A Word on 'Kewl Powerz'

One of the things I like most about the White Wolf system is the limitation on the number and kinds of powers available to characters. Any starting character has exactly three clan disciplines available them, each of which has five levels they can learn. (And if you're an ST who lets neonate characters begin with more than three disciplines or below eighth generation, well, you probably aren't interested in such a low-powered chronicle.) This means your players don't spend endless hours trying to figure out exactly what they can do and how.

On the other hand, the limited number of abilities in the game means they have a pretty good idea of what anyone they're up against can do. It also limits character customization when you have character concepts for which the traditional disciplines don't make sense.

One way to deal with this is to allow players to learn out of clan disciplines and combination powers. Unfortunately, it is very easy to let Kewl Powerz take over a game. Limiting the players' ability to learn these special powers, and limiting the kinds of special powers they have access to in the first place, can keep your game from becoming a monster-of-the-week gore-fest as you have to bring in bigger and bigger guns to maintain some semblance of dramatic tension. (Handling NPC advancement and giving out experience intelligently also helps with this, but that's another essay for another time.)

In our game, characters can learn out of clan disciplines, but these are (and should be!) quite hard to attain. Any out of clan discipline requires a teacher. The physical disciplines (Potence, Fortitude, Celerity) require a teacher only for the first level, as every level thereafter is just more of the same. If a character learns the first level of these disciplines through any means - a teacher, being a ghoul, etc. - they can then learn any additional levels simply by spending experience at out of clan rates.

Other disciplines require a teacher for every level. The teacher must have the required discipline at the level he or she is teaching, but the more the teacher knows, the faster the teaching goes. Regularly drinking the blood of a more powerful kindred who has the appropriate discipline at a high level also can speed the process, at ST discretion. Our approximate time-scale for learning is as follows: a week for level 1, a month for level 2, six months for level 3, a year for level 4, and a decade for level 5. The student does not need to be with the teacher continuously during this period, but they will require regular contact and supervision. If training is stopped in the middle and resumed with another teacher, the time already served counts for half of its actual duration, as no two Kindred understand and teach their powers the exact same way. Resuming with the same teacher gives no penalty.

As for combination disciplines, in my mind, combination disciplines that only require in-clan disciplines are relatively easy to learn. Even at one point of experience a session, a determined player can make sufficient gains in disciplines to unbalance the game when combination disciplines are used. For this reason, we have chosen to create only (okay, mostly) combination powers that combine an in-clan discipline with an out-of-clan one.

Clan powers are highly distinct and individualistic; they get at something about the inner nature of the clan or its members. Some require teaching (noted in that section), and some can never be learned by one not of the clan. Some mimic higher-level discipline powers, while others are completely new. Rather than come up with details of experience cost, we have simply categorized them as Cost: High, Medium or Low. Depending on how experience is handed out in your game and how you view character advancement, you will likely want to tweak the exact experience costs.

We've begun with combination powers from the clans our PCs claim membership in. More will follow. Enjoy!