Welcome back! Today we're going to get into what we might see when we play as different Clans in Themepark combat. For fun, I grouped the Clans by the most straight-forward, intuitive, by-the-book, combative Clans first, with the ones that will require a little more finessing to make sense in this style of play coming later. I hope you enjoy it.

Gangrel. Brujah. Nosferatu. Feral fury. Anarchic rage. Nightmarish brutality. These three are clearly the ones who'll have the easiest time in the Themepark, all things being equal, at least as far as straight-up fights go.

 

Protean will most likely give the Gangrel some terrifying close-quarters attacks, as well as a few possibilities for manuevering about, and even avoiding some damage (Think something like Mist Form or Earthmeld). Animalism may allow for some ranged attacks, environmental damage and some good old Ao'E's with clouds of bats and what-not. Fortitude will let them shrug off harm, letting them get in close enough to do horrible things with their claws. Additionally, if CCP decides to go with something more Talent-Tree than Straight-up Dots, Fortitude might also branch out from soaking damage and extra health levels (from the Canon), into things like periodically preventing all damage (like Aegis from LARP), absorbing damage done to nearby allies (Like Martyr's Resilience in Tabletop) or rebounding damage back on those who attack you (ala... some Elder in one of those books... somewhere) Moving around the battlefield, absorbing damage and rending foes, Gangrel are terrifying in a straight fight.

 

Brujah are war gods. Presence might have a couple of de-buff effects (take, for instance, its effects in Bloodlines), and might allow buffs for allies. Celerity will likely at least let you move around the battlefield, and might allow rapid attacks, depending on how they design it. They might also hard-code certain Celerity tactics, like having one Celerity "Skill" cause your character to periodically blur around an opponent to attack from behind while it's active. Then there's Potence. Potence is shear force, where Protean is animal savagery. Even if firearms are vestigial, I imagine melee weapons in the hands of super-strong Kindred will be another story. If not, a knife in the hands of a character with high Potence can easily be more dangerous than a sword in the hands of any mortal. Even empty-handed, Potence could allow for devastating punches, bone-crushing grapples, improvised weapons (like torn sign-posts, or even whole cars) and even perhaps the occasional ranged attack (thrown sewer lid, thrown car, et c). Recall, as well, the shot we saw in the first video of the character being thrown, bodily, from the roof-top...

 

Now take that brutal force, and make it invisible. While the Brujah and Gangrel charge into the fray, the Nosferatu lurk along the edges, abushing stragglers and pounding them into the ground. While Gangrel avoid harm with Fortitude, and Brujah do it with Celerity Dodges, Obfuscate might also let the Nos just vanish after they've made their attack, to move into position for their next ambush. Add to that whatever Animalism lets them and the Gangrel do, and it might take the term "Gorilla/Guerilla Warfare" to a whole new level. (Sorry. Forgive the pun). Oh, and to top it off, they're ugly as sin, so having one pop up in front of you during a throw-down would be terrifying, though having one pop up behind you would be a different story entirely...

Most people who know the word "Tremere" also know just how much everyone hates these guys. Depending on how CCP sets up the game, I could see a player's first combat opposed to them as reinforcing that sentiment thoroughly.

 

Useful as Dominate would be in more social settings, it could have plenty of uses on the battlefield. We know that Tyrant's Gaze saps targets of Willpower, which might factor into combat, somehow, like making it hard or even impossible for characters who're out of Willpower to keep fighting.  It could also have skills within that Tree-thing with applications for crowd-control, targeted de-buffs, temporary paralysis, or possibly momentarily causing one opponent to strike another one. Higher levels might also allow the Warlocks to force a target to change sides for a short time, harm himself (as in Bloodlines) or simply drop to the floor to be picked off or eaten at leisure.

 

Auspex was kind of a tough one, at least at first. Wheras the other Disciplines do things (or prevent things, in the case of Fortitude), Auspex gives you information, and that's notoriously hard to incorporate in a real-time combat scenario. It's possible, but it takes work. The easiest application for the Theme Park is something akin to the seeing-through-walls trick from Bloodlines, meaning a team with a Tremere out front might get the drop on another one, just by virtue of seeing them first. Once the Tremere does see them, we know one of the Auspex powers ("Insight," was it?) would give her a small advantage over at least one target if she has a few seconds to study them. Of course, walking around in front is a scary place for the party's Magic-User to be, what with scary Nosferatu potentially lurking about, so odds are, Auspex will almost certainly let Tremere see through some players' Obfuscate (matching level vs. level, of course). From there, though, it's a little dicier. Another Aura Sight-like power might let you discern someone's Clan and/or relative power-level (really useful when confronted with opponents you don't know). I could imagine powers like Insight letting the Tremere take a bit of extra time to get a temporary bonus against a target, from studying him a bit, making it really dangerous to ignore them for an period of time. I could also see them giving higher-level Auspex users some kind of group-buff via Telepathy, perhaps giving the whole party that bonus against a single target Insight gave her, or something like that. Lastly, something like Eagle's Sight (from V:tES, again) may also greatly increase the reach of ranged powers, so, it might let your Tremere point-man set your opponents on fire or Dominate them from three blocks down the street (and on the other side of a wall coupled with Aura Sight), long before they even realize your team is nearby.

 

Thaumaturgy is another reason I think they might be considering a Talent-Tree model for Disciplines. A Tree would let them build in the terrifying variety of Thaumaturgical Paths (which I'm sure the Tremere players would all but demand) without leaving the other players feeling like the Tremere get a billion  in-Clan Disciplines, versus the three everyone else gets. Other Clans have a tight, strong focus of power in their Disciplines, while Thaum gives the Warlocks a sort of wild card (like it did in V:tET). If you stay at range against a Tremere, she might rain fire down on you, safely out of its range. Move in close, and she might boil your blood with a touch. Ignore her for too long and she might be preparing a ritual that takes a couple extra seconds to pull off, but rush her too quickly, and you might set off the magical traps she's got set up to protect herself. Unpredictable and dangerous, which brings us to...

... who we'll talk about next week. Thanks for reading, everyone!!