As an experienced vampire/ampc on both ends of the table, I feel the hopelessness and invulnerability of vampires is due to the limited nature of the server and some of the hidden flaws behind the coffin mechanics designed around a server that use to stay up for weeks at a time. Its created a cat & mouse mentality and because of how difficult it is for a vampire to truly die on PotM, I understand the player-side struggle to want to get involved with something that can only be 'beaten' if the vampire desires it.
- Coffins only spawn when the vampire has logged in for the first time during a given reset cycle. This makes searching for them inconsistent, especially since they're undefined by owner. A coffin might be there one day but not the next time, so as a player, you assume it was moved.
- With above in mind, this means much of the interaction with a vampires coffin is done while the vampire is offline. Nobody really wants to have their character 'perma'd' while they're not even playing. The server is -tiny,- in terms of available places where you can hide a coffin and still keep it a secret for more than a week.
- Killing a vampire through there coffin is basically impossible; if the vampire plays a certain way. You have to mist the vampire, know that you force misted the vampire and it wasn't just a manual mist, know which/where their coffin is, beat their invulnerable perma-hasted mist to said coffin, and more than likely, be close enough behind said mist to detect them trying to escape and kill them again and burn their coffin.
- The current availability of coffins to vampires is unlimited. I think this point in particular, has had a long-term two-sided problem of coffins being 'destroyed' frequently because of the limited nature of the server, and vampires having too much disconnection in their ability to acquire a new coffin so easily and just abandoning a coffin, if discovered by players.
HIPS Mist form being instant cast, instant stealth, perma-hasted that drops aggro due to it being a HIPS mechanic, and has faction-swapping attached to it as well.
My 'simple' recommendations would be:
- If a vampire is not bound to their coffin (They don't have one placed in game; whether carried or destroyed), they're not allowed to mist form. This would help both issues with coffin abandonment and coffin grab-and-ditch.
- Not being allowed to carry a coffin while in bat/mist form.
- Make mist/polymorphs form take a standard action, not instant cast.
Out of some of the recommendations already suggested, my thoughts:
Descriptions for coffins. Yes please. Amazing idea.
"Wait one hour if destroyed/corpse timer"; While I understand why this makes sense due to how vampires are in a pen and paper setting, I feel with the limited nature of the server, an hour is too long to ask anyone to 'sit there and die' , and ultimately, this sort of suggestion is going to make vampires play 'more' cautiously with manual misting and survive-ability, and avoid interactions with anyone they know to being able to kill them. An hour real time by the way, is enough time for a single player to check every single 'top ten' used coffin locations. If the server was bigger and had more 'secrets to discover', maybe. Also, an hour real time basically rules out more than ~80% of the areas coffins are allowed to be placed in, limiting where players have to look drastically.
With the above suggestions, I feel like the timers are overbearing and hinting to the frustrated extreme to how hard vampires are to kill. I think simply, having one 'in game' hour, (six minutes) of a vampire being locked in place next to his coffin, is enough of an impact to reduce the invulnerability perceived around vampires drastically. In addition to not allowing vampires to move their coffins around as bat/mist, this changes the game 'a lot' for a PC vampire.
Great post. Very thoughtful, constructive, and with understanding of both sides of the argument.
The nice thing about any kind of timer is it's easily adjusted, up or down, if anything about it is out of balance.
I agree with a whole lot of what you say--some of it having observed myself and part of it because you have stated your case persuasively. I'm going to talk about only the points I have some disagreement with, however, rather than repeat those parts I support. I did quote you in your entirety
this sort of suggestion is going to make vampires play 'more' cautiously with manual misting and survive-ability, and avoid interactions with anyone they know to being able to kill them.
I don't necessarily think that's a bad thing. Just as high-level PCs should not be zero-RP bulldozing AMPCs, AMPCs have some responsibility to show canniness and make encounters "special." A vampire cannot ignore the setting and the knowledge that the Western Outskirts is a place where adventurers from many realms are pulled in by the Mists. Some of these adventurers are highly motivated to destroy undead by their beliefs and have spent years now training to do just that. Even if the player of such a PC out of OOC courtesy holds back, the presence of the high level is going to embolden low levels to be more reckless and lessen any chance of true terror.
Also, I think (or at least hope) high levels would be less likely to one-shot vampires if they knew there was actual consequence to doing so. Currently, a sunburst can drive the vampire off, but doesn't mean much more than that, so a high level can feel as though it's a way of signaling, "Don't mess with me," rather than anything at all significant. Having AMPCs who "die" a lot and pop right back up doesn't add much to actual terror
or cause anyone to feel guilty about a "red=dead" mentality (because it's only red is mildly inconvenienced).
As far as the small server size making hiding coffins difficult and finding them easy, I haven't found that to be true, but I've never experienced it from the vampire's side. From the WFK side of observing many vampire hunts, however, it currently is kind of pointless. No one really gets excited about finding one, and looking for them seems like something we ought to do ICly but is mostly unrewarding because of the mechanics.
Also, and not entirely related to your post, I am fine with the current mist form speed of vampires. I don't think, however, they should be able to carry anything like a coffin or body while in mist.