The Battle of Will and Blood

The powers of Dominate and Presence are inherently tied to a battle of the force of the targets' will versus the power of the blood trying to control their actions.  This means that Dominate and Presence are resisted in very specific manners.

When a Presence or Dominate power is used to affect your character's actions or emotions.  You may lower your willpower dial by the one to ignore the effects.  This may only be done if your Generation is lower than the user of the Discipline.  If it is equal or higher than the user of the discipline, you may not ignore the Presence or Dominate use.  The Iron Will Merit can be used to make payment of the lowering of the willpower dial ignore Presence or Dominate powers.

Presence mitigated effects are described under the rules for the individual Presence power.

In the cases of Presence and Dominate uses, the user calls the level of the power and their Generation e.g., “Dread Gaze, Advanced Fear, 12th Generation”.  Similarly, an example of a Dominate call would be “Regents Gaze, 11th Generation”.

For the most part, mortals may not resist in this manner, however there are incredibly rare mortals that exist that have developed some resistance to these powers, or so the legends say.

Recognising the use of the Dominate or Presence Discipline on you or another target requires a Kindred Lore of 4, having an equal or higher level of the Discipline in question or having learned of the effect in character.  Presence can also be identified at Kindred Lore 2 if an extreme emotional shift is witnessed or experienced such as loathing to love. 

However, uses of Dominate and Presence Level 4 or above on a mortal will have the mortal justify the action/emotional shift to themselves.