Rules

HOUSE RULES

Blood Surge: If you increase in Hunger as a result of Surging a physical attribute, the Surge lasts for the whole scene instead of just one turn.

Armor negates all damage unless an opponent succeeds at a margin higher than half of the armor rating. Mortals continue to downgrade Aggravated Health damage to Superficial Health damage in addition to this avoidance. Impact and blunt weapons surpass this feature.
^{For more information, please see Gear.}

Masquerade Damage is tracked by the Storyteller, much as Humanity is for the players. For more information, please see: Masquerade Damage.

Touchstones no longer simply heal Aggravated Willpower damage through interaction. Rather, meaningful engagement with a Touchstone now adds 2 dice to the vampire's Remorse roll at the end of the night. This engagement doesn't mean that the vampire and the Touchstone must directly interact, but the player should describe in some detail how the Touchstone helps the character feel remorseful.

Merits

Thin-Blood Alchemist (•••)

Tremere characters may add Thin-Blood Alchemy to their in-clan Disciplines at character creation, but gain the Status: Suspect (•) flaw for doing so, and may not purchase positive Status during character creation.

Koldunic Sorcery (••••)
Tzimisce characters may add Blood Sorcery as a Discipline at character creation, but must still treat it as out-of-clan in terms of further costs.

Shifts in the Blood (••••)
Kindred of the Hecata may purchase their Bloodline's Discipline as a fourth in-clan. Hecata of the Giovanni line may gain Dominate, Samedi may gain Obfuscate, Lamiae may gain Potence, and Nagaraja may gain Dominate.

Flaws

Mythic Flaw: Stake Bait (•)
While the rest of your body is as resilient as any vampire's, your heart is more vulnerable than most, whether due to weaker ribs or a curse placed upon you. Attempts to drive a stake or other weapon into your heart require only three successes (before halving) instead of five.

Feeding Flaw: Agonizing Bite (••)
Your fangs do not cause the rush of pleasure and blurred memory of the Kiss. Instead, when you bite a mortal, they’re aware of exactly what’s happening — and feel exactly as much pain as one might expect from half-inch fangs being forced into their neck. Victims caught unawares will violently resist unless restrained, and few people submit willingly to the torture that is your Kiss.

When drinking directly from a victim, you may only take harmful drinks, resulting in blood loss.^{(Vampire: The Masquerade, pg. 212)} Unwilling mortals not restrained will try to escape, and even those coerced or willing must succeed in a Stamina + Resolve test against Difficulty 2 + Bane Severity in order not to recoil. Coerced or willing vampire victims of your bite must make a frenzy test against Difficulty 3 to avoid falling into a terror frenzy.

Backgrounds

Bloodline

You have been Embraced into a distinct bloodline with unique qualities. This gives you access to a second Loresheet that only members of your bloodline possess. All other rules and limitations of the Loresheet Background (Vampire: The Masquerade, p. 190) apply — "Bloodline" is a distinct Background, and as such you can possess an Advantage from both it as well as the Loresheet Background.

Storytellers might decide that previously-published bloodline-related Loresheets (such as “Descendant of Hardestadt” and “Descendant of Helena” — Vampire: The Masquerade, p. 390-391) count as Bloodlines, allowing characters with those Loresheets to take an additional, non-lineage-related Loresheet.