Vampire: The Masquerade - Redemption: Combat, Blood Pool and Humanity

Click to Move, Interact and Strike

Movement in Vampire: The Masquerade - Redemption starts with a destination: point at the ground and left-click to send your character there. A movement marker confirms a reachable spot; a large red X means the character stays put. Nearby destinations prompt walking, while more distant ones prompt running. Holding Shift when you left-click forces a run even over a short distance. You can also keep the mouse button held after setting off and move the pointer to redirect your destination. Doors use the same left-click input, but highlight under the cursor first; clicking makes your character approach and operate them.

Pointing at an enemy instead brings up the Attack icon, turning a left-click into a strike with the weapon your controlled character currently holds. Keeping that button pressed continues automatic attacks against the target until it dies or your character takes damage. Shift has a different role here than during movement: hold it while attacking to perform a secondary attack, normally slower but more damaging than the standard strike. The third mouse button also triggers that secondary attack. The cursor target therefore distinguishes movement, interaction and combat, while Shift modifies either your travel speed or the attack you perform.

Ammunition, Aimed Shots and Thrown Weapons

Ranged weapons need ammunition, obtained from defeated enemies or bought at a store. For pistols, revolvers, bows, crossbows and rifles, the secondary attack trades firing speed for greater accuracy: the more accurate shot comes at a slower rate, rather than simply adding damage. Certain automatic weapons, including machine guns and chain guns, also support firing toward a location. Hold Alt and point where you want to shoot to direct fire at a distant group instead of a single adversary. Ammunition supplies, the accuracy-versus-speed tradeoff and location targeting are therefore separate parts of using these weapons.

Grenades and holy-water vials begin with item selection: left-click or right-click one in your inventory, and the cursor changes to its image. An item assigned to a quick-item slot can instead be selected with the corresponding key. Left-click an enemy to throw the selected item, which then disappears from your inventory. Selection alone does not commit the throw: to put an accidentally selected item back, left-click an empty inventory space or right-click anywhere on the game screen. Thrown weapons also accept special targeting modes such as Alt plus left-click, a targeting option shared with projectile weapons.

Spending Experience and Rising Through the Vampire Ranks

In the single-player chronicle, earned experience can be spent on character Attributes between quests. Some missions open the Advancement Screen automatically when completed, but you can also return to your Haven to spend experience on members of your coterie. Attribute development connects with the requirements for using Disciplines: Heightened Senses requires sufficient perception, while Fireball requires sufficient intelligence. Experience earned in battle can also improve your specialty in Disciplines. Increasing that proficiency makes a Discipline more effective and reduces its blood cost, so advancement covers both the Attributes needed to use powers and the efficiency of those powers.

Experience also governs your vampire’s rank, alongside the improvements you purchase through advancement. Your character begins as a Fledgling and rises through the ranks as battle experience accumulates. Those rank increases raise both Health and the Blood Pool; an Antediluvian has substantially more of each than a Neonate. These gains sit alongside the reduced blood costs available through greater Discipline proficiency: rank increases the size of the pool, while proficiency reduces what a power costs to cast. Health grows through the same ranking system, making accumulated experience relevant to character resources as well as Attribute development and individual powers.

Blood, Wounds and the Loss of Control

Blood Pool and Health track different pressures on your vampire. Blood supplies the energy for supernatural powers, and most Disciplines consume some of it when activated; their rollover text gives the specific cost. Drinking from humans or bottles of vitae replenishes the pool. Wounds instead reduce Health, making actions harder as your physical condition deteriorates toward torpor or Final Death. Taking damage therefore does more than bring a character closer to collapse: it also leaves them less capable of acting. Blood loss adds another danger alongside depleted powers, because it increases the character’s susceptibility to Frenzy.

Frenzy links bodily distress to a loss of control. Its rating describes both a character’s tendency to enter that state and how quickly it develops; damage and blood loss make an uncontrolled rage more likely. Once frenzied, the vampire attacks indiscriminately rather than distinguishing whom to strike. The Frenzy level subsides over time, eventually allowing the character to regain their senses. Humanity carries a separate, lasting threat: actions within the story change its level, and reaching zero drives your character mad and ends the game. Temporary recovery from Frenzy is therefore distinct from the terminal consequence of losing all Humanity.

First published Nov 4, 2026.