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Hey everybody,

I'm looking for input from the experienced Nightbane GMs or players. I'm going to start running a Nightbane game soon, and I have one or two players expressing interest in playing Secondary Vampires or Werebeasts. More specifically, they're thinking the independent Secondary Vampire portrayed in Rifter #49 and the Children of the Moon described in Rifters #4 and #5. However, I have some concerns about balance because of the fact that vampires and werecreatures can shrug off nearly all forms of damage, aside from magic, psionics, talents, and supernatural attacks, as well as each creature's unique weaknesses (silver, wood, holy water, fire, etc).

I'm aware that supernatural foes are plentiful in the Nightbane setting. Still, it does worry me that vampire/Children characters can ignore most mundane forms of damage (i.e. guns, knives, etc.). A normal human with a gun is still a potential threat to a Nightbane, whereas not so much for vamps/werebeasts. I feel as though maybe this gives such characters a big advantage over Nightbane and other supernaturals. While I don't expect normal humans to be a huge threat to them, at the same time, I'm leery that vamp/werebeast characters could too easily steamroll even people with military hardware. Granted, these character types have vulnerabilities to common things, but that only helps if you know what your facing...

I know that I could just ban vampires and werebeasts, but I want to see what people say first.

What are people's experiences running Nightbane games with players using vamp/werebeast characters? Or what were your experiences playing such characters? Were these types of characters problematic or easily manageable?

I have found that the setting itself is the balancing factor.
Sure you can 'steamroll' over people...
...but that tends to attract attention.
And attention is what nobody wants.
Hounds, Hunters, Necrophim, Tortorians and the like are deadly foes to vampires and werebeasts.
AND both of them are not exactly well trusted by the rest of the groups.
Were's have to deal with millennia of reputations for eating people... which means that they have a harder time getting allies. And in Nightbane you need all the friends you can get.
Vampires have it even worse as they are blood sucking undead monsters. It is really hard to convince most people that your really Edward and not Dracula...


And as for military hardware...
...those weaknesses are hideous when identified.
And for more fun... did you know that they make wood bullets for a wide range of automatic weapons in the real world? Its a kind of training round. And as many a Rifts player can tell you auto-fire with dirt cheap wood bullets, or squirt guns full of holy water can ruin a lot of peoples days.
And that isn't counting the fairly common weapon enchantment spells for the setting. If you become a threat that needs to be dealt with...you will have people coming after you with the big stuff. WORSE they will know what to bring. It isn't like the fact that weres are vulnerable to silver is exactly secret or stuff. And even the super powerful Rifter Vampires fall under Lore: Vampire and Lore: Undead and Lore: Demons and Monsters and probably others as well.

In short...
I have not ever found the use of such characters to be overly problematic in games. To the contrary I have found that such characters tend to be less inclined to use brute force and raw power... simply because they are more aware of the fact that they have so many more weaknesses that can be targeted much more easily.

eliakon wrote:I have found that the setting itself is the balancing factor.
Sure you can 'steamroll' over people...
...but that tends to attract attention.
And attention is what nobody wants.
Hounds, Hunters, Necrophim, Tortorians and the like are deadly foes to vampires and werebeasts.
AND both of them are not exactly well trusted by the rest of the groups.
Were's have to deal with millennia of reputations for eating people... which means that they have a harder time getting allies. And in Nightbane you need all the friends you can get.
Vampires have it even worse as they are blood sucking undead monsters. It is really hard to convince most people that your really Edward and not Dracula...


And as for military hardware...
...those weaknesses are hideous when identified.
And for more fun... did you know that they make wood bullets for a wide range of automatic weapons in the real world? Its a kind of training round. And as many a Rifts player can tell you auto-fire with dirt cheap wood bullets, or squirt guns full of holy water can ruin a lot of peoples days.
And that isn't counting the fairly common weapon enchantment spells for the setting. If you become a threat that needs to be dealt with...you will have people coming after you with the big stuff. WORSE they will know what to bring. It isn't like the fact that weres are vulnerable to silver is exactly secret or stuff. And even the super powerful Rifter Vampires fall under Lore: Vampire and Lore: Undead and Lore: Demons and Monsters and probably others as well.

In short...
I have not ever found the use of such characters to be overly problematic in games. To the contrary I have found that such characters tend to be less inclined to use brute force and raw power... simply because they are more aware of the fact that they have so many more weaknesses that can be targeted much more easily.

Ditto on what Eliakon said. I've had the same experience.