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Is there a description of how attributes beyond 5 would be imaginable?

For example strength 5 let me lift 300 kg. Would be strength 6 400 kg strength 7 500 and so on? Or an Intelligence 6 person, could they do highly complex calculations in their head or crack codes easy?

It is already said that vampires or Garou while transformed can reach supernatural attributes but what analogy is available for us to grasp how much more capable they are?

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Sometimes, but usually not.

More dots in Strength is pretty straightforward in most ways: the character can lift more, punch harder, jump higher, and so on. This is true for most of the physical Attributes, but not as much for the social or mental ones.

Intelligence is already a kind of vague term, in that it covers a lot of possible activities and capacities. So saying that a character with five dots in Intelligence is as smart as a human being can be is already not too clear in exactly what capabilities are being described. Adding more dots only stretches this vagueness further.

Attributes in particular are not really meant to be described in this way. That the physical ones get more precise descriptions is an exception, not the rule.

It's also worth remembering that most tasks are not straight Attribute rolls, but have associated Skills. I wouldn't say that a character with Intelligence at 6 dots would necessarily be any good at codebreaking. They have the raw intellectual power to do it, but if they don't know anything about encryption or related areas then their intelligence may not be something they can apply to a task very well. Most specific applications of an Attribute are modified by a Skill, so description by example will often not describe the Attribute alone very well.

Finally, remember just how exceptional going beyond five dots is. A character with five dots in an Attribute has reached the pinnacle of human potential. It's supposed to be a bit mysterious and unclear what capacities exist beyond that. A creature with Intelligence at seven dots has a mind that operates in ways potentially unfathomable to a human, much like a dog (however smart) probably can't appreciate the depth of ability and comprehension available to a human.


If you want analogous examples, I suggest designing different challenges that would call for dice rolls and then set the difficulty and success thresholds as reasonably as you can. Try to come up with some things that are possible, but beyond the ability of even a highly capable person (a 5-dot guideline). Obviously, there is some subjectivity in how you do that.

Some of these tasks should be essentially impossible if rolling Attributes with five dots or less. Adding more dots to the Attribute will make them more possible. I don't know what threshold of success you would want to use to indicate that a creature is "capable" (do they need to succeed 30% of the time? 50%? 90%?), but by defining challenges you can set your own examples of what such powerful creatures can do.


The only reference I'm aware of that deals with playing non-Physical Attribute, non-Discipline stats with more than five dots comes from Gehenna, the final module released for Vampire: the Masquerade's Revised edition.

It contains a few scenarios, and in one of them

The surviving Antediluvians rise and conquer the world in short order, and those Antediluvians then exist as active NPCs in the game. There is a sidebar which describes trying to roleplay characters with extremely high stats (particularly high Intelligence)

I found the citation I was thinking of: Gehenna, page 184. But it's not as germane to this question as I'd thought.

It basically says don't bother trying to express extreme stats in action too precisely, but largely due to contextual factors that keep that from being very worthwhile.

Effects surrounding the end of the world strip away the time Antediluvians have to actually put their brilliance to work, so the plans they deploy are more straightforward than the pinnacle of what Intelligence at 10 dots can do. They also are facing opponents with similar stats, so the incredible advantages tend to cancel each other out. The sidebar is ultimately about why such capable beings' behaviors might not seem to reflect those incredible capabilities.

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The only descriptions I can find are from the Mummy (first edition, p27 onwards) where there are descriptions of stats at levels 6, 7 and 8.

Examples include:

Strength 6: Sprint as fast as a horse. Lift a motor-cycle or uproot a small tree. Break the neck of a bull ape with bear hands.

Dexterity 6: Extra action (like Vampiric Celerity). Agile as a spider monkey. Perfect Balance. Dexterity 8: Three extra actions. Superior reflexes - can drive 200mph and it feels like 40. Minute body control - can flip a coin to land heads every time.

Intelligence 6: Full Eidetic Memory.

Perception 7: See into infrared. Hear like a bat, including echo location. Immune to Obfuscate up to level 5.

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    \$\begingroup\$ I'm not as familiar with Mummy (in any edition), but these descriptions of Attribute effects seem pretty out of joint with other WoD titles. For example, an eidetic memory is a Merit in V:tM, and without that merit no level of Intelligence alone would grant it. Things like infrared vision and extra actions seem more like Disciplines or Gifts than innate capacities, and in at least some non-Mummy games these standards explicitly don't apply. When you say 1st edition, you're referring to the Theater of the Mind initial WoD release, right? \$\endgroup\$
    – Upper_Case
    Dec 17, 2019 at 17:27
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    \$\begingroup\$ They may well be out of joint. Mummy is an old product and not one that is known for being balanced. I haven’t read the ‘Gehenna’ module you mentioned in your answer so Mummy is the only book I'd seen where they are described in detail. \$\endgroup\$ Dec 17, 2019 at 17:51
  • \$\begingroup\$ I no longer have my Mummy book, but as I recall they got special abilities as a side effect of how they exceeded 5 dots. Those abilities wouldn't necessarily apply to other supernaturals which exceeded 5 dots in other ways. This was especially relevant to things like Dexterity where the abilities were similar to merits or specific powers from other splats... \$\endgroup\$ Dec 17, 2019 at 22:10
  • \$\begingroup\$ Yeah I found in another thread a description for 6, 7 and 8 for appearance while Intelligence is not really fitting because fotographic memory is a merit: forum.theonyxpath.com/forum/main-category/main-forum/… \$\endgroup\$
    – Koronus
    Dec 17, 2019 at 23:46

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