Obeah

Hello folks. After more than year, I've returned yet again to VTM. This time I've decided to try something else than Camarilla edition and picked TFN. And I must say: This mod rocks! Feeding, combat, quests - nearly everything is harded, actualy forcing me to think my actions and questing order in advance  

I've been looking for good guy playtrough, plus try one of the new powers, so i went for Salubri. Finished most of Santa Monica so far and one thing shadowed my enjoyement: My unique power Obeah.

The concept of Obeah is fine. For mere 1 blood point, you get cool blue-themed buff, that gives you various bonuses. But in practice these bonuses seem to have just very minor impact on my overal perfonamce.

1) Sense Vilatily: Shows you the aura of nearby characters. Useful, but not early in the game (I've used it once so far) and most importantly you already have Auspex.

2) Warding The Beast: +2 on Frenzy checks. The salubri already has +2 passive bonus, plus anyone roleplaying this character will stay at high humanity score. Even after i was forced out into streets with 1 blood  drop and low hp (the chinese guy was suprisingly tough!) i didn't frenzy. And i can't use Obeah in streets ayway. So only use of this feat is during combat when being hit rly hard. But for that I have fortitude and beforementioned bonuses.
The entire feat of this level is thus in my opinon de facto useless - I would suprised if it will help me once during my game.

3) Renewed Vigor: Healing. Well great but again, I heal faster due to passive. Combined with Blood heal level 1, I am already healing myself super fast, upping it to lvl 2 will probably satisfy all my healing needs until endgame.

4) Anesthetic touch: +3 to soaks. We are finaly getting somewhere. But yet again I have fortitude which does exactly a same.

5) Wrath of Heaven: +3 to melee and unarmed.  Okay. But suprise: Bloodbuff level 3 does  that as well and more.

Don't get me wrong, I realize that the bonuses are cumulative and I don't want yet another "press RMB to kill everybody" power like some disciplines were in Camarilla. But when i compare Obeah to Serpentis, Daimoion or Quietus, I feel Salubri is definitly loosing there. Heck i think that even maxed bloodbuff will be way more effective than maxed Obeah.

Thanks for reading this Fledling's wall of text. If I am missing something in my conclusion, let me know.

Hm, for my taste TFN takes too much planning. It takes the fun and immersion out of the game for me.

For Obeah I agree. Lvl 5 is a great all purpose discipline. But to get there alive undead forces you to first rise Fortitude and Bloodheal to moderate levels, and then you don't need it any longer. Then better go for full Fortitude and good combat skills.

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The beauty of Obeah is in it's cost efficiency once you get to the higher levels. The firts two levels do indeed suck. At the third level it gets reasonable. And at the fourth level it actually becomes good. And the fifth level is downright awesome.

Sure, you can get the effects from other disciplines, but with Obeah you get the combined effects of Bloodheal 3, Bloodbuff 3, and Fortitude 1 or 2 (not sure how Fortitude compares to Armor) for only a single blood point. And the XP cost isn't too high either.

And of course you can always combine it with the other effects. Obeah 5 and Bloodbuff 5? Enjoy your 16 melee. Obeah 5 and Fortitude 5? Enjoy being borderline undestructible.

Dragatus wrote:

The beauty of Obeah is in it's cost efficiency once you get to the higher levels. The firts two levels do indeed suck. At the third level it gets reasonable. And at the fourth level it actually becomes good. And the fifth level is downright awesome.

Sure, you can get the effects from other disciplines, but with Obeah you get the combined effects of Bloodheal 3, Bloodbuff 3, and Fortitude 1 or 2 (not sure how Fortitude compares to Armor) for only a single blood point. And the XP cost isn't too high either.

And of course you can always combine it with the other effects. Obeah 5 and Bloodbuff 5? Enjoy your 16 melee. Obeah 5 and Fortitude 5? Enjoy being borderline undestructible.

I was going to comment but Dragatus said exactly what I was going too... You get SOOO much power for such little blood and when combined with other powers, you become a god because it all stacks. Obeah is a little over powered in my opinion but I'll leave it how it is.