Plague Wind
Type: Combat
Requires: Harbingers of Skulls, with a capacity above 6
Cost: 2 blood
Strike: Ranged. Burn the opposing non-wraith ally or send the opposing vampire to torpor
What do you think? My main reasoning for this is my own personal feeling that the HoS have been massively overlooked from the necromancy (and combat) front, specifically a lack of access to the Path of Bone and from the rpg front they had the Mortus discipline/paths which set them apart from the Giovanni. Going through one of the old Dark ages RPG books I found 'Plague Wind' which is a high level mortis power, roughly translated to the above. With the restriction of cap > 6 this is restricted to use by max three different unique vamps from any group combination, and also stops created weenies abusing it.
While not exactly original, this may be workable. And it does give a nice option when fortitude combat does not work.
But I must admit that it would not have been the effect I would have given to a plague wind ; I would had put it as a bleed card (same idea as slaugthering the herd) or something that show that the main problem is the humans dying in spade.
found on the internet: [www.patman.org/wod/disciplines/mortis.asp]
Level 5 • Black Death
By touching an individual. the character can cause the victim to experience an early death (or, in the case of vampires to enter torpor). The victim, if mortal, begins to exhibit signs of plague: sunken and hollowed eyes, swollen lymphs and a sickly pallor of the skin. Within one day, all bodily functions cease. Cainite victims of this power enter torpor immediately.
System: The vampire must touch the intended victim, and the player must roll Stamina + Occult (difficulty equal to the target's Willpower) and expend two Willpower points. Success indicates that the vampire has caused his target to expire (or go into torpor)
This sounds like it would correspond well to the effect on your card (but couldn't be ranged). Maybe it could go like this:
Black Death
requires
2:blood:
Strike: make a hand strike at +2 damage.
Strike: Burn the opposing mortal or animal ally or send the opposing younger vampire to torpor. Useable when only hand strikes are permitted.
Strike: Burn the opposing non-wraith ally or send the opposing vampire to torpor. Useable when only hand strikes are permitted.
Sabbat. Animals, Wraiths and Zombies Molloy recruits or employs get an additional life.
Plague wind is not black death, but another, more difficult to get power.
wiki.white-wolf.com/worldofdarkness/index.php?title=Plague_Wind
Believe me, I have tried, you can not reliably put vampires in torpor with that. And most of the time, if you can put someone in torpor with this power, you can just kill him. Most notably because you need something like an entire hour to do this.
In the RPG, its use is to make a hell of the life of the vampire, that will kill its own herd, ghoul, and other human that come near him. Or use it on a somewhat resilient human and send him to your ennemy.
That kind of effect is more a bleeding effect in VtES, because you can easily use it to disrupt the plans of someone, or simply destroy his human asset, but not really in combat.
What about:
Black Death
Requires a ready
Strike: make a hand strike at +1 damage with an optional press.
Strike: Burn the opposing mortal or animal ally and all the mortal or animal retainers on the opposing minion.
Strike: As above, and put this card on the opposing minion. This minion cannot have mortal or animal retainers.
Prince of Paris, France
Ratings Coordinator, Rules Director
My thoughts:
- Require HoS
- Cost 1 blood
- At nec: hand strike: burn the opposing ally
- At NEC: hand strike: put this card on the opposing vampire.This vampire gets -1 strength. During his untap phase, burn this card and this vampire goes to torpor. A vampire may have only one plague wind.
The card's burn effect is just to avoid any "brokeness"
Cheers!
A bleed variant:
Plague Wind
[Action / Combat]
Requires (HoS)
Cost 2 (blood)
[Combat][nec] Strike: Ranged. Burn opposing ally or send younger vampire to torpor.
[Action][NEC] Bleed with +1 bleed. If the action is successful, target methuselah's non-wraith allies and younger vampires burn 1 blood or life.
and another variant: remove Harbringer clan requirement and add aus/AUS discipline requirement. Something like: [aus+NEC] strike and [AUS+NEC] action; and maybe add third inferior use at [nec]: before range is determined, strikes inflict +1 damage this round.
> Ohlmann wrote:
> Plague wind is not black death, but another, more difficult to get power.
> ...
> In the RPG, its use is to make a hell of the life of the vampire, that will kill its own herd, ghoul, and other human that come near him. Or use it on a somewhat resilient human and send him to your ennemy.
>
> That kind of effect is more a bleeding effect in VtES, because you can easily use it to disrupt the plans of someone, or simply destroy his human asset, but not really in combat.
>
That gives me the idea of something like:
Plague Wind
Action, 2 blood
[Harbinger]+[nec] Bleed at +1 bleed. (Or something similarly bland.)
[Harbinger]+[NEC] Put this card on a ready vampire with three Plague counters. During this vampire's controller's untap phase, burn a plague counter from this card, a blood from this vampire, and a pool from its controller; if this burning of blood leaves the vampire empty, send it to torpor and burn this card. Burn this card if it has no plague counters. A vampire can have only one Plague Wind.
The idea being to give the vampire and controller a pain to deal with, and possibly 3 pool damage and 3 blood lost from a single action, and possible torporisation.
The power level doesn't feel quite right. Stacking up lots could get abusable (one per Methuselah? increasing cost?), though Harbingers don't get a cost-reduction path, at least. I deliberately went for 0 stealth (long-ish, difficult ritual), but that could change too, I guess.
I like James' version the best. Enough with the unnecessary combat cards that do not adress the problems that the Harbingers have.
I would alter the basic version to " bleed at +1 bleed, burning a blood or life from one of the controller's minions if the bleed succeeds."
This could even go up to two blood/life and keep being balanced, seeing how it is a 2-blood cost 0-stealth action, methinks.
Also, I wouldn't worry about the superior version's power level. It seems just about right. The 0-Stealth and the cost pretty much ensure it doesn't get out of hand.
Drain