Hi guys,
Can you help me please? As a newbie ventrue which attributes, skills, feats, talents etc... should I use my points on?
help for newbie ventrue
Ultimately, your starting stats don't matter a tremendous amount. You need to be making the decision as to how you want to develop the character, though. No one character can focus or master every skill. So pick and chose which skills you want to be particularly good at. Invest your points accordingly.
Personally, I found persuasion to be a very useful ability even for Ventrue. So, I'd encourage you to put starting points in charisma and scholarship (both of which go into the overall persuasion ability). If you focus on persuasion, you can moreorless neglect seduction, appearance, and intimidation. If you prefer to play a more seductive character, then focus on "apperance" and "seduction," and neglect charisma and intimidation.
As far as skills are concerned, while there are several things you can do/buy to increase your fire arm and melee skills, those two abilities are your bread and butter. Determine which way of fighting you're going to prefer (i.e. melee or firearms), and invest at least one point there. As the game progresses, you'll want to max out at least one of these skills. You'll want to develop both to at least moderate levels, as they each have a situational purpose.
Scholarship is another very useful ability. It not only allows you read and understand books which increase your attributes, it also increases your persuade skills. Again, if you're already focusing on persuasion, it makes particular sense to put some points in this skill.
All the skills have a purpose, so pick the areas your most interesting and run with that (do you want to play a stealthy character, if so invest accordinging). Skills I found to be the most useful included security, computers, fire arms, melee, stealth, and scholarship.
Disciplines, once again, are a matter of preference. For Ventrue both dominate and fortitude are very useful. I would encourage you to develop both of those skills equally as you go through game play. You'll want to max them both out at some point. Fortitude allows you to soak much damage, and Dominate allows you to manipulate your opponents in effective and entertaining ways. Presence is useful as well, but its not really quite as good in my opinion as the other two
Ultimately, just fool around with some skills and abilities. You'll eventually figure out what you like to do the most.
Personally, I found persuasion to be a very useful ability even for Ventrue. So, I'd encourage you to put starting points in charisma and scholarship (both of which go into the overall persuasion ability). If you focus on persuasion, you can moreorless neglect seduction, appearance, and intimidation. If you prefer to play a more seductive character, then focus on "apperance" and "seduction," and neglect charisma and intimidation.
As far as skills are concerned, while there are several things you can do/buy to increase your fire arm and melee skills, those two abilities are your bread and butter. Determine which way of fighting you're going to prefer (i.e. melee or firearms), and invest at least one point there. As the game progresses, you'll want to max out at least one of these skills. You'll want to develop both to at least moderate levels, as they each have a situational purpose.
Scholarship is another very useful ability. It not only allows you read and understand books which increase your attributes, it also increases your persuade skills. Again, if you're already focusing on persuasion, it makes particular sense to put some points in this skill.
All the skills have a purpose, so pick the areas your most interesting and run with that (do you want to play a stealthy character, if so invest accordinging). Skills I found to be the most useful included security, computers, fire arms, melee, stealth, and scholarship.
Disciplines, once again, are a matter of preference. For Ventrue both dominate and fortitude are very useful. I would encourage you to develop both of those skills equally as you go through game play. You'll want to max them both out at some point. Fortitude allows you to soak much damage, and Dominate allows you to manipulate your opponents in effective and entertaining ways. Presence is useful as well, but its not really quite as good in my opinion as the other two
Ultimately, just fool around with some skills and abilities. You'll eventually figure out what you like to do the most.
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Confuzzled
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- Joined: Sat Mar 12, 2005 3:39 am
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Just about to complete the game as Ventrue
I'd suggest getting seduction up relatively soon, especially if you play a female character: you can't feed on rats, and you cannot rely on getting any benefit from feeding on bums/prostitutes. As such, the ability to seduce people in the (at least) the first two clubs means that you can still recover bloodpoints between missions when you can't afford bloodpacks. On the other hand, seduction beyond 4/5 doesn't seem that important, it gives a few extra options, but not that many. At higher levels, persuade is more handy.
Persuasion is very useful all round, follow Faust on this one.
Dominate at level 3 is good, I found level 4 to not be that effective, and have not tried pushing to level 5 yet.
Fortitude is essential (combine it with other defensive abilities such as soak and dodge to really make you a survivor).
Presence is very nice if you plan to go for melee fighting, including feeding in combat.
If you plan to go shooting rather than melee as your preferred (but not only) method of combat, then increase finance and the other characteristic that affects haggling: ammo can get expensive otherwise, especially if your preferred weapon (as in my case) is not one that opponents tend to carry.
You don't need to worry about stealth (too much) until about mid-point in the game, before that a Ventrue can normally talk through most things I found.
I'd suggest getting seduction up relatively soon, especially if you play a female character: you can't feed on rats, and you cannot rely on getting any benefit from feeding on bums/prostitutes. As such, the ability to seduce people in the (at least) the first two clubs means that you can still recover bloodpoints between missions when you can't afford bloodpacks. On the other hand, seduction beyond 4/5 doesn't seem that important, it gives a few extra options, but not that many. At higher levels, persuade is more handy.
Persuasion is very useful all round, follow Faust on this one.
Dominate at level 3 is good, I found level 4 to not be that effective, and have not tried pushing to level 5 yet.
Fortitude is essential (combine it with other defensive abilities such as soak and dodge to really make you a survivor).
Presence is very nice if you plan to go for melee fighting, including feeding in combat.
If you plan to go shooting rather than melee as your preferred (but not only) method of combat, then increase finance and the other characteristic that affects haggling: ammo can get expensive otherwise, especially if your preferred weapon (as in my case) is not one that opponents tend to carry.
You don't need to worry about stealth (too much) until about mid-point in the game, before that a Ventrue can normally talk through most things I found.
It's worth emphasizing that persuasion, seduction, and intimidation are all very useful skills. However, they *roughly* do the same thing (each has its advantage, you can make a bit more money with intimidation, feed a bit easier with seduction, and ultimately earn more experience with persuasion), and as such its probably more efficient to just specialize in one of the three abilities. By most accounts, intimidation is the least desirable. Seduction tends to be a bit more useful if you're female. Persuasion in my estimate is the best all around, in that there are some things you can only do with a high persuasion.
I found that buying ammunition sucks up a lot of your cash. Firearms aren't all that great, either. Most combat is close-quarter, or at least you'll easily be able to close the distance. Save up your money for blood packs, armor and charms.
Upgrade dominate so that you get the Suicide power. A quick and easy kill. If you're up against a horde of humans with automatic weapons this power can quickly thin their numbers to manageable levels.
Upgrade dominate so that you get the Suicide power. A quick and easy kill. If you're up against a horde of humans with automatic weapons this power can quickly thin their numbers to manageable levels.
"Even the most powerful wizards will respect cold steel once it's shoved down their throats."