Talents are matters of innate apptitude, requiring no training to develop, and they improve primarily or exclusively through experience. Characters get better at them only by doing them regularly. It's possible to attempt actions related to Talents that a character doesn't possess. Everyone (or nearly everyone) possesses a rudimentary grasp of each Talent, even without the minimal competence required for one dot's worth.
Alertness
Alertness is the ability to notice things that are going on in one's vicinity, with or without actively searching for them. Most Alertness rolls are paired with Perception, and it generally applies to physical stimuli rather than matters of mood, the soul and so on.
• Novice: You're seldom taken completely by surprise.
•• Practiced: Whispers do not go unheard in your vicinity.
••• Competent: You maintain a constant vigil.
•••• Expert: Few hidden things are safe around you.
••••• Master: Your senses push the boundries of human potential and rival those of the beasts of the field.
Specialties: Ambushes, Angelic/Demonic Manifestations, Crowds, Forests, Noises, Paranoia, Traps.
Athletics
Athletics is aptitude for physical exertion, be it during relatively formal sports or simply in the course of active life. Athletic feats that are directly related to combat are covered by Brawl, Dodge, Melee, and the other combat abilities, except in the case of thrown weapons. These require Athletics.
• Novice: You lead a moderately active existence.
•• Practiced: You can compete effectively in local sporting competitions.
••• Competent: You can support yourself, at least in large measure, with the prizes you win in challenges of physical excellence.
•••• Expert: Stories of your prowess circulate widely.
••••• Master: Your reputation precedes you, and would-be rivals feel awe at your ability.
Specialties: Climbing, Dancing, Juggling, Running, Swimming, Thrown Objects, Tumbling
Brawl
Brawl is the ability to fight unarmed, whether with a specific system of techniques or simply flailing away and relying on one's experience of where and how to strike. Brawling well requires coordination, speed, the ability to withstand pain and the willingness to deal out "unfair" assaults, particularly against strong or quick opponents.
• Novice: You don't immediately fold in the face of a fight.
•• Practiced: You've had your share of tussels with neighbors and other local brawlers.
••• Competent: You fight with confidence and competence, and you can count on winning or at least coming through a fight and remaining standing.
•••• Expert: You can take on most opponents and expect to win.
••••• Master: You do as much with your fists as many soldiers and knights do with their weapons.
Specialties: Arm-locks, Boxing, Drunken Fighting, Grappling, Showing off, Throws, Wrestling
Dodge
Dodge is the ability to get out of harm's way, whether in combat or in the face of other sorts of danger. It encompasses the use of cover and agile maneuvering, and it comes from the systematic training of a knight or the tough-and-ready experience and instincts of a thief or brawler. Dodges plays a crucial role in survival of any character who fights often, greatly increasing his chances of escaping damage.
• Novice: You reflexively avoid most minor sources of injury and show a measure of grace in your movements.
•• Practiced: You're hard to hurt unless someone or something catches you by surprise.
••• Competent: It takes serious effort for an opponent to hit you, you get out of the way of most thrown objects as well as immediate dangers.
•••• Expert: Only skilled warriors can expect to hurt you very much.
•••• Master: Wherever a threat is, you're almost inevitable somewhere else.
Specialties: Backstep, Dive, Duck, Find Cover, Horseback, Leap, Sidestep
Empathy
Empathy is the ability to understand others' emotional states and to present a suitable response - whether the character genuinely sympathizes with others or simply wishes to use them. It's crucial in unraveling motives and helpful in detecting dishonesty.
• Novice: You seem sympathetic to people with whom you share something in common.
•• Practiced: You share others' joys and sorrows, even when you haven't made any particular effort at it.
••• Competent: You display keen insights into others' souls and enjoy a measure of respect or fear depending on how you use your wisdom.
•••• Expert: Few people can deceive you. Enemies mutter that you deal with dark powers, and friends believe that God has given you special perception.
••••• Master: Nothing human is mysterious to you.
Specialties: Background Emotions, Emotions, Family Problems, Long-term Concerns, Personalities, Truths
Expression
This is your ability to get your point across clearly, whether through conversation, poetry or even email. Characters with high Expression can phrase their opinions or beliefs in a manner that cannot be ignored (even if their opinions are misinformed or worthless). They might also be talented actors, skilled at conveying moods or feigning emotion with every gesture.
Additionally, this Talent represents your ability for poetry, creative writing or other literary art forms.
• Novice: Your talent has matured past crude poetry on notebook paper.
•• Practiced: You could lead a college debate team.
••• Competent: You could be a successful writer.
•••• Expert: Your work is Pulitzer material.
••••• Master: A visionary as yourself comes along only once in every generation.
Intimidation
Intimidation takes many forms, from outright threats and physical violence to mere force of personality. You know the right method for each occasion, and can be very persuasive.
• Novice: Crude teenage bully
•• Practiced: Mugger
••• Competent: Drill sergeant
•••• Expert: Your air of authority cows casual passersby.
••••• Master: You can frighten off vicious animals.
Leadership
You are an example to others and can inspire them to do what you want. Leadership has less to do with manipulating people's desires than it does with presenting yourself as the sort of person they want to follow. This Talent is usually paired with Charisma rather than Manipulation.
• Novice: Captain of your Little League team
•• Practiced: Student body president
••• Competent: An effective CEO
•••• Expert: Presidential material
••••• Master: You could be the lord and master of a nation.
Streetwise
The streets can provide a lot of information or money to those who know the language. Streetwise allows you to blend in unobtrusively with the local scene, pick up gossip, understand slang or even dabble in criminal doings.
• Novice: You know which neighborhoods to avoid.
•• Practiced: You're accorded respect on the street.
••• Competent: You could head your own gang.
•••• Expert: You have little to fear in even the worst neighborhoods.
••••• Master: If you haven't heard it, it hasn't been said.
Subterfuge
You know how to conceal your own motives and project what you like. Furthermore, you can root out other people's motives, then use those motives against them. This Talent defines your talent for intrigue, secrets and double-dealing; mastery of Subterfuge can make you the ultimate seducer, or a brilliant spy.
• Novice: You tell the occasional little white lie.
•• Practiced: Vampire
••• Competent: Criminal lawyer
•••• Expert: Deep-cover agent or CIA.
••••• Master: You're the very last person anyone would suspect.
Skills are Abilities learned through training, apprenticeships or other instruction. If you try to perform an action involving a Skill in which you have no rating, your difficulty is increased by one. An unskilled worker just isn't as effective as someone who might have lower Attributes but an understanding of what the procedure entails.
Animal Ken
You have the capability to understand an animal's behavior patterns. This Skill allows you to predict how an animal might react in a given situation, train a domesticated creature, or even try to calm or enrage animals.
• Novice: You can get a domesticated horse to let you pet it.
•• Practiced: You can housebreak a puppy.
••• Competent: You could train a seeing-eye dog.
•••• Expert: Circus animal trainer
••••• Master: You can tame wild beasts without benefit of supernatural powers.
Specialties: Ambush, Fields, Forests, Horseback, Hunting, Moving Targets, Quick Shot, Target
Firearms
Executing a mortal with a sword starts investigations. Clawing someone to ribbons shakes the edges of the Masquerade. So Cainites adapt, and many have devoted their energies to learning how to kill with guns. This Skill represents familiarity with a range of firearms, from holdout pistols to heavy machine guns. Of course, this Skill doesn't include heavy artillery such as mortars or tank guns. However, someone skilled in Firearms can clean, repair, recognize and, of course, accurately fire most forms of small arms. This Skill is also used to unjam guns (Wits + Firearms).
• Novice: You have fired a gun before.
•• Practiced: You have recieved profesional training with firearms.
••• Competent: You are skilled and have survived several firefights.
•••• Expert: Professional Sniper or Assassin.
••••• Master: You are among the most elite in firearms, Top Five in the World.
Security
This Skill entails familiarity with the tools and techniques for picking locks, deactivating car or burglar alarms, hot-wiring automobiles or even safecracking, as well as countless forms of breaking and entering. Security is useful not only for theft, but also for setting up "the unbeatable system" or deducing where a thief broke in.
• Novice: You can pick a simple lock.
•• Practiced: You can hot-wire a car.
••• Competent: You can bypass or disable house alarms.
•••• Expert: You can crack a safe.
••••• Master: You could get a bomb out of - or into - the Pentagon.
Crafts
This Skill covers your ability to make or fix things with your hands. Crafts allows you to work in fields such as carpentry, leatherwork, weaving or even mechanical expertise such as car repair. You can even create lasting works of art with this Skill, depending on the number of successes you achieve. You must always choose an Expertise in Crafts, even though you retain some skill in multiple fields.
• Novice: High-school wood shop
•• Practiced: You're starting to develop your own style.
••• Competent: You could make a living at your work.
•••• Expert: Your work is featured in college-level textbooks for your field.
••••• Master: Your artistry is virtually without peer.
Etiquette
You understand the nuances of proper behavior, in both mortal society and Kindred culture. Your specialty is the culture with which you are most familiar. This Skill is used during haggling, seduction, dancing, dinner etiquette and all forms of diplomacy.
• Novice: You know when to keep your mouth shut.
•• Practiced: You've been to a black-tie event or two.
••• Competent: You know your way around even obscure silverware.
•••• Expert: Her Majesty would consider you charming.
••••• Master: If you spoke with the right people, you could end or start a war
Melee
As the Kindred maxim runs, Guns mean nothing to a lifeless heart. A blade is often worth far more, as is the skill to use it properly. Melee covers your ability to use hand-to-hand weapons of all forms, from swords and clubs to esoteric martial-arts paraphernalia such as sai or nunchaku. And, of course, there is always the utility of the wooden stake…
• Novice: You know the right way to hold a knife.
•• Practiced: You may have been in the occasional streetfight.
••• Competent: You could make a college fencing team.
•••• Expert: You could keep order in the prince's court.
••••• Master: Your enemies would rather face a SWAT team than your blade.
Performance
The Performance Skill governs your ability to perform artistic endeavors such as singing, dancing, acting or playing a musical instrument. You are almost certainly specialized in one field, although true virtuosos may be talented in many forms of performance. This Skill represents not only technical know-how, but the ability to work an audience and enrapture them with your show.
• Novice: You could sing in the church choir.
•• Practiced: You could get a leading part in a college production.
••• Competent: You're in demand at the local clubs.
•••• Expert: You have the talent to be a national sensation.
••••• Master: You are a virtuoso without peer.
Drive
You can drive a car, and maybe other vehicles as well. This Skill does not automatically entail familiarity with complicated vehicles such as tanks or 18-wheelers, and difficulties may vary depending on your experience with individual automobiles. After all, helming a station wagon doesn't prepare you for controlling a Lotus at 100 miles per hour.
• Novice: You know how to work an automatic transmission.
•• Practiced: You can drive a stick shift or a motorcycle.
••• Competent: Professional trucker
•••• Expert: NASCAR, daredevil or tank pilot
••••• Master: You can make a Yugo do tricks out of a James Bond movie.
Stealth
This Skill is the ability to avoid being detected, whether you're hiding or moving at the time. Stealth is often tested against someone else's Perception. This Ability is, for obvious reasons, highly useful in stalking prey.
• Novice: You can hide in a darkened room.
•• Practiced: You can shadow someone from streetlight to streetlight.
••• Competent: You have little difficulty finding prey from evening to evening
•••• Expert: You can move quietly over dry leaves.
••••• Master: Nosferatu elder
Survival
Survival is the ability to cope with challenges of harsh enviroments: shelter, navigating to civilization, foraging for food and water, hunting and so on. It includes knowledge of the common threats posed by a particular sort of wilderness, such as forest or swamp. Stealth rolls in wilderness cannot included more dice from Stealth than the character has dots in survival.
• Novice: You can cope with the routine changes of whatever sort of wilderness was closest to your home.
•• Practiced: You won't starve in most enviroments, though it won't be comfortable until you get to the next settlement.
••• Competent: You can get yourself and others to safety in most circumstances, and you can make an effective living off the fruits of hunting, trapping and the like.
•••• Expert: You can blaze new paths through unbroken wilderness and cope with almost any challenge that the natural world can throw at you.
••••• Master: The dark powers of the night (and day) in the lands beyond civilization hold no terror for you.
Specialties: Coasts and Shallows, Deep Sea, Deserts, Foraging, Forests, Hunting, Marshes and Swamps, Mountains, Tracking, Trailblazing
Knowledges involve the application of the mind, not the body; consequently, Knowledge Abilities are most often paired with Mental Traits. (It's possible to roll Charisma + Academics, or even Stamina + Medicine, but such things are pretty rare.) The following descriptions speak of Knowledge levels in collegiate terms, although formal schooling is just one way to improve a Knowledge.
Academics
This catch-all Knowledge covers the character's erudition in the "humanities": literature, history, art, philosophy and other "liberal" sciences. A character with dots in Academics is generally well-rounded in these fields, and at high levels may be considered an expert in one or more areas of study. Not only can this Knowledge impress at salons and other Elysium functions, but it can also offer valuable clues to certain past - and future movements in the Jyhad.
• Student: High School Graduate
•• College: You have taken classes at a University and possibly graduated.
••• Masters: You have received at least one Masters Degree.
•••• Doctorate: Professor emeritus
••••• Scholar: Scholars worldwide acknowledge you as the best in the world.
Investigation
You've learned to notice details others might overlook, and might make an admirable detective. This Knowledge represents not only a good eye for detail, but also an ability to do research and follow leads.
• Student: You've read your share of Agatha Christie.
•• College: Police Officer
••• Masters: Private Detective
•••• Doctorate: FBI Agent
••••• Scholar: Sherlock Holmes
Law
With all the lawyers and lawmakers out there, this Knowledge can prove very useful. Law can be useful for filing suit, avoiding lawsuits or getting out of jail. What's more, even the Kindred keep their own laws, and more than one vampire has saved his own unlife by deftly exploiting a loophole in one of the Traditions.
• Student: You've watched your share ofcourtroom dramas.
•• College: You're either studying for or just passed the bar exam.
••• Masters: Ambulance chaser
•••• Doctorate: Major public figures have your number just in case.
••••• Scholar: You could find the loopholes in the Devil's contract.
Linguistics
You begin play with the native language of your choice for free, but if you want to speak any other languages, whether modern or ancient, Linguistics is a must. This Ability allows you to understand additional languages, but at high levels also offers a more general understanding of linguistic structure. Linguistics may allow you to recognize accents or decipher word puzzles.
• Student: One extra language
•• College: Two extra languages
••• Masters: Four extra languages
•••• Doctorate: Eight extra languages
••••• Scholar: 16 extra languages
Medicine
You have an understanding of how the human body, and to a lesser extent the vampiric body, works. This Ability entails knowledge of medicines, ailments, first-aid procedures, and diagnosis or treatment of disease. Medicine is of great use to those Kindred with an interest in repairing, damaging or reworking the human body.
• Student: You've taken a CPR course.
•• College: PreMed or Paramedic
••• Masters: General practitioner
•••• Doctorate: You can perform transplants.
••••• Scholar: You are respected by the world's medical community.
Occult
You are knowledgeable in occult areas such as mysticism, curses, magic, folklore and particularly vampire lore. Unlike most other Knowledges, Occult does not imply a command of hard, factual information; much of what you know may well be rumor, myth, speculation or hearsay. However, the secrets to be learned in this field are worth centuries of sifting legend from fact. High levels of Occult imply a deep understanding of vampire lore, as well as a good grounding in other aspects of the occult; at the very least, you can discern what is patently false.
• Student: You've paged through the New Age section of at Barnes & Nobles.
•• College: There seems to be some truth to some of the rumors you've heard.
••• Masters: You've heard a lot and actually seen a little for yourself.
•••• Doctorate: You can recognize blatantly false sources.
••••• Scholar: You know most of the basic truths about the hidden world.
Politics
You are familiar with the politics of the moment, including the people in charge and how they got there. This Knowledge can aid you in dealing with or influencing mortal politicians, or even offer some insight into the local Cainite power structure.
• Student: Activist
•• College: Political Science Major
••• Masters: Senator
•••• Doctorate: President Material
••••• Scholar: You could hand select the next President of the United States.
Finance
You know the ins and outs of commerce, from evaluating an item's relative worth to keeping up with currency exchange rates. This Knowledge can be invaluable when brokering items, running numbers or playing the stock market. Sufficiently high levels in Finance allow you to raise your standards of living to a very comfortable level.
• Student: You've taken a few business classes.
•• College: You have practical experience and can keep your books fairly neat.
••• Masters: You'd make a fine stockbroker.
•••• Doctorate: Corporations follow your financial lead.
••••• Scholar: You could turn a $20 bill into a fortune.
Science
You have at least a basic understanding of most of the physical sciences, such as chemistry, biology, physics and geology. This Knowledge can be put to all forms of practical use.
• Student: You know most of the high-school basics.
•• College: You're familiar with the major theories.
••• Masters: You could teach high-school science.
•••• Doctorate: You're fully capable of advancing the knowledge in your field.
••••• Scholar: Your Nobel Prize is waiting for you Mr Hawkings.
