All vampires possess
a preternatural constitution that makes most normal damage inconsequential.
Fortitude bestows a resilience and vigor far beyond even normal vampiric
toughness. Kindred with this power ignore the mightiest punches and
barely feel hails of bullets. This Discipline also helps protect against
sources of damage even vampires fear, such as sunlight, fire and terminal
falls.
Gangrel, Ravnos and Ventrue possess this potent ability. Gangrel enjoy
the benefit of Fortitude as a matter of course, but Ravnos and especially
Ventrue delight in the power's psychological effects. It's not unusual
for a Ventrue to take a "fatal" blow, giving his opponent
just enough time to register the vampire's smile before the Ventrue
finishes off the shocked victim.
System: A character's rating in Fortitude adds to
his Stamina for the purposes of soaking normal damage (bashing and
lethal). A character with this Discipline may also use his dots in
Fortitude to soak aggravated damage (Kindred cannot normally soak
things like vampire bites, werewolf claws, magical effects, fire,
sunlight or massive physical trauma). So a vampire with Fortitude
3 has three dice to soak aggravated damage.