Vampire: The Masquerade 3rd Edition Disciplines Reference Thread

[ahenobarbi]

A Quick Note: Before diving into this, I'd like to mention that I've been unable to find a similar resource online. If anyone knows of one, please provide a link. It would be much appreciated!

This is meant to be a quick reference to help with character creation, focusing on how a character might employ each of the VtM 3rd edition disciplines. I will also be including notes on potential discipline combinations.

(EDIT: done describing disciplines) Work in Progress: Please be aware that this thread is currently a work in progress. As I delve deeper into each discipline, I'll update its respective section.

(EDIT: done with adding reserved posts, feel free to post now) Reserved Posts: I'll be reserving a number of posts below to individually delve into each discipline. Please don't post until I've finished adding all of my reserved posts. This will help maintain the structure and flow of the thread.

Table of Contents: This first post will act as a table of contents, providing a short summary of each discipline. Each discipline's section will contain a more in-depth overview and usage suggestions.

List of Disciplines (3rd Edition):

Animalism (https://forums.giantitp.com/showsinglepost.php?p=25884043&postcount=2) - 1st dot is amazing for starter characters (cheapest minions around) but other than that it’ s weak.
Auspex (https://forums.giantitp.com/showsinglepost.php?p=25884045&postcount=3) - Take it if you need to gather information in your stories. Skip otherwise.
Celerity (https://forums.giantitp.com/showsinglepost.php?p=25884047&postcount=4) - More actions, fantastic in combat. Limited usefulness otherwise.
Chimerstry (https://forums.giantitp.com/showsinglepost.php?p=25884052&postcount=5) - Illusion is not my thing but I hear some think it’s very effective.
Dementation (https://forums.giantitp.com/showsinglepost.php?p=25884058&postcount=6) - Interesting mix of social utility, long term debuffs and … a way to send a bunch of people into frenzy.
Dominate (https://forums.giantitp.com/showsinglepost.php?p=25884060&postcount=7) - Tell others what to do, level 5 allows acting during the day. Good stuff (terms and conditions apply)
Fortitude (https://forums.giantitp.com/showsinglepost.php?p=25884061&postcount=8) - Reduces damage, good for combat but there is better stuff.
Necromancy (https://forums.giantitp.com/showsinglepost.php?p=25884063&postcount=9) - Ghosts are unique minions, pretty good. I'd skip zombies.
Obfuscate (https://forums.giantitp.com/showsinglepost.php?p=25884065&postcount=10) - Superb at sneaking. Some neat social utility.
Obtenebration (https://forums.giantitp.com/showsinglepost.php?p=25884066&postcount=11) - Good stuff. You get bufs to intimidation, stealth, stamina debufs, area debuf, combat bufs, combat minions, mobility.
Potence (https://forums.giantitp.com/showsinglepost.php?p=25884068&postcount=12) - Superstrength. Nice in combat.
Presence (https://forums.giantitp.com/showsinglepost.php?p=25884072&postcount=13) - People do what you want, great stuff (fewer conditions than dominate, more flexible, less control)
Protean (https://forums.giantitp.com/showsinglepost.php?p=25884073&postcount=14) - Recommended - good mix of combat buffs, mobility, utility.
Quietus (https://forums.giantitp.com/showsinglepost.php?p=25884080&postcount=15) - More ways to kill target than you need. I’d rather just take Protean 2.
Serpentis (https://forums.giantitp.com/showsinglepost.php?p=25884087&postcount=16) - Very good combat utility at level 3. Otherwise meh.
Thaumaturgy (https://forums.giantitp.com/showsinglepost.php?p=25884090&postcount=17) - Great stuff. Get more than 1 discipline, get a discount. A lot of powers, huge versatility.
Vicissitude (https://forums.giantitp.com/showsinglepost.php?p=25884094&postcount=18) - Good mix of disguise / utility / social buff, combat and mobility.

[ahenobarbi]

Animalism

Control animals. Deny humans willpower. Transfer rage to others.

1st dot is amazing for starter characters (cheapest minions around) but other than that it’ s weak.

1. Feral whispers. Talk to animal. Roll manipulation + animal ken (DC 5 - 8, depending on the animal and you) to order it. Minions at level 1, neat. However animals are pretty limited in what they can do (scouting, weak combat, guards).
2. Beckoning. Summon many animals of a species. Roll charisma + survival (DC 6) to see how many show up. Neat, your minions and witnesses come to you, you don’t have to find them. Still animals are limited in what they can do.
3. Quell the beast. Roll manipulation + empathy or intimidation (DC 7). When you get number of successes equal to target willpower they became a pushover, can’t spend willpower, might not even defend themselves. Works only on humans and animals. Meh. I can be useful to make someone into a pushover but for level 3 this seems weak.
4. Subsume the spirit. Roll Manipulation + Animal ken to possess an animal. Much weaker version of dominate 5 (because you control an animal, not a human).
5. Drawing out the beast. Roll manipulation + self control (DC 8), someone else rages instead of you. Weak.

[ahenobarbi]

Auspex

Great for gathering information. Which is often very, very useful. Highly recommended, unless you’re in a kind of story where it’s mostly useless.

1. Heightened senses. Reduced perception difficulties, notice obfuscated users, perceive threats. Noticing more things is good.
2. Aura perception. Read emotional state, if folks are living or undead, diablerie, magic users, true faith havers, ghost, faerie, werebeasts. Good stuff. Only problem is that the roll is DC 8 so of ST doesn't let you use level 1 to lower the DC you’re unlikely to have enough successes on that Perception + Empathy roll to actually notice any of that stuff. Very useful if storyteller lets you lower the DC. Otherwise you rarely get any useful info.
3. Spirit’s touch. Learn who, when, and for what purpose handled an object last. Seems situational. Roll perception + empathy (DC 5 to 9 depending on time elapsed since and emotional significance of the last use).
4. Telepathy. Roll Inteligence + Subterfuge (DC willpower) to learn surface thoughts. Need to spend willpower when targeting supernaturals. It’s great to know what people are up to, what they don’t want to tell you.
5. Psychic projection. Roll Perception + occult (DC 7(usual) to 10 (take a shortcut through the middle of earth)) to separate soul from body, travel through astral. I guess a good way to spy? Travel at speed up to 1000 mph (1600 kmh). But like half of the entry is about dangers of using this power so it’s rarely used.

[ahenobarbi]

Celerity

Description: Superhuman speed
Spend 1 blood, get 1 action per dot. Fantastic in combat. Limited usefulness otherwise.

Note that since this discipline multiplies number of actions you can take your actions must be any good for this discipline to matter. If you fire a gun and all the damage you do gets soaked it won't matter if you can fire the gun 6 times instead of 1, all the damage still gets soaked. But if you do 1 damage per attack you can incapacitate an enemy in 1 round instead of 6.

[ahenobarbi]

Chimerstry

Illusion is not my thing but I hear some think it’s very effective.

1. Ignis Faatus. Spend 1 willpower, make static ilusion affecting 1 sense.
2. Faata Morgana. Spend 1 willpower, 1 blood. Static illusion affecting all senses.
3. Apparition. Spend 1 blood. Make illusion move in 1 specific way.
4. Permanency. Spend 1 blood illusion permanent until dissolved.
5. Horrid reality. 2 willpower, for entire scene. Manipulation + Subterfuge (DC perception + self control). Each success inflicts 1 lethal damage. Can pre-cap damage. Can’t kill. Meh.

[ahenobarbi]

Dementation

Mad, mind-bending mayhem.

Interesting mix of social utility (1, 3), debuffs (2, 5) and … a way to send a bunch of people into frenzy (4).

1. Passion. Roll Charisma + Empathy (DC humanity) to intensify or dull emotions for 1 turn up to 3 months. Good social utility. You must do something to crate at least a little bit of the emotion you want to intensify which requires a bit of extra work.
2. The haunting. Spend 1 blood, roll manipulation + subterfuge (DC perception + self-control). Victim sees scary things for 1 night to 1 year. Might reduce rolls by 1-2 dice. Long term debuff. I guess it’s ok if really don’t like someone.
3. Eyes of chaos. Learn the true nature of people (Perception + occult; DC 6 (old friend) to 9 (stranger)). Useful if you want to manipulate someone it’s good to know what they’re really up to. Also a plot device where storyteller can tell you visions about stuff.
4. Voice of madness. Spend 1 blood, roll manipulation + empathy (DC 7). 1 victim / success goes into a frenzy (DC to resist +2), you too (DC -1 for you). That's one of the ways to cause a fight ever.
5. Total insanity. Get undivided attention, spend 1 blood, roll manipulation + intimidation (DC willpower). Victim gets 5 derangements for 1 turn - 1 year (depends on the number of successes). Long term debuf.

[ahenobarbi]

Dominate

Direct control over humans and weaker vampires. Very powerful discipline because it lets you control what others do. Level 5 lets you act freely during the day, which is a rare ability for a vampire. It has some important limitations:

- Mostly (levels 1, 2, 4) targets do exactly what you tell them to. Which puts the burden on you to give exactly right orders. Which is great, when you can. Bad when you aren't sure what exactly you'll want.
- Level 3 goes around this but it works through changing memory, not by issuing orders which makes it somewhat tricky to use.
- It uses Manipulation, Intimidation, Leadership, Charisma, Wits, and Subterfuge. So you need to put dots in a lot of places if you want to be good at all the dominate things.
- Doesn't work on vampires with lower generation.

Powers:

1. Command. Target executes 1-word command instantly. Requires eye contact, being heard and understood. Roll Manipulation + Intimidation, DC permanent willpower.

Good when you want someone to do something simple right now. Useful in combat.

2. Mesmerize. Target executes a complex command, possibly with a trigger condition. Requires eye contact, being heard and understood for long enough to describe everything. Manipulation + Leadership, DC permanent willpower.

Great stuff. Get anyone to do anything you want!

3. The Forgetful Mind. Modify memories. Requires eye contact, being heard and understood for long enough to describe everything. Wits + Subterfuge, DC willpower score.

Great stuff. Get anyone to do what you want but in a more natural way. Or have them forget stuff you don't want them to know. Also you can use to control behavior in a broader way than mesmerize - you can implant command to sing a contract but they'll be suspicious something is off. But if you implant memories of them learning this is a great deal they won't be suspicious (until its too late).

4. Conditioning. Make someone into your minion - easier to dominate for you, harder for others. Actually they don't require domination to do as they're told. Charisma + Leadership DC permanent willpower. Also they become like automatons.

Good stuff. Minions are very useful. Since they're like automatons they can't be used for roles that require more of their own mind but there's still a lot they can do.

5. Possession. Leave your body, move into mortals body. Charisma + Intimidation, contested roll vs willpower. Manipulation + Intimidation (DC 7) to see how well you control.

Good. The most valuable thing is ability to act freely during the day. Also you can go do something as someone else. Also you can let the body die in executing the task if necessary. Also I guess it might be nice to feel like a mortal?

[ahenobarbi]

Fortitude

Reduces damage you take.

Adds dots in fortitude to stamina when soaking bashing and lethal. Can soak aggravated (fortitude dots only). Improves chances of survival in combat. But there are other things that improve them more (by killing opposition before they can hurt you).

Note that if you're considering increasing Stamina above 2 by spending XP you probably should increase Fortitude too so that they're roughly equal. (this is similar to Potence)

Each dot of Fortitude adds 1 die to stamina rolls so it's worth at least that much. I think it's more valuable than that, because:
- it also allows you to soak aggravated damage and
- there's more room for you to temporarily increase stamina with blood

So I figure 1 dot of Fortitude is worth about 2 dots of Stamina. Experience costs are in the table below. If you consider dot in Fortitude equal to 1 dot of Stamina then Fortitude should stay a bit behind. If you think it's closer to being worth 2 then it should be a little ahead.



Level
Stamina XP cost
Fortitude XP cost
Fortitude XP cost halved


1
-
10
5


2
4
7
3.5


3
8
14
7


4
12
21
10.5


5
16
28
14

[ahenobarbi]

Necromancy

Like the Thaumaturgy this is actually a bunch of paths and a bunch of rituals. They are much more focused on the central theme here. Presumably if you’re allowed to take this discipline you’re also allowed to use a bunch of spirits which are neat minions.

Sepulchre path

Unique minions but pretty meh in my opinion.

1. Insight. Roll perception + occult (DC 8 or 10). See the last thing the corpse saw. Meh.
2. Summon. Roll perception + occult (DC 7 or willpower) to summon a soul. It’ll answer questions depending on number of successes. Situationaly useful.
3. Compel soul. Roll manipulation + occult (DC willpower) to make wright do things. Number of successes determines what orders you can issue. Nice minion.
4. Haunting. Roll manipulation + occult to bind for 1 night per success (or 1 week for willpower point, or 1 year for permanent).
5. Torment. Roll stamina + empathy (DC willpower) to torture wraight. Improve minions.

Bone path

Awful minions.

1. Tremens. Spend 1 blood, roll dexterity + occult (DC) to have a corpse make a single move. Meh.
2. Apprentice brooms. Make a week zombie that performs a single task. by spending 1 blood, 1 willpower and rolling Wits + Occult (DC 7). Meh.
3. Shambling hordes. Make a horde of zombies. 1 willpower, 1 blood/ corpse, Wits + Occult (DC 8). Meh. I mean you can use them as guard or something but there are better ways to get guards.
4. Soul stealing. Spend 1 willpower, make a contested roll of willpower (DC 6). Kick a soul out of a body for a number of hours equal to the number of successes. Works only on the living. This is situational but neat - you might want to take someone out without killing or damaging them.
5. Put a soul in a body. Neat I guess. You could give a carrot to wrights (but you need a different path to talk to them). Also makes your minions more useful.

Ash path

Seems good, lets you interact with shadowlands directly.

1. Shroud sight. See shadowlands (roll perception + alertness DC 7). Neat.
2. Lifeless tongues. Spend 1 will power, roll perception + occult (DC 6), talk to spirits. Neat.
3. Dead hand. Spend 1 will power, roll wits + occult (DC 7), touch stuff in the shadowlands. Neat.
4. Ex nihilo. Enter the shadowlands. Spend 2 blood, 1 willpower, roll Stamina + Occult (DC 8). Another willpower and stamina + occult (DC 6) roll to return. Might be great, depends on what ST puts in the shadowlands..
5. Shroud mastery. Spend 2 willpower, roll willpower (DC 9). Lower or increase shroud (DC for interactions of ghosts with material world). Effect only lasts hours so I guess it lets you make it easier for your ghostly minions to act (or to cut off unfriendlies).

[ahenobarbi]

Obfuscate

Stealthy, sneaky, subterfuge.

Superb at sneaking. Take it if you need to do that. Neat social utility.

1. Cloak of shadows. They can't see you when you stand still in shadow or with cover. Neat but situational.
2. Unseen presence. They can’t see when you move around. Fantastic sneak.
3. Mask of thousand faces. Roll manipulation + subterfuge (DC 7) and look however you want. Fantastic sneak, great social utility.
4. Vanish from minds eye. Disappear even if someone is looking directly at you. Good way to excuse yourself from unpleasant situations but seems situational.
5. Cloak the gathering. Hide others nearby. Good if you have unsneaky friends that you keep needing to sneak into places.

[ahenobarbi]

Obtonoberation

Shrouded, sinister shadow control.

Good stuff. You get bufs to intimidation, stealth, stamina debufs, area debufs, combat bufs minions, mobility.

1. Shadow play. Spend 1 blood. Shadows can give +1 stealth, +1 DC to ranged attack against you, +1 to intimidation; -1 to stamina for enemies. Nice versatile buf / debuf.
2. Shroud of night. Roll manipulation + occult (DC 7). Area debuf - natural senses don’t work, supernatural operate at penalty, -2 stamina. Mortals panic and flee. Nice area debuf. Also you can see into the darkness so you can attack without penalty.
3. Arms of the abbyss. Spend 1 blood, roll manipulation + occult (DC 7). Summon number of tentacles equal to the number of successes. They attack your enemies. Nice in combat.
4. Black metamorphosis. Spend 2 blood, roll Manipulation + Courage (DC 7). Get +3 intimidation, 4 tentacles, enemies lose 2 stamina when in contact. Nice kombat buff.
5. Tenebrous form. Transform into a shadow. Nice mobility (can flow upwards, go through tiny cracks), defense (only sun and fire hurt you).

[ahenobarbi]

Potence

Each dot is an automatic success on strength rolls. Extra damage in combat (but celerity will add more). Superstrength can be useful sometimes. It helps you in combat, allows you break things (for example to enter locked places). Also it allows you to effectively pump your strength above 10. Which is nice if you want to lift more than 1500 lb (680 kg), throw a truck or something like that.

Note that if you're considering increasing Strength above 2 by spending XP you probably should increase Potence too so that they're roughly equal. (this is similar to Fortitude)

Each dot of Potence adds 1 [b]success[/b[ to stamina rolls so it's worth at least 1 dot of strength. I think it's more valuable than that, because:
- there's more room for you to temporarily increase stamina with blood and
- with more difficult rolls extra success becomes more valuable than extra die.

So I figure 1 dot of Potence is worth about 2 dots of Strength. Experience costs are in the table below. If you consider dot in Potence equal to 1 dot of Strength then Potence should stay a bit behind. If you think it's closer to being worth 2 then it should be a little ahead.



Level
Strength XP cost
Potence XP cost
Potence XP cost halved


1
-
10
5


2
4
7
3.5


3
8
14
7


4
12
21
10.5


5
16
28
14

[ahenobarbi]

Presence

Supernatural charisma.

Great stuff. Fewer limitations than dominate. Better minions for many tasks, some combat utility. Less control than dominate but more flexible. Uses Appearance, Charisma, Empathy, Intimidation. Performance, Subterfuge so also needs a bunch of dots.

Limitations: Anyone can resist for 1 turn by spending willpower and rolling it DC 8; Vampires 3+ generations lower can ignore for a whole scene by just spending, no roll required. Also people can just walk away out of range.

Powers:

1 Awe. Nearby folks like you and find them selves agreeing. Charisma + Performance DC 7; Number of successes determines number of people influenced and how much willpower they must spend to ignore effect entirely (same number as your successes). Convincing multiple people to do what you want is good.

2. Dread gaze. Scare 1 target, reduce dice rolls up to completely denying actions. Charisma + Intimidation (DC Wits + Courage); Combo with Vicissitude 4 (Horrid form, buff physical stats) - replace wits with Strength (which you can buff up to 10 or 15 (with potence)). Good combat debuf. Can be used out of combat on other people you want to paralyze with fear.

3. Entrancement. Make someone a devout servant for hour to a year. Appearance + Empathy (DC permanent willpower); Great stuff. Only problem is you don't know duration.

4. Summon. Make someone you've seen come to you (they feel where to go). Charisma + Subterfuge (DC 4 (successfully used presence before), 5 (default), 7 (virtually stranger), or 8 (resisted presence before)). Great stuff. Why go visit people when you can have them visit you?

5. Majesty. Others can't even be rude to you. Spend willpower; others must roll courage (DC your charisma + intimidation) if they want to be rude (or more). Didn't have opportunity to use. Seems great if multiple enemies attack you, if you are in position to fire it to shut up everyone else etc. Still seems worse than levels 1-4 (didn't get to use it so I might be off).

[ahenobarbi]

Protean
Shape-shifting abilities.

Nice mix of combat buffs, mobility and utility. No rolls needed to use the discipline. Recommended.

1. Eyes of the beast. Glowing eyes let you see in complete darkness (1 turn to activate). Cool but situational, often you could use a flashlight or something. But when you need to be stealthy it’s solid.
2. Feral claws. Strength + 1 aggravated damage, (1 blood, 1 turn). Fantastic combat buff.
3. Earth Meld. Hide in ground until desired time or danger (humanity roll DC6) (1 blood). Situationally good - when you want to hide from someone, when you’re traveling, when it's nice to not worry about finding shelter.
4. Shape of the beast. Change into a bat or a wolf (1 blood, 3 turns; extra blood to do it faster).
- Wolf form is a combat buf. Teeth and claws deal Strength + 1 aggravated damage (like level 2), doubles running speed, perception difficulties reduced by 2. A bit better than level 2.
- Bat form lets fly at 20 mph (32 kmh), lower DC for hearing, strength 1, harder to hit. Flying is cool. Very good if you want to someone to stop tracking you, get somewhere where a bat could get without drawing much attention.
Also you can use most disciplines which is nice.
5. Mist form. Turn into mist - immunity to physical attacks (but supernatural work)(costs 1 blood, 3 turns; can spend more blood to speed up). Sounds cool. One could arrange spaces where others can’t easily get to without using a similar ability, get into well defended places, escape and so on. But I think level 4 gives you a lot of that already.

[ahenobarbi]

Quietus

More ways to kill target than you need. I’d rather just take Protean 2.

1. Silence of death. 20ft (6m) radius sphere of complete silence. Meh
2. Scorpions touch. Spend blood, roll willpower (DC 6). Blood becomes poison, each point does 1 point of stamina damage. Nice combat buff.
3. Dragons call. Touch target, up until 1h later you can spend 1 willpower, make contested stamina roll (DC others permanent willpower). Each excess success is a point of lethal damage. A way to kill. Meh.
4. Baal’s caress. 1 blood converts to 1 attack that deals aggravated damage. Nice combat buff.
5. Taste of death. Spit blood 10ft (3m) per point of strength. Stamina + Athletics (DC 6) to hit. Each blood point deals 2 dice of aggravated damage. Meh.

[ahenobarbi]

Serpentis

Very good combat utility at level 3. Otherwise meh.

1. The eyes of the serpent. Make eye contact, target can’t move. Supernaturals can make DC 9 willpower roll to resist.
2. The tongue of the asp. Aggravated wounds. Good in combat.
3. Skin of adder. Spend 1 blood, 1 willpower. Reduce soak difficulty to 5. Can use stamina to soak aggravated damage. Bite does +1 damage. Reduces appearance. Very good combat ability.
4. The form of the cobra. Turn into a giant snake. Some mobility, poison bite. Seems meh.
5. The heart of darkness. Take your heart out. Can’t be staked but good luck guarding it better than when it’s inside.

[ahenobarbi]

Taumaturgy

Blood magic. Way powerful. Has many paths, each is its own discipline but at a serious discount (7 xp instead of 10 for 1st dot, next dots have 4xp multiplier instead of 5/7 xp). As if that was not enough it has a lot of rituals.

When activating powers spend 1 blood, roll willpower (DC 3 + power level). The difficulty of the roll means lower level powers are often relatively more useful than higher level (DC is 4 for level 1, 8 for level 5).

Path of Blood
Good low level powers: info gathering, buf / provoke rage, temporarily lower generation. Levels 4 and 5 look impressive but seem disappointing in practice so I’d pick it as a secondary path so that I can skip those levels.

1. A taste for blood. Learn amount of blood, time of last feeding, approximate generation, and if subject has ever committed a diablerie. Occasionally useful. Learn a lot about the source of the blood sample. Sometimes you can learn interesting things this way.
2. Blood rage. Target spends the number of blood points equal to your success count, as you decide. This can exceed generational max spending rate. Increases difficulty of rolls to resist rage. This can be a buf (allow someone to spend blood faster) or a debuf (waste blood, send into rage).
3. Blood potency. Lower generation. Each success can extend duration by 1h (starts from 0) or lower by 1 generation (starts from 0 so you need at least 2 successes for some effect). This is a very nice buf. Surprise resist dominate. Dominate vampires who thought were immune to your attempts. Have more blood in storage. Spend less blood buffing your stats high.
4. Theft of vitae. Drink from someone up to 50ft (15m) away. I don’t get it. Doesn’t seem very useful.
5. Cauldron of blood. Touch target. Each success boils 1 point of blood. Insta kills mortals, 1 point of aggravated damage to vampires (and lost blood). Meh. DC 8 means you’re doing like 2 points of damage so it’s not that useful.

The lure of flames
Create damage. Successes give you control over where you place flames. Damage scales from 1/turn, DC 3 to soak to 3/turn, DC 9 to soak). Looks cool but doesn’t seem that great.

Movements of the mind
Telekinesis. Starts with 1lb (0.5kg) up to 1000lb (450 kg). At level 3 you can fly. Great stuff. Utility, mobility. I’d pick as a secondary path so that I can skip levels 4&5.

The path of conjuring
Create stuff from nothing. Great utility. Level 5 seems weak but I’d consider this for a primary path.

1. Summon the simple form. Objects from single material, no moving parts. Each turn you must spend 1 willpower or it will disappear. Because of high cost this level is not that useful.
2. Permanency. 3 blood points and object is permanent. Great utility.
3. Magic of the smith. Create objects with moving parts. Making them permanent costs 5 blood. Great.
4. Reverse conjuration. Destroy objects created with conjuration. Situationally useful. Like block entrance with concrete block(s) then destroy them real quick. Destroy tools you used…
5. Spend 10 blood to create imitation living creatures that can only follow simple commands and last up to 1 week. Doesn’t seem great.

Hands of destruction
Seems weak.

1. Age object at rate 10 years / minute of touch. Ok but generally there are easier ways to destroy objects when you can spend minutes on that. I guess you could fabricate antics or something?
2. Make 50 lb(25kg) per point of blood useless. Seems meh.
3. Turn blood into acid. 1 point can melt through some steel or wood, paying 1 blood per turn your hand to hand damage becomes aggravated. That last one is nice I guess, but protean does it at level 2 and better.
4. Atrophy. Mummify a limb. A good debuf.
5. Turn to dust. Age 10 years / success. Meh.

(there are many other paths; I’m not going to cover them all right now).
(also I’m not covering rituals; there are too many; there’s good stuff there though)

[ahenobarbi]

Vicissitude

Full body transformation.

Good mix of disguise / utility / social buff, combat and mobility.

1. Malleable visage. Change your appearance, height, voice, skin tone,... Fantastic stuff. You can even increase your appearance trait. Roll int + body craft (DC 6), perception + body craft (DC 8) if you want to copy someone else. Spend 1 blood per body part. Helps with Tzmitzsca clan weakness (hide the soil inside you).
2. Fleshcraft. Spend 1 blood per body part, roll Dex + Bodycraft to change soft tissues of someone else. Nice utility.
3. Bonecraft. Similar to level 2 but for bones, rolls use strength, not dex. Also can be used offensively (strength + bodycraft DC 7) - success gives 1 lethal damage; 5 successes can pierce heart and make a vampire loose half its blood (but don’t immobilize)
4. Horrid form. spend 2 blood. Strength, Dexterity, Stamina increase by 3. Social attributes drop to 0, but you can intimidate with strength (nice with Presence 2, you can buff Strength to 10 which is probably higher than your manipulation), +1 damage in brawl. Ok combat buff - get 9 points of physical attributes for 2 blood points.
5. Blood form. Transform bodyparts into blood. Some mobility (you can move through very small openings), some defense (you ignore many kinds of damage) you might use extra blood points in a really tough situation.

[Ignimortis]

As a long-time Physical discipline fan, I'd like to offer my opinion.

Potence is great out of combat, actually, as it enables a lot of options. You have (Potence) autosuccesses on any and all STR rolls, so even with a non-stellar dicepool you can do all sorts of stuff, like jump or climb to second or third floor, punch out locks like a breaching shotgun (or just remove doors at 3+ dots, really), grab people by the throat for enhanced intimidation, lift and carry heavy objects like safes (or people) without any trouble. All of that is useful even if you don't get into combat often. And then you find yourself in a fight and can lay out a regular person with a single punch despite looking like a wimpy high-schooler, or outright put a vampire into Torpor with a switchblade.

Fortitude doesn't have much use (and could really use a buff at what it does, perhaps letting you also soak Agg with Stam = Fort dots, so you'd get double returns earlier on), but it's also the "don't die when you really ought to" discipline. Having even two or three dots can sometimes save you from being instagibbed by those idiotic Feral Claws, and can provide decent protection from being lit on fire.

Meanwhile Celerity is amazing...when you have anything to back it up, like Feral Claws or Potence. If you don't, it's almost useless - yes, you act three or four times per turn, but if every action is made on a human power level (shooting a gun with 6 dice, for instance), you're not getting that much better results unless the dice favour you heavily. It can aid in survivability, however - declare full defense with your regular action, and use your celerity actions to actually do things.

Celerity is the ultimate force multiplier, however - a 3+ Potence/Celerity vampire is an absolute blender that can tear through anything that cannot drop them reliably, and once that goes to 5/5, even experienced supernaturals don't really want to tangle with you, unless they have aggravated damage on demand.

[ahenobarbi]

As a long-time Physical discipline fan, I'd like to offer my opinion.

Potence is great out of combat, actually, as it enables a lot of options. You have (Potence) autosuccesses on any and all STR rolls, so even with a non-stellar dicepool you can do all sorts of stuff, like jump or climb to second or third floor, punch out locks like a breaching shotgun (or just remove doors at 3+ dots, really), grab people by the throat for enhanced intimidation, lift and carry heavy objects like safes (or people) without any trouble. All of that is useful even if you don't get into combat often. And then you find yourself in a fight and can lay out a regular person with a single punch despite looking like a wimpy high-schooler, or outright put a vampire into Torpor with a switchblade.


Thanks for another perspective. The thing that makes potence not so useful is that you can pump your strength:
- You can get it up to 10 by using a lot of blood, for a short time (1 per dot of increase + 1 every 3 turns to keep it up) which is good if you want to do stuff like break 1 door, make a high jump and so on.
- Or you can pump it up to 6[1] for a long time (which helps a lot in hand to hand combat).

Which was good enough for me in the games I played (so far). I figured what potency would let me do was:

- Do some more damage in combat
- Or save some blood when I need to increase strength
- Or go above 10 strength

And those weren't really a concern.



Fortitude doesn't have much use (and could really use a buff at what it does, perhaps letting you also soak Agg with Stam = Fort dots, so you'd get double returns earlier on), but it's also the "don't die when you really ought to" discipline. Having even two or three dots can sometimes save you from being instagibbed by those idiotic Feral Claws, and can provide decent protection from being lit on fire.

Good point. 2 dots of fortitude are relatively cheap and save you from 1.2 damage / attack on average. Which is significant, given you have like 7 health levels.



Meanwhile Celerity is amazing...when you have anything to back it up, like Feral Claws or Potence. If you don't, it's almost useless - yes, you act three or four times per turn, but if every action is made on a human power level (shooting a gun with 6 dice, for instance), you're not getting that much better results unless the dice favour you heavily. It can aid in survivability, however - declare full defense with your regular action, and use your celerity actions to actually do things.

Celerity is the ultimate force multiplier, however - a 3+ Potence/Celerity vampire is an absolute blender that can tear through anything that cannot drop them reliably, and once that goes to 5/5, even experienced supernaturals don't really want to tangle with you, unless they have aggravated damage on demand.

Yes, it's a multiplier so if you're multiplying a decent damage output you're getting to crazy damage output pretty fast. If you're doing 0 damage [2] then multiplying won't do much good.

[1] Higher if you're generation 7 or lower but I think that's not really an option in many games.
[2] If you fire shotgun with 6 dex you do 9.6 damage dice (6 base + 2.6 from extra successes). That does 5.8 bashing damage, that gets rounded down to 2.9 which then can get easily soaked (with 6 stamina average soak is 3.6).

[ahenobarbi]

Also this got me think a bit. Turns out its better to buy potence 1 and 2 instead of strength 3. Similarly fortitude 1 and 2 is probably better than stamina 3.

Because of the XP cost. 1 point of strength is a guaranteed success so it's worth about 1.7 2 plain strength points (you need 1 2/3 dots to get 1 success on average for DC 6)[1]. Fortitude adds just 1 die to stamina rolls but it can soak aggravated damage so I'd say it's worth about 2 stamina. Now XP costs




What
Equivalent ability gain
XP cost


Potence 1
1.7 strength
10


Potence 2
1.7 strength
5 or 7


Strength 3
1 strength
8




(res of the post added in edit)

For disciplines we have


Level
XP cost (clan discipline)
XP cost per equivalent attribute dot (clan discipline)
XP cost (out of clan discipline)
XP cost per equivalent attribute dot (out of clan discipline)


1
10
5
10
5


2
5
2.5
7
3.5


3
10
5
14
7


4
15
7.5
21
10.5


5
20
10
28
14



For Attributes costs are



Level
XP


2
4


3
8


4
12


5
16



So unless if you're buying with XP I guess I'd buy those in order:

* Fortitude / Potence 1
* Fortitude / Potence 2
* Stamina / Strength 2
* Fortitude / Potence 3
* Stamina / Strength 3
* Fortitude / Potence 4
* Stamina / Strength 4
* Fortitude / Potence 5
* Stamina / Strength 5

So Potence is always equal to Strength or higher by 1. And Fortitude is always equal to Stamina or higher by 1. Maybe But Stamina / Strength 2 before discipline Fortitude / Potence 2 because difference there is small and you get to buy attribute significantly faster (and so if you need it it's there).

[1] Text in brackets added later

[ahenobarbi]

I updated descriptions of:

- Celerity (added note that this is a multiplier so you need something to be multiplied),
- Fortitude (added recommendation to advance it together with Stamina if that's a thing you're doing),
- Potence (added note on uses and recommendation to advance together with Strength if that's a thing you're doing).

Again, Ignimortis thanks for the input.

[Ignimortis]

Thanks for another perspective. The thing that makes potence not so useful is that you can pump your strength:
- You can get it up to 10 by using a lot of blood, for a short time (1 per dot of increase + 1 every 3 turns to keep it up) which is good if you want to do stuff like break 1 door, make a high jump and so on.
- Or you can pump it up to 6[1] for a long time (which helps a lot in hand to hand combat).

Which was good enough for me in the games I played (so far). I figured what potency would let me do was:

- Do some more damage in combat
- Or save some blood when I need to increase strength
- Or go above 10 strength

And those weren't really a concern.


Oh, that middle point is rather important in games where I play. Blood isn't very easy to get your hands on, usually, especially if you're already down some health boxes or aren't in a good part of town for hunting. So having Blood Buff+ permanently on is more valuable than in a game where blood is plentiful.

[ahenobarbi]

Access to blood is extremely important so my characters tend to make sure they have it. And backup options. Blood bags and animals aren't delicious but they're way better than starving (and most characters should be able to have those backup options).

But yeah, that depends on the kind of character you're playing.