You forgot the most recent show, The Strain! The master would easily crush every other team because he is brutal and very powerful is responsible for starting an outbreak that might infect the world of the show.
Poll: Vampire Battle Royal
- Thread starter Dandres
- Start date
Spike and Angel would realise ahead of time that they are being drawn into a winner takes all conflict with other vampires but that nothing else of import was at stake (at stake, geddit?), so they'd go drinking instead.
Buffy vamps win by dint of not being present and fighting when the pesky humans show up with their technology, rampact vampire hatred and guns.
Buffy vamps win by dint of not being present and fighting when the pesky humans show up with their technology, rampact vampire hatred and guns.
Well, this depends on what you want to consider. As a group I'll probably take the unpopular choice and say the Vampires from Buffy. That's because of specific individuals and how much their power increases with age. They do have weaknesses unlike some other Vampires on this list, but singular entities like "The Master" achieve godlike levels, and at the high end Vampires in that universe are a serious threat to beings like demons and divine beings. Buffy mostly wins because she's one, VERY specific individual who is basically their Kryptonite (so to speak) and gets convenient immunity to pretty much everything and anything just on the merits of being The Slayer, not to mention precognitive dreams, advantageous prophecies, and other assorted things that go along with the heightened physical abilities and other talents. At one point where they unleashed her full power with a ritual she was revealed to basically be a conduit for nearly omnipotent forces (the finale where she fought Adam).
The thing is that the new Vampires are just fodder, but basically once you get to Vampires with a few centuries under their belt, the situation changes, and truly ancient Vampires like Dracula were just ridiculous, it's just that for the most part you never get to see their best tricks (just a lead in, and a lot of trash talking) because Buffy walks around with conceptual armor that pretty much turns everything into a fist fight. When you look at some of the stuff Angel fought and what it was, it should give you the right idea.
I'm also making this argument compensating for time and budget, the various super-speed FX present in things like say "True Blood" and the like weren't in Buffy because it was an older show, done with a relative budget, and also they had to consider the needs of choreography, a lot of the other shows tend to gloss over their fight scenes using a blur effect and then slowing down to show various parts of it. I'd argue that had the same FX been in reach you probably would have seen the same thing done in Buffy.
That's my case at any rate.
The vampires in "Kindred The Embraced" would be a logical winner as well IF you could bring stuff from the RPG into it, but to be honest as they were depicted in that show they weren't anything special.
If you want to get into meta-concepts Daybreakers seems to get little credit here, but one thing to understand about that concept is that they already control the world, if you bring in the sheer resources that they have (an argument that can also be made about "Underworld") to an extent it changes things. In a lot of these concepts the Vampires are in hiding because sheer numbers of humans would bring them down (even Twilight), in "True Blood" the Vampires kind of wish they were in control but as they find out humanity can actually balance them out with sheer numbers and the fact that they have very exploitable weaknesses. In Daybreakers though they already control everything, so conceptually it would be like humanity turning on any of these other species of Vampires, except in this case the humans would have a degree of Vampires themselves.
A big wild card would be the "Blade" Vampires is your allowed to bring "The Reaper Strain" into things, as opposed to the Vampires themselves. Ultra-quick reproduction combined with being the natural predator of Vampires and I think most of these concepts would have a problem with them, except ironically "Daybreakers" because they actually have the numbers and scientific infrastructure to counter it assuming they reacted in time.
That said, this is just my opinion. My basic argument comes down to things from the Angel TV series where you've got Angel basically punching it out with gods, demon lords, and fallen angels and (eventually) winning even if he takes a beating. We're talking "destroy the universe" type stuff even before the cliffhanger ending (which was more of the same). In comparison the True Blood Vampires ran into one godling running a sex cult at her mansion in a small town and couldn't figure out any way to kill it. Likewise the "goddess of blood" manifests and everyone is putty in her hands as a vampiric progenitor, where characters like Angel and Spike have told beings on that level to just go pound sand (even if they are big parts of the back story). In Twilight they mostly stay away from stuff like that to my knowledge and fight each other, you don't really have any comparison to say what happens if say Edward opens a portal to hell/the dark dimension and steps through to fight some demon with pretensions of messing with earth. My basic guess is you'd wind up with a big Edward shaped splatter, yet Angel has done the equivalent multiple times I believe.
The thing is that the new Vampires are just fodder, but basically once you get to Vampires with a few centuries under their belt, the situation changes, and truly ancient Vampires like Dracula were just ridiculous, it's just that for the most part you never get to see their best tricks (just a lead in, and a lot of trash talking) because Buffy walks around with conceptual armor that pretty much turns everything into a fist fight. When you look at some of the stuff Angel fought and what it was, it should give you the right idea.
I'm also making this argument compensating for time and budget, the various super-speed FX present in things like say "True Blood" and the like weren't in Buffy because it was an older show, done with a relative budget, and also they had to consider the needs of choreography, a lot of the other shows tend to gloss over their fight scenes using a blur effect and then slowing down to show various parts of it. I'd argue that had the same FX been in reach you probably would have seen the same thing done in Buffy.
That's my case at any rate.
The vampires in "Kindred The Embraced" would be a logical winner as well IF you could bring stuff from the RPG into it, but to be honest as they were depicted in that show they weren't anything special.
If you want to get into meta-concepts Daybreakers seems to get little credit here, but one thing to understand about that concept is that they already control the world, if you bring in the sheer resources that they have (an argument that can also be made about "Underworld") to an extent it changes things. In a lot of these concepts the Vampires are in hiding because sheer numbers of humans would bring them down (even Twilight), in "True Blood" the Vampires kind of wish they were in control but as they find out humanity can actually balance them out with sheer numbers and the fact that they have very exploitable weaknesses. In Daybreakers though they already control everything, so conceptually it would be like humanity turning on any of these other species of Vampires, except in this case the humans would have a degree of Vampires themselves.
A big wild card would be the "Blade" Vampires is your allowed to bring "The Reaper Strain" into things, as opposed to the Vampires themselves. Ultra-quick reproduction combined with being the natural predator of Vampires and I think most of these concepts would have a problem with them, except ironically "Daybreakers" because they actually have the numbers and scientific infrastructure to counter it assuming they reacted in time.
That said, this is just my opinion. My basic argument comes down to things from the Angel TV series where you've got Angel basically punching it out with gods, demon lords, and fallen angels and (eventually) winning even if he takes a beating. We're talking "destroy the universe" type stuff even before the cliffhanger ending (which was more of the same). In comparison the True Blood Vampires ran into one godling running a sex cult at her mansion in a small town and couldn't figure out any way to kill it. Likewise the "goddess of blood" manifests and everyone is putty in her hands as a vampiric progenitor, where characters like Angel and Spike have told beings on that level to just go pound sand (even if they are big parts of the back story). In Twilight they mostly stay away from stuff like that to my knowledge and fight each other, you don't really have any comparison to say what happens if say Edward opens a portal to hell/the dark dimension and steps through to fight some demon with pretensions of messing with earth. My basic guess is you'd wind up with a big Edward shaped splatter, yet Angel has done the equivalent multiple times I believe.
Damn why can't this be in the list, spoof or not he stands a good chance.Dandres said:That is good I forgot about that one.shootthebandit said:Dracula from 'Dracula: dead and loving it' because leslie nielsen
I quite like the Blade movies perhaps ignoring Blade Trinity but most of the vamps in them don't stand much of a chance unless the Vampire you count is Blade as he beats the others quite easily and in style.
My guess? Because movies have a sort of "limiter power" they can show. Other media pretty much have no limit. Alucard from the anime/manga Hellsing is sort of a small deity of his own - the other vampires are quite impressive but Alucard straight up outclasses all of them together. He is literally an army by himself, as immortal as you can get and wiels all sorts of OP powers.GamerMage said:
But even Alucard cannot match the vampires from VtM - they are crazy powerful. Some of them literally. The lower their generation, the more power they get - 7th are already pushing the limits of what "normal" means, 6 and especially Metuselah level (4-5th) they straight up break all of the rules established for the universe. They can defy gravity, become indestructible, apply force in ways that defy physics, turn into any fantastic creature, rewrite any person's psyche[footnote]heck, that's for the weak - more powerful versions just straight up do it to your entire lineage[/footnote], juggle souls, manipulate bodies, control blood, reshape reality. And we're still not finished. The Third Generation are pretty much deities and have ultimate control over at least one of the vampiric powers. And where the Third Generation are deities, Caine (1st generation) makes them look like little children.
I think it is fair to not include stuff other than movies, since movies don't quite have that much reach. Also, I struggle to think of anything that can compare to VtM Kindred - maybe if there was some kind of a vampiric god or even just a vampiric force but...well, VtM sort of has those already. The only thing bigger I can think of is going to cross into cosmic level entity.
The Saxophone guy from the Lost Boys would defeat them all with his unintentionally homoerotic jazz:
Vampires are very hard to compare in this way, because a bunch of them get stronger the older they are, and some don't.
For comparison, I'd put in the following rules to avoid powerlevel differences from different lore rules: they're all fledglings that have freshly fed, and no weapons allowed.
I am extremely unfamiliar with Twilight vampires, but what I do know of them makes me clarify them as something not vampire. Maybe some sort of demon fairy? Like if a vampire bit a fairy instead of a human, the resulting hybrid is what you get in Twilight?
This would also cross them over with True Blood nicely, where fairies look pretty human.
But if everything I read in that post up there is correct, I would reckon the fairipires would win. They basically sound like Hulks that are less attractive to those of us that are into beefy dudes with pallet color schemes up their junk.
For comparison, I'd put in the following rules to avoid powerlevel differences from different lore rules: they're all fledglings that have freshly fed, and no weapons allowed.
I am extremely unfamiliar with Twilight vampires, but what I do know of them makes me clarify them as something not vampire. Maybe some sort of demon fairy? Like if a vampire bit a fairy instead of a human, the resulting hybrid is what you get in Twilight?
This would also cross them over with True Blood nicely, where fairies look pretty human.
But if everything I read in that post up there is correct, I would reckon the fairipires would win. They basically sound like Hulks that are less attractive to those of us that are into beefy dudes with pallet color schemes up their junk.
Well to be fair half the problem is that a lot of people at WW have had some serious problems with writing and game design (though some are quite good). One thing WW likes to do is include all kinds of crazy NPCs that pretty much exist as plot points to smack wayward PCs with, and try and somewhat justify it with stats that ignore all the rules anyway so are more or less meaningless instead of giving GM advice. To put it into perspective "Aberrant" sort of did this, releasing stats for things like Caestus Pax who exists largely as a way of dropping the hammer on out of control PCs, and is handled in at least one "adventure" as "nothing your PCs can do can touch him". Then as if that wasn't obnoxious enough they decided to release "stats" for Divis Mal who is defined as basically being able to shut down the quantum of any Nova on the planet.... this is to say nothing of various other NPCs that seem like one shade of broken or another, there was some guy in Elites called "Totentanz" the guy with the skull mask you see in some artwork, who is pretty much a walking "you die, nothing you can do about it" unless of course your as broken as some of the other NPCs on the same basic level.DoPo said:
I agree in a general sense that VTM Vampires would decimate all others largely due to the wealth of material, but you wouldn't really have to bring out stuff like what your talking about. That's sort of like using old school Elminster from "The Forgotten Realms" in a discussion about magic users, the dude was created to pretty much do anything required of him. He was later powered down in novels and such, and as the game went from edition to edition, but at his height it was a thin justification for "He can do anything".
I went with the Buffy Vampires because they are tough, but fairly consistent about it and what level the centuries old+ vampires can play at. Compared to say Vampire The Masquerade where most of the game involves young vampires partying in night clubs and maybe some elders around that are on the level of a horror movie big bad, but themselves have a lot of things they don't know and are scared of (even if they run a whole city as a prince). Statting out things like Caine are kind of pointless and actually don't fit with most of what you actually do with this setting. Though in theory I can even sort of trump that one with "Buffy" because that universe had "The Master" who was basically the same thing (proto-vampire god) who was powerful on a whole pan-dimensional level, it's just he never really got to do anything, even though he "killed" Buffy briefly he basically got intercepted and trashed by the one person who had prophetic immunity to all his tricks. For years later they were pretty much dropping references to how bad that could have gotten and how powerful he was, when the whole series pretty much had him getting crushed as it's first major confrontation.
When it comes to Alucard from "Hellsing" I admit I haven't seen all of it (just the first series they did) but one point I occasionally bring up is that as powerful as he seems, someone (Van Hellsing presumably) was able to successfully bind him. He does eventually fight a minor deity and another elder vampire (Incognito) but for the most part the series stays away from the central questions of it's cosmology, including how he was beaten to begin with as he pretty much needs permission to use his powers. I get the impression he has some glaring weaknesses that just don't come up.
Yeah, basically the Twilight Vampires have no real down side to them, which makes it kind of funny to wonder why they can go around and do the whole "cursed emo" schtick and make it a major plot point that they won't turn Bella because it's somehow a bad thing (and thus it's dramatic when she apparently joins them). Other than drinking blood, which doesn't require killing (of course) there really isn't much about them that makes them Vampires.Bestival said:
Barring other factors, if your just going to operate at the "Fledgling" level the Twilight Vampires would dominate most others just by being able to run around during the day and exterminate the competition (even if they sparkle while they do it). Indeed on this list this figured into why I backed the Buffy Vampires, because they don't go into a catatonic state, and can just sit around during the day fully active as long as they aren't in direct sunlight, where others actually need to go through periods of mandatory inactivity. These are the only two vamps on this list that to my knowledge don't spend half the day in mandatory vulnerable state.
According to the manga/OVA (the OVA is quite good, if you're interested in more Hellsing, by the way) Alucard can only be beaten by a mortal. Even then it's not well explained how or why - it is possible he lets himself be defeated. He does get sort of defeated at the end. For a while.Therumancer said:
Erm, basically, he was injected with paradox and fell into a state of not-quite-existence. That's the shortest way to describe it.
Also, Alucard is closer to an eldritch abomination in depiction in the OVA/manga. The control restrictions are what keep him human-looking. I can't recall how the original Anime treated him with the restrictions down (I do remember him morphing, like, getting longer hair and stuff, I can't remember if he went fhtagn).
well he has testicles under his earsDoPo said:Kindred: the Embraced [http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0115232/] - ran for a single season then one of the lead actors (the Prince of the city) passed away, so they canned it. It was OK - not phenomenal but about OK levels. The Nosferatu were...odd, thoughDandres said:I would like to see the world of darkness vampires world made in to a movie or show.thundra said:I'm gonna cheat and say world of darkness vampires.Both old gen and new gen.
He's considered hideous, apparently.
I always interpreted that as less a matter of ability and more simply reflective of his worldview. Even then it's not a matter of whether or not mortals or monsters can kill a monster like him, it's that only a mortal should kill him. While not as omnipresent as his apparent bloodlust, the series does repeatedly touch on the idea that monsters are ultimately things to be pitied, put most directly by Integra's father in a flashback where he posits that they struck him as almost suicidally depressed, and neither Millennium nor Alucard do much to dissuade this notion. Alucard repeatedly praises humanity and arguably his best character moment in the series is when he pleads with Anderson not to make the same mistake that he - "a creature of such weakness that [he] could not bear the weight of a human life" did in throwing away his humanity and becoming a monster. Really, he desperately wants humanity to validate that sentiment, that his decision to drink blood and become a vampire was proof of his weakness and unworthiness of the very humanity he forsook.DoPo said:
Put a different way, he's possessed of a certain self-loathing which casts him and monsters like him as villains in his mind and humans as the heroes. He refuses to die by the hands of monsters because - besides most truly lacking the requisite prowess by a long shot - it's a villain dying at the hands of the villain, a meaningless gesture which merely supplants one evil with another. It only becomes a meaningful act when the hero rises up and triumphs against all odds to bring the villain to his final judgment.
I'd put him as Third Generation. Or Fourth or so but he can happily trade blows with some of the Antediluvians. Still, considering Ennoia earth melded with Earth, [Lasombra] became one with the Abyss, and [Tzimisce] is a goddamn infection, I'd say he's still outclassed by some.GamerMage said:
Klaus from The Oringals\Vampire Diaries.
Yes, I know he's sparkley. But the creators have made him completely unkillable, simply for the fact that if he dies all other Vampires in their universe die.
The only weapon that can (potentially) kill him is a White Oak Stake of which only one exists and all the other Vampires won't know about. However Klaus is Varmpire/Warewolf hybrid, and the White Oak Stake has only ever killed pure Oringal Vampires. Klaus was even stabbed through the heart with one once but survived (attribbuted to the fact he was able to put out the flames before they killed him), so even that might not work.
Yes, I know he's sparkley. But the creators have made him completely unkillable, simply for the fact that if he dies all other Vampires in their universe die.
The only weapon that can (potentially) kill him is a White Oak Stake of which only one exists and all the other Vampires won't know about. However Klaus is Varmpire/Warewolf hybrid, and the White Oak Stake has only ever killed pure Oringal Vampires. Klaus was even stabbed through the heart with one once but survived (attribbuted to the fact he was able to put out the flames before they killed him), so even that might not work.
In all mediums, either Alucard, Caine, or Kain.
Live action, Billith, second place probably Klaus.
Dracula from the new movie looks pretty OP in the trailers though.
Live action, Billith, second place probably Klaus.
Dracula from the new movie looks pretty OP in the trailers though.