Blood Lineage: We can do without generations, but I don't like how Blood Potency works in some ways, either. I like vampires getting more powerful as they grow older, but the Mist of Ages? No. Flat-out "No". Also, I don't think torpor should "dilute" a vampire's blood - it can starve them of blood, since their torpid body is still consuming it, and they can have a period of weakness following torpor during which they are more vulnerable (having been starved of blood for who-knows-how-long), but you should be able to recover from it more-or-less for "free". (I.e., drinking blood as you normally would gradually restores your powers based on how long you've been in torpor.)
excuse me - but Are you making a substitute system for WoD ? I'm impressed. Is this forum usually so robust or CCP caused havoc in WoD community cancelling MMO ? or is it just a Vampire game ? Anyway - (IP - newer heard of this therm -sorry ) Well as far as i scrolled my eye balls on your project it seems to be nicely researched so far.I dont't know how far are You in this project but - still the basics are missing if i can pointed out.Mythology - is part of basic - but core, is something special for every good game. Are there any conflicts between those goods ? Any philosophy approach for the theme. WoD was about inner beast fight, Warhammer about good vs evil, etc. I would not worry about dice system as you can easilly develop some. But first set the core conflict. Core will help you see the possible approach for Skills and Characteristics.Anyway apart from this - this so called intellectual property therm sucks.
You can balance the powers so that each one of them is equally useful in different ways. You could also justify it by saying that "smaller" powers, like Feral Claws, require more concentration and finesse than larger, more general changes. For example, the Feral Claws gives you +damage, +attack speed (both hands), and +climbing, whereas Shapeshift gives you +movement speed, +attack damage, and +animal trait (nightvision, sense of smell, etc).
I played on a tactical map with Gamma World, and I think it detracts from the storytelling part of the game. If the DM/GM/Storyteller can just tell the players "Look at the map!", it generally means there's less description and less attention paid to the details. Unless the DM/GM/Storyteller wants to create their own maps for every major space in the game, then you have to rely on pre-packaged campaigns/storylines that come with their own maps.If we don't go with the maps, then we don't need to worry about movement points as such. Sure, foot speed, vehicle speed, and attack range and things matter heavily, but I think we can find a compromise between VTM's "If you have Athletics 3, you run faster than someone with Athletics 2" and a fixed number of squares.
I'm still struggling with my ideas. I picked Healing and decided to do it two ways. The first way is more like Rick suggested. I've created 6 tiers instead of 5, then brainstormed all of the healing ideas I could, both from WoD, elsewhere and also what I thought would just be fun/cool. I'm having a difficult time ordering them, tho.Although it was certainly different from discipline to discipline, I feel like there was a clear template such as: Rank 1: Light power, Rank 2: Minor harm, Rank 3: Med Power, Rank 4: Agg harm, Rank 5: supremely cool power. Obviously this doesn't hold true for every discipline but I was trying to create something similar with my 6 ranks.Also, I decided, for kicks, why not make another version of Healing, but more modular... a sortof build your own, like with Mokole dragon forms or Demon forms (from Demon: the Fallen). I always enjoyed those modular forms of creating forms/powers for my characters so I thought I'd give it a go. That's actually going a lil more smoothly because it's easier to classify powers by weak/med/strong/very strong.Anyway, interesting to read your post above. I'm gonna keep tossing my ideas around this weekend while I have lots of work and will try to make a post by Monday, and then get back over to work on the Lineages which I've kindof left hanging.Nigama