House Rules

Allies

 * Choose an Ability for your Allies that, when called upon for help relating to that Ability, they roll a dice pool of 7 to determine success. Any other rolls they perform are done at a dice pool of 3.

Generation

 * It requires 2 Background dots/Freebie Points to increase the Generation Background. This rule doesn't apply at The Embrace.

Retainers

 * Choose your Retainers primary and secondary Attribute categories. When making a roll drawing on an Attribute in their primary category, they apply 4 dice to the roll, their secondary category applies 3 dice and their tertiary category applies 2 dice. In addition, Retainers apply number of dice to their rolls equal to your character's Leadership rating. Retainers Virtues and Willpower are always at a rating of 3. If your Retainer is a Ghoul, they possess dots in Potence and one other clan Discipline that you possess at a rating equal to the maximum allowed based on your Generation.
 * Animal Retainers have a Physical Attribute category of 3, a Mental category of 1 and do not roll for Social actions. Rather than drawing on a characters Leadership, they draw upon a character's Animal Ken.
 * Childer that remain under the influence of the character are considered Retainers, as above, except they have all clan Disciplines at one level lower than your own character and a single Background at 3 dots. If the childe was formerly a ghoul, they retain their Potence. Childer have a Humanity rating of one level higher than your own or, if you are on a Path and you teach it to them, one level lower.

Increasing/Stealing Backgrounds
When working to gain a new dot in a Background, you must first gain access to that Background through in-game roleplaying actions. Once you have done so and the Storyteller feels it is appropriate, you may take the following (usually) extended actions. Failing this action has no detrimental affect but botching it eliminates any future attempts along the same direction.

To identify details about another's Backgrounds, identify if a certain Background is possessed by another or to determine who has attacked or stolen one of your current Backgrounds, you must complete the following extended actions, only possible once per night. Failing this action means you are unable to make a determination and botching this action alerts the target that somebody is looking into them, but not who it was.

To steal another person's Backgrounds, you must first succeed at identifying the details about the Background. Once you have successfully made this identification, you may take to following extended actions in order to attempt to steal a dot. Failing this action alerts the target that their Background is under attack, but not who is attacking them. Botching this action not only reveals which Background is under attack, but who is performing the attack.

Note: Disciplines may be used in place of any of these rolls if its use is appropriate to the action and the Storyteller approves its viability for the attempt.

Combat

 * 1) All participants determine Initiative order by rolling a single die + Dexterity rating + Wits rating. Applicable Specialties add an additional +1 per Specialty.
 * 2) When taking an attack action, roll Dexterity + relevant Ability (Melee=Melee; Ranged=Firearms; Throwing=Athletics; Unarmed=Brawl).
 * 3) The strike hits if the attack yields more successes than the target's Defense roll of Dexterity + (Auspex rating if surprised; Dodge rating if aware of the attack). Characters may opt to Block or Parry by declaring so on their turn, utilizing their Brawl or Melee instead, but this limits their defense only to applicable attacks.
 * 4) If the strike is successful, it deals wounds equal to the Damage Rating of the attack. Melee attacks deal (Strength+Weapon)/2 wounds; Ranged attacks deal Weapon/2 wounds; Unarmed attacks deal Strength/2 wounds. Always round up and then add Potence as additional wounds when the Damage Rating employs Strength.
 * 5) Reduce the number of wounds taken by subtracting the target's Soak Rating; (Stamina rating + armor)/2 and add the Fortitude rating. This only applies to combat and not soaking damage from other sources. Bashing damage against a vampire is halved after the soak; rounded down.
 * 6) Note that if you have a Specialty in either Strength or Stamina that is appropriate while inflicting damage or soaking, your total score is considered to receive a +1 bonus for damage or soak.

Healing

 * Do not need to roll to heal with vitae while performing other actions.

Multiple Actions

 * No multiple actions.

Resisted Actions

 * Characters total dice pools do not affect opponent’s difficulty.

Diablerie

 * After successful diablerie, in addition to the potential improvment in Generation, you gain a level in the victim’s highest rated Discipline. If you already possess or surpass your victims highest rated Discipline, you gain a level in their next highest Discipline. If there are multiple Disciplines at the same level, the one gained is chosen randomly.  Necromancy and Thamaturgy cannot be learned in this manner.

Celerity

 * On the round it is activated, it adds automatic successes to Dexterity rolls, speed and adds an Initiative bonus, all equal to it's rating. On The Embrace there's no blood point cost for using the discipline.

Serpentis

 * When utilizing the effects of level 3, it reduces the difficulty of your defense roll, rather than affecting your Soak.

Vicissitude Infection

 * Whenever tasting the blood of somebody with Vicissitude, roll Stamina (difficulty 6). Failure indicates that you are infected and may now buy Vicissitude without a teacher by spending the normal Experience to learn and increase the Discipline. All characters that learn Vicissitude must roll Willpower (dificulty 7) for each level, including the first, that they learn. Failure applies the Derangement below.
 * Tainted: The vampire becomes more insular, self-involved and withdrawn from others. Social, Empathy and Conscience rolls always suffer a +1 difficulty and any task which requires teamwork suffer a +3 difficulty penalty.

Frenzy
Rolls to resist frenzy only require 1 success initially. If you fail it still requires 5 successes to regain control.

Humanity
As a vampire's Humanity changes, it affects their Social rolls (excluding Discipline and Intimidation rolls) against Kine by applying a difficulty modifer. Social difficulty rolls increase by +1 for a Humanity of 3; +2 for a Humanity of 2; and +3 for a Humanity of 1. Conversely, vampires with a Humanity ratings of 8 gain a -1 difficulty; Humanity of 9 gains a -2 difficulty and Humanity of 10 gains a -3 difficulty modifier.

Specialties

 * If you have a Specialty, any result of a 10 on an action and dice roll involving that Specialty generates 2 successes instead of just 1.

Speed

 * Dexterity + Athletics total (- pain penalty)