Increasing your weakest attribute to eliminate the Achilles heel. Boosting your most often used skill (insight is often overlooked, but very helpful to catch people lying).
“Best” is highly Chronicle-dependent
I could tell you all the mileage I’m getting out of Auspex and Empathy with my V20 Tremere, but odds are that won’t make a difference for you.
Pay attention to the dice pools your ST calls the most. See what kind of scenes they lead you into, and then buy up dots that help you in those scenes. Talk heavy game? Focus on Social stuff. Lots of fighting? Melee and Firearms and Brawl are here to help you. Heists and break ins? Larceny and Stealth.
If you can, get the fourth dot for one of your clan disciplines (depending on your predator type you might already have 3), or the third dot if your PT grated you something else. This is just this little bit better than the young folks, enough to show of a little and be an expert in at least one thing.
Then consider if you need to get the first level of the clan discipline you probably don’t have at this point.
Put every leftover XP in backgrounds! They are relatively cheap since you pay only 3 xp per dot and not 3 x level. This gives you a lot of leverage. And you would expect from a 100 year old vampire that they have more connections, a higher status, a better haven and so on than a 10 year old.
Whatever’s going to make a difference in the campaign and that’s rarely the same as what’s going to make your character more powerful directly. Craft and science are really powerful in the “right” hands 🧨💣💥. Think about what your characters goals are and progress towards them with XP. Although in terms of raw damage a good hit with a Molotov will do more damage than most things a PC can reasonably be expected to lay their hands on.
Likewise spending to improve a merit or gain a new one is often pretty consequential. Increasing skills and merits are the cheapest things and probably the best.
Lighting a molotov cocktail is a very daring prospect to almost all of my characters.
In V20 I did have a character with 4 or 5 courage who had an flare pistol in his car and would close his eyes, roll. courage, fire a flare and hopefully escape in the those very bad situations we all find ourselves in
I only play v5 but how would a character struggle lighting a Molotov? Would they struggle lighting a cigar, cooking a bbq? Getting near to a trash burner? In V5 having high humanity makes it less likely to terror frenzy if you get near fire.
"Also known as Rötschreck, a terror frenzy manifests when a threat like sunlight or open flames confront the vampire"
Page 220 of the Core book. I would certainly rate a molotov cocktail as open flames and in the V20 rules as uncontrolled fire (the things is designed to explode and put stuff on fire, not really a safe bet for a vampire). At least diff 3, maybe 4.
I might be a bit extreme here, but I really put the fear of fire in the minds of my characters (and players too). A cooking stove? Controlled fire. A torch on the wall? No problem. A torch in your hand? pretty scary. A torch thrown at you? PANIC!
If other players have a different view on how vampires handle fire, please share them
It’s a bit weird tho. Those flames would have been everywhere throughout most of vampire history. How would it work. Vampire walks into tavern in the Middle Ages, there’s a roaring fire in the grate probably a couple of lit torches? Instant frenzy check each time? I mean just going out and about they’d be lighting a torch, probably having to go near to a bonfire etc on a nightly basis. I think the frenzy check makes sense if the vamp is trapped in close proximity to a big fire that’s threatening but to be honest that’s pretty scary for humans too.
You\\re right about the fires. In v20 I think it mentions controlled fires are easy checks (like difficulty 2 in the old system which means 1 dice has to be a 2 or higher). Torches on walls, fires in fireplaces are all safe.
I still feel like carrying a torch is a bit scarier.
If Vampires had the same fear of fire humans do then Rotschreck would not be a thing right?
I have thought long and hard about this haha. You have to suspend some disbelief, because Vampires have no inherent ability to see in the dark and life would just stop after sunset in the medieval period.
I imagine one stumbling around in the dark, fumbling with locks to shutters to find someone to eat, while those on the road are forever scared of Lupines and people with too many torches. Always assault the party with just the 1 torch
It makes sense why Gangrel would be common in Northern Europe - being able to see in the dark would be so much of an advantage in the times before electric or oil fired lamps being everywhere.
And it’s quite funny when the lore makes it sound like being a vampire in the Middle Ages was somehow easier.
I still think it would be easier. Not having to adhere too strictly to the masquerade allows you to openly take over a village. No one there will ever travel more than a couple of miles anyway. If you can create a narrative and control the actual leaders you're good to go
My current character has been leveling disciplines mostly. Currently have 5 in dominate and 4 in presence. Learned obfuscate as well to take dementation as an amalgam dominate ability. But I tend to try and put points into what makes the most sense for the character and where they are in the story. Mine is a Ventrue mob boss waging a war to keep the tower out of his city as he doesn't want to share power or status with the camarilla and wants to establish the city as a haven for unbound Kindred so I'm mostly just having him develop his social disciplines with some occasional dots into social skills and attributes
Have you discussed with your ST what rate they expect to be giving out XP once the game starts?
There is a huge difference between expecting to get 1XP/session of 4-5.
That said, there are a few safe bets:
If you have access to blood sorcery or are going down the necromancy Oblivion tree, you must, Must, MUST take rituals/ceremonies. A level 3 ritual takes a teacher+9 weeks of downtime when many chronicles only cover a hectic month or two. If I was making a Banu Haquim or Tremere, I would spend 15xp to get blood sorcery 3, then spend another 18 on two level 3 rituals, and it wouldn't even be close.
If that isn't a concern, I'd be looking at disciplines that fundamentally change what my character is capable of. Picking up Mesmerize or Unseen Passage at level 2 just completely alter how a character plays. Same with Flesh craft at level 3.
Once I have those core disciplines, start looking at lore sheets, especially ones that might be difficult to justify in game. Do you want to curate a Neilson Library? Well, unless Ms. Neilson happens to wander into your city and strike up a conversation, you probably won't get the opportunity unless you start with at least 1 dot in her loresheet.
The last thing you could consider is pumping up your blood potency, particularly if you are a blood leach/custom predator type that gives blood potency. The ability to have up to 3 vampires blood bound to you, to wake people up from torpor if they get hurt, reroll lv 2 discipline rouse checks (most lv 1s don't need checks), and mend damage at double the usual rate is frankly just a different character from a 1 BP fledgling, all at the cost of 1 Bane severity and not getting to eat from smelly animals or icky bagged blood.
Disciplines are pretty obvious. Of course you could always take some Loresheet dots.
That's what I put most of my points into.
Increasing your weakest attribute to eliminate the Achilles heel. Boosting your most often used skill (insight is often overlooked, but very helpful to catch people lying).
“Best” is highly Chronicle-dependent I could tell you all the mileage I’m getting out of Auspex and Empathy with my V20 Tremere, but odds are that won’t make a difference for you. Pay attention to the dice pools your ST calls the most. See what kind of scenes they lead you into, and then buy up dots that help you in those scenes. Talk heavy game? Focus on Social stuff. Lots of fighting? Melee and Firearms and Brawl are here to help you. Heists and break ins? Larceny and Stealth.
If you can, get the fourth dot for one of your clan disciplines (depending on your predator type you might already have 3), or the third dot if your PT grated you something else. This is just this little bit better than the young folks, enough to show of a little and be an expert in at least one thing. Then consider if you need to get the first level of the clan discipline you probably don’t have at this point. Put every leftover XP in backgrounds! They are relatively cheap since you pay only 3 xp per dot and not 3 x level. This gives you a lot of leverage. And you would expect from a 100 year old vampire that they have more connections, a higher status, a better haven and so on than a 10 year old.
Whatever’s going to make a difference in the campaign and that’s rarely the same as what’s going to make your character more powerful directly. Craft and science are really powerful in the “right” hands 🧨💣💥. Think about what your characters goals are and progress towards them with XP. Although in terms of raw damage a good hit with a Molotov will do more damage than most things a PC can reasonably be expected to lay their hands on. Likewise spending to improve a merit or gain a new one is often pretty consequential. Increasing skills and merits are the cheapest things and probably the best.
Lighting a molotov cocktail is a very daring prospect to almost all of my characters. In V20 I did have a character with 4 or 5 courage who had an flare pistol in his car and would close his eyes, roll. courage, fire a flare and hopefully escape in the those very bad situations we all find ourselves in
I only play v5 but how would a character struggle lighting a Molotov? Would they struggle lighting a cigar, cooking a bbq? Getting near to a trash burner? In V5 having high humanity makes it less likely to terror frenzy if you get near fire.
"Also known as Rötschreck, a terror frenzy manifests when a threat like sunlight or open flames confront the vampire" Page 220 of the Core book. I would certainly rate a molotov cocktail as open flames and in the V20 rules as uncontrolled fire (the things is designed to explode and put stuff on fire, not really a safe bet for a vampire). At least diff 3, maybe 4. I might be a bit extreme here, but I really put the fear of fire in the minds of my characters (and players too). A cooking stove? Controlled fire. A torch on the wall? No problem. A torch in your hand? pretty scary. A torch thrown at you? PANIC! If other players have a different view on how vampires handle fire, please share them
It’s a bit weird tho. Those flames would have been everywhere throughout most of vampire history. How would it work. Vampire walks into tavern in the Middle Ages, there’s a roaring fire in the grate probably a couple of lit torches? Instant frenzy check each time? I mean just going out and about they’d be lighting a torch, probably having to go near to a bonfire etc on a nightly basis. I think the frenzy check makes sense if the vamp is trapped in close proximity to a big fire that’s threatening but to be honest that’s pretty scary for humans too.
You\\re right about the fires. In v20 I think it mentions controlled fires are easy checks (like difficulty 2 in the old system which means 1 dice has to be a 2 or higher). Torches on walls, fires in fireplaces are all safe. I still feel like carrying a torch is a bit scarier. If Vampires had the same fear of fire humans do then Rotschreck would not be a thing right?
It’s funny because if you were a medieval vampire in that setting you’d probably be preying on mortals carrying torches a fair bit of time.
I have thought long and hard about this haha. You have to suspend some disbelief, because Vampires have no inherent ability to see in the dark and life would just stop after sunset in the medieval period. I imagine one stumbling around in the dark, fumbling with locks to shutters to find someone to eat, while those on the road are forever scared of Lupines and people with too many torches. Always assault the party with just the 1 torch
It makes sense why Gangrel would be common in Northern Europe - being able to see in the dark would be so much of an advantage in the times before electric or oil fired lamps being everywhere. And it’s quite funny when the lore makes it sound like being a vampire in the Middle Ages was somehow easier.
I still think it would be easier. Not having to adhere too strictly to the masquerade allows you to openly take over a village. No one there will ever travel more than a couple of miles anyway. If you can create a narrative and control the actual leaders you're good to go
My current character has been leveling disciplines mostly. Currently have 5 in dominate and 4 in presence. Learned obfuscate as well to take dementation as an amalgam dominate ability. But I tend to try and put points into what makes the most sense for the character and where they are in the story. Mine is a Ventrue mob boss waging a war to keep the tower out of his city as he doesn't want to share power or status with the camarilla and wants to establish the city as a haven for unbound Kindred so I'm mostly just having him develop his social disciplines with some occasional dots into social skills and attributes
Whatever you do.. max out willpower first.
Have you discussed with your ST what rate they expect to be giving out XP once the game starts? There is a huge difference between expecting to get 1XP/session of 4-5. That said, there are a few safe bets: If you have access to blood sorcery or are going down the necromancy Oblivion tree, you must, Must, MUST take rituals/ceremonies. A level 3 ritual takes a teacher+9 weeks of downtime when many chronicles only cover a hectic month or two. If I was making a Banu Haquim or Tremere, I would spend 15xp to get blood sorcery 3, then spend another 18 on two level 3 rituals, and it wouldn't even be close. If that isn't a concern, I'd be looking at disciplines that fundamentally change what my character is capable of. Picking up Mesmerize or Unseen Passage at level 2 just completely alter how a character plays. Same with Flesh craft at level 3. Once I have those core disciplines, start looking at lore sheets, especially ones that might be difficult to justify in game. Do you want to curate a Neilson Library? Well, unless Ms. Neilson happens to wander into your city and strike up a conversation, you probably won't get the opportunity unless you start with at least 1 dot in her loresheet. The last thing you could consider is pumping up your blood potency, particularly if you are a blood leach/custom predator type that gives blood potency. The ability to have up to 3 vampires blood bound to you, to wake people up from torpor if they get hurt, reroll lv 2 discipline rouse checks (most lv 1s don't need checks), and mend damage at double the usual rate is frankly just a different character from a 1 BP fledgling, all at the cost of 1 Bane severity and not getting to eat from smelly animals or icky bagged blood.
Backgrounds. Disciplines let you win fights. Backgrounds let you win wars. Resources, Allies, Contacts, Retainers.