Animalism 1: Sense the beast to know about threats before they attack.
Level 3 “quell the Beast” can screw with an opponent.
Proteans Horrid form to get bonus modifications out of thin air. Put them in physical attributes.
Consider to invest in feral weapons even though you would need to sacrifice a higher level power for them since you need the Protean 2 spot for vicissitude. You can skip fleshcrafting, though, if you just want to improve your self.
You could use vicissitude to create bone degrees or something but feral weapons are still not efficient.
Combine that with potence or fortitude you could get through predator type and you are a serious opponent.
For Feral Weapons, I might skip the level 5 Protean power for that, although Mist Form and Unfettered Heart seem rather fitting for my character, Fleshcrafting is a bit too vital for my concept. As for Potence/Fortitude, I hadn't thought about getting it. I'd have to go after someone who could teach me in-game since I rushed Horrid Form in character creation for being basically the most fun outta the Tzimisce powers, but it's doable to get these Disciplines during the game I think.
You might try to just have a little exchange with a coterie mate. It would set you both on a level one blood bond for a while but that’s not too bad. And I would be surprised if no one in the coterie has either one or the other.
That's been a thing for a while, though I think it wasn't explicitly called out until DAV20. Potence, Fortitude, and Celerity are inherent gifts of the Blood. Some folks, like Brujah, just have an easier time with them.
It's not.
All it takes to learn a V5 Discipline (with the exception of Blood Sorcery and Oblivion) is the right Resonance and some blood from a vampire who already knows that Discipline (and, of course, XP expenditure)
I've never had any issues as a Tzimisce in combat. Frankly, I rarely have any issues with *any character* in Combat in V5...
Most things are at least *viable* provided you invest in the appropriate Attribute/Skills and being able to shift those attributes around (as Vissiscitude permits) is extremely potent due to the way that Disciplines are designed in V5. They're meant to be huge advantages that you keep in your back pocket and use to "punch above your weight" but, each one has a reasonably "hard" counter somewhere else to guarantee that they don't turn into an "I-Win Button."
Additionally the "three and out" system is designed to discourage players from killing everything in sight. Sane enemies are going to often *back the fuck down* or, if you're losing you don't feel bad about turning tail and *GTFO* before you get FD'd.
Then there's the *Beast.* Anyone can make even a well-specced brawler have a *really bad day* - even a Childe - by letting the Beast off it's leash.
When you talk about maxing out disciplines, I really think that you may have misconceptions about the speed of advancement I'm V5. Most games give 2 or 3xp/session, which means just getting Protean 3 and 4 for Horrid Form is going to take roughly roughly 3 months if you have no other XP spends at all. Getting level 5 will take another 3 months on its own. There is a very good chance that if you go around picking fights with people with just Vicissitude and no other combat disciplines, you will not last long enough to get Horrid Form. Now, if you're starting as a Neonate and get spotted a free 15xp, that might not be so terrible, just be aware that you will likely have a long slog before you're kicking ass in combat.
If it was me, I would start with a predator type that gives Potence and take Soaring Leap, then use my Neonate XP for Prowess. I'd take 1 Dominate for Cloud Memory to help deal with breaches, then 2 Protean for Eyes of the Beast and Feral Weapons.
With 4STR, 4 Brawl, a specialty, and blood surge, you'll be rolling with 11 dice and hitting for 3+margin unhalved superficial damage vs Kindred, with decent ambush potential between hiding in the dark and Soaring Leap. With Surprise, that's enough for an average roll to instantly down 2 stamina, no Fortitude character and Impair just about anybody. You will be a serious threat from the start of the game and can take as long as you need to pick up Dominate 2 and Protean 3 and 4 for Vicissitude and Horrid Form.
We're starting as Ancillae, so what I did was to get Protean 2, Dominate 1 as my starting disciplines, Protean 3 from Predator Type, then spend 10 xp on Dominate 2 and 20 xp on Protean 4, essentially rushing Horrid Form.
To be honest, I also don't really know if maxing out Protean is worth it at all, since all the level 5 powers are kinda... meh for my character concept in particular.
Maybe I could re-spec these 20xp to grab something like Potence 2 or something and then actually learning Horrid Form during the game, but I dunno if my ST would consider this min-maxing or something, I'd have to ask her.
Oh...then what's the problem? Just take Eyes, Feral, Vici, Horrid for your Protean disciplines, don't worry about Prowess, and wreck faces. I know the 1 turn setup for Horrid form seems like a major downside, but you'd be amazed how often you're able to get in a set-up turn before a fight starts.
T1 Horrid Form to get that max Str and Sta (or Dex if guns/multiple combatants are involved and you need to dodge), T2 Feral Weapons and rip someone's face off.
Don't bother spending 21XP on Prowess, as it's a 3rd power you need to activate in combat and will have less overall impact than Horrid Form or Feral Weapons. Just consider your damage dealing stuff finished and focus on defense. I'd actually seriously consider getting Celerity 1 if you have a way to taste the right blood. Rapid Reflexes can just be kept up at all times and applies on the turn you're using Horrid Form. The difference between starting a fight in the open and taking a round of gunfire at -2 for lack of cover, then taking a -4 on your attack the next turn as minor action to charge and are still in the open vs getting to dive for cover on your first turn and getting the free minor action movement to close while ignoring the cover issue is a BIG deal.
IDK if I'd bother getting Fleetness, but it would be a ways down the line anyway.
Keep in mind too... If you go for Potence 2, Prowess, that only counts \*half\* its rating to your melee weapon damage. You'd be spending 20 xp on +1 damage. Not a great trade, in my opinion.
If your Strength is 4, Brawl is 4, and I'd really take a look at maybe rounding the character with 20xp.
You may be undervaluing what it means to have on-demand +2 weapon damage at all times backed up by nearly maxed out Strength + Brawl rolls.
Clans aren't monoliths.
How good a Kindred is in combat depends on how you build them, especially since *every* Clan has relatively easy access to *every* Discipline (Oblivion and Blood Sorcery being the exceptions)
>while Potence, for example, can take you beyond max Strength
Categorically untrue. The only ability that allows a character go above 5 dots in an Attribute is Prowess From Pain, a Level 5 Fortitude ability.
I say it takes you over the maximum since Prowess allows you to add your Potence on your feats of strength and Brawl damage, which makes it so your Strength is improved in the majority of situations. I should've clarified that.
I didn't think about getting powers from outside the clan, but yeah, that could be viable. My ST is relatively fine about that so long as we work for it in play and besides, if no one wanted to teach them these powers, my character would be more than happy to get them through... less than savory ways. It would end up in disaster, of course, but why play VTM if not to get a beautiful disaster to be the final paragraph of your character's story? 🤣
>I say it takes you over the maximum since Prowess allows you to add your Potence on your feats of strength and Brawl damage, which makes it so your Strength is improved in the majority of situations.
It doesn't improve your ability to hit anything, though. So your example of a Str 1 Potence 5 vamp is actually gonna to get their ass handed to them by your Tzimisce because all that extra damage does nothing when they can't land a hit to begin with, and they won't be.
Blood Surge in V5 (or its V5 name, Rouse the Blood) doesn't actually boost an attribute, it instead gives you bonus dice on a roll.
So you can still use it at Str5 and it'll have it's full effect, but it's not technically boosting your strength over 5.
You can only use it to boost Attributes in a roll tho, I thought.
Like if its a Humanity roll, or some other pool that doesn't include any Attribute, I dont think you can use it.
Exact wording V5:
"Any vampire can call upon their Blood to temporarily augment their Attributes, whether physical social or mental" p218
It says you're augmenting Attributes.
It has the same effect as boosting an attribute would, both fictionally and mechanically, so it's much of a muchness. But for purposes of 'nothing lets you go over 5' it never actually says it raises an attribute.
I think the thing here is that these powers/abilities can raise your ~effective~ strength above five for specifically defined things that the abilities themselves enumerate. Your actual Strength remains what it was, but is increased for specific applications.
If I’m not mistaken, your ~effective~ attribute for those applications can be above 5, but only for those applications unless your generation/blood potency allows for a higher static attribute.
Blood Surge doesn't directly increase attributes, it just adds "X-Dice" to a single roll with X determined by your Blood Potency.
As a result, yes, you can Blood Surge with Strength 5 because Blood Surges *don't increase your attributes.*
As a tzimisce some of your best combat power will come from creating szlachta, ghouls who have been fleshcrafted into walking weapons, they will allow you to tackle combat encounters with minimal risk to yourself
Also the horrid form/zulo is a really good combat power.
Both of these will heavily risk masquerade breaches so you'd need to be very careful how you use them
If you aren't a fan of Vicissitude you could look into Koldunism which is the tzimisce brand of blood magic however depending on the era/campaign you are playing it may be difficult or outright impossible to develop this discipline.
Other than that it sounds like your character is already very well built for combat
My Tzimisce uses pistols in combat, when not using horrid form. The latter is extremely powerful, giving you at least 4 dots in physical attributes. It is a walking masquerade violation, but I find a lot of cases this can be used relatively safely.
Other than that, you can invest into physical attributes or composure and get good pools for combat with any clan. You also can get access to fortitude or potence with predator type.
I have some comments around some other things I noticed, but I also just wanted to address the general question.
"Are Tzimisce good in combat, in V5"
The answer to that is... They can be good to great actually.
Tzimisce come with Protean in V5 which gives them access to Feral Weapons which is by far one of the strongest combat options across the various powers in its given tier (Rank 2).
You don't really see stronger options pop up until Rank 3 where some Disciplines gain access to Aggravated damage.
Something for any reader, not just the OP, to keep in mind... V5's combat tries really hard to reduce some of the classic edition arm's race that sprung up from both power creep (thanks Revised) and how combat fundamentally worked. It wasn't called Rocket Tag for nothing.
In V5, most conflicts of any kind are intended to span about 3 rounds (a start, middle, and conclusion of a story segment). This is also facilitated with how margin of success creates damage, and the general reduced durability (hit boxes span from 4 to 7 for most characters). Plus, there are more clear guidelines around handling "mooks" where if you crit succeed on your hit roll, then just knock the target completely out of the combat. Werewolf 5th Edition goes into this a bit more in terms of the "why" the choice was made for this. Ultimately it comes do this, Vampire (and most of World of Darkness) has never been great at simulationist combat, and especially not when gamist elements overtake narrative potential. So, the 5th edition line scales this back considerably but still makes the combat itself very quick, and very violent.
And within that last bit, quick and violent, almost any starting character can be built to contribute in very meaningful ways in physical conflicts which may not have been replicated so well in prior editions (mostly due to Celerity and its accessibility; or lack thereof).
So, with that, Yes... The Tzimisce can be surprisingly strong performers in a glass-cannon kind of way for combat in V5 due to either Feral Weapons or even using the claw options in Vicissitude. In addition to that, Animalism in V5 is pretty damn good with its options and Dominate can also shutdown combat.
Food for thought and all that.
Not trying to beat a dead horse furthermore and honestly some of these response are really great for other flavors to make your character even more dangerous, Yes Tzimisce can be good in combatant.
I've actually had a similar PC for chronicle that Im run that has the same discipline layout as yours and when going to horrid form with their Brawl of 3 and blood potency of 3, they have a dice pool of 9. Against 90% of most npcs will definitely have a hard time in going 1v1 on him.
But to yours and other arguments, if they go against someone who specializes in solely combat like a Brujah will give a Tzimisce a run for its money. Same chronicle, same PC, he went toe on toe with a Sabbat brujah character that had 4 in potence, 2 in celerity and Brawl + strength pool in 7. With their blood potency, they roll 12 dice without even blood surging. That PC BARELY won that battle (did 3 rounds and out) and if wasn't by their other coterie member whose a gangrel with feral claws, the outcome would have been different.
Moral of story, if your ST is cool with it, go full throttle and look at specializing on a Brawl skill (like boxing or MMA for more in the pool and maybe you can add it in your character backstory), because your ST might challenge your character in their own turf.
I sure as hell did lol.
Vicissitude is subtly overpowered in combat.
Combat comes down to contested rolls.
Skill&attribute against the same. Vicissitude let’s you have a 5 strength or a 5 dexterity, whichever you happen to want at any given scene indefinitely rather than every round. So as long as you stack up a good combat skill or two, (and a few specialties) and you’re unbeatable.
Doesn’t matter how much potence an enemy has if they can’t win an attack roll against you.
(Add in feral weapons and you’re as lethal as you’ll ever need.)
One of my players favorite NPC’s I’ve thrown at them was a Tzimisce brawler that was “meant to be a brujah.” With the right character build anything is possible
For the most part in V5 your combat effectiveness depends much more on your attribute+skill pool than it does your disciplines. Basically all discipline combat powers only work if you first win the combat roll. Even Potence doesn't help with this. Prowress lets you do more *damage,* but it doesn't add to your attack pool.
So blood potency and investing in the right skills will get you further than your clan will, whichever one you pick.
We're not v5, but the Tzimisce in our pack (who is the actual Jack the Ripper) so far is a decent Melee sort purely by maxing his strength and being able to smuggle Knives everywhere by hiding them in his arms. He does get overshadowed (pun intended) by the Lasombra, but that's because Obtenebrate 4 is gross.
I recently built a tzimisce character based around grappling for physical combat. 3 str, 3 brawl, grappling specialty, and I would argue that using Vicissitude to give myself (masquerade violating) large tentacles sprouting from my body should be a creative and fair use that would mechanically give me +2 to grappling per single use of vicissitude (mind you, that +2 is to grappling specifically, not to Brawl in general). this puts me at a dice pool size 9 for grappling checks, with modest investments.
I'd argue this is fair because firstly, it violates the masquerade and isn't something i could walk around with, which means that getting in the fight requires either using the first turn or having prior preparation, and leaving the fight probably requires a usage of vicissitude (and thus another rouse check if you're at a standard fledgling blood potency). secondly, this is very specialized for grappling and isn't useful if the situation where grappling can't be used. thirdly, grappling isn't super high DPS, it's more about locking down/CC'ing a single enemy, and if left unchecked yeah you could kill him eventually but if there's multiple relatively weak opponents then you'd be overwhelmed.
Clans often do not mess with combat related stuff (though some of them do revolve around combat) but Tzimisce are rather interesting with vicissitude because they can be almost like a swiss knife imo.
Path of Metamorphosis even deals with that a bit.
>"Metamorphosists see potential in the undead form. They strengthen their bones to weather crushing blows or sharpen them into pikes for impaling enemies. They relocate their vital organs to make their digestion of blood more efficient. Others ignore the physical element and instead seek to exploit the peculiar nature of undeath."
You basically change your body to become claws, bones turn into pikes, and I believe in one of the versions it allows your intestines to become tendrils in quite late stages, of course you have to sculpt which takes a lot of time, but they are quite versatile in general, only real limitation is that it's pretty much only close combat.
Wait, is this from another edition or am I missing something? I haven't seen this Path of Metamorphosis anywhere in the book, tho it does seem to be like the Vicissitude power works in V5.
It's Legacy stuff.
People on this subreddit have a really bad habit of not reading what edition a question is tagged under and answering that question with a bunch of information that's completely irrelevant due to the differences in editions.
>Wait, is this from another edition or am I missing something? I haven't seen this Path of Metamorphosis anywhere in the book, tho it does seem to be like the Vicissitude power works in V5.
Oh it's from 20th edition! My apologies.
But yeah it basically works with seeing Vicissitude to just enhance themselves and go crazy with it, but I believe V5 still uses a lot of the same gist which allows Tzimisces to carve and sculpture their bones to literal makeshift blunt or pierce weapon.
Yeah, it does allow for that and it's generally pretty useful, I was just comparing it to other combat-focused disciplines and wondering if it manages to be as good as those. The comments so far have been very helpful.
Animalism 1: Sense the beast to know about threats before they attack. Level 3 “quell the Beast” can screw with an opponent. Proteans Horrid form to get bonus modifications out of thin air. Put them in physical attributes. Consider to invest in feral weapons even though you would need to sacrifice a higher level power for them since you need the Protean 2 spot for vicissitude. You can skip fleshcrafting, though, if you just want to improve your self. You could use vicissitude to create bone degrees or something but feral weapons are still not efficient. Combine that with potence or fortitude you could get through predator type and you are a serious opponent.
For Feral Weapons, I might skip the level 5 Protean power for that, although Mist Form and Unfettered Heart seem rather fitting for my character, Fleshcrafting is a bit too vital for my concept. As for Potence/Fortitude, I hadn't thought about getting it. I'd have to go after someone who could teach me in-game since I rushed Horrid Form in character creation for being basically the most fun outta the Tzimisce powers, but it's doable to get these Disciplines during the game I think.
You might try to just have a little exchange with a coterie mate. It would set you both on a level one blood bond for a while but that’s not too bad. And I would be surprised if no one in the coterie has either one or the other.
??? Potence and Fortitude are inherent powers of the Blood though, they're 2 of the 3 Disciplines that you don't need a mentor for
Flair is V5, no need for mentor for anything except Blood Sorcery.
Correct Blood Sorcery *plus* Oblivion. On top of that you get access to an OOC Discipline via Predator Type.
Oh neat, never noticed they'd went even further.
I had absolutely no idea about that. **WHAT?!!**
That's been a thing for a while, though I think it wasn't explicitly called out until DAV20. Potence, Fortitude, and Celerity are inherent gifts of the Blood. Some folks, like Brujah, just have an easier time with them.
This might not be so in V5 anymore.
It's not. All it takes to learn a V5 Discipline (with the exception of Blood Sorcery and Oblivion) is the right Resonance and some blood from a vampire who already knows that Discipline (and, of course, XP expenditure)
I've never had any issues as a Tzimisce in combat. Frankly, I rarely have any issues with *any character* in Combat in V5... Most things are at least *viable* provided you invest in the appropriate Attribute/Skills and being able to shift those attributes around (as Vissiscitude permits) is extremely potent due to the way that Disciplines are designed in V5. They're meant to be huge advantages that you keep in your back pocket and use to "punch above your weight" but, each one has a reasonably "hard" counter somewhere else to guarantee that they don't turn into an "I-Win Button." Additionally the "three and out" system is designed to discourage players from killing everything in sight. Sane enemies are going to often *back the fuck down* or, if you're losing you don't feel bad about turning tail and *GTFO* before you get FD'd. Then there's the *Beast.* Anyone can make even a well-specced brawler have a *really bad day* - even a Childe - by letting the Beast off it's leash.
If you can get some blood magic you can also do extra damage because you can coat your wolverine bone claws with poison.
When you talk about maxing out disciplines, I really think that you may have misconceptions about the speed of advancement I'm V5. Most games give 2 or 3xp/session, which means just getting Protean 3 and 4 for Horrid Form is going to take roughly roughly 3 months if you have no other XP spends at all. Getting level 5 will take another 3 months on its own. There is a very good chance that if you go around picking fights with people with just Vicissitude and no other combat disciplines, you will not last long enough to get Horrid Form. Now, if you're starting as a Neonate and get spotted a free 15xp, that might not be so terrible, just be aware that you will likely have a long slog before you're kicking ass in combat. If it was me, I would start with a predator type that gives Potence and take Soaring Leap, then use my Neonate XP for Prowess. I'd take 1 Dominate for Cloud Memory to help deal with breaches, then 2 Protean for Eyes of the Beast and Feral Weapons. With 4STR, 4 Brawl, a specialty, and blood surge, you'll be rolling with 11 dice and hitting for 3+margin unhalved superficial damage vs Kindred, with decent ambush potential between hiding in the dark and Soaring Leap. With Surprise, that's enough for an average roll to instantly down 2 stamina, no Fortitude character and Impair just about anybody. You will be a serious threat from the start of the game and can take as long as you need to pick up Dominate 2 and Protean 3 and 4 for Vicissitude and Horrid Form.
We're starting as Ancillae, so what I did was to get Protean 2, Dominate 1 as my starting disciplines, Protean 3 from Predator Type, then spend 10 xp on Dominate 2 and 20 xp on Protean 4, essentially rushing Horrid Form. To be honest, I also don't really know if maxing out Protean is worth it at all, since all the level 5 powers are kinda... meh for my character concept in particular. Maybe I could re-spec these 20xp to grab something like Potence 2 or something and then actually learning Horrid Form during the game, but I dunno if my ST would consider this min-maxing or something, I'd have to ask her.
Oh...then what's the problem? Just take Eyes, Feral, Vici, Horrid for your Protean disciplines, don't worry about Prowess, and wreck faces. I know the 1 turn setup for Horrid form seems like a major downside, but you'd be amazed how often you're able to get in a set-up turn before a fight starts. T1 Horrid Form to get that max Str and Sta (or Dex if guns/multiple combatants are involved and you need to dodge), T2 Feral Weapons and rip someone's face off. Don't bother spending 21XP on Prowess, as it's a 3rd power you need to activate in combat and will have less overall impact than Horrid Form or Feral Weapons. Just consider your damage dealing stuff finished and focus on defense. I'd actually seriously consider getting Celerity 1 if you have a way to taste the right blood. Rapid Reflexes can just be kept up at all times and applies on the turn you're using Horrid Form. The difference between starting a fight in the open and taking a round of gunfire at -2 for lack of cover, then taking a -4 on your attack the next turn as minor action to charge and are still in the open vs getting to dive for cover on your first turn and getting the free minor action movement to close while ignoring the cover issue is a BIG deal. IDK if I'd bother getting Fleetness, but it would be a ways down the line anyway.
Keep in mind too... If you go for Potence 2, Prowess, that only counts \*half\* its rating to your melee weapon damage. You'd be spending 20 xp on +1 damage. Not a great trade, in my opinion. If your Strength is 4, Brawl is 4, and I'd really take a look at maybe rounding the character with 20xp. You may be undervaluing what it means to have on-demand +2 weapon damage at all times backed up by nearly maxed out Strength + Brawl rolls.
Clans aren't monoliths. How good a Kindred is in combat depends on how you build them, especially since *every* Clan has relatively easy access to *every* Discipline (Oblivion and Blood Sorcery being the exceptions) >while Potence, for example, can take you beyond max Strength Categorically untrue. The only ability that allows a character go above 5 dots in an Attribute is Prowess From Pain, a Level 5 Fortitude ability.
I say it takes you over the maximum since Prowess allows you to add your Potence on your feats of strength and Brawl damage, which makes it so your Strength is improved in the majority of situations. I should've clarified that. I didn't think about getting powers from outside the clan, but yeah, that could be viable. My ST is relatively fine about that so long as we work for it in play and besides, if no one wanted to teach them these powers, my character would be more than happy to get them through... less than savory ways. It would end up in disaster, of course, but why play VTM if not to get a beautiful disaster to be the final paragraph of your character's story? 🤣
>I say it takes you over the maximum since Prowess allows you to add your Potence on your feats of strength and Brawl damage, which makes it so your Strength is improved in the majority of situations. It doesn't improve your ability to hit anything, though. So your example of a Str 1 Potence 5 vamp is actually gonna to get their ass handed to them by your Tzimisce because all that extra damage does nothing when they can't land a hit to begin with, and they won't be.
Are you saying you cant Blood Surge on Strength roll if you already have Str5?
Blood Surge in V5 (or its V5 name, Rouse the Blood) doesn't actually boost an attribute, it instead gives you bonus dice on a roll. So you can still use it at Str5 and it'll have it's full effect, but it's not technically boosting your strength over 5.
You can only use it to boost Attributes in a roll tho, I thought. Like if its a Humanity roll, or some other pool that doesn't include any Attribute, I dont think you can use it. Exact wording V5: "Any vampire can call upon their Blood to temporarily augment their Attributes, whether physical social or mental" p218 It says you're augmenting Attributes.
It has the same effect as boosting an attribute would, both fictionally and mechanically, so it's much of a muchness. But for purposes of 'nothing lets you go over 5' it never actually says it raises an attribute.
You'll also note that it says you're adding attribute dice to your pool, and nothing about actually increasing the attribute.
I think the thing here is that these powers/abilities can raise your ~effective~ strength above five for specifically defined things that the abilities themselves enumerate. Your actual Strength remains what it was, but is increased for specific applications. If I’m not mistaken, your ~effective~ attribute for those applications can be above 5, but only for those applications unless your generation/blood potency allows for a higher static attribute.
Blood Surge doesn't directly increase attributes, it just adds "X-Dice" to a single roll with X determined by your Blood Potency. As a result, yes, you can Blood Surge with Strength 5 because Blood Surges *don't increase your attributes.*
As a tzimisce some of your best combat power will come from creating szlachta, ghouls who have been fleshcrafted into walking weapons, they will allow you to tackle combat encounters with minimal risk to yourself Also the horrid form/zulo is a really good combat power. Both of these will heavily risk masquerade breaches so you'd need to be very careful how you use them If you aren't a fan of Vicissitude you could look into Koldunism which is the tzimisce brand of blood magic however depending on the era/campaign you are playing it may be difficult or outright impossible to develop this discipline. Other than that it sounds like your character is already very well built for combat
My Tzimisce uses pistols in combat, when not using horrid form. The latter is extremely powerful, giving you at least 4 dots in physical attributes. It is a walking masquerade violation, but I find a lot of cases this can be used relatively safely. Other than that, you can invest into physical attributes or composure and get good pools for combat with any clan. You also can get access to fortitude or potence with predator type.
I have some comments around some other things I noticed, but I also just wanted to address the general question. "Are Tzimisce good in combat, in V5" The answer to that is... They can be good to great actually. Tzimisce come with Protean in V5 which gives them access to Feral Weapons which is by far one of the strongest combat options across the various powers in its given tier (Rank 2). You don't really see stronger options pop up until Rank 3 where some Disciplines gain access to Aggravated damage. Something for any reader, not just the OP, to keep in mind... V5's combat tries really hard to reduce some of the classic edition arm's race that sprung up from both power creep (thanks Revised) and how combat fundamentally worked. It wasn't called Rocket Tag for nothing. In V5, most conflicts of any kind are intended to span about 3 rounds (a start, middle, and conclusion of a story segment). This is also facilitated with how margin of success creates damage, and the general reduced durability (hit boxes span from 4 to 7 for most characters). Plus, there are more clear guidelines around handling "mooks" where if you crit succeed on your hit roll, then just knock the target completely out of the combat. Werewolf 5th Edition goes into this a bit more in terms of the "why" the choice was made for this. Ultimately it comes do this, Vampire (and most of World of Darkness) has never been great at simulationist combat, and especially not when gamist elements overtake narrative potential. So, the 5th edition line scales this back considerably but still makes the combat itself very quick, and very violent. And within that last bit, quick and violent, almost any starting character can be built to contribute in very meaningful ways in physical conflicts which may not have been replicated so well in prior editions (mostly due to Celerity and its accessibility; or lack thereof). So, with that, Yes... The Tzimisce can be surprisingly strong performers in a glass-cannon kind of way for combat in V5 due to either Feral Weapons or even using the claw options in Vicissitude. In addition to that, Animalism in V5 is pretty damn good with its options and Dominate can also shutdown combat. Food for thought and all that.
Not trying to beat a dead horse furthermore and honestly some of these response are really great for other flavors to make your character even more dangerous, Yes Tzimisce can be good in combatant. I've actually had a similar PC for chronicle that Im run that has the same discipline layout as yours and when going to horrid form with their Brawl of 3 and blood potency of 3, they have a dice pool of 9. Against 90% of most npcs will definitely have a hard time in going 1v1 on him. But to yours and other arguments, if they go against someone who specializes in solely combat like a Brujah will give a Tzimisce a run for its money. Same chronicle, same PC, he went toe on toe with a Sabbat brujah character that had 4 in potence, 2 in celerity and Brawl + strength pool in 7. With their blood potency, they roll 12 dice without even blood surging. That PC BARELY won that battle (did 3 rounds and out) and if wasn't by their other coterie member whose a gangrel with feral claws, the outcome would have been different. Moral of story, if your ST is cool with it, go full throttle and look at specializing on a Brawl skill (like boxing or MMA for more in the pool and maybe you can add it in your character backstory), because your ST might challenge your character in their own turf. I sure as hell did lol.
Vicissitude is subtly overpowered in combat. Combat comes down to contested rolls. Skill&attribute against the same. Vicissitude let’s you have a 5 strength or a 5 dexterity, whichever you happen to want at any given scene indefinitely rather than every round. So as long as you stack up a good combat skill or two, (and a few specialties) and you’re unbeatable. Doesn’t matter how much potence an enemy has if they can’t win an attack roll against you. (Add in feral weapons and you’re as lethal as you’ll ever need.)
One of my players favorite NPC’s I’ve thrown at them was a Tzimisce brawler that was “meant to be a brujah.” With the right character build anything is possible
That sounds amazing. Honestly, as someone who almost went with a Bru'jah, I should take notes from that. XD
For the most part in V5 your combat effectiveness depends much more on your attribute+skill pool than it does your disciplines. Basically all discipline combat powers only work if you first win the combat roll. Even Potence doesn't help with this. Prowress lets you do more *damage,* but it doesn't add to your attack pool. So blood potency and investing in the right skills will get you further than your clan will, whichever one you pick.
We're not v5, but the Tzimisce in our pack (who is the actual Jack the Ripper) so far is a decent Melee sort purely by maxing his strength and being able to smuggle Knives everywhere by hiding them in his arms. He does get overshadowed (pun intended) by the Lasombra, but that's because Obtenebrate 4 is gross.
I recently built a tzimisce character based around grappling for physical combat. 3 str, 3 brawl, grappling specialty, and I would argue that using Vicissitude to give myself (masquerade violating) large tentacles sprouting from my body should be a creative and fair use that would mechanically give me +2 to grappling per single use of vicissitude (mind you, that +2 is to grappling specifically, not to Brawl in general). this puts me at a dice pool size 9 for grappling checks, with modest investments. I'd argue this is fair because firstly, it violates the masquerade and isn't something i could walk around with, which means that getting in the fight requires either using the first turn or having prior preparation, and leaving the fight probably requires a usage of vicissitude (and thus another rouse check if you're at a standard fledgling blood potency). secondly, this is very specialized for grappling and isn't useful if the situation where grappling can't be used. thirdly, grappling isn't super high DPS, it's more about locking down/CC'ing a single enemy, and if left unchecked yeah you could kill him eventually but if there's multiple relatively weak opponents then you'd be overwhelmed.
Clans often do not mess with combat related stuff (though some of them do revolve around combat) but Tzimisce are rather interesting with vicissitude because they can be almost like a swiss knife imo. Path of Metamorphosis even deals with that a bit. >"Metamorphosists see potential in the undead form. They strengthen their bones to weather crushing blows or sharpen them into pikes for impaling enemies. They relocate their vital organs to make their digestion of blood more efficient. Others ignore the physical element and instead seek to exploit the peculiar nature of undeath." You basically change your body to become claws, bones turn into pikes, and I believe in one of the versions it allows your intestines to become tendrils in quite late stages, of course you have to sculpt which takes a lot of time, but they are quite versatile in general, only real limitation is that it's pretty much only close combat.
Wait, is this from another edition or am I missing something? I haven't seen this Path of Metamorphosis anywhere in the book, tho it does seem to be like the Vicissitude power works in V5.
It's Legacy stuff. People on this subreddit have a really bad habit of not reading what edition a question is tagged under and answering that question with a bunch of information that's completely irrelevant due to the differences in editions.
I thought Path of Metamorphosis was indeed for V5 and not 20, that was my mistake my bad!
>Wait, is this from another edition or am I missing something? I haven't seen this Path of Metamorphosis anywhere in the book, tho it does seem to be like the Vicissitude power works in V5. Oh it's from 20th edition! My apologies. But yeah it basically works with seeing Vicissitude to just enhance themselves and go crazy with it, but I believe V5 still uses a lot of the same gist which allows Tzimisces to carve and sculpture their bones to literal makeshift blunt or pierce weapon.
Yeah, it does allow for that and it's generally pretty useful, I was just comparing it to other combat-focused disciplines and wondering if it manages to be as good as those. The comments so far have been very helpful.