feralucce Posted October 3, 2010 Report Share Posted October 3, 2010 For those of you who have not played the vampire the masquerade game, the blood pool is kind of like an endurance reserve , but with charges that can be refilled by feeding. We want to build a pool that has charges that get used by powers, etc. I am not sure how to build the pool with regards to the charges vs points in the reserve and recovery... any ideas? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chris Goodwin Posted October 3, 2010 Report Share Posted October 3, 2010 Re: Vampire: the masquerade style blood pool Easy peasy. It's a bog standard END Reserve. Buy the REC of the END Reserve with "Only While Feeding". Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
feralucce Posted October 3, 2010 Author Report Share Posted October 3, 2010 Re: Vampire: the masquerade style blood pool really? Newb here... BOG standard? I mean... the powers in V:tm use a series of charges, basically... powers typically use a number of blood points to activate....and I want to simulate the charges that apply to all vampiric powers while at the same time making them pay for the powers (i.e. don't want them in a multipower Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nolgroth Posted October 3, 2010 Report Share Posted October 3, 2010 Re: Vampire: the masquerade style blood pool End Reserve is the first thing that pops into my head. I would likely buy it with a 0 REC, but tack on a Healing (Blood Pool), only from feeding. You can season extra rules in there to represent that 1 Body = a certain amount of END healed. A more strict HERO interpretation would be a Linked Drain Body/Aid Blood Pool. Tends to be more expensive that way, but maybe it is apropos to your concept. Charges may also work, especially if the Vampire Powerz are all in some sort of Framework and the charges all apply to the Framework. I would make the charges Recoverable, but only Recovers Under Certain Circumstances (feeding). Maybe at 1 Body per Charge or something. That is kind of a wonky workaround though and I don't know how many GMs would approve of it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
feralucce Posted October 3, 2010 Author Report Share Posted October 3, 2010 Re: Vampire: the masquerade style blood pool Well, I know how to do the healing... So... how would charges on endurance reserve work with different active point costs on the powers themselves? I mean, each power is going to have radically different point costs... and since I want them to not use endurance and use the charges to fuel them... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nolgroth Posted October 3, 2010 Report Share Posted October 3, 2010 Re: Vampire: the masquerade style blood pool Not charges on the END Reserve. Just charges on something like Multipower containing all the powers. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lucius Posted October 3, 2010 Report Share Posted October 3, 2010 Re: Vampire: the masquerade style blood pool I think "Bog standard" is an expression like "garden variety." In other words, he's saying that you're talking about something ordinary, not strange or exotic. Ferralucce, let me make sure I understand you. You plan to have a set of powers, with very different Active Points, that all have the same "cost" to use? So that a 20 pt creepy-but-not-very-dangerous power draws the same "blood points" as a 120 pt awesome-shiny-hey-I'm-a-terrible-bloodsucking-monster power? edit: Because if so, I see a couple of ways to make it work with END Reserve. One is to apply the "Reduced END" Advantage and "Increased END" Limitation selectively to bring the END costs of the powers close to a standard cost. Along with that you can also "beef up" some of the smaller powers with inobvious Advantages like Difficult to Dispel (if there is anything that Dispels vampire powers and you don't want it to Dispel the small ones too easily.) Another idea is to have a kind of generic Custom Power "Activate Vampire Ability" that draws from the END Reserve, and all the actual powers are at 0 END but Linked to the "Activation" power. All this is using RAW (Rules As Written) - you can always use a House Rule and say "every power use draws X pts from the Blood Pool (END Reserve)" especially if all the players will be playing vampires. If you've got a mix of characters, though, special rules for some character types may be a balance or fairness issue. Lucius Alexander The palindromedary wants an indoor heated Variable Power Pool Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
feralucce Posted October 3, 2010 Author Report Share Posted October 3, 2010 Re: Vampire: the masquerade style blood pool Unfortunately... that is what the original game did... it, imo, was terribly unbalanced... BUT... not all of the powers too blood to use Celerity (typoed celery the first time) was advanced speed. It allowed an extra action per level of the power, and took one blood point per extra action taken. Very powerful but very draining. Potence was heightened strength, yet was always on. Auspex (heightened awareness and psychic ability) was on and off, without blood use until "level five" which was a psychic projection... In this series of adaptations we're working on, we are attempting to be faithful to the material... SO the powers would all use a number of charges to pull off, all from a central endurance reserve. With what we've discussed, I am thinking the reserve would be set up based on the cost of celerity in ten increments, with a custom limitation that uses one increment per use, whether or not the rest of the endurance is used and each increment can only be used to fuel "one level" of the power so that using a power with a cheaper activation cost doesn't allow them to use multiple levels per increment... Does that sound functional? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
feralucce Posted October 3, 2010 Author Report Share Posted October 3, 2010 Re: Vampire: the masquerade style blood pool and if someone said that already... please forgive me... looong night Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lord Liaden Posted October 3, 2010 Report Share Posted October 3, 2010 Re: Vampire: the masquerade style blood pool feralucce, you've been given some very good advice on how to precisely mimic the blood pool effect from Vampire. I just want to point out, in case the thought hasn't occurred to you (you being a self-professed HERO newb ), that HERO allows you to build a character's abilities the way you want, rather than as a particular game designer wanted them. While you can make blood pools work just like they do in the original game, you can just as easily modify them to work however would be the easiest and most fun for your group. I've seen other interpretations of VtM blood pools rendered in HERO, and they're all done as Endurance Reserves as Chris Goodwin suggested. They substitue the standard Endurance point cost for using Powers in HERO for the number of Blood Points used to fuel a vampire's powers in VtM. It's not a direct port of the VtM mechanic, but the spirit is the same, and in some ways it's less clunky. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chris Goodwin Posted October 3, 2010 Report Share Posted October 3, 2010 Re: Vampire: the masquerade style blood pool In this series of adaptations we're working on' date=' we are attempting to be faithful to the material... SO the powers would all use a number of charges to pull off, all from a central endurance reserve. [/quote'] No, I'm saying don't use charges at all. Require all powers to cost Endurance and have them draw off of the "Blood Pool" END Reserve, that recovers through feeding. It's generally not a good idea to try to replicate another system's mechanics using the HERO System. There won't be a straight across conversion, such that 1 blood point = X END. If you're trying to replicate everything in Vampire, including the lack of balance, I'd suggest just playing Vampire. On the other hand, you have a chance to convert the spirit of the Vampire powers to Hero, and maybe have them balance out a bit better. I'd very strongly recommend the latter. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
feralucce Posted October 3, 2010 Author Report Share Posted October 3, 2010 Re: Vampire: the masquerade style blood pool K... than ks for all the advice... and its a long story as to why we want to do this. It boils down to a large fractured gaming community in my area, and it's hard to get anyone to break away from their predetermined gaming niche... so we're running some conversions to ease the transition... And while it seems that I am being argumentative, I am simply trying to get a grasp on things that I've never done in the system... you do have a good point on the spirit, if not the mechanics... And I DID do a search for blood pool before posting... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NuSoardGraphite Posted October 3, 2010 Report Share Posted October 3, 2010 Re: Vampire: the masquerade style blood pool I think Charges that apply to your "Disciplines Multipower" that only refill when your character drinks blood should just about cover it. The GM can determine which disciplines cost "Blood Points" and which don't. Thats pretty easy right there. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lord Liaden Posted October 3, 2010 Report Share Posted October 3, 2010 Re: Vampire: the masquerade style blood pool Fair enough, feralucce. Perhaps it would help you to see a couple of past detailed conversions of VtM abilities into HERO. These are for editions of the system previous to Sixth, so a little of the terminology may be unfamiliar to you; but you should get the idea, and we can always clarify things you're unsure of. Here are the links: http://web.archive.org/web/20050102121656/www.herogames.com/digitalHero/Samples/dh06angelina.htm http://surbrook.devermore.net/herosource/other/whitewolf/WODvampire.html Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
feralucce Posted October 3, 2010 Author Report Share Posted October 3, 2010 Re: Vampire: the masquerade style blood pool What's ironic is that I was a hard core champions fan back in the day... then started 5th edition, but let it fall by the wayside when I moved back to new orleans... Then, I had to start some medication due to injury and...it seems to have swept all my old knowledge out of my head... Thank you all for all your help Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chris Goodwin Posted October 3, 2010 Report Share Posted October 3, 2010 Re: Vampire: the masquerade style blood pool K... than ks for all the advice... and its a long story as to why we want to do this. It boils down to a large fractured gaming community in my area, and it's hard to get anyone to break away from their predetermined gaming niche... so we're running some conversions to ease the transition... And while it seems that I am being argumentative, I am simply trying to get a grasp on things that I've never done in the system... you do have a good point on the spirit, if not the mechanics... And I DID do a search for blood pool before posting... I apologize if my tone came across as argumentative also. I didn't see yours that way but looking back I think I was a little short. Sorry about that! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
prestidigitator Posted October 4, 2010 Report Share Posted October 4, 2010 Re: Vampire: the masquerade style blood pool I think an End Reserve plus the new Time Limit Advantage might really help with this. Powers that last a "turn" like Celerity can be either Instant or last for a Hero Turn, and you can choose an appropriate time limit like 5 or 20 min (which would be a judgement call based on the actual power) for powers that are supposed to last for "a scene" (e.g. Protean claws). The great thing is that Hero is going to make a lot of the powers pretty scalable, so instead of simply five dots, you can model each level of ability and have them all become more powerful over time and use if you like. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
feralucce Posted October 4, 2010 Author Report Share Posted October 4, 2010 Re: Vampire: the masquerade style blood pool Chris: it's all good... it's not common knowledge, but I have asperger's syndrome, so by my very nature, I am terribly specific in my quests for knowledge... I want to understand the hows and the whys so that I can reason it out for myself later on... In this one, I had fixated on replicating the effects instead of running with the spirit of the thing... Which is an issue with me from time to time... And I do appreciate the discussion and information. HONESTLY Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
prestidigitator Posted October 4, 2010 Report Share Posted October 4, 2010 Re: Vampire: the masquerade style blood pool In this one' date=' I had fixated on replicating the effects instead of running with the spirit of the thing... Which is an issue with me from time to time....[/quote'] I find it really easy to do that when converting things myself. I can't count how many times I had to back off and tell myself to look at the bigger picture when converting AD&D spells (which are, of course, pretty specific and nit-picky about how all the details and corner cases work...). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
IndianaJoe3 Posted October 4, 2010 Report Share Posted October 4, 2010 Re: Vampire: the masquerade style blood pool I've found that when converting, it's often easier to ignore the mechanics, and just work off the flavor text. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CrosshairCollie Posted October 4, 2010 Report Share Posted October 4, 2010 Re: Vampire: the masquerade style blood pool I've found that when converting' date=' it's often easier to ignore the mechanics, and just work off the flavor text.[/quote'] Agreed. That said ... ENDReserve with a Transfer: BODY to the Reserve is probably the best 'hard' translation I can come up with. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
prestidigitator Posted October 4, 2010 Report Share Posted October 4, 2010 Re: Vampire: the masquerade style blood pool Agreed. That said ... ENDReserve with a Transfer: BODY to the Reserve is probably the best 'hard' translation I can come up with. Yeah, though a whole "Transfer" construct might not be necessary. Instead of an Aid (which will have Maximum Effect and Fade Rate you'll have to get around), simply limit the Recovery of the reserve to the amount of (whatever) Drained or done by an (fang) attack that Turn. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pinecone Posted October 5, 2010 Report Share Posted October 5, 2010 Re: Vampire: the masquerade style blood pool For those of you who have not played the vampire the masquerade game, the blood pool is kind of like an endurance reserve , but with charges that can be refilled by feeding. We want to build a pool that has charges that get used by powers, etc. I am not sure how to build the pool with regards to the charges vs points in the reserve and recovery... any ideas? I did this with a End Reserve,with REC: (Lots):Only when feeding so bite a kine and top off a pool....or if the pool is large bite two or three...or drain your target dry, and take two Recs from one kine......it seemed to work just fine.... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Utech Posted October 7, 2010 Report Share Posted October 7, 2010 Re: Vampire: the masquerade style blood pool Out of curiosity, is it important to stat out this pool? Could you not set up the blood pool as ground rules for the campaign? An alternative to the End Reserve and/or Charges would be to give all vampires a Complication such as "Can only use powers X times before feeding." Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Killer Shrike Posted October 7, 2010 Report Share Posted October 7, 2010 Re: Vampire: the masquerade style blood pool No, I'm saying don't use charges at all. Require all powers to cost Endurance and have them draw off of the "Blood Pool" END Reserve, that recovers through feeding. It's generally not a good idea to try to replicate another system's mechanics using the HERO System. There won't be a straight across conversion, such that 1 blood point = X END. If you're trying to replicate everything in Vampire, including the lack of balance, I'd suggest just playing Vampire. On the other hand, you have a chance to convert the spirit of the Vampire powers to Hero, and maybe have them balance out a bit better. I'd very strongly recommend the latter. Quoted for effect. Also, the context is a little different, but this document on conversion styles might help you conceptually in your attempt to convert over: Conversion Styles Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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