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Say I'm playing a Tremere, and say I want to stay and watch once I set something on fire. I want to look cool and untouchable doing this, thus running away screaming long-forgotten words in the language of unadultered fear is something that should be avoided. What are traits, rituals or merits that I could take/perform to

  • facilitate rolls against rötschreck from fire
  • possibly handle damage taken from fire better

I'm thinking there was a Sabbat ability that helped with their fire-based tests of courage, and also some sort of ritual, though I am not certain whether it is from Thaumaturgy or Sabbat lore.

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  • \$\begingroup\$ So Fortitude is out, or at least insufficient for this? \$\endgroup\$
    – Chemus
    Jul 2, 2017 at 18:40
  • \$\begingroup\$ @Chemus 1) You need too much of it (at least ~8 to reliably resist being fully submerged in fire with soak difficulty of 6), that's too much for a PC 2) Fortitude is out-of-clan for the Tremere 3) It doesn't help against the Rotschreck. \$\endgroup\$ Jul 2, 2017 at 18:57
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    \$\begingroup\$ Coming up: Walking in sunlight. Eating food and feeling the taste. Having babies. \$\endgroup\$ Jul 3, 2017 at 2:18

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The Sabbat-aligned thing you are looking for is the Fire Dance. Allows you to look at the fire peacefully once you pass a Rotschreck check successfully during the ritual (difficulty 5 -- very low) and successfully jump over the fire. By the system it gives you one more Courage die for 3 nights, as we played it, it gave a total immunity to Rotschreck.

What goes to the means of surviving touching the fire... That's a lot harder. Fortitude would help, but you need a crazy amount of it to resist fire (especially strong fire) reliably: 8 dots to soak being fully submerged in fire with soak difficulty of 6, and 5 dots if half of your body is submerged. Given that Fortitude is an out-of-clan Discipline for the Tremere, it's too much.

However, if you are Tremere, you could have Auspex 5 (Astral Projection) and, once you beat Rotschreck, watch fire from the astral world without any fear of being burned. Even if you fail the check to resist Rotschreck, you are still alive.

You could also use Dominate 5 (Possession) on your ghoul and watch the fire. If he/she dies -- make a new one, just 3 nights to make the full Blood Bond.

P.S. Also, if you are Tremere in modern nights... How are you going to get Sabbat abilities?

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  • \$\begingroup\$ I will add more things that help to survive the fire itself later, and will welcome any edits towards this direction. \$\endgroup\$ Jul 2, 2017 at 19:02
  • \$\begingroup\$ Heh, some interesting ideas here. Since it's not so much about the watching as it is about the reputation, Astral Projection and ghouls wouldn't work for me, but I do have Fortitude from my time as a ghoul. Getting more dots might end up to be a long and expensive journey, but that's fine with me. The fire dance stuff looks really good, too, I'll propose your house rules to our group ... there's still an Antitribu in our game and I don't like pyramid schemes, anyway. ôo \$\endgroup\$
    – ethan
    Jul 3, 2017 at 17:04
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If you are going to stick only to vampire, then you need firewalker ritual and tons of fortitude and willpower to burn. Won't be nice or even easy.

If you want a world of darkness answer...

Find and befriend an Order of Hermes mage (or any forces mage). Get your new mage buddy to make you invulnerable to fire damage. Forces 2 for minor fires, forces 4 for hold my beer, i'm going into that bonfire now.

Mind 4 is required to supress rötschreck: too primal an instinct.

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  • \$\begingroup\$ It doesn't have to be easy, in fact, I'm concocting this whole thing to make a point of doing the not-nice-and-easy to get a certain reputation. I really like the Mage idea but I'm not sure if we are in a cross-over game - definitely something to discuss! \$\endgroup\$
    – ethan
    Jul 3, 2017 at 17:07
  • \$\begingroup\$ A cross-over game is something very different from a VtM game. Should only be done by parties who understand what are they doing. \$\endgroup\$ Jul 4, 2017 at 19:38
  • \$\begingroup\$ A Mage could temporarily make a Vampire fire-resistant or fire-proof, but the effect would not likely be permanent due to the Curse of Caine restoring the Vampire to their Embraced state the next night; if a character were Embraced while fire-resistant I'm still not sure it would permanent (due to the corpse state). \$\endgroup\$
    – FluxIX
    Jul 15, 2017 at 19:21
  • \$\begingroup\$ @FluxIX it is not intended to be permanent. Also, I doubt the mage would want to leave the vampire as a permanent source of paradox lying around. \$\endgroup\$ Jul 15, 2017 at 19:39
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    \$\begingroup\$ @Mindwin A Marauder might want to, or a Mage deep in a Quiet might not notice. \$\endgroup\$
    – FluxIX
    Jul 15, 2017 at 19:41
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Well... technically the ritual Binding the Beast should let you do this. Rules as written states that is only Frenzy, but the fluff explains that the ritual separates the bestial side from the subject. Meaning that it could technically be impossible to enter rötschreck state.

You could also argue that rötschreck is a frenzy state. But that is a discussion I leave to you and your narrator.

But most probably you are not going to look badass while you do this, you are going to look very passive.

You can also extinguish the fire, with the ritual of the same name

I don´t own the new V20 Dark Ages companion, but there seem to be a ritual called "Tame the Maddening Flame" that akes fire not produce rötschreck

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    \$\begingroup\$ Great finds! Agree about the not looking cool - tethering myself from the beast like that has some major repercussions, sadly. Still, something I might consider in preparation. As for extinguishing or taming the flame - as far as I understand, they would allow others to display the same courage. That would make me useful, but not necessarily feared. Then again, ... green fire ... \$\endgroup\$
    – ethan
    Jul 5, 2017 at 17:15
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    \$\begingroup\$ @ethan If you're dealing with green fire, depending on the source of the fire even a ritual might not help. \$\endgroup\$
    – FluxIX
    Jul 15, 2017 at 19:22
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Try the Diamonion's 6th ability: Concordance, a lot of people don't know what it actually does - it gives access to something called 'demonic investments'.

Sadly in a really obscure book (Vampire: the Masquerade), but if you google them you can come up with basic descriptions for some of them.

With the hell-skinned ability you are immune to fire, and can't imagine you'd fear it being immune.

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    \$\begingroup\$ Hi and welcome to RPG.stackexchange! A great place to start is with the tour. It looks like you might be onto a very interesting answer, but it helps to determine it's quality if you can provide some verification - consider linking to the source, and naming it explicitly, ideally with a page number for easy reference. \$\endgroup\$ Dec 2, 2019 at 2:19
  • \$\begingroup\$ I've suggested an edit based on my comment above - if that's still in the vein you were going for, go for it (and feel free to add a link) - you can always roll it back if you prefer what you originally had. \$\endgroup\$ Dec 2, 2019 at 2:32
  • \$\begingroup\$ whitewolf.fandom.com/wiki/Demonic_Investment Scroll way down and you'll see the list in "the Storytellers handbook to the Sabbat" Sadly there is another book called a guide to the sabbat and that always comes up. But that is the list on the wiki, the second list if u scroll way down is from Concordance. \$\endgroup\$ May 2, 2020 at 23:23

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