These Merits and Flaws deal with the mind: its strengths weaknesses and special capacities.

Common Sense: (1 pt Merit)

You have a significant amount of practical, everyday wisdom. Whenever you are about to do something contrary to common sense, the Storyteller should alert you to how, your potential action might violate practicality. This is an ideal Merit if you are a novice player because it allows you to receive advice from the Storyteller concerning what you can and cannot do, and (even more importantly) what you should and should not do.

Concentration: (1 pt Merit)

You have the ability to focus your mind and shut out any distractions or annoyances. Any penalty to a difficulty or Dice Pool arising from a distraction or other inauspicious circumstance is limited to two, though no extra benefits are gained if only one penalty die is imposed.

Lightning Calculator: (1 pt Merit)

You have a natural affinity with numbers and a talent for mental arithmetic, making you a natural when working with computers or betting at the racetracks. The difficulties of all relevant rolls are decreased by two. Another possible use for this ability, assuming you have numbers on which to base your conclusions, is the ability to calculate the difficulty of certain tasks. In appropriate situations, you may ask the Storyteller the difficulty rating of a task you are about to perform.

Time Sense: ( 1 pt Merit)

You have an innate sense of time and are able to estimate the passage of time accurately without using a watch or other mechanical device. You can accomplish this whether you are concentrating or not. You can estimate the time of day to within a minute or two, and the passage of time with the same accuracy.

Eidetic Memory: (2 pt Merit)

You can remember things seen and heard with perfect detail. By gaining at least one success on an Intelligence + Alertness roll, you can recall any desired sight or sound accurately, even if you heard it or glanced at it only once (though the difficulty of such a feat would be high). Five successes enable you to recall an event perfectly: the Storyteller relates to you exactly what was seen or heard.

Light Sleeper: (2 pt Merit)

You can awaken instantly at any sign of trouble or danger, and do so without any sleepiness or hesitation. The rules regarding how Humanity restricts the number of dice usable during the day are waived.

Calm Heart: (3 pt Merit)

You are naturally calm and well-composed, and do not easily fly off the handle. Raise the difficulties of all your frenzy rolls by two, no matter how the incident is provoked.

Iron Will: (3 pt Merit)

When you are determined and your mind is set, nothing can thwart you from your goals. You cannot be Dominated, nor can your mind be affected in any way by spells or rituals. However, the Storyteller may require you to spend Willpower points when extremely potent powers are directed at you.

Self-Confident: (5 pt Merit)

When you spend a point of Willpower to gain an automatic success, your self-confidence may allow you to gain the benefit of that expenditure without actually losing the Willpower point. You do not lose the point when you spend it, unless you end the roll with only one success, i.e. you do not gain any additional successes from the dice you roll. This Merit may only be used when you need confidence in your abilities in order to succeed. This means you can use it only when the difficulty of your roll is six or higher. You may spend Willpower at other times; however, if the difficulty is five or less, the Willpower will be spent no matter what you roll.

Deep Sleeper: (1 pt Flaw)

When you sleep, it is very difficult for you to awaken. Raise the difficulty by two on any such roll, and roleplay how you never seem to be on time when you have an appointment early in the evening.

Amnesia: (2 pt Flaw)

You are unable to remember anything about your past, yourself or your family. Your life is a blank slate. However, your past may someday come back to haunt you. (You can, if you wish, take up to five points of other Flaws without specifying what they are, and leave it to the Storyteller to detail them. Over the course of the chronicle, you and your character will slowly discover them.)

Confused: (2 pt Flaw)

You are often confused, and the world seems to be a very distorted and twisted place. Sometimes you are simply unable to make sense of things. You need to roleplay this behavior all the time to a small degree, but your confusion becomes especially strong whenever stimuli surround you (such as when a number of different people talk all at once, or you enter a nightclub with loud pounding music). You may spend Willpower to override the effects of your confusion, but only temporarily.

Weak-Willed: (2 pt Flaw)

You are highly susceptible to Dominate and intimidation by others; you are, in fact, unable to use your Willpower freely. You can employ your Willpower only when survival is at stake or it is appropriate to your Nature.

Absent-Minded: (3 pt Flaw)

This Flaw may not be taken with the Merit Concentration. Though you do not forget such things as Knowledges or Skills, you do forget names, addresses, and when you last ate. In order to remember anything more than your own name and the location of your haven, you need to make a Wits roll or, as a last resort, spend a Willpower point.