Describe Vampires here.
Vampires in Cyberpunk
This is supposed to be a short experiment to see if the type of vampires depicted in
Vampire the masquerade can be brought into the world of cyberpunk. The gothic
setting and the repressed homoeroticism is perfect for cyberpunk with its dark
futurism and the obvious attempt to shock the American right wing by setting the
standard for sexuality as bisexual.
Stats
First thing are to se what characteristics that correspond.
Dexterity x 2 = Reflexes
Stamina + Strength = Body
Dexterity + Stamina = Move
Intelligence + Perception = Intelligence
Wits + Intelligence = Tech
Appearance + Manipulation = Attractiveness
Charisma + Courage = Cool
Willpower = Luck
Humanity = Empathy
This should give you a good idea how I think, and it should be easily visible
that some vampires would get quite high stats.
Skills
Because both systems work by adding stat + skill just double the values for all
skills and pesto! And vampires don’t get tag skills they are way to gay for
that.
Bullets & Knives
In my opinion a vampire isn’t worth shit if u can gun it down so I propose
that all vampires are immune to firearms. That is to say if they are not blessed
by the holy cyber catholic church or loaded with holy bullets/stakes/blessed DPU
or the likes. This should give excellent opportunities for the GM to torment his
players some. Melee weapons c that is not holy or likewise blessed should also
do no damage. The only thing that can really harm a vampire should be fists ands
kicks and so on. (NOT rippers or wolvers) In the classical setting it is a
wooden stake that is da shit, but any living thing ought to work. It could be a
nice morbid scene when a player beats a vampire to death with a bulldog.
Blood pool
One cannot forget the Blood pool, this is as before a fixed value, and it should
be doubled. It can be used in almost the same way as before. Each point blood
spent increases an attribute by one point for the duration of a scene. White
wolf has some inbreed nerfing by which vampire should be really dangerous but
with the rules they provide they cant do shit so I propose that no limits should
be set to the amount of blood that can be spent this way. This should give the
vampire a good degree of staying power even when matched against a cyber
samurai. The other way blood can be spent is of course healing. I would say one
blood per wound level. (Flesh wound = 1 moderate = 2 serious = 4 deadly = 6 or
whatever suits you) And the last part is of course fuelling the magic, which
gives vampires the edge when faced with cyber.
Cyber
This is a tricky part. But it feels like a vampire regenerates all damage done
to him unconsciously the first time he spends his blood, which should mean that
all his cyber will have fallen out or does not work. (Its magic anyway so screw
u) The vampire’s body is not receptacle to implants after the transformation.
(Of course there might be a dark techno mage out there just waiting to give a
vampire a neural processor and a smart link)
Magic
The tricky part will be to convert discipline magic to the interlock system;
this is the thing that gives the vampires the edge.
The first thing is that all disciplines are skills that are counted exactly as
tag skills. The first one cost 2 or takes 2 extra skill checks to roll for
increase. And for each after the first the multiplier goes up one. So a vampire
with 3 disciplines has to accumulate 5 skill checks to even get to roll for his
increase.
Potence
Gives +2 damage bonus per level of potence.
Celerity
Gives +2 Speed boost per level of celerity.
Fortitude
Gives +2 Body versus damage per level of fortitude.
Dominate
This one is a bit trickier. There is no need to go into white wolf "power
per dot" system but the vampire should roll a test. Dominate + cool versus
a difficulty rating as usual should do it. And the victim should roll resist
torture and drugs + cool versus the same diff + the victim should add the
vampires success level (roll - diff) to his roll. This should get the effect
that it is easier for the vampire to do small manipulations. A command to
suicide would have very high diff therefore should the victim have a greater
chance resisting because the vampires success level should be lower. Typical
diff 17 "These are not the droids u are looking for" ; diff 22
"Forget that I touched your ass in a gayish manner" ; diff 27
"Go to the headquarter for "People against gay porn" and kill
their campaign leader""
Presence
In game terms this would work a bit like dominate. But with the exception that
it is charm instead of mind control. Presence adds to all social skills rolls as
well. And the vampire should be able to do things that could not be done by just
charm. Although in the oversexed reality of Cyberpunk it should prove easy to do
almost anything with a high enough roll.
Obfuscate
This one is pretty simple; it works just like the sneak tag skill for active
skill checks. And it adds to all difficulties involving finding the vampire. All
security systems have a difficulty rating and with this skill u only need to use
stealth not electronic security and similar skills. This is to represent the
fact that cameras glitch and employees pass through doors and similar things.
Auspex
Auspex adds to all awareness and human perception rolls. At level 4 it also
provides night vision. Of course it would add to any roll that is appropriate.
(Or which the player can convince the GM is appropriate) A diff 30 human
perception roll should be equivalent to a mind read.
Protean
This is the discipline of classic vampire powers and here we actually need to
use the WW power per dot a bit. At level 2 the vampire can see in the dark just
as if he had infrared vision. At level 4 he can turn into a wolf or bat. At
level 6 he can become mist. And at level 8 he will have some half bat half
monster form with his protean score added to Body and half added to reflexes.
And at level 10 he has the near indestructible aspect of the vampire. He should
add 20 as hard armour. This is a bit special and is not used in calculation his
armour merely added after the standard calculations have been done.
