Focused Mind
Developed by a Tremere Kabbalah scholar, this little-known path of Thaumaturgy has been around for a few centuries and remains in practice by a select few. Practitioners of Focused Mind greatly enhance their mental alacrity and readiness, allowing better comprehension of problems and situations. Thaumaturges, already disciplined of mind, become frightfully powerful in the realm of the cerebral when mastering this path.
This is an edited version of the Focused Mind presented in Blood Sacrifice. The Level 5 power in the original was deemed to be a combination of three high-level powers, and needed to be curtailed. This version is still provisional, but has proven more balanced thus far in play-testing.
1) Readiness
Using Readiness makes the caster able to gain a quicker understanding on a predicament. Enhanced lucidity enlightens the caster, allowing better reactions to changing situations and increased cleverness.
System: This power is only usable on the thaumaturge himself. Every success on the activation roll add one die to a special dice pool for the remainder of the turn. These dice may be used on any Wits-related rolls or actions that the magus performs during this turn. Alternatively, each die removed from the dice pool adds one to the caster's initiative rating.
2) One-Tracked Mind
By extending his powers to other individuals, the thaumaturge is able to fixate the subject on one action. This single-mindedness of the target is such that they ignore everything else that occurs around them. Guards are easily distracted with this power, as their attention becomes fixated elsewhere, and research becomes a dedicated, focused task.
System: This power may affect anyone who can hear the thaumaturge. Successful invocation makes the target unable to split any dice pools for extra actions and unable to change tactics after actions have been declared. As a side benefit, reduce the difficulty of the action by one. Additional actions that the victim takes (from Celerity, for example) during the duration of this power must follow their initial action, as they concentrate wholly upon this one idea. The duration of One-Tracked Mind is one turn per success on the activation roll.
3) Tranquility of the Heart
The power of Tranquility of the Heart is usually invoked by a thaumaturge distracted by combat, in fear of frenzy or suffering wound penalties. Those under its calming influence find themselves able to call upon deep reserves of concentration that allow them to ignore the worst annoyances and distractions, including grave bodily harm. To utilize the power the thaumaturge chants in a low resonate whisper; the power may be used by the thaumaturge for himself or used upon another individual in need of its unnatural serenity.
System: The unnatural tranquility generated by this power grants the thaumaturge or target a -1 difficulty modifier to all attempts to avoid or break frenzy. Each success scored upon the activation roll nets an additional die that forms a secondary pool from which the thaumaturge or target may transfer dice to another die pool limited by by extraneous factors including but not limited to: distractions and wound penalties. This power has no effect on modified difficulty numbers regardless of the reason. This power is usable on any subject within earshot of the thaumaturge and lasts for one scene.
4) Clarity of Thought As the name implies, Clarity of Thought brings about a perfect clarity and unity of thought within the thaumaturge. This intense cognitive focus allows the thaumaturge to accomplish mental feats normally reserved for the gods.
System: While under the influence of Clarity of Thought, the thaumaturge has the difficulties of all die pools related to the attributes of Perception, Intelligence and Wits - reduced by two. This power lasts for the duration of one scene.
5) Multitasking Where other functions of the Path of Focused Mind improve the thaumaturge's reaction time, deepen concentration, reduce fear or hunger and even mitigate the effects of pain; Multitasking grants the thaumaturge the ability to use more than one cognitive function at a time without splitting his or her concentration. These cognitive functions could be combined in any number of ways, that are only limited by the skill and imagination of the thaumaturge.
System: Successful use of Multitasking allows the caster to take one extra mental or social action per success on the activation roll in a given combat turn or social scene. Each additional action generated during the activation roll has its own separate dice pool to draw from and each additional action must be alternated in sequence with or against other parties as per the rules for celerity or split actions.
The effects of this power last one scene in social situations; or if the thaumaturge engages in combat, it must be activated each and every combat turn. Nor can this power be used more than once in any given scene or combat turn. While Multitasking can be used alternately with the Discipline of Celerity, trying to combining its use with the Discipline of Temporis will automatically cause a number of lethal and unsoakable levels of damage to the caster per successes scored upon the activation roll.
