Submission: Samiel

Name: Samiel Capacity: 10 Cardtype: Vampire Clan: Discipline: Group: 3 Sabbat. Damage Samiel inflicts on other vampires is aggravated. Damage done to Samiel from other vampires is normal damage, not aggravated. Samiel may enter combat with another minion as action. Samiel can play and use cards requiring Salubri. Samiel enters play in Torpor and cannot be diablerized while in Torpor. +2 Strength. Art notes: I found no detailed description other than to call him the Vengeful Angel. World of Darkness Reference: Progeny of Saulot. Sire of Ithuriel , Gabriel , Aariel , Uriel , Ezrael and Za'aphiel. First knight and founder of the Warrior bloodline. Wrote the Code of the Warrior. Creator of Valeren. Hero of the Baali Wars. Silas claims that Samiel slaughtered Tzimisce. However it was later revealed that Tzimisce used Reform the Body to survive. Samiel entered Torpor after the fight because of devastating wounds that he suffered from the fight with the Antediluvian. Clanbook Salubri page 40. How does this card address a compelling game need?: Samiel is a beat stick for Salubri Antitribu and his disciplines allow him to cross over with both Salubri and Salubri Antitribu. He has combo option with Ventrue Antitribu as well as he has all of their in clan disciplines at superior. Part of the problem with Salubri Antitribu is they only have two vampires with a built in rush option. They need a large vampire that they can build a deck around that has enough options that create a wall or press their prey. Starting in torpor is a significant disadvantage, but also means they that he has synergy with cards that rescue a vampire from torpor or are only usable in torpor. Created by: Justin Lacey Update: July 28th 2017 Good and Bad. Good = The ability to do aggravated damage with a combat rush ability is very nice. Dominate for grave robbing is awesome. Bad = isn't good enough, he really needs for the ability to move blood to uncontrolled vampires (Scouting Mission or Govern the Unaligned). He is really slow in his current form and it takes a while to get moving. Zip gun for aggravated damage is a cute trick, but he doesn't need it; Walking Stick however is fine. The aggravated as normal is complete unnecessary and detracts from the vampire, plus adding unnecessary text. doesn't really add anything useful, cool for him to have, but unnecessary. Perhaps his biggest issue is that 1 prevent card completely stops him. Here is the math for the new design, 10 Cap = +12 8 Disc = -8 Damage is aggravated = -1.5 Damage is unpreventable = -1.5 Only usable at close range = +0.5 Enter combat with D action = -1.5 = 0 Basic idea, is that his strikes (and the important text) can be avoided by being at long range, strike: combat ends or strike: dodge and he still only does 1 damage (without additional cards) to Allies. His enter combat ability is not at stealth. He doesn't have a title, +bleed or +strength. However vampires that try to trade damaging strikes at close range will likely lose. Samiel 10 Cap Vampire group 3 Sabbat. Samiel's damage at close range in combat is unpreventable and aggravated. He may enter combat with any minion as a action. Update: August 12th 2017 Reasons: 1) Dodge, Strike: Combat Ends, and Maneuvers are all meant to be natural foils to his text. Samiel should be playing Thoughts Betrayed or Telepathic Tracking, so unpreventable damage on that top of that was too much. This means that prevent is now another way to defeat his combat mechanic. 2) +1 Strength means that he is more effective against Allies that block him. 3) The treat aggravated as normal was very potent. It basically meant that Undead Persistence beat all other Combat decks. Samiel 10 Cap Vampire group 3 Sabbat. In combat Samiel's damage at close range is aggravated. He may enter combat with any minion as a action. +1 strength Clarification: This removes unpreventable. Unpreventable was replaced with +1 strength. Unpreventable and +1 strength are both 1.5 points. Update: August 22nd 2017 I have no problems giving him ; this technically makes him 0.5 points under-costed but since it is completely for thematic reasons and doesn't change his power level... it seems reasonable to give it to him effectively for free. Samiel 10 Cap Vampire group 3 Sabbat. In combat Samiel's damage at close range is aggravated. He may enter combat with any minion as a action. +1 strength

I forget off the top of my head what the max character count is for four lines of card text on a crypt card, but there is absolutely no way the text for Samiel fits.

Yeah, it is definitely too much. I will reduce it. 5 lines of text (~150 characters) for crypt cards.

Yes there are examples of crypt cards with 5 lines of text - and the Design Team is guilty of a couple of them - but strive for 4 lines.

Samiel 10 Capacity Vampire group 3 Sabbat. Samiel has aggravated damage and treats aggravated damage as normal damage. Samiel may enter combat with a minion as a action. +2 Strength Is that better or still too long? There are a few ways to say this, but the text gets longer the more clear I make it. Is there a key word or phrase for aggravated damage that doesn't require a sentence to state it?

I managed to take 10 words out of the equation: Sabbat. Damage from Samiel's strikes is aggrevated. Samiel treats aggravated damage as normal in combat. He may enter in combat with a minion as a action. Move Samiel to torpor when he enters play. He cannot be diablerized when in torpor. +2 Strength. I removed the Salubri clause, since there's only, like, a couple of Salubri cards. Most of them require Obeah instead. It seemed like the most redundant clause. Should Samiel's hand strikes only be aggravated, or all damage? Even guns like Magnum? Would hands and melee weapons be more flavorful? I'm not that much familiar with the lore, but Salubri seem to deal with melee weapons mostly. I'd really love for a word or character count for crypt cards instead of how many lines we're permitted. "Oh, to the Hades with the manners! He's a complete bastard, and calling him that insults bastards everywhere!" -Nalia De-Arnise garourimgazette.wordpress.com/ www.vekn.net/forum-guidelines

> Kraus wrote: > I'd really love for a word or character count for crypt cards instead of how many lines we're permitted. > I'll ask Vincent what the character max for four lines of text is. There's gonna be some inexactness there, as different characters have different sizes since the font isn't fixed-width. The number of lines is very important as it determines the font size (aka readibility).

> I removed the Salubri clause, since there's only, like, a couple of Salubri cards. Most of them require Obeah instead. It seemed like the most redundant clause. > Yes, it was included for flavor reasons. At best it equates to +1 intercept if people use the Master card. > Should Samiel's hand strikes only be aggravated, or all damage? Even guns like Magnum? Would hands and melee weapons be more flavorful? I'm not that much familiar with the lore, but Salubri seem to deal with melee weapons mostly. > So technically he can channel aggravated damage into any weapon that he uses. Favor wise he is like a Ghost Rider in that his weapons transform into deadlier weapons when he uses them. That said, he would likely be unfamiliar with guns as he went into torpor before they were invented, but no technical reason prevents him from channeling his powers through them.

> BenPeal wrote: > > > Kraus wrote: > > I'd really love for a word or character count for crypt cards instead of how many lines we're permitted. > > > I'll ask Vincent what the character max for four lines of text is. There's gonna be some inexactness there, as different characters have different sizes since the font isn't fixed-width. > > The number of lines is very important as it determines the font size (aka readibility). > The longest crypt text that results in 4 lines using Vincent's card creator is Arnulf Jormungandrsson: Camarilla: If Arnulf attempts to block, the acting minion cannot play action modifiers requiring Dementation , Dominate , Necromancy or Presence until the end of the action. That's (I think) 187 characters including the discipline symbols. However, don't assume that every block of text that's 187 characters will result in four lines. It's a non-fixed-width font and sometimes word sizes cause inefficient line breaks. Edit: I'll get this info added to the submission guidelines.

You got the name wrong. It is spelled Chuck Norris.

> jblacey wrote: > Samiel > 10 Capacity Vampire group 3 > > Sabbat. Samiel has aggravated damage and treats aggravated damage as normal damage. Samiel may enter combat with a minion as a action. +2 Strength > You're trying to put to many special into one vampire. There's a point system that can help you balancing the vampires. www.tenerdo.org/cac.html#pointallowance This vampire is worth 10 (disciplines) + 1.5 (for agg) + 1.5 (for treating agg as normal) + 1.5 (for entering combat) + 3 (for +2 strength) = 17.5 points. 10-caps are supposed to have around 12 points. Prince of Paris, France Ratings Coordinator, Rules Director

Feedback! Thank you. Okay lets fix him. Simple version: Samiel 10 Cap Vampire group 3 Sabbat. Samiel's damage is aggravated. In combat he treats aggravated damage as normal. He may enter combat with any minion as a action. Character count: 139 Point totals: Name Modifier Total 10 Capacity +12 12 5 Diff Disciplines +0.5 12.5 Disciplines Spent -8 4.5 Agg Damage -1.5 3 Agg as Norm -1.5 1.5 Enter Combat -1.5 0 Does that fix it? It should leave room if we need to add text for clarification. I am going to go back through verify all point totals and shorten text if possible for all of my submissions. Sorry, for the delay I was out of town for a VTES tourney.

> jblacey wrote: > Samiel > 10 Cap Vampire group 3 > > Sabbat. Samiel's damage is aggravated. In combat he treats aggravated damage as normal. He may enter combat with any minion as a action. > I can't put my finger on it, but it feels a bit... off. Maybe it's that the agg-as-normal special feels a bit weak on a vampire with FOR, where you're likely to be sticking a bunch of Fortitude combat into your deck for your other vampires anyway. Plus inferior Obeah has some fun toys, but it's not amazingly awesome - so depending on your crypt construction, is it worth meddling with Obeah if some/many of your other vampires can't use it? You could potentially team up with Saulot and/or Uriel (as your vampire is from group 3), but that feels an awkward direction to go if the deck wants to be something of a combat monster - smaller vampires to help out are often useful. I definitely don't hate it - who can hate any vampire with a built-in rush, agg damage and Dom - but it feels like it's misfiring somehow.

> jamesatzephyr wrote: > > Maybe it's that the agg-as-normal special feels a bit weak on a vampire with FOR, where you're likely to be sticking a bunch of Fortitude combat into your deck for your other vampires anyway. > Well, I could remove the "in combat" which means that Daring the Dawn effectively only costs him a blood and Force of Will is 2 blood for unlock and bleed at +2. > Plus inferior Obeah has some fun toys, but it's not amazingly awesome - so depending on your crypt construction, is it worth meddling with Obeah if some/many of your other vampires can't use it? > My original thought is that he could be teamed up with Saulot, but the other idea was he could be using a Salubri antitribu deck where he is the only one that used Obeah. Keep in mind, I kinda expect that people that play him with be giving him a Dominate skill card at every opportunity. > I definitely don't hate it - who can hate any vampire with a built-in rush, agg damage and Dom - but it feels like it's misfiring somehow. > I am going back and testing all my crypt submissions and will be giving an analysis soon.

Updated. My hope is that people will be much happier with shorter text and simpler design.

What about, "When acting, Samiel's strikes inflict aggravated damage and he treats aggravated damage as normal." Would help any cost issues by weakening his Wall-Deck-of-death abilities, whilst encouraging a more proactive rush strategy. Plus, Force of Will / Daring the Dawn get taken care of. Disco Stu

> Disco_Stu wrote: > What about, "When acting, Samiel's strikes inflict aggravated damage and he treats aggravated damage as normal." > Not sure it is necessary. If the problem is combat related, then a combat related solution should be obvious. The truth is that "treats aggravated damage as normal" is probably more problematic than it is worth and changing it to acting doesn't solve that issue. My thought is that if we change it to a close range combat limitation then that is an obvious solution. > Would help any cost issues by weakening his Wall-Deck-of-death abilities, whilst encouraging a more proactive rush strategy. Plus, Force of Will / Daring the Dawn get taken care of. > Not sure we need to weaken the Wall aspect since he is a 10 cap. Being overly defensive is generally it's own disadvantage and going deep for a large vampire can be very precarious. Original design was that he started in torpor but couldn't be diablorized which meant that he couldn't actively defend the first turn he came out. Perhaps the more intuitive disadvantage (if he needs one) is "He enters play locked." For reference this is current version I submitted on the 28th. Samiel 10 Cap Vampire group 3 Sabbat. Samiel's damage at close range in combat is unpreventable and aggravated. He may enter combat with any minion as a action.

Hi, I played salubri and salubri anritribu for about 8 years in the Vampire the Masquerade and Dark Ages. > Samiel > 10 Cap Vampire group 3 > > Sabbat. Samiel's damage at close range in combat is unpreventable and aggravated. He may enter combat with any minion as a action. > This looks very close. Lorewise Samiel is master of valeren and was trained in obeah too but he didn't like it very much. In the RPGs the combat related valeren abilities almost entirely relate to close combat or in one instamce especially a sword. So this was taken into account already. The warrior salubri could learn a skill which allowed them to hunt down someone just with a single drop of the victims blood. Regarding this the card text also fits quite nicely. The "enters the game locked" phrase would help to fit him better to the lore. The dominate looks a bit odd for salubri/salubri anritribu imho but gives him a good opportunity to increase the bleed. A warrior would rather go the dominate route instead of presence aniway. That said as a salubri fan I would like to play Samiel in conjunction with Saulot and Samiel's progeny. Edit: I probably would make him independant because the salubri anritribu were a bunch of warrior salubri (the ones that use valeren) who fed up with "no revenge"-policy of the healer salubri (the ones that use obeah) and their leader was a 6th or 7th Generation (vtes blood capacity of 8 for 6th gen and 7 for 7th gen?) warrior salubri. Samiel was Generation 4 (he is the child of saulot and as an antediluvian saulot is gen 3). Prince of Magdeburg VEKN-ID: 5850005 Prince-ID: 615

> ScoundrelAtHeart wrote: > I probably would make him independant because the salubri anritribu were a bunch of warrior salubri (the ones that use valeren) who fed up with "no revenge"-policy of the healer salubri (the ones that use obeah) and their leader was a 6th or 7th Generation (vtes blood capacity of 8 for 6th gen and 7 for 7th gen?) warrior salubri. Samiel was Generation 4 (he is the child of saulot and as an antediluvian saulot is gen 3). > The leader of the Salubri antitribu that you are referring to is Adonai. He started as 9th generation and diablorized his way down to 7. Adonai is a 7 capacity in VTES. In VTES, Saulot is 3rd Generation and he is an 11 capacity vampire. Samiel was 4th generation. Samiel had 7 children. Ithuriel, Gabriel, Aariel, Ezrael, and Za'aphiel - not in VTES Uriel is a 8 Capacity Salubri antitribu Qaqiyya el-Ghaduba is a 9 Capacity Salubri antitribu So for consistency it makes since to make Samiel Sabbat, but yes technically he is old enough that terms like Sabbat or Camarilla would mean very little to him. On that note, I will point out that Enkidu, The Noah (aka Sabrina) is Sabbat and Gangrel antitribu in VTES despite not being Sabbat or being a part of a Sabbat bloodline in the tabletop game. Somethings we just accept and move on.

> jblacey wrote: > Samiel > 10 Cap Vampire group 3 > > Sabbat. Samiel's damage at close range in combat is unpreventable and aggravated. He may enter combat with any minion as a action. > I'm not wild about the combination of unpreventable agg damage on a vampire who can also play Telepathic Tracking to ensure he gets multiple rounds - so even if you maneuver this round, he can probably unpreventably agg you next round, or the next, and he can similarly take our dodge and S:CE unless decks are packing really obnoxious amounts of them. It makes options to defend against him tricky, especially when FOR gives him access to solid combat defence if you try to use hit back (e.g. blurring with a Magnum). And he can potentially multi-rush, even when blocked with FOR, so chump blockers aren't so useful. (Obviously, he needs some rush actions for that too, as he can't use his special action repeatedly each turn.) That might be thematically appropriate, but thinking about it from the point of view of what options other players on the table have left to defend against him combatively, there aren't that many options left really. And that feels like a slightly uncomfortable place to be heading.

> jamesatzephyr wrote: > That might be thematically appropriate, but thinking about it from the point of view of what options other players on the table have left to defend against him combatively, there aren't that many options left really. And that feels like a slightly uncomfortable place to be heading. > I need to agree on that. Making all damage on close range aggravated makes him close combat monster but making this aggravated damage always unpreventable without the need of extra cards seems to make him a bit unfair. Prince of Magdeburg VEKN-ID: 5850005 Prince-ID: 615

10 Cap Vampire group 3 Sabbat. In combat Samiel treats aggravated damage as normal, and his damage at close is unpreventable. He may enter combat with any minion as a action. That leaves a point or so, no? This gives him VERY strong Dawn Operation synergy, but at least requires a card to be played.Similarly for Sengir Dagger. perhaps an equip with melee weapon special? But then getting too wordy again

> Blooded wrote: > 10 Cap Vampire group 3 > > Sabbat. In combat Samiel treats aggravated damage as normal, and his damage at close is unpreventable. He may enter combat with any minion as a action. > > That leaves a point or so, no? > This gives him VERY strong Dawn Operation synergy, but at least requires a card to be played.Similarly for Sengir Dagger. perhaps an equip with melee weapon special? But then getting too wordy again > That might work. I will test it out and post afterwards.

Been doing some testing. He has multiple ways to generate aggravated damage due to Dawn Operation (if the action is blocked), Sword of the Righteous( which is okay with the Path but requires a melee weapon, a bigger problem than it might seem) or Eye of Unforgiving Heaven (which is the best since it is ranged and doesn't require a weapon). The downside is that combat is very card intensive and that seems a critical weakness for all Salubri antitribu. Other combat decks are far more effective with far fewer cards. Going to spend some more time testing.

I may have found a solution. Samiel 10 Cap Vampire group 3 Sabbat. In combat Samiel's damage at close range is aggravated. He may enter combat with any minion as a action. +1 strength Clarification: This removes unpreventable. Unpreventable was replaced with +1 strength. Unpreventable and +1 strength are both 1.5 points. Reasons: 1) Dodge, Strike: Combat Ends, and Maneuvers are all meant to be natural foils to his text. Samiel should be playing Thoughts Betrayed or Telepathic Tracking, so unpreventable damage on that top of that was too much. This means that prevent is now another way to defeat his combat mechanic. 2) +1 Strength means that he is more effective against Allies that block him. 3) The treat aggravated as normal was very potent. It basically meant that Undead Persistence beat all other Combat decks.

I would still give him Minor Obeah. He is Saulot's direct progeny & that way he could also team with the set 2 Salubri. Also would've loved to see Celerity or Potence on him as well, being he is The warrior Salubri, but I understand why with point system & he can always equip with the Drums of Xipe Totec for more combat prowess or the Hand of Conrad. Most of my decks are thematic. Clan specific, Sect specific, or based on WW stories. The three set 2 Salubri work well with just themselves but having a big Vampire to help them would also be nice. Samiel would also work well with Dela Eden (set 3 Salubri-Anti who has minor Dom & minor Cel) I've read the comments on Obeah. But for theme... He would have it, as well as to make the original three Salubri to have a friend to play with. Just my two cents. ~ Rowdy

I almost forgot the possibility of potence and celerity. In the lore saulot sent samiel to the brujah die training combat, taktics and philosophy. Would make sense lorewise. Regarding obeah. It would fit because of the lore but he was in torpor for long time and in the RPGs some vampires suffer from amnesia after torpor. Maybe he simply forgot some of his disciplines. Also samiel had his problems with obeah. Prince of Magdeburg VEKN-ID: 5850005 Prince-ID: 615

I wouldn't put it past it to give him small obeah. It would be great. And to be honest, obeah socks so hard at small level you wouldn't really have to pay any "points" for it in the design. Just slap it on him for theme and be happy with it? It's no biggie to be honest. To me it'd seem odd not having it. "Oh, to the Hades with the manners! He's a complete bastard, and calling him that insults bastards everywhere!" -Nalia De-Arnise garourimgazette.wordpress.com/ www.vekn.net/forum-guidelines

> Kraus wrote: > I wouldn't put it past it to give him small obeah. It would be great. And to be honest, obeah socks so hard at small level you wouldn't really have to pay any "points" for it in the design. Just slap it on him for theme and be happy with it? > > It's no biggie to be honest. To me it'd seem odd not having it. > Samiel is good enough as he is but small obeah to fit the lore would be nice. Prince of Magdeburg VEKN-ID: 5850005 Prince-ID: 615

I have no problems giving him ; this technically makes him 0.5 points under-costed but since it is completely for thematic reasons and doesn't change his power level... it seems reasonable to give it to him effectively for free. Samiel 10 Cap Vampire group 3 Sabbat. In combat Samiel's damage at close range is aggravated. He may enter combat with any minion as a action. +1 strength

Ok, on the other hand why he have ? Why he can't have or instead ? Sabbat.Black Hand Shakar: Lech loathe ranged weapons. Once each action, he may burn 1 blood to become Camarilla Prince of Krakow until the end of the action.

First, let me say I have no doubt that he had Celerity 7+, Potence 7+, Fortitude 7+, and there is evidence to suggest he had True Faith on top of that. All of which he used to utterly crush the Baali. Second, he was more than a warrior. His was an instructor and his intimidation was Legendary. He organized the entire warrior caste of the Salubri. It was his disappearance that caused them to fall apart. He motivated them and the manner that they fell apart suggests that he frequently used Dominate to get results when physical options weren't a solution. It is highly likely that he had Auspex 7+, Dominate 7+ (Mass Manipulation), Necromancy 5+ (he spoke to spirits and commanded them) and Obeah 7+. The point is that he wasn't just a one dimensional warrior. Third, thematics aside... I would advise against spending too many points on combat related disciplines. Instead focus what is necessary. is fine, except it does nothing that can't already be done with , , or He already has +1 strength. I did consider however what I found is with Celerity he becomes too good at combat and doesn't do enough outside of combat. Remember when we design cards, we are designing both their strength and weakness. would cover all of his combat weaknesses. On the other hand, gives him access to Scouting Mission/Govern the Unaligned at Superior which directly addresses the main weakiness of Salubri antitribu, it adds Graverobbing which means there is point to his combat rush other than just removing threats on the board, and means that building a Ventrue antitribu / Salubri antitribu deck is viable and greatly increases the number of deck options.

Your argumentation sounds right. I imho doubt he had potence and celerity over 5. He rather used what he learned from the brujah to develop valeren. Also regarding the spirit talking stuff it would have more likely been the discipline the capadocian used for death manipulation. Nur over all you sound right. Prince of Magdeburg VEKN-ID: 5850005 Prince-ID: 615

> ScoundrelAtHeart wrote: > Also regarding the spirit talking stuff it would have more likely been the discipline the capadocian used for death manipulation. Nur over all you sound right. > Mortis seems likely because the Salubri and the Cappadocians were very close. Another possibility is that it was a combination of Auspex (for Telepathy) + Dominate.

As far aß I know dominate doesn't work on wraiths and spirits (in the lore). Prince of Magdeburg VEKN-ID: 5850005 Prince-ID: 615

> ScoundrelAtHeart wrote: > As far aß I know dominate doesn't work on wraiths and spirits (in the lore). > I thought that was the case, however apparently not. The restricting element seems to be eye contact and language (both of which can be overcome with telepathy) Someone did write house rules on this subject but I couldn't find anything official. Dominate: As the minds of spirits are very weird, it is hard to control them and the first four levels of dominate suffer a -4 dice penalty. The final level, Possession, just doesn't work on spirits and could even open up vampires for possession.