For some reason you just made me think of a devious trap.
A pool of water with the appropriate equipment to electrocute anyone in it. Set a bunch of laser tripwires in a grid a bit above the surface, but not above the edge of the pool, so that one cannot go in or out of the pool without setting them off. Have the laser tripwires activate the electrocution stuff.

So if you fall in, you'll get fried. If you survive that, then you can't get out or you'll get fried again. If spaced correctly, it could even be hard to come up for air without setting it off. And good luck getting out of that pool with 100000 volts (or however many you feel is necessary) going through you.

There would obviously have to be a shutoff switch somewhere, but that could be in another room.

>>4346 that's a pretty devious idea, I must say. When we were playing a few days ago they managed to avoid the brunt of the traps in place so upping the ante would be a good idea. Plus, one guy is playing Tremere with Movement of the Mind at low levels, so it's basically only good for throwing switches that are out of reach, making that a dangerous but survivable trap.

There are two other people in the Chronicle, one guy playing a Malkavian and the other is going Tzimisce, so I've been trying to find ways of exploiting their clan weaknesses but I haven't had too much inspiration about how to integrate them into the game.

Well I'm glad you like it. Feel free to use it if you want.

As for raising difficulty: Location, location, location. Also holy weapons. Maybe you could create an order of modern paladins (or something) comprised of hunters (or normals) that use holy stuff, I don't know.
Maybe have a fight in a junkyard where huge, nasty dogs are trying to eat people on one or both sides of the fight
Fight in a airplane or something where the players need to protect the pilot and plane. Could be really good in a packed commercial jet.
There's always the good old "fight in high places with difficult footing" bit. Roofs, catwalks, cliffs, you name it.
Maybe do something with conveyor belts? Maybe they fight in a loading dock and a guy in the crane is trying to squash them with a metal container weighing tons?
Fight in a flaming building, that's always good. Well, bad for vampires, but that's would just make it even more interesting. They would also need to flee before the inevitable police and fire dept arrive, adding a sort of timed requirement to the fight.
How about an escort mission? Get Mr. Guy from point a to b and keep him alive. That could be good on food or in a car.

For the Malkavian, his weakness depends almost entirely on his specific dementia and how he plays them. Does anything trigger his crazy? Is he playing a gibbering crazy person or is he doing a quieter crazy? What about fighting in an insane asylum (or failing that, a hospital) and that sets him off somehow?
For the Tzimisce, um, I'm not sure. Maybe something about how amoral he is? Dunno, sorry.

>>4346 c'ept Vamps don't need to breath.

Wasnt there a whole volume on supernatural threats for all four (vamps, wolves, mages and faeries) to play against in a "make your own gothic-horror D&D" style?

The fucking Beast of Bethlehem or whatever that ghost dog was called was always hardcore and gave enven the wolves a run for their supernatural money.

>>4414 No, but they will probably want to get out, and the trap doesn't assume vampiric victims. That's all you.

Where does the Tzimisce keep his soil?

I had a GM who would slip druggies into the feeding pool. Nothing like 'shrooms kicking in five minutes into a fight because of the hippy we drank from earlier.

Don't overpower the NPCs. Up their tactics. If your PCs tear up a regular crew of combatants, make the next group smarter. They'll set ambushes, cover each other, have a guy with a flamethrower, whatever. Make your traps even more intelligent.

As an example, one time I was GMing a game of Masquerade where this exact same thing happened. They had gotten into it with a crew of Hunters, and were eating them for breakfast. So the crew called up a bigger group, who had better training and equipment. Next time my players tried to attack a safehouse, they snuck in in total darkness, and then were hit with a spotlight that blinded half of them, while the equivalent of a SWAT team attacked them with assault rifles and semiautomatic shotguns. Their expressions were glorious; pants-shitting terror, all over again.

And to this day, nobody walks into a warehouse without at least a day of surveillance beforehand.

Most of the time it's hard to outsmart 4-6 players by yourself without cheating or having things planned way ahead of the gaming session.

Hey, thanks everybody for the great ideas! I haven't had a chance to get the gang together for the chronicle since early December but that does mean more time for planning and I certainly appreciate the input so far.

Now here's the part where I hope to God none of my friends visit 99chan. The malkavian is a sedo-masochist and a cutter, so during times of mental or emotional stress he compulsively cuts himself (the guy playing the character totally plays it up and makes it hilarious) so there's tons to do on that front. If he fails a roll I think I'll make him lose 5 blood points or something to that degree. The other two are a little more difficult because they both made their characters when we were all wasted, so they didn't really read up on their clans that much. I'm definitely going to fuck with the Tzimisce's soil and I'll probably have the Tremere elders assign the other dude some impossible task which he'll be compelled to complete.

>>4453 Ha! That's awesome. More than that, it's a good idea and one that genuinely makes the game more realistic and interesting.

>>4470 that situation is fucking brutal, I love it. My mind is bursting with all sorts of ways to lull the players into a false sense of security, then murderize them.

Again guys, thanks for the assistance! I have a feeling this will turn out pretty cool.