Not exactly a large priority with all the other stuff going on, but many of the weapon patterns we have access to through progression

1. Are usually pretty bland and flat, covering-up what are otherwise some nice details or designs.
2. Take a while to unlock, which isn't particularly rewarding if you have a favorite weapon only to powerwash the personality off of it.
3. Are pretty limited. This is especially notable with Explosive, Energy-Based, and Special categories where their default patterns are much better at selling the idea of something dangerous or high-tech than standard camos or matte-black/yellow.

With that in mind, it'd be nice to unlock camos for our weapons out of our warbonds, just like our vehicles!

"Venus" and "Night" can remind high-level status symbols, while you could very likely unlock weapon patterns in a warbond far faster for those dedicated to a Warbond's theme or aesthetic. Incendiary weapons would definitely look a lot more fiery in "Safety Orange", while the red, black, and silver of "Inconspicuous" would kick-ass on any shotgun or plasma weapon!

P.S. I am aware the provided image is low-resolution, I refuse to get an account or pay for a website to put three images in a grid and can't be bothered to spend more than five minutes getting them arranged evenly in MSpaint.

Particularly regarding Fifth Edition, I've seen dozens of comments across Discord, Reddit, Youtube, and so-on describe the current editions as focused on the "street level" while other editions focused on generally higher power levels.

You could consider this post as split between confusion, refutation, and an earnest curiosity for others' experience.

Intended Play - VtM Revised

TL;DR: With the exception of 20th Anniversary Edition, Generations lower than 8th and Traits beyond 5 have been outliers, while the expectation is that we're relatively "young", inexperienced, and low-power Kindred. Despite being present in earlier editions in the form of supplements, supplemental Clans/Disciplines/Merits were integrated into corebooks while higher levels of power remained optional.

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Using VtM Revised as an example, the core rulebook presents the relative power-balance of the setting as such:

> Because the world’s population has grown so in the last two centuries, the vast majority of vampires are ancillae or neonates.

> - Ancillae are relatively young vampires (between one and two hundred years of unlife) who have proved themselves as valuable members of Kindred society. Ancillae are the lackeys to greater Kindred, and—if they’re clever or lucky—tomorrow’s elders. Ancilla is the rank between neonate and elder, signifying that the Kindred has cut her teeth (so to speak), but lacks the age and experience to become a true master of the Jyhad.

> - Neonates vary from newly released fledglings to indolent Kindred of a hundred years or more. Marked by the stigma of not yet having proved themselves to the elders, neonates are inexperienced vampires who might one night make something of themselves-but, more likely, will fall as pawns in the schemes of the other undead.

The Kindred, page 31

> However, all characters begin the game as neonate vampires who have only recently left the safety of their sires’ protection. All players’characters are assumed to have no more than 25 years of experience as Kindred. They know relatively little of Kindred society, other than what their sires have told them. This allows characters to experience the World of Darkness as it unfolds before them in all its malignancy and mystery, rather than having the lore of ages already under their belts.

Getting Started, page 102

This means by default, all of our Kindred are intended to be younger, less experienced individuals with anything beyond that existing as exceptions to the basic assumptions of the gameplay and balance.

This is even reflected in what heights of power are presented out of the box! As we're starting at 13th generation and you don't get past 5 dots in traits until Seventh Generation, our available character options reflect that: even 12th generation Kindred are exceptions, while 8th is both below the start of increased traits and requires an amount of investment on-par with being an "vastly influential; a factor in global politics" (Influence 5), and would either require all of your starting dots of Background to be a homeless and resourceless 8th-gen while you spend your freebie dots elsewhere.

Disciplines are likewise intentionally capped. While some Disciplines didn't see powers over Level 5 until after the release of Revised (such as Potence), some have powers beyond 6th Level reaching back to the release year of VtM1, yet never saw reprinting in a corebook until 20th Edition.

> Like other Traits, Disciplines are rated from 1 to 5 . A score of 1 indicates that the Discipline in question has barely been awakened, while a score of 5 indicate mastery of the highest powers. [...] Certain elders are rumored to have Discipline levels of higher than 5, but such beings are assuredly potent in Blood.

Disciplines, pg. 146

Intended Play - VtM Fifth Edition

TL;DR: VtM5 largely maintains a similar assumption of power to previous editions of VtM, but with some notable increases in power resulting in stronger disciplines, more control over the city, and less investment required to enhance the baseline power of your Kindred.

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While The Beckoning has drawn Elders and above away from modern nights, VtM5 pointedly doesn't establish a "standard" generation of Kindred, and likewise doesn't present Generation as something that needs investing into. Thinbloods of 14th+ Generation are presented alongside 12th-13th generation Fledglings and Neonates, or 10th-11th generation Ancillae. The only thing that the book encourages is to make sure players are comfortable with a power disparity if you decide to play at different levels of Blood Potency/Generation.

As for the expectations of your characters' place in the World of Darkness, that too varies greatly.

> Miserable premises for a coterie of vampires can act as springboards for action-oriented games. The characters are hoodies, thugs, and drug dealers Embraced in a series of sordid accidents. They know nothing about the World of Darkness and must learn to deal with their new vampiric nature, fight against mortal rivals, and try to navigate the lethal night of the Camarilla. Or perhaps they are the progeny of ancient, immensely powerful vampire lords and ladies, inducted straight into the royalty of Kindred society. Stuck with overprotective, controlling sires, they can act out to their hearts' content, taking crazy risks to assert their independence.

Styles of Play, pg. 340

Other perks wobble above and below the power of different editions.

• In oVtM you can buff your physical traits by +1 for a scene to about a limit of 6, but can increase it further by spending another blood point per turn with limitations on duration. In VtM5 you can surge any Attribute by a minimum of 2-3 dice for a single turn, but this has no limit and may be done in conjunction with Disciplines.
• Some powers in oVtM have extreme outliers such as Celerity granting additional turns or Fortitude granting additional armor. VtM5 has more powers per level which further strengthen based on Blood Potency, and includes some previously Advanced Level powers such as Clairvoyance that has been level 6+ since VtM1, or dealing Aggravated Damage to mortals at level 1 and to supernaturals at level 5 (previously you needed a level 7 power to deal Lethal damage with your firsts).
• VtM5 features the Coterie system, codifying the combined power of a Coterie and their influence over the entire Domain. In combination with other backgrounds, this may translate to control over the majority of a city and negligible hunting difficulty that equates to a guaranteed success.

"Power Level" in Popular Terminology

The internet is effectively infinite in scale, but for the sake of argument we have two different standards for how to describe it, though far more variations exist.

In brief, the first is the "operative" scale of influence, or where a "hero" is able to operate.

• Street-level characters such as Batman or Spider-Man represent those at relatively local levels of influence, IE your "friendly neighborhood-" heroes protecting your city from organized crime.
• National-level superheroes defend the nation from attack. These examples are the ones that typically come with a jet or helicopter so they can protect large swathes of wherever their flag flies over, such as Batman.
• Global-level superheroes protect—what else—"the globe". Aliens, interdimensional horrors, etc. Batman is a popular example of someone who does this.

This level doesn't vary significantly across editions of WoD. Younger Kindred are trying to make ends meet (street level) all the way up to Princes, and even Princes or beyond are often limited to the security and influence contained in their Domains. Even in cases such as the Week of Nightmares, the greater consequences of an Antedeluvians' rampage affected individuals across the globe, but the direct threat was limited to a single Nation (with variable levels of supernatural carnage that may or may not be easier to attribute to wizards with nukes than a rampaging blood-deity).

You may have also noticed that I listed Batman in all three examples. Despite being a mortal with no (consistent) supernatural abilities, he's a capable and driven individual who's clever enough to warrant a place as any table seeking to defend Gotham (street), America (national), or Earth (global). This means that a highly active Thin-Blood could be a National-level character if they're as influential and travelled as someone like Beckett who isn't known for their combat prowess, just as the fourth-generation Mithras could be considered "street level" for a restrained focus on ruling over London.

The second standard of power-scaling is the oft-parroted and oft-maligned Tiering System, which largely measures destructive potential. For all intents and purposes, this is a measure of the biggest thing you can destroy.

• Street-level characters are your typical Human+ vigilantes. They're a match for any number of unnamed gangsters or ninjas in an alley, but so are John Wick or most representations of Jackie Chan/The Rock.
• Wall, Small Building, Building, Large Building, City Block, and so-on characters are capable of destroying what they're named after.

The issue here of course is that the Physical set of Attributes, Skills, and Powers are only one third of a characters' potential. The aforementioned Mithras is capable of compelling most characters in the WoD of choking to death on their own fists, but couldn't exceed a Brujah Ancillae on the scale of destructive potential.

Yapping Aside: The Conclusions and Question

On the whole, WoD5 isn't notably restrained in either the operative or destructive power of your average members of the setting. Naturally when the tenth level of a given Discipline is referred to as "plot device", what's printed in the supplements of oWoD will exceed what's presented in the supplements of WoD5 with no counterpart. However, the majority of content, storylines, and themes aren't designed for that level, and until WoD20 those scattered powers were largely reserved for only the most devoted of readers who collected large swathes of their respective gamelines and pieced them together.

This is to ask: What does "Street Level" mean to you, and how does it matter in play?

Running strictly off of anecdotes and reading through the books, it seems that WoD as we know it hasn't changed significantly in what our Kindred or Garou (Hunters being the exception, going from Super-powered to "merely" Human+) are capable of out of their corebooks. Meanwhile, there is a disparity for the edge-cases of what is reasonably accessible and possible in regular play, though these struggle with support from guidance or pre-written examples of stories and adventures to play at your table.