Although all vampires have an unnatural constitution that make them much sturdier than mortals, Fortitude bestows a resilience that would make an action movie hero envious. Vampires with this Discipline can shrug off agonizing trauma and make the most bone-shattering impact look like a flesh wound. The power even offers protection against the traditional banes of vampires, such as sunlight and fire, and the Gangrel, Ravnos, and Ventrue all find that edge incredibly useful.
System: A character’s rating in Fortitude adds to zir Stamina for the purposes of soaking normal damage (Bashing and Lethal). A character with this Discipline may also use their dots in Fortitude to soak Aggravated damage, though Kindred cannot normally soak things like vampire bites, werewolf claws, magical effects, fire, sunlight, or massive physical trauma.
Elder vampires progress in Fortitude in the same way as Celerity. They can increase their basic mastery of the Discipline or take an alternate power such as one of those detailed below.
Source: V20 Anarchs Unbound
Derisively named after a tough-as-hell Baron, Alabastard allows the Kindred to ignore wound penalties for any injuries ze suffers. At any point after the vampire activates this power, ze suffers no dice pool penalties nor movement penalties that come as a result of suffering damage. In certain cases, the Storyteller may choose to impose logical situational penalties: A Kindred who has been cut in half should probably have some difficulty moving.
System: This power costs 1 blood point to activate, and remains in effect for the duration of the scene.
Source: V20 Lore of the Clans (Ventrue)
An unusual application of Fortitude, this power allows a vampire who has been successfully staked to slowly restructure zir very heart around the offending stake so that it ceases to paralyze zir.
System: The player spends a Willpower point and rolls Stamina + Survival (Difficulty 9). The number of successes determines how quickly the stake can be negated, according to the chart below. Each use of this power affects a single stake. On a failed roll, the player can spend another Willpower and roll again, but ze cannot combine successes from multiple rolls. Only the roll with the most successes applies. On a botch, the vampire may not attempt to neutralize the stake again.
| Successes | Time Until the Stake is Neutralized |
|---|---|
| 1 | 1 month |
| 2 | 1 week |
| 3+ | Immediate |
The power only removes the stake from the heart, not from the body. It will remain trapped in the vampire’s dead flesh until removed, a process that causes 2 health levels of Aggravated damage.
Source: V20 Core
Nobody likes to get hit, not even Cainites. The easiest way to ensure that one is not hit (or shot, or stabbed) repeatedly is to take the weapon with which one is assaulted away from one’s attacker and break it. That’s where Personal Armor comes in. This application of Fortitude, derived from one popular in the 12th century, causes anything that strikes a Kindred who employs Personal Armor to shatter on impact.
System: With the expenditure of 2 blood points, a vampire can add preternatural hardness to zir flesh. Every time an attack is made on the Kindred using Personal Armor (one which ze fails to dodge), zir player rolls Fortitude (Difficulty 8). If the roll grants more successes than the attacker rolled, then the weapon used to make the attack shatters against the vampire’s flesh. (“Magical” weapons may be resistant to this effect, at the Storyteller’s discretion.) The vampire still takes normal damage if the attack is successful, even if the weapon shatters in the process, though this damage may be soaked. If the attack roll botches, any normal weapon automatically shatters.
A hand-to-hand attack causes the attacker equal damage to that suffered by the defender when Personal Armor comes into play. If the attacker misses entirely, xe still takes 1 level of Bashing damage.
The effects of this power last for the duration of the scene.
Source: V3/Revised Clanbook Gangrel
A Gangrel using this power supernaturally hardens zir senses against injurious input. The vampire cannot be blinded by spotlights or sudden bursts of radiance, or deafened by explosions or gunfire; even zir capacity to withstand pain is improved. Zir eyes, ears, nose, and open wounds glow with an eerie light while this power is active.
System: Spending 2 blood points activates this power for a scene. Mundane sources of overwhelming sensory input, such as searchlights, muzzle flash or pepper spray have no effect, even if sensory-enhancing powers like Heightened Senses are in use. The effects of supernatural sensory attacks or unusual circumstances (like being at ground zero for a massive explosion) may be soaked with the vampire’s Fortitude dice, with each success reducing the effect or duration of the sensory damage, or negating it all together. In addition, the Gangrel’s wound penalties are reduced by 2; ze feels no pain whatsoever until ze reaches the Crippled level, when ze runs into only a 3 dice penalty. At the end of the scene, wound penalties for all accumulated damage are applied as normal.
The phosphorescent glow streaming from the vampire’s orifices and wounds is nearly impossible to hide, and inflicts a 2 dice penalty on social interactions with mortals (other than Intimidation).
Source: V3/Revised Dark Ages Players Guide to the High Clans
With this power, a vampire may plant zir feet solidly on the ground and ensure that ze cannot be moved by anything weaker than zirself. Even being hit by a moving vehicle or pounced upon by an enraged Lupine will not move or knock down the user. This power was first made well-known by the Ventrue knight Johann Kriegsmeister, a warrior in the service of Lord Jürgen, who often found himself carried away from his coterie by the ebb and flow of battle.
System: In order to use this power, the character must be on relatively stable ground — a solid plank floor, a tamped earth basement or even the forest floor is acceptable; a crumbling castle parapet or a soggy marsh is not. The player spends a blood point. Until the user decides to end this power, ze is almost impossible to move by normal means. In any roll to avoid being moved or knocked down, the player gains a number of automatic successes equal to the character’s Fortitude rating.
Source: V3/Revised Clanbook Gangrel
At this level of accomplishment, the Gangrel extends zir preternatural resistance to the very depths of zir personality. Upon acquiring this power, the vampire may suddenly shed centuries of paranoia, tics, quirks and other perturbations that have accumulated in the cobwebby recesses of zir brain. Additionally, it becomes more difficult to use mental Disciplines against the vampire. Unfortunately, this mental stability comes at a cost to the Gangrel; upon learning this power; the vampire must acquire physical animal flaws during frenzy exclusively.
System: Upon learning this power, the Gangrel makes a Willpower roll (Difficulty 7). For each success, the vampire may choose to eliminate 1 Derangement or 2 animal behavior flaws (any Social Attribute points lost due in whole or part to those flaws remain lost). This effect of the power occurs only once and is immediate.
The vampire permanently gains 3 extra dice to resist the effects of any mind-altering Discipline or magic. This bonus does not apply to Presence or other Disciplines that affect the emotions.
Finally, if the vampire gains a Derangement for any reason after learning this power, the player may immediately make a Willpower roll (Difficulty 6). If ze achieves 3 successes, the Derangement persists through the night and the following day, but is sloughed off as the vampire rises with the sunset. Willpower may not be spent on this roll.
Source: V20 Core
It’s one thing to laugh off bullets, rather another to watch the ricochets mow down everyone around you. Many Kindred have wished, at one time or another, that they could lend their monstrous vitality to those around them. Those few vampires who have mastered Shared Strength can — if only for a little while.
System: Shared Strength duplicates a portion of a vampire’s Fortitude (1 dot for every point of blood the vampire spends) to another being. Activating the power requires a Stamina + Survival roll (Difficulty 8, increased to 9 if the target is not a normal mortal), and the expenditure of a point of Willpower. Furthermore, the vampire must mark zir target by pressing a drop of zir blood onto the target’s forehead. This stain remains visible as long as the power is in effect, the duration of which is determined by the initial roll.
| Successes | Result |
|---|---|
| 1 | 1 turn |
| 2 | 1 scene |
| 3 | 1 hour |
| 4 | 1 night |
| 5 | 1 week |
| 6 | 1 month |
| 7 | 1 year |
The target of this power need not be willing to accept the benefit to receive it, and the bestowing vampire can end the effect at any time for no cost. Particularly sadistic Kindred have come up with any number of ways in which a target’s “devil’s mark” and supernatural endurance can be used to land xem in a great deal of trouble.
A vampire can never bestow more levels of Fortitude they possess.
Source: V20 Core
Adamantine functions as a more potent version of Personal Armor.
System: This power mimics the effects of Personal Armor, save that the vampire who uses it takes no damage from attacks that shatter on zir skin.
Source: V3/Revised Clanbook Gangrel
The most formidable opponents are not only hard to hurt, they are also hard to even touch. This power combines some of the effects of the Personal Armor power with an aura of resistance that impedes attackers, making it trivially easy for the Gangrel to block the incoming attacks of numerous opponents.
System: The Gangrel spends 3 blood points to activate this power, which lasts for a scene. The vampire does not gain the benefits of this power when ze actively attacks. Instead, the vampire must block or dodge all incoming attacks, and may use zir full dice pool against each attack. Every time an attack is made with a weapon against the Gangrel, zir player rolls Fortitude (Difficulty 6) in addition to the Dexterity + Brawl roll to block. If the Fortitude roll grants more successes than the attacker rolled, the weapon used in the attack shatters on contact with the vampire (mystically imbued weapons may be resistant to this effect at the Storyteller’s discretion). If the roll to block succeeds, the vampire suffers no damage from the attack (if the block fails, the vampire may soak the damage normally, using Fortitude).
Hand-to-hand attacks may also be blocked. Successful hand-to-hand attacks inflict the attacker’s damage on both the attacker and the vampire using this power. Blocked hand-to-hand attacks inflict the attacker’s damage only on xemself. In both cases, the damage may be soaked normally. Additionally, the defending vampire does not suffer the standard multiple-attacker penalty, no matter how many assailants ze faces.