Disciplines everyone ! Here are the disciplines used in VTM 3rd (or revised) edition :
I'm keeping them simple and clear, as for me, most disciplines don't fail if nothing goes against them (Generation limitation for Dominate or a ritual forbidding disciplines).
AnimalismAnimalism allows a Kindred to interact with animals and beasts of any kind.
* Feral Speech : Speak telepathically with an animal whose eyes you meet. You may ask him a favor (if he feels like it !)
** Beckoning : Summon animals of a particular type, species to you.
*** Song of Serenity : Soothe a creature, making them docile. Mostly used to calm a fellow Kindred's Beast (and avoid a Frenzy), but also to shut down their drive.
**** Subsume the Spirit : Possess the body of an animal and acts through him. The Vampire enters torpor while his spirit is in the animal's body. It's harder to get the animal act against its instincts (Willpower is used).
***** Drawing Out the Beast : When about to frenzy send your Beast into another person, who frenzies instead of you.
AuspexAuspex is an extension of your Perception, up to surnatural levels.
* Heightened Senses : Raise one of your five sense to superhuman levels.
** Aura Perception : By watching someone's aura, you can learn their kind (human, kindred, mage, werewolf...), some qualities (has done Diablery..), and their current state of mind (angry, jealous, happy, innocent, lying...) by the color.
*** The Spirit's Touch : By touching an object, you can feel it's psychic residues, giving you a glance of its previous owner, or the owner who used it the most. Horacio from CSI would LOVE this power
**** Telepathy : Briefly probe someone's mind or project a telepathic message to them
***** Psychic Projection : Free your mind to travel the world in astral form, as your body enters torpor. Careful not to get lost, as a fine frail string is the only tie to your body.
CelerityCelerity is a Dexterity boost.
Celerity is a discipline to gain reflexes, quickness and move faster than a normal person would. It provides additional actions to use in the same turn. The more celerity, the more actions. The Kindred violate any physics law, but it doesn't affect the objects he uses. This means if he throws a knife, the knife will not move faster, and he can't fire multiple gun rounds, as he has to wait for the mecanics to go back in place before pushing the trigger again. But he can give multiple sword strikes
Each dot in Celerity allows you to have one more action in the same turn, but you need to declare you burned a blood point. Celerity is only effective for the next turn. You can have celerity have a longer effect by spending another blood point in this turn, for the next turn, and so on. Burning a blood point doesn't "use" your turn, but it take a turn to activate.
DominateDominate is a Manipulation-based discipline.
To use Dominate, some restrictions are made : first, it only works if you're looking into the eyes of the victim. Second, the victim needs to understand the language of the Kindred, and the Kindred has to be clear (if there's a confusion, a quiproquo, it won't work). Third, it doesn't work on Vampire whose Generation is lower than yours (although equal is ok). And last, Dominate can't force the target into killing himself or act deliberatly against his Nature.
Using Dominate to obtain what you want or make a Gangrel bark in public just for the lulz, in public, is seen as quite rude, heavy-handed and very inappropriate.
* Command : Give a simple order of one or two words that a target must obey right now. Run, scream, sleep, go away, laugh.
** Mesmerize : You can implant false thoughts or hypnotic suggestions in a target's mind. This can make the victim give you a phone call and say a certain sentence if he ever.. sees Lyle Kersten in his PJs, for example.
*** The Forgetful Mind : This allows you to erase or change the memories of the target.
**** Conditioning : Over time make a target a slave to your will only. This power basicly makes a target easier to manipulate for you, and harder to other kindred, and eye contact begins to be not necessary anymore.
***** Posession : Transfer your mind into a mortal body and control their actions. A bit like the Animalism power.
FortitudeFortitude is all about your Stamina.
Fortitude is a bit like Celerity and Potence in how it works. There are no "powers", it's just a physical enhancement. Fortitude is passive, and it allows your character to soak, or at least reduce Aggravated damage, whereas a Kindred without it can only hope to survive and heal it. Of course, Kindred with fortitude can soak normal dammage better than the ones who don't have it, but the higher the stamina, the better.
ObfuscateThe direct opposite of Auspex, Obfuscate is based on fucking with people's perception and loling about it. Obfuscate does not give you invisibility, and if a picture is taken where you are, you will appear on the picture, as much as on a video camera. The people DO see the Nosferatu, they just don't register him, it doesn't print in their minds, it was
another tree.
* Cloak of Shadows : Remain hidden so long as you do not move, while using a little bit of your environment as a base (a piece of wood fence is enough, you'll magicly be "as thin as the post" and remain "hidden" under it)
** Unseen Presence : Become invisible to others so long as you do not attract attention, you may move slowly. If there are many people moving, if you do not move, people will "avoid you" and not walk on your feet.
*** Mask of a Thousand Faces : Change your appearance to mimic someone else, or create a new identity (this one is harder). Nossies use this power to make themselves "me, but better looking" (still very ugly, but at least not surnatural-ugly).
**** Vanish from the Mind's Eye : Disappear right from in front of someone, even in conversation. The person will just forget about what was going on, as they were just day dreaming.
***** Cloak the Gathering : Extend your Obfuscate powers to others. Yep, all of the above, up to 5 people, if they are all in contact (like, holding hands or what not).
PotenceAlright, the last very physical, innate "natural" discipline ! Potence duplicates your strenght. It's half passive, as you may chose either to use it or not to use it.
It basicly adds success to any strenght-based action (mostly a fist in your face).
PresencePresence is an extend of Charisma, either to be loved or feared.
* Awe : Make your words seem interesting and reasonable to those who hear you, to make heads turn when you pass, to be the only one glowing, to be noticed.
** Dread Gaze : Frighten someone with eye contact. The target may run in fear, stand there without being able to act, or laugh with his nerves, depending on the Nature of the Target.
*** Entrancement: Make someone obsessively want to please you, to be by your side, to approuve whatever you say.
**** Summon : Compel someone, anyone you know to come to you immediately, without being conscious of it.
***** Majesty : Appear as a figure of absolute power and authority, bows, obey, respect, and admire.
Clan specific disciplinesThere are many clan specific disciplines, as authors of the WoD wanted to give something more special to their little clan and experience, which had lead to a Fae-Lasombra mix (don't ask). Apart from Protean, which is kind of a Garou discipline (transforming into an animal) and Thaumaturgy, which is a Mage/Ars Magica based discipline, we can bump into serious strange disciplines, mostly to give a "system" twist to some clans. Why give Dementation to Malkavian, when Malkavian can fuck around people's mind with Dominate just as well ? Why give Chimestry to the Ravnos, as it's only an extention of Obfuscate and Presence ? What's the problem with Obtenebration with the Lasombra, which are just the "Evil Ventrue" ? What the hell is Daimonion, when Baali can just corrupt by any other way ? What the fuck are those African bloodlines disciplines, I mean, why ?
I'll only explain to you guys Dementation, Thaumaturgy, and Protean, but if you want to read some more, Here's a white wolf wiki link.
DementationDementation needs eye contact and a commun language. Some books say the Generation limits the power, as for dominate, but some books don't mention it. However, no book say "Dementation CAN apply to lower generations". As a GM, I consider Dementation as a Dominate +.
* Passion : Amplify or dull some or all emotions present in the targer, increasing the difficulty of frenzy, Virtue, and other rolls.
** The Haunting : You give hallucinations to a target for a certain time, in which he'll seem to see something, to hear something behind him, but nothing's there, which causes the victim to kind of lose it. The Malkavian can only chose what sens is affected, but he doesn't control the content of the hallucination itself.
*** Eyes of Chaos : Gain insight into the nature of something through seemingly random patterns. A Malkavian with Eyes of the Chaos wins the lottery, chooses the right machine in a Casino, and can change the channel of his TV without EVER landing on advertising.
**** Confusion: The victim of this power feels disoriented, out of his place, not being able to perform a single coherent action, during either a couple of turns or all night, according to the Malkavian power, his Willpower, and if he wants a shorter effect, but also according to the Target's willpower, and his nature.
*****- Total Insanity : Give someone five temporary derangements.
ProteanThe Metarmophosis discipline, this discipline gave the image of the Vampire transforming in a bat or a wolf. This discipline is a huge Blood consumer, and the transformations take more time (a couple of minutes) as the power are more advanced.
* Eyes of the Beast : A Gangrel gets very red, bright eyes that allow him to see in complete, true dark (Auspex can enhance your vision, but you still need a little bit of light, like cats)
** Feral Claws : the Gangrel controlss the beast withing him enough to allow him to grow claws that do aggravated dammage
*** Earth Meld : A Gangrel uysing this power can blend himself into the Earth, where he can rest and go through the day. This only works where there is earth (woods, parks, a garden).
**** Shape of the Beast : The Gangrel transforms into either a 4 legged predator (a wolf, a big feline..) or a flying pretador (a crow, a bat..).
***** Mist Form : Transform into a cloud of mist, allowing the Gangrel to go through fences, pipes.. and become immaterial.
Thaumaturgy.. holysweetmotherofsatan, Traumaturgy, the discipline that traumatizes you !
Thaumaturgy is a discipline that is studied with books, and in involves soooo much stuff. I mean, it's all Magical Spheres from the whole MAGE game adapted into one discipline alone.
Thaumaturgy involves many paths, and the one that's more known, more studied and more basic is the Path of Blood (which is basicly what you see in Bloodlines). There are paths for about everything you can imagine, it's a mess, a huge bloody, watery, firey, and technological MESS. And I won't even mention rituals, which involve hunting and eating spiders to be able to walk on the walls, turning around yourself with a mirror in your hands to find someone, and make your hair grow. There's also this ritual about cutting your own hand and eye, to have it wander around and help you out.. creepy.
For the very basics, here's the Blood Path :
* A taste of blood : By merely tasting the blood of his subject, the thaumaturge may determine how much vitae remains in the subject and, if the subject is a vampire, how recently he has fed, his approximate generation and, with some practice, whether he has recently committed diablerie.
** Blood rage : This power allows a vampire to force another Kindred to expend blood against his will, just by touching him. The victim has to spend blood points (healing, blood buff, activating disciplines, or just losing the blood through bloody sweat and tears).
*** Blood potency : This power is a huge Generation breaker. With his own Willpower, the Tremere lowers his Generation by concentrating hiw own vitae. This helps him dominate a Kindred who is usually lower generation than he is, be able to "contain" more vitae in his body (if he feeds after), and of course, resist Dominate from a fellow Kindred. The effect is temporary, and under this power, if the Tremere sires, he still sires according to his real generation.
**** Thieft of Vitae : That's Bloodlines blood strike, but instead of sending the victim your own blood, you make his blood come to you like a siphon or a torrent of blood floating, either to feed (no mouth needed, it's mystical) or to store. The victim needs to be at sight range, and if used in public, this is a huge masquerade violation. Discretion man...
***** Cauldron of Blood : that's some nasty power. You make anyone's blood boil just by touching the victim, which kills any mortal and harms badly any surnatural creature.
Or are they all lineage of said Elder? Go tell Strauss he is in fact Tzimisce... I would like to see his reaction... From safe distance.
