How many people drained for a BCV to be fully functional?

[zenten]

I don't know about the catch based damage and blood healing.  Most of his damage was using either fire or sunlight, and really, "rotten corpse" and "burnt rotten corpse" aren't different enough for an aspect.

[Becq]

Note that if the damage was Catch-based, then the 'borrowed Recovery power' option wouldn't work, even if you decided to nominally allow it -- because the borrowed Recovery power would automatically have the same Catch.

The Catch does not apply to Blood Drinker, though, so the BCV can still recover the minors normally, and (if you buy into the idea of long-term Blood Drinker-based healing) the supernaturally-generated 'normal' recovery should work.  Though it should take as long as normal healing to fully recover (ie, to clear the slots).  Taxidermy might not help much (and might not be strictly needed, for that matter).  I'd definitely make sure that the BCV had an appearance-based aspect to reflect this, if it didn't already (even if this is only to prepend 'charred' to 'rotten corpse'.  At best, this BCV probably needs to wear a mask to have even a slight chance of blending in.

[Tedronai]

I don't know about the catch based damage and blood healing.  Most of his damage was using either fire or sunlight, and really, "rotten corpse" and "burnt rotten corpse" aren't different enough for an aspect.

Be more imaginative.
'the only thing worse than the smell of a rotting carcass is the smell of a burnt rotting carcass'

[Silverblaze]

Be more imaginative.
'the only thing worse than the smell of a rotting carcass is the smell of a burnt rotting carcass'

I would tend to agree, but full sentence (yes I know it lacks punctuation and is therefore a phrase...) aspect for a single consequence for a single foe in combat bogs things down when one takes time to write it all out.

[Silverblaze]

BCV are supposed to be so badass, that they still exist when everyone knows their catches and all (most) of their masters have been killed.  This leads me to believe that given enough blood - or perhaps antoerh refresh spent (or two) moderate and severe consequences should potentially be healed via blood drinker.  I just don't think the time increments should be short enoughto allow it to be done in combat.

As for taxidermy or Frankenstein healing.  Do as you will in your game.  I think they all sound plausible and good for storylines.

To answer the OP - how much blood?

Becq said all milds should be healed - I double checked: sure enough. So one meal/draining handles all of that.

After that I'd base the stress healed off of what the person they fed on had for stresses or consequences.  If the prey only had 2 stress and a mild consequence...then they'd need 3 meals for a severe or two for a moderate. 

However, if they ate a soldier or a persistent bodyguard maybe one meal could heal a moderate or severe.  Bare minimum - of three bodies.  Maximum in my opinion of 10 + something special to heal the arm/extreme.

[ARedthorn]

I'd make it more about the deaths than the blood. BCV's don't drink without killing... enough so that I tend to think of them as less feeding off the blood, and more feeding off the death (it provides some interesting symmetry in the courts).

My vote:
Mild: 1
Moderate: 2
Severe: 4
Extreme: Only possible with some ritual or embalming + at least 8 deaths. Replaced bits must be originals, or taken from another BCV. No 8-armed freaks either- the curse only supports so much flesh... as much as you originally had when it took hold.