XP
Gaining XP
You have a starting amount of XP based on your character's age, see Character Creation for details.
During play a character gains 6 XP at the end of every season of play, to represent what they have learned during that season.
Using XP
At the start of a season you can use your character's XP to buy new abilities. The prices for them can be seen in the following table:
| Stat | XP cost |
|---|---|
| Physical Ability | 4 |
| Mental Ability | 4 |
| Organizational Ability | 4 |
| HP | 3 |
| Humanity | 7 |
| Any Influence | 4 |
XP costs for powers increase for each level, and Clan powers are significantly cheaper than others.
| Clan Powers | XP cost |
|---|---|
| Level 1 | 9 |
| Level 2 | 12 |
| Level 3 | 18 |
(3 * (2 + 2 ^ (level - 1) ))
| Other Powers | XP cost |
|---|---|
| Level 1 | 12 |
| Level 2 | 18 |
| Level 3 | 30 |
(3 * (2 + 2 ^ level))
(An option is making Other Powers just cost 3 extra, but I like the way that these costs encourage you to not reach level 3 outside of Clan Powers)
Recommendations
Avoid min-maxing, especially for older characters
It is tempting to put everything into one aspect of play, but that often becomes frustrating in the longer term. A more balanced approach is to order them by priority and strive to add some mitigation for the weakest.
For example, when creating a character with priority Organization, Mental, Physical:
- Add a mitigation for your physical weakness; extra HP, a power that allows escaping or avoiding combat.
- Put the rest of the XP into your higher priorities. If there is too little XP left after the mitigation (probable for very young kindred), feel free to drop that and be truly very weak.
Think twice before choosing 3:rd level Powers
Due to the escalating XP cost for higher levels of powers it technically isn't worth getting the 3:rd level. So if the goal is efficiency they are a bad choice, but for defining the character they thus become more impactful.
Double check the Powers
They are very significantly changed compared to both Vampire the Masquerade and Vampire the Requiem.
Don't lock yourself into even triplets of Physical Ability
It is easy to focus on the inherent damage that increases on even threes, but adding one or two extra Physical Ability can be very useful in some cases:
- +3 weapons are very conspicuous, so making it possible to use +2 or +1 and still getting the damage boost improves combat flexibility.
- Duels are decided on exact Physical Ability, so every bit helps.