Why Blood Potency is over-priced

I did some thinking on this recently, as I've always been disappointed with the excessively high cost of raising Blood Potency with XP, and I came to an epiphany I thought was worth sharing.

Now, I'm not intending to argue about whether or not Blood Potency is over priced.  I am well aware there is nothing that you can directly compare it to and objectively quantify value against.  However, I also know that barring the desire for a Bloodline, I have never known anyone (and I've run or played in games pretty steadily since the printing of the nWoD) who has actually raised Blood Potency with XP, and even then, most have either gotten the second dot with pre-game merit points or through diablerie.  It is so expensive that if you have any other short term mechanical goals, you're better off going for them instead.

That's when I realized why its so pricey: you're not supposed to want to buy it.  If it were reasonably priced, everyone would buy it and Blood Potency would cease to be a good measuring stick for general power level.  As is, if someone has Blood Potency 2, there is a pretty good chance that said vampire has been awake for 50 years (or committed diablerie), and there is a pretty good chance that a 50 year old vampire (or diablerist) is going to be generally stronger than a newly made vampire, even one who has engaged in a couple adventures.

Because of its price, nobody would buy Blood Potency unless they had everything else they wanted already, which means that by the time they're buying Blood Potency (or gaining it through time), they've earned the status it garners.

Long story short:  Blood Potency is a good measure for overall power level because it costs more than it is really worth.  Thoughts?

mplindustries:

Blood Potency is a good measure for overall power level because it costs more than it is really worth

I've expressed a similar sentiment in an earlier thread on the subject.

In short; I completely agree with you.

mplindustries:

Long story short:  Blood Potency is a good measure for overall power level because it costs more than it is really worth.  Thoughts?

  Not really.  A vampire that's committed diablarie twice (BP 3) is not as powerful as a vampire as even a 25 year old one (BP 1 plus some experience).   That may be a rough idea behind BP (vampires supposed to rely on diablarie and age for BP), but it doesn't really track.   There's still a bit of a disconnect between the theme of the mechanic and the actual mechanic itself.  

This idea also breaks down slightly when you start moving into Werewolf- PU has roughly the same use chart as BP and the same amount of benefits, but no additional experience (arcane, vitrol) or innate way (age) to raise it.   And supposedly it measures roughly the same thing - the spiritual "strength" of the supernatural.   Are you not supposed to buy Primal Urge as well, then?  

Blunt Vorpal:

Not really.  A vampire that's committed diablarie twice (BP 3) is not as powerful as a vampire as even a 25 year old one (BP 1 plus some experience).   That may be a rough idea behind BP (vampires supposed to rely on diablarie and age for BP), but it doesn't really track.   There's still a bit of a disconnect between the theme of the mechanic and the actual mechanic itself.  

This idea also breaks down slightly when you start moving into Werewolf- PU has roughly the same use chart as BP and the same amount of benefits, but no additional experience (arcane, vitrol) or innate way (age) to raise it.   And supposedly it measures roughly the same thing - the spiritual "strength" of the supernatural.   Are you not supposed to buy Primal Urge as well, then?  

MaskOfWinters:

I share those thoughts too, to fix that i've improved the usefulness of BP

In my current game i simply changed the blood point expenditure progression in a way similar (but not equal) to the one of Prommie/Changeling/Mage, it seems to work well

Blunt Vorpal:

This idea also breaks down slightly when you start moving into Werewolf- PU has roughly the same use chart as BP and the same amount of benefits, but no additional experience (arcane, vitrol) or innate way (age) to raise it.   And supposedly it measures roughly the same thing - the spiritual "strength" of the supernatural.   Are you not supposed to buy Primal Urge as well, then?  

I think that good solution is just give Vampire they "special" XP category if you think it's too costly. I sware I seen the "XP for Ages", or somethin like that. The same with Werewolves.

That's really interesting, I've never actually looked at it like that. One of my players was talking about this the other week and he came up with roughly the same conclusion. I wasn't fully paying attention to what he was saying, getting ready for the session and all (I'm storyteller), but now that I think about it I completely.

WyrdHamster:

I think that good solution is just give Vampire they "special" XP category if you think it's too costly. I sware I seen the "XP for Ages", or somethin like that. The same with Werewolves.

I'm trying to point out flaws in the OP's arguments, something that doesn't need extra "answers."   Your "solutions" only eggagerate my point- that the basic Potency mechanics are wrong.

Blunt Vorpal:

Not really.  A vampire that's committed diablarie twice (BP 3) is not as powerful as a vampire as even a 25 year old one (BP 1 plus some experience).

A vampire that committed diablerie twice has at least two free dots of disciplines in addition to whatever XP they had already, and really, unless they ate another brand new diablerist, they need to be at least somewhat capable to take down the BP 2+ and BP 3+ vampire in the first place.

Plus, diablerie is a deliberate cheat to the normal system anyway.  Unless your world contains rampant and frequent diablerie somehow, it remains a good judge of overall power in general, because the few times its wrong, it'll be because the guy ate a soul, and he probably deserves the leeway and respect higher BP gives anyway.

Blunt Vorpal:

This idea also breaks down slightly when you start moving into Werewolf- PU has roughly the same use chart as BP and the same amount of benefits, but no additional experience (arcane, vitrol) or innate way (age) to raise it.   And supposedly it measures roughly the same thing - the spiritual "strength" of the supernatural.   Are you not supposed to buy Primal Urge as well, then?

My point had absolutely nothing to do with other game lines, only Blood Potency.  I am passingly familiar with Werewolf, but certainly not enough to have a serious conversation about the mechanics. 

Being prohibitively expensive does work for Blood Potency, so its irrelevant to me if it works for Wolf Potency or Faerie Potency or anything else like it.

Edit: Ok, I read the section on Primal Urge, and while this is still cursory knowledge, it doesn't appear that there is anyway for anyone to sense another werewolf's Primal Urge.  Predator's Taint allows you to actually get a rough idea of Blood Potency, thus allowing it to be an in-game measuring stick for overall power, but PU doesn't seem to have such a mechanic.  PU doesn't (appear to) really need to be a good measure of overall power, since nobody can use it to measure anyway.  Again, though, this is really about Vampire.

MaskOfWinters:

I share those thoughts too, to fix that i've improved the usefulness of BP

But if you improve the usefulness of Blood Potency and make it a worthwhile expenditure, then people may actually buy it before they deserve the status, thus eliminating its usefulness as a gauge of overall power.

mplindustries:

A vampire that committed diablerie twice has at least two free dots of disciplines in addition to whatever XP they had already, and really, unless they ate another brand new diablerist, they need to be at least somewhat capable to take down the BP 2+ and BP 3+ vampire in the first place.

I was assuming that it was a new vampire (ie 0 total experience), and the diablarized vampires were not necessarily put into torpor by his hand.   Those two new discipline dots, unless he managed to drain someone with discipline mastery, is going to be far less potent than someone with access to 35 experience points that's bought several new discipline dots.

mplindustries:

Plus, diablerie is a deliberate cheat to the normal system anyway.  Unless your world contains rampant and frequent diablerie somehow, it remains a good judge of overall power in general, because the few times its wrong, it'll be because the guy ate a soul, and he probably deserves the leeway and respect higher BP gives anyway.

Not with PC level characters, its not.    And that's what's important - unless a PC diablarizes several times, he doesn't get any noticable boost.   Diablarie isn't a "cheat" - its an innate part of the vampiric condition.   There's a reason its one of the three Traditions - because its supposed to be an immediate concern and temptation.   Its not.   And a large part of that is because of the Blood Potency boost - something a lot of players have come to consider more of a downside than an advantage.   When one of the so-called benefits of committing diablarie is considered to be harmful, characters simply won't want to use the option.  That's all there is to it.

Not to mention - the BP scale fails to take elders into account, and I do include a number of ancients in my game.   An elder awakening from torpor has low Potency, yet he has a number of high level disciplines that can be used to beat anyone down.  He reads as weak, yet is, in truth, powerful.  

I see that the system is innately flawed, and no excuses will wave those flaws away.    Sorry.

mplindustries:

Being prohibitively expensive does work for Blood Potency, so its irrelevant to me if it works for Wolf Potency or Faerie Potency or anything else like it.

This first part is wrong, I feel.   If it wasn't meant to be raised through experience, then they wouldn't have given Blood Potency an experience cost.   Simple as that.

The reason I brought up other games was just to point out that Changelings and Werewolves are expected to raise their Potency stat over play, and have to pay the full, exorbant cost.   Saying that the price for Potency is high because you're not meant to buy it is directly contradicted by other games.   From the fact there is an experience cost, and other game lines are forced to pay it, makes me conclude that BP is also meant to be purchased through experience points.

mplindustries:

But if you improve the usefulness of Blood Potency and make it a worthwhile expenditure, then people may actually buy it before they deserve the status, thus eliminating its usefulness as a gauge of overall power.

Or people just disagree that BP is an acurate gauge of power on its own.  Its not.

This is, I guess, part of the problem with having XP double as 'learning time.'

I think though, the OP is taking this a bit too far.  You are supposed to buy BP with XP.  Part of the cost of the power stats is supposed to limit purchase.  Just like the high cost of 4+ Attributes in play limits their purchase.

If it is really so costly for what it is, it is probably a problem.  However, if it is simply too expensive for most players to be concerned with right away, or even at all over the course of some chronicles, that isn't a problem.

Basically, if you're playing a 'normal' 1 year chronicle and getting around 12 XP a month, nobody buying BP is fine.  If you're playing in a 2 year super-intense game and you're playing enough that you average 50 XP a month and still nobody buys it?  That's a better demonstration of their being a problem.

Blood Potency conveys some benefits that are less easily quantifiable than some other areas of the sheet, specifically because most of it's benefits end up being derivative of the way it modifies those other potential actions.

It alters the social interaction between vampires. Or should, no matter how rigidly or loosely the storyteller chooses to run Predator's Taint, unless that mechanic is tossed completely- Blood Potency conveys the impression of power and status.

It changes the total blood pool and vitae expenditure per turn. Without something to spend blood on, this may seem useless but given the premise that there is something the vampire can use blood for, the increase (even a seemingly small one) can dramatically change the game of managing the vitae resource. Players will rarely burn themselves out of blood or low enough to be on the edge of hunger frenzy. They want to save some for waking up and healing wounds- their effective blood pool for situations where it isn't a matter of character death tends to be much smaller than it seems. Most players will rarely (in my experience) spend more than three or four blood before they look to replenish it through feeding. Increases to the maximum they can retain give them breathing room and versatility on the top end while allowing them to maintain what they feel are appropriate reserves. The ability to spend more per turn gives them some burst potential that should not be overlooked for those times when it becomes necessary.

And of course the idea of optional bloodline access... various devotions and a few disciplines that require a per-turn expenditure greater than a Blood Potency One vampire can manage...

It's an expensive stat to buy with experience. It can also dramatically change the ability of a character to use the remainder of their sheet, giving multiplicative value to other areas. I think the expense is justified.

ALso, there was a recent thread dealing with a similar- if slightly broader- topic that ended up being locked. http://forums.white-wolf.com/cs/forums/t/15021.aspx?PageIndex=1 Beats the hell out of me what the mods feel about resurrecting controversial (ish?) subjects that led to lockdowns in the past- I'm willing to discuss the subject, it interests me... but if this one goes the way that one went, I may disappear before the mods break out the tear gas and rubber bullets.

Blunt Vorpal:

Not with PC level characters, its not.    And that's what's important - unless a PC diablarizes several times, he doesn't get any noticable boost.

I would consider 20-25 free XP worth of disciplines (or even one of the earlier levels of a hard to acquire power) PLUS (for the first couple ones) a free dot of Blood Potency is pretty worthwhile.  I've never had a game last more than a few weeks without Diablerie coming up as a temptation, and its never gone more than a few months without someone eventually comitting it.  Different groups, I guess.  And by "cheat," I meant it cheats the "Blood Potency as general hierarchy" system, and I'd wager that the fact that it does cheat that system is why its a Tradition.

Blunt Vorpal:

Not to mention - the BP scale fails to take elders into account, and I do include a number of ancients in my game.   An elder awakening from torpor has low Potency, yet he has a number of high level disciplines that can be used to beat anyone down.  He reads as weak, yet is, in truth, powerful.  

He only reads as weak when he first wakes up.  If he's really an ancient, he's already got the stuff he cares about maxed, so all his XP can go towards Blood Potency.  He's not going to look weak in a couple of years, thats for sure.  Plus, why would an ancient want to sleep that long?  Its not that common for old powerful vampires to be torpored involuntarily.  So it'll all be voluntary sleep.  If I were a really old vampire, I'd live until I almost BP 7, then sleep ~25 years, live ~75, sleep ~25 again, etc., so I never dropped below BP 5, or 4 as a safety net if I blew my waking up rolls, but never lived long enough to have to deal with BP 7.

Perhaps we just have a different vision of how powerful vampires who've lived 50+ years ought to be.  I kind of see Blood Potency as being "soft capped" at 6.  After that, its more trouble than its worth for vampires to continue being active, and by the time they're at 6, they're pretty well maxed because its time to work on getting the 6th dot of things.  That means there's a much smaller scale of developement than it seems.  BP 2 vampires who got there with time sure as hell have multiple disciplines at 4 or 5, and probably several stats and skills at 5 as well.  BP 3 vampires likely have tons of 5s scattered, they probably have nothing at less than 3 (except skills they refuse to use, perhaps), and they are starting to pick up weird devotions in their niches.  By BP 4, there's really nothing left to learn, which is where buying BP starts really happening, and possibly even earlier.  Seriously, 50 years is a long time, these vampires have ample time to develop.

Blunt Vorpal:

This first part is wrong, I feel.   If it wasn't meant to be raised through experience, then they wouldn't have given Blood Potency an experience cost.   Simple as that.

I disagree.  They gave it a cost so it could be bought with XP,  but they gave it a high cost so it would not be bought first.  Like I said, I imagine it would be purchased after everything else you care about, meaning that you'll be formidable in the areas you care about.  That makes it a good measure in general.  The times when it does not apply (ancients waking up after long sleeps, pcs buying it early, diablerie) are so infrequent in general that it remains a good measure.  If it were a better stat, or if it cost less, there would be a universal increase in Blood Potency, because npcs would be buying it, too.  Thus, it would lose meaning as a measure.

Blunt Vorpal:

The reason I brought up other games was just to point out that Changelings and Werewolves are expected to raise their Potency stat over play, and have to pay the full, exorbant cost.   Saying that the price for Potency is high because you're not meant to buy it is directly contradicted by other games.

This is an excellent point, but it could also mean that they correctly designed Blood Potency, then incorrectly modeled other power stats after it, rather than treating each power stat individually.  As I said, I'm really only trying to talk about Vampire here.

Blunt Vorpal:

Or people just disagree that BP is an acurate gauge of power on its own.  Its not.

Predator's Taint means that it absolutely is, in-game.  So, instead of hating Blood Potency for incorrectly gauging what it is basically said to gauge, I'm accepting that it does and figuring out why/how.

Zeev:

I think though, the OP is taking this a bit too far.  You are supposed to buy BP with XP.  Part of the cost of the power stats is supposed to limit purchase.  Just like the high cost of 4+ Attributes in play limits their purchase.

I've not seen 4+ attributes to be too high.  They are appropriately costed for their effects, and I've had a large number of players buy the 4th and 5th dots of various stats and disciplines.  Rarely will they buy the last dots of skills, though, since that's generally inefficient.

Zeev:

If it is really so costly for what it is, it is probably a problem.  However, if it is simply too expensive for most players to be concerned with right away, or even at all over the course of some chronicles, that isn't a problem.

This is pretty much my argument.  It is over priced for people who still have other things to buy, which keeps it in the hands of already powerful people who deserve the status it brings.

Zeev:

Basically, if you're playing a 'normal' 1 year chronicle and getting around 12 XP a month, nobody buying BP is fine.  If you're playing in a 2 year super-intense game and you're playing enough that you average 50 XP a month and still nobody buys it?  That's a better demonstration of their being a problem.

My current game has run for just over a year now and in addition to front loading their sheets with dozens of free skill dots (they were intensively trained), they've earned over 200 XP.  Still, not one of them has purchased Blood Potency, though one has diablerized her way up to BP 4.  Let me tell you, even with all this XP, they are still quite afraid of the abilities and resources that the BP 2 npcs around the city can bring to bear, nevermind the (non-diablerizing) BP 4s.  Even though they each have one 5 stat (Strength, Resolve, and Majesty), they have none of the "infrastructure" that a real elder has, things like Multiple havens (or any haven dots in the case of one player), vast networks of contacts and allies, resources 5, ghouls, etc., etc.

In other words, after understanding why BP cost so much, I reinforced the idea in my game world, and it's worked damn well.

Loxosceles:

It's an expensive stat to buy with experience. It can also dramatically change the ability of a character to use the remainder of their sheet, giving multiplicative value to other areas. I think the expense is justified.

I don't find the multiplicative benefit to be even remotely worthwhile it until you get to BP 4, but as per my epiphany, I realized the true value of Blood Potency was social.

Loxosceles:

ALso, there was a recent thread dealing with a similar- if slightly broader- topic that ended up being locked. http://forums.white-wolf.com/cs/forums/t/15021.aspx?PageIndex=1 Beats the hell out of me what the mods feel about resurrecting controversial (ish?) subjects that led to lockdowns in the past- I'm willing to discuss the subject, it interests me... but if this one goes the way that one went, I may disappear before the mods break out the tear gas and rubber bullets.

If that is the case, then I'm not upset if this gets deleted.  However, I'm not interested in fighting about whether or not its overpriced, nor do I care about the other game lines, so hopefully that will make the difference.

I guess the title does a poor job of explaining this, but I want to discuss ways Blood Potency can be used effectively, and how the mechanical cost can be explained with in-game logic or vice-versa.