Merits, Beast

From Codex of Darkness

 

Second Edition
Merit Rating Prerequisites Description Book
Advanced Danger Sense •• Danger Sense In the first turn of combat, Defense gains +2 and can be applied universally unless sacrificed. If someone attempts and fails to ambush you, set your initiative to one higher than the fastest ambusher. BTP 113
Advanced Direction Sense •• Direction Sense You can intuit the direction to anything you've directly sensed. BTP 114
Epic Direction Sense •• Advanced Direction Sense You can sense backwards across time, locating since-destroyed objects or spending Willpower to glimpse the past. BTP 114
Direct Dial Advanced Direction Sense, Computer ••, Occult •• Spend 1 Willpower (or none, if you try to speak to a broodmate) to begin a phonecall with a target you could have tracked with Advanced Direction Sense, through the nearest phone or computer. BPG 99
Advanced Double Jointed Double Jointed You can fit your entire body through anything that can accommodate your head. Apply Double Jointed's grappling penalty even when you act aggressively. BTP 114
Advanced Eidetic Memory Eidetic Memory Rolled recollection achieves exceptional success on a threshold of three instead of five. You can perform retroactive Mental or Social analyses. BTP 114
Epic Potential Choose one Attribute and raise its trait maximum by one dot. You may not purchase this Merit multiple times for different Attributes. BTP 114
Advanced Fame • to ••• Fame Your Horror has archetypal resonance. Apply your Advanced Fame dots like regular Fame dots, but to all of humanity (including stalking Heroes). Choose a reputation and a corresponding Condition. By acting out your reputation, you can inflict the Condition on human witnesses a number of times per session equal to dots in this Merit. BTP 115
Advanced Fast Reflexes Fast Reflexes ••• Roll Initiative twice and keep your choice of result. BTP 115
Fist of Nightmares •• Brawl ••, Occult •• Spend Willpower and roll a Nightmare to hold it in store up to a scene. Release it by touch, subtracting a success from your roll for every two dots in the victim's relevant Resistance trait. BTP 115
Advanced Giant •• Giant You gain density proportionally with your Satiety. Deal it in Structure damage to objects that crash into you, and as a penalty to lift you or knock you down. BTP 116
Guilty Pleasure Choose an embarrassing indulgence that can apply when feeding your Hunger. Doing so yields another point of Satiety, a point of Willpower, and the Guilty Condition. BTP 116
Hunger Management • to ••• Resolve ••• For each dot in this Merit, you can choose to add or subtract a die when rolling to gain Satiety. BTP 116
Advanced Iron Skin • to •• Iron Skin, Stamina •••• Add general Armor equal to your dots in this Merit against bashing and lethal attacks. With two dots, when you take aggravated damage from a source other than Anathema, spend Willpower to downgrade one point to lethal. BTP 117
Epic Iron Skin •• Advanced Iron Skin, Stamina ••••• Whenever you take damage from any source other than Anathema, ignore one point. BTP 117
Advanced Killer Instinct • to ••• Killer Instinct ••• You can apply your basic Killer Instinct against any target with no preparation. If you do prepare your Killer Instinct normally, when you attack the target, you may spend each dot in this Merit to either convert a point of lethal damage to aggravated, temporarily ruin 1/1 nonmagical Armor, or ignore two points of Defense and one die of called shot penalties. BTP 117
Spoor • to ••••• No Fame Each dot of this Merit can be spent once per story, when a Hero pursues you, to either negate a turn of direct pursuit, reduce the Hero's maximum rolls on an extended investigation, or penalize Heroic Tracking by a die. BTP 120
Advanced Striking Looks •• Striking Looks •• Add the rote quality whenever you benefit from Striking Looks. BTP 121
Horrorspawn • to ••••• Your character has created a permanent Horrorspawn. The Horrorspawn can feed for her, fight for her, and carry out basic tasks.This Merit can be purchased multiple times to reflect multiple Horrorspawn. BPG 99
Infernal Machine •• Your character has a vehicle that she has customized for pursuit. Add two to the vehicle’s Durability, five to its Structure, 10 to its Acceleration and Safe Speed, 20 to its Maximum Speed, and one to its Handling. Only the Durability and Structure bonuses apply if someone other than she is driving her vehicle. BPG
Legendary Horror • to ••••• ≤ Lair - 3 Your Horror gains an Essence pool of 10, which increases by five for each additional dot purchased and. Your Horror also gains one dot of Influence and two Numina for each dot you have in this Merit. BPG 99
Obcasus Initiate •• Guidance (BPG 104) You gain the capacity to lead an Obcasus rite. You immediately learn the Consecrate rite. You may learn a maximum number of rites equal to your Intelligence + Lair. BPG 100
Primordial Cult ••+ Occult •• or Politics •• You have gathered followers into a cult. You can only have one cult at a time. Dots in this Merit in excess of two are used to purchase additional benefits. BPG 100
Cult Merits
Deceptive Primordial Cult •• Once per chapter you can use your followers to run interference on enemies and spies, inflicting the Distracted Condition on anyone investigating the aftermath of your feeding. If you have the Anonymity Merit, your followers benefit from it as well. BPG 100
Doctrinal ••• Primordial Cult •• The cult gains a +2 modifier on breaking points in-curred from actions they take to feed you. In addition, once per session you or your followers can remove two Doors in Social maneuvers meant to proselytize or recruit allies. BPG 100
Edible • to ••• Primordial Cult •• You can feed by reaping your followers with Nightmares, making a Satiety roll with base potential equal to dots in Edible. BPG 100
Influential Primordial Cult •• Choose a narrow sphere of influence (bookies, librarians, street kids, etc.). Once per chapter, subtract two from the Availability rating of any service or equipment that would fall under that purview, to a minimum of one. This influence also counts as a dot of Contacts. You can purchase this benefit five times. BPG 100
Mystic •• or ••• Primordial Cult •• Choose a type (clairvoyants, mediums, tele-paths, etc.); you can access their abilities through the Elect benefit. For two dots, their wisdom grants you the 9-again quality on Occult rolls, or 8-again if you already have that benefit. For three dots, once per chapter you can also use them as a 3-die “equipment bonus” on any roll that would reasonably relate to their wheelhouse, achieving an exceptional success on three successes. BPG 100
Resonant ••• Primordial Cult •• Once per chapter, if your cult performs a short ritual they can increase an area’s similarity to one of your Chambers by two steps for a scene (see Beast: The Primordial, p. 101). Forgo the Willpower cost to impose a Lair Trait or open a Primordial Pathway. BPG 100
Lair Merits
Connected Lair •• The lair has access to the information systems of the mundane world ( Internet, radio, TV ). BPG 100
Trap Room •• When opening a Primordial Pathway you may choose to spend a point of Satiety. If she does the duration of the pathway is extended. Characters may enter the area normally but if they attempt to leave they end up in the Beast’s Lair. BPG 101
Vast Lair • or ••• The Chambers of the Lair are larger than normal and require at least 10 minutes per dot in this Merit to traverse. BPG 101
Well-Stocked Lair • to ••••• Each dot allows to select two dots worth of Merits that represent the material goods and inhabitants available in the Lair. BPG 101
Notation Legend
Dot of a Trait Rating (Skills, Merits)
Power Trait Point (Vitae, Mana)
Willpower Point
Activation Damage B/L/A
Special/Other Activation Cost
Alternate Costs ●/●●●
Costs per Item ●/item
Optional Costs (●)
Cost Ranges ● to ●●●
●●+
Combined Notation Example ●(○)
●/item, 1L