I'm sorry if what I wrote was not clear. I tried my best to express that I am talking in probabilities and not based on any presumptions about the OP or anyone else. If that was not clear, then I should probably bow out of this conversation, as I know of no other way I could have rephrased my posts. So either I'm in over my head in attempting nuance, or else you aren't reading all the way through what I wrote. Either way, my further contributions clearly won't add anything else.

Apparently the OP isn't a part of this anymore anyway. :) Still, this type of discussion sure wakes up the site, which IMO is a good thing.

Which is hard to believe. I for one came from the FPS side so Toreador was the natural choice as I'm good at FPS! Also social interaction is important at the start of the game, so you won't have problems there either. By the time you really need to fight more, you have found some good firearms. On the other hand if people come to Bloodlines from action RPGs or similar, Brujah with their melee fighting might be indeed the better choice. Or if they like Thief games, Nosferaut or Malkavians could be ideal. That's great about Bloodlines, you can choose your clan to fit your playing style :)!

Not really what I meant by that. I was refering to actual knowledge about the game: It's mechanics, when and how you will be railroaded into fights, which skill books and characters can bump up your stats and when. Things you need to know if you want to plan your character build.

If you are going in blind, turning a Toreador into an exceptionally good shooter isn't really all that obvious. Any clan can become just as proficent at shooting (especially Brujah as they also have Celerity), but Toreadors don't need to max out Perception as they can temporarily buff it with Auspex when they need it. They become good shooters a little earlier than other clans because of it, that's all. Unfortunately they start out weak at character creation compared to a Brujah character who comes out competent at fighting but with no social skills. Yes, you can bypass a lot of fighting using social skills in the early game, but between not being able to talk your way out of trouble and hitting looser than a wet noodle while fighting enemies who are shooting at you I think it is probably more worthwhile an introduction to the game to choose one who can fight instead.

This is mostly relevant in the first one or two hours as all clans can be equalised with skill point investment. I think Brujah starts out good and are easy to tune towards any endeavour, never feeling weak or like they are playing catch up except for that a generalist approach means they miss out on a few early speech checks.

Thanks for the input. It sounded like there were enough XP for me to do what I had in mind, so it all ended up working out. You are not kidding. After getting a 4-5 in sneak, I only drew any noticeable attention from the Geodudes in those sewers. It got ridiculous in the endgame, as I was able to wipe out entire rooms via Dominate while hidden and snacking on the last enemy to refill. The boss fights weren't too bad when I realized that Blood Purge combined with Blood Salvo/Strike provided a steady and renewable source of stunlock and damage, so long as I kept the enemy at bay with a shotgun.