Unleashing her Beast, a vampire can cross vast distances in the blink of an eye, catch a thrown punch before her attacker has even moved a muscle, or snatch a gun barrel away from a man’s temple before he can pull the trigger. Celerity makes a vampire so fast that it’s as if she never has to move at all.
Cost: None or 1 Vitae per active effect
Dice Pool: None
Action: None (for persistent effects) or Reflexive (for active effects)
Duration: Permanent (for persistent effects) or one turn (for active effects)
Like other physical Disciplines, Celerity has two kinds of effects: persistent and active. Persistent effects are always on, and have no cost. Active effects are reflexive and cost one Vitae per effect.
Persistent: Add the vampire’s dots in Celerity to her Defense, or to her Dodge roll when defending actively. If a Firearms attack denies her normal Defense, the attacker still takes a penalty on his attack equal to the vampire’s dots in Celerity. A character must still be aware of incoming attacks to defend against them. If she is restrained, slumbering, or otherwise unable to respond, Celerity offers no advantage.
Active: By spending Vitae Celerity allows for bursts of speed faster than the eye can perceive. For each point of Vitae spent choose one effect from the following list. A vampire may spend additional Vitae to invoke multiple effects simultaneously, but no effect of Celerity may be used more than once per turn.
• Immediately move to the head of the Initiative queue. This boost in Initiative lasts only one turn, after which all combatants return to acting in their rolled order. If multiple vampires attempt to jump ahead simultaneously they enter a Clash of Wills (p. 125), the winner acts first.
• Interrupt the action of another character with a brief action of her own. This could be an attack, making it possible to disable an opponent in mid-action. It may be movement, avoiding harm by shifting out of reach. Or it could be any other instant action, like activating a Discipline or dodging. However, the vampire is still limited to one instant action. She cannot use Celerity to make two attacks, or an attack followed by another instant action. Likewise she cannot move further in a single turn than her Speed would allow. The decision to interrupt is made after another character’s action is declared, but before it actually occurs (before dice are rolled). Once interrupted, the other character must continue his declared action, if it’s still possible. If the action is no longer possible, he takes no action. Alternatively, that character’s player may declare his action a dramatic failure and take a Beat. Celerity cannot interrupt reflexive actions or actions of which the character was unaware. Finally, using Celerity in this way is exhausting; a vampire may only interrupt as many actions in a scene as she has dots in Celerity.
• Multiply her speed by her dots in Celerity plus one. Moving in this way is sudden, jarring, the vampire appears to shift from point to point without crossing the space in-between. She may use this to briefly avoid detection or launch surprise attacks.