Vol 1, Issue 2.
Legal shite: All contents copyright 1998 Alexander Austin. All
rights reserved. Reproduction of some or all of the following is
permitted for personal use, review purposes, or to reply to this post;
all other reproduction of the writing contained herein is forbidden
without the permission of the author. Pretty much all of the
technical terms I use herein are copyright White Wolf or Wizards of
the Coast, and are used with WotC’s permission. This document will
also be found on the web at
http://www.geocities.com/SoHo/Cafe/2147/jyhad.html, once I add it
there.
Table of Contents:
1. Ranting (General comments on inducting new players into Jyhad)
2. Background (Vignette: Furious Rage)
3. Commentary (Commentary on the Brujah Disciplines)
4. Consideration (A value judgement of the 15 Brujah from the basic set)
5. Final words
1. Neonates, and the problems of initiation.
It’s hard to get new players into Jyhad/V:tES. You can talk
to your friends who play card games, but many of them will have played
Jyhad before, either under card limits or by trying to understand the
awful complexities of the first rulebook, and will not be interested
because of those experiences. You can talk to the people you know who
play vampire, but many of them prefer the role-playing and
storytelling aspects of the tabletop or Live-action games to the
sterile battlefield of card gaming. And then even if you do get
people to play, you have no reassurance that they’ll stay and play
another game, much less like it.
You can get people hooked, of course, often CCG players from
other games who appreciate the careful balance and design qualities of
Jyhad and roleplayers who like the mood and atmosphere of the game.
These are the people who you can hang on to, and bring into your
regular playgroup. But what about the other people, the ones who
don’t have the same level of interest? I try and keep them interested
by taking care of the annoying details, like deck tuning and construction for them. I organize
events to play cards and let them come and go as they please. It
works, in its own way; I have two players who are rather interested in
the game and three who are somewhat, and all of them come to all of my
events, even if some stay less time than others. You can only try to
convert those who are only casually interested. And hope that they
see the light, as it were, of the game we love.
2. Furious Rage
Rage is the essence of our clan, the purity of what we are.
We are fury, dreamers denied the realization of their dreams, and
idealists continually betrayed by the perversities of those around us.
We can see in our mind’s eye, a vision of perfection so unequaled by
reality that whenever someone acts in a way that causes reality to
slip further away from that dream of perfection we possessed, we are
consumed by anger and outrage at their thoughtlessness and stupidity.
After all, only a fool could not realize that their actions moved the
world one step closer towards being hell on earth.
It is because there are so many things wrong that we are so
angry, and are so easily angered. Sometimes, however, we can find
certain things or individuals to be responsible for a great deal of
wrongs in the world.
And that is why I killed the prince. Not because of any
devotion to your "Anarch cause", not out of a desire for personal
vengeance or because he was the great-grandchilde of some elder my
sire crossed 600 years ago in some rural village in europe. No, I
took his unlife because I recognized that his tyrannical rule of the
kindred and kine of this city was stifling emotion, passion, and free
expression. I slew him because I saw you and your kind hypocritically
mouthing the words of anarchy and freedom while secretly aspiring to
become like him.
Go now, childer. Go and fight over the princedom. Do your
worst to each other.
But at the least, be honest in your venality and greed, or I
will strike you down like I struck down that buffoon of a prince you
all feared, loathed and groveled before and called “master” when you
thought your comrades were not looking. If you truly sink to his
level, then you too will become more of a cause of the problems in
this world than a solution.
And I assure you, childer, I will be waiting.
- Grigori, Brujah Elder, speaking to a group of younger
members of his clan.
3. Commentary on the Brujah Disciplines.
Celerity: Celerity is a discipline which is not incredibly useful on
it’s own. While it allows for control of range and continuation of
combat, as well as the avoidance of damage and one’s opponent’s
strikes, it is not a powerful tool for achieving any goal except in
conjunction with other combat cards, like equipment or
damage-increasing or modifying strikes. Its bleed capacities are
minimal, its stealth even more so. As such, Celerity’s utility to the
brujah lies in three successively less effective areas: 1) Supporting
Potence through adding combat control and additional strikes; 2)
Supporting equipment based combat through adding combat control and
additional strikes; and 3) Controlling combat as to avoid being
damaged by other methuselahs minions.
Potence: Potence is good for combat, pure and simple. Extra damage
on strikes, be they hand strikes or with melee weapons, at close or
long range. Whatever the focus of a use of potence, make sure that
it’s focused and has the control elements to make sure that its focus
pays off (i.e., maneuvers for short or long ranged decks, and presses
for second-round or later decks).
Presence: Of all the Brujah disciplines, presence is the most
playable on it’s own, either as a bleed or vote disipline. Of the
two, vote is easier to pull off: majesties, bewitching orations, voter
captivation, awe and the like are all one needs. Presence bleed often
needs manuevers to ensure that once combat has begun, it will end
quickly, and as such can rely more on celerity. In either case,
combat avoidance is generally the best policy unless presence is being
used as a second-tier discipline strategy.
4. Consideration of the Brujah of the Basic Set.
From lowest capacity to highest:
Angel: 2 Cap Celerity. Very solid small vampire. Useful if Celerity
is a main focus of a deck. Less useful it Celerity in combination
with another discipline is the key.
Lupo: 2 Cap Potence. Same evaluation as Angel, except useful if
Potence is a deck focus.
Dre: 3 Cap Potence Celerity. One of the best weenies for
Potence/Celerity combat. Useful but not wonderful if only used for
one of his two disciplines.
Uma Hatch: 3 Cap Celerity Presence. Not generally useful except in
runaway combat bleed or vote. Approximately equal utility to Brujah
and Toreador decks.
Hector Sosa: 4 Cap POTENCE Presence. Only really useful if Potence is
a main point of the deck, or if Potence and Presence work well
together for some reason.
Yuri the Talon: 4 Cap Potence Presence Celerity. Clan poster boy.
Average utility for most clan deck concepts, but is not necessary in
general; use only if a smaller vampire is not superior.
Black Cat: 5 Cap CELERITY Potence Presence, -1 pool on all equip
costs. Good for an equipment or Celerity-heavy deck. Not great for
straight potence/celerity combat.
Bianca: 6 Cap CELERITY Potence Presence, +1 hand damage. Good for
Celerity/Potence, or any other celerity-based brujah combat deck.
Rake: 6 Cap PRESENCE Potence Celerity Auspex, Prince of Atlanta. Good
for vote heavy decks, presence decks, or toreador crossovers. A must
for most pure presence titled-vote decks.
Anvil: 6 Cap POTENCE CELERITY Presence Dominate Thaumaturgy, Primogen.
Extremely useful in almost all Brujah decks, due to his atypical
number of disciplines and powers at his size. Practically makes the
older primogen of the clan useless.
Tura Vaughn: 8 Cap PRESENCE POTENCE CELERITY Dominate, Primogen.
Useful in decks that use all the clan disciplines at superior. Not
generally useful otherwise, as she is too large in capacity and thus
expensive to bring out.
Miranda Sanova: 8 Cap PRESENCE CELERITY Potence Auspex Obfuscate,
Primogen. Useful in Presence/Celerity decks, especially Toreador
crossovers or decks that use obfuscate as well. Not generally useful
otherwise for the same reasons as Tura.
Crusher: 9 Cap PRESENCE POTENCE CELERITY Fortitude, Primogen, +1 hand
damage, may burn a blood to strike as a dodge in combat. Too
expensive to really be effective in most combat decks, and too
specialized to work in much else.
Appolonius: 10 Cap PRESENCE CELERITY Potence Fortitude, Primogen, +1
bleed, optional press each combat. Appolonius is the only Brujah in
the basic set with extra bleed, but his discipline combination (no
superior potence) and size without a title make him effectively
worthless to most decks. Smaller vampires are more efficient.
Don Cruez: 10 Cap PRESENCE POTENCE CELERITY Dominate Protean
Animalism, Brujah Justicar, pay 1 blood for an optional maneuver once
per combat. Too expensive to be effective in a vote deck. Its
generally better to use the Justicar card, if available, and smaller
vampires.
5. All of the evaluations of vampires in this issue are based on my
experience as a player, and on getting the most out of one’s vampires.
This is not to say that the vampires cannot be useful, but rather to
say that those which are not recommended have shown themselves to be
too expensive for the benefit derived from playing with them.
If anyone has a deck which uses any of the Brujah of 8
Capacity or over from the above list effectively, I want to know.
Mail me at malevolence@rocketmail.com with any such decks.
Alexander Austin, Brujah Clan Chronicler.
Diogenes + Alec Austin + Goth Code 3.1A: GoBu3CS3Au2
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RdXL LusOR7 + "A heretic is a man who sees with his own eyes."
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