True - since the game/patch appears to have always been done the way it is now (bullets = lethal), I guess there's a chance it will completely screw up the balance.

I noticed that there are separate feat entries for the various soak types (bashing, lethal, aggravated) - one set for mortals and one for kindred - but these are currently identical. So if guns were changed to "bashing" damage, then if these feat entries are used as-is (by the appropriate entities), does this mean that humans would also be able to use their stamina to soak damage from bullets? In which case, if bullets were to be changed to bashing, then the feat for mortal bashing soak should be changed so they can't use stamina to soak this damage?

From what (little) I've read about the rules for the World of Darkness - which I guess is mostly implemented in VtM:B - humans are supposed to treat bullets as lethal damage, while kindred (and certain other supernaturals I guess?) are supposed to treat them as bashing damage. However, everyone supposedly treats blunt melee objects as bashing damage.

Is there a possibility the game is already doing some extra calculation behind the scenes (ie not visible from the mod source?) - such as for example setting damage from bullets to bashing for kindred or something? Or can what we see in the mod code be considered the current "rule set" the game is using?

If the latter, then it's currently not set up to enable kindred to treat bullets differently than mortals. Which I guess means the options are to leave it as is - where kindred are just as susceptible to bullets as mortals - or change it to make bullets bashing, which either means mortals will also be able to add their stamina to soak bullet damage (if feats are not changed), or mortals will be unable to add their stamina to soak any bashing damage (bullet or melee) (if feats are changed).

Although I guess another option could be to add extra code to the mod to specifically allow kindred to convert bullet damage to bashing damage (if this doesn't already happen somewhere).

Which still brings us back to balance - any of these changes will no doubt mess with it, possibly in a big way. On top of that, unless extra code is added so that kindred and mortals can treat bullets differently, the problem of the rules of the VtM:B "Universe" not being properly implemented still remains either way.

That being said, for some reason I always thought that using blood buff while playing the basic patch made a significant difference in resistance versus bullets, although it could have been my imagination. It definitely made the beach house battle easier, but since I was using fists and some of the enemies were using bats, I imagine the increased damage I was doing combined with reduced damage of the enemy's bats made enough of a difference.

So, TL;DR: Yes changes will definitely mess with balance, and changes will either still not follow the VtM:B Universe's "rules", or require significant extra work to do so (unless, as stated above, the game does more than what I think it does based on the mod source).