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VAMPIRE: THE ETERNAL STRUGGLE
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Release date: September 15, 1995 |
YOU ARE AN ANCIENT VAMPIRE, and minions, both living and undead, are at your command. For centuries, weaker vampires have enacted your elaborate schemes. Only the most promising attracted your interest. The youngest were easily exploited; the oldest required a great deal of effort to subvert. Under your tutelage, they have learned to survive in a world of conspiracies and Machiavellian politics. They have learned to seize power in a world of darkness. To frustrate your aspirations, rival Methuselahs are plotting against you. Their packs patrol violent city streets; their coteries scheme in elegant drawing rooms; their masterminds lust after your vast influence. In the Camarilla, a revered society of the undead, these traitorous vampires are also struggling to gain political power. As your enemies corrupt primogen councilors, princes, and vengeful Justicars, the conspiracy against you is growing stronger. If you do not act quickly, all that you have fought to attain will be destroyed. Time is running out. To survive, you must destroy your enemies one by one. Seek out their minions. Exhaust their resources. Smash the conspiracy. To survive the endless struggle of the Jyhad, you must seize the night. "Carpe noctem".
The unlimited edition of the base set marked the change of the name of the game and card back design from Jyhad to Vampire: The Eternal Struggle. The V:TES edition set contained a rewritten rulebook, and many of the cards were rewritten for clarity (and a few were rewritten for function). This unlimited base set contains 436 cards. Released in 1995.
The Clans of the Camarilla.
Brujah: The Brujah are rebels who make no secret of their contempt for undead society. They are often viewed as a force of chaos by other Kindred.
Gangrel: The Gangrel have an affinity for the wilderness, and their insights into the nature of the Beast Within gives many of them command over animals.
Malkavian: Members of this clan are insane, yet from madness may come wisdom, and many Malkavians seem to glimpse hidden truths.
Nosferatu: These hideously deformed creatures use their influence to gain secreted knowledge. They are loners by necessity, but they still manage to know more about the workings of vampire society than do many of the most powerful vampire leaders.
Toreador: Thought of as artists and degenerates, the Toreador are obsessed with beauty in all its forms.
Tremere: This close-knit clan is known to have many arcane and magical skills. The art of Thaumaturgy is one of their most potent weapons.
Ventrue: The most old-fashioned of the clans, the Ventrue are sophisticates who move in the highest social and political circles.
Caitiff: These vampires are clanless, thin-blooded outcasts. Although they are not involved in the political structure of the Kindred, they are easily manipulated by the ancients.
From Jyhad to V:TES
by Paul Peterson and Tom Wylie
One of the biggest problems with Jyhad was that players, particularly new players, found the rulebook difficult to understand. In the unlimited edition, the rules have been reorganized and rewritten to make them more accessible.
The ini[binnation about the atmosphere and setting of the game, formerly at the beginnning of the rulebook, has been moved to an appendix, to be read after the player is more familiar with the rules of the game.
The rules themselves have been clarified and simplified, many of the sections have been rewritten, and the more complex phases of the game have been broken down into outline form to make them easier to follow. There are also two important rules changes.
First, the term "paralyze" was dropped because it required an obscure and confusing rule that only applied to two cards in the set (see "The New Cards," below).
The second major change concerns aggravated damage. In Jyhad, the first point of aggravated damage did not remove a blood counter from a vampire, but merely sent the vampire into torpor. This rule was more confusing than helpfhl, so it was changed: in V:TES, the first point of aggravated damage inflicted removes a blood counter from the vampire and sends that vampire to torpor. Thus, if the aggravated damage taken by the vampire exceeds its blood supply by 1 point, that vampire is burned (in Jyhad, the vampire needed to take two extra points of aggravated damage to be burned).
The biggest change to the rulebook was the inclusion of a set of Basic Rules, a simpfified version of the game designed to help teach a new player the core rules. Under the Basic Rules, all of the cards that deal with maneuvers, presses, additional strikes, intercept, and torpor are removed from your deck. In addition, all types of damage are simply treated as normal damage.
The Basic Rules are not designed for more advanced players or for constructed decks. Certain strategies are more powerful in the basic game than in the advanced game. For example, there is no intercept in the basic gwne, but there is stealth. This means that any action that is performed at an increased stealth is essentially unblockable. If constructed decks were played under the Basic Rules, decks relying on stealth would have an unfair advantage. The Basic Rules are best played with the random mix of cards in an untuned starter deck.
The New Cards
With the unlimited edition of the game, the card mix has been altered. Certain cards were removed because of the changes in the rules. For example, Rowan's Ring was removed because the rules for paralysing were dropped (The Stake card, which also used the term "paralyse" became the Wooden Stake card and was reworded to mimic the paralyze rules). Some cards were removed because they were inferior versions of other cards. The Chainsaw was just a Sawed-Off Shotgun that didn't do ranged damage, so it was removed to make room for a new card. Disguised Weapon and Movement of the Slow Body also were removed because they were inferior to other cards. Other cards were removed because they were too confusing. Monocle of Clarity was constantly raising questions about the types of questions you could and could not ask. This card in particular was removed because it was ripe for abuse.
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New Wordings
While most cards in the unlimited version play exactly the way they did in Jyhad, some of them are functionally different. For example, most of the cards which used to say "2 hand damage" have been changed to read "+1 hand damage", making all such hand damage cumulative. Now a Bastard Sword can help a vampire like Zack North, who already has increased hand damage; in Jyhad, equipping Zack with the Sword wouldn't have been useful, since it could not have increased his already-enhanced hand damage. Note that not all of the cards that have been reworded have functional changes. For example, several cards that deal damage outside of combat now say that the "damage may not be prevented". However, this is not a functional change to the set, as the rules only allow for preventing damage during strike resolution.
Checklist
Crypt |
Behind You!, R2 |
Malkavian Justicar, R |