•• The Importance of Conversation

Vampire the Requiem - Covenant - The Invictus

Combat is a very important, even prestigious, activity and it is crass to fight someone to whom you have not been introduced. Circumstances may mean that a Spina is forced to perform the introduction himself, but the practitioners of Courtoisie do not forgo the chance to talk first if they can help it. This is not a negotiation — it is often already decided that the conversation will end with a fight. A preceding conversation does, however, ensure that the combat is raised somewhat above the level of two beasts brawling in the gutter. A combat that is informed by the wit and passions of its participants has an elevated meaning for both participants and the ideas they represent.

Effect

Dramatic Failure: If the Spina fights the opponent during the course of the night, he is wracked with shame and doubt stemming from his poor performance in the social arena. He suffers a –3 penalty to all non-reflexive dice pools during the fight with that opponent.
Failure: The vampire gets no benefit from the Discipline.
Success: For each success on the activation roll, the Kindred may invoke one of the following effects in a scene when fighting that opponent:

• Substitute Presence for Strength in a close combat dice pool.
• Substitute Manipulation for Dexterity in a close combat dice pool.
• Substitute Manipulation for Wits when calculating Defense.
• Substitute Manipulation for Dexterity when calculating Defense.
• Substitute Socialize for Weaponry in a close combat dice pool.
• Substitute Intimidation for Brawl in a close combat dice pool.
• Add a +1 bonus to a single attack.

For the purposes of the list above, “a close combat dice pool” indicates the dice pool for one weapon against one target for one scene. The Spina must decide what effects to invoke when he activates the Discipline, not at the time of combat.
For example, consider a Kindred with Strength 2, Dexterity 2, Wits 2, Presence 4, Manipulation 4, Weaponry 2 and Socialize 5. He activates this power, and gets three successes on the activation roll. He expects to be fighting with Strength + Weaponry when he faces this opponent.
For one success, he can opt to use Socialize instead of Weaponry, which increases his dice pool by three. For another success, he can opt to use Presence instead of Strength, giving him another two dice, as Presence is two dice higher than Strength. For his third success, he could opt to use Manipulation in place of Dexterity for Defense, but as his Wits is still lower, it would grant no benefit. Thus, he chooses instead to save that success to add an additional die to an attack later on. This gives the Spina a base dice pool of 12 (4 Presence + 5 Socialize + 3 damage) when using his sword against this particular enemy in this particular fight.
If he had scored four successes on the activation roll, he could have substituted Manipulation for both Dexterity and Wits in Defense, increasing his Defense from 2 to 4.
Exceptional Success: No additional benefit, beyond being able to make at least five choices from the list of options given above.

Side/Secondary Effects

To use this power, the character must engage an opponent in polite conversation for at least a few moments, and expend one Willpower to make the activation roll. A rude, silent or brutish opponent does not make it impossible for the Spina to use the power, but the Spina must not be rude to his enemy in turn. However, if an opponent simply refuses to talk at all, this power has no effect — the Spina must get a sense, a “vibe,” from his opponent to hone his Blood against him. Once the power has been activated, its effects persist for the rest of the scene.

Material Components

Cost: 1 Willpower per scene

Gestures & Ritual

Dice Pool: Manipulation + Socialize + Courtoisie – subject’s Composure

Related Discipline

Courtoisie

Effect Casting Time

Instant

Level

2