Best strategies using robot drones, mins and summons?
So I started a Hecata character with a Commando Coterie for the explicit target of being a walking army of summonable flesh creatures.
I paired this with a Giovanni Bloodline that has access to family ghouls , spectres and expensive euipment. Robot drones come into mind
Any good strategies that y'all have learned trying to manage multiple NPCs for combat? Fortitude group buffs come into mind but I was also thinking what if I give zombies light armor? It's expensive but may be possible.
Also if I diablerie a tzimici and spend the god awful amount of XP to learn Protean flesh sculpting.
Can I use that on my minions and zombies ethically? Like no loss on humanity assuming they consent to the enhancements, it's not to inhuman.
Can you flesh sculpt zombies?
Also what skills do you think are needed to use a robot drone ?
hopefully my Storyteller don't see this but i was planning to get me , an npc or another player with high tech as we are expected to do a lot of combat with our current game
To pilot the drone as a form of Recon capabilities as I currently do not have access to homunculus summons yet.
Can drone piloting be a combo with auspex? Like for example being able to use the Auspex to see life signs from the monitor of the phone during phone usage or is it purely an wits+insight+tech roll?
Also any wraith strategies that come into mind?
Which is the better skill route? Zombie skills or wraith summoning skills? Can you reroll your discipline skills?
Sorry new player?
Posted Aug 10, 2022, 3:02 PM UTC
I think you're overthinking this. The game is difficult to minmax, on purpose. It's narratively driven more than mechanicaly and any attempt to use disciplines to "out-power" an encounter is at a huge mechanical and narrative cost : Blood dice.
You can have a lot of willpower and it will help but you can only reroll non blood dice. The more you use you discipline, the less you can reroll. Mechanicaly it's a limit with a huge narrative impact : the more your beast is thirsty, the more you are messy, clumsy. Also frenzy is very dangerous, even more with a cookie cutter build!
For the rest of your question, you should run it with your ST. Why? They totally can say "no" to an idea that you have and it will feel bad if you assumed something to work and build your character around for nothing. Trust me on that, i'm a min max/gimmicky player but a narrative GM :').
For the lore stuff : armor on zombie should be possible but beware of the masquerade. You can learn viscissitude/fleshcrafting without diablerizing someone in v5. You will need a tutor though (or a coterie member). I personnaly would stain yourself for that because I love it but it's fucked up. Speaking of stain, RAW you will get Stains using Oblivion. Don't try to fight it, embrace it. Your character is using undead and weird fleschcraft abominations. Tzimice even have their own "zombies" : you should look up Vohzd and Slachza, it's a lot :)
For all the drone stuff : talk with your ST, I don't know if there are rules for such thing ( there might be in hunter).
What is the best approach? There is none Imo but focusing on one gimmick (van full of armored undead, wraith summoner, tzimice ghoul ring leader, technophile) should be mechanicaly better and less straining naratively for everyone ;)
TL;DR : min/maxing is complicated, try to stick to one concept (they are all interesting and valid), enjoy becoming a low humanity monster, talk to your ST to avoid disappointment :)
Oh ok thanks. On being a min-maxer. I just have tendency to push It as much as I can to a point I feel sometimes I feel like I annoy Abit but when I asked him about it after the session he actually said I was doing great and wasn't doing anything disruptive or bad.
He said something about "more imagination, less stat and gameplay focusing" but he did encourage being more gamey and tactical as I was the only one in the coterie advocating for recon on a inquisition stronghold and trying to buy guns while my coterie literally stormed the compound armed with only with actual trash they found in the compound and only equipped after the fighting starts.