Dominate

[Hematite]

DOMINATE [V20 151]

Dominate commands can be non-verbal for simple commands, such as a forceful gesture toward the door and an angry expression. In this case, use the dice pool for Dominate 1: Command.

Characters with Dominate 4 or higher require double the downtime actions to purchase any levels in Empathy with experience points. They also cannot simply raise Empathy themselves, requiring either an instructor or exceptional circumstances.

A character wishing to avoid eye-contact may make a Willpower roll, difficulty of the Dominate user’s Manipulation + Intimidation. In truth, the target need not even have eyes for Dominate to work, the Dominate user needs only to capture their full and total attention which is usually the moment of eye contact. Slightly obscured (mirrored glasses) or closed eyes can make this at a -1 difficulty, heavily obscured (gas mask) makes it at -2, and completely hidden (blindfold) or totally gouged or fleshcrafted eyes do so at -3.

For reference, the average Willpower of a mortal is between 2 and 4.

Under the effects of Dominate, characters are still responsible for their actions in relation to the character's Path and Degeneration, similar to Frenzy. Degeneration checks based on actions while under this effect are made at -2 difficulty. Characters cannot restore or undo Humanity loss by making another character forget the event that caused the loss. A vampire's Beast takes hold of the character and won't relent just because your character forgot the event occurred.

Dominate does not affect emotions. Your character can be dominated to believe "All Frenchmen are liars" and will make decisions on that basis, but the character will not conjure any true hatred for Frenchmen that wasn't already there. Likewise, your character cannot be Dominated to believe they no longer love someone, that a person is their best friend, trusted ally, or worst enemy. Characters can be dominated to believe that certain memories happened; a terrible fight, a daring rescue, or some other event that might ordinarily provoke emotion, but your character's emotional reaction to those events will remain relatively hollow and unchanged. Your character will forgive their lover even though they had a bad fight, your character will find it hard to truly appreciate the daring rescue they remember, and find it difficult to bring themselves to hate their best friend, even though the character is sure that they just betrayed them.

The Curse of Generations as applied through the Dominate discipline, affects all uses of Dominate and any Discipline Technique utilizing Dominate unless specifically stated otherwise.

Dominate 1: Command [V20 152]

Any command that can be completed instantly (“stop”, “silence”, “submit”) still remains in effect for a number of turns equal to the successes rolled.

If the command word is part of a sentence, it needs at least some degree of vocal emphasis.

A command of “Sleep” will not induce immediate sleep, unless the individual dominated has the monastic or psychic training necessary to put herself to sleep on command. Rather the command will cause the individual to sincerely ATTEMPT to go to sleep for a minimum of rounds equal to the successes scored, which (depending on circumstances) may simply not be possible. In line with the self-preservation limits of Dominate, this command will not work if the target believes herself to be in imminent danger or significantly frightened they will be harmed. Should they actually fall asleep, it is an ordinary sleep and they can be woken by ordinary means. As vampires cannot voluntarily sleep, this command has no effect on Cainites.

Command is the only Dominate power that can be employed in Combat. Doing so incurs a +2 difficulty on the roll due to distraction. However conversely, the roll to resist eye-contact is also at +2 difficulty in combat, as the instinct of most trained combatants is to watch the eyes of their opponents. Actively resisting eye-contact in combat imposes a +1 difficulty to all combat actions against that target.


Dominate 2: Mesmerize [V20 152]

Because Mesmerism requires a total lack of distractions between both the mesermist and the victim, Mesmerism commands cannot be used in combat.

Mesmerize cannot compel indefinite or unfulfillable commands. A mesmerize command must be a single, distinct task that has an identifiable and achievable end that is within the power of the victim to achieve. A mesmerize command cannot even be one with a specified duration that is beyond the control of the subject. This opens a door that leads to perpetual Dominate commands, a feat requiring Conditioning to achieve. A mesmerize command must have a distinct end point when the command has been fulfilled (so “Bring me my sword from my haven” is acceptable, even if it might take some time to achieve, but “wait here until I return” would not be because the duration is not in the control of the victim). Similarly if the victim genuinely believes the task to be impossible to the point of ridiculousness (“count all the grains of sand on this beach” or “cut down the mightiest tree in the forest with a herring”) the power has no effect.

Mesmerism commands placed on a trigger, can only trigger to something the victim can sense and recognize. So a victim could be commanded “When next you see the Prince you will kneel before him and swear allegiance”, but could not be told “When Camarilla forces next enter this building return here and fight them,” since he would have no way of knowing if Camarilla forces had entered the building.


Dominate 3: The Forgetful Mind [V20 153]

The success chart describes 5 successes as “May reconstruct entire periods of the subject’s life”. The level of detail necessary to give a target an entire new period of their life would, at the minimum, require several hours of speaking to relay the new life story in any degree of detail to be believable, perhaps longer depending on level of detail and amount of time covered. Such a use of Forgetful Mind will consume a minimum of one downtime action from both the user and the victim (possibly more at ST discretion depending on amount of time and detail covered by new memories). Using The Forgetful Mind in this way requires total access to the victim during that time and can’t be done casually or quickly without the effect crumbling fairly immediately.

All uses of The Forgetful Mind, whether implanting false memories, erasing memories, or uncovering true memories are done verbally. This power requires the user to speak and describe exactly what he is doing to the victim out loud in a manner that the victim can hear and understand him.

Should the user score a minimum of 3 successes on this power while actively manipulating a false memory, he can determine that the memory is false, though not the truth beneath it. He cannot do a general scan for false memories in the subject, that is the purview of Auspex. Alternatively, he may examine a specific memory to determine if it is false by making a Wits + Empathy roll at the difficulty of the subject’s current Willpower as usual, also requiring 3 successes, though this active search does not require any actual manipulation of the memory in question to determine if it is real or fabricated.

Uses of The Forgetful Mind to reverse another’s use of The Forgetful Mind requires both equal or greater successes on the Wits + Empathy roll at a difficulty of the original Dominator’s Permanent Willpower AND an equal or superior level of Dominate. A failure of either factor is indistinguishable from the other in cause, and the user does not know in which way they were insufficient.

Altered or removed memories returning on their own will always be at ST discretion.


Dominate 4: Conditioning [V20 154]

Conditioning is not a fast power. The use of Conditioning requires a great deal of uninterrupted time with the victim, though that time need not be consecutive. Both the user and the victim must spend one downtime action per roll made for Conditioning. This represents several hours together as the Dominate user works his mind magic. Note: It is not required that both user and victim are aware that the user is Conditioning his victim. The time together could easily be described as some other innocuous activity, particularly if the user is making use of The Forgetful Mind as well.

Characters who are conditioned no longer have protection from the self-destruction restriction of Dominate. A conditioned mortal can be ordered to crash his car at high speeds into another vehicle with no thought for his safety.

Conditioning typically requires 7x the victim’s Self-Control/Instinct score in successes to complete. For victims of Strong Natures, it requires 10x their Self-Control/Instinct. For victims of Weak Natures, it requires 5x their Self-Control/Instinct. Refer to the section on Strong and Weak Natures at the top of this page for a list.

A Conditioned victim is not a zombie. They simply lack any drive or ambition of their own. They will still continue their lives, feed themselves, and otherwise maintain their current status quo while conditioned unless otherwise ordered, albeit without any spark of life or passion. Unless directly ordered to perform an action, this is handled through roleplay, without any specific mechanical penalty for being conditioned beyond what is described in the power. The defining difference is that a conditioned victim no longer truly WANTS anything.

A conditioned victim can be deprogrammed to regain her personality and will by the successful use of this Discipline on him again. The additional difficulty is in effect if a new user is attempting to remove conditioning, and the new user must acquire the same amount of successes necessary to condition him, at which time he regains his individuality.

Conditioned individuals, like blood-bound thralls, may have any use of Dominate performed on them by their conditioner without the need for eye-contact. This only applies if their will has been broken by the full use of Conditioning, not the soft-conditioning described below.

The use of Telepathy will spot a conditioned individual with a minimum of 4 successes.

A user of Conditioning may, instead of crushing the psyche of their victim, instead create a Mesmerism command that is built directly into the victim’s subconscious, able to persist in perpetuity until such a time as the person overcomes conditioning somehow. This command follows the same rules as Mesmerism commands for the purposes of the scope and successes needed, save for two exceptions: First, these commands do not prohibit an actual Mesmerism command from being placed at the same time and a victim may be subject to any number of these conditioning effects. Second, as conditioned individuals can be made to lose their self-preservation instinct, the command may be self-destructive or incredibly dangerous in nature. Such commands provoke one last Self-Control/Instinct roll to resist before fulfilling the command at a difficulty of the Charisma + Leadership of the Dominator. Such commands will always behave as “If/Then” statements and respond to some trigger or condition to provoke an action in response. They cannot be used for perpetual commands such as “You will never use Obfuscate again,” but could be used for something like, “Whenever you hear someone speak ill of me, report that to me within one hour.” Subjects conditioned in this way do not lose their individuality or motivation as in the other form of Conditioning, nor do they gain the increased difficulty to other uses of Dominate.


Dominate 5: Possession [V20 154]

During Possession, as with other powers of remote perception, your body is abandoned and insensate. You can neither move, sense, or feel, and if danger befalls your torpid body, you are completely unaware of it until you return your senses to your body.

Possessing a body uses this expanded list for what powers may be used while Possessing at what level of success:

Uses the Body's Physicals, if any: Abombwe, Celerity, Fortitude, Potence, Protean, Sanguinus, Serpentis, Vicissitude, Visceratika

1 success Cannot use Disciplines
2 successes Can use Auspex and other sensory powers
3 successes Can also use Presence, Animalism, Melpominee and other powers of emotional manipulation
4 successes Can also use Dementation, Dominate, Obfuscate and other powers of mental manipulation
5 successes Can also use Bardo, Chimerstry, Daimoinon, Flight, Kineticism, Maleficia, Mytherceria, Necromancy, Obeah, Obtenebration, Ogham, Quietus, Spiritus, Striga, Temporis, Thanatosis, Valeren, Thaumaturgy and all other Blood Magics and Mystical powers

Disciplines that require blood, such as Obtenebration or Thaumaturgy, use the blood pool of the Kindred using Dominate. If the body possesses Physical Disciplines, any use of those Disciplines that requires blood points uses the blood points in the host body itself.

Combo Disciplines that are not physical in nature but require physical disciplines such as Quickened Instincts, Quickened Sight, Iron Glare, Alpha Glint, etc, may be used during Possession so long as you meet the Success threshold for the appropriate mental or emotional Discipline.

Even under the Blood Bond or Conditioning this power is not usable on Vampires.

The possessing Cainite makes a soak roll after the soak roll of the mortal he is possessing, based on the damage taken by the mortal after soak. This is mystically applied damage so the user soaks only with his Stamina + Fortitude (or Fortitude alone in the case of Aggravated wounds), discounting all sources that will only soak impact damage such as Skin of the Adder or Iron Body. The Kindred must soak the damage in the form it was delivered to the vessel (as bashing, lethal or aggravated). As such, Possession is not an absolute protection from final death. The Kindred must only soak any damage actually applied to the vessel, after it makes its own soak roll. Any damage in excess of 1+ the Vessel’s health levels is discarded before the vampire must make his soak roll.

A possessing Kindred who scores 3 or more successes on her Possession roll may "jump" from body to body using Possession again from her host.

Unless the character is killed during a Surprise Action, the Vampire can make a reflexive Wits + Alertness test, difficulty 8. 3 Successes allows the vampire to successfully eject his consciousness from the body before death occurs and avoid torpor, though they still take sympathetic damage as normal and may reach torpor or death that way.

While using Possession, the vampire uses all of the Physical Attributes of their host body, as well as the Social Attribute Appearance. All other Attributes are the vampire's own. The vampire also uses the physical Abilities of its host due to muscle memory and reflex. The skills considered to be "physical" abilities and thus remain with the host are the following: Athletics, Brawl, Drive, Firearms, Melee, and Stealth.

During Possession, the subject does not actively remember anything about the events that occurred using his body. Telepathy (at 5 successes) may be used to gain only vague impressions from suppressed memory, but not truly specific details such as where any specific event occurred, who exactly was there, or anything but the most broad of strokes.

A vampire whose body is killed and who was ejected from his host may still continue to exist as an Astral entity. For specifics on this state see the Auspex clarifications for Psychic Projection, and the Obeah clarifications for the level 9 power Unburdening the Flesh-Clad Soul.


Dominate 6: Autonomic Mastery [DAC 83]

A difficulty above 10 does not mean this power may not be used on the subject. The usual rules for difficulties above 10 apply to this power as well.

This power may be used on vampires. Stopping a vampire’s heart has the effect of removing their ability to spend blood points for the duration. Removing their ability to breathe has no effect. However, striking them blind or deaf functions just as it would on a mortal.

A victim’s heart must be stopped for a number of turns exceeding their Stamina to cause death. While a victim’s heart is stopped, it is extremely difficult for him to take any action. All actions are at +4 difficulty and, if a ghoul, he cannot spend blood points.

A living victim who cannot breathe for a number of turns equal to 5x their Stamina will pass out from lack of oxygen. A living victim who cannot breathe for a number of turns equal to 10x their Stamina will die. While unable to breathe, action is very difficult for a living victim. He suffers +2 difficulty on all actions for the duration.

Due to their regeneration, Lupines are affected for only half the normal duration of this power (rounded down).

A mage may block the use of this power with either a Mind Ward or a Life Ward.


Dominate 6: Chain the Psyche [V20 156]

Due to the increased resistance the victim will put up to avoid the agony of this power, the difficulty to remove any Dominate power currently affecting the subject will increase by the user’s successes.

Due to the severity of this power, the difficulty has been modified. The difficulty of this power is the target’s Current Willpower + Stamina. This can and will often result in difficulties in excess of 10.


Dominate 6: Command Obedience [PGttHC 153]

This is a previous version of the power Obedience [V20 156]. Emerald Coven Chronicles uses that power. See it’s clarifications below.


Dominate 6: Fealty [DAV 189]

As with other Dominate effects, the difficulty of this power is the victim’s Current Willpower.

The victim is bound to the letter of their oath. Lawyering to get around specific terms is permitted. The exact terms of the oath must be registered with the Storyteller’s after this power is used, and they will always be the final arbiter as to whether an action does or does not uphold the oath.

A victim can be compelled to swear oaths under this power by any means at the user’s disposal.


Dominate 6: Loyalty [V20 156]

This power is in effect for all uses of Dominate by the user. While an effect persists in the victim from the user of Loyalty, the increased difficulty applies to all other attempts to use Dominate on them by anyone other than the Loyalty user.

If another individual who possesses this power attempts to overcome the user’s Loyalty, he must first successfully use a power of Dominate on the victim. If he does, the victim’s Loyalty transfers to the new user and the previous use of Loyalty is erased.


Dominate 6: Obedience [V20 156]

The touch does not need to be maintained for the full time it takes to issue the Dominate command, but it must have occurred within the same scene as the command is issued.

The subject must be aware that the user is talking to him for this power to be used. If there is a reasonable question that he could be commanding someone else, the Dominate has no effect. The ST will be the arbiter of what a “reasonable question” is.

Touching a victim who is resisting requires a successful Dexterity + Brawl roll at difficulty 6 which may be Dodged or Parried normally, but not Blocked (for the obvious reason that by blocking the victim has still been touched).


Dominate 6: Oberon’s Grail [CbR-Tr 48]

“Light clothing” is defined as any average daywear clothing up to and including jackets. Ski parkas or other protective gear does not count.

If memories are left “hazy”, remembering anything in the affected time requires the victim to make an Intelligence + Alertness roll at a difficulty equal to the user’s Manipulation + Subterfuge.

Memories lost to Oberon’s grail are gone forever. They cannot be recovered through any means, including uses of Forgetful Mind or additional uses of this power.

This power leaves Dominate scars indistinguishable from those gained from uses of Forgetful Mind. If someone attempts to recover the lost memories with Forgetful Mind they will automatically fail, but will be unaware as to why they have failed, likely believing their own skill to simply be insufficient to uncover the lost memories.


Dominate 6: Rationale [PG2 74]

The Manipulation + Subterfuge roll is made after the usual roll for the Dominate Command is made. This does not take an action if done in combat.


Dominate 6: Tranquility [PG2 74]

As usual, this power still works on those walking Paths other than Humanity.

Subjects of this power who have a Path rating of 4 or less increase the difficulty of both this power and the reflexive Path roll to assist by their negative Bearing modifier.