My ranking:

1. Malkavian - A really bad idea to play as a newbie first, because the dialogue is hard to understand. But otherwise this is the most fun clan to play, with quite a few unique quest solutions. Dont underestimate the power of Dementation, you really want it at 3 quite quickly. Obfuscate also open ups options you dont have on clans without.

2. Toreador - Play female and pick Decadent Enchantress, then seduce everybody. Okay, not gay men, but everybody else. I probably shouldnt overstate the effectiveness of Seduction, its overall quite limited and you still need Persuade as well. But it leads to quite a bit of content you cannot otherwise get to. I love asking Isaac if I can be an actor. If you have appearance 5 when asking him, you get a unique answer. Subterfuge doesnt matter, by the way. Anyway the other reason why Toreador is fun is of course Celerity.

3. Nosferatu - Quite the opposite of Toreador, but also a very unique game experience. They are probably in combat the weakest clan. But they still get their spoils, such as the very convieniently placed haven. And it is of course the other clan with Obfuscate.

4. Gangrel - I am 90% sure that Gangrel, thanks to Protean, are more powerful than Toreador and Brujah. But it takes a lot of time for them to get there and they need a lot of blood to maintain this powerlevel. Either way Gangrel get brutally XP starved since you need to level their disciplines so high to also get Celerity from Beckett, and well then you also have to spent points to raise Celerity.

5. Ventrue - Fortitude is very powerful, so is Presence. But both are also somewhat abilities of diminishing returns. Additionally the background Well Educated saves some XP as well. Additionally Ventrue cant get anything meaningful from Beckett. Neither Animalism nor Protean are too interesting if you can only get to tier 3. So playing a Ventrue is honestly just easy and once you are out of the starter level, you increasingly sit on a big and bigger heap of XP and nothing you really need to invest in.

6. Brujah - Toreador with less social skills at the start. Once you fixed that, well they are just Toreador. Potence is worthless, though you may stack it with Blood Buff. Just be aware that only works with the Plus patch and even there only up to tier 3. Very high bloodpoint cost but at least you can do something different than Toreador.

7. Tremere - I love playing mages, but a "mage" that gets so few spells isnt fun to play. Domination and Auspex are pointless, Thaumaturgy is only useful up to tier 4, a different haven is welcome but thats about it.

What a coincidence, I was going to ask suggestions to choose a clan as a rookie in the game. I am in the last part to finish my first play, Nosferatu female. After reading your post, I think I'll choose Toreador female for my next play to enjoy the side of the seduction.

I've unfortunately been quite unclear on some details:

> 1. Malkavian [...] Dont underestimate the power of Dementation, you really want it at 3 quite quickly.

Among other things, if you dont have Dementation 3, you wont get some of the unique Malkavian solutions to quests offered. Which are the main reason why I personally enjoy Malkavian so much, you get some more humane quest solutions than anybody else.

And I should really have added that Malks, being able to see the future, may also spoil parts of the game to you if you play them first.

> 3. Nosferatu [...] They are probably in combat the weakest clan.

That means that they are the second worst first pick for a newbie, after Malkavian. I'm very glad I could help somebody !

More details:

1. Malkavaian

Its important to start with 2 points of Obfuscate which makes stealth solutions to quests immediately available. And for that matter makes the tutorial much easier to solve, since that section of the game clearly expects you to start with two points of Obfuscate. Watching people trying to solve the tutorial with only a single point of Obfuscate is quite funny, with countless retries; not sure how you are even supposed to solve this. You will never need another point of Obfuscate after you reached Obfuscate 2 either.

As mentioned before, during the actual game get 3 points of Dementation ASAP because it opens unique Malk quest solutions. Higher levels of Dementations seem to never be useful. One of the main reasons why Malk is so easy to play is because boss monsters can be stunned with Dementation 3. No other clan get such an overpowered ability.

The history to pick is most definitely Occult Nut. Extra XP is always the strongest solution for any clan. Unfortunately not many clans get such a history.

As an Occult Nut, you spent ONE point on Charisma at character creation and never again afterwards. Otherwise you will lose the extra bonus you gain from the Charisma item you get during the game.

You cannot break the Charisma 3 barrier with this item. When doing Downtown, you have to avoid talking to the merchant of the level a second time until you have finished Museum and gotten the third point in Scholarship and thus reached Persuade 5+. Otherwise you will not get the extra finance reward from this merchant.

You will miss out on some money you can get from LaCroix if you have higher Persuade during Downtown.

You also wont be able to solve two sidequests in the Giovanni Mansion, so you will miss out on 2 XP, and you wont get one of the shortcuts in the endgame. Your total gain is still 21 XP from all quests with a reward (23 in total) of 3 XP and more.

3. Nosferatu

Blunt Fangs is obviously the History to pick, for the same reasons as for Malk.

Unlike Malk, the extra XP is dearly needed, since Nosferatu is the weakest clan in combat.

The disadvantage of less blood from humans is a definite disadvantage during combat because its common that you get disrupted from feeding during combat all the time, so Blunt Fangs hardly get any blood from humans in these situations. This can be resolved by leveling Animalism which allows to kill many opponents from a ranged attack. Also it allows to get blood from opponents this way that do not usually give blood, such as zombies. You still will get less blood from humans than others.

5. Ventrue

Just a quick note, Domination is so useless because it only works on humans. On humans level 1 is actually quite useful though.

6. Brujah

All-Star Athlete seems to be for choice. You dont need more than Intelligence 4 with the Plus Patch anyway.

Quickling would be fine too. Potence isnt that useful anyway, except to stack it with Blood Buff for some very costy and short damage records.

Anti-Paladin has an interesting advantage, because the bonus is on the feat, so with the ingame item you could reach melee 12. But why the heck would you ever accept a more expensive Celerity.

7. Tremere

The history to pick is clearly Eerie Presence.

Social stats now cost -/6/10/16/20, and stealth costs 3/4/8/12/16, while mental stats cost -/3/6/10/12. Regular prices are -/4/8/12/16 for stats and 3/3/6/9/12 for skills.

Do NOT read the stealth book before you allocated the first point of stealth. The first point costs 3 as normal, but the second point costs 4. So you want to get the second point through the book. You wont ever need more than 2 points of Stealth (though more would be nice to have, but XP is hard to get and in rare critical moments when you need more Stealth you can use Bloodbuff, namely the Santa Monica Warehouse and the Downtown garage, you can use Bloodbuff).

Only raise Charisma once, which costs 6 instead of 4 XP now, and then leave the stat alone, much like explained under Malk. Dont touch Manipulation or Appearance either.

You want to start the game with Perception 3, such that you can get the extra XP from Knox by spotting that he is misleading you while talking to him in the Asylum after the Beachhouse quest, and will want to end the game with Perception 5, Intelligence 4, Wits 4. Cost for mental stats are now -/3/6/10/12 instead of the usual -/4/8/12/16, so you save a total of 16 points, compared to a loss of 2 points from Charisma 2.

There is no point to Intelligence 5 in the Plus Patch, since there is no book which requires 10; 9 is the maximum. There is no point to Wits 5 because there is a Wits item.

All this maximizes the benefit from Eerie Presence, and your total gain is 14 XP. Less than you get from the extra xp feature of other histories, but by far the best deal of any history of this clan.

I think picking Blunt Fangs takes out the Saulocept, at least I remember playing a Blunt Fangs Nos once and being surprised in the crypt. I'm not sure which game version it was, though, whether it was Unofficial Patch or CQM or another version... If it was UP, I wonder if the other +XP backstories have the same balancing factor...

I'm not an unconditional fan of Malkavians, I think they have some fun interactions, but it's definitely not first play-through material. It's nice on a replay once, but I've had more replay fun with Nosferatu: great starting stat splits, and many possibilities with their disciplines. Also losing out Seduction is both a curse and a blessing in the sense that all those points I'd sink into Seduction on any other character, will now actually do something useful for me... ;) Of course losing out on some social quests hurts, but in the end there aren´t too many of these, and some other quests have nice alternate paths as Nos.

But to the original point, I think the clans are well balanced and each does things a bit differently, have different strengths and weaknesses, the harder ones are maybe those that are weaker against bosses, but you can always just use bloodpacks for the handful of really hard fights. Game´s very replayable because you´ll have a unique experience playing as Nos Leatherface, a Gangrel Beastmistress, a Malk Doomseer, or just a plain old Tremere. Not all characters need tons of XP to really shine, letting go of a few abilities gives a more focused character. Like hacking is fun, but having to find all the passwords in the game world adds a fresh feeling to the game. Obfuscate is fun, but trying to sneak past enemies using a few dots in stealth (any maybe some Auspex) offers a new perspective.

Blunt Fangs gets Saulocept like everyone else.

As does Occult Nut.

Would be very strange if either would remove Saulocept, since both characters suffer substantial disadvantages for their respective bonus.