Vampires

[HarleeKnight]

Pg. 27 of Vampire Kingdoms - unrevised; says vampires can be hurt by a cross' shadow.
pg. 75 of Vampire Kingdoms - revised; Reid says that a cross' shadow can't hurt vampires, that it's just a myth that they can.

So, which is it?

[Svartalf]

I go with the original version, but that's because I don't have the revised thing... and because vamps are so hard to kill that the more means to hurt them there are, the better

[Axelmania]

Word-of-god in the original version by Siembieda trumps any Reid-heresay in the revised. Reid is like Tarn, not necessarily right. Anything that is merely a quote from him you should take with a grain of salt. The only canonicity it has is that it's something Reid said, not that it's a true thing.

[Killer Cyborg]

Pg. 27 of Vampire Kingdoms - unrevised; says vampires can be hurt by a cross' shadow.
pg. 75 of Vampire Kingdoms - revised; Reid says that a cross' shadow can't hurt vampires, that it's just a myth that they can.

So, which is it?

The newer version trumps the older version.
All the adventures you've ever had where you used cross shadows to hurt vampires have officially un-happened.

[HarleeKnight]

Pg. 27 of Vampire Kingdoms - unrevised; says vampires can be hurt by a cross' shadow.
pg. 75 of Vampire Kingdoms - revised; Reid says that a cross' shadow can't hurt vampires, that it's just a myth that they can.

So, which is it?

The newer version trumps the older version.
All the adventures you've ever had where you used cross shadows to hurt vampires have officially un-happened.

Normally I would agree, but in this case... it's not that I don't agree with you but I do have reservations. The first is a rule, where the second is an anecdote by a deluded psychopath. I figure the devs were just trying to mess with us on this.

[Killer Cyborg]

Pg. 27 of Vampire Kingdoms - unrevised; says vampires can be hurt by a cross' shadow.
pg. 75 of Vampire Kingdoms - revised; Reid says that a cross' shadow can't hurt vampires, that it's just a myth that they can.

So, which is it?

The newer version trumps the older version.
All the adventures you've ever had where you used cross shadows to hurt vampires have officially un-happened.

Normally I would agree, but in this case... it's not that I don't agree with you but I do have reservations. The first is a rule, where the second is an anecdote by a deluded psychopath. I figure the devs were just trying to mess with us on this.

The original book had dozens of references to cross flashlights as weapons.
Does the revised book?
If so, then obviously they work.
If not, then obviously--combined with the expert on vampires saying so--they don't work.

[Shark_Force]

reid may be a deranged lunatic, but he's not a moron. last i heard, he spends uncomfortably large amounts of time torturing vampires to better understand their weaknesses. yeah, he's a loon, but he knows his stuff when it comes to questions like "what can kill a vampire".

if reid says something doesn't kill vampires, it's a pretty sure bet it is meant to be accurate, because he's probably speaking from personal experience over the course of many lab tests in controlled conditions with multiple subjects, and it seems quite unlikely that he's repeatedly failed to notice that the vampires he was trying to hurt were being hurt.

[HarleeKnight]

reid may be a deranged lunatic, but he's not a moron. last i heard, he spends uncomfortably large amounts of time torturing vampires to better understand their weaknesses. yeah, he's a loon, but he knows his stuff when it comes to questions like "what can kill a vampire".

if reid says something doesn't kill vampires, it's a pretty sure bet it is meant to be accurate, because he's probably speaking from personal experience over the course of many lab tests in controlled conditions with multiple subjects, and it seems quite unlikely that he's repeatedly failed to notice that the vampires he was trying to hurt were being hurt.

True.
Damn, that was a pretty powerful weapon to just loose on devs whim.

[drewkitty ~..~]

Pg. 27 of Vampire Kingdoms - unrevised; says vampires can be hurt by a cross' shadow.
pg. 75 of Vampire Kingdoms - revised; Reid says that a cross' shadow can't hurt vampires, that it's just a myth that they can.

So, which is it?

IF you use the RMB as the canon for your game the VK, if you use RUE as canon for your game VKr.

[Axelmania]

Sadly I did notice something here which doesn't appear to be from Reed. We can ignore the "The Shadow of the Cross Myth" part since it's just writings, but the part directly above it appears to be word-of-god and not from Reid.

Only solid, three dimensional representations of the holy symbol can be used in this fashion. Tattoos, painted or sewn images of holy symbols and the shadow cast by them are considered ugly and disgusting, but have no adverse effect on most undead.

Although... there's nothing preventing you stacking the new Revised rules (only take damage from physical crosses if you fail a horror factor save) on top of the original vampire rules from the unrevised Vampire Kingdoms (always take damage from crosses, physical or projection) to make physical ones potentially extra-damaging while still keeping the utility of incorporeal ones. Unless it says somewhere in revised that the old ones can't count?

The original book had dozens of references to cross flashlights as weapons.
Does the revised book?
If so, then obviously they work.
If not, then obviously--combined with the expert on vampires saying so--they don't work.

Lack of cross weapons doesn't necessarily mean they don't work, just that they might be well-kept secret.

Reid may be spreading false propoganda so that only he can make use of this anti-vampire tool.

The more dangerous vampires seem to the common people, the more they will rely on Reid's Rangers and worship his tactics.

If people don't believe this will work, they won't attempt it, and have to rely on more finite methods of hurting vampires like finite and more easily dodged water pistols.

reid may be a deranged lunatic, but he's not a moron. last i heard, he spends uncomfortably large amounts of time torturing vampires to better understand their weaknesses. yeah, he's a loon, but he knows his stuff when it comes to questions like "what can kill a vampire".

if reid says something doesn't kill vampires, it's a pretty sure bet it is meant to be accurate, because he's probably speaking from personal experience over the course of many lab tests in controlled conditions with multiple subjects, and it seems quite unlikely that he's repeatedly failed to notice that the vampires he was trying to hurt were being hurt.

Reid writing Cshadows don't hurt vampires doesn't necessarily mean that he BELIEVES that. He could be trying to cover up the weakness so people won't try it, reserving it as his own special advantage that makes him the best vampire hunter around.

We also don't know WHEN he wrote this. For all we know, this is some pointless musing that he scribbled down when he first evacuated Old Bones as a renegade Cyber-Doc. It could be a misunderstanding based on an initial encounter. He might have rolled 2 on the 2D6 and not noticed the minor damage. Or maybe it didn't work because what he thought was light impacting naked flesh was actually hampered by a skin-looking body stocking or a vampire wrapped in plastic.

This writing isn't necessarily recent, it could have preceded the more extensive work he has done. Just because the writing says "Trust me, I have experimented with this many times" doesn't mean he actually did.

[Shark_Force]

if you really like the shadow of the cross working for your games, just say it works. i'm pretty sure kevin won't be upset if you change the rules he wrote to better suit your gaming group.

i've never understood this weird need for people to try and come up with some ridiculous far fetched scenario that allows the official rules to maybe sort of mean what they want if you twist it all out of shape and squint at it from the right angle in poor lighting. just make a house rule. sure, the official rule is X, but who cares? the guy who wrote the rules would probably be the first one to tell you that the rules not only can but SHOULD be changed to fit your group. if anything, i suspect kevin has the perspective that the people who blindly follow the rules are the ones who are "doing it wrong", in the sense that they're probably missing out on the main benefits of table top RPGs.

[Killer Cyborg]

The original book had dozens of references to cross flashlights as weapons.
Does the revised book?
If so, then obviously they work.
If not, then obviously--combined with the expert on vampires saying so--they don't work.

Lack of cross weapons doesn't necessarily mean they don't work, just that they might be well-kept secret.

Dude, believe whatever you like.

If you want to believe that Palladium had their leading NPC-vampire expert declare that these weapons don't work, then they removed those weapons from the book along with all other references to them working, NOT because they decided to change the rules but instead as part of some secret plan to have them really work in-game, just not to let any new players know that they work... then you have fun with that belief.

I know I already am!

[Killer Cyborg]

i've never understood this weird need for people to try and come up with some ridiculous far fetched scenario that allows the official rules to maybe sort of mean what they want if you twist it all out of shape and squint at it from the right angle in poor lighting. just make a house rule. sure, the official rule is X, but who cares? the guy who wrote the rules would probably be the first one to tell you that the rules not only can but SHOULD be changed to fit your group. if anything, i suspect kevin has the perspective that the people who blindly follow the rules are the ones who are "doing it wrong", in the sense that they're probably missing out on the main benefits of table top RPGs.

Exactly.

[Nightmask]

if you really like the shadow of the cross working for your games, just say it works. i'm pretty sure kevin won't be upset if you change the rules he wrote to better suit your gaming group.

i've never understood this weird need for people to try and come up with some ridiculous far fetched scenario that allows the official rules to maybe sort of mean what they want if you twist it all out of shape and squint at it from the right angle in poor lighting. just make a house rule. sure, the official rule is X, but who cares? the guy who wrote the rules would probably be the first one to tell you that the rules not only can but SHOULD be changed to fit your group. if anything, i suspect kevin has the perspective that the people who blindly follow the rules are the ones who are "doing it wrong", in the sense that they're probably missing out on the main benefits of table top RPGs.

Some are just so rigid that they want everything to be canon, treating the books like the word of God so they come up with the most convoluted rationales possible that often completely violate the canon rules on the English Language just to claim that their house rule is what's actually in the book.

[Axelmania]

if you really like the shadow of the cross working for your games, just say it works. i'm pretty sure kevin won't be upset if you change the rules he wrote to better suit your gaming group.

i've never understood this weird need for people to try and come up with some ridiculous far fetched scenario that allows the official rules to maybe sort of mean what they want if you twist it all out of shape and squint at it from the right angle in poor lighting. just make a house rule. sure, the official rule is X, but who cares? the guy who wrote the rules would probably be the first one to tell you that the rules not only can but SHOULD be changed to fit your group. if anything, i suspect kevin has the perspective that the people who blindly follow the rules are the ones who are "doing it wrong", in the sense that they're probably missing out on the main benefits of table top RPGs.

The thing is: having the shadow of the cross work isn't changing the rules, it's an existing rule, we're told how much damage the shadows do and I'm pretty sure there's some NPCs out there who have cross-shadow weapons.

It might be that this worked on vampires 10 years ago but as of RUE-era they became resistant to it. This would help explain the fear, as a lot of vampires may have been hurt by cross shadows in the past or seen other vampires harmed (and then killed through other means) in the past.

You know who I think could be behind that newly acquired immunity? THE DARK. The pacts the vampire intelligences made with him (Shadows of Light) allows him to protect them from damaging shadows!

If you want to believe that Palladium had their leading NPC-vampire expert declare that these weapons don't work, then they removed those weapons from the book along with all other references to them working, NOT because they decided to change the rules but instead as part of some secret plan to have them really work in-game, just not to let any new players know that they work... then you have fun with that belief.

It's more fun that way.

Plus again, Reid may be a leading expert NOW, but we don't know if he was when he wrote that text.

Some are just so rigid that they want everything to be canon, treating the books like the word of God so they come up with the most convoluted rationales possible that often completely violate the canon rules on the English Language just to claim that their house rule is what's actually in the book.

What I proposed doesn't violate any rules though. We're given a new set of rules (damage from crosses preventable by HF save which only works with 3D ones) while not being explicitly told that the old rules (damage no matter what, no avoiding it by saving vs horror, 2D or 3D) are void, so adding them is acceptable.

[HarleeKnight]

if you really like the shadow of the cross working for your games, just say it works. i'm pretty sure kevin won't be upset if you change the rules he wrote to better suit your gaming group.

i've never understood this weird need for people to try and come up with some ridiculous far fetched scenario that allows the official rules to maybe sort of mean what they want if you twist it all out of shape and squint at it from the right angle in poor lighting. just make a house rule. sure, the official rule is X, but who cares? the guy who wrote the rules would probably be the first one to tell you that the rules not only can but SHOULD be changed to fit your group. if anything, i suspect kevin has the perspective that the people who blindly follow the rules are the ones who are "doing it wrong", in the sense that they're probably missing out on the main benefits of table top RPGs.

Really?
We all use house rules, and I will probably rule that the shadows still do harm, but the rules are in place for a reason. You can house rule everything but then why did the devs go through so much trouble if you were going to throw it all away and use your own?
My main point on this subject was that it was a pretty big oversight by the writers of the revised edition.

[Shark_Force]

if you really like the shadow of the cross working for your games, just say it works. i'm pretty sure kevin won't be upset if you change the rules he wrote to better suit your gaming group.

i've never understood this weird need for people to try and come up with some ridiculous far fetched scenario that allows the official rules to maybe sort of mean what they want if you twist it all out of shape and squint at it from the right angle in poor lighting. just make a house rule. sure, the official rule is X, but who cares? the guy who wrote the rules would probably be the first one to tell you that the rules not only can but SHOULD be changed to fit your group. if anything, i suspect kevin has the perspective that the people who blindly follow the rules are the ones who are "doing it wrong", in the sense that they're probably missing out on the main benefits of table top RPGs.

Really?
We all use house rules, and I will probably rule that the shadows still do harm, but the rules are in place for a reason. You can house rule everything but then why did the devs go through so much trouble if you were going to throw it all away and use your own?
My main point on this subject was that it was a pretty big oversight by the writers of the revised edition.

how is it an oversight? an oversight would be if they had left the rules about the shadow of a cross damaging vampires in one place, but removed it from all others. here, we have the revised book not including any indication that the shadow of a cross *does* vampires, and a specific statement that it doesn't from a source who bloody well ought to be know. and i don't buy the nonsense about him needing to lie about it to make peasants more afraid. first off, if there's a rumour of it, someone will test it, and the whole thing would come crashing down around him in no time at all. secondly, you don't need to do anything special to make a bunch of untrained combatants afraid of supernatural predators. whether the shadow of a cross works or not, it isn't likely to make a typical NPC with no hand to hand combat skill, no weapon proficiencies, and no combat experience enthusiastic about picking a fight with a monster that is immune to most normal things, can heal almost as fast as that normal person can deal damage, possibly hunts in a group, can sneak up on you in a variety of forms that you largely have no way of identifying as being anything other than a natural phenomenon, and is otherwise quite capable of sneaking up on you and killing you before you even know it is there.

[Blue_Lion]

Personally I always thought crosses where about a faith in a god/higher power and the symbol of faith when held by some one of the faith can invoke a form of divine protection.(I house rule any symbol of faith if you believe in its faith would work the same so a Jew with a star of David is like a Christian with a cross)

Perhaps at one time there was sufficient faith in god to allow the symbols shadow to damage the vampire but that faith has waned over time. Maybe the one testing it had no faith.

Its magic you do not always need a physical justification just a metaphysical.

[say652]

Personally I always thought crosses where about a faith in a god/higher power and the symbol of faith when held by some one of the faith can invoke a form of divine protection.(I house rule any symbol of faith if you believe in its faith would work the same so a Jew with a star of David is like a Christian with a cross)

Perhaps at one time there was sufficient faith in god to allow the symbols shadow to damage the vampire but that faith has waned over time. Maybe the one testing it had no faith.

Its magic you do not always need a physical justification just a metaphysical.

I agree with this line of thinking. Just like a True Samurai presenting his Katana or Dwarf presenting his Warhammer.

Faith in the holy symbol is what should work.

[Blue_Lion]

Personally I always thought crosses where about a faith in a god/higher power and the symbol of faith when held by some one of the faith can invoke a form of divine protection.(I house rule any symbol of faith if you believe in its faith would work the same so a Jew with a star of David is like a Christian with a cross)

Perhaps at one time there was sufficient faith in god to allow the symbols shadow to damage the vampire but that faith has waned over time. Maybe the one testing it had no faith.

Its magic you do not always need a physical justification just a metaphysical.

I agree with this line of thinking. Just like a True Samurai presenting his Katana or Dwarf presenting his Warhammer.

Faith in the holy symbol is what should work.

The katana is a symbol for a samurai not his faith, typically budist(not sure think buddist holly symbol is a lilly as well as statures of Budda) for traditional samuri. But a true samurai katana is a rune blade so it can hurt a vamp. A dwarfs holy symble is based on his faith so dwarf that fallows the god thor would use a symbol representing Thors hammer, not necessarily the dwarfs warhammer.

Limiting it to just cross strikes me as saying this faith is right. So as I said I housed ruled it to the symbol of the faith a person fallows.

[say652]

In the case of evil dieties instead of damaging them, i allow freedom from attack or control for Death Worshipper, Necromancer types.

[Axelmania]

a specific statement that it doesn't from a source who bloody well ought to be know.

Inconclusive, we don't know when Reid wrote that, it's not as if he's known all about vampires his whole life. He's also Miscreant so he's fully capable of writing lies to keep useful vampire-fighting tactics a secret.

i don't buy the nonsense about him needing to lie about it to make peasants more afraid. first off, if there's a rumour of it, someone will test it, and the whole thing would come crashing down around him in no time at all.

Your average peasant is not going to risk their life testing to see if shadows work, they'll rely on what Reid tells them will work.

The shadow of a cross could never kill vampires and any minor damage it may do could be confused for the 'fear' that Reid admits it causes them.

A minority of educated vampire hunters outside the Rangers can figure it out, but will the public listen to them? If they try and demonstrate it, it all might be a ruse to discredit the beloved Doctor and get the public to toss aside weapons which work. Who can trust these outsiders?

secondly, you don't need to do anything special to make a bunch of untrained combatants afraid of supernatural predators. whether the shadow of a cross works or not, it isn't likely to make a typical NPC with no hand to hand combat skill, no weapon proficiencies, and no combat experience enthusiastic about picking a fight with a monster that is immune to most normal things, can heal almost as fast as that normal person can deal damage, possibly hunts in a group, can sneak up on you in a variety of forms that you largely have no way of identifying as being anything other than a natural phenomenon, and is otherwise quite capable of sneaking up on you and killing you before you even know it is there.

What it means is a gang of peasants can easily damage the vampire from a distance using mere light-beams, and batteries on flashlights can last hours compared to a water pistol or a crossbow which can run out of shots pretty quickly.

[Prysus]

Limiting it to just cross strikes me as saying this faith is right. So as I said I housed ruled it to the symbol of the faith a person fallows.

Greetings and Salutations. Actually, holy symbols in general working is canon (unless they changed this with Revised and the Vampire Sourcebook). This old thread discusses some of the references:

viewtopic.php?f=8&t=118600

Most of that 6 page thread is arguing with one particular poster. But in quick summary ...

And the available, actual evidence gathered thus far (there may be even more that has yet to be uncovered or re-discovered):

1. An article in Rifts: Dark Conversions that states unequivocally that ALL Undead can be kept at bay by ALL Holy Symbols ("Holy symbols can be used to hold all undead at bay.....being touched by a Holy Symbol causes burning pain..."), which further goes on to explain WHICH Undead can be affected to what extent by WHICH Vulnerabilities, including a side-by-side comparison with Vampires -paragraphs whose plainly-worded English you and only you, thus far, seem to be unable to understand.
2. A nearly identical article, using Kevin's infamous cut-and-paste methods, in Palladium RPG's Land of the Damned II: Eternal Torment -a Game Setting based on planet Palladium in another dimension, which puts forth the same information.
3. The information on the Amulets worn by the priests of Odin in Rifts Sourcebook: Pantheons of the Megaverse, which are described in plain English as deriving their power from being a Holy Symbol -yet another series of paragraphs that you and you alone seem to be unable to understand.
4. The Great Healing Fetish on page 88 of Rifts: Spirit West "...which will hold Vampires at bay the same as a Holy Symbol."
5. Ulric Highdeed, an Ogre Undead Slayer NPC from the book Land of the Damned II: Eternal Torment, whose primary melee weapon has a Holy Symbol embedded into the hilt "...which will keep Vampires at bay."

Also, since the cross symbol works on worlds without Christianity (such as PF), the cross wouldn't seem to be saying that one religion is the right one. Since the symbol works even without the religious aspects, if anything it would seem that Christianity adopted the symbol because it works (instead of it working because of Christianity). Farewell and safe journeys for now.