I'm playing a character in a Werewolf game and I'd like to play a sniper or soldier who specialises in Firearms.
It seems from my limited understanding of the rules that it's quite hard to kill a Vampire or Garou with a firearm, especially with a single shot.
How can I work the lore and/or rules of the game to optimise for shooting these unstoppable monsters? Are there any mundane or magical ammunitions, special weapons, or Gifts that can be used to eliminate them? Or is it simply a matter of shooting a LOT of silver bullets?
I've only mentioned the werewolf game but feel free to source something from any other classic 'World of Darkness' books as I can always buy one in PDF form and persuade my GM to integrate it.
Best Answer
Only material I know that deals with this theme is The Hunters Hunted ©1992 by White Wolf.
There is newer edition of it. I don't own it, don't have access to it, so what follows is based on the old one. But it is THE book about killing supernaturals (especially vampires) using mortal means.
Page 28 describes The Heavy Firepower Method, only hunt method that actually involves firearms. It describes ways to use already described firearms, without providing additional rules for them, so it should be easy to incorporate. It also provides guidelines for ammo like Dragon's Breath (totally real ammo you can see in action here), that is effective against supernaturals, because it damages them with fire. and of course it mention bows - arrow is essentially a wooden stake that can be placed in heart remotely.
At page 60, there is pretty expensive merit that lets you do aggravated damage with bare fists. But you want to be a sniper. That leads us to Appendix Two, Hunting Gear. Spike-thrower shotgun (page 86) seems to be your friend, as it can fire also specially prepared wooden stakes, or even molotov-like bullets. Described as using wooden spike or molotov cocktail per their rules, but with range and power of a shotgun, so incorporating it into new WoD should be perfectly doable. And I see no reason for it not to be able to shot stakes inlaid with silver and cold iron, to also deal aggravated damage to creatures that are hurt by those metals.
In oWoD/cWoD, there are two considerations when it comes to damage: the amount and the type.
With firearms, there is only one way to increase the damage amount: Larger attack dicepools. Your Net Successes on your attack are added to the damage roll, giving you a better chance to inflict serious pain.
Damage type is split into 3 varieties: Bashing, Lethal, and Aggravated. Aggravated wounds are the most difficult to survive. Ag damage also only comes from 2 sources: fire and supernatural effects. A nice GM might allow you to either have a mage ally enchant your bullets or use a previous kill to craft special bullets from things like fangs or claws. Otherwise, you're reduced to things like silver bullets or the various fire-based rounds described above.