Blood Potency and Bane Severity

Blood Potency describes the degree of power vampiric Vitae bestows upon a character. Vampire characters begin their Requiem at Blood Potency 1, and may increase it through age, experience and diablerie.

As Blood Potency increases, so does the relative difficulty of a vampire’s Requiem. Namely, their feeding becomes more difficult. At the Embrace, they can feed from anything with blood, including animals. Once they reach the third dot of Blood Potency, animals no longer sustain them. At six dots of Blood Potency, they can only gain nourishment from the blood of the unnatural, usually meaning other vampires. It also makes rising in the evening more difficult.

For every twenty-five years a vampire spends in torpor, they lose a dot of Blood Potency. Many elders fall into voluntary slumber in order to ease their feeding restrictions.

The base value of Blood Potency is equal to the Kindred Generation Trait, also it cannot be lowered below the Generation level regardless of its time in Torpor.

Diablery also may increase the Kindred Blood Potency, when Diablery happens a dice pool equal to the victim Blood Potency rating minus the Kindred own Blood Potency value will be rolled difficulty 6. Each success will increase the Diablerist Blood Potency by 1 to a minimum of One, if at least one die was rolled. Botching this roll means the Soul of the Victim roams the Kindred psyque causing havoc, implying a suitable flaw of the storyteller's choice and possible Possession.

Blood Potency also increases with Experience although it doesn't need to be purchase as a normal trait. Instead depending on the Experience the character has spent in his character sheet a Bonus to its Blood Potency will be given according to the following table:



Depending on the character blood potency certain benefits and drawbacks are modified, as explained in the following table:

Potency	Max Blood	Blood Per Turn	Max Discipline Level	Max Physical Boost	Sunlight Damage Dice Per Turn	Feeding Requirements
1	11	1	1	5	1	Animal
2	12	1	2	5	2	Animal
3	13	2	3	6	3	Human
4	14	2	4	6	4	Human
5	15	3	5	7	5	Human
6	20	3	6	7	6	Human
7	25	5	7	8	7	Human
8	30	10	8	10	8	Vampire
9	40	15	9	10	9	Vampire
10	50	20	10	10	10	Vampire

Clan Curse: Remnants of your sire’s Blood still flows through your veins, carrying traces of their ancient curse. You inherit a Clan Bane to suffer from, counting your Bane Severity depending on your Blood Potency as explained below.

V5 Included a new feature called Clan Bane instead of the Clan Curse stated in the Book of Nod (VTM). The main difference is that Banes scale depending on their severity, therefore two individuals Kindreds of the same Clan may be affected differently depending on the severity of their Banes.

I think this is an awesome feature that I'd like to include in the game and of course I'd like your opinion on the matter before I make a poll to decide to incorporate it or not.

The rule I'm intending goes a little like this:

The Bane Severity trait will have an usual rating from one to ten levels. That will be determined depending on their Generation, the lower the generation higher the Severity of their Bane and also of their Road to Enlightenment rating, lowering their Bane Severity as they progress in their selected Path.

The Bane will substitute the Curse for each Clan, each Bane will have the same concept but also a different mechanic that will allow milder or more harsh effects on the character depending on the severity. For example:

Brujah - The Brujah's Compulsion is that the vampire takes a stand against whatever or whomever they see as the status quo in the situation, whether that is their leader, a viewpoint expressed by a potential vessel, or just the task they were supposed to do at the moment. Until they have gone against their orders or expectations, perceived or real, the vampire receives a dice penalty to all rolls equivalent to their Bane Severity. This Compulsion ends once they have managed to either make someone change their minds (by force if necessary) or done the opposite of what was expected of them. In addition, all Brujah rolls to resist Frenzy are increase +1 for each two levels of Bane Severity (1, 3 and 5) to a maximum of +3.

Gangrel - During Frenzy the character acquires an Animalistic feature reducing one point in social attribute or intelligence for a time that will depend on their Bane Severity rating: One Night (1), One Week (2), One Month (3), Six Months (4), One Years (5). Also any following Frenzy episode will reset the remaining time of one Feature per Bane Severity rating. Additionally, the Gangrel look feral and dangerous to all Humans with a Willpower rating lower than the Kindred's Bane Severity, increasing the difficulty of all social interaction rolls (except Intimidation checks) with weak-willed kin by +1 for each two levels of Bane Severity (1, 3 and 5) to a maximum of +3.

Malkavian - depending on the selected Derangement each Malkavian will have a distinctive trigger to activate a Compulsion for each level of Bane Severity. When the Compulsion is active the Kindred becomes confused and mental rolls will have a dice penalty equal to their Bane Severity for all purposes. Resisting the Compulsion requires an extended Self-Control roll to a difficulty of 3 + Bane Severity that accumulates at least three successes.

Nosferatu - Instead of their Appearance 0 these Kindreds lose a dice amount equivalent to their Bane Severity to all Social Interaction rolls and increase the difficulty to all attempts to Disguise as Human in equal amount (Except Obfuscate).

Toreador - While your character finds itself in less than beautiful surroundings, lose the equivalent of their Bane Severity in dice from all dice pools to use Disciplines. Also when the character is exposed to an object or person of remarkable beauty must make a Self-Control check with a difficulty of 3 + Bane Severity to avoid losing herself into a Trance. During Trance the Toreador's perception is reduced by an amount equal to it's Bane Severity.

Tremere - each level of severity corresponds to one step in the Pyramid to which the character is Blood Bonded at maximum rating: at level one the character owes unconditional fealty to the Inner Council of Seven (Top of the Pyramid) and each following level includes an step down of the Pyramid: Pontificates (2), Lords (3), Regents (4), Apprentices (5), the Blood Bond rating is reduced by one for each level below their maximum. Additionally, the Tremere Blood atonement with Magic also exposes the Kindred to Paradox as she becomes more aware of the Ways of True Magick, increasing the difficulty to all Thaumaturgy and ritual rolls calling the attention of Sleepers by +1 for each two levels of Bane Severity (1, 3 and 5) to a maximum of +3.

Ventrue - each level of severity adds one condition to the type of blood the Kindred can consume. The Ventrue's Bane Severity level determine amount of constrains to describe the right vessel to feed from. ie: Bane Severity (3): Woman - Blonde - Caucassian, with each step the constrain must be more specific, narrowing the type as it grows. The Ventrue may expend Willpower Points to reduce their Bane Severity by 1 per point spent for the rest of the Scene, allowing him to temporary feed from unusual vessels.

BLOOD POTENCY
I don't intent to include Blood Potency Mechanics yet, although this is a good trait conceptually I think it's mechanics are boring and complicated. Still it's important to reference it since is a part of Bane Severity as well.

As a general idea the base Blood Potency is equal to the Kindred Generation in a range from 1 to 5, further during the game that Blood Potency increases depending on several factors: Age, Experience and Diablery. The Blood Potency can also by reduced to a minimum equal to the Kindred Generation trait by going into Torpor.

In concept the Blood Potency determines how severe are general vampire weaknesses like sunlight and also how selective are they in their food stock, the higher the kindred is the farther away is from the animal vitae's sustain.  Also in v5 includes dice bonuses to Disciplines, re-roll on discipline checks,  and superficial auto-healing (equivalent to bashing in a way).



The Bane Severity cannot be lower than zero. In which case the Bane takes a soft mode where has limited to no effect on rolls but just a general mood to make the character aware of its existence.

Also Bane Severity cannot be higher than five. Although, for each exceeding point the Storyteller will add a new feature from the Flaw (in Merits and Flaw section) that will grant no freebies points.

Will permanently reduced the Bane Severity to zero.