Disciplines

The Kindred wield strange powers — a vampire could sway men’s minds, vanish from plain sight, or manifest her victim’s worst nightmares. These powers come unbidden in the vampire’s blood, and call on not just his human mind but the Beast hidden just under the surface. The Beast walks unseen through the world of men and cows lesser animals. It slips the bonds of flesh and inspires awe and jealousy from other people.

Using Disciplines

Some Disciplines are a fundamental part of the vampire’s nature, available to her whenever she wants thanks to the power burning in her blood. These abilities may require her to expend Vitae; a few exceptional ones may also require her to spend a Willpower point. Others require her to demonstrate her mastery of the Discipline. The dice pool to activate a Discipline is made up of three traits, rather than two — an Attribute, a Skill, and the Discipline itself. The vampire uses her full mastery with the Discipline, no matter which ability she’s using — a vampire with Animalism 5 uses her full five dice for all Animalism powers, even if she’s just using Animalism 1. The corollary of that is that a vampire cannot use a Discipline power that’s greater than her Discipline dots — a vampire with Dominate 3 can’t access The Lying Mind or Possession, as they require more than three dots of Dominate.

Each Discipline calls on the Beast, whether using its talents overtly or expressing it through the blood inside. While the mechanical effect of a player failing her Discipline roll is that nothing happens, that’s not strictly true. Something happens. The Beast won’t just accept the idea that tapping its power produces no results. Maybe the lights flicker, or the vampire’s flesh writhes on her bones for just a second. Maybe her victim sees a second, screaming face trying to escape the vampire’s head for just a second. Whatever it is, it’s not enough to properly freak her victim out — that’s the domain of the Nosferatu, through their Nightmare Discipline. It’s just something that reminds the vampire that she’s not human, she’s tapping something within herself that she doesn’t fully understand and cannot truly control. The Storyteller and player should work together to come up with a couple of potential minor signs that the vampire’s tried to use a Discipline, even though nothing particularly supernatural has happened.

Supernatural Conflict

The Kindred don’t just face off against one another. The World of Darkness is a strange and horrible place. Werewolves stalk the night, hunting unseen prey. Patchwork men question what it really is to be human, and some people who die don’t stay dead. Many of these creatures have mysterious abilities of their own, and when they come into contact with vampires it’s only a matter of time before someone goes too far and their powers come into conflict.

This world focuses on vampires and the mortals who surround them. One of the Kindred is harder to browbeat than a human, and thus adds his Blood Potency to rolls to resist Dominate. A mortal doesn’t have the supernatural chops to resist a Nosferatu manifesting his worst nightmares, so only rolls his Composure against the effect.

The supernatural forces of the world can resist a vampire’s talents in much the same way as the Kindred themselves. When a Discipline calls for a contested roll, use the victim’s nearest equivalent to Blood Potency — a werewolf’s Primal Urge, or a Promethean’s Azoth. In return, the power of the Blood protects a vampire from the strange powers of these creatures. Where another supernatural power calls on that equivalent trait, a vampire can add her Blood Potency to her Resistance Attribute for contested rolls.

Note that Blood Potency and related Traits do not add to the Resistance Attribute used in a resisted roll, just contested rolls.

Clash of Wills

Sometimes, two Disciplines clearly oppose one another. If the normal systems for the Disciplines fail to resolve this, such as when two vampires attempt to Dominate the same person, or Auspex is turned against a vampire hidden by Obfuscate, there is a Clash of Wills.

All characters using conflicting powers enter a contested roll-off, each using a pool of his Blood Potency plus his dots in the Discipline. Devotions use Blood Potency plus the highest rated Discipline among the prerequisites, while blood sorcery uses Blood Potency plus the character’s dots in Crúac or Theban Sorcery. Ties reroll until one player has accrued more success than all others. The effect invoked by that player’s character wins out and resolves as usual, while all others fail. Victory of one power in a clash does not mean the immediate cancellation of the others, save in cases where only one power can possibly endure (such as competing Domination).

Characters may spend Willpower to bolster the contested roll, but only if they are physically present and aware that powers are clashing. Certain powers, such as those with exceptionally long durations, are more enduring in a clash. Night-long effects add one die to the clash roll, weeklong effects add two, month-long three; and effects that would last a year or longer add four.