Some Gangrel Card Ideas

Scattered in the Woods Reaction Gangrel Only usable during a action against you. Reduce a bleed against you by 1 or increase the cost of a action targeting one of your cards by 1 blood. City Aversion Master Gangrel Only playable if all of your ready vampires are Gangrel Actions by other Methuselahs which target your minions have -1 stealth and cost +1 blood. You may tap a Gangrel you control to reduce a bleed against you by 1. Shape of the Inner Beast Action Protean 1 blood Frenzy. During this action this vampire may not use any equipment or retainers. Bleed at +1 bleed and -1 stealth. Bleed at +2 bleed and -1 stealth. Retired Baron of Sydney, Australia, 418

Beautiful! The Gangrel need our help. How about making the Shape of the Inner Beast card a dual discipline card with Animalism and drop the -1 Stealth penalty or the blood cost?

Not feeling enough power/theme working on the first one, second one is too much(which you will laugh at once you see the next few ideas i post, but still) and third is...... Not terrible, but add "no more action modifiers can be played to increase the amount of this bleed" and +1 strength to superior. I dig it. So, Ariadne can have tier of souls, and deep song bleed, play shape of the inner beast, and then use one of 3 stealth options or 1 block denial (2if given abo for dc throat). She, or anyone who can afford it, can pay 5 blood and two cards to make a bleed unblockable and at +2 I wasnt going to do action modifiers for just protean for bleed, but you convinced me. Id add the above changes, and if needed, dual PRO ANI and say as above, and any vampire with capacity less than 5 and mortal allies cannot block this action. Dont like the others though. Edit: i dig shape of the inner beast so much i may just keep bumping this thread. Seriously.

> Juggernaut1981 wrote: > City Aversion > Master > Gangrel > Only playable if all of your ready vampires are Gangrel > Actions by other Methuselahs which target your minions have -1 stealth and cost +1 blood. You may tap a Gangrel you control to reduce a bleed against you by 1. > Careful. By costing a blood, you prevent actions taken by Imbued, War Ghouls, Shamblers etc. > Juggernaut1981 wrote: > Shape of the Inner Beast > Action > Protean > 1 blood > Frenzy. During this action this vampire may not use any equipment or retainers. > Bleed at +1 bleed and -1 stealth. > Bleed at +2 bleed and -1 stealth. > I can't put my finger on it, but it feels a bit off. Maybe because Protean has been historically quite good at stealth and unblockability. Also, I might change the restriction to something maybe like: "During this action, this vampire may not use any equipment or retainers, unless they require Animalism ." Which is basically trying to say "No using JS Simmons or .44 Magnum or Polaris Coach, but you can go into a frenzy with a Murder of Crows swooping in after you, because that's kinda cool." (Technically, you could get stealth this way with Jackal. Good luck with that.)

Considering the canon ability "Shape of the Inner Beast" effectively turns you into an animalistic raging murderous nutjob... using 8th Level Protean (no animalism at all)... Seemed worth it to add a little negative stealth for the crazy animal thing on a murderous rampage. The first two are just riffing off the same idea... Gangrel don't have 'seats of power' they don't have 'big enclaves of influence'... they're scattered around the place, hard to find, etc, etc, etc. A Gangrel turns up when it wants to and is gone fishing for the rest of the time. Retired Baron of Sydney, Australia, 418

> ReverendRevolver wrote: > Not terrible, but add "no more action modifiers can be played to increase the amount of this bleed" and +1 strength to superior. > I dig it. So, Ariadne can have tier of souls, and deep song bleed, play shape of the inner beast, and then use one of 3 stealth options or 1 block denial (2if given abo for dc throat). She, or anyone who can afford it, can pay 5 blood and two cards to make a bleed unblockable and at +2 > > I wasnt going to do action modifiers for just protean for bleed, but you convinced me. > Note, he has it listed as an Action, NOT an Action Modifier. So, no teaming it up with Deep Song bleed.

Oops. In that case, its Loss for Protean. Definately add +1 strength to superior. Fits theme, source, and powerlevel. Loss is illogically (fluff wise) a big bleed. This makes more sense, so balance the drawback. Mods like divine image give bleed, strength, prevent, and minus stealth for similar effect fluff wise. Could work as a modifier, but action is less likely to be broken.

> Juggernaut1981 wrote: > Shape of the Inner Beast > Action > Protean > 1 blood > Frenzy. During this action this vampire may not use any equipment or retainers. > Bleed at +1 bleed and -1 stealth. > Bleed at +2 bleed and -1 stealth. > I like it. I would just change superior to -2 stealth. Shape of the Inner Beast Action Protean 1 blood Frenzy. During this action this vampire may not use any equipment or retainers. -1 stealth action. Bleed at +1 bleed. -2 stealth action. Bleed at +2 bleed. Prince of Paris, France Ratings Coordinator, Rules Director

The inferior is horrible, though. A Computer Hacking with negative stealth that costs a blood.

> Lemminkäinen wrote: > The inferior is horrible, though. A Computer Hacking with negative stealth that costs a blood. > So....... pro: bleed at +1 bleed. This vampire gets -1 stealth this action and if blocked gets +1 strength for the action. PRO: as pro above, but bleed at +2 bleed. Also keep frenzy stuff. No addirional drawback required for balance.

> ReverendRevolver wrote: > > > Lemminkäinen wrote: > > The inferior is horrible, though. A Computer Hacking with negative stealth that costs a blood. > > > So....... > > pro: bleed at +1 bleed. This vampire gets -1 stealth this action and if blocked gets +1 strength for the action. > > PRO: as pro above, but bleed at +2 bleed. > > Also keep frenzy stuff. > > No addirional drawback required for balance. > It's just sadly close to the new Show of Force (being nearly identical). I really would like something else besides that +1 strength. Maybe if blocked the opposing minion can't play strike cards? That would be powerful but not ridiculously so and this one costs blood.

> Lemminkäinen wrote: > It's just sadly close to the new Show of Force (being nearly identical). I really would like something else besides that +1 strength. Maybe if blocked the opposing minion can't play strike cards? That would be powerful but not ridiculously so and this one costs blood. > Built-in claw? Inner Beast Action, 1 blood. Frenzy. This action, this vampire cannot use equipment or retainers unless they require Animalism. For the duration of this action (even if blocked), this vampire's hand strikes inflict aggravated damage. [pro] Bleed at +1 bleed, with -1 stealth. [PRO] As [pro] above, but at +2 bleed.

That would be the "classic" choice but I'm not sure that needs any more ways of doing aggro poke Edit: I mean, arguably Auspex has more ways of generating Intercept and Obfuscate has more ways of generating Stealth than Protean has ways of generating Aggravated combat damage, but I'm not sure that is a productive specialization for a discipline.

How about this: Spirit Guardian Action Modifier pro: +1 bleed. You cannot play another action modifier to increase this bleed amount. PRO: minions without protean get -1 intercept Be careful when you fight the monsters, lest you become one. -Friedrich Nietzsche brandonsantacruz.blogspot.com/

> Lemminkäinen wrote: > That would be the "classic" choice but I'm not sure that needs any more ways of doing aggro poke > What I was thinking was that, going for something more bruisey-bleedy, you can potentialy include far fewer combat card claws in the deck, giving you potentially more room in your deck for ousting awesomeness. And when everyone's dead or tapped or unwilling to block, you can bleed anyway. It might help ameliorate the problem where a bruisey-bleedy deck ends up with a handful of bleed when it really wants some combat awesomeness, and a handful of combat awesomeness when it wants some bleed. (Emphasis on the 'might'.) In particular, when people just decide not to block you, so you end up with a hand stuffed with irrelevant combat stuff and you can't discard it fast enough. Deep Song helps there too, in a slightly different way, since you can 'force' a combat, while still having some bleed. Being in Protean, it might be helpful to the !Gangrel without Animalism, though.

So im thinking balance the oomph off of Loss or Divine Image: Loss; Shape of the Inner Beast Action 1 blood Protean pro: frenzy. Bleed at +1 bleed as a D action. During this action, this minion gets -1 stealth and +1 strength if blocled. Retainers and equipment have no effect this action. PRO: as above, but with +2 bleed instead of +1 and this vampire may prevent one damage if combat occurs. Divine image: Shape of the Inner Beast Action modifier Protean 1Blood Pro: frenzy. Only useablexas the action is announced. During this action, this minion cannot use equipment or non animal retainers, and gets +1 bleed and -1 stealth. PRO: as above, but +2 bleed, +1 strength, and this card can be played anytime this action. I prefer the second, it cycles, is neat, can give pump to rush or bleed, and isnt broken. The loss like one is bad computer hacking.

Maybe something a little closer to a 'minor flesh of marble' effect instead of agg poke. Defensive Protean Option Shape of the Inner Beast Action Protean 1 blood Frenzy. Equipment and retainers on this minion have no effect during this action. [pro] Bleed at +1 bleed and -1 stealth. This minion may prevent 1 damage each round of combat until this action ends. [PRO] Bleed at +2 bleed and -1 stealth. This minion may prevent 2 damage each round of combat until this action ends. Aggressive Protean Option Shape of the Inner Beast Action Protean Frenzy. Equipment and retainers on this minion have no effect during this action. For the rest of this action, this minion may burn 1 blood to get +1 stength and aggravated hand strikes for the remainder of combat. [pro] Bleed at +1 bleed and -1 stealth. [PRO] Bleed at +2 bleed and -2 stealth. Retired Baron of Sydney, Australia, 418

Defensive is great, would be perfect as action mod tho. Each round makes people think. I hate protean getting +strength and agg. Hate it. Agg poke,,maybe burn stuff if they are empty..... Amaranth and the ensuing bloodgain to finance freak drive, etx is better. Protean needs +487ish strength and agg hands to make it meaningful. At least a GOOD agg pumch that can kill someone outright if they get more crappy aggpoke. Even DC hands has a freaking press, what good has uncontrollable rage really done? Serenading the kami is more practical, since it costs less and doesnt bank on one freaking aggpoke. Mantle of beastial majesty is the only one ive ever not regretted, and it just says "block this next action and ill probably eat you" so its more psychological than practical. Anyway,Andrew, i really like the idea, but dont give into the historical protean nerf and opt toward "lets do aggpoke" instead of something that could be awesome. Oh, maybe non-agg for the defensive, if someone complains. Truth is adaptability is hard to obtan and SUCKS so the top one as an action modifier would be PERFECT to help gangrel of both stripes.

> ReverendRevolver wrote: > Protean needs +487ish strength and agg hands to make it meaningful. > You can fairly easily play a Target card these days, and access to Carrion Crows adds up. Agg-poke-bleed+Carrion Crows+Target Head/Vitals = 4 damage with ani/pro, 5 with ANI/pro. Note that if the action fails, you don't pay the cost - so you've just done that without a blood cost. It's not entirely shabby. > ReverendRevolver wrote: > what good has uncontrollable rage really done? > Not a great deal, having a cost of 2 blood that you pay whether you bleed or get blocked or anything else, and being far less versatile. The action version means you get the agg (or the +strength, if you go that route) and don't pay. > ReverendRevolver wrote: > Truth is adaptability is hard to obtan and SUCKS so the top one as an action modifier would be PERFECT to help gangrel of both stripes. > Gosh, it's almost like Protean is supposed to have lots of combat tools (S:CE, maneuvers, agg, presses, action continues), but can be hit for damage while it hits you. Flesh of Marble is good, but leaves a chink in your armour, as does Adaptabiilty.

Adaptability is the only thing protean has to not cry to ivory bow. Yes, one less blood is hot for protean, but its fairly simple for agg to happen. So, if ANOTHER protean card has agg hands, +2 or more strength would make it worhtwhile. If i want to burn a minion routinely, i dont want 4+ cards to br needed every time. Enkidu/Lazvernious/Hardestadt/Qwayayayayblah(with bundy) can get Preturnatural/Heroic might and then inflict mass hand agg, omce tooled up, with one card. Im fine with gangrel getting any help, i just worry due to every protean card seeminly needing agg hands included. Its like how Abo has reflexive frenzy cancel. But its obligatory agg hands imstead.....

> ReverendRevolver wrote: > Adaptability is the only thing protean has to not cry to ivory bow. > a) So what? "Being able to defeat Ivory Bow" is not a required feature of all disciplines. b) No, it isn't. Earth Meld. Form of Mist (including the Dodge at inferior, so your Carrion Crows can still go off if you like that sort of thing). Rapid Change. And if those don't suit, Gangrel and Country !Gangrel come with Canine Horde. Drawing Out the Beast is a common enough way for Animalism-users to mess with opponents, including the ability to screw up equipment. Terror Frenzy is potentially excellent. City !Gangrel come with Celerity which has a lot of versatile combat options - Sideslip and Side Strike are pretty decent, with Side Strike being fairly popular, Stutter-Step is tricksy but usable. Fast Hands technically works for them, but is obviously a bit annoying because of the card being so niche. Everyone can play Dodge. > ReverendRevolver wrote: > Yes, one less blood is hot for protean, but its fairly simple for agg to happen. > Okay, again, the suggestion wasn't about whether it was simple, but whether it ameliorates the problem of bruise-bleed ending up with the wrong things in hand. Here, it gets bruise and bleed, usable together. Getting extra damage is fairly simple, play Target whatever. Getting prevent is fairly simple, play the mountain of cards Fortitude provides, Leathery Hide etc. There's no reason that one discipline needs to be able to do everything in combat. Indeed, one discipline being able to cover so many bases in combat shifts the balance towards weenies way too much. Using guns, a like a .44 Magnum, gives you a lot of options with mono-Celerity, but much of what you might save on the capacity you can spend on the guns, so it's not a straight advantage. > ReverendRevolver wrote: > If i want to burn a minion routinely, i dont want 4+ cards to br needed every time. > Because yes, burning minions in every combat is something that should totally be easy to do with a tiny number of cards. (Note that you can play a claw and Amaranth for diablerie very easily indeed.) > ReverendRevolver wrote: > Im fine with gangrel getting any help, i just worry due to every protean card seeminly needing agg hands included. > So because some of Protean's theme is agg damage (leaving aside Rapid Change, Earth Control, Form of Mist, Earth Meld, Dual Form, Homunculus, Loki's Gift, Shadow of the Beast, and Flesh of Marble), it somehow needs damage prevention?

Its a support discipline that has the BEST Sce cards in the game. Nothing is better than untapping free or spending a blood to keep acting at stealth that also is a SCE. Also, it has, off the top of my head, at least 5 ways to make hands agg, 3 to shoot agg, one agg ignore/mitigater, ome prevent all but one damage, and numerous ways to manuever and or dodge, and a couple presses. It also has 3 (i guess 4) sources of stealth, one block fails&im unblockable, 2 spotty intercept, one vote generator(which is probably the most underrated protean card i can think of) and one way to get pumped strength. Almost everything is blood intensive. Lokis gift, manuever/pressing, and the best sce and untap in the game are the exceptions. Ismilar diaciplines (oh, and protean has one way to cancel protean, vic, or obt) havr a modifier for stealth or bleex pump at no cost, two seperate cards that give stealth or bleex at inf, intercept or rushing without drawback, and of course, agg hands that double as a manuever(sound familiar?) But ni blood cost for the manuever. Burning vamps shouldnt be easy, but target anything shouldnt be a fix all. My big problem is vicissitude, spiritus, and abombwe all do things protean should do, or does do, but they do it a billion times better on everything but sce. They are better support disciplines, and protean should be less crappy, is what im getting at.

From the material Protean is supposed to be: Shapechanging Animalistic body changes, particularly to provide very damaging hand attacks The ability to vanish in and out of the soil or other places by changing the body. Structurally change the body to deal with damage. It's an all-rounder physical combat discipline that has the quirky tricks of Dual Form, Form of Mist, Homonculus and Earth Meld. Otherwise Protean is generally about getting your aggravated rage monstrosity on. That's exactly what Shape of the Inner Beast is supposed to be... you let your Beast out to change your physical proportions and go on a killing spree. So, I'd lean towards making it a scarily good Bruise Bleed card more than the defensive option. Making it burn 1 blood to get +strength and agg seems a good way to describe that. I was tempted to make it burn 2 blood and give + strength, agg and 1 additional. Retired Baron of Sydney, Australia, 418

Maybe an option to burn an additinal blood if blocked to gain effect? Protean does already have 2 blood shadow of the wolf for +1 strength additional (i dont think ive EVER seen this card, though. It may be fictional. Same with CE ritual of the bitter rose. Its probably a fable....) So its not a stretch. You could even lace in one additinal blood for the +1 and additional at basic, and burn 2 for mythic form text at superior....... But i like bleed of 3 for Pro, regardless.

Thanks for explanation Andrew. I like the good Bruise Bleed. Liking Scattered in the Woods. I think you can remove the line "Only usable during a action against you" since both of the options reference actions.

Possibly overpowered but I'd prefer to be screamed down into something that doesn't break the game than create wallpaper. Shape of the Inner Beast Action Protean Frenzy. This minion cannot use retainers or equipment during this action. During this action, this minion may burn 1 blood to gain +1 strength and aggravated hand strikes for the rest of this action. [pro] Bleed at +1 bleed. -1 stealth. [PRO] Bleed at +2 bleed. -2 stealth. This vampire may gain an additional strike each round by burning one blood. Retired Baron of Sydney, Australia, 418