With a high enough score in Persuasion you can often blue-text your way out of trouble, and stealth is a valid option too. The Bloodbuff power can make you temporarily better at lockpicking and Auspex at hacking, if you haven't got quite enough points in the relevant skills.
Bloodlines is the kind of game where you can solve things multiple ways, so choose a clan that reflects your preferred play style.īloodlines is a vent-crawler, not a full on Deus Ex-style immersive sim, but still the kind of RPG where learning how to pick locks and hack computers is worthwhile. The rebel punk Brujah and animalistic shapeshifting Gangrel are good combat options, the blood magic specialists of the Tremere have the strongest powers, and the artsy bohemian Toreador and power-dressing corporate Ventrue are best at talking their way out of problems. They're your new-game-plus clan, highly recommended to shake up your second go around.Īny of the other clans are fine for a first-timer. Also, since those insights into the future drive Malkavians mad, playing one means hearing voices and having hallucinations. The Malkavians have a limited ability to see the future, which means they have a lot of bespoke dialogue options that spoil twists because they know them already. They're your hard-mode challenge run choice. The Nosferatu appear so blatantly undead they can't show themselves in public, and you'll spend most of the game travelling via sewer if you play one. Though it's not up-front about this, two of the vampire clans are designed for a second playthrough. And among the changes are optional shortcuts that let you bypass some of the late-game combat dungeons that are its weakest points, and a sewer rat who is also a cab driver (though he only appears if you play a Malkavian). Some of its additions are rough around the edges, sure, but so is everything about Bloodlines. The existing sidequest where a character trades collectibles for sexy posters of the game's lady NPCs-even for a game about vampires, Bloodlines can be pretty thirsty-has been expanded and made even tackier.Īnd yet, I recommend the plus patch anyway. There's an entire sidequest that ends at the library which "never even made it to alpha" according to Bloodlines writer Brian Mitsoda and had to be created essentially whole cloth, with writing that doesn't match the rest of the game. It puts a cop in the tutorial you can talk your way past to learn how the dialogue skills work, and his voice acting is pretty rough.
Some of the things the plus patch restores are questionable, I'll admit.