Being a thrifty Kindred (SPOILERS)

[Bat22]

One of VTMB's strong points is its social aspect. The voice actors are great and there are numerous options with conversations.

However, by the time of the Giovanni mission, I realized that spending tens of points on Persuasion or Seduction only resulted in a handful of points in return. It just didn't seem worth it by that time. I'm interested in accumulating points for a decent fighter while avoiding waste (or coming up short) in other arenas such as Social skills, Inspection, and Intimidation.

For example, certain Kindred can begin with a level 3 Perception. This gains a few points from seeing through Knox but it's also useful for Firearms.

A tactic I (and probably many others) use is filling out slots 1 and 2 for Brawl and Melee so that Nines and the books can handle the more expensive 3rd and 4th ones. I do that with Finance so that Larry and the book cover 15 points to my 3 or 6. It's pretty absurd to expend points on Firearms and Computers 1 and 2 when Trip's books will take care of that.

When choosing traits in the beginning, you might want to consider going all the way with one. For example, give a Brujah or Gangrel level 3 in Strength/Stamina instead of level 2 for both. The former requires 12 points to catch up in Stamina/Strength (Santa Monica isn't that dangerous) while the latter requires 16 points to build both Strength and Stamina to level 3. The 4-point difference is a neat discount.

If you have the patience, you might also avoid the 3-point side quests until you've acquired the Saulocept to gain an extra point.

While I question the worthwhileness of the Giovanni conversations, at least level 5 Persuasion can get extra points from Phil (blood bank), the bum witness (2nd murder scene), and Larry (Finance level for a battle chest). I'm just not sure where to draw the line at Persuasion.

Comments?

[BGRocks]

I would have at the very least five for persuasion, because you should raise scholarship pretty high so you can use all those books, and raising that raises your persuasion as well as research, so it's a very nice bonus. And you also get one charisma from the start, and it costs only 4XP to raise it another, so that might be worth it. But the big thing is to raise it with scholarship.

[Jhereg]

It greatly depends

You favor a fighter player, so naturally you play towards that end. I play a sorcerer, and sometimes will go through the whole game never driving my strength or dexterity above 1 - 2 for dex after I get the bird-skull fetish. For me, there is precious little use for either. At need I can blood buff both to the maximum, and my blood buff trumps your 5 strength and your 5 dexterity - giving me 8 levels of XP I can commit to other things more suitable to my character, like purge - effective against even vampires, or ultimately blood boil. Thaumaturgy is really handy that way.

You can, by the end of the game and judicious use of available resources, paint your character screen with a liberal amount of red dots. For me, the sections tend to be most heavily painted towards the bottom-right rather than the top left early on, but by end-game I've usually got the bulk of them covered and enough cash to afford extremely nasty weaponry and full ammo all across the board. Invincible, Invulnerable, Invisible. Who needs strong?

This has benefits that are not immediately obvious. Personally I like persuasion and seduction, and drive them up rather quickly. You can't beat XP out of anybody, but you can persuade or seduce them out. Tremere are heavy on the blood, so establishing a satisfactory number of cattle early on is incredibly important. Seduction, there - cattle in every neighbourhood (except Chinatown - I could never get that blood doll, and usually if I get seduction high enough, I forget to try). I never have to go to the blood bank, and I'm usually packing heavy on the blood bags by the end of the game, because aside from the three I sell at the beach, I never have to use them until very near the end, so I typically have an 8-3-2 supply (by quality) going into the end-game, which is far more than merely adequate, especially combined with a full Chalice. I frequently finish with the same load. Of course, early on, that means that the sewers are all but devoid of rats. No house tabbies here

Stealth is handy for that. There are always few goons handy for a midnight snack, as long as they don't see you coming.

For actual combat, who needs strength? I normally have Suicide by the time I get to the beach house, and between trance, blood strike and suicide, I can get an awful lot of damage done before anybody gets close enough to actually hit me, even if I'm completely unarmed. Of course, to be a sorcerer, you have to be fairly adroit with the mouse-wheel. Being able to accurately swap disciplines rapidly by knowing the number of detent clicks between each is rather important, much as I expect being a quick-shooter on the mouse buttons must be for a fighter.

Sorcerors also have to have a good sense of timing, because, unlike a full-on fighter, we can't re-use a discipline until it's run its course, so knowing who to hit with what and when is kind of critical. A strong player is always strong - you don't have to worry about your strength being unavailable for one enemy because it's currently targeted on another.

It all boils down to style of play. For your style, things like persuade and seduce are all but worthless. For me, they are crucial. The difference - style of play. I'm certain that if you polled the community, there would be as many different preferences as there are bloodlines, with a few extra just for good measure.

At the end of the day, there is only one rule. No matter what clan you favor or what style you play, just be the vampire! Everything else will come out in the wash.

[Celacena]

Seduced by Success

I used to put points into seduce, but realised that there is a cattle-market in most places. Asylum - well that is low level, but you have Heather in your pad in Downtown; Glaze and Lotus House in Chinatown and in Hollywood, you can probably pay at Versuvius - I don't bother. You have the yukky pig's head to store combat-earned blood and 10 pints goes a fair way.

so seduce, I usually leave.

persuasion is another matter - I agree that the final expensive points needed for Giovanni are costly and a bit of overkill for the rest of the game - lvl 6 will usually get you where you want to be, from recollection. I often leave pers at 7 and sacrifice the extra Giovanni xp, as the return on that investment seems low.

persuasion is a good feature of the game overall, so I get it up early on.

I go down the books and free-training route. (use search for good discussion of Beckett's role)

you can get free training to level 5 in some disciplines - even though I am not bothered about hacking much, I can have lvl 5 computer, lvl 5 brawl, dodge, finance etc mainly through study.

2 points from Nines - on movng Downtown and immediately post-Dane before reporting in and getting the Grout mission.
points from Beckett - at the museum and after speaking to the professor
using the finance manual and larry you get 3 points in finance - make larry's the 4 to 5 one though.
betram tung - get him to clue you up on computers for the 4th/5th point
Romero - I think his firearms teaching is max 3 - save the game and check (that's what I always do)

my character last time got very good in firearms - I didn't realise how much difference those final points made. try it!

[Jhereg]

Firearms

I once got my firearms to 10 and that rifle is awesome, but getting to ten is a pain, and by the time you get there, you're lucky if you have anything left to shoot at but the bat. I've found that handguns and shotguns are perfectly adequate, albeit somewhat slower - even for the bat. I basically get my firearms to 6 or 7, which is adequate for some of the heavier artillery, and leave it at that.

I'm starting to learn if I can use ranged disciplines on the bat. It worked on Ming's warform, so except for zombies and such, I'm constantly moving away from physical and ranged weaponry and more towards pure disciplines. I hope to someday be able to finish the game with nothing but disciplines and the odd fist-fight (no point in wasting disciplines on a lot of the lesser foes).

But, that's just the way I'm going. It's not better or worse - just the way I play.

[Bat22]

There's another trick to saving points similar to buying four books on Firearms and Computers (bah) from Trip... and it leaves me with a guilty feeling.

Just sell the 1-2 and 3-4 level books you collect on sneaking, dodging, finance, brawling, and melee without using them, and then buy them back twofold.

[Jhereg]

There's another trick to saving points similar to buying four books on Firearms and Computers (bah) from Trip... and it leaves me with a guilty feeling.

Just sell the 1-2 and 3-4 level books you collect on sneaking, dodging, finance, brawling, and melee without using them, and then buy them back twofold.

Yep. It saves a lot of grief. Don't feel guilty - that was done for a purpose. I double-buy all my books from the get-go, except for one. When I get the last dodge book, my dodge is already at 4, so I just use it right away.