Although all vampires have an unnatural constitution
that make them much sturdier than mortals, Fortitude
bestows a resilience that would make an action movie
hero envious. Vampires with this Discipline can shrug
off agonizing trauma and make the most bone-shattering
impact look like a flesh wound. The power even offers
protection against the traditional banes of vampires,
such as sunlight and fire, and the Gangrel, Ravnos, and
Ventrue all find that edge incredibly useful.
System: A character’s rating in Fortitude adds to his
Stamina for the purposes of soaking normal damage
(bashing and lethal). A character with this Discipline
may also use his dots in Fortitude to soak aggravated
damage, though Kindred cannot normally soak things
like vampire bites, werewolf claws, magical effects, fire,
sunlight, or massive physical trauma. See p. 272, for
further details on soaking and damage.

Fortitude 6+
Elder vampires progress in Fortitude in the same way
as Celerity (see p. 142). They can increase their basic
mastery of the Discipline or to take an alternate power
such as one of those detailed below.

••••• • Personal Armor
Nobody likes to get hit, not even Cainites. The
easiest way to ensure that one is not hit (or shot, or
stabbed) repeatedly is to take the weapon with which
one is assaulted away from one’s attacker and break it.
That’s where Personal Armor comes in. This application
of Fortitude, derived from one popular in the 12th
century, causes anything that strikes a Kindred who
employs Personal Armor to shatter on impact.
System: With the expenditure of two blood points,
a vampire can add preternatural hardness to his flesh.
Every time an attack is made on the Kindred using Personal
Armor (one which he fails to dodge), his player
rolls Fortitude (difficulty 8). If the roll grants more successes
than the attacker rolled, then the weapon used
to make the attack shatters against the vampire’s flesh.
(“Magical” weapons may be resistant to this effect, at
the Storyteller’s discretion.) The vampire still takes
normal damage if the attack is successful, even if the
weapon shatters in the process, though this damage
may be soaked. If the attack roll botches, any normal
weapon automatically shatters.
A hand-to-hand attack causes the attacker equal
damage to that suffered by the defender when Personal
Armor comes into play. If the attacker misses entirely,
she still takes one level of bashing damage.
The effects of this power last for the duration of the
scene.

••••• •• Shared Strength
It’s one thing to laugh off bullets, rather another to
watch the ricochets mow down everyone around you.
Many Kindred have wished, at one time or another,
that they could lend their monstrous vitality to those
around them. Those few vampires who have mastered
Shared Strength can — if only for a little while.
System: Shared Strength duplicates a portion of a
vampire’s Fortitude (one dot for every point of blood
the vampire spends) to another being. Activating the
power requires a Stamina + Survival roll (difficulty 8,
increased to 9 if the target is not a normal mortal), and
the expenditure of a point of Willpower. Furthermore,
the vampire must mark his target by pressing a drop of
his blood onto the target’s forehead. This stain remains
visible as long as the power is in effect, the duration of
which is determined by the initial roll.
Successes - Duration
1 - One turn
2 - One scene
3 - One hour
4 - One night
5 - One week
6 - One month
7 - One year
The target of this power need not be willing to accept
the benefit to receive it, and the bestowing vampire
can end the effect at any time for no cost. Particularly
sadistic Kindred have come up with any number
of ways in which a target’s “devil’s mark” and supernatural
endurance can be used to land him in a great
deal of trouble.
A vampire can never bestow more levels of Fortitude
than he himself possesses.

••••• ••• Adamantine
Adamantine functions as a more potent version of
Personal Armor.
System: This power mimics the effects of Personal
Armor, save that the vampire who uses it takes no
damage from attacks that shatter on her skin.