Holy Water Should Make Everyone Vomit Blood

[Retrograde115]

As it stands right now, holy water has an extremely binary interaction with vampires. If you're taken to processing for any reason, especially if you haven't managed to get much blood yet, your round is essentially over. There's always an Unga McBaldy seccie force feeding everyone who comes in at least 10u of the stuff, and when you're fed it's a 100% certainty indicator of your vampire status. There's no room for talking, no negotiating, no trial, you're perma'd.

This is a little unfun for the vampires, especially the ones who like to roleplay or try to stick to the shadows as best they can, and it kinda rail-roads the vampire into going on a robust rampage rather than maintaining cover for any length of time.

So my suggestion is fairly simple, and hopefully easy to implement: Holy water should make everyone throw up blood.

This would keep the effect of draining a vampire's power, which is critical if you're going to be jailing them, but it removes the instant 100% infallible testing for vampire status. This opens up the possibility for suspected vampires to be released from custody with good role-play and a little schmoozing if there's still plausible deniability. Sec might drain them and send them on their merry way. Inconvenient, but not round-ending. It would also add a factor of harm to non-vampire crew, hopefully making sec a little more hesitant to force feed literal mercury-water to every grey-tider that enters the brig.

I'm not an expert on balance, and I don't know if this would tip the scales critically in the vampire's favor, but I like roleplay more than I like robusting every schmuck who gets in my way and my hope is that this small change would encourage more roleplay between sec and vamps.

[Generaldonothing]

Yeah, no

 

As is vamps kinda need this test because of their loaded kit, this would make sec more confused if anything, not make vamps better/worse. 

[Sirryan2002]

This would likely be used by antagonists as a weapon pretty much buffing every humanoid antag.

Additionally, holy water is pretty well balanced currently, especially with the vampire rework.

I agree there should be a coded in counter right now to feeding every holy water but for now we just bonk people for valid hunting and power gaming.

[Generaldonothing]

1 minute ago, Sirryan2002 said:

This would likely be used by antagonists as a weapon pretty much buffing every humanoid antag.

Additionally, holy water is pretty well balanced currently, especially with the vampire rework.

I agree there should be a coded in counter right now to feeding every holy water but for now we just bonk people for valid hunting and power gaming.

Does holy water not give brain damage anymore upon excessive drinking?

also postid DEEEE 

[AffectedArc07]

Yeah

 

No

[Charliminator]

what

[Coolrune206]

why

[Spook]

maybe?

[Shmabu]

Quote

your round is essentially over

Yes, same if a real shitty vampire decides to turn your sensors off and dispose of your body in a multitude of ways so you're not found.
 

Quote

There's no room for talking, no negotiating, no trial, you're perma'd.

Yes, that is how it normally goes when you catch an obvious vampire or traitor. If there's evidence, no need for a trial. Plus, trials aren't (generally) considered for non-timed sentences (Perma).
 

Quote

This would keep the effect of draining a vampire's power, which is critical if you're going to be jailing them, but it removes the instant 100% infallible testing for vampire status.

This has how it has been for many years, this full-proof test is needed. Often a round with vampires in it get very chaotic, there is no need for confusion among security especially if there are newer members trying to learn the role.
 

Quote

hopefully making sec a little more hesitant to force feed literal mercury-water to every grey-tider that enters the brig.

This doesn't really happen anymore (at least I don't see it). If it does, that would fall under administrative tasks as Sirryan said. Plus, holy water doesn't do damage to non-vampires so long as there isn't left over mercury in it if it was made chemically. It can also have no mercury associated with the making (Chaplain).
 

Quote

tip the scales critically in the vampire's favor

Unfortunately, it would. Vampires are in a solid spot right now, there is not much reason to touch them at the moment.

I'm glad that you prefer roleplaying, but this wouldn't work. 

[Rurik]

I'm amused by the kneejerk reaction to the mere idea of holy water not giving a free pass to detect vamps. Lets not act like sec need this, we don't. We deal with clings with no "definite" way to test outside of a mindshielded person seeing them use a power, or 2/3 crew members all reporting the same thing, and we do just fine.

I'm personally neutral, but it would be nice to see the sec meta die of holy watering anyone with a stunprod/cablecuffs and kidnapping charge on a vamp round. Which, unfortunately, is very common as its not against the rules.

5 hours ago, Sirryan2002 said:

This would likely be used by antagonists as a weapon pretty much buffing every humanoid antag.

 

But as Sirryan pointed out, there'd need to be a way to do so without making it a always hurts kind of deal. 

[Charliminator]

I think a better solution to this would be to make vampires immune to holy water below 50? 100? Total blood.

But then you run the risk of getting executed for being fully powered

Also, its best to avoid making "i ded pls nerf" suggestions.

 

Edited December 1, 2021 by Charliminator

[McRamon]

>be holy

>Make people stomachs bleed for no reason

Nice

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Retrograde115]

Thanks for responding, you all make good points.

Other ideas I had floating around in my head about this were somehow making Holy Water harder to obtain, or making it not work on vamps who haven't gotten enough blood yet.

But, if the consensus is that vamps are in a good spot right now, I suppose I'll put my nose to the grindstone and git gud.

[Gatchapod]

Your idea fails at design level.

Currently, vampires stop vomiting blood once their pool is empty and instead get set on fire. This is a clear indicator for security that the vampire is safe to process further.
With your suggested change, they'd have to continue vomiting blood even past the point of running dry and, depending on how you handle it, one of two things would happen.

• Vampires get set on fire once their pool is dry, so now security will spend 30+ minutes force-feeding some assistant to see if they start burning.
• Vampires no longer get set on fire at all, so now security will spend 30+ minutes force-feeding a confirmed vampire to make sure their pool is empty.

Neither option seems desirable or fun for anyone involved.

I agree that holy water should have some negative effects to discourage testing everyone for even the pettiest crimes because a single pale body was found, but your suggestion is not the way.

[Mitchs98]

100% disagree for all the above reasons. We don't need another easier to obtain chemical to be used for murderous purposes, nor does Holy Water need to be harder to obtain. You need an egregious amount of it on cult rounds, the need is definitely felt when there's no Chaplain and can still be even then. Cult nor vampires really need any buffs, even if this is more on the minor side to Vampires.

 

For cult rounds it would most certainly lead to cultists being killed and staying dead a whole lot longer, especially with larger cults. And no one wants that.

[Charliminator]

5 hours ago, Mitchs98 said:

vampires really need any buffs

say no more

[Arkhip0v]

ii mean

you could just be polite about it if you disagree lol