Abilities

As mentioned before, Abilities are the Traits used to describe what you know and what you’ve learned to do. Whereas Attributes represent your raw potential, Abilities represent the ways you’ve learned to use that potential. You may not need anything but brute strength to smash through a door but if you’re trying to use sheer muscle power to force an engine part into place without breaking anything, you’d better know something about mechanics. When rolling dice, you’ll probably pair an Ability with an appropriate Attribute, in order to properly depict the combination of potential and know-how that’s necessary for getting things done.

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Note: Specializations are only free at Level 4 and above for each ability.

Alertness

This is your basic knack for noticing things that go on around you, even when you're not actively looking for them. Alertness describes the attention you pay to the outside world, whether otherwise occupied or not. This talent is typically paired with Perception, and is best used when sensing physical stimuli (as opposed to moods Empathy or clues Investigation).

•       Novice:          You're no mindless drone.

••     Practiced:  Habitual eavesdropper.

•••    Competent: You keep a sharp eye on your surroundings.

••••  Expert:         Whether from paranoia or good sense, you are rarely caught                                     off guard.

••••• Master:        Your senses are on par with those of a wild animal.

Specialties: Noises, Eavesdropping, Ambushes, Hidden Weapons, Crowds.

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Athletics

This Talent represents your basic athletic ability, as well as any training you might have had in sports or other rigorous activities. Athletics concerns all forms of running, jumping, sports and the like; however, it doesn't cover basic motor actions such as lifting weights, nor does it govern athletic feats covered by another ability (such as Swimming, Climbing, or Acrobatics).

•      Novice:           You had an active childhood.

••     Practiced:  High-school athlete.

•••   Competent:  Professional athlete.

••••  Expert:         Top-notch in your sport.

••••• Master:        Olympic medalist.

Specialties: Endurance Running, specific sports.

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Awareness
Awareness is an instinctual reaction to the presence of the supernatural. It differs from Alertness (which measures sensitivity to mundane events) and Occult (which covers actual knowledge about the supernatural). Usually, only supernatural creatures have access to this particular Talent, but some unique mortals have a sense that something is strange in the world.

•       Novice:         Once in a while, you get the feeling that something isn’t right.
••     Practiced:  You sometimes get strange vibes from a particular direction                                      or vague area (like a building).
•••    Competent: You can walk into a room and know that something unusual                                       is going on within.
••••  Expert:         If you concentrate, you can sense whether a someone in a                                             group of people or a collection of objects is supernatural.
••••• Master:        You instinctively know if something or someone is mundane                                       or supernatural.

Specialties: Ghostly Activity, Mystical Objects, Someone’s In My Head, Debunking

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Brawl

The Brawl Talent represents how well you fight in tooth-and-nail situations. This Talent represents skill in unarmed combat, whether from formal martial-arts training or simply from plenty of experience - either type can make you a dangerous adversary. Effective brawlers are coordinated, resistant to pain, quick, strong and mean; the willingness to do whatever it takes to hurt your opponent wins plenty of fights.

•       Novice:        You were picked on as a kid.

••     Practiced:  You've seen the occasional bar-room tussle.

•••    Competent: You've fought regularly and routinely, and generally walked                                   away in better shape than your opponents.

••••  Expert:         You could be a serious contender on a boxing circuit.

••••• Master:        You can kill three men in four seconds.

Specialties: Boxing, Wrestling, Dirty Fighting, Kicks, Karate, Judo, Muay Thai, Throws, Submission Holds

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Empathy

You understand the emotions of others, and can sympathize with, feign sympathy for, or play on such emotions as you see fit. You are an easy hand at discerning motive, and might be able to pick up on when someone's lying to you. However, you may be so in tune with other people's feelings that your own emotions are affected.

•       Novice:          You lend the occasional shoulder to cry on.

••     Practiced:  You can sometimes literally feel someone else's suffering.

•••   Competent:  You have a keen insight into other people's motivations.

••••  Expert:         It's almost impossible to lie to you.

••••• Master:        The human soul conceals no mysteries from you.

Specialties: Emotions, Personalities, Motives, Gaining Trust

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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 such as yourself comes along only once in every                                       generation.

Specialties: Poetry, Fiction, Impromptu, Conversation

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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 passers-by.

••••• Master:        You can frighten off vicious animals.

Specialties: Veiled Threats, Pulling Rank, Physical Coercion, Blackmail.

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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.

Specialties: Oratory, Compelling, Friendly, Open, Noble, Military, Commands.

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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 who’s holding.
••     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.

Specialties: Fencing, Illegal Drugs, Illegal Weapons, Free Wifi, Gangs, Being On the Guest List, Local Slang

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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.

••••• Master:        You're the very last person anyone would suspect.

Specialties: Seduction, Impeccable Lies, Feigning Mortality.

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Skills

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 a better understanding of what the procedure entails.

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Animal Ken

You can 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 trainer.

••••• Master:        You can tame wild beasts without benefit of supernatural                                           powers.

Specialties: Dogs, Attack Training, Big Cats, Horses, Farm Animals, Falconry

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demolitions 

Demolitions is the fine art of making things go boom.  With this skill, your character knows how to make, identify, disarm, and use a variety of explosive devices.  She also knows where to place explosives inside a large structure for maximum effect, and how to direct explosive power through techniques like tamping.  Of course, the most effective bombs require materials that are both expensive and illegal.  Demolitions gives your character the know-how to combine components, not the ability to acquire them.

•       Novice:          You mix a mean Molotov cocktail.

••     Practiced:  Pipe bombs.

•••    Competent: Car bombs.

••••  Expert:         High-yield explosives.

••••• Master:        You deal strictly in megatons.

Specialties: Timers, Triggers, Disarming, Everyday Chemicals, Placement, Electronics

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Driving

You can drive a car, and maybe other vehicles as well. This Skill does not automatically entail familiarity with complicated vehicles such as tanks, 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:          Learner's Permit.

••     Practiced:  You can drive an automatic without a roll under normal                                             conditions.

•••    Competent: You can drive a manual under normal conditions without a                                       roll.

••••  Expert:         You can drive an 18-wheeler or other exotic automobile under                                   normal conditions without a roll.

••••• Master:        You can make a Yugo do tricks out of a James Bond movie.

Specialties: Off-road, Wheelies, Curves, Stick Shift, Sudden Stops, Heavy Traffic

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Etiquette

You understand the nuances of proper behavior. Your specialty is the culture with which you are most familiar. This Skill is used during haggling, 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 the right people came to dinner, you could end wars - or                                           start them.

Specialties: Formal Dinners, Business, Specific Culture

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Firearms

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, recognize and, of course, accurately fire most forms of small arms. This Skill is also used to unjam guns (Wits + Firearms).

•       Novice:         You had a BB gun as a kid.

••     Practiced:  You while away the occasional hour at the gun club.

•••    Competent: You've survived a fire-fight or two.

••••  Expert:         You could pick off people for a living.

••••• Master:        You've been practicing since the debut of the Winchester.

Specialties: Pistols, Sniping, Revolvers, Shotguns

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Larceny

This Skill entails familiarity with the tools and techniques for the sorts of physical manipulation typically associated with criminal activity. Picking locks, manual forgery, safe-cracking, simple hot-wiring, various forms of breaking and entering, and even sleight-of-hand all fall under the auspices of Larceny. Larceny is useful not only for theft, but also for setting up “the unbeatable system” or deducing where a thief broke in. This skill does not confer any aptitude with advanced security or anti-crime technologies such as video surveillance or
alarm systems — those are covered by the Technology Knowledge.

•       Novice:          You can pick a simple lock.
••     Practiced:  You could run a shell game hustle on the corner.
•••    Competent: You can open a standard locked window from the outside.
••••  Expert:         You can “retool” a passport or ID card.
••••• Master:        You could get into (or out of...) a multinational bank’s                                                  central vault.

Specialties: Safe-cracking, Misdirection, Lock-picking, Hot-wiring, Pick-pocketing

 

Melee

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 street fight.

•••    Competent: You could make a college fencing team.

••••  Expert:         Blades are like extensions of your body.

••••• Master:        Your enemies would rather face a SWAT team than your blade.

Specialties: Knives, Swords, Improvised Clubs, Stakes, Disarms, Axes

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Stealth

This talent 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:        "Must have been the wind".

Specialties: Hiding, Silent Movement, Shadowing, Crowds.

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Survival

You are skilled in building fires and locating or constructing shelter from what's available.

•       Novice:          You went camping once on summer break.

••     Practiced:  You're pretty crafty with some twigs and a box of matches.

•••    Competent: You can assemble a tent without reading the instructions.

••••  Expert:         You can build a camp-fire in a rainstorm.

••••• Master:        You put the Professor on Gilligan's Isle to shame.

Specialties: Tracking, Woodlands, Jungle, Street Life, Hunting, Urban Exploration

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Knowledges

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. Indeed, Knowledges can be self-taught, and the World of Darkness is home to any number of autodidacts.

If you don’t have any dots in a Knowledge, you cannot even attempt a roll involving it unless the Storyteller gives explicit permission (such as where common trivia is concerned). If you don’t know Spanish, you can’t try holding a conversation en Español on your wits alone.

 

Academics

This catchall Knowledge covers the character’s erudition in the humanities: literature, history, art, philosophy, and other “liberal” arts and 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. If you like, you can choose a specialty for Academics even at less than 4 dots.

•       Student:       You’re aware that 1066 isn’t a Beverly Hills area code.
••     College:       You can quote from the classics, identify major                                                                   cultural movements, and expound on the difference between                                     Ming and Moghul
•••    Masters:     You could get a paper published in a scholarly journal.
••••  Doctorate: Professor emeritus 

••••• Scholar:     Scholars worldwide acknowledge you as one of the foremost                                  experts of your time.

Specialties: Post-structuralism, Impressionist Painting, Imperial Rome, Color Theory, Linguistics

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Computers

This knowledge represents the ability to operate and program computers, as well as the savvy to keep up with the latest technology.

•       Novice:          Point and click.

••     Practiced:  You can process data with relative ease.

•••    Competent: You can design software.

••••  Expert:         You can make a very comfortable living as a consultant.

••••• Master:        You're on the bleeding edge.

Specialties: Computer Languages, Internet, Code-breaking, Viruses, Data Retrieval.

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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.

•       Novice:          You've taken a few business classes.

••     Practiced:  You have some practical experience and can keep your books                                       fairly neat.

•••    Competent: You'd make a fine stockbroker.

••••  Expert:         Corporations follow your financial lead.

••••• Master:        You could turn a $20 bill into a fortune.

Specialties: Stock Market, Laundering, Appraisal, Foreign Currencies, Accounting, Fencing,                                         Corporations.

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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.

•       Novice:          You've read your share of Agatha Christie.

••     Practiced:  Police officer.

•••    Competent: Private detective.

••••  Expert:         Federal agent.

••••• Master:        Sherlock Holmes.

Specialties: Forensics, Shadowing, Discolorations.

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Law

Law encompasses many areas: the enforcement system, legal code and the workings of the courts. Characters in trouble with the police will need this knowledge (or a lawyer friend) to get them out of any legal tangles. Although most lawyers have an area of expertise, such as immigration law, most state bars don’t recognize these as such.

•       Novice:          You know a few classic cases and the basis of the legal system.

••     Practiced:  You could pass the bar exam.

•••    Competent: Chances are, you’re a much-sought counselor.

••••  Expert:         You’re capable of adjudging and writing law.

••••• Master:        There are few cases or matters of jurisprudence you don’t                                           know about.

Specialties: Procedure, Specific Types (Criminal, Contacts, Liability, etc.), Courts.

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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.

•       Novice:          One extra language.

••     Practiced:  Three extra languages.

•••    Competent: Six extra languages.

••••  Expert:          Ten extra languages.

••••• Master:        Fifteen extra languages.

Specialties: Romance Languages, Kanji, Idioms, Hieroglyphics, Written Expression, Ciphers.

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