Mind's Eye Theatre - Vampire The Requiem.pdf - RoseRed

BASHING DAMAGE
Fists, clubs and falls are all examples of bashing damage. Anything that infl icts bashing
damage on mortals also infl icts bashing damage on Kindred.
Unlike mortals, vampires are never knocked unconscious by bashing damage. The vampiric
body just doesn’t have the same limitations that a living one does. A Kindred still feels the
trauma and still suffers test pool penalties, though. When your character’s rightmost Health
box is fi lled with a slash for bashing damage, any further points of bashing damage infl icted
on the character upgrade the least severe of his existing wounds, from left to right. Remember:
Draws for unconsciousness are not made for a vampire when his rightmost Health box
is fi lled with a slash for bashing damage.
LETHAL DAMAGE
Knives, axes, chainsaws and other sorts of melee weapons that infl ict lethal damage on
mortals also infl ict lethal damage on vampires. Chopping and slicing is almost as bad for the
undead as for the living. Vampires can protect themselves from lethal damage by wearing
body armor, just like mortals can.
Unlike mortals, however, the undead take bashing damage from fi rearms. A vampire has
only two vital organs, the head and heart, and their importance is as much supernatural as
physical. The other organs in a vampire’s body don’t actually do anything, so it doesn’t matter
if a bullet drills a hole through them. This does not apply to archaic weapons, however. If
an arrow from a bow (even though Firearms is drawn to make the attack), a thrown knife or
anything of that sort impales a vampire, the weapon still infl icts lethal damage.
The exception for fi rearms has its own exceptions, though. If someone puts a high-caliber
gun to a Kindred’s head and blows most of his brains out, that’s certainly lethal damage.
Storytellers should exercise their own judgment in cases like this.
The undead do not bleed to death like mortals do when their rightmost Health boxes are
fi lled with lethal damage. If a Kindred’s last Health box has an “X” in it, he is in torpor. (See
the chart on p. 249 to fi nd the duration of this death-like state.) Any further points of lethal
damage infl icted on the character are converted to aggravated damage.
To mortals, of course, an incapacitated or newly torpid Kindred seems dead. This appearance
might save the vampire if the mortal did not mean to kill his foe. The mortal might run away, call
an ambulance or do something else that gives the Kindred time to recover. If the mortal meant to
kill the character but did not know he fought a vampire, he probably stops attacking, which can
also give the character time to regain consciousness. If the mortal knows about the undead, though,
the Kindred probably faces Final Death anyway, as an unconscious vampire is as easy to kill as an
unconscious mortal. Prudent Kindred do not take lethal or even bashing damage lightly.
AGGRAVATED DAMAGE
Certain weapons such as magically enhanced werewolf claws or those that Kindred can
grow using the Protean Discipline infl ict aggravated damage to vampires. Various rare Discipline
powers, rituals and other magical effects might deal aggravated damage as well. Such
special cases are explained in the description of the relevant power or ritual. Attacks that deal
large quantities of lethal damage can also be “upgraded” to aggravated damage if they would
destroy large chunks of a character’s body. For example, if a vampire throws himself on a
hand grenade, the Storyteller has every right to declare that the character suffers aggravated
damage from the explosion. For the most part, though, Kindred suffer aggravated damage
because of the special anathemas to the undead: sunlight and fi re.
Remember that aggravated damage is also infl icted when all other Health boxes are fi lled
with lethal injuries, and more harm of any kind is incurred; lethal wounds are upgraded to
aggravated from left to right.
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mind’s chapter eye three: theatre: special requiem rules and systems