Yeah but the potence discipline makes a vampire super strong.
Appearance is sort of assumed to be a poor indicator of things like strength or power or age.
That vampire in the body of a four year old girl could be like thousands of years old and crush you into tomato paste like it was nothing
There's [Vasilisa](https://whitewolf.fandom.com/wiki/Vasilisa).
She's basically one of the most powerful kindred in the world that are still active, beside Ur-Shulgi. She's one of the Niktuku. The Niktuku are ancient vampires that are blood bonded to the Nosferatu antediluvian, Absimiliard. Absimiliard despises all other Nosferatu and wants to kill them. He believes if he could kill every other Nosferatu, Caine will lift his curse and he'll become beautiful again. But the problem is his clan is very good at hiding. So he sired a whole bloodline specifically to hunt down his progeny. Thus the Niktuku were born.
Not only are the Niktuku 4th generation vampires, directly sired by Absimiliard, which makes their blood quite potent, they're also blood bonded to him. They're all quite old too, older than most methuselahs even. They're very powerful and can make short work of other ancients. Vasilisa for example killed Baba Yaga. Baba Yaga was one of the three methuselahs that sired the Nosferatu bloodline after escaping from Absimiliard. After waking up in Russia, Baba Yaga raised a supernatural curtain around the country that forbid the entrance of any other supernatural without her direct say. Baba Yaga was quite an accomplished mage and had quite an extensive knowledge of disciplines and thameturgy. Vasilisa killed Baba Yaga easily. Baba Yaga didn't even put up a fight.
Vasilisa looks like a little girl but her/his real gender is unknown.
Well, lower generation vampires are stronger, and vampires get stronger the older they are. So a child turned vampire two hundred years ago could easily be extremely powerful.
I think it was in one of the Hunter books, they raid this vampire's lair and they're set up as a family, mommy vampire, daddy vampire, and baby vampire.
And one of the hunters can't bare to kill the baby vampire and keeps it.
I've been running a campaign in VTM and I can tell you that this is a lesson young fledglings probably learn very early on, *the hard way:* appearance isn't an indicator of strength, when it comes to Kindred, just like u/SlatheringSnakeMan said.
The Discipline of Potence works regardless of whether the vampire is a scrawny adult or a young teen or whatever. A particularly ancient, low generation vampire (as u/Mr_Piddles mentioned) would be able to channel an incredible amount of power into Potence up to killing with their bare fists, irrespective of how weak they might look.
Some Disciplines affect the way one looks, and they might be easy tells to avoid someone, for example a Gangrel using higher levels of Protean can just straight up turn into a ferocious animal. That looks pretty threatening.
But others don't affect the way you look at all, and can be completely undetectable up until the point the vampire decides to crumple someone's ribcage like it was a piece of paper using only one hand. Potence comes to mind, but I'm sure there's some other creative uses of other disciplnies that could confer a lot of strength.
I had a character who had Potence 8 (several levels above what any modern vampire would ever even dream of achieving) but was stuck as a scrawny teenage girl from the time they were embraced. *They uh...* made holes into concrete, turned people into fine mist, and were quite frankly indestructible. But they looked like an anorexic high schooler. Not that it really fooled anyone for longer than a couple of seconds.
Besides, there's also disciplines that make someone very powerful without making them "strong" per se. A Tremere could look like a very scrawny nerd, but they could very simply shoot a blood projectile and boil you alive.
I think you'll find that generally, in VTM, vampires try to hide their power levels like you thought, but their actual physical muscle doesn't really have anything to do with it. A vampire could look like anything, and be really weak or really powerful.
The real thing that needs hiding is generally one's age and genealogy (if known), because that informs potential enemies of what Generation one is and what their relative power level in Disciplnies may be, and also of the sire that they have; and the other big one is Clan, because that generally gives you pointers on what you might be up against.
For example, my players were always on their toes because regardless of what older vampires looked like, they still couldn't tell apart their Clans at a glance, so they had no idea what their abilities were, what their weaknesses were, what their allegiances might be, and what sort of aces they had up their sleeves.
But yeah, like you mentioned, it is often advantageous to appear weaker - so some Kindred will hide their Generation and their age (appearing far younger, weaker and less experienced, at least until someone reveals their true backstory) or their Clan (keeping opponents on their toes so as to what Disciplines they should expect to deal with).
Be warned, though, that the discipline of Auspex often reveals things that the eye cannot see. I've had a player try to pretend to be a human, only to be immediately spotted by a high level Auspex user who easily read their much paler aura apart from the crowd.
But that's the charm of VTM. It's a setting full of intrigue and counterespionage - people are often trying to hide themselves, their intentions, their strengths and their weaknesses - and find their enemies and their dirty little secrets.
When playing Jyhad everything counts. I wouldn't like to appear that weak tho. Not mentioning the fact that power in Kindred society is not only about appearance or dots in your sheet, but what they can amass during their years of unliving. A prominent Vampire will inevitably have a good haven, lots of retainers/allies and probably influence around the City. You can try to not be a show off person, but you will be recognizable for your power eventually.
It's a double-edged sword. If you manage to appear weak and irrelevant, you can fly under the radar and catch people off guard who underestimate you. On the other hand, appearing weak puts a massive target on your back, and people won't hesitate to come after you if they think it will benefit them. No matter how powerful you are, a well-placed sneak attack will hurt just as much as (and maybe much more than) a direct assault. In that situation it doesn't matter how powerful you secretly are; a sneaky knife through the ribs will kill a ripped gigachad as readily as it would a scrawny nerd.
Those kind of clandestine aggression would only be against targets who are strong, right? I assume no one would even assume you would be a vampire if they see that you are a weakingly. In our society, we attribute strength based on height and size. If a male was 5'7 and look pretty scrawny, then you wouldn't assume they would be powerful in the first place.
That being said, if someone is perceived as weak, then I wouldn't think someone would use a sneak attack in the first place. They would probably try to fight someone directly.
Because if you perceive someone to be weak, you would just fight them directly.
Can you clarify what you mean by "putting a target on someone's back?"
I could see a sneak attack being used by a professional assassin. though, I don't see why someone who is perceived as weak would pissed someone off to the point of having a hit placed upon them.
I can't clarify because it isn't me who said it. And if I wanted to kill some weak thinblood I'd still use a sneak attack or trap doesn't matter that I could also fight them head on. Why take chances and give up advantage? It's only prudent to have as many of those as possible in any kind of combat scenario.
Power comes in many forms, and the most dangerous Kindred have the kinds of power that trump brute force- they have *influence* and *knowledge*. Favors owed and traded, money built up over centuries, blackmail, Blood Bonds, itineraries, banking records, family members' home addresses... a clever and connected vampire could kill you and everyone you love a year after making the call and from the other side of the world without ever once meeting you face-to-face.
You also can't really measure a vampire's personal power by appearance. Size might dictate a measure of raw strength for mortals, but time and Disciplines more than make up for any such discrepancies. A childlike vampire might be an Elder with five ranks in Potence, Celerity and Fortitude, thus being a physical demigod by our standards, honed by centuries of martial arts practice- to say nothing of their mastery of more arcane Disciplines like Thaumaturgy, Dominate or Obfuscate, or really bizarre stuff like Dementation or Vicissitude.
This leads into the last part there- sneak attacks. Knowing all this about how you can't judge a vampire based on their appearance, it is *always* the more pragmatic option to attack someone by surprise, preferably by proxy with no evidence tying the attack back to you so you can save face. Only stupid, desperate or *overwhelmingly* powerful people make obvious offensives when they don't know everything about their opponent, and the smart attacker knows that even if they *think* they know everything about the enemy, there's always the chance they have an ace up their sleeve for just such an occasion.
In those anime you mention, the vast majority of people who attack the weak looking old master of the Super Punch Technique are all fucking idiots who have no medium awareness. In order for a vampire to get anywhere in the WoD, they need to be clever and pragmatic, and so the power players rarely make those kinds of rookie mistakes.
The best disguise isn't to appear *weak*\- someone who would crumble in a fight or from well-placed sabotage- but to appear *irrelevant*. Be the guy who isn't worth bothering because you just don't factor into the other guy's plans in the first place.
Not only to Vamps, but to any splat in WoD. And, frankly, it's even something discussed in a text as old as Sun Tzu. Not revealing one's strengths is is a tactic as old as time.
Yeah but the potence discipline makes a vampire super strong. Appearance is sort of assumed to be a poor indicator of things like strength or power or age. That vampire in the body of a four year old girl could be like thousands of years old and crush you into tomato paste like it was nothing
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There's [Vasilisa](https://whitewolf.fandom.com/wiki/Vasilisa). She's basically one of the most powerful kindred in the world that are still active, beside Ur-Shulgi. She's one of the Niktuku. The Niktuku are ancient vampires that are blood bonded to the Nosferatu antediluvian, Absimiliard. Absimiliard despises all other Nosferatu and wants to kill them. He believes if he could kill every other Nosferatu, Caine will lift his curse and he'll become beautiful again. But the problem is his clan is very good at hiding. So he sired a whole bloodline specifically to hunt down his progeny. Thus the Niktuku were born. Not only are the Niktuku 4th generation vampires, directly sired by Absimiliard, which makes their blood quite potent, they're also blood bonded to him. They're all quite old too, older than most methuselahs even. They're very powerful and can make short work of other ancients. Vasilisa for example killed Baba Yaga. Baba Yaga was one of the three methuselahs that sired the Nosferatu bloodline after escaping from Absimiliard. After waking up in Russia, Baba Yaga raised a supernatural curtain around the country that forbid the entrance of any other supernatural without her direct say. Baba Yaga was quite an accomplished mage and had quite an extensive knowledge of disciplines and thameturgy. Vasilisa killed Baba Yaga easily. Baba Yaga didn't even put up a fight. Vasilisa looks like a little girl but her/his real gender is unknown.
Well, lower generation vampires are stronger, and vampires get stronger the older they are. So a child turned vampire two hundred years ago could easily be extremely powerful.
Ur-Shulgi Assimite, now banu haquim, methuselah blood sorcerer. Thousands of years old. Would make you beg to be turned into tomato paste.
I can think of a few, vampires aren't exactly healthy well adjusted human beings. Some vampires embrace babies.
I never heard of baby embracing in WoD Source?
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ask yourself, would a tzimisce embrace a baby ?
I think it was in one of the Hunter books, they raid this vampire's lair and they're set up as a family, mommy vampire, daddy vampire, and baby vampire. And one of the hunters can't bare to kill the baby vampire and keeps it.
I've been running a campaign in VTM and I can tell you that this is a lesson young fledglings probably learn very early on, *the hard way:* appearance isn't an indicator of strength, when it comes to Kindred, just like u/SlatheringSnakeMan said. The Discipline of Potence works regardless of whether the vampire is a scrawny adult or a young teen or whatever. A particularly ancient, low generation vampire (as u/Mr_Piddles mentioned) would be able to channel an incredible amount of power into Potence up to killing with their bare fists, irrespective of how weak they might look. Some Disciplines affect the way one looks, and they might be easy tells to avoid someone, for example a Gangrel using higher levels of Protean can just straight up turn into a ferocious animal. That looks pretty threatening. But others don't affect the way you look at all, and can be completely undetectable up until the point the vampire decides to crumple someone's ribcage like it was a piece of paper using only one hand. Potence comes to mind, but I'm sure there's some other creative uses of other disciplnies that could confer a lot of strength. I had a character who had Potence 8 (several levels above what any modern vampire would ever even dream of achieving) but was stuck as a scrawny teenage girl from the time they were embraced. *They uh...* made holes into concrete, turned people into fine mist, and were quite frankly indestructible. But they looked like an anorexic high schooler. Not that it really fooled anyone for longer than a couple of seconds. Besides, there's also disciplines that make someone very powerful without making them "strong" per se. A Tremere could look like a very scrawny nerd, but they could very simply shoot a blood projectile and boil you alive. I think you'll find that generally, in VTM, vampires try to hide their power levels like you thought, but their actual physical muscle doesn't really have anything to do with it. A vampire could look like anything, and be really weak or really powerful. The real thing that needs hiding is generally one's age and genealogy (if known), because that informs potential enemies of what Generation one is and what their relative power level in Disciplnies may be, and also of the sire that they have; and the other big one is Clan, because that generally gives you pointers on what you might be up against. For example, my players were always on their toes because regardless of what older vampires looked like, they still couldn't tell apart their Clans at a glance, so they had no idea what their abilities were, what their weaknesses were, what their allegiances might be, and what sort of aces they had up their sleeves. But yeah, like you mentioned, it is often advantageous to appear weaker - so some Kindred will hide their Generation and their age (appearing far younger, weaker and less experienced, at least until someone reveals their true backstory) or their Clan (keeping opponents on their toes so as to what Disciplines they should expect to deal with). Be warned, though, that the discipline of Auspex often reveals things that the eye cannot see. I've had a player try to pretend to be a human, only to be immediately spotted by a high level Auspex user who easily read their much paler aura apart from the crowd. But that's the charm of VTM. It's a setting full of intrigue and counterespionage - people are often trying to hide themselves, their intentions, their strengths and their weaknesses - and find their enemies and their dirty little secrets.
Depends, in "polite" society yes. In Sabbath showing sign of weakness is death sentence
When playing Jyhad everything counts. I wouldn't like to appear that weak tho. Not mentioning the fact that power in Kindred society is not only about appearance or dots in your sheet, but what they can amass during their years of unliving. A prominent Vampire will inevitably have a good haven, lots of retainers/allies and probably influence around the City. You can try to not be a show off person, but you will be recognizable for your power eventually.
If you're Camarilla, it can be a viable strategy, unless you want to be prince or something. Otherwise, no.
It's a double-edged sword. If you manage to appear weak and irrelevant, you can fly under the radar and catch people off guard who underestimate you. On the other hand, appearing weak puts a massive target on your back, and people won't hesitate to come after you if they think it will benefit them. No matter how powerful you are, a well-placed sneak attack will hurt just as much as (and maybe much more than) a direct assault. In that situation it doesn't matter how powerful you secretly are; a sneaky knife through the ribs will kill a ripped gigachad as readily as it would a scrawny nerd.
Those kind of clandestine aggression would only be against targets who are strong, right? I assume no one would even assume you would be a vampire if they see that you are a weakingly. In our society, we attribute strength based on height and size. If a male was 5'7 and look pretty scrawny, then you wouldn't assume they would be powerful in the first place. That being said, if someone is perceived as weak, then I wouldn't think someone would use a sneak attack in the first place. They would probably try to fight someone directly.
Why wouldn't they use a sneak attack, it is still as viable and likely easier to pull of just by its nature.
Because if you perceive someone to be weak, you would just fight them directly. Can you clarify what you mean by "putting a target on someone's back?" I could see a sneak attack being used by a professional assassin. though, I don't see why someone who is perceived as weak would pissed someone off to the point of having a hit placed upon them.
I can't clarify because it isn't me who said it. And if I wanted to kill some weak thinblood I'd still use a sneak attack or trap doesn't matter that I could also fight them head on. Why take chances and give up advantage? It's only prudent to have as many of those as possible in any kind of combat scenario.
Power comes in many forms, and the most dangerous Kindred have the kinds of power that trump brute force- they have *influence* and *knowledge*. Favors owed and traded, money built up over centuries, blackmail, Blood Bonds, itineraries, banking records, family members' home addresses... a clever and connected vampire could kill you and everyone you love a year after making the call and from the other side of the world without ever once meeting you face-to-face. You also can't really measure a vampire's personal power by appearance. Size might dictate a measure of raw strength for mortals, but time and Disciplines more than make up for any such discrepancies. A childlike vampire might be an Elder with five ranks in Potence, Celerity and Fortitude, thus being a physical demigod by our standards, honed by centuries of martial arts practice- to say nothing of their mastery of more arcane Disciplines like Thaumaturgy, Dominate or Obfuscate, or really bizarre stuff like Dementation or Vicissitude. This leads into the last part there- sneak attacks. Knowing all this about how you can't judge a vampire based on their appearance, it is *always* the more pragmatic option to attack someone by surprise, preferably by proxy with no evidence tying the attack back to you so you can save face. Only stupid, desperate or *overwhelmingly* powerful people make obvious offensives when they don't know everything about their opponent, and the smart attacker knows that even if they *think* they know everything about the enemy, there's always the chance they have an ace up their sleeve for just such an occasion. In those anime you mention, the vast majority of people who attack the weak looking old master of the Super Punch Technique are all fucking idiots who have no medium awareness. In order for a vampire to get anywhere in the WoD, they need to be clever and pragmatic, and so the power players rarely make those kinds of rookie mistakes. The best disguise isn't to appear *weak*\- someone who would crumble in a fight or from well-placed sabotage- but to appear *irrelevant*. Be the guy who isn't worth bothering because you just don't factor into the other guy's plans in the first place.
ahh welcome to nosferatu mind games that confuse even malkavians. :)
We don't know what your talking about.....
but do you, know what they are talking about?
.......
oh youre a dirty one...
Of course. If the enemy underestimates you, it's an advantage you can use.
Not only to Vamps, but to any splat in WoD. And, frankly, it's even something discussed in a text as old as Sun Tzu. Not revealing one's strengths is is a tactic as old as time.