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Information that may be useful for understanding/answering my questions: I'm playing without patches (v1.0 I believe), single player. And I have never been more than a few steps past those sunlit windows in Vienna. I'm not very familiar with Vampires - clans, disciplines, stats, the whole system here is pretty virgin territory for me. But I'm learning.
On to the questions:
1. In the weapon shop, I've noticed that some items appear very rarely or not at all. For example, I've never seen any Rapier (normal type) but lots of fine rapiers. There are tons of clubs, but not a single fine/exquisite club. I have seen some fine/exquisite battle axes but not one normal battle axe.
I know normal rapiers exist because I've found some in barrels. But never in that shop. All other weapons and armors (apart from a few more types, like eg exquisite lance) appear now and then, but some never seem to appear. Do they not exist or is there any reason why he never has these? I'm searching for a pattern here, but it illudes me.
2. For every weapon, their "fine" version does 5 more damage than the normal one and the exquisite one does 10 more than the normal one (maybe it increases more for some?). Speed normally increases or stays the same.
Claymore, however, starts with damage 45. A fine claymore has its damage _reduced_ to 40. The exquisite claymore does 55, following the basic pattern. True, a fine claymore is faster than its normal & exquisite friends (90 for fine, 83 for the others), but why is the damage lower? And why is an exquisite claymore slower than a fine one? Is this a bug (typo) or is there a reason behind this?
3. Checking a couple of old saves I have, my bloodpool is 120 both as Neonate and as Ancillae. No items included. My friend Wilhelm has 120 bloodpool as Neonate and 140 as Ancillae (without items). Doesn't bloodpool rise with your level? If it does, why did Christof not rise? If not, when does your bloodpool rise?
4. I became Inquisitor (>50k xp) before cleaning out Prague by Night and becoming a vampire. And I became an Elder vampire with only 80 in bloodpool! Am I missing something? Do I get higher bloodpool after solving my first quest or something, or why is it so low?
One explanation may be that you always start with 80 in bloodpool, and only get increased bloodpool when you gain a level, which would mean that optimal would be to become vampire before reaching the first level limit (5k xp). I don't know. Do you?
5. When becoming a vampire, I got about 5k xp by telling Ecaterina that I'll follow her lead for now, until I know more about this whole vampire thing.
I tried again, saying "I obey! I am yours to command!" and I got zero xp. That's fine. Being the wuss I am, I deserve no xp for giving in that easily. But later, when reloding another game, becoming a vampire and answering the exact same thing, I got about 12k xp. And this did confuse me. What did I do to deserve those xp? I had more total-xp on Christof the second time I did it, and I had a lot higher faith. Could that affect the xp-outcome? Or is it random?
6. Does raising faith as a human affect anything at all? Or is it just useful for multiplayer-games?
7. I've had neckguards on all my characters and I'm pretty sure I've seen them getting sucked by both enemies and friends-in-frenzy. I thought neckguards would make it impossible for others to suck but it only makes it harder, right?
8. That Femur of an Elder Tzimisce you get from the Monastery... When identified it looks kind of sucky compared to most weapons, but seemed great when I used it. Both against Mercurio and against the golem. Does anyone know how much damage it does against vampires? Is it just double damage, or how come it rocks so much? And how come it was great against the golem? Was it just my imagination? Or could it be that I was comparing it with a "lethal" weapon and the golem is resistant to lethal (or vulnerable to bashing)?

More questions:

9. Does Faith do anything at all (in single player)? I tried raising it before becoming a vampire but noticed no effect, except that the more xp I had put down on it, the more xp I gained when I became embraced (approx 2.5k with Faith 60, 5k with Faith 70 & 11k with Faith 90). Is that maybe some way of refunding some of the xp you have put into a "useless" skill?
10. Discipline rings & amulets both work and are cumulative, which is great! I have my blood cost reduced to 39% using 2 rings and the amulet (which is great when you have a bloodpool of merely 80). So I got extatic when I found a discipline bracelet! But unfortunately it doesn't seem to work at all. Not even if I remove all other discipline items and only use the bracelet (then I pay full blood cost for all abilities). Is there some reason for this or is it just a bug? If a bug, is there a patch that fixes it?

Sorry for bumping the thread like this, but I'm encountering more questions as I advance in the game and I see no reason to start a new thread.
More questions:
13. Walk the Abyss has a blood cost of 25, 20, 15, 10, 10 (for level 1, 2, 3, 4, 5). Since the cost isn't reduced when you train the final step, what do you gain on it?
14. If I'm correct, casting Awaken on a friend in torpor sets his hitpoints to X% of max hitpoints and bloodpool to Y% of max bloodpool. Then he (the awakened guy) gets one free blood healing (his hitpoints increases by whatever he normally gains when casting Blood Healing, without lowering his blood pool). X and Y depends on your Awaken level: X = 21, 17, 31, 41, 61. Y = 14, 15, 20, 20, 25.
Why does the awakened person get less hitpoints with a level 2 Awaken (17%) than with a level 1 Awaken (21%). True, he gets 15% blood instead of 14%, but it still seems kind'a strange.
15. Spirit's Touch: It's cost is reduced from 15 blood to 10 blood when you go from level 3 to level 4 but apart from that nothing seems to change. Are there items later on that needs a higher level of this skill to be identified, or what do you gain on increasing your level in this discipline?
16. Shambling Hordes & Vigor Mortis: The help says "Cast on: Dead". So I killed a few guards and tried to cast this spell on their corpses. It didn't work. Nor could I cast it on them when they were alive. Is it supposed to be used on "alive" _undead_ opponents, or what am I missing?

More:
17. Flame Ring has a blood cost of 15 (for lvl 1-3) and 10 (for lvl 4-5). It does 8-25 damage, depending on distance to target. Distance is the same for all levels.
So apart from the reduced blood cost when upgrading from level 3 to 4, where's the bonus?

Well, to answer many of these questions: The main benefit of raising discipline levels is simply for the reduced cost of use. In some cases, such as affect spells, the time period is slightly longer as well (feral claws for instance).

I don't have time to answer all, so off the top of my head:

Femur, or as it was called early in the days of this game, the bone of Vampire Ass-Whopping. It does lethal damage to vampires, hence high damage done.

Items you can buy are all randomized in game. So, you could potentially buy a great item early on, or could be stuck with mundane useless items

The only real thing I've seen faith do is after you've been turned, you may react differently to Ecaterina and your new state. Aside from that, faith is only useful for mortals in multiplayer.

Shambling Hoirdes nad Vgor Mortis must be used on an active dead target. In other words, Vampires and such. Wouldn't be too useful otherwise.

Ahh! Thanks man. Still have a load of questions, but that cleared up some of them

7. I've had neckguards on all my characters and I'm pretty sure I've seen them getting sucked by both enemies and friends-in-frenzy. I thought neckguards would make it impossible for others to suck but it only makes it harder, right?

I am also wondering this. Because I have been bitten so is it just taking up space in my inventory then?

<~Angelus45~>

If, by "I have been bitten" youmean you have become a vampire, the answer is that there is NO way you can avoid that
But I assume you mean that you've also been bitten after transforming into a vampire, when wearing that neckguard.
I still would like to know about it, but I can safely say that it's taking up space no matter what the answer is. Get a Discipline Bracelet instead. It reduces your blood cost, looks cool, shows that you're wealthy and helps attracting babes. In short: It rocks!

Btw, I'm trying to check out damage, time, xp costs, effects etc on every discipline and for every level of the discipline. I've seen some discipline lists, but the ones I've found only gives the same info as the game does (eg "Blood Strength, blood cost 5, cast on self, desc: Increases Strength").
I want, and am trying to fix something like this:
Blood strength lvl 1: 457 xp, cost 5, improves strength by +5, lasts 15 sek
Blood strength lvl 2: 900 xp, cost 5, improves strength by +10, lasts 30 sek
etc. (the values above may be inaccurate)
Is there such a list to be found anywhere?
If not, would it be of interest to have it published here (under a new post, with SPOILER-warning, of course)
I'm also working on an xp-list (how much xp do different opponents give, and what else gives xp besides them) probably less interesting.
If I ever get through the whole game and get bored I might do a complete monster check, listing each monster plus its hp, xp, bloodpool, stats, resistances, spells etc. Low chance of this, but possible. Same question here: Is there already such a list? And if not, would it be of interest to anyone besides me?

I'm sure there is somewhere, but..... This game is so old that very few people are only now playing (Like me for instance) but it would probably be better for you to do one for the new game. Well if it has the same attributes and such. Hopefully they won't change very much. But they switched it over to FPS and one of the game magizines said this game sucked and they were very skeptical about playing Bloodlines but they said it almost makes up for this one being bad. I love this game I don't know what they are talking about. But if they say Bloodlines is good and Redemption isn't then it probably will be alot different game play wise.

<~Angelus45~>

18. Call Lightning does 0, 15, 30 & 45 damage on targets depending on level (1, 2, 3, 4. lvl 5 not checked but probably does 60 damage). This damage may be lower if used on targets with resistance -these values I got when testing on townspeople. Since lvl 1 does 0 damage, is it of any use at all on lvl 1?

19. Tongue of the Asp vs Theft of Vitae: Both cost the same xp to learn, both have the same blood cost to use, both has the same reach. Theft of Vitae is possible to learn earlier than Tongue of the Asp and Theft of Vitae steals 20, 40, 60, 80 & 100 blood from the target (depending on your skill level), where Tongue of the Asp steals 6, 10, 16, 24 & 36 blood.
So, does Tongue of the Asp have _any_ advantage compared to Theft of Vitae?
20. Eyes of the Serpent costs 5 blood regardless of skill level. Its effect lasts (depending on level) 5, 10, 15, 20 & 20 seconds. Since lvl 4 and 5 lasts the same length (20 seconds) and has the same blood cost, what bonus do you get for getting that last level?
21. I have recently discovered that the cost to buy some disciplines (including the cost to buy higher levels in those disciplines) differs between people. It doesn't seem to depend on stats or whether you've gained the discipline naturally or from a tome. Some vampires just seem to gain disciplines for another cost. The only case I have seen sofar is with Lily. Potence was more expensive for her to learn and... not sure here, but I think it was the Presence disciplines that was cheaper for her. Is this something class dependant or what is the cause of these differences?

Some of the disciplines cap out at certain levels (As in accordance with the PnP rules of the games).

As for 'class' restrictions, some clans get natural strengths and weaknesses in disciplines. Clans like the Brujah and Gengrel have strengths in the strength and combat disciplines, while clans like the Toreador's are a little more subtle.