Auspex

Auspex gives the vampire uncanny sensory abilities. She starts with the capacity to heighten her natural senses significantly, but as she grows in power, she can perceive psychic auras and read the thoughts of another being.

Dots in Perception, Empathy, and Subterfuge are very useful for using Auspex powers, as more successes help the character gain more sensory information.

Auspex Cheat Sheet - This sheet is a quick chart of what rolls are needed for what abilities. Keep in mind that the sheet and this page is a cut down version of the V20 page we use on subnet to make it easier to reference. For all of the details regarding Auspex, please go here.

[1] Heightened Senses
This power increases the acuity of all of the vampire's senses, effectively doubling the clarity and range of sight, hearing, and smell. While her senses of taste and touch extend no farther than normal, they likewise become far more distinct; the vampire could taste the hint of liquor in a victim's blood or feel the give of the board concealing a hollow space in the floor.

System: It takes a reflexive action to activate this ability, but no roll or other cost is required. Keep in mind that while Heightened Senses is activated, the character becomes much more sensitive to loud sounds, bright lights, and jarring stimuli. The can easily be momentarily blinded, deafened, or overwhelmed by pungent smells.

[2] Aura Perception
Using this power, the vampire can perceive the psychic "auras" that radiate from mortals and supernatural beings alike. These halos comprise a shifting series of colors that take practice to discern with clarity. Even the simplest individual has many shifting hues within his aura; strong emotions predominate, while momentary impressions or deep secrets flash through in streaks and swirls.

System: After the character stares at the subject for at least a few seconds, the player rolls Perception + Empathy (difficulty 8); each success indicates how much of the subject's aura the character sees and understands (see the links & information below). A failure indicates that the play of colors and patterns yields no prevailing impression. A botch indicates a false or erroneous interpretation.

Successes & Their Effects
One Success - Can distinguish only the shade. Bright [living] or pale [undead/vampire]

Two Successes - Can distinguish the main color. Chart for colours is located here.

Three Successes - Can recognize the color patterns. Chart for patterns is located here.

Four Successes - Can detect subtle shifts in colour.

Five Or More Successes - Can identify mixtures of color and patterns.

Failure - Does not see anything, no shade, no colours, no patterns.

Botch - Completely errant and incorrect aura. Must contact ST.

[3] The Spirit's Touch
When someone handles an object for any length of time, he leaves a psychic impression on the item. A vampire with this level of Auspex can "read" these sensations, learning who handled the object, when he last held it, and what was done with it recently. (For these purposes, a corpse counts as an "object" and can be read accordingly.) These visions are seldom clear and detailed, registering more like a kind of "psychic snapshot."

System: The player rolls Perception + Empathy. The difficulty is determined by the age of the impressions and the mental and spiritual strength of the person or event that left them. Sensing information from a pistol used for a murder hours ago may require a 4, while learning who owned a bloodstained puppet fashioned a century ago might be a 9. You must ask the ST what the difficulty is before rolling.

Successes & Their Effects
One Success - Very basic information: The last owner's gender or hair color, for instance.

Two Successes - A second piece of basic information.

Three Successes - More useful information about the last owner, such as age and state of mind the last time he used the item.

Four Successes - The person's name.

Five Or More Successes - A wealth of information: Nearly anything you want to know about the person's relationship with that object is available.

Failure - No information of value.

Botch - The character is overwhelmed by psychic impressions for the next 30 minutes and unable to act.

[4] Telepathy
The vampire projects a portion of her consciousness into a nearby mortal's mind, creating a mental link through which she can communicate wordlessly or even read the target's deepest thoughts. The Kindred "hears" in her own mind the thoughts plucked from a subject as if they were spoken to her. This is one of the most potent vampiric abilities, since, given time, a Kindred can learn virtually anything from a subject without him ever knowing.

System: The player rolls Intelligence + Subterfuge (difficulty of the subject's current Willpower points). Projecting thoughts into the target's mind requires one success. The subject recognizes that the thoughts come from somewhere other than his own consciousness, though he cannot discern their actual origin without a successful Perception + Awareness roll (difficulty equal to the vampire's Manipulation + Subterfuge). To read minds, one success must be rolled for each item of information plucked or each layer of thought pierced. Deep secrets or buried memories are harder to obtain than surface emotions or unspoken comments, requiring five or more successes to access. Reading thoughts with Telepathy does not commonly work upon the undead mind. A character may expend a Willpower point to make the effort, making the roll normally afterward. Likewise, it is equally difficult to read the thoughts of other supernatural creatures. However, the character may project her thoughts without expending a Willpower point. These thoughts, however, are still obviously intrusions into the target's mind, but the character may attempt to disguise her mental "voice" with a roll of Manipulation + Subterfuge (difficulty equals the target's Perception + Awareness) so the target doesn't recognize her as the "speaker."

[5] Psychic Projection
The Kindred with this awesome ability projects her senses out of her physical shell, stepping from her body as an entity of pure thought. The vampire's astral form is immune to physical damage or fatigue, and can "fly" with blinding speed anywhere across the earth -- or even underground -- so long as she remains below the moon's orbit. The Kindred's material form lies in a torpid state while her astral self is active, and the vampire isn't aware of anything that befalls her body until she returns to it. An ephemeral silver cord connects the Kindred's psyche to her body. If this cord is severed, her consciousness becomes stranded in the astral plane (the realm of ghosts, spirits, and shades). Attempting to return to the vampire's physical shell is a long and terrifying ordeal, especially since there is no guarantee that she will accomplish the journey successfully.

System: Journeying in astral form requires the player to expend a point of Willpower and make a Perception + Awareness roll. Difficulty varies depending on the distance and complexity of the intended trip; 5 is within sight, 7 is nearby or to a familiar location, and 9 reflects a trip far from familiar territory (a first journey from North America to the Far East; trying to shortcut through the earth). The greater the number of successes rolled, the more focused the character's astral presence is, and the easier it is for her to reach her desired destination. Failure means the character is unable to separate her consciousness from her body, while a botch can have nasty consequences -- flinging her astral form to a random destination on Earth or in the spirit realm, arriving in a place where the sun is active (necessitating a frenzy roll, although the sunlight doesn't do any damage), or hurtling toward the desired destination so forcefully that the silver cord snaps. The player may spend a point of Willpower to activate this power, and an additional point of Willpower to gain the success necessary to perform the jaunt. This is an exception to the normal rule where a player may not spend more than a single point of Willpower per turn. Each scene in Psychic Projection requires another point of Willpower and a new roll. Failure indicates that the vampire has lost her way and must retrace the path of her silver cord. A botch at this stage means the cord snaps, stranding the character's psychic form in the mysterious astral plane. For the full explanation of Psychic Projection, please go to the main V20 Auspex page here.