Review: Vampire the Masquerade 5th Edition Part 2

So, in my initial review that can be found here. In it, I left a few things out and I also want to talk about two of the supplements that came out at the same time or shortly after and all three books were eventually sold in a box set. I am not going to do full reviews but I want to touch base on them as those two products are closely related to the Core book in time frame, company, and people. Then, I will briefly touch about the Chicago by Night book which was produced by Onyx Path Publishing.

One of the things I did not get into was the system for Resonance. It is basically emotional flavor the blood and it is meant to add greater depth to feeding. Though, by design V:tM 5th edition already brings feeding and hunger to the forefront in regards to role play (and mechanics). The PC's themselves can gain resonance and disciplines require a certain resonance to gain an additional dot when the player has met the XP requirements for it. I understand the theory behind this but in practice it falls flat and in my experience (and talking to a lot of other Storytellers) it is something that gets ignored nine time out of ten. Just like how the Predator's Taint is treated in Vampire: The Requiem. 

The second thing I left out is how armor is handled. Armor turns aggravated damage into superficial damage. That is really great for a mortal because they also half superficial damage and turning things like gunshots into non life threatening damage goes a long way. With that being said, armor does not help Vampires and to an extent other supernaturals at all. Vampires reduce just about everything (except their banes) to superficial damage and then halve it. I am not sure how or why this was overlooked. Vampires just like everyone else would like to benefit from armor. 

The third thing that I just forgot to mention is that the core book includes the Clans Brujah, Gangrel, Malkavian, Nosferatu, Toreador, Tremere, and Ventrue. 

The final thing I think I want to touch base in is regards to the XP system. It is a basic system of you gain an amount of XP per session and then the costs of new dots are multiplied by a current rating or base number. The idea of the system works fine but the math does not work. The costs are to high for the amount of XP the book tells you to award. This is another aspect of where a lot of people use their own XP systems or give out more XP per session. 

The Camarilla book got more consistent with layout, art, and tone but it still suffered from the same issues the core book did. It had information about the the Sect and gave a good overview of everything. Thought I feel like the the Third edition Camarilla gave more information in about the same amount of pages. In this book, we get new loresheets and another clan, the Banu Haqim (formally known as the Assaamites) - they joined the Camarilla. This book is missing two things that irk me but I will only touch one in this section. This book lacks a city building chapter which is something I think is really important. 

The Anarch book got more consistent with layout, art, and tone but it still suffered from the same issues the core book did. It had good information but the way it was written really made the Anarchs seem less then a political movement for the better of the younger generations and turned them into roving gangs. Whether it was the intent or not, I do not know but that is how the writing came off to me. I feel like the V20 book Anarchs Unbound does the movement a lot more justice and makes them more three dimension. This third dimension is important because Anarchs are one of the two main movements in the new meta. In this book we get the Ministry (formally known as the Setites). I really like their rebranding and all of the meta reasons why the ended up joining the Anarchs (the main reason is they got snuffed by the Camarilla - big surprise). The Ministry is the lore sheets are some of my favorite parts of the book. I also really enjoy who the book talks about each clan in the eyes of an Anarch - those pages were really full of flavor and plot ideas.

 

 

So this book is is produced by Onyx Oath Publishing and has an obscenely successful kickstarter and all of that jazz. This book has consistent layout, tone, and art throughout the whole book. It is easier and more enjoyable to read and feels like an RPG book instead of a coffee table art book. The art is all the same style as is what I would call a painted style? I think this is one of the best books out so far for V:tM 5th edition. The lore sheets found within are so fun as well.

This is no fault of Onyx Path (as I think they were trying to do damage control) but there was a lot of generic setting information in this book that should have been included in the core, Camarilla, and Anarch books. In addition, we get the Clan Lasombra in this book and it meta about 50% of the clan has joined the Camarilla and they rest of the clan are slowly trickling over. This is the second thing that really bothered me about the Camarilla book. The Lasombra joining the Camarilla is something the is well established in the meta but they somehow got left out of the Camarilla book? I get it per meta they have not been voted in as an official pillar clan but come on! It is just something that is very frustrating.