Armed Defense
Cost: • to •••••
Prerequisites: Dexterity •••, Weaponry ••, Defensive Combat: Weaponry
You’re able to use a weapon to stop people who are trying to kill you. Often deployed by police officers using riot shields or telescoping batons, it’s just as effective while using a chair leg.
| • | Cover the Angles | Whenever you take a Dodge action, reduce the Defense penalties for multiple attackers by 1. You can apply your full Defense against the first two attacks, suffer a -1 penalty against the third, and so on. |
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| •• | Weak Spot | You swing against your opponent’s arm, rather than his own weapon. Use this ability when defending against an armed attacker. If your Defense reduces his attack pool to 0, he’s disarmed. If you Dodge, you disarm your opponent if your Defense roll reduces his attack successes to 0. |
| ••• | Aggressive Defense | Anyone dumb enough to come near you is liable to get hurt. When you take a Dodge action, if you score more successes than any attacker, you deal one point of lethal damage to the attacker per extra success. Your weapon bonus doesn’t apply to this extra damage. Drawback: You must spend a point of Willpower and declare that you are using Aggressive Defense at the start of the turn. You cannot combine this maneuver with Press the Advantage or Weak Spot. |
| •••• | Iron Guard | You and your weapon are one. At the start of each turn, you can choose to reduce your weapon bonus (down to a minimum of 0) to increase your Defense by a like amount. If you take a Dodge action, add your full weapon bonus to your Defense after doubling your pool. |
| ••••• | Press the Advantage | You create an opening with a block, and lash out with a fist or foot. When you’re taking a Dodge action, if your Defense roll reduces the attacker’s successes to 0, you can make an unarmed attack against that opponent at a -2 penalty. Your opponent applies Defense as normal. Drawback: Spend a point of Willpower to make the attack. You can only make one attack per turn in this way. |
Fast Talking
Cost: • to •••••
Prerequisites: Manipulation •••, Subterfuge ••
Your character talks circles around listeners. He speaks a mile a minute, and often leaves his targets reeling, but nodding in agreement.
| • | Always Be Closing | With the right leading phrases, your character can direct a mark to say what he wants, when he wants. This trips the mark into vulnerable positions. When a mark contests or resists your character’s Social interactions, apply a -1 to their Resolve or Composure. |
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| •• | Jargon | Your character confuses his mark using complex terminology. You may apply one relevant Specialty to any Social roll you make, even if the Specialty isn’t tied to the Skill in use. |
| ••• | Devil's Advocacy | Your character often poses arguments he doesn’t agree with, in order to challenge a mark’s position and keep him from advancing the discussion. You can reroll one failed Subterfuge roll per scene. |
| •••• | Salting | Your character can position himself so a mark pursues a non-issue or something unimportant to him. When your character opens a Door using conversation (Persuasion, Subterfuge, Empathy, etc.) you may spend a Willpower point to immediately open another Door. |
| ••••• | The Nigerian Scam | Your character can take advantage of his mark's greed and zeal. When the mark does particularly well, it’s because your character was there to set him up, and to subsequently tear him down. If a target regains Willpower from his Vice while your character is present, you may immediately roll Manipulation + Subterfuge to open a Door, regardless of the interval or impression level. |
Fated Ferocity
Cost: • to •••••
Prerequisites: Cursed ••, Stamina ••, Resolve •••
Your character, condemned to die by fate, has turned her ill-fortune into grim purpose. She’s going to fight until the last drop of blood leaves her body, and no one who stands in her way is safe.
| • | Bucket List | Your character knows the time she has left is precious and anything she accomplishes in it is a victory over fate. Any time she completes an Aspiration, replenish a point of Willpower and add a +1 bonus to her Defense for the next attack against her in the same scene. |
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| •• | Die with Dignity | Your character’s certainty protects her from those who’d steer her from the path. Any attempts, mundane or supernatural, to convince your character to do something which would prevent her from working towards or achieving an Aspiration before she dies automatically fail. |
| ••• | Limitless | You push yourself beyond the physical constraints of your body to strike your enemies harder. Instead of an all-out attack you can choose to take any amount of bashing damage (up to her dots in Fated Ferocity); each point of damage adds an additional die to the attack roll, plus one. You must take at least one bashing damage for this maneuver. |
| •••• | Not Today | Death knows when it’s time to come and claim you and won’t waste its energy on anything less. Up to a limit of your character’s Resolve in a single scene, any lethal damage that would fill her last Health box instead wraps into aggravated damage. Thus, her last Health box remains open and she can keep fighting. |
| ••••• | Don’t Go Gently | Your character’s final act shows everyone she’s not going out with a whimper, but a bang. When confronted with the source of her Cursed Merit she can choose to spend all remaining points of Willpower to gain a bonus equal to her Willpower total for a single action. If this is an attack, upgrade the damage type. |
Firefight
Cost: • to •••
Prerequisites: Composure •••, Dexterity •••, Athletics ••, Firearms ••
Your character is comfortable with a gun. She’s been trained in stressful situations, and knows how to keep herself from being shot, while still shooting at her opponents. This Style is about moving, strafing, and taking shots when you get them. It’s not a series of precision techniques; it’s for using a gun practically in a real-world situation.
| • | Shoot First | In a firefight, the person shot first is usually the loser. Your character has trained herself to fire first in an altercation. If her gun is drawn, add her Firearms score to her Initiative. If she has Quick Draw, she can use Shoot First to draw and fire with increased Initiative in the first turn of combat. |
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| •• | Suppressive Fire | Sometimes, the purpose of a shot is to distract, not necessarily to hit. Your character is trained to fire off a handful of rounds with the intent to startle opponents and force impulse reactions. When using the Covering Fire maneuver, her opponents cannot benefit from aiming against her. She can apply her Defense against incoming Firearms attacks, in addition to any cover bonuses. Additionally, her training allows her to use Suppressive Fire with a semi-automatic weapon. |
| ••• | Secondary Target | Sometimes, shooting an opponent behind cover is all but impossible. However, a bullet can knock objects off balance, or cause ricochets. By using Secondary Target, your character opts not to hit her target, but instead strike them with any collateral objects that might be nearby. She causes bashing damage instead of lethal, but ignores all cover penalties to the roll. The weapon’s damage rating does not add to the damage in this case. |
Grappling
Cost: • to •••
Prerequisites: Stamina •••, Strength ••, Athletics ••, Brawl ••
Your character has trained in wrestling, or one of many grappling martial arts.
| • | Sprawl | Your character can adjust his weight to defend himself in a grapple. Add 2 to his Strength for the purposes of resisting overpowering maneuvers. |
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| •• | Takedown | Your character can take an opponent to the ground rapidly. With a normal roll, you may choose to render an opponent prone instead of establishing a grapple. Also, you may choose to cause bashing damage equal to the successes rolled. |
| ••• | Joint Lock | Once in a grapple, your character can administer joint locks and other immobilizing tactics. Any attempt to overpower your character causes the other character a point of bashing damage. Additionally, any successful overpowering maneuvers your character uses cause one lethal damage in addition to their normal effects. |
Light Weapons
Cost: • to •••••
Prerequisites: Wits ••• //or// Fighting Finesse, Dexterity •••, Athletics ••, Weaponry ••
Your character is trained with small hand-to-hand weapons which favor finesse over raw power. These maneuvers may only be used with one-handed weapons with a damage rating of two or less.
| • | Rapidity | Your character moves with swiftness to find just the right spot to strike. You can sacrifice your character’s weapon damage rating to add his Weaponry score to his Initiative for the turn. The weapon becomes a zero damage weapon for the turn. |
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| •• | Thrust | Your character knows when to defend himself, and when to move in for the kill. At any time, you can sacrifice points of Defense one-for-one to add to attack pools. This cannot happen if you’ve already used Defense in the same turn. If you use this maneuver, you may not sacrifice your full Defense for any other reason. For example, you cannot use Thrust with an all-out attack. |
| ••• | Feint | With a flourish in one direction, your character can distract an opponent for a cleaner, more effective follow-up strike. For example, if Feinting with a two damage weapon with three successes, the attack causes no damage. However, your next attack ignores five points of Defense, and causes three extra points of damage. |
| •••• | Flurry | Your character moves quickly enough to stab opponents with numerous pricks and swipes in the blink of an eye. As long as your character has his Defense available to him (if it’s not been sacrificed for another maneuver, or denied from surprise, for example), any character coming into his immediate proximity takes one point of lethal damage. This damage continues once per turn as long as the enemy stays within range, and occurs on the enemy’s turn. This can affect multiple opponents, and cannot be used in a turn where the character is Dodging. |
| ••••• | Vital Shot | Your character can use his smaller weapon to get into an opponent’s defenses and hit where it hurts most. Sacrifice your character’s Defense for the turn to use this maneuver. If the attack roll succeeds, the attack causes one point of aggravated damage, in addition to the damage rating of the weapon. |
Marksmanship
Cost: • to ••••
Prerequisites: Composure •••, Resolve •••, Firearms ••
When prepared and aimed, a gun is an ideal killing machine. Your character has trained to take advantage of the greatest features of a gun, usually a rifle, but this Style can be used with any gun. Because of the discipline and patience required for Marksmanship, your character cannot use her Defense during any turn in which she uses one of these maneuvers. These maneuvers may only be used after aiming for at least one turn.
| • | Through the Crosshairs | Your character is a competent sniper, able to sit in position and steel her wits. Usually, the maximum bonus from aiming is three dice. With Through the Crosshairs, it’s equal to her Composure + Firearms. |
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| •• | Precision Shot | With this level of training, your character knows how to effectively disable a victim instead of focusing on the kill. When attacking a specified target, you may reduce your weapon’s damage rating one-for-one to ignore penalties for shooting a specified target. For example, if your character is using a sniper rifle (four damage weapon), and attacking an arm (-2 to hit), you could choose to use three damage for -1, or two damage to eliminate the penalty entirely. |
| ••• | A Shot Rings Out | A master sniper, your character has no worries or lack of confidence. She can fire into a crowd and strike a specific target without penalty. If she misses, it’s because her shot goes wide. She will never hit an unintended target. |
| •••• | Ghost | Your character has trained to shoot unseen, and vanish without a trace. Her Firearms score acts as a penalty on any roll to notice her vantage point, or any Investigation or Perception roll to investigate the area from where she was shooting. |
Parkour
Cost: • to •••••
Prerequisites: Dexterity •••, Athletics ••
Your character is a trained and proficient free runner. Free running is the art of moving fluidly through urban environments with complex leaps, bounds, running tricks, and vaults. The is the type of sport popularized in modern action films, where characters are unhindered by fences, walls, construction equipment, cars, or anything else the city puts in your way.
| • | Flow | Your character reacts instinctively to any obstacles with leaps, jumps, and scaling techniques. When in a foot chase, subtract your Parkour from the successes needed to pursue or evade. Also, ignore environmental penalties to Athletics rolls equal to your Parkour rating. |
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| •• | Cat Leap | Your character falls with outstanding grace. When using a Dexterity + Athletics roll to mitigate damage from falling, your character gains one automatic success. Additionally, add your Parkour rating to the threshold of damage that can be removed through this roll. Parkour will not mitigate damage from a terminal velocity fall. |
| ••• | Wall Run | When climbing, your character can run upward for some distance before having to traditionally climb. Without rolling, your character scales 10 feet + five feet per dot of Athletics as an instant action, rather than the normal 10 feet. |
| •••• | Expert Traceur | Parkour has become second nature for your character. By spending a Willpower point, you may designate one Athletics roll to run, jump, or climb as a rote action (reroll all failed dice once). On any turn during which you use this ability, you may not apply your character's Defense to oncoming attacks. |
| ••••• | Freeflow | Your character's Parkour is now muscle memory. She can move without thinking, in a Zenlike state. The character must successfully meditate in order to establish Freeflow. Once established, your character is capable of taking Athletics actions reflexively once per turn. By spending a point of Willpower on an Athletics roll in a foot chase, gain three successes instead of three dice. |
Police Tactics
Cost: • to •••
Prerequisites: Brawl ••, Weaponry •
Your character is trained in restraint techniques, often used by law enforcement officers. This may reflect formal training, or lessons from a skilled practitioner.
| • | Compliance Hold | Gain a +2 bonus to overpowering rolls to disarm or immobilize an opponent. |
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| •• | Weapon Retention | Opponents attempting to disarm your character or turn his weapon against him must exceed your character’s Weaponry score in successes. |
| ••• | Speed Cuff | Against an immobilized opponent, your character may apply handcuffs, cable ties, or similar restraints as a reflexive action. |
Psychic Vampirism
Cost: • to •••••
Prerequisites: --
To use Psychic Vampirism, your character must touch a victim, skin-to-skin. The Breath Stealer Merit alters this. Any use of Psychic Vampirism is an instant action, so it cannot be combined with other instant actions, such as physical attacks. However, she can use it as a grappling maneuver (use the grappling maneuver dice pools instead of the normal Psychic Vampirism dice pool in that case).
Use of Psychic Vampirism abilities requires a roll of Intelligence + Occult + Psychic Vampirism – the victim’s Resolve dots. Successes determine the level of effect. She can combine effects and divide her successes between points of damage and Willpower.
Each level of Psychic Vampirism has two effects: One enhances your character’s ability to feed from Ephemera, the other allows your character to use Ephemera. The Ephemera expenditure ability may be used reflexively once per turn; only one such ability can be used per turn.
| • | Amateur | With this basic level, your character can cause bashing damage. She causes one bashing damage per success on her roll. Every two points of bashing damage gives her one Ephemera (this can be accumulated over multiple turns). She can use one Ephemera to heal a point of bashing damage, or two Ephemera to heal one lethal damage. |
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| •• | Dilettante | With this level, she can choose to steal psychic energy from her victim instead of causing damage. For every two successes, she steals one Willpower from her victim and converts it into one Ephemera. For two Ephemera, she can regain one spent Willpower point. |
| ••• | Practiced | Now, her ability to harm is intensified. Every success causes two bashing damage or one lethal damage, and gives her one Ephemera. She can heal two bashing or one lethal with a point of Ephemera. |
| •••• | Accomplished | Her psychic draining improves. Now, every success drains a point of Willpower from her victims and gives her one Ephemera. A point of Ephemera regains a point of Willpower. |
| ••••• | Virtuoso | With this pinnacle of psychic vampirism, the character’s ability to steal life becomes utterly fearsome. Every success causes both one lethal damage and one Willpower loss if she wishes, and gives her two Ephemera. A single Ephemera point recovers a point of Willpower, and one lethal or two bashing damage. |
Relentless Assault
Cost: • to •••••
Prerequisites: Strength •••, Stamina •••, Brawl ••
Your character fights with complete abandon. She throws herself at her opponents without thought or hesitation, turning herself into a ruthless killing machine. She’s the first into the fight, and the last out of a fight. While this Style is more useful in Hispo and Crinos form, a Garou can use it in any form. It only applies to attacks using the Brawl Skill, but can be used when in Frenzy.
| • | Drop of a Hat | Your character goes from zero to ballistic at the start of a fight. She always goes to strike first. In the first turn of a fight, your character gets +3 to her Initiative score so long as she makes an all-out attack (see p. 168). After the first turn, this bonus goes away. |
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| •• | Eye of the Tiger | Your character can focus on a single target to the exclusion of all others. This tunnel vision makes her fearsome against her primary target, but vulnerable to others. Choose a target. When making an all-out attack against that target, your character retains her Defense against him. |
| ••• | Dig Deep | Your character doesn’t strike for her enemy’s skin; she strikes for a spot a few feet behind it. To her, overkill is the only acceptable kill. You can choose to remove one die from your dice pool before rolling an attack. If you do, increase your character’s claws or teeth weapon modifier by +1. |
| •••• | Grin and Bear It | Your character stops caring about her own safety in order to take down her opponents, and this single-minded lethality helps her to shrug off blows that might cripple others less ferocious. Any time she makes an all-out attack, she gains 1/1 armor against all attacks for the turn. This combines with any other armor she may benefit from. |
| ••••• | The Warpath | Your character kills, but this does not stop her assault. Any time she fills an opponent’s last health box with lethal or aggravated damage, she may immediately make an additional attack against any other character within her reach. If her second attack deals damage, she immediately enters Hard Frenzy without a chance to resist. |
Street Fighting
Cost: • to •••••
Prerequisites: Stamina •••, Composure •••, Brawl ••, Streetwise ••
Your character learned to fight on the mean streets. She may have had some degree of formal training, but the methodology came from the real world, in dangerous circumstances. Street Fighting isn’t about form and grace, it’s about staying alive. These maneuvers may only be used unarmed, or with weapons capable of using the Brawl Skill, such as punch daggers, or weapons concealed with the Shiv Merit above).
| • | Duck and Weave | Your character has been beaten all to hell more than a few times. Now she dodges on instinct, not on skill. You can reflexively take a one-die penalty to any actions this turn to use the higher of her Wits or Dexterity to calculate Defense. If you’ve already made a roll without penalty this turn, you cannot use Duck and Weave. |
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| •• | Knocking the Wind Out | Shots to the center mass can shake an opponent, and your character knows this well. When your character makes a successful unarmed attack, the opponent suffers a -1 to his next roll. |
| ••• | Kick ‘Em While They’re Down | The best enemy is one on the ground. Your character topples opponents, and keeps them down. Any time your successes on an attack roll exceed an opponent’s Stamina, you may choose to apply the Knocked Down Tilt. Additionally, any time your character is close enough to strike when an opponent attempts to get up from a prone position, she can reflexively cause two bashing damage. |
| •••• | One-Two Punch | Your character hits fast, and she follows through with every hit. Whenever she makes a successful attack, you can spend a point of Willpower to cause two extra points of bashing damage. |
| ••••• | Last-Ditch Effort | In a street fight, every second could mean the loss of your life. A proficient street fighter is a remarkable survivalist. She bites, headbutts, trips, or does whatever it takes to prevent that last hit. Any time a character with this level of Street Fighting is about to take a hit or get overpowered when she’s already suffering wound penalties, she can reflexively spend a Willpower point and sacrifice her Defense for the turn to make an attack against her would-be assailant. This can occur even if she’s already acted in a turn, so long as she’s not already spent Willpower. Resolve this attack before the opponent’s action. |
Stunt Driver
Cost: • to ••••
Prerequisites: Dexterity •••, Drive •••, Wits •••
Your character is an expert behind the wheel, and can push a vehicle beyond normal limits. Each dot of this Merit grants access to another driving technique.
| • | Defensive Driving | Your character knows how to protect herself and her vehicle while driving. Subtract her Drive dots from any attempt to hit her vehicle while it's mobile. |
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| •• | Speed Demon | Your character is an expert at pushing vehicles to their potential in no time flat. Each success on rolls to accelerate a vehicle raises the vehicle's Speed by 10 instead of 5. |
| ••• | Drift | Your character knows how to use her vehicle's momentum to efficiently turn at high speeds. She never needs to make a maneuvering roll to turn at high speeds. |
| •••• | Clipping | Your character has experience hitting things with her vehicle in such a way as to not hurt herself much. When voluntarily hitting another character or vehicle with hers, ignore damage to her own vehicle equal to her Wits. This is applied before Durability. |
Tactical Shifting
Cost: • to •••••
Prerequisites: Wits •••, Dexterity •••, Athletics ••
Your character knows how to shift her form rapidly to maximize her effectiveness in a fight. She can slink down in form in order to evade an oncoming attack, or she can make a swift change in order to add force to a blow.
For the purposes of this Merit, "shifting up" means shifting to a form with a higher Size. “Shifting down” requires losing Size. If your character shifts in the proper direction, she can take advantage of multiple maneuvers in a turn. For example, Springloading and Fluid Movement can both be used in the same turn your character shifts down.
| • | Springloading | Your character can leap forward in a larger form, then shift to a smaller form to move forward using the larger form’s strength and the smaller form’s mass to move quickly in small bursts. Shift down using this move at the start of the round; your character gains +2 Initiative and +5 Speed for the turn. |
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| •• | Broaden | Your character increases quickly in size, forcing nearby opponents to move or be pushed back. When you shift up, anyone within close-combat range who doesn’t Dodge suffers bashing damage equal to the difference in Size between your two forms. Anyone who takes damage must make a Dexterity + Athletics roll or suffer the Knocked Down Tilt. |
| ••• | Fluid Movement | When attacked, your character shifts down rapidly to a smaller form, making her harder to hit. Shift down. For every level of Size your character removes with the shift, all opponents suffer a –1 penalty to any rolls to hit her. |
| •••• | Suck it Up | When struck, your character can shift upward, maximizing the amount of flesh to hit, and minimizing the amount of relative harm caused. Shift up when attacked to ignore one point of bashing or lethal damage. |
| ••••• | Crush | When your character grabs or bites an opponent she can shift up. Her larger form crushes her foe. When your character has another grappled, shifting up reflexively causes automatic lethal damage equal to the difference in Size between her two forms. |
Drawback: Each of these maneuvers requires the character to shift forms as a reflexive action. If she is unable to do that, she cannot use this Merit.
Unarmed Defense
Cost: • to •••••
Prerequisites: Dexterity •••, Brawl ••, Defensive Combat: Brawl
| • | Like a Book | Your character can read his opponents, knowing where they’re likely to strike. When facing an unarmed opponent and not Dodging, increase your character’s Defense by half of his Brawl (round down). |
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| •• | Studied Style | Your character focuses on reading one opponent, avoiding his attacks and frustrating him. Attacks from that opponent do not reduce your character’s Defense. If your character’s Defense reduces his opponent’s attack pool to zero, his further attacks against you lose the 10-again quality. |
| ••• | Redirect | When your character is being attacked by multiple opponents, he can direct their blows against one another. When he Dodges, if his Defense roll reduces an attack’s successes to zero, his attacker rolls the same attack against another attacker of your choice. Drawback: Your character may only redirect one attack in a turn. He cannot redirect an attack against the same attacker. |
| •••• | Joint Strike | Your character waits until the last possible second, then lashes out at his opponent’s elbow or wrist as he attacks, hoping to cripple his limbs. Roll Strength + Brawl instead of Defense. If you score more successes than your attacker, you deal one point of bashing damage per extra success, and inflict either the Arm Wrack or Leg Wrack Tilt (your choice). Drawback: Spend a point of Willpower to use this maneuver. |
| ••••• | Like the Breeze | Your characters steps to one side as his opponent attacks, and gives her enough of a push to send her flying past him. When dodging, if your Defense roll reduces an opponent’s attack successes to zero, you can inflict the Knocked Down Tilt. Drawback: Declare that you’re using this maneuver at the start of the turn before taking any other attacks. |