Potence
Description:
There is a popular saying among the members of Clan Brujah: “You only underestimate our strength once.” Potence is vitaefueled strength above and beyond other vampires’ capabilities. More powerful than any performance- enhancing drug, more unnatural than the physique of any bulging bodybuilder, Potence is the Beast let loose through the fists, feet, limbs, and raw bodily power of a vampire. The Discipline is used for more than just hitting things, though it is c ertainly good for this task. It is the vampire’s ability to force their body into actions impossible for mortals to replicate.
Potence trumps the other Disciplines in sheer incongruity – an elderly-looking Nosferatu strikes harder than a mortal heavyweight boxer or a Brujah Embraced as a child can decapitate a target with one blow.
Characteristics:
Type
Physical
Masquerade threat
Medium to high.
Lesser exercises of the Discipline might be passed off as “hysterical strength,” but once pavement cracks and buildings start to crumble that explanation loses what little credibility it had.
Blood Resonance
Choleric.
The strong and healthy; athletes and young men and women in their prime, gym rats, wrestlers, construction workers and lumberjacks, longshoremen.
Powers - Level 1:
| Name & Requirements | Description & Cost | Dice Pools | System | Duration |
| Vampire the Masquerade: Core Rulebook |
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| Lethal Body | Using this power, the user is capable of causing horrendous damage to mortals, tearing skin and breaking bones with bare fingers. Cost: Free |
N/A | The user’s unarmed attacks can now do Aggravated Health damage to mortals, if desired. They also ignore one level of armor per Potence level of the user. | Passive |
| Soaring Leap | Possessing unholy strength in more than arms and fists, the user can leap far higher and further than any mortal. Cost: Free |
N/A | The user can jump a number of meters equal to three times their Potence level vertically, and five times their Potence level horizontally. The user needs no run-up to make these leaps. | Passive |
Powers - Level 2:
| Name & Requirements | Description & Cost | Dice Pools | System | Duration |
| Vampire the Masquerade: Core Rulebook | ||||
| Prowess | Vampires with Potence gain far greater strength from their Blood than those who lack it. Cost: One Rouse Check |
N/A | When activated, add the Potence rating of the user to their unarmed damage value as well as to feats of Strength, and add half their Potence rating (round up) to their Melee damage. | One Scene |
Powers - Level 3:
| Name & Requirements | Description & Cost | Dice Pools | System | Duration |
| Vampire the Masquerade: Core Rulebook | ||||
| Brutal Feed | Known as the “Savage Kiss”, this power allows the user to employ an unholy inner strength when draining a victim. In mere seconds, the attacker swallows torrents of blood while mauling the victim. The result is an efficient, if messy, feeding often employed in the heat of battle where the mangled remains of the victim can be disguised. Cost: Free |
N/A | The vampire can drain a human completely in seconds, usually within a single turn. Every point of Hunger slaked causes one point of Aggravated Health damage to the victim, as their blood vessels burst and organs bruise and rupture internally. Using Brutal Feed on a vampire does only Superficial Health damage to their dead and inert organs. In combat, Brutal Feed comes immediately after a successful Brawl attack using fangs. The victim first takes bite damage, followed by a number of automatically successful feeding actions up to the user’s Potence rating. Against vampires, the number of feeding actions is halved (round down). Armor does not protect against Brutal Feed, as the wounds are, or at least begin as, mainly internal. Of course, armor can protect against the bite itsef as normal. Storytellers may decide such mutilation-killing warrants Stains (p. 239). |
One Feeding |
| Spark of Rage Requires: Presence 3 |
Combining Potence and Presence, the vampire can incite anger and even frenzy in onlookers, as easily as awe or dread. The user must take care not to rile up an angry mob to turn on them rather than the target or each other. Cost: One Rouse Check |
Manipulation + Potence |
When active, the user can add their Potence rating to any attempt to rile or incite a person or a crowd to violence. In addition, the user can activate this power and roll a contest of Manipulation + Potence vs Composure + Intelligence of another vampire. If they win, the opposing vampire must make a fury frenzy test at Difficulty 3. | One Scene |
| Uncanny Grip | Focusing their unnatural strength into their toes and fingers, the vampire grips and burrows their extremities into almost any surface, enabling them to climb and even hang otherwise unsupported from walls and ceilings. Close observation reveals telltale scarring or deformation on these surfaces afterward, however, as this is an application of brute force, not superhero-style adhesion. Cost: One Rouse Check |
N/A | A vampire using this power automatically succeeds on any Skill test to climb a non-metallic surface. The user might also be able to climb copper or bronze cladding or other softer metal surfaces, at the Storyteller’s discretion. Thin glass surfaces (though generally not the glass curtain walls of modern office buildings) may shatter under the stress. In the same way, a vampire can hang from a wall or ceiling for up to one scene, though only barefoot vampires can hang by their feet. The climb or clinging leaves obvious tracks detectable by anyone with an Intelligence + Investigation test at Difficulty 2. Detecting Uncanny Grip tracks on glass doesn’t even require a roll. |
One Scene |
Powers - Level 4:
| Name & Requirements | Description & Cost | Dice Pools | System | Duration |
| Vampire the Masquerade: Core Rulebook | ||||
| Draught of Might | The Blood of the vampire becomes saturated with the power of Potence, conveying a part of that power to anyone who drinks of it. This is the Potence equivalent of Draught of Elegance (p. 254). Cost: One Rouse Check |
N/A | Drinking a Rouse Checks worth of Blood directly from the user gifts the drinker with temporary Potence equal to half the Potence dots (rounded down) of the donor. The drinker gains the same powers as the donor’s, up to that level. | One night; for vampires, until the next feeding or the vampire reaches Hunger 5 |
Powers - Level 5:
| Name & Requirements | Description & Cost | Dice Pools | System | Duration |
| Vampire the Masquerade: Core Rulebook | ||||
| Earthshock | Their strength an elemental force, the vampire can slam their fist or foot into the ground, creating a shockwave that throws their opponents prone. One of the more dramatic applications of Potence, this power needs to be carefully employed, lest the user literally bring the house down upon themselves. Cost: Two Rouse Check's |
N/A | No additional test is needed to create the shockwave. (The ground is hard to miss.) Anyone within a fivemeter radius of the user must make a Dexterity + Athletics roll (Difficulty 3), with the results below. Anyone prepared for the Earthshock (such as the user’s companions) can shift their results up by one step.
|
One Use |
| Fist of Caine | The vampire’s bare hands can inflict grievous injuries, lethal to both mortals and other vampires. They can dismember, pierce, impale, decapitate, and even rip a heart out of the chest. Cost: One Rouse Check |
N/A | For one scene the user can inflict Aggravated Health damage to mortals and supernaturals alike while Brawling, as they literally rend flesh and tear their opponents limb from limb with their bare hands. | One Scene |