The Humanity/Frenzy System

TCI Members and Fans,

I wanted to sit down and discuss the latest system being implemented for The Final Nights. This is called the Humanity/Frenzy System and I grouped them together because they work synergistically with one another. Let's first talk about the Humanity side of this system and why it needed changed from the original game. Vanilla Bloodlines as you know works on a Humanity scale from 1-10 (1 being nearly a complete monster and evil, 10 being so saintly as to help old ladies cross the street). In the original game, the absolute lowest Humanity score you could receive was 4. I'm not sure why Troika capped it at this level but TFN has lifted it. You can now allow your Humanity to fall all the way to 0 becoming a mindless ravaging Beast; of course if you reach a Humanity of 0, the game will end immediately with your head rolling off the sheriff's sword.

Another change made to Humanity is the new Innocence rule. Killing innocent victims will lower your Humanity by 1 for each kill, however as you get closer to the Beast, he begins taking over. If you find yourself at a Humanity of 3 or less, take care in knowing that even being NEAR the scene where an innocent is murdered, whether you technically killed the innocent or not, will excite the Beast to the point of taking the blame for that death. This will of course lower your Humanity by 1 even if you didn't murder the victim with your hand. As the Beast grows in power, you begin to lose control of yourself. To balance this out TFN has reduced the cost of XP to raise Humanity back up. Now it only costs 2 XP to raise your Humanity by 1, regardless of what your current level is. So you see, falling below 4 is a risky thing, but raising it back up won't break the XP bank either.

Now this ties into how frenzy works in TFN. There are several ways to incur a frenzy check dice role - the first way is by receiving a grievous wound. If you take 20 or more bashing/lethal damage in one hit -OR- if you receive 16 or more aggravated damage in one hit, a frenzy check is made. This does not mean you will automatically frenzy, it means you will have a chance to frenzy taking into account any frenzy check modifiers and how low your blood pool is at the time.

The second way to incur a frenzy check is from the new Frenzy Timer. The frenzy timer is a counter being calculated in the background at all times that takes into account the players Humanity level and Blood Pool. You see, as a Kindred begins to grow hungry their will can slip to the Beast while the lower your Humanity is, the less control a Kindred will have will in a starving state. This frenzy timer calculates this in the following way... It takes the players current Humanity and based on that dictates how little blood the Kindred can have and begins the timer countdown. If you bring your blood pool back above the safety threshhold, then the timer stops counting. If you once again drop below the safety threshhold then the counter starts up again starting where it left off. If you reach the maximum amount of time, a frenzy check is made. On the other side, if you completely fill your blood pool, the timer begins to count backwards until reaching 0 at which point the Kindred is completely calm and relaxed once again; the starvation has worn off.

Let's make an example of this...
Duncan the Assamite has found himself at a Humanity of 3 (he's been a bad boy). Now whenever Duncan's blood pool reaches 4 or less, he begins getting hungry and irritable which starts the frenzy timer. When Duncan's timer reaches a total of 4 minutes, he has reached the breaking point and a frenzy check will be made. Now let's say Duncan accidentally went too hungry for 2 minutes but then found some blood raising his blood pool above 4. The timer would stop at 2 minutes, but let's say he finds a cluster of blood bags and drinks them all completely, filling up his blood pool to full. He managed to sustain a full blood pool for 2 minutes before the blood loss system kicked in reducing it by 1. During that 2 minutes when his blood pool was full, the frenzy timer was counting backwards putting dear ol' Duncan back into a state of rest and peace.

Okay, now it's Q&A time!

Q: So you mean to say that if I have a Humanity of 3 or less, and I'm involved in a conflict that results in an innocence death. Even if I didn't directly murder the innocent, I still suffer a 1 point Humanity loss?
A: That's right! If a Kindred finds themselves so lost to the Beast as to fall to a Humanity of 3 (or less), the Beast has a massive amount of control over that Kindred and even the sight of innocent death is enough to fall further down the spiral of insanity.

Q: When a frenzy check is made, you mentioned frenzy check modifiers and the amount of blood in your blood pool will affect the outcome of success/failure. Explain...
A: Some clans are prone to frenzy while others can resist it. The Osebo and Salubri are perfect examples of this, so if you find yourself as one of these clans, your chance of succeeding a frenzy check will be greatly impacted by these modifiers. Also the amount of blood stored in your blood pool will also affect the outcome. Having only 1 point left in your blood pool will also put you at great risk to frenzy regardless of your Humanity score.

Q: Is there a way to keep tabs on the frenzy timer so you can watch it fill up or be reduced as you play the game?
A: You can follow it using the console in game. As the counter counts, you will see real time postings every time you open the game console. I personally don't even think about it, I just keep the chart handy if I find myself with a low Humanity score.

And this concludes the new Humanity/Frenzy System for TFN, hope you enjoyed this program.

Awesome stuff! I can't wait to play! You really brought the PnP rules into VtMB. Activision should give you a medal.

I love it, it's as much close as the engine would allow you to bring that little spark ! You didn't help that innocent, you let it die, so you have to suffer alright

I still wish there was a Willpower trait, as not all low humanity characters frenzy all the time and can't act polite and in control of their beast (they just don't care about humanity, what did you think about cows ? Jack has very low humanity), but I know it's not possible :-(

Zer0Morph wrote:

Q: So you mean to say that if I have a Humanity of 3 or less, and I'm involved in a conflict that results in an innocence death. Even if I didn't directly murder the innocent, I still suffer a 1 point Humanity loss?
A: That's right! If a Kindred finds themselves so lost to the Beast as to fall to a Humanity of 3 (or less), the Beast has a massive amount of control over that Kindred and even the sight of innocent death is enough to fall further down the spiral of insanity.

This will just never make sense to me...it should happen when you have really high humanity, not low... but I'm sure someone allready had that conversation and lost it.

You don't lose humanity because you feel sorry forf the innocent, but because the Beast tells you it's awesome to see innocents killed, and you agree BECAUSE of your low humanity, which lowers it a bit more.

Claudia wrote:

I love it, it's as much close as the engine would allow you to bring that little spark ! You didn't help that innocent, you let it die, so you have to suffer alright

I still wish there was a Willpower trait, as not all low humanity characters frenzy all the time and can't act polite and in control of their beast (they just don't care about humanity, what did you think about cows ? Jack has very low humanity), but I know it's not possible :-(

There actually is a willpower trait in the game files, it's just not useable. Animal Ken is in there too. It's like they left those things in there to tease us.

That's because they didn't finish the game before publishing it, so there are so many things who began to be coded, but were just set aside (lack of time, of money, and engine problem)

Sounds promising! I think I've had one involuntary frenzy in vtmb, ever. Having to worry more about this would be very refreshing. Probably.

Thanks for the support guys, it has really changed the way I play the game and keeping Humanity above 3 has proved to be a challenge. Rampaging around town will make you lose the game pretty quickly so though you're powerful, it is limited power.

Claudia wrote:

I still wish there was a Willpower trait, as not all low humanity characters frenzy all the time and can't act polite and in control of their beast (they just don't care about humanity, what did you think about cows ? Jack has very low humanity), but I know it's not possible :-(

Yeah I'm sorry I can't do much for you there, I wish I could. In a sense I've had to blend Humanity and Willpower into one trait. I still think the frenzy timer is a great way to simulate a vampire's tolerance to hunger, and hunger in general.

redeyesandlonghair wrote:

This will just never make sense to me...it should happen when you have really high humanity, not low... but I'm sure someone allready had that conversation and lost it.

Unfortunately I have no say in this, in order to implement the system that allows your Humanity to fall beyond 4 it has to be set this way. In order to justify this, this mentality was drawn up. I did read about how Humanity works in the PnP book and this does follow the downward spiral of evil, meaning the more evil you are, the more easy it is to continue falling.

I hope you like the system after experiencing it in real game play.

Don't apologize, Zer0, I know it's not possible, besides having a high willpower is pure benefits (there are no benefits to have a low willpower, whereas there is for humanity, and high humanity is also a contraint). I still love you and I will (at least until TFN is over :p)


Yes, Humanity and Willpower have links together ; if you have no willpower, you do not control yourself when tempted, you give yourself to the pleasure of drinking, and you might kill, which lowers your humanity if you don't feel remorses ("oh it wasn't really my fault so it's fine" = loss)


In the Bordeuax by Night setting I pulled for you, I have all options, between low humanity + low willpower, low humanity + high willpower, high humanity + low will power and high humanity + high willpower ^^

Claudia wrote:

I still love you and I will (at least until TFN is over :p)

Awww thanks Claudia, I love you too. Let's make babies (at least until TFN is over :p)

One question here, remember those eyeless blood dolls in the sabbat HQ? Since they are effectively an innocent will it be implemented that if you kill them it's a loss of humanity? I know it's in a combat area but still.. there's also the bum at the warehouse and the girl in the bishop's level too.. humanity loss for draining them dry or not? (not too sure if they existed at all since I'm too much of a goodie goodie to kill them...>>

Nezumi wrote:

One question here, remember those eyeless blood dolls in the sabbat HQ? Since they are effectively an innocent will it be implemented that if you kill them it's a loss of humanity? I know it's in a combat area but still.. there's also the bum at the warehouse and the girl in the bishop's level too.. humanity loss for draining them dry or not? (not too sure if they existed at all since I'm too much of a goodie goodie to kill them...>>

Good Question!

1.) The eyeless blood dolls in the Hallowbrook Hotel, though innocent, are being tortured. Putting them out of their misery would in fact be the humane thing to do, however you are still killing so I figure the two negate each other. So no, you won't be penalized for draining them dry.

2.) The bum in the warehouse and the girl in the plague hotel are indeed considered innocent, so yes you will lose Humanity for killing either of them.

Zer0Morph wrote:

I hope you like the system after experiencing it in real game play.

Well, if I'm playing a goody character, then this won't really be an issue...I won't even have to be concerned about innocents getting killed during fights due to my irresponsibility. If I decide to play an evil character I'll just keep dumping expirience into humanity to make this a non-issue (since playing an evil character without constantly dumping xp into humanity will be a quick way to get a game over). So I guess the end effect when playing an evil character will be that the more evil you are, the less powerful you'll be in the end game (which is wierd because isn't it ussually the good guys giving up power to retain their goodyness?), or you can be the same amount powerful but never make it to the end game.

I know I sure don't want to be running around in a fire fight and suddenly get a game over just because some innocent person's half-witted AI walked it into the path of a bullet, lol


So ya, as long as you keep the expirience cost for humanity points at 1 or 2 or whatever it is, effectively allowing me to ignore the new humanity rules at the expense of being less powerful, then I'm fine with it.





But as far as the downward spiral idea... by the time your humanity is that low, your beast is so freaking bored of you killing innocents that it wouldn't even get out of bed if you slaughtered an entire elementary school. Now on the other hand if you rip apart a bunch of the students and then used their spines to <censored> a bunch of the other students to death while wearing the principals <censored> as a necktie...that might rouse your beast a little.

You are right about the downward spiral and the p&p rules specifically list what kind of activity will lower your Humanity further at every stage.

However, for the sake of game balance it's better to have the downward spiral because otherwise Humanity becomes an irrelevant stat.

Dragatus wrote:

You are right about the downward spiral and the p&p rules specifically list what kind of activity will lower your Humanity further at every stage.

However, for the sake of game balance it's better to have the downward spiral because otherwise Humanity becomes an irrelevant stat.

I disagree. The frenzy check system and bloodloss timers in TFN make humanity a big deal without the need to end the game suddenly for evil characters.

I never had any problems with frenzy or feeding, even when my Humanity was 4-5.

No problems with hunger frenzy either. At least not with TFN. Though I must admit that in CE I once ate Heather after a misjudged college course...

-

That's pretty common actually. I find myself starving for female attention after hours of studying too, if nothing else, just to relieve stress.

Dragatus wrote:

I never had any problems with frenzy or feeding, even when my Humanity was 4-5.

This is true, for humanity of 4-5.

It's certainly not true once you get your humanity into the 1-2 range in TFN. Frenzing at 1-2 humanity in TFN is essentially an instant game over if it's in one of the hubs (plenty of bystanders, you're going to kill several). It would be much better, in my opinion to put a floor on humanity at 1 and let the frenzy risk and subsequent masquerade violations be the "consequences" for low humanity characters.

This is of course, on top of the much shorter bloodloss timer, and lost conversation options already suffered for low humanity playthroughs.