miscosted vampires, vampires who's specials might no be worth a whole point, or even a half one, but 2.718 points, means the design template's goal on the subject of point value is more likely nearer to 'get it as right as possible, pointswise'. The endgoal of the design template would be to make a vampire that's 'fair' to use in relation to all the other vampires (and library cards), I guess. In that case, since you agree that Ian is not over-powered, that design endgoal is met. No busted template. I guess we can all agree that a certain 'special' doesn't have a set value anyway. Theo, Beast, and Wynn may be paying a certain point value for their in-built rush, but what about this 4-cap? Rusha Brujah 4-cap Inferior Potence. Rusha may take a (D) action to enter combat with any minion controlled by another methuselah. And what if there was another 4-cap with this discipline and this special, but he was a Nosferatu, say? Specials don't exist in a vacuum, and neither does the design template. Tobias Deventer

In message <v7vjcv3...@corp.supernews.com>, XZealot <x_zealot@cox- internet.com> writes: >Hello People! How's this for reality, Ian has a special which is worth 6 >points 5 points was closer, when designed. (Though we know the Sabbat Design scheme was on crack.) >and three disciplines at inferior, but his special allows him to play >those disciplines at superior. So they went ahead an printed the inferiors >as superiors because there is no functional difference. Ignores synergy of abilities. [ quoted text not captured ]

James Coupe wrote: > In message <b5od5n$2bojho$1...@ID-121674.news.dfncis.de>, Flux > <fl...@netc.pt> writes: > >>As a 6 cap, I don't think he is unbalanced, > > > So why do Dylan and Vincent pay so much for their disciplines, but baby > Ian wouldn't have to? They don't pay full price either. By the current template, +1 bleed is costed at 1.5 points, so Dylan is only paying 4.5 points for 5 disciplines. And Vincent gets a free special (or a similar discount on his disciplines). Despite that, neither one is considered a 'very good' vampire. Either one would probably be even less useful if you traded their specials for another discipline or two. The template overcosts multiple disciplines, when you get to 4-5 disciplines additional ones become increasingly less useful, specially if they're inferiors. Also, regarding this whole discussion, you should consider this LSJ quote: "The formula is *a* metric by which vampires can be measured. It is not the alpha and the omega of vampire design, however." (http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=3D663E26.EC2A7204%40white-wolf.com) Flux

In message <b5phrf$2bu85i$1...@ID-121674.news.dfncis.de>, Flux <fl...@netc.pt> writes: >By the current template, +1 bleed is costed at 1.5 points, so Dylan is >only paying 4.5 points for 5 disciplines. OH NO. If only he'd had half a point spare. He could hit 15 disciplines then. [ quoted text not captured ]

"James Coupe" <ja...@zephyr.org.uk> wrote in message news:2NsIvULW...@gratiano.zephyr.org.uk... > In message <v7vjcv3...@corp.supernews.com>, XZealot <x_zealot@cox- > internet.com> writes: > >Hello People! How's this for reality, Ian has a special which is worth 6 > >points > > 5 points was closer, when designed. (Though we know the Sabbat Design > scheme was on crack.) The Sabbat Design scheme has produced some of the best high caps in the game. > >and three disciplines at inferior, but his special allows him to play > >those disciplines at superior. So they went ahead an printed the inferiors > >as superiors because there is no functional difference. > > Ignores synergy of abilities. How so? [ quoted text not captured ]

In message <v80omhh...@corp.supernews.com>, XZealot <x_zealot@cox- internet.com> writes: >> >and three disciplines at inferior, but his special allows him to >> >play those disciplines at superior. So they went ahead an printed >> >the inferiors as superiors because there is no functional >> >difference. >> >> Ignores synergy of abilities. > >How so? If you give a vampire an ability to fetch specific equipment from the library and cost that at 1 point[0] and the ability to equip a piece of equipment from your hand without taking an action, which you might also cost at a point, you'd usually count them together as more than that. However, on individual vampires, you'd probably count them separately. Other examples would be a + to bleed, with a + to stealth (or + to stealth on bleed actions); free additional strike (e.g. Jacko) with a plus to strength; a Prince with extra stealth on political actions. Ian has two "abilities" that stack, in a not entirely dis-similar fashion - the special, and then having a few discipline cards stacked on top of him. It's not quite the same, no. [0] These points here are arbitrary. [ quoted text not captured ]

"XZealot" <x_ze...@cox-internet.com> wrote in message news:v80omhh...@corp.supernews.com... > > "James Coupe" <ja...@zephyr.org.uk> wrote in message > news:2NsIvULW...@gratiano.zephyr.org.uk... > > In message <v7vjcv3...@corp.supernews.com>, XZealot <x_zealot@cox- > > internet.com> writes: > > >Hello People! How's this for reality, Ian has a special which is worth 6 > > >points > > > > 5 points was closer, when designed. (Though we know the Sabbat Design > > scheme was on crack.) > > The Sabbat Design scheme has produced some of the best high caps > in the game. Sure, some. So have the other design schemes. Even the Jyhad set that you keep dissing has Anneke, Anson, Ulugh Beg, Masika, Lucian, Basilia, Sheldon, Cardano, Selma, Justine, and Emerson Bridges. While the Sabbat also produced stinkers (IMO) like Lachlan, Virgil, Donatien, Ethan Locke, Imogen, Salinger, Bronwen, Genevieve, Hannibal, Matteus Flesh Sculptor, and Yong-Sun Harmonist. Josh harmonize this!

"Joshua Duffin" <jtdu...@yahoo.com> wrote in message news:b5ptj0$2baj3g$1...@ID-121616.news.dfncis.de... > > "XZealot" <x_ze...@cox-internet.com> wrote in message > news:v80omhh...@corp.supernews.com... > > > > "James Coupe" <ja...@zephyr.org.uk> wrote in message > > news:2NsIvULW...@gratiano.zephyr.org.uk... > > > In message <v7vjcv3...@corp.supernews.com>, XZealot <x_zealot@cox- > > > internet.com> writes: > > > >Hello People! How's this for reality, Ian has a special which is worth 6 > > > >points > > > > > > 5 points was closer, when designed. (Though we know the Sabbat Design > > > scheme was on crack.) > > > > The Sabbat Design scheme has produced some of the best high caps > > in the game. > > Sure, some. So have the other design schemes. Even the Jyhad > set that you keep dissing has Anneke, Anson, Ulugh Beg, Masika, > Lucian, Basilia, Sheldon, Cardano, Selma, Justine, and Emerson > Bridges. Every one of the vampires you listed either has fortitude to play Freak Drives or has a prince/justicar title that gives them access to 2nd Trads. Justine and Masika are on the list because of their specials. Let's see who you left off this list. Dr. Jest Ebanezer Roush Miranda Sanova Quinton McDonnel Sylvester Simms Tura Vaughn Crusher Helena Casimir Lazarus Marty Lechtansi Natasha Volfchek Roxanne, Rectrix of the 13th Floor Appolonius Cassandra, Magus Prime Lucretia Cess Queen I would say all the above vampires are marginal. While the Sabbat also produced stinkers (IMO) like > Lachlan, Virgil, Donatien, Ethan Locke, Imogen, Salinger, > Bronwen, Genevieve, Hannibal, Matteus Flesh Sculptor, and > Yong-Sun Harmonist. First of all take Yong-Sun off your list. He rocks! Okay, these guys are not Lazvernius, but their main problem isn't that they aren't good vampires it is that their are so few Sabbat titles in the same clans, and those titles don't give you access to the same level of power cards as the Jyhad vampire had. Sure the Lasombra have 50 zillion titles, but generally is is much more difficult to get the same synergies with the disciplines and titles that the Jyhad vampires have. Frankly, all of these vampires are good and much better pound for pound than their Jyhad counterparts. [ quoted text not captured ]

> >> Ignores synergy of abilities. > > > >How so? > > If you give a vampire an ability to fetch specific equipment from the > library and cost that at 1 point[0] and the ability to equip a piece of > equipment from your hand without taking an action, which you might also > cost at a point, you'd usually count them together as more than that. Oh really, So that explains why you are going to start the next thread saying that Gabrin is broken because his specials work in conjuction. > However, on individual vampires, you'd probably count them separately. > > Other examples would be a + to bleed, with a + to stealth (or + to > stealth on bleed actions); free additional strike (e.g. Jacko) with a > plus to strength; a Prince with extra stealth on political actions. > > > > Ian has two "abilities" that stack, in a not entirely dis-similar > fashion - the special, and then having a few discipline cards stacked on > top of him. It's not quite the same, no. If a vampires specials don't synergize then it is just a poor design, like giving a vampire +1 stealth and +1 strength. These are two good specials but are wasted by putting them on the same vampire because you will never use them together (okay maybe stealth rush). [ quoted text not captured ]

In message <v83c2ab...@corp.supernews.com>, XZealot <x_zealot@cox- internet.com> writes: >> >> Ignores synergy of abilities. >> > >> >How so? >> >> If you give a vampire an ability to fetch specific equipment from the >> library and cost that at 1 point[0] and the ability to equip a piece of >> equipment from your hand without taking an action, which you might also >> cost at a point, you'd usually count them together as more than that. > >Oh really, So that explains why you are going to start the next thread >saying that Gabrin is broken because his specials work in conjuction. The point was about how much the special costs, in and of itself - not about whether it's broken or not. Specials which work together in concert usually cost a little more than they would alone. That's not about broken-ness; that's about how you cost a special, in the abstract, and how specials which work together tend to cost more. That a vampire has specials which work together well is neither here nor there, so long as they pay appropriate costs for them. So any attempts to compare such to other vampires are *entirely* missing the point. Another vampire's abilities - even if they stack - may well be appropriately costed. >> Ian has two "abilities" that stack, in a not entirely dis-similar >> fashion - the special, and then having a few discipline cards stacked on >> top of him. It's not quite the same, no. > >If a vampires specials don't synergize then it is just a poor design, Actually, it can be very *good* design, but it needs some careful work. So it can end up going arse over tit, too. Giving a vampire a random special can provide innate flexibility. For instance, a vampire like, say: Random Vampire 6 cap ani chi for ser vic +1 bleed You're not necessarily doing too badly. (Compare Dylan.) You get an set of inferior disciplines, and you're not particularly a bleed vampire (you might want to fiddle with the disciplines, to taste) but at the same time you get the flexibility and extra oomph. It adds a certain something, so that if your Ravnos chicanery falls over, you get something else to fall back on. It can also let you generally introduce something to a clan without giving them *huge* amounts of something. The Gangrel with a little voting prowess, for instance. They provide some interesting niches to work around. >like >giving a vampire +1 stealth and +1 strength. These are two good specials >but are wasted by putting them on the same vampire because you will never >use them together (okay maybe stealth rush). Stealth rush wouldn't be a bad one. It would - of course - depend on what the rest of the vampire looked like *but* at the same time, remember how well Nose of the Hound has gone down. Stealth rush? No. But flexibility, yes. You don't play it just for the stealth in the first place, you play it because you want a rush, but you include it over a competing card for that extra slot. It wouldn't just have to be stealth rush, either. The vampire might well make a good vampire to include a rush/diablerie deck. Yeah, you get the stealth on the rush but you weren't really looking for that - you get it on the diablerie action too, for instance, or any rescues you undertake. If it would well for a vote/rush clan, an unstoppable Archon deck could be formed. Some forms of bruise and bleed wouldn't say no to it. Some prefer to play bruise and bleed, with the bleed as an attraction to get into combat. Others prefer the bleed to be able to get through when they need it. (This is one of the arguments against Archon Investigation perenially (also Protected Racehorses) - that the bruise and bleed deck wants to be able to get a BIG bleed through when it gets one through, whereas a stealth bleed deck can often get little bleeds through repeatedly.) For such a deck, having a spare +1 stealth might be worth it. Even losing out a little on the disciplines can be good for the right decks. (One example of such a deck would be Watenda, in the weenie obf/pot decks of old. His special was considered worth it by some, even though he didn't have any pro-combat. Well, I say some. I mean Jasper Philips.) It can also really annoy some decks when a good vampire has a fight-back special. They plan to take 1 damage from your strike - look at some of the very precarious weenie rush decks - and when they find themselves taking two... Such unorthodox combinations would need some work to get off the ground, yes. Whereas synergistic combinations would need a lot less work, so you pay a little more. [ quoted text not captured ]

"James Coupe" <ja...@zephyr.org.uk> wrote in message news:lxfMQUeY...@gratiano.zephyr.org.uk... > In message <v83c2ab...@corp.supernews.com>, XZealot <x_zealot@cox- > internet.com> writes: > >> >> Ignores synergy of abilities. > >> > > >> >How so? > >> > >> If you give a vampire an ability to fetch specific equipment from the > >> library and cost that at 1 point[0] and the ability to equip a piece of > >> equipment from your hand without taking an action, which you might also > >> cost at a point, you'd usually count them together as more than that. > > > >Oh really, So that explains why you are going to start the next thread > >saying that Gabrin is broken because his specials work in conjuction. > > The point was about how much the special costs, in and of itself - not > about whether it's broken or not. Specials which work together in > concert usually cost a little more than they would alone. > > That's not about broken-ness; that's about how you cost a special, in > the abstract, and how specials which work together tend to cost more. > > That a vampire has specials which work together well is neither here nor > there, so long as they pay appropriate costs for them. So any attempts > to compare such to other vampires are *entirely* missing the point. > > Another vampire's abilities - even if they stack - may well be > appropriately costed. Actually, the point is how does Ian Forestal's specials work in conjuction so that you believe that six point is not paying enough for it? > >> Ian has two "abilities" that stack, in a not entirely dis-similar > >> fashion - the special, and then having a few discipline cards stacked on > >> top of him. It's not quite the same, no. > > > >If a vampires specials don't synergize then it is just a poor design, > > Actually, it can be very *good* design, but it needs some careful work. > So it can end up going arse over tit, too. > > Giving a vampire a random special can provide innate flexibility. For > instance, a vampire like, say: > > Random Vampire > 6 cap > ani chi for ser vic > +1 bleed > > You're not necessarily doing too badly. (Compare Dylan.) You get an > set of inferior disciplines, and you're not particularly a bleed vampire > (you might want to fiddle with the disciplines, to taste) but at the > same time you get the flexibility and extra oomph. It adds a certain > something, so that if your Ravnos chicanery falls over, you get > something else to fall back on. The above you mention is a good vampire for certain decks. I am not going to go into that, but how does this statement address the appropriateness of Ian Forestal's special and the synergies that lie therein. > It can also let you generally introduce something to a clan without > giving them *huge* amounts of something. The Gangrel with a little > voting prowess, for instance. They provide some interesting niches to > work around. The Gangrel shouldn't have been as hobbled as they were when it came to voting. That was a poor design decision, not an interesting niche to work around. > >like > >giving a vampire +1 stealth and +1 strength. These are two good specials > >but are wasted by putting them on the same vampire because you will never > >use them together (okay maybe stealth rush). > > Stealth rush wouldn't be a bad one. It would - of course - depend on > what the rest of the vampire looked like *but* at the same time, > remember how well Nose of the Hound has gone down. Stealth rush? No. > But flexibility, yes. You don't play it just for the stealth in the > first place, you play it because you want a rush, but you include it > over a competing card for that extra slot. > <snip all the stuff you can do with J. Oswald 'Ozzy' Hyde-White> [ quoted text not captured ]