Vampires (Xyberpunk)

Some thoughts about vampires in Xyberpunk by Cadelin ...

This is supposed to be a short experiment to see if the type of vampires depicted in Vampire; the Masquerade can be brought into the world of Cyberpunk. The gothic setting and the repressed homo-eroticism is perfect for cyberpunk with its dark futurism and the obvious attempt to shock the American right wing by setting the standard for sexuality as bisexual.

Stats

First thing are to se what characteristics that correspond.

• Reflexes = Dexterity x 2
• Body = Stamina + Strength
• Move = Dexterity + Stamina = Move
• Intelligence = Intelligence + Perception
• Tech = Wits + Intelligence
• Attractiveness = Appearance + Manipulation
• Cool = Charisma + Courage
• Luck = Willpower
• Empathy = Humanity

This should give you a good idea how I think, and it should be easily visible that some vampires would get quite high stats.

Skills

Because both systems work by adding stat + skill just double the values for all skills and pesto! And vampires don't get tag skills they are way to gay for that.

Bullets & Knives

In my opinion a vampire isn't worth shit if you can gun it down so I propose that all vampires are immune to firearms. That is to say if they are not blessed by the holy Cyber Catholic church or loaded with holy bullets/stakes/blessed DPU or the likes. This should give excellent opportunities for the GM to torment his players some. Melee weapons that are not holy or likewise blessed should also do no damage. The only thing that can really harm a vampire should be fists and kicks and so on (NOT rippers or wolvers). In the classical setting it is a wooden stake that is da shit, but any living thing ought to work. It could be a nice morbid scene when a player beats a vampire to death with a bulldog.

Blood Pool

One cannot forget the Blood pool, this is as before a fixed value, and it should be doubled. It can be used in almost the same way as before. Each point blood spent increases an attribute by one point for the duration of a scene. White wolf has some inbreed nerfing by which vampire should be really dangerous but with the rules they provide they cant do shit so I propose that no limits should be set to the amount of blood that can be spent this way. This should give the vampire a good degree of staying power even when matched against a cyber samurai. The other way blood can be spent is of course healing. I would say one blood per wound level. (Flesh wound = 1 moderate = 2 serious = 4 deadly = 6 or whatever suits you) And the last part is of course fuelling the magic, which gives vampires the edge when faced with cyber.

Cyber

This is the tricky part. But it feels like a vampire regenerates all damage done to him unconsciously the first time he spends his blood, which should mean that all his cyber will have fallen out or does not work. (Its magic anyway so screw u) The vampire's body is not receptive to implants after the transformation. (Of course there might be a dark techno mage out there just waiting to give a vampire a neural processor and a smart link)

Magic

The tricky part will be to convert discipline magic to the interlock system; this is the thing that gives the vampires the edge. The first thing is that all disciplines are skills that are counted exactly as tag skills. The first one cost 2 or takes 2 extra skill checks to roll for increase. And for each after the first the multiplier goes up one. So a vampire with 3 disciplines has to accumulate 5 skill checks to even get to roll for his increase.

Potence

Gives +2 damage bonus per level of Potence.

Celerity

Gives +2 Speed boost per level of Celerity.

Fortitude

Gives +2 Body versus damage per level of Fortitude.

Dominate

This one is a bit trickier. There is no need to go into white wolf "power per dot" system but the vampire should roll a test. Dominate + cool versus a difficulty rating as usual should do it. And the victim should roll resist torture and drugs + cool versus the same diff + the victim should add the vampires success level (roll - diff) to his roll. This should get the effect that it is easier for the vampire to do small manipulations. A command to suicide would have very high diff therefore should the victim have a greater chance resisting because the vampires success level should be lower. Typical diff:

• 15 "These are not the droids you are looking for"
• 20 "Forget that I touched your ass in a gayish manner"
• 25 "Go to the headquarter for "People against gay porn" and kill their campaign leader""

Presence

In game terms this would work a bit like dominate. But with the exception that it is charm instead of mind control. Presence adds to all social skills rolls as well. And the vampire should be able to do things that could not be done by just charm. Although in the oversexed reality of Cyberpunk it should prove easy to do almost anything with a high enough roll.

Obfuscate

This one is pretty simple; it works just like the sneak tag skill for active skill checks. And it adds to all difficulties involving finding the vampire. All security systems have a difficulty rating and with this skill u only need to use stealth not electronic security and similar skills. This is to represent the fact that cameras glitch and employees pass through doors and similar things.

Auspex

Auspex adds to all awareness and human perception rolls. At level 4 it also provides night vision. Of course it would add to any roll that is appropriate. (Or which the player can convince the GM is appropriate) A diff 30 human perception roll should be equivalent to a mind read.

Protean

This is the discipline of classic vampire powers and here we actually need to use the WW power per dot a bit. At level 2 the vampire can see in the dark just as if he had infrared vision. At level 4 he can turn into a wolf or bat. At level 6 he can become mist. And at level 8 he will have some half bat half monster form with his protean score added to Body and half added to reflexes. And at level 10 he has the near indestructible aspect of the vampire. He should add 20 as hard armour. This is a bit special and is not used in calculation his armour merely added after the standard calculations have been done.