The main thing – the core principle – is that the Sabbat largely discard any clan affiliation and instead adopt a Path-aligned ideology. So instead of having clan-themed pre-constructed decks for the Sabbat, we’ll have four Path-themed decks.
The crypt cards will be of non-antitribu clans, but with the Sabbat sect and an indicator of the vampire’s Path. There will be Sabbat-specific and Path-specific cards, as well.
NEW RULES
The Sabbat do not identify themselves with or align themselves as clans. Instead, they identify first and foremost as vampires, second as Sabbat, and then with a Path of Enlightenment (“Path” for short). Each new Sabbat vampire follows a Path, indicated in their card text. The four Sabbat Paths are as follows:
– Path of Caine
– Path of Cathari
– Path of Death and the Soul
– Path of Power and the Inner Voice
A vampire can only follow one Path. If a vampire follows a new Path, they no longer follow their old Path but follow the new Path instead. A vampire must be Sabbat to receive the benefits of the above Paths. If a Sabbat vampire following a Sabbat Path changes their sect, they lose the benefit of the Path until they change their sect back to Sabbat.
During your influence phase, each of your Sabbat vampires not following a Path can burn 1 blood to follow a Sabbat Path from the above list.
Following a Path does not change a vampire’s clan, nor does it prevent that vampire from meeting the requirements for their clan’s cards. A Sabbat vampire of a given clan is not a member of the antitribu clan. For example:
– A Sabbat Ventrue can play cards requiring Ventrue, just like Camarilla Ventrue and Anarch Ventrue.
– A Sabbat Ventrue cannot play cards requiring Ventrue antitribu.
NEW TERMS
Stun: lock a minion and put a stun counter on them. A minion with one or more stun counters does not unlock as normal at the beginning of their controller’s unlock phase; during that unlock phase, burn all stun counters they had at the beginning of the turn.
Queue a combat: set up a future combat during the resolution of an action.
– If a combat is queued during another combat, the queued combat will start after the current combat ends.
– If a combat is queued before action resolution, the queued combat will start after resolving the action, but still as part of the action resolution:
— if the action is blocked, the queued combat will start after the block resolution, that is after the combat resulting from the block ends (if any)
— if the action is successful, the queued combat will start after the effects of the action have taken place.
Combats always occur during the action resolution. It is not possible to queue a combat after the action resolution, and it is not possible to queue more than one combat.
DEVELOPER NOTES
Given that the Sabbat Kindred in Fifth Edition Vampire: The Masquerade do not identify with clans, we will no longer be developing the antitribu clans in Vampire: The Eternal Struggle. Instead, new Sabbat vampires will be of the standard clans with the Sabbat sect and their Path listed in their card text. They keep their clan affiliation on their crypt cards as it’s still relevant for cards like The Embrace, Consanguineous Boon, and for “clan hoser” cards – the blood is still the blood. They will be able to play cards requiring those clans (and not those of the antitribu clans), but we will not be creating clan-specific cards that require the Sabbat sect.
Existing vampires of the antitribu clans (Brujah antitribu, Ventrue antitribu, etc.) remain as they are and do not have their clans changed.
The Sabbat-specific titles – Bishop, Archbishop, Cardinal, Priscus, and Regent – remain as normal.
The Black Hand and Seraphs are no longer separate entities in Fifth Edition Vampire: The Masquerade and are merely nicknames for the Sabbat. They won’t receive further development in Vampire: The Eternal Struggle. The existing cards for the Black Hand and Seraphs will remain unaffected and still legal for tournament play.
The existing cards Path of the Scorched Heart, Path of Tears, and Path of the Void already have a Path keyword and mention that a vampire can only have one Path. We’ll be doing updated versions of those cards, and we’ll list those Paths in the “Legacy” section of the Vampire: The Eternal Struggle rulebook. These Paths will not require the Sabbat sect. There are no plans for further developing them beyond that.
Other existing cards with “Path” in their names, such as Path of Bone, Path of Night, Path of the Feral Heart, and Path of Evil Revelations do not cause vampires to follow a Path. They simply function according to their card text as usual.
