Fortitude

Although all vampires have an unnatural constitution that make them much sturdier than mortals, Fortitude bestows a resilience that would make an action movie hero envious. Vampires with this Discipline can shrug off agonizing trauma and make the most bone-shattering impact look like a flesh wound. The power even offers protection against the traditional banes of vampires, such as sunlight and fire, and the Gangrel, Ravnos, and Ventrue all find that edge incredibly useful.

System: A character’s rating in Fortitude adds to his Stamina for the purposes of soaking normal damage (bashing and lethal). A character with this Discipline may also use his dots in Fortitude to soak aggravated damage, though Kindred cannot normally soak things like vampire bites, werewolf claws, magical effects, fire, sunlight, or massive physical trauma.

Fortitude 6+

Elder vampires progress in Fortitude in the same way as Celerity. They can increase their basic mastery of the Discipline or to take an alternate power such as one of those detailed below.

Eventide Strength
This is a combo Discipline and requires Chimestry 3. Typically, the powers of Chimerstry are dispelled by the touch of sunlight. However, a Ravnos who has studied this power has learned subtle tricks to reinforce the maya within her illusions, rendering them less vulnerable to the sun.

System: A Ravnos who has learned this power can strengthen her uses of Chimerstry, causing it to survive one hour of sunlight.

Experience cost: 12

Rescue Beacon
This is a combo Discipline and requires Presence 4. Fortitude will not defend against all attacks. The wise Ventrue is prepared for the day his luck runs out and his skill is insufficient. One always needs a backup plan. This power automatically activates a Summoning to the nearest individual who has tasted the Ventrue’s blood in the event he is either forced into torpor or paralyzed via staking.

System: If the vampire either falls into torpor or is successfully staked, this power activates automatically. The player spends a blood point and rolls Charisma + Subterfuge (difficulty 4); this power is an explicit exception to the general rule that a vampire cannot spend blood while staked. The vampire can only use this power to Summon someone who has tasted the Ventrue’s blood (ghouls, blood-bound vampires, packmates with vinculum, etc.). Otherwise, the power works as Summon.

Experience cost: 15

Retaliatory Terror
This is a combo Discipline and requires Presence 2. Those who dare to attack the Ventrue are soon taught the error of their ways. When an attacker successfully inflicts damage on the Ventrue, the terrifying power associated with her Dread Gaze strikes out at the offender, seemingly straight out of the wound.

System: Whenever the Ventrue takes damage from a Brawl or Melee attack, the player spends one blood point and makes a reflexive Charisma + Intimidation roll (difficulty equal to the victim’s Wits + Courage). However, the difficulty is reduced by the number of health levels of damage the attacker inflicted on the Ventrue, to a minimum of 4. If successful, the effects are as per Dread Gaze. The power cannot be used to retaliate to a successful attempt to stake the Ventrue, as he will be unable to spend blood to activate it

Experience cost: 9

Waking Dream
This is a combo Discipline and requires Chimerstry 1. You may briefly treat an illusion you’ve created as though it were real.

System: Once per game session, you may utilize a simple illusion (climbing a rope, landing on a trampoline, unlocking a door with an illusory key, or similar) as if it were real for one turn. Waking Dream cannot be used to directly harm or help any other character.

Experience cost: 6

Flesh Wound
This is a combo Discipline and requires Obfuscate 3. True predators know when to rely on cunning and trickery to defeat enemies. Using this power, the Gangrel gives the appearance of taking no damage from attacks. In reality, the attacks hurt like hell, but the Gangrel maintains a facade of invulnerability in order to unnerve opponents. Particularly canny vampires may convince foes that they are, in fact, immune to assault.

System: The player spends one blood point to activate this power. For the duration of the scene, the Gangrel appears as she did upon activation of this power; any wounds or scars already present will remain visible. Further damage does not show on the Gangrel’s form, nor do any logical results, such limping or leaking blood. This power ends if the Gangrel reaches the incapacitated health level or is staked. Under no circumstances can the wounds be discerned by an outside source before the power ends.

Experience cost: 15

Forced March
This is a combo Discipline and requires Celerity 2. Forced March allows the Assamite to cover ground quickly. This power cannot be used in combat but can aid the Assamite in moving with great speed without the debilitating vitae cost of conventional Celerity.

System: The Assamite spends a number of blood points equal to half his Celerity rating, rounded up. For a number of hours equal to his Fortitude, the Assamite multiplies his normal running speed by his Celerity rating. Thus, an Assamite with Fortitude 3 and Celerity 4 who could normally run at around four miles per hour (six kph) could use this power to run at a speed of 16 miles per hour (25 kph) for up to three hours.

Experience cost: 12

Grisly Gris-Gris
This is a combo Discipline and requires Thanatosis 2. A common voudoun artifact is a gris-gris bag. These talismans protect the wearer from harm or bad luck. You can provide a similar type of protection... to those with an iron stomach.

System: The Kindred must spend a point of blood and break off a small piece of their body, such as a bit of hair, a fingernail, or a piece of skin. The target must ingest the Kindred’s body part. The next time the target makes a Stamina roll to soak damage, he or she adds a number of Fortitude dice to the roll equal to the Kindred’s Fortitude or Thanatosis, whichever is lower. While the gris-gris is in the target’s body, they temporarily lose one dot in Appearance per hour as their appearance becomes more and more corpse-like. If the target drops to zero Appearance this way, they become violently ill and vomit up the gris-gris along with the contents of their stomach. The target may choose to expel the gris-gris at any time once it’s become active.

Experience cost: 12

I Am The Keystone
This is a combo Discipline and requires Potence 2 and Visceratika 3. Visceratika is known for Masquerade-shredding displays of toughness and strength. Masters of the Discipline can invoke changes to their body that are a bit subtler but no less devastating when unleashed at the right time.

System: The Kindred spends a point of Willpower. Upon doing so, she may temporarily redistribute points between her Fortitude and Potence Disciplines up to the maximum allowed by her Generation. The Disciplines stay redistributed until the Kindred is Incapacitated or the next sunrise, whichever comes first. They may spend another point of Willpower to change the dots back or adjust them to new totals.

Experience cost: 21

==== King of the Beasts ====

This is a combo Discipline and requires Animalism 4. The vampire who masters this power has the ability to extend the auspices of her Fortitude to those animals who are summoned by her blood, ensuring that they are protected. This power requires no further expenditure on the user’s part; her very nature steels and fortifies her minion against damage.

System: Creatures you summon with Animalism gain one dot of Fortitude so long as they stay within your line of sight.

Experience cost: 18

=== Dot 3 Powers===

Armor of the Abyss
This is a combo Discipline and requires Obtenebration 3. When the vampire calls on this power, strands of darkness weave around him and solidify into a dark suit of armor. The vampire is completely encased in shadow, but able to see out of it as if it wasn’t there.

System: This power is invoked in much the same way as Arms of the Abyss, by spending a blood point and making a Manipulation + Occult roll (difficulty 7). If successful, the strands of shadow encase the vampire instead of reaching out. This cloak of shadow fully protects the vampire but does not encumber him in any way, conferring no penalty. It grants him an armor rating equal to his Fortitude and lasts for 3 rounds (or ten minutes) for each success gained on the activation roll.

Experience cost: 18

Bagman’s Shelter
This is a combo Discipline and requires Obtenebration 2. Vampires can’t stand sunlight, but not every vampire has the luxury of a haven or the ability to merge into the earth. What they do have is access to some exotic Disciplines, and some of those who have to last the day in unsecured shelter have survived by this little beggar’s trick.

System: The Caitiff spends a blood and a Willpower point before resting for the day. All around them, the shadows darken and reinforce cover in such a fashion that improves an otherwise flimsy shelter for the purpose of blocking sunlight. What light does penetrate the space seems not to reflect from whatever surface it hits. As long as none of the exposure is direct, the vampire can sleep safely in a small space, such as the back of a truck cab under a heavy blanket or a basement stairway in the alley covered in trash. For some reason, this ability doesn’t work if the Caitiff is awake.

Experience cost: 15

==== Carriage Horses ====

This is a combo Discipline and requires Animalism 2. This power originated among Ravnos kumpaniyas. Most traveling groups had animal ghouls for the purpose of protecting and guarding the vampires during the day, and some clever individual learned how to make those retainers serve an even greater purpose. By the use of this power, a Ravnos can transfer a point of damage he has suffered to one of his animal ghouls.

System: If the Ravnos has any animal ghouls within sight, he may elect to use this power. The player spends one blood point and rolls Stamina + Animal Ken against a difficulty of 8. Each success transfers one Health level of damage (any type) to the animal. This can only be used immediately after the vampire is wounded (after the soak roll) and counts as a reflexive action.

Experience cost: 15

Carry The Mountain’s Burden
This is a combo Discipline and requires Visceratika 4. Gargoyles who master the Armor of Terra can make themselves even tougher by using it in conjunction with their Fortitude. These Disciplines work together to make the Gargoyle into an unstoppable brute that requires a miracle to take down. For obvious reasons, this is a favorite choice of Sentinel Gargoyles.

System: The Gargoyle spends a point of Willpower to enhance their Armor of Terra strategically with the supernatural toughness of Fortitude. All bonuses and penalties for the Armor of Terra double for the remainder of the combat scene. The Gargoyle receives two extra soak dice for aggravated and lethal soak dice pools. It also gains four dice to soak bashing wounds, ignores two levels of wound penalties, and reduces any fire-based damage pools to a quarter (round down) of their original size. All touch-based Perception-rolled have a difficulty of +4 (maximum of 9) because the Gargoyle’s skin becomes even tougher.

Experience cost: 21

==== Exquisite Corpse ====

This is a combo Discipline and requires Obfuscate 3. When Kindred rise every night, their bodies usually return to the same state they were in. You are able to maintain that perfect look throughout the night through a combination of supernatural physical toughness and your ability to control how others perceive you.

System: The Kindred suffers no cosmetic changes when she takes damage. If she gets shot, there’s no bullet hole. If a limb is removed, it turns to dust and an illusory one appears where the other once was. All health levels and dice pool penalties remain as normal, but someone trying to hurt the Kindred must make a Willpower roll (difficulty 7) after the first successful attack, or be stunned in disbelief. If stunned, all future rolls that scene to hurt the Kindred are at +2 difficulty.

Experience cost: 18

==== Vital Fluids ====

This is a combo Discipline and requires Obeah 3. With complete mastery over her undead frame and the power of vitae healing, the Salubri finds that healing wounds no longer overly taxes her duties towards humanity. Additionally, the Salubri may apply Corpore Sano (V20 p. 469) to herself, though the only benefit is for healing aggravated damage.

System: Any blood spent to heal bashing or lethal damage returns to the vampire’s blood pool, at a rate of one point per hour. This does not apply to points lost to use Copore Sano. This power is always active at no cost.

Experience cost: 18

==== Wound Sculpting ====

This is a combo Discipline and requires Vicissitude 2. A vampire with this power may vastly accelerate her healing by concentrating and willing flesh to mold back to its original form.

System: The player spends one blood point and rolls Wits + Medicine (difficulty 8). Each success heals one level of lethal or bashing damage. Each wound level requires one minute of uninterrupted work.

Experience cost: 15

Claw Immunity
This is a combo Discipline and requires Animalism 2. Quite a number of high-Generation Gangrel have developed the ability to shrug off claw and bite attacks of normal animals, hardening their flesh against nonsupernatural threats. This talent is extremely useful in areas where dangerous predators roam, and particularly when one must fight against animals whom an enemy commands… such as the Ravnos. This power does not work against Feral Claws or supernatural attacks such as werewolf claws and fangs.

System: The player spends two blood points to activate this power. For the remainder of the scene, the Gangrel receives extra soak dice equal to his Animalism + Fortitude to resist damage from any non-supernatural animal attack (claws, fangs, or other natural weaponry). These dice are in addition to the vampire’s usual Stamina + Fortitude, i.e. Fortitude is counted twice.

Experience cost: 18

Shatterproof
This is a combo Discipline and requires Protean 3. A Gangrel with this power toughens his flesh and allows her body to absorb damage, spreading a blow’s impact throughout her entire form to avoid significant injury.

System: The Gangrel may roll both Fortitude and Stamina together to soak aggravated damage. This does not include automatic soaks with stamina versus regular damage. Each use of this ability requires the expenditure of one Willpower.

Experience cost: 21

Sympathetic Agony
This is a combo Discipline and requires Chimerstry 2. The Kshatriya caste developed this power as a weapon of last resort, punishing their enemies with illusory agonies in the throes of combat. After a target strikes a Ravnos who has successfully used this power, the target feels the pain of that specific attack instead of the Ravnos.

System: The user of this power rolls Manipulation + Intimidation against a difficulty equal to the victim’s Perception + Self-Control. If successful, for the rest of the scene the target will feel a supernaturally augmented reflection of any pain she inflicts by attacking you. Any time your target attacks you, she immediately suffers a penalty to all physical actions equal to the successes you scored when activating this power. Penalties inflicted by Sympathetic Agony last for three full turns. Penalties from this power do not stack; a character under the effects of multiple applications of Sympathetic Agony suffers a penalty equal to the highest number of successes scored on a single use of the power’s activation.

Experience cost: 18

=== Dot 6 Powers===

Curse the Laurel
An unusual application of Fortitude, this power allows a Ventrue who has been successfully staked to slowly restructure her very heart around the offending stake so that it ceases to paralyze the Ventrue.

System: The player spends a Willpower point and rolls Stamina + Survival (difficulty 9). The number of successes determines how quickly the stake can be negated, according to the chart below. Each use of this power affects a single stake. On a failed roll, the player can spend another Willpower and roll again, but he cannot combine successes from multiple rolls. Only the roll with the most successes applies. On a botch, the vampire may not attempt to neutralize the stake again.

Successes Time until the stake is neutralized 1 One month 2 One week 3 Immediate The power only removes the stake from the heart, not from the body. It will remain trapped in the Ventrue’s dead flesh until removed, a process that causes two health levels of aggravated damage.

Personal Armor
Nobody likes to get hit, not even Cainites. The easiest way to ensure that one is not hit (or shot, or stabbed) repeatedly is to take the weapon with which one is assaulted away from one’s attacker and break it. That’s where Personal Armor comes in. This application of Fortitude, derived from one popular in the 12th century, causes anything that strikes a Kindred who employs Personal Armor to shatter on impact. System: With the expenditure of two blood points, a vampire can add preternatural hardness to his flesh. Every time an attack is made on the Kindred using Personal Armor (one which he fails to dodge), his player rolls Fortitude (difficulty 8). If the roll grants more successes than the attacker rolled, then the weapon used to make the attack shatters against the vampire’s flesh. (“Magical” weapons may be resistant to this effect, at the Storyteller’s discretion.) The vampire still takes normal damage if the attack is successful, even if the weapon shatters in the process, though this damage may be soaked. If the attack roll botches, any normal weapon automatically shatters. A hand-to-hand attack causes the attacker equal damage to that suffered by the defender when Personal Armor comes into play. If the attacker misses entirely, she still takes one level of bashing damage. The effects of this power last for the duration of the scene.

=== Dot 7 Powers===

Shared Strength
It’s one thing to laugh off bullets, rather another to watch the ricochets mow down everyone around you. Many Kindred have wished, at one time or another, that they could lend their monstrous vitality to those around them. Those few vampires who have mastered Shared Strength can — if only for a little while.

System: Shared Strength duplicates a portion of a vampire’s Fortitude (one dot for every point of blood the vampire spends) to another being. Activating the power requires a Stamina + Survival roll (difficulty 8, increased to 9 if the target is not a normal mortal), and the expenditure of a point of Willpower. Furthermore, the vampire must mark his target by pressing a drop of his blood onto the target’s forehead. This stain remains visible as long as the power is in effect, the duration of which is determined by the initial roll.

Successes Duration 1 One turn 2 One scene 3 One hour 4 One night 5 One week 6 One month 7 One year The target of this power need not be willing to accept the benefit to receive it, and the bestowing vampire can end the effect at any time for no cost. Particularly sadistic Kindred have come up with any number of ways in which a target’s “devil’s mark” and supernatural endurance can be used to land him in a great deal of trouble. A vampire can never bestow more levels of Fortitude than he himself possesses.

=== Dot 8 Powers===

Adamantine
Adamantine functions as a more potent version of Personal Armor.

System: This power mimics the effects of Personal Armor, save that the vampire who uses it takes no damage from attacks that shatter on her skin.