Vampire: The Requiem Rules FAQ
for Second Edition/Blood and Smoke
v.1.0.11
What’s the difference between Vampire: The Requiem Second Edition and Blood and Smoke?
What’s the relationship between Vampire 2e/Blood and Smoke and The God-Machine Chronicle?
Which editions does this FAQ cover?
Where can I find the books mentioned in this FAQ?
Does the Embrace cause blood bonds or blood addiction?
Can werewolves, mages, demons, and other monsters be blood bonded?
Can vampires forego the effects of the Lost Visage?
Can more than one Vitae be spent on Physical Intensity in single turn?
How does Physical Intensity affect grappling?
What are vampire healing costs while waking and sleeping?
What breaking point level is diablerie? Can it be overcome with a bane?
Does the extra bane given by the Mekhet clan bane give a penalty to detachment rolls?
Do frenzy or Physical Intensity add to Lashing Out?
Does the prohibition on Disciplines in Twilight Projection apply to Auspex?
How low can a normal vampire’s Blood Potency go in torpor?
How long does a revenant stay in torpor?
Do revenants have Blood Potency 0 or Blood Potency 1?
What happens if a vampire feeds on an intoxicated mortal?
Is the list of Sample Breaking Points comprehensive?
How often may a character gain a Beat for checking for detachment?
How are Defense and Dodge calculated with Celerity?
How long do the active effects of physical Disciplines last?
Does a vampire affected by Majesty 1, Awe, know that they’re being affected by a supernatural power?
Can Awe be used to affect only specific people, rather than everyone who can perceive the vampire?
Can a vampire use Nightmare 5, Mortal Terror, and choose not to inflict damage?
Do claws gained with Protean 2 inflict bashing or lethal damage on vampires?
Do armor piercing attacks pierce Resilience?
Altar is a three dot Merit, but more than three Kindred can contribute. What happens if they do?
What are the mechanics for a victim affected by Kiss of the Succubus?
What page is the Humbled Condition on?
Vampire: The Requiem Second Edition and Blood and Smoke are the same book, with superficial differences like typo corrections and cover art. They contain the same rules and setting. Page numbering is the same between the two books.
Vampire: The Requiem Second Edition is available from DriveThruRPG.
Players who bought the PDF or PDF + Print combos of Blood and Smoke from DriveThruRPG can get the updated Vampire 2e PDF for free by going to the DriveThru page linked above.
The God-Machine Chronicle was the first book the second edition World of Darkness rules appeared in. It requires the 2004 edition of The World of Darkness Rulebook.
Vampire 2e/Blood and Smoke includes all of the rules necessary to play, but you can use The God-Machine Chronicle to add more Merits and combat options.
This FAQ covers Vampire 2e/Blood and Smoke. It does not cover the 2004 first edition of Vampire: The Requiem.
References in Vampire 2e/Blood and Smoke refer to the second edition of The World of Darkness Rulebook, which isn’t out as of this writing. You can find anything cited in Vampire in The God-Machine Chronicle or its free Rules Update.
Here are the DriveThruRPG links:
No.
Yes.
Yes. There’s no cost to do so.
Yes, up to the limit imposed by the vampire’s Blood Potency.
Because Physical Intensity can be used to increase Strength, it can be used to increase a roll to grab your opponent, and to boost your pool in the contested roll each turn thereafter. (See p. 177.) The reference on p. 91 to a Strength increase reducing a roll to grapple is an error.
Healing functions the same way while either awake or asleep, but aggravated damage can only be healed while sleeping.
The costs are described on p. 91 in the second paragraph under the “Healing” header. 1 point of Vitae may be spent while either waking or sleeping to heal 1 point of lethal damage or 2 points of bashing damage. Aggravated damage costs 5 Vitae per point and cannot be healed while awake; it requires a full day’s sleep. Multiple points of aggravated damage may be healed in a single day.
While mentioned in the Torpor section on p. 105 rather than the Healing section, healing is a reflexive action.
Diablerie is a Humanity 1 breaking point. It can’t be overcome with a bane.
No.
No.
No.
No. You’re already using Auspex and can continue using its other powers.
A vampire’s Blood Potency can go as low as 1.
A revenant stays in torpor indefinitely, unless awoken with blood.
Revenants have Blood Potency 1 (see p. 94). However, if a supernatural effect would strip one of the Kindred to Blood Potency 0 or lower, the vampire instead becomes a Blood Potency 1 revenant.
This applies only to effects which temporarily or permanently reduce Blood Potency itself, not which subtract from it for the purposes of a calculation. For example, with appropriate coverage, sunlight damage can be downgraded to the level of Blood Potency 0 (none). See p. 102.
The vampire suffers the effects of the drug. The vampire may remove these effects by spending one Vitae, but could conceivably be too intoxicated to concentrate enough to do so.
Poisons not specifically harmful to Kindred follow the same rules as drugs. A Storyteller may choose to make an exception for poisons which break down cellular structure, but that’s at her own discretion.
No; as said, it’s a list of samples. As stated on p.107, the Storyteller may adjust it as she wishes, adding or removing breaking points as suits the group’s individual game or adjusting their level as suits context.
Once per scene for checking, and once per session per breaking point. Storytellers should use discretion when checking any of the sample breaking points frequently; if a Storyteller chooses to use the “watching humans eat a meal” breaking point and a character spends every session staring in the window at restaurants, it should probably stop counting as a source of Beats.
Page 88 is correct. The word “attached” on page 108 is a typo.
Defense: ((lower of Wits or Dexterity) + Athletics + Celerity)
Dodge: (2 * ((lower of Wits or Dexterity) + Athletics + Celerity))
One turn.
Not automatically. They just feel what Awe wants them to feel. However, they retain their faculties enough that if a Daeva seems too amazing to be true, they might be able to turn around and defy it with the predatory aura.
Not by default, but it doesn’t seriously break things to allow targeted use.
Yes.
Bashing.
Once, for the largest character in the group.
When using Obfuscate 2, Touch of Shadow via Obfuscate 3, Cloak of Night, what rules are used to determine if someone can perceive people affected by Touch of Shadow?
The normal rules for Touch of Shadow are used, so in order to notice the occluded character, an observer must succeed on a reflexive Wits + Composure roll penalized by the vampire’s Obfuscate dots. Unlike tracking the vampire herself, an extended action is not required.
No. Resilience functions like armor, but it’s not actually armor; it’s the ability to ignore injury.
Oaths are paid for by the vassal. Most vassals are not Invictus.
Also, an individual Storyteller might waive this requirement in order to let a new character find a vassal in play.
Using the Altar requires a character to have contributed a Merit dot, even if that means the total dots exceed the cost of the Merit. Each character who contributed a dot may use the Altar.
The victim gains the Addicted Condition. Her craving gets stronger each night, and when she sleeps, she dreams of the vampire with increasing frequency. Stamina + Resolve nights after the Kiss, she begins to suffer the Deprived Condition. Her player can delay the onset of Deprived for one night by spending a Willpower point, but cannot spend Willpower to suppress the Condition once the character has begun to suffer it. She can resolve that Condition by experiencing the bite of the vampire.
Skill Specialties from Professional Training may be taken in Disciplines. Professional Training never applies the 9-again or rote action qualities to Discipline rolls.
Humbled is the first Condition in the righthand column on p. 304. The heading for the Condition is missing in Blood and Smoke.