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Last time I played Bloodlines with a Malkavian specialised in Ranged weapons, with Awareness discipline.

Do you have any suggestions as to what my next character concept could be? I would still like to be able to do all the quests, and the extra hassle of a Nosferatu doesn't appeal to me. I considered a Tremere, but is the Thaumaturgy reliable as a weapon?

I use Wesp's excellent unofficial patch, so does that mean that Stealth quests are frustratingly hard? (I used Obfuscation the first time.)

Thanks in advance!

The Tremere may be the best clan in the game. Thaumaturgy is.. interesting, especially since Wesp restored the discipline effects. And they get the domination abilities to boot, which means you can kill anyone, anywhere, whenever you like without breaking the Masquerade. Both disciplines can be used without revealing your location, making stealth a very profitable path for you.

Between these two abilities, you'll very rarely find yourself relying on weapons (but you still have Auspex if you do!). When you do need a gun to finish off a boss or something that resists disciplines, you usually have enough money left over to buy yourself something expensive like a flamethrower or an assault rifle. As long as there is blood, you're a money saving god.

Generally speaking, I find playthroughs that rely heavily on blood management the most interesting, so any class with interesting 'active' disciplines are good to go. However, in my opinion using either Thaumaturgy or Animalism may make the game *too* easy at times, at least for maybe 3/4 of the game. A way to add more challenge to such a playthrough is combine it with a low-humanity playstyle as well (you'll get unique dialogues too), so you are under more pressure to maintain a healthy blood pool. Dealing with the occasional hunter also makes things interesting. I highly recommend this, actually. It's one of my favourite ways to play the game.

I had no problem doing the stealth quests with a Tremere in my last playthrough (a week ago), and I know I didn't have those skills maxed either.

Low humanity isn't my cup of tea, from an RP standpoint.
Thanks for the heads up, I was afraid that Thaumaturgy would make Blood so scarce that you hardly ever ended up using it.
Would Thaumaturgy with Melee as back up be viable then?

Actually, if my memory serves, with some disciplines of Thaumaturgy, you won't have to worry about blood too much. If I remember correctly, one of the things you can drain blood from other people, so in a fight, you can use that to refill your blood pool. One of the absolute best clan to play, and the best discipline around. The next, it's a toss up, between Gangrel and Malkavian. Possibly even Brujah. The Malkavian, is rather interesting, to say the least.

Malkavian's were hilarious.

GawainBS wrote:Low humanity isn't my cup of tea, from an RP standpoint.
Thanks for the heads up, I was afraid that Thaumaturgy would make Blood so scarce that you hardly ever ended up using it.

No, Blood Theft really is the key to everything. You can even move while using it, contrary to the description (I prefer not to, for dramatic effect - awesome FX). You can switch between that and Blood Boil and do a whole lot of damage, either on the run or while sneaking.
Mind the monsters that resist disciplines though. In the case of Blood Theft, sometimes the monsters will take the damage it does, but not return you any blood. I first ran into trouble with that in the Hollywood sewers. I wasn't good with guns as I went through it, but I had a few points in stealth and managed to sneak my way past the hard bits.
I wouldn't recommend it in any of the boss battles either but strangely enough the lower tier Blood Strike sometimes works quite well where Blood Theft refuses to give you any blood back.

Would Thaumaturgy with Melee as back up be viable then?

Maybe not Melee (for stealth moves, use Thaumaturgy or Domination powers). Consider that you don't have fortitude, auspex or presence to aid you as a melee guy. I think you'll still get through most of the game at high melee skill levels, but the boss battles are going to hurt you. Auspex really is the way to go in these cases, meaning you should probably get a big gun instead.
*That being said.. unless Wesp has changed it, the flamethrower pretty much owns everything, even with low weapon skills

I was intending to use Melee for the cannon fodder, and use Thaumaturgy for the tougher fights, like the weaker monsters in the sewers.

While Blood Purge and Shield are useful, most you encounter in the sewers don't return blood to you (maybe the big spider woman thing does - I'm not sure).

You still need an edge. Thaumaturgy will do little for you when facing 'the' Tcimize for instance (forgot his name). You can endure that battle though, as you're in no immediate danger as long as you remain on the move. The Kuei-jin brothers on the other hand come after you fast and hit hard. I was able to 'cheat' that battle a little by

Spoiler

standing in a place the AI couldn't reach (although their AoE still hit)

, otherwise I would have been in serious trouble. Also this was one of the cases where Blood Strike returned blood and Blood Theft didn't.

So your advice is to grab Firearms as an off-weapon?

Yes. You don't have have to max the skill, I think, but I can't really advise you how many points to invest. Just keep around something heavy that will do a lot of damage, quickly. You usually don't need it, so it won't cost you heavily. Get the Flamethrower as soon as you can (not sure where Wesp dropped it, actually - Mercurio should sell it at some point).

Oh and I sneaked past most foes in the Sewers too, so I didn't really need their blood anyway. But you knew that already. Bottom line: boss battles, boss battles, boss battles.

Ok, I'll keep it in mind. The sewers is about the only part of the game I loathed: way too long.
I also dread the Ocean Hotel, but that's because it's too good.

On the first floor of Ocean Hotel, go to the left of the entrance, past the closed off restaurant/bar, and down that hallway, turn around, and just wait. What happens there should add to the environment.

Now I'm spooked.

The only thing about the Ocean house that manages to scare me sometimes is that light bulb before you enter the building, because I tend to forget it's there.

Ever see the Axeman? That's cool.

The axeman scared the hell out of me the first time.

I think I already saw the axeman in a teaser for the game, so it failed to creep me out. The light bulb however was not featured in said teaser/

That, and the ghostly girl running across my view in the basement, and the washing machine starting to tumble after you read the newspaperarticle about a head being found in a washingmachine...