Physical Skills

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Physical Skills

Physical Skills depend entirely, or at least in large part, on physical control, aptitude, or effort.

Athletics

Athletics allows you to outpace someone in pursuit, leap out of the way of an oncoming car, and climb and swim like a healthy, robust living person.

A character can use Athletics in place of any Physical combat Skill in a conflict roll, but in that case, they never inflict any hits on their opponent, no matter how many successes they roll.

• You were always attentive in gym class and you still have a spring in your step.
•• Despite being dead, you are still as fit as a mortal doing regular exercise.
••• You are fit as a fiddle and could play professional sports. Night games, at least.
•••• With your parkour abilities, why would you need to turn into a bat?
••••• Olympic records await you; only a very few peak humans can achieve what you can. Vampires mistake your skill for Physical Disciplines.

Specialties: Acrobatics, Archery, Climbing, Endurance, Jumping, Parkour, Swimming, Throwing

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Brawl

Brawl enables characters to hit their target when they swing with fist, boot, or claw. As long as you have no weapon in hand, the attack constitutes a brawl, from elegant aikijutsu to dirty street fighting.

• You had a tough upbringing and had to fight to justify your place. You still have some moves.
•• You received some training in hitting someone hard and accurately.
••• You more than hold your own in a scrap.
•••• You either received Spetsnaz-quality training, or you have spent decades of afterlife in fights.
••••• You could win MMA championships even without the use of your vampiric powers.

Specialties: Animals, Armed Mortals, Bar Fights, Grappling, Kindred, Sporting Combat, Unarmed Mortals, Werewolves, While in Protean Beast Form

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Craft

Craft broadly encompasses artistry, creation of items and utilities from the beautiful to the functional, and arts and crafts from throwing pottery all the way to building and reinforcing your own haven.

When you take this Skill, you get a free specialty. Unlike most Skills, you can have more specialties in Craft than you have dots.

• You are an amateur, but you know what you are doing.
•• Your craftsmanship is admired for its functionality.
••• Your creations can be beautiful or horrifying, but their intent always clear.
•••• Your skill is highly respected among the kine and Kindred aware of it.
••••• You are often chosen to create the focal point for parties at Elysium.

Specialties: Carpentry, Carving, Design, Painting, Sculpting, Sewing, Weaponsmithing

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Drive

Anyone (except perhaps 500-year old vampires) can learn to drive a car. The Drive Skill connotes ability to drive fast and safely under adverse conditions or in stressful situations: to drive off-road, speed away from ambushes, win street races, and get out of chases with the Second Inquisition.

• You are a cautious driver, unlikely to make any mistakes.
•• You can put your foot down without much fear of an accident, providing visibility is good.
••• You have won car chases, earning a cool reputation among the Anarchs.
•••• You could be a stunt driver or the personal chauffeur of a Prince or Baron.
••••• You know cars inside and out. Few can match your skill and knowledge.

Specialties: All-Terrain Vehicles, Evasion, Motorcycles, Street Racing, Stunts, Tailing, Trucks, Vintage Models

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Firearms

Leaving a victim with holes in their throat: full-on Second Inquisition investigation. Leaving a victim with holes in their head: just another Saturday night in Baltimore. Cainites use Firearms not only for the human reasons (efficiency and thrill) but to preserve the Masquerade. This Skill comprises familiarity with small arms from holdout pistols to assault rifles. It also includes other trigger-operated weapons, such as crossbows and shoulder-fired rocket-propelled grenades. Finally, it includes cleaning, unjamming, and rapidly reloading such weapons.

• You’ve fired a gun a few times, at the range or in less-formal circumstances.
•• You know (and know how) to keep your weapon clean, take it apart, and reassemble it.
••• You’ve been in the shit (“seen the elephant” if you’re older than a century) and come out the other side.
•••• You can handle trick shots, called shots, running shots – really anything ending in a gunshot.
••••• You’ve been practising since the debut of the Winchester.

Specialties: Crossbows, Gun Dealing, Gunsmithing, Handloading Ammunition, Quick-Draw, Sniper, Trick Shooting

Storytellers should discourage obvious crocks such as suggested specialties in “Combat Shooting,” “Pistols,” or even “Glock 17s.” A specialty in Your Personal Signature Weapon You’ve Carried For Decades might be allowable, because if you take your personally engraved Colt balanced to your personal grip to every gunfight, you’re much more likely to drop it, have it stolen, or have its ballistic fingerprint connect you to a series of murders.

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Larceny

This Skill entails familiarity with the tools and techniques for picking locks, planting bugs, deactivating standard burglar and car alarms, manual forgery, hot-wiring automobiles, or even safe-cracking, as well as countless forms of breaking and entering. Characters also use it for setting up “unbeatable” security systems or deducing how and where systems failed in a break-in. Ventrue probably call the skill “Security.”

These days, most high-end security systems feature computer controls, video surveillance, or electronic alarms, so they might also involve the Technology Skill to defeat.

• You can pick a simple lock or a careless pocket.
•• You can hotwire a car or shoplift with ease.
••• You can identify the locations of security cameras and alarms so to best bypass them.
•••• You can defeat a keypad, re-tool an ID card, or crack a safe.
••••• You can get into – or out of – the vault of a multinational bank.

Specialties: Alarms, Forgery, Grand Theft Auto, Housebreaking, Lockpicking, Pickpocket, Safecracking, Security Analysis

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Melee

Use Melee to wield handheld weapons such as knives, chains, and baseball bats with prowess. A stake is a melee weapon, often found in the hands of would-be hunters.

• You can swing a bat or blade and mostly hit the people you intend to.
•• Your clear competence with a weapon in hand should give attackers pause.
••• Your skill with a melee weapon is known throughout the domain.
•••• The fools brought a gun to your knife fight.
••••• You are the domain’s weapon master, sought out by Kindred far and wide for your skill.

Specialties: Axes, Chains, Clubs, Fencing, Disarming Blows, Garrotes, Improvised Weapons, Knives, Stakes, Swords

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Stealth

Stealth allows a character to shadow a target, making vampires with this ability superlative hunters. They benefit from the ability to spy, sneak, and blend in with crowds when needed.

• Spotting you under the cover of darkness or in camouflage proves difficult.
•• You can sneak by casual observers and stalk unknowing victims without raising any hackles.
••• You evade patrolling guards, moving softly and hiding easily.
•••• Your subtle, silent passage could make you a worthy ninja – or a worthy foe for ninja.
••••• The Children of Haqim come to you for advice on stalking and hiding, if they can find you.

Specialties: Ambushes, Crowds, Disguise, Hiding, Shadowing, Silent Movement, Urban, Wilderness

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Survival

Survival conveys the ability to exist in the wild and other adverse conditions, and to return to civilization again: navigate by the stars, establish a makeshift haven, and notice werewolf signs before it’s too late. Some of its related functions apply in parks, brownfields, and other wastelands of the urban jungle.

• You know the trails and wilderness around your domain.
•• You spend more time outdoors than inside, and you can track anyone who doesn’t possess woodcraft.
••• You can subsist outside the city, setting traps for mortals and a shelter for yourself.
•••• You can thrive outside the city like the true predator you are.
••••• Gangrel run in packs with you – if they can keep up.

Specialties: Desert, Hunting, Jungle, Tracking, Traps, Shelters, Urban Exploration, Woodlands

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Attributes
Attributes:	Physical Attributes ♦ Social Attributes ♦ Mental Attributes
Skills:	Physical Skills ♦ Social Skills ♦ Mental Skills