A player of mine brought up a point. He argued Resilience, the first level fortitude ability has a free cost and passive duration. He argues that he can have that ability “on” all night and doesn’t have to ever drop it.
I argued that although it is free and passive, he still had to indicate he wanted it active from scene to scene. He disagreed but went along with my ruling (as well he should).
This guy is a new player for me to handle and reasonably inexperienced in gaming. I can handle him questioning my rulings (out of game time) but I was just curious about others take on free and passive abilities.
Many STs have taken the passive duration to be the “stated” in the “unless otherwise stated” part of the Using Powers section and therefore have passive powers always on, not following the same criteria for active abilities. Active abilities need to be activated, and only one can be activated per turn unless the ST declares otherwise.
That being said what goes in your game can be different from the rules as the rules are nearly guidelines for you all to tell your story.
The passive ability that always gets people is Sense the Unseen. Having a players write their Passive powers on a table tent is very helpful.
If it’s a free discipline with a duration of Passive, it means it’s always on. There are other free disciples that have specified durations other than Passive. That means those have to be turned on and off.
Plus, let’s be honest … why would ANY bloodsucker with Resilience EVER turn it off even if they could?
