These Flaws are available to characters in any sphere.

Physical

Addiction (1 or 3 points)

You’re addicted to something — for 1 point, it’s a relatively harmless and easy to get hold of (coffee, chewing gum, social media, cigarettes. On the other hand, if it’s something illegal or dangerous (or both) like cocaine, heroin, human blood, or illegal pornography, it’s worth 3 points. While you don’t need to indulge your cravings constantly, if you don’t get a fix at least once a day you’ll start to suffer a +1 difficulty to tasks that require concentration.

Aging (2, 4, or 6 points)

For every two points in this Flaw, the character loses one dot from a Physical Attribute (Strength, Dexterity or Stamina) due to the effects of age. Remember, characters younger than 18 are not permitted.

Allergic (1 to 4 points)

You’re allergic to some substance that’s relatively common but can be avoided with some effort (nuts, caffeine, alcohol). Should you accidentally ingest or come in contact with it, you suffer negative effects depending on the value of the Flaw. For 1 point, you get a nasty rash, get uncomfortably dizzy, itch uncontrollably, or otherwise feel (and look) pretty awful. 2 points increases all difficulties by 1 for the remainder of the scene due to swelling or fuzzy-headedness, while 3 points is pretty much incapacitating, increasing all your difficulties by 3. Very common substances (water, plastics, etc.) are worth an additional 1 point.

Easily Intoxicated (2 points)

Whenever you roll Stamina to resist the effects of drugs or poisons, you suffer a +3 difficulty modifier.

Impediment (1 to 6 points)

You have some sort of physical impairment that makes it harder for you to do the things most people can do. The possibilities are quite extensive, but they might include having a missing limb, no sense of smell, poor eyesight, complete deafness, asthma, sensitivity to bright light or sunlight, hemophilia, disfigurement, and many other ailments. A 1-point Impediment is fairly minor, and, as long as you’re able to treat it (wearing glasses if you have bad eyesight, taking medication for your chronic headaches) it’s not a major hassle; if you can’t, you suffer penalties as if it were a 2-point Impediment until treatment can be resumed. 2 points is a continual but not insurmountable problem: rolls dealing with this particular aspect of your life are at -1 difficulty if the situation is stressful or unforgiving. At 3 points, you’re significantly impaired on a regular basis, and any rolls related to the Impediment are at +1 difficulty. 4 points is something you can’t really get away from or forget about even for a day, and you have a +2 difficulty on related rolls. 5 points is a crippling Impediment that makes it impossible for you to do things that most people take for granted; at this level the impairment is so severe (blindness, etc.) that there are some things you can’t do at all, and what you can do is at +2 difficulty. 6 points prevents you from doing most things related to the Impediment, requires major workarounds even for those you can manage, and imposes a +3 difficulty penalty for any related tasks that aren’t completely impossible.

Lazy (3 points)

You are lazy and unprepared. The difficulty of any rolls for spontaneous Physical actions (including combat, unless planned) increases by 1.

Monochrome Vision (1 point)

You are completely unable to see color, and view the world only in shades of gray.

Monstrous (3 points)

Your Appearance is 0 and cannot be raised. This Flaw is not available to characters who already have Appearance 0 (e.g., Nosferatu or Samedi).

Mute (4 points)

You cannot speak, and must find some other way to communicate.

Permanent Wound (3 points)

You suffer from some kind of physical ailment that just won’t go away. It might be an actual wound that keeps reappearing, if you’re a vampire or mage; or it might be a chronic illness of some sort. Every day at either sunrise or sunset (chosen when you take this Flaw), if you aren’t already at the Wounded health level, you become so again; this is considered lethal damage for healing purposes, so it is too serious to be fixed by a few hours’ rest. While you can be healed by magical means, returning you temporarily to full health, the next sunrise or sunset you’ll be back to Wounded again, unless and until you buy off this Flaw. On the other hand, even if you don’t get your ailment treated, it does not automatically worsen past wounded. (Yes, if you’re healed back to full health and then injured to Wounded again in the same day, it does continue to worsen as per normal for lethal damage.) Shifters may not normally take this Flaw, as their natural healing abilities mean it represents little hindrance.

Short (3 points)

You are at most 1.5 meters (about 4′ 9″) in height. Your running speed is half normal, and you are likely to have difficulty reaching things meant for taller people (which is just about everyone), or performing actions where leverage is a requirement.

Twitch (1 point)

You have a reflexive twitch or tic of some sort — a repetitive motion you make out of habit. Whatever this might be, it’s a dead giveaway as to your identity, and anyone who knows you will recognize you when they see it, even if you’re disguised, have your face completely covered, etc. You may spend a point of Willpower to suppress this twitch for a scene.

Mental

Ability Deficit (5 points)

You have five fewer dots to assign in any one Ability category (Talents, Skills, or Knowledges), and can have no Abilities in that category above three dots during character generation.

Absent-Minded (3 points)

You forget things like names, addresses, and so forth (but not Abilities). To remember anything more than your own name and the location of your home, you must roll Wits (difficulty 6) or spend a Willpower point.

Amnesia (2 points)

Your memory is damaged, and you can remember little, or nothing, of your own past. You may have been wandering around trying to figure things out for a few months now, but everything beyond that is pretty much a mystery to you. If you are a supernatural creature, you may have a bit more memory (enough to recall your initiation into whichever sphere you belong to), but you don’t remember anything before your Embrace, First Change, Awakening, etc.

This Flaw denotes an IC lack of memory. It is still up to the player to provide a life history for the character and an explanation of why they lost their memory; taking the Amnesia Flaw is not a way to avoid coming up with a backstory! Unlike the book version, you may not take additional unrevealed Flaws, although you can certainly take Flaws that the character is not aware of (e.g., an allergy to something they don’t realize they have).

Chronic Depression (3 points)

You must make a Willpower roll (difficulty 6), or spend a Willpower point, when you need to push yourself beyond your depression. A failed roll adds +2 to the difficulty of either Physical, Social, or Mental rolls for the remainder of the scene, depending on which is most central. On a botch, you are completely overcome with depression.

Combat Novice (2 points)

You’ve never really been exposed to any serious violence, and you’re woefully unprepared to face up to the bloody and chaotic reality of actual combat. When confronted with serious combat (anyone taking, or wielding weapons that cause, lethal damage), you must roll Willpower against a difficulty of 7. If you fail, you either freeze in place or flee immediately. While each separate combat (not each individual attack) requires a separate roll, should you manage to accumulate five successes in the course of a single 24-hour period, you’re temporarily desensitized enough that no further rolls are required until the next day.

Compulsion (1 point)

A mental tic drives you toward some distinctive and easily recognizable behavior. You can spend a Willpower point in order to put off the behavior for a scene.

Curiosity (2 points)

You just can’t ignore those tempting little mysteries that so often lead to trouble. Any time you encounter an enticing clue, a closed drawer in someone’s apartment, a whispered conversation, you must succeed on a Willpower roll to avoid investigating. The difficulty varies from 5 (for things that probably aren’t very interesting and have obvious and plausible explanations) all the way to 9 for compelling mysteries or fascinating supernatural things (like a Nephandi cult in Subterranean London or rumors of Fomori in the basement of a bar). This differs from the Mage version, which uses Wits rather than Willpower.

Deranged (3 points)

You suffer from a minor Derangement; select one from the lists in the various Core Rulebooks, or make up your own (with staff approval). The 5-point version from Mage is not used here, since it is explicitly meant to make you “a danger to yourself and everyone nearby.”

Driving Goal (3 points)

You’re obsessed with some cause that’s so intense it drives pretty much every aspect of your life. This goal must be something that’s virtually impossible to achieve — restore the Triat to balance, eliminate the Sabbat, achieve Ascension, discover the way to Arcadia, or something else of comparable scope and difficulty. Most likely, you’ll never live to see it accomplished, or even come close, but that’s not the point — the important part is that you keep working at it, no matter what. Your cause should drive your character’s decisions, push them into risky or dangerous situations, and probably make all of your friends and companions sick and tired of hearing about it. You can spend a Willpower point to break away from your goal for short periods — typically a scene or two — but ultimately, this is the thing your life revolves around, and ignoring it for very long is like trying not to breathe (for people who aren’t undead, anyway).

Flashbacks (3 points)

High-stress situations are likely to trigger hallucinations related to some trauma you’ve previously suffered. You must roll Willpower (difficulty 8) to fight them off, or else have the real world blotted out by these visions.

Guilt-Wracked (4 points)

When presented with a situation similar to the source of your guilt, you must make a Willpower roll (difficulty 8). Failure results in a breakdown for the remainder of the scene, increasing the difficulty of all rolls by 3. Even if you succeed, the difficulty of all rolls increases by 1.

Hatred (3 points)

You really, really despise a particular group or individual. You must roll Willpower (difficulty 6) to turn down an opportunity to damage or work against them, even at risk to yourself. If and when you are in direct confrontation with the object of your hatred, you must check for Frenzy if your character type is subject to it.

Illiterate (2 points)

You cannot read or write.

Impatient (1 point)

You must make a Willpower roll (difficulty 6) any time you try to wait rather than act immediately. Failure means you go on your own, if necessary.

Intolerance (1 point)

You really, really hate something in particular. It might be a type of person, an animal, a thing, or being in a particular situation, but whatever it is, you can’t stand it, and you don’t like to deal with it or even think about it. Any rolls you make that focus on the subject of your ire are made at +2 difficulty unless they are specifically about getting away from or immediately concealing, defeating, or destroying it. (Long-term planning still suffers the penalty.) The object of this Flaw must be something significant and relatively common — staff will not OK Intolerance of things that you already probably don’t like (e.g., Camarilla vampires hating the Sabbat) or of things too minor to affect you much (e.g., hating Starbucks).

Nightmares (1 or 3 points)

For one point, you suffer from regular nightmares that play havoc with your sleep and your moods. For three points, you must roll Willpower (difficulty 7) on waking up or suffer a 1-die penalty to all rolls for the day.

OCPD (3 points)

You feel compelled to follow stringent personal rituals, maintain an obsessive sense of order, work yourself to the point of exhaustion (and beyond), organize every possible element of your life, and otherwise lose track of time, things, and people unless they fall into the sphere of your obsessive-compulsive personality disorder. Define the subject of your obsession when you select this Flaw; you must make regular Willpower rolls to shake off the need to obsess about or organize things related to it.

Overconfident (1 point)

You virtually never back down from a challenge, no matter how long the odds against you might be.

Overstimulated (3 points)

You’re easily distracted, even when you’re trying to focus your attention on something in particular. Your Perception rolls are made at +2 difficulty.

Phobia (2 or 4 points)

Roll Willpower (difficulty 7) when confronted with the subject of your phobia. For 4 points, the mere mention of your phobia provokes the roll. Even if you succeed, all Dexterity rolls are increased in difficulty by 2.

Procrastination (1 point)

Like the song says, “Never put off ’til tomorrow, what you can do … well, that’s all the lyrics we got around to writing.” Any time you have a choice between going off to have fun, or attending to boring things like work, duties, or responsibilities, you must roll Willpower or choose the former. This Flaw has been repriced (originally 3 points) to better align it with Flaws like Overconfident and Impatient (q.v.).

PTSD (2-5 points)

When confronted with a particular situation, you have a negative reaction. For 2 points, the trigger is rare and results in nightmares and anxiety; for 3 points, the trigger is uncommon and causes strong fear or avoidance reactions; for 4 points, the trigger is common and causes severe anxiety, panic, or mood swings; and for 5 points, the trigger is very common and results in extreme reactions (flashbacks, blind panic, complete incapacity).

Rat in a Cage (2 points)

Being restrained makes you exceptionally anxious. Any time you’re unable to move freely — handcuffed, caged, trapped in a closet — you suffer a +2 difficulty penalty to any rolls you make (yes, including supernatural powers, if you have any).

Rotten Liar (1 or 3 points)

For 1 point, you’re just … not very good at lying; rolls to deceive others are made at +2 to their difficulty. The 3-point version renders you unable to lie at all, and, worse still, you must make a Willpower roll in order to avoid blurting out uncomfortable truths. This Merit has been adapted and repriced from the original Rotten Liar Flaw and the Bard’s Tongue Flaw; originally, Rotten Liar was a 3-point Flaw with the +2 difficulty drawback, while Bard’s Tongue was a 1-point Flaw that rendered you unable to lie at all. We feel that this is a more appropriate pricing relative to the impairment involved.

Short Fuse (2 points)

When provoked you must make a Willpower roll (difficulty 6, or higher for more extreme insults) or react with physical violence. If your character type is subject to frenzy, your difficulty to resist is 2 higher. This Flaw is not available to Brujah.

Soft-Hearted (1 or 3 points)

You have difficulty even witnessing, much less causing, pain or suffering. The 1-point version of this Flaw requires you to make a Willpower roll (difficulty 8) whenever you witness suffering; if you fail, you must either leave or do something — possibly unwise — to avert it. The 3-point version has the same effect, and additionally requires that you not to take a life, no matter how well-earned a death it might be. You must actively work to avoid that outcome, even at the cost of using less-effective weapons, strategies, etc., and therefore endangering your own life — or of providing aid to defeated enemies to make certain that they don’t perish.

Weak-Willed (3 points)

Dominate attempts automatically affect you unless the Discipline wielder is of higher Generation, and your difficulties to resist Social abilities such as Intimidation or Leadership, as well as mind-altering spells or magic, are increased by two. Your Willpower Trait may never rise above 4.

Whimsy (1 point)

You get silly in difficult situations. When under serious stress, make a Willpower roll (difficulty 6) if you want to take things seriously and avoid clowning around.

Social

Compulsive Speech (1-2 points)

For 1 point, you talk too much, annoying people around you with your constant unnecessary commentary even when they’d really prefer a little peace and quiet. For 2 points, not only do you talk too much, but you have a bad habit of saying offensive or insulting things to people who can make you pay for it. You can spend a point of Willpower to keep your mouth shut for a scene, but you’ll probably be twice as voluble afterward.

Dark Secret (1 point)

You’ve done something really bad, and you’re desperate to keep from having it revealed, even if trying to keep a lid on things causes other problems for you. Whatever it is you’ve done, it should be something bad enough that people finding out would be a tremendous embarrassment, causing you to lose people’s trust, costing you status, and very likely subjecting you to punishment and public opprobrium.

Enemy (1-5 points)

Somehow or other — it may not even be your fault — you’ve managed to offend a person or a group who’s willing and able to cause trouble for you. Maybe you once stole a police inspector’s car or are being hunted by someone who knows your supernatural nature — or perhaps it’s not an enemy per se, just someone whose actions keep screwing up your life, like the loan shark you owe money to or the parents who won’t leave you alone to live your own life. Either way, the effect is the same: whenever you submit a +request to take some IC action, there’s a chance your Enemy will interfere. If so, staff will notify you of that, give some basic details, and you’ll need to run a scene (see Storytelling) that revolves around resolving the obstacles your Enemy has thrown in your path before the +request can be completed. The chance of interference and the severity when it happens both increase at higher point values of this Flaw.

Your explanatory +note for this Flaw should detail the nature of your Enemy (even if the character doesn’t know for sure!), the reason for their presence in your life or unlife, and why it is that that presence causes you difficulty. A vampire’s sire who resents their talent but lives a continent away and periodically sends agents or calls in favors to make life subtly difficult for them would make for a reasonable 1- or 2-point Enemy, for instance.

Foul Mouth (2 points)

You curse like a trooper. The difficulty of all Social rolls for which politeness is important are increased by 2.

Gullible (2 points)

Any rolls you make that relate to deception or guile in a social context — lying, trying to determine if someone else is lying, pretending to be someone else, hiding your emotions, etc., but not physically concealing yourself from others — suffers a 3-die penalty.

Indecisive (3 points)

You have difficulty making up your mind. Whenever you’re faced with a significant choice, you must make a Willpower roll (difficulty 6) or be unable to select any option for the remainder of the scene.

Infamy (1-5 points)

You’ve done something to get the mortal world’s authorities riled up, and they definitely haven’t forgotten it. You might be a criminal, an advocate for something deeply unpopular, or just a celebrity that everyone’s sick of hearing about, but whatever your offense, you’re going to have serious trouble in dealing with anyone who’s heard about it. For 1 point, you’ve done something bad that’s really only known within a particular neighborhood or a specific subculture. 2 points means a lot of people in a specific London borough know about your offense. 3 points represents a a large portion of the whole city who hate or distrust you. For 4 points, your infamy is widely known throughout London, and at 5 points you’re recognized throughout England and western Europe.

Insubordinate (3 points)

Whenever someone in a leadership position gives you an order or makes a request of you in their official capacity, you must roll Willpower (difficulty 5). If you fail, you will do anything other than what you’ve been told to do (although you aren’t required to make it obvious).

Loose Lips (1 points)

Any time it would be an especially bad idea for you to let slip some secret or piece of gossip you know, roll Willpower (difficulty 8). Failure means you share it anyway, although you don’t have to be intentionally hurtful about doing so unless you want to.

Mistaken Identity (1 point)

You resemble someone else so much that you’re frequently mistaken for them — and, whoever they are, that confusion makes your life more difficult. The person for whom you’re mistaken must have some characteristic (or more than one) that causes you trouble, whether it’s a bad reputation, a criminal record, serious debts to a local loan shark, etc.

Mr. Red Tape (4 points)

Add 2 to the difficulty of any roll you make when trying to get something done through a bureaucracy or other established system.

Naive (1 point)

Perhaps you’ve led a very sheltered life, or perhaps in spite of all your travails you retain a Pollyanna-ish conviction that everything will turn out for the best. Whenever you attempt to detect someone else’s ill intentions or wicked nature, you suffer a +2 difficulty penalty, because, after all, no one out there would really want to hurt you, would they? You suffer the same penalty for Empathy rolls that specifically involve attempts to understand someone else’s pain.

Offline (3 points)

For whatever reason — inability, disinterest, stubbornness — you can’t make use of the internet, and are skeptical or outright distrustful of anything that comes from it or is too closely associated with it. Anyone who sends you a gift from Amazon had better be ready for a tirade.

Outsider (1 to 4 points)

You have problems with some of the people you regularly associate with, and it shows. Maybe you have a bad reputation due to a criminal past; maybe you have an annoyingly verbose and esoteric way of talking; maybe you’re a loyalist Changeling who gets disdained by other commoners as a sellout; maybe there’s some eerie quality to you that makes others edge away from you; or maybe you’re just plain shy. No matter what the reason behind it is (and you should be sure to detail it in your explanatory +note), the effect is the same: you suffer a difficulty penalty on Social rolls under certain specific circumstances. The points value of the Flaw is determined both by how large the penalty is, and how often you have to deal with it:

• A -1 penalty is worth 0 points; a -2 penalty is worth 1 point; a -3 penalty is worth 2 points.
• A situation that you have to deal with regularly (dealing with members of a specific, but common, subgroup of your sphere; when social graces and manners are important) is worth 0 points.
• A situation you have to deal with frequently (any time you’re the center of attention, any time you’re trying to convince someone you’re trustworthy) is worth 1 point.
• A situation you have to deal with almost constantly (interacting with any other member of your sphere, interacting with mortals) is worth 2 points.

For example:

• A mortal who suffers from social anxiety might be a -2 penalty (1 point) whenever they’re the focus of attention (1 point) for a total of 2 points.
• A Ventrue who’s openly disdainful of the Nosferatu might be a -2 penalty (1 point), and another clan is a specific but common subgroup (0 points), for a total of 1 point.
• A Garou whose backstory includes being found guilty of a serious Litany breach might have a -3 penalty (2 points) whenever interacting with other werewolves or Kinfolk (2 points) for a total of 4 points.

These are just examples. People can elicit (or experience) different reactions even under the same circumstances; one Litany breaker might have mitigating factors that give him only a -1 penalty while the exact same violation by someone who appears completely unrepentant might warrant a -3. If you’re not sure, discuss your ideas with staff before submitting a character with this Flaw.

Special Responsibility (1 point)

You owe a particular duty to some group that you’re part of — something thagoes above and beyond what’s expected of everyone else (not that you get any credit for it). Whatever this responsibility is, it’s a regular presence in your life, causing you inconvenience, taking up time, energy, and money that you’d really rather be spending on other things.

Supernatural

Cursed (1 to 7 points)

Whether because you were punished by a fairy godmother, compelled by a powerful wizard to complete a quest, or just born with powerful geasa, you’re subject to a paranormal curse of some kind. Sometimes it hangs over your head like the sword of Damocles until you do something to invoke it; other times you don’t get any opportunity to avoid it, or else you’ve already failed to do so. The point value of this Flaw depends both on the level of consequences and the difficulty of avoiding them:

• Minor curses are worth 1 point: electronics malfunction around you; you suffer from chronic migraines; animals always avoid you.
• Annoying curses are worth 2 points: your body betrays you in small but significant ways, costing you 1 die from a particular category of dice pools; expensive things you buy always end up broken or ruined; you’re unable to lie directly (but indirect deception is still okay).
• Painful curses are worth 3 points: you’re at -1 die on all rolls involving a particular Attribute; you must always tell the full truth; no one will ever help you without demanding payment of some sort.
• Crippling curses are worth 4 points: you’re at -2 dice on all rolls involving a particular Attribute; you lose money as fast as you can make it; anyone who knows your true name can demand three services from you.
• Life-destroying curses are worth 5 points: you fail every roll involving a particular Attribute, no matter how high your dice pool is; no one ever believes a word you say, except when you desperately hope they won’t.

• Curses or geasa that are easy to avoid triggering are worth no additional points: always wear blue clothes, never visit Paris, never eat dog meat.
• If they’re challenging to avoid triggering, they’re worth 1 additional point: never refuse hospitality, never leave your home town, always go barefoot.
• Curses that are almost impossible to avoid triggering or that are already in effect are worth an extra 2 points: never speak, blindfold yourself all the time.

The one good side of this Flaw is that people who know about it may sometimes treat you with more respect (though that doesn’t mean they’ll be friendly to you) the stronger your curses are. Insignificant people don’t have strong geasa, so, whatever your faults might be, you’re obviously a person to be reckoned with.

This Flaw is a hybrid of the Curses, Paranormal Prohibition/Imperative, and Geas Flaws. It may be revised as we get a little more experience with how it works in practice.

Echoes (Flaw) (1 to 5 points)

Strange phenomena tend to occur around you. This might be for any number of reasons (and may partly depend on your sphere), but it also need not necessarily have a clear source: some people are the locus of a lot of weirdness without ever knowing why. The severity of these occurrences varies based on the value of the Flaw; for 1 point, they’re slight and mostly inconsequential; for 2 points, they’re still pretty mild but becoming noticeable; for 3 points, they’re pretty obvious to anyone in the know; for 4 points, even ordinary people know there’s something odd going on; and for 5 points, it’s all but impossible to hide the warping of reality. At 4 and 5 points, traditional counterspells (Intelligence + Occult, difficulty of your Arete +3, or a flat difficulty of 6 if you’re not a Mage) may be able to disrupt your supernatural abilities, or even (at 5 dots) cause you 1 health level of damage per success they win in a contested Willpower roll against you. We have opted not to use the distinct Changeling version of this Flaw.

Because there is also a Shifter Gift named “Echoes”, please set this as “Echoes (Flaw)”.