Question about feeding and the Hunger track.

[Rougarou]

Is it possible to clear a portion of a vampire PC's Hunger track without killing someone (and thus wiping it out) and sitting out scenes as described in YS where it talks about being "taken out" by Hunger after a conflict? I.e., Can a PC attack someone, succeed, and feed, reducing their Hunger stress by a number of shifts determined by the roll? I have not used any vampire PC's yet, so our group has yet to address this issue for ourselves.

[Tedronai]

Hunger stress (but not consequences and/or lost powers) is cleared entirely upon a successful defense roll against the hunger 'attack'.

[Rougarou]

Hunger stress (but not consequences and/or lost powers) is cleared entirely upon a successful defense roll against the hunger 'attack'.

Yes, I am aware of that. I think I phrased the question wrong (not surprising since I'm exhausted). My real question is do you allow a player to feed mid combat (or even out of combat in some situations), without actually killing someone, in your games? If so, what mechanics do you use? I ask because I feel that, logically, a vampire who is Hungry, but not necessarily Famished, may want to feed, without killing someone, and the game rules should provide a method for doing so. Further, I feel there is support for this in the books, based on several vampires routinely feeding without killing.

[Tedronai]

I would generally represent such 'safe' feedings with the 'sit out a scene' option to recover from powers lost to hunger.
Beyond that, I would theorize that the resultant shallow feedings would provide such little real sustenance that little else would be an option during that scene, let alone offset the energy used in a combat scene.

[Mr. Death]

There's nothing in the books that suggests that every feeding is or should be fatal. The way I read it, you do a feeding "attack," and however much physical stress you do to the bleeding enemy is how much stress you get back on the hunger track.

[Tedronai]

There's nothing in the books that suggests that every feeding is or should be fatal.

I don't think anyone is advocating against this interpretation.

The way I read it, you do a feeding "attack," and however much physical stress you do to the bleeding enemy is how much stress you get back on the hunger track.

I would say that I do not see anything in the text of either feeding powers or feeding dependency itself that would lead me to this conclusion.  Moreover, I highly suspect that a meaningful analysis would find this interpretation to quite thoroughly neuter any 'bite' that feeding dependency has, and thus its justification for providing a rebate.

[Mr. Death]

I don't think anyone is advocating against this interpretation.

The OP's question amounts to "is it possible to feed without killing?" That's what I was answering, since he seemed to be under the impression that feeding was fatal to the victim by default.

I would say that I do not see anything in the text of either feeding powers or feeding dependency itself that would lead me to this conclusion.  Moreover, I highly suspect that a meaningful analysis would find this interpretation to quite thoroughly neuter any 'bite' that feeding dependency has, and thus its justification for providing a rebate.

Neither power says it explicitly, no. But both powers refer to the player "inflict[ing] enough stress and consequences to kill a victim from feeding." I.e., that feeding is done as an attack, which causes stress to the victim. Further, Emotional Vampire says,

This is done as a psychological attack with an appropriate skill (usually Deceit or Intimidation). If you have the Incite Emotion ability, inciting the emotion and feeding on it may be done as a single action, based on a single roll.

All of which points to the feeding powers being different forms of attack. An attack that causes stress, for a power that's meant, in part, to recover stress on your own track. I think it's a fairly logical step that stress caused by blood drinking or emotion eating attacks would recover stress from a feeding dependency for blood or emotions.

Point is, there has to be something in between "recover one stress per scene out" and "kill the victim" styles of feeding. And since both forms of feeding are described as attacks that cause stress, it makes sense to me that the stress caused would correlate to the stress recovered.

[Becq]

The rules offer two formes of feeding:

The first is feeding resulting in a death.  This relieves the vampire of all hunger, clearing the hunger stress track, clearing hunger-related consequences, and granting a scene's worth of healing.

The second is feeding not resulting in a death, which requires sitting out a scene, and allows you to recover abilities lost to hunger at a rate of one point per scene.

I don't see any option that allows partial recovery via in-scene feeding (other than killing).  This is not to say that there shouldn't be such rules; I am really not very fond of the feeding dependency rules.

[Tedronai]

The first is feeding resulting in a death.  This relieves the vampire of all hunger, clearing the hunger stress track, clearing hunger-related consequences

By my reading, lethal feedings clear all stress tracks.

Other than that, your stated assessment is about identical to mine.

[Rougarou]

There's nothing in the books that suggests that every feeding is or should be fatal. The way I read it, you do a feeding "attack," and however much physical stress you do to the bleeding enemy is how much stress you get back on the hunger track.

Like Tedronai, this isn't my interpretation of the rules. However, like you, the rules lead me to believe that this should be viable. But I also feel that of you inflict four stress and wipe out all boxes on the Hunger track up to and including the fourth, it takes the sting out of feeding dependency.

I believe that I will come up with a House Rule here that me and my group find satisfactory. May post it later.

[Mr. Death]

Maybe if the feeding attack doesn't include strength or claws powers, or just weapon ratings in general. That would make it so feeding was less advantageous while in combat, since it would reduce the attack power of most creatures that would have a feeding dependency. Plus you'd need to have a really, really good roll compared to the target to get substantial nourishment out of it.

Because we know from the canon that it's possible to feed substantially without killing, and there really needs to be a way for Red Court Infected players to combat hunger stress without either going full vampire or sitting out bunches of scenes in a row.

[DFJunkie]

If you're looking for a middle ground you could treat the feeding as a maneuver and apply the tag to the next Discipline roll. 

[Becq]

By my reading, lethal feedings clear all stress tracks.

Right, because it grants a scene's worth of healing -- which clears all of the normal stress tracks and mild consequences (and may do considerably more, depending on the character's Recovery).

[Sanctaphrax]

Maybe if the feeding attack doesn't include strength or claws powers, or just weapon ratings in general. That would make it so feeding was less advantageous while in combat, since it would reduce the attack power of most creatures that would have a feeding dependency. Plus you'd need to have a really, really good roll compared to the target to get substantial nourishment out of it.

Because we know from the canon that it's possible to feed substantially without killing, and there really needs to be a way for Red Court Infected players to combat hunger stress without either going full vampire or sitting out bunches of scenes in a row.

The problem with this is that stress is usually meaningless. Seriously, inflicting stress doesn't even require you to hurt the target at all.

And stress goes away very quickly, at no cost.

So your proposed revision would promote munchkin-ish shenanigans in which people inflict small amounts of stress on their allies in order to recover hunger stress.

[YPU]

I think you should also keep in mind that hunger is supposed to be a pain in the ass. Sitting it out takes a lot of time and if your not making your defence rolls, well then you might just be tempted to kill somebody feeding on them, I mean you really need your strengths up to defeat big bad necromancer dude, and really his thralls are probably brain-dead already right?... right?

Also, take into account that if you make a defence roll vs stress then you clear out your stress track. And while taking stress damage you start loose powers. You roll vs the powers you used. So as you start to loose powers the roll actually gets easier to make. Not entirely sure if you recover your powers with a successful defence roll, but I am sure somebody will be along to answer that any time now.