I'm designing a Daeva character, who I want to be physically powerful but still able to handle themselves socially. The two social disciplines, Majesty and Dominate, seem to have a power mismatch.
The main use of each social power is to control others, or sway them to your side. This is how I want my character to use them: To manipulate an individual to either get some power over them, or to get out of trouble.
A concrete example would be to get someone to hand over keys to a door, or to get them to ignore the character leaving a building.
Looking at the disciplines from the wiki (Dominate and Majesty), and the developer blogs for Majesty and Dominate:
As of Vampire the Requiem Second Edition, powers of Majesty were refined and reorganized.
Awe: Awe magnifies the vampire’s presence in the eyes of others, making her seem cool, hot, and in general the kind of person with her very own spotlight.
Confidant: When the vampire speaks, she creates an air of trust and reliability. The victim gains the Charmed Condition.
Green Eyes: The victim feels deep jealousy over the vampire’s attention and desperation for her favor.
Loyalty: The vampire becomes so important to the victim that acting against the vampire becomes traumatic. The victim gains the Enthralled Condition.
Idol: The vampire takes on the mantle of the king or the star, becoming so important in the eyes of others that they cannot possibly act against her.
As of Vampire the Requiem Second Edition, powers of Dominate were refined and reorganized.
Mesmerize: You meet the victim’s eye, lulling them into a trance.
Iron Edict: Your Mesmerism becomes stronger and more insidious.
Entombed Command: You hide a command in your prey’s subconscious.
The Lying Mind: You can make more drastic alterations to a victim’s memories.
Possession: You extend your mind fully into that of another, supplanting their will and taking complete control of their body.
Majesty seems like it grants soft social power, whereas dominate is more direct and seems to cover the same bases majesty does.
For instance, in the developer blog for Majesty we see this power of Awe:
She suffers no social penalties due to her actions or appearance, and can generally talk her way out of most offenses, even minor criminal ones.
We still need to roll a social skill check to get out of trouble, no matter our successes.
Whereas if you succeed in the contest roll for the Dominate power Mesmerise, you can do any of these.
You may do either of the following at a rate of one per action:
Issue a brief command, no more than two or three words. This command must be a single, discrete action, with no room for creativity or interpretation. (“Drop that gun”, “Repeat after me…”, and “Follow me” work. “Submit” and “Do my bidding” are too subjective.)
Alter one memory of the current scene. (“I was never here”, “You hurt this man.”)
It seems that besides some minor soft power/roleplaying advantages all the hard power (i.e. if you succeed a roll you absolutely can do this) lies in Dominate.
This makes it seem like I'd almost never want to use Majesty, instead of Dominate as you can probably do all the things Majesty does with Dominate.
My issue is that Dominate is out of clan for Daeva, whereas Majesty is the clan specific discipline. So I either need to find a way to use Majesty to manipulate others as above, or spend more on getting dominate as a power. I picked Daeva for in-character reasons, and I would not want to pick Ventrue if at all possible.
Am I wrong to want to use Majesty in this way? How is it supposed to used?
