Fortitude

Much prized by immortals, Fortitude grants the ability to resist physical and mental assault. Few vampires survive longer than a century without at least a mote of Fortitude, especially in a world where violence is common and not even Kindred are safe. In these nights, fewer vampires use Fortitude to resist the sun than they do to withstand violent harm, fire, and supernatural coercion. Those possessing Fortitude exemplify the stolid pillars of Kindred society, able to withstand blows and charms without movement or sign of dilapidation. Few vampires feel as secure in their immortality as do elder Blue Bloods and Ferals.

Clans: Gangrel, Hecata, Salubri, Ventrue

Characteristics

Type: Physical

Masquerade threat: Medium. Eyewitnesses undoubtedly react upon someone taking a terminal beating or a hail of bullets and getting back up seemingly unhurt. Favorite cover-up explanations include erroneous recollection in the excitement (the bullets only seemed to hit), special effects (YouTube prank), or the triedand- tested “must have been on PCP” rationale.

Blood Resonance: Melancholic. Survivors of war, abuse, or misfortune; endurance runners; mountain climbers; infantry and special forces; those with very powerful immune systems.

Level 1

Resilience

Endowed with supernatural endurance, the user can strengthen their physical resolve.

Cost: Free

System: The user adds their Fortitude rating to their Health track.

Duration: Passive

Unswayable mind

The user gains a mystical ability to resist any attempts to sway them through mundane charms, coercion, and wiles. Some exhibit Unswayable Mind as zen-like calm, others as supernatural stubbornness

Cost: Free

System: The user adds their dots in Fortitude as extra dice in any roll made to resist coercion, intimidation, seduction, or any other attempt to sway the user’s mind against their will. This power also works against supernatural abilities such as Dominate and Presence.

Duration: Passive

Level 2

Toughness

All vampires with this power exhibit an innate ability to ignore damage that would otherwise inconvenience and even disable others of their kind. While this power alone gives no protection against banes and other aggravated damage, the protection it confers adds up in the long run.

Cost: One Rouse check

System: Subtract the Fortitude of the defender from all Superficial damage sustained. This occurs before halving the damage, and cannot reduce the damage below one.

Duration: One scene

Enduring beasts

Amagalm: Animalism 1

The user shares a small portion of their unnatural toughness with the animals they influence. Teeming swarms and great beasts alike exhibit a resistance to fleeting injuries almost equal to the vampire themself.

Dice Pools: Stamina + Animalism

Cost: Free (for famulus);
One Rouse Check (for other animals)

System: The vampire can choose to extend some of their Fortitude powers to animals affected by their Animalism.
Any animal thus imbued gains additional Health levels equal to the Fortitude dots of the vampire. Using this power on their famulus is free and automatic. To imbue other animals besides their famulus, the user must make a Rouse Check and roll a test of Stamina + Animalism (Difficulty 3). The user can fortify one animal per point of margin. When the effect ends, remove unmarked Health first; this may result in the animal expiring.

Duration: One Scene

Earth's Perseverance

A vampire with this power is almost impossible to move when it is active. The vampire draws upon the strength of the earth, grounding themselves and drawing upon its permanence to keep them rooted in place.

Cost: One Rouse check

System: When this power is activated, the only way the vampire moves is if they choose to do so independently. This doesn’t make them resistant to damage, and a vampire can still be crushed, ripped apart, or torn to shreds, as can the floor they’re standing on.

Duration: One scene or until lapsed by user

Invigorating Vitae

Amagalm: Auspex 1

The vampire is able to strengthen their Blood’s capacity to knit mortal flesh and heal ailments. Living beings that partake of their vitae recover their health at surprising speed.

Cost: None beyond Rouse Checks for giving Blood

System: Using vitae to heal the living (see p. 139) heals three levels of Aggravated Damage per Rouse Check rather than just one. Other effects (becoming a ghoul, risking Blood Bond) remain unchanged.

Duration: Passive

Valeren (Salubri)

Amagalm: Auspex 1

The vampire projects their Fortitude outwardly, willing the power of their Blood to mend the injured body of another vampire.

Dice Pools: Intelligence + Fortitude

Cost: One Rouse Check and additional Health depending on circumstances

System: The vampire rolls Intelligence + Fortitude against Difficulty 2 and mends a number of superficial Health damage levels equal to the margin on the roll. Alternatively, the user mends one aggravated Health damage level for every three successes in the margin.
Use of this power takes a whole turn. If the vampire spends an entire scene instead, reduce the Difficulty to 0. Valeren must be used on someone other than the vampire invoking the power, and can be used only on vampires. A subject can be affected by the power only once per night.
If the user mends more than one subject per night, the user suffers superficial Health damage equal to half the number of successes in the margin for every additional subject, as they take on the burden of so many charges.

Duration: N/A

Level 3

Defy bane

By preparing themselves with an expenditure of power, the vampire can make themselves temporarily resistant to fire and sunlight as well as other grievous wounds that would threaten them with Final Death.

Dice Pools: Wits + Survival

Cost: One Rouse Check

System: The user can convert a number of Aggravated damage equal to their Fortitude rating to Superficial damage when sustained. They may not heal that Superficial damage for the rest of the scene. This power converts a number of damage per scene, not per wound or per attack.
The user can renew this power once expired by making another Rouse Check. If endangered unexpectedly, the user can activate this power reflexively with a Wits + Survival roll (Difficulty 3) upon receiving Aggravated damage. If the user fails the test, the power does not activate; if they win the test, they must make a Rouse Check to pay for the power.

Duration: One scene or until expired, whichever comes first

Fortify the inner facade

Instead of hardening the vampire’s physical frame, this power allows the user to protect their thoughts and emotions from supernatural prying. Their mind appears completely blank while their aura is, for lack of better words, flat.

Cost: Free

System: Increases the Difficulty of using Scry Soul (Auspex 3), Telepathy (Auspex 5), and similar powers on the user by half their Fortitude rating (round up).
If the rules allow the user to resist these powers, they add their Fortitude rating to their dice pool instead.

Duration: Passive

Level 4

Draught of endurance

The Blood of the vampire becomes saturated with the power of Fortitude, conveying a part of that power to anyone who drinks of it. This is the Fortitude equivalent of Draught of Elegance (p. 254).

Cost: One Rouse Check

System: Drinking a Rouse Check's worth of Blood directly from the user gifts the drinker with temporary Fortitude equal to half the Fortitude dots (rounded down) of the donor. The drinker gains the same powers as the donor’s, up to that level.

Duration: One night; for vampires, until the next feeding or the vampire reaches Hunger 5

Shatter

Prerequisite: Toughness

When a fist hits concrete, it’s usually the fist that breaks. So it is with this power, where a vampire turns a blow against the one delivering it. This power has been known to break weapons and shatter bones.

Dice Pools: Stamina + Fortitude

Cost: One Rouse Check

System: Anyone who makes a successful Brawl attack against the user suffers the damage which Toughness subtracts (see Vampire: The Masquerade p. 258) as Superficial Health damage. Melee weapons also suffer reflected damage, and break once they endure their damage modifier’s worth (unless it is holy, magical, or otherwise unbreakable). This power may only be used while Toughness is active, and can be used in response to an attack so long as the vampire has yet to use a Discipline during the current turn.

Duration: One scene (or until hit)

Gorgon's Scales

The Resonance of the blood in the vampire’s system grants them various defenses against the powers of other Kindred, or protects them from common vampire weaknesses. Finding the right vessel to respond to an immediate defensive requirement is not always easy, but especially callous vampires have been known to keep vessels with different Resonances in ready supply, using elaborate manipulative schemes or plain drugs to keep their emotions vivid and ready to tap.

Cost: One Rouse Check

System: On activation the vampire gains a set of immunities or resistances dependent on the Resonance of the blood they most recently fed upon.

Choleric: A stake driven through the vampire’s heart is consumed with decay or turns to ash at the end of the scene, immediately freeing the vampire from paralysis. The Resonance is then lost.

Melancholy: Aggravated Health damage caused by fire is reduced to Superficial. The Resonance is lost after reducing four levels of damage.

Phlegmatic: The vampire gains a four-dice bonus to resist Auspex powers that would reveal anything about them or what they know. Once the power is activated it lasts for a scene, at which point the Resonance is lost.

Sanguine: Aggravated Health damage caused by sunlight is reduced to Superficial. The Resonance is lost after reducing four levels of damage.

Duration: Until the scene ends or the Resonance is lost, whichever comes first.

Level 5

Flesh of marble

The power of the Blood causes the skin of the vampire to harden, taking on a marble-like sheen that is still supple but stops almost any blow before momentarily breaking and reforming. A vampire using this power is almost impossible to destroy outright, barring a lucky blow or physical restraint.

Cost: Two Rouse Checks

System: With this power active, the vampire ignores the first source of physical damage each turn, including fire but not sunlight. If confusion arises about which source is “first,” the Storyteller either decides based on the narrative, or the vampire ignores the most damaging single source that turn. A critical win on an attack roll bypasses this power.

Duration: One scene

Prowess from pain

Injuries and impairments now only fuel the powers of the vampire, who grows stronger and faster from each blow, rend, or tear received. Only utter destruction can stop one who calls upon this Fortitude power.

Cost: One Rouse Check

System: Upon activating the power the vampire no longer suffers any dice penalties from Health damage sustained, such as physical Impairment. Additionally, they can increase one Physical Attribute by one dot (derived stats are unaffected) for each level of damage on their Health track, aggravated or superficial. The user’s Attributes cannot exceed a value equal to their Blood Surge + 6 through this ability.

Duration: One scene

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