Clan Highlight: Banu Haqim
Clan Highlight #3
The Clan of the Hunt, Assassins, Children of Haqim, Saracens, Mediators, Lawmen
Cursed with a thirst for the Blood of other vampires, the Banu Haqim stalk the night as judges and lawbringers. To this end, most Banu Haqim adhere to a strict code of conduct - derived from law, faith, or personal ethics - sating their Hunger on those that breach these convictions.
Playing a Banu Haqim in Bloodlines 2
Banu Haqim takes the role of a strategic stalker, using shadows to their advantage. You are a predator on a hunt, and your discipline powers focus on stalking, assassination, and silently moving faster than your foes can track. These skills are great assets when stalking the city for prey.
Abilities
When you choose your clan, you will start out with a passive ability unique to each clan. You are then able to unlock abilities from the Ability Tree, starting with your chosen clan. Each ability requires spending Ability Points (AP) to unlock which are earned from completing missions, combat and exploration. At the peak of the Ability Tree, you can unlock the clan Perk, a reward to those dedicated enough to unlock all of the abilities for a clan, giving a permanent passive upgrade.
Silence of Death
Clan Passive: All your actions become entirely silent for a period after feeding.
Mute
Silence an enemy/civilian. Any sounds they produce, from screams to gunfire, are completely undetectable to others.
Split Second
Move so fast that time appears to stop around you.
Bladed Hand
Slash swiftly in front of you, beheading mortal opponents.
Unseen Aura
Become temporarily invisible to enemies and civilians. Note: You can still be heard unless combined with Silence of Death.
Prowl
Clan Perk: Can remain crouched whilst sprinting.
Customizing your playstyle
There are many different ways to play your character in Vampire: the Masquerade - Bloodlines 2. The clan Banu Haqim focus on a stalking based playstyle to take out your enemies one by one, and the clan abilities are built to empower that. As we want to make sure this is not a game where you are required to optimize your abilities to the extreme, we've focused on making the base playstyles easy and straightforward. But for the players who want their experience to be a bit deeper and more customizable, you will be able to do so. By visiting important vampires who are sworn to assist the Sheriff (you), you can unlock abilities from their clan by drinking a bit of their blood.
Abilities from other clans may cost more AP depending on how well they align with your clans Disciplines. The Banu Haqim Disciplines are Celerity (speed enhancing abilities), Blood Sorcery (the ability to control blood with your arcane knowledge) and Obfuscate (abilities to easily hide, move without being noticed, and cast illusions.). If a Banu Haqim wishes to unlock a Blood Sorcery ability from another clan, it would cost less AP to unlock than an ability for a Discipline Banu Haqim don't have. Those who unlock all abilities from a clan and get the Clan Perk, are able to stack them and have the effects of them all, elevating your power.
The activated abilities and Clan Perk can be learned from the other clans, but the clan passive can not. Because of this, you combine the clan powers in hundreds of different ways, but a Banu Haqim playthrough will remain its own gameplay experience.
Ability tree for Banu Haqim with all clan abilities and the clan perk are unlocked. An ability from the Tremere tree has been equipped instead of Split Second.
