Fortitude describes a type of supernatural toughness and vigor which allows Kindred extra advantages in resisting the harm to which their kind is especially vulnerable. All vampires have a powerful constitution, and are able to shrug off the injury inflicted by guns and weapons of all sorts. However, most are very susceptible to sunlight and fire, and are easily harmed by them. Those with Fortitude are not easily bowed by even these elemental forces, and are even more resistant to "normal" injuries.
LEVEL 1
Endurance
While most Kindred still suffer the fatigue and pain of their injuries, you shrug off such hardships. Even the searing injuries of fire and sunlight can barely slow you.
You do not suffer any wound penalties from anything past the Bruised health level, until you are struck into torpor or Final Death. When most vampires lose all ties due to being Wounded, or remain insensible and Incapacitated, you simply suffer the usual penalties of being Bruised.

LEVEL 2
Mettle
Wounds that would slow other vampires mean nothing to you. You can shrug off da,age from most sources, ignoring pain and damage alike. Your body resists harm with incredible strength.

On achieving this power, you gain one additional health level, which functions just like an extra Healthy line on your health level chart. This health level can be lost and healed like any other.


LEVEL 3
Resilience
Even the banesto most Cainites, fire and sunlight, rarely injure you. You can endure punishment that would reduce other Cainites to ash, albeit for a brief time.

When you suffer aggravated damage, you may immediately make a Simple Test to try ti reduce the severity of the damage. If you succeed, you reduce the injury to lethal damage. Before making the test, you may choose to expend a stamina-related Physical trait, allowing you to reduce injury on a win or a tie. Otherwise, you must win the test outright. Use of Resilience is reflexive; it does not count as an action.

You may only attempt to use this power once on any given attack. Thus, if you suffer two or more levels of aggravated damage from a particular attack, you may test to reduce only one level to lethal damage.

LEVEL 4
Resistance
Your vampiric endurance far surpasses that of any mortal, or even most other Cainites. You shrug off injury without noticeable effect. Blows that would stagger or kill a mortal may not even scratch you.

When you suffer lethal or bashing damage, you may make a Simple Test immediately to avoid some of the damage. If you succeed, you remove one level of the damage from the amount suffered. Before making the test, you may choose to expend a stamina-related Physical trait, allowing you to avoid a level of damage on a win or tie. Otherwise, you must win the test outright. Use of Resistance is reflexive; it does not count as an action.

You may use this power after reducing aggravated damage with Resilience attempting to negate or reduce the damage entirely. Thus, if you suffer two health levels of of aggravated damage from sunlight, you can test to reduce one level to lethal damage with Resilience, and if successful, you may then attempt to remove that level of lethal damage with Resistance. You may only attempt this power once on any given source of damage, so if you suffer two or more levels of damage from a single attack, you may only attempt to reduce a single level of damage from that attack.


LEVEL 5
Aegis
Like a bar of steel, a mountain, an immutable constant, you resist all damage and survive any attack. Only truly momnumental and persistent force can ever destroy you completely. Indeed, once the storm of fire and destruction has passed, you rise out of the chaos unscathed.

At any point during a turn, you may declare the use of Aegis. You must expend a permanent Willpower trait, or three permanent Physical traits to activate this power (though these traits may be repurchased later with Experience traits). When you delcare Aegis, you immediately revoke any damage that you suffered in the turn, and you take no damage for the remainder of the turn. You may even declare Aegis after you have been "killed," ignoring the damage that killed you and any other injury suffered in the same turn. If you are "killed," you must use Aegis in the same turn -- once a new turn begins, you cannot revoke any previous damage. Use of Aegis is reflexive; it does not count as an action.

LEVEL 6
Personal Armor
Nobody likes to get hit (or shot, or stabbed for that matter), not even Cainites. The easiest way to ensure taht 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 centruy, causes anything that strikes a Kindred who employs Personal Armor to shatter on impact.

This power costs two blood points/traits to use, which allows a vampire to add preternatural hardness to his flesh. Every time an attack is made on the Kindred using Personal Armor (one he does not dodge), he rolls Fortitude (difficulty of 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. (Fetishes, klaives, "magical" swords and so on may be resistant to this effect, at Stroyteller discretion) The vampire still takes normal damage if the attack is successful, even if the weapon shatters in the process; this damage may still be soaked. If the attack roll botches, any normal weapon automatically shatters.

A hand-to-hand strike causes the attacker equal damage to that suffered by the defender when Personal Armor comes into play. On a miss, the attacker takes one level of bashing damage. The effects of this power last for the duration of the scene.

LEVEL 7
Shared Strength
It's one thing to laugh off bullets, rather anotherto 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.

Shared Strength transfers 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 nto 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, which is in turn detemined by the initial roll.

1 success -- One turn
2 successes -- One scene
3 successes -- One hour
4 successes -- One night
5 successes -- One week
6 successes -- One month
7 successes -- One year

The target of this power need not be willing to accept the benefit to receive it. 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 on another.

LEVEL 8
Adamantine
Adamantine functions as a more potent version of Personal Armor.

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.