Little bit late on the subject but I found this topic after looking for further blood rituals and paths.
I’d like to see them keep the max of one power per level but add the former paths as choices. That way a blood magic user could specialize in blood magic or movement of the mind etc. But they wouldn’t become overpowered if they still only had a max of 5 powers of choice instead of the old rules allowing them to learn everything.
Would add more diversity in the clan and the need to work with those that have abilities that you don’t have.
Totally agree. I was thinking that the game would really be missing out on a lot, but this just streamlines it and makes it easier for players to create the character they want.
I cannot comment on V20, so this will be more of a comparison between VTM revised and V5.
I think the V5 devs likely felt the old Paths are uber-cheese and way easy to abuse. Which, let’s be honest, is totally true … Path of Flames alone was pretty much an I Win button vs other vampires, even crowds of them. So I’m thinking they just want to keep Blood Sorcery as the one discipline and then rely on Rituals for all other magic. Which, in my mind, is fair. A lot of these overpowered abilities should require prep work. Which is fairly canon … Tremere are all about rigid discipline and preparation, not gung ho combat magics. An unprepared Tremere is easy to hurt. A prepared Tremere is a massive threat.
My favorite character is Tremere, and even I will agree that some of the paths got crazy. There was some balance in the fact that if you were building up a Path, you werent building up a discipline, but still, some powers were bonkers. Especially in the hands of a devious player.
This usually means that an equally devious ST can help balance that out.
Having run mixed supe games, I’ve gotten used to the well placed “whoopsie!” to keep mages from running all over the other characters.