How to reduce blood and fatigue point cost in GURPS: Vampire the Masquerade

[Malfi]

So IMO the costs in fatigue and blood points in VtM are very high. How where they calculated? Is there a way to pay character points, maybe by increasing the cost of disciplines and reduce their fatigue cost?
From what I have read they are based on the basic gurps magic system, but they seem to have no costs reductions for high skill levels.
To prove my point a little bit, using a 5th level discipline requires either 5 blood points or 10 fatigue points, which again IMO seems excessive.
Also I am aware you can try recreating them by using advantages as powers but this is not what I am asking about.

[khorboth]

So, I've run this in GURPS as well as played it.

It's not as bad as it first appears. Blood points are smaller in GURPS than in WoD. You probably have a larger pool, and can get more from a human. You can probably get 5 from a single human without risk of killing them.

That said, I agree it's excessive. What I would do for a fix if I weren't ready to overhaul the system (which I totally did):

1) Reset the enhancing disciplines so they cost more points and are passive. Requiring them to be activated is a tone shift I didn't like.

2) Cut the activation cost of the others in half (round up for blood). So, a discipline costs 1FP per level to activate or half that in blood. Mask of 1000 faces is 3FP or 2 blood per activation. Wolf form is 4FP or 2 blood per activation. This is simple and straightforward but loses some granularity. I probably wouldn't even grant a discount for it, the change being so minor.

or

2b) The highest level power you have in a dicipline costs 6FP/3blood. The second-highest costs 4/2, the Third-highest costs 2/1, and the rest are free to activate. So, once you have a discipline at rank 4, you can activate level 1 powers at will. At rank 5, the level 2 powers are free. For a novice, the level 1 power is expensive because they're just figuring it out. This requires more bookkeeping, but works with the powerful elder motif as well as encouraging specialization in ways that the system otherwise lacks. Again, I wouldn't change the point cost for abilities. As long as everyone pays the same, the power difference is not great.

Now, you said you weren't ready to overhaul the system, but honestly the best decision I made was to retool it so that the progression of disciplines were not linear. How does Cloak the Gathering build off of Mask of 1000 Faces? How does Wolf Form build off of Meld with Earth? If you build all of them as individual powers and call in-clan a discount, then it just works. As a big bonus, it cuts out lots of meta-gaming. No more "he has X power, so he must have Y power"

[Malfi]

These are some good suggestions.
2b) seems to excessivly favor elder though.
2) is my favorite I think. Though I wouldn't call the change minor.
Regarding 1) I could see giving the option to use as a normal discipline or just buy it like an advantage, provided you belong to the right clan.

I could also see as I said before just using the skill level to reduce the blood cost. So at dominate 5 and iq 14 investing 4 skill points to dominte will give you the dominate 5 power at 13 skill, dominate 4 power at 14, dominate 3 power at 15 etc. So dominate 1-3 will have 1 blood point or 2 fatigue points reduction.

All that said, my major question is if there an a semi official way to do this? As in, the disciplines where designed this way. So by doing this and spending some character points you get this cost reduction. Instead of just changing the rules.

[khorboth]

Originally Posted by Malfi

These are some good suggestions.
2b) seems to excessivly favor elder though.
2) is my favorite I think. Though I wouldn't call the change minor.
Regarding 1) I could see giving the option to use as a normal discipline or just buy it like an advantage, provided you belong to the right clan.

I could also see as I said before just using the skill level to reduce the blood cost. So at dominate 5 and iq 14 investing 4 skill points to dominte will give you the dominate 5 power at 13 skill, dominate 4 power at 14, dominate 3 power at 15 etc. So dominate 1-3 will have 1 blood point or 2 fatigue points reduction.

All that said, my major question is if there an a semi official way to do this? As in, the disciplines where designed this way. So by doing this and spending some character points you get this cost reduction. Instead of just changing the rules.

When I said the change was minor, I was referring to the final change to character points, not the system effect.

There is some precedent in the magic system for reduction of cost for skill. There, you pay 1 fewer energy at 15, and 2 fewer at 20 with a reduction of 1 for each 5 points thereafter. You could allow each individual ability in a discipline to be bought up as a technique. Possibly a hard technique not to exceed skill+5. That would allow further specialization. Off the top of my head, I don't see anything game-breaking there.

Another tweak I used to make things more equitable is to decouple the discipline skills from IQ. Treat the stat for all skills as 10+(generation level) Hard and allow a 5-point Talent for in-clan skills or a 15-point talent for out-of-clan skills. This stops people from saving energy by being smart while allowing for dumb vampires to excel at protean without sinking 50 points into the skill.

[Malfi]

I am a bit confused, when you say the change is minor and you propably wouldn't give a discount for it, you mean you wouldn't increase the point cost of the discipline? Or am I missing sth?

Another idea I had though perhaps will end up being expensive and is kinda complicated, is using the +20% reduced fatigue enhancement on a level of the discipline seperately. Though then this seems too cheap for disciplines up to 5 and too expensive for 6+ disciplines.

[khorboth]

Originally Posted by Malfi

I am a bit confused, when you say the change is minor and you propably wouldn't give a discount for it, you mean you wouldn't increase the point cost of the discipline? Or am I missing sth?

What I was saying is that if you're changing everyone to the new blood cost system, I wouldn't spend the effort of retooling the point costs.

Originally Posted by Malfi

Another idea I had though perhaps will end up being expensive and is kinda complicated, is using the +20% reduced fatigue enhancement on a level of the discipline seperately. Though then this seems too cheap for disciplines up to 5 and too expensive for 6+ disciplines.

I'd shy away from the more complicated solutions. I think you'd wind up spending too much effort to solve a minor problem. How big a part of your game is blood-resource management going to be? If it's minor, don't spend too much time making it just right. Make sure it hangs together and spend your resources on what makes the game work best. If your players are spending their time managing blood, then they're not doing the fun stuff.

Unless that IS the fun you want to have. Then, by all means, build the ability to tweak each ability and perhaps grant a clan CP discount on purchasing the blood discount as well.

[Malfi]

Yeah regarding blood cost that's what I understood just wasn't 100% sure.

I suppose I am being a bit obssesive with getting the cost correct, it is part because I sometimes enjoy tinkering with stuff in GURPS, thought the situation here it is a bit weird, since no info about the "bones" of the mechanics is given.
In any case thanks a lot for the replies!

[Taneli]

The abilities in that book were mostly not priced correctly by fourth edition paradigm, but more like by third edition psionic paradigm.

If you’re the GM setting up a GURPS VtM game I feel like you have two options here: either just set the blood point costs to whatever looks nice and run with that, OR stat up all the abilities using fourth edition ability creation rules and go with that.

[OldSam]

@Malfi: Many years ago (with 3e) I played a lot of GURPS Vampire sessions and I really like the book... :) Nowadays with the perspective from 4e I would definitely say that, regarding the point costs, the 3e VtM style built vampires are actually overpowered compared to material from other sourcebooks which are more in line with the current basic set ;) ...but I guess the perspective really may be completely different if you are directly coming from VtM storyteller rules or something like that... It is always relative, but you can adapt the amount of point values to your liking.

Certainly with some hints of the folks here you will find a good personal setup with the right feeling for you, after all it does not matter so much, how point costs compare with other sourcebooks as long as you are consistent in your own game! :)

[Malfi]

Originally Posted by Taneli

The abilities in that book were mostly not priced correctly by fourth edition paradigm, but more like by third edition psionic paradigm.

I can see that being true for disciplines up to level 5 kinda since they have a very low cost per level. But at level 6+ the point cost increases by a large factor and the fatigue cost keeps increasing too.
Do psionics have such large fatigue costs?

Originally Posted by OldSam

@Malfi: Many years ago (with 3e) I played a lot of GURPS Vampire sessions and I really like the book... :) Nowadays with the perspective from 4e I would definitely say that, regarding the point costs, the 3e VtM style built vampires are actually overpowered compared to material from other sourcebooks which are more in line with the current basic set ;) ...but I guess the perspective really may be completely different if you are directly coming from VtM storyteller rules or something like that... It is always relative, but you can adapt the amount of point values to your liking.

I wouldn't mind disciplines being equal to basic magic, which cp wise is quite cost effective. As it stand's though and as I mention above disciplines are extremely cheap up to level 5 and then increase by a lot. The fatigue cost ofcourse never stops increasing.
Now if you don't care at all for ratings above 5 then sure it doesn't matter, but I would like it if the whole thing scaled well I guess.