Blood for celerity

So I know there was some talk about this at session but I am reading it now and I think an official ruling must be made.

Celerity states in its blurb at the beginning that :
"Each use of Celerity lasts one turn. Although each level of celerity costs one blood trait per turn, no vampire is required to use her strongest level in any given turn."

So I read this as saying, if you want to use celerity 1 you spend one blood trait, Celerity 3 is 3 blood and celerity 5 is 5 blood. But that clearly is weird since that means only 7th gen could use celerity 5 in a single turn.

Then each individual level of celerity says something along the lines of "in addition to the benefits of [next lower power], ......" Which would imply that I activate level 5 for 1 blood and then I get all the rest, just as it is in modern nights.

Then I have heard it mentioned that what you do is select each individual level you want and pay for it. So if I want 2 actions and win all ties I need to spend 3 blood, but I can skip pre-empting and bomb. But that, to me, contradicts with the initial blurb where it doesn't say you can skip, just that you don't have to use your highest level ever.

So what is the ruling?

One blood should activate the entire discipline up to the total levels you currently know, i'll review the rules later but until further notice this is how it stands.

I read the rule to say that even though you only have to spend one blood per turn for your highest, you don't have to use it if you don't want to, for example where swiftness might be explainable, legerity would not be to mortals.

Actually anything above first level is overtly supernatural.

And it dies seems the intention is to make it cost more blood to use so I would be hesitant to rule it to be the same as modern nights. But there is plenty of time before next session for kable to read the book.

i looked in the book and its states on every level in addition to to level below it it does. so im not sure how you get you also have to spend blood for the levels below it to take effect.

If you read the blurb at the beginning of celerity it states that each level costs blood. I directly quoted it from the book in my initial post. Make sure you are reading faith and fire and make sure you are reading the paragraphs before the levels.

It is my theory that while the power is written poorly to begin with, they created the additional blood rules which Is a common theme in dark ages and thenjoy copy pasted the individual power levels from laws of the night and didn't think to correct the wording.

yes each level costs blood. but each level of celerity includes every level below it with the one blood to activate that level.

For what it is worth, table top dark ages requires a blood per level used where as modern nights us the 1 blood for all levels.

Like I said I assume they tried to convert that into the met system and then copy pasted the individual powers which includes the lower levels and did not remove that aspect.

Notably in the green book it either specifies the costs are not cumulative or says "invoking all of your Celerity, at the cost of a single Blood Trait" Since they don't say this in F&F it would suggest each level costs 1 blood cumulatively.

However this doesn't make sense, as elders with celerity can't spend for all the levels of celerity.

So it would seem to be somewhat confusing. The given ST answer is definitely the easiest way to go, but maybe a compromise in between those two extremes would be more fitting to the setting?

Non elders can't spend for celerity if they have fleetness.

I propose the following rule as a solution: "Celerity is banned. All levels of Celerity are immediately and irrevocably transformed to Temporis."

I would be cool with that.

OK, So for celerity, going to go by book rules, for each level you need to spend a blood to access it's level, however you do not have to activate lower levels to have access to the higher levels.

So you pay for each level and you pick each level you want to use?

Correct.

I am confused. So if I have advanced and pay for it, I get everything it says in the power for 1 blood? That would mean I get all the lesser levels as they all say that in addition to lesser levels, am I wrong there?

If the text says in addition to the other levels, then you should be allowed to use the other levels in conjunction however they would also cause you to spend a blood for each level used.

In practice this makes celerity almost unusable because unless you are 9th or lower gen you can't activate more than one level at a time. Having elder levels cost more blood could work if that was desired.

It says:"With the expenditure of a blood trait, in addition to the benefits of (name of previous level), you (this levels powers)."

I also read the initial each level of Celerity costs one blood to use as part of a line that says even though you only have to spend 1 blood to use it all, you don't have to and can just use lesser levels.

Also, the wording for extra actions seems to indicate that when you get some of them you get all of them. Read Quickness and Legerity. A person who spends 1 blood for Quickness gets the benefits of Fleetness and a fourth action, which isn't possible if you didn't get the others leading up to it.

While in Dark Ages table top it costs a blood for each level of celerity you want to activate, I wonder if that was the intent for LARP as well.

If we look at the actual wording of the discipline in the faith and fire book without presupposing the outcome, we may come up with a differant interpretation.

This all hinges around the following sentance...

Although each level of Celerity costs one Blood Trait per turn, no vampire is required to use her strongest level in any given turn.

I read this as a clarification for those that wish to hide thier powers by using a less potent version than they are capable. Since the cost is only one blood trait, it could be ruled that spending a blood activates your highest level, and this is merely stating that you may choose. I understand how it can be read as each level you want to activate costs a blood, but this doesn't seem to make sense when you consider how each power explicitly states you get the previous powers when activating it.

If you really like the additional blood cost, there is an alternate method described in the 20th anniversary book. By these rules you can choose how many extra actions you get. Each extra action costs a blood trait. But if you choose not to get extra actions you would get extra traits instead, to represent the increased accuracy of moving fast and focusing the extra movement on making a single attack.

Example (using table top mechanics): Billy Brujah has Celerity 4. If he activates it he can choose to spend up to 4 blood. If he spends 4 blood he gets 4 extra actions. If he chooses to spend two blood, however, he would get two extra actions and two extra dice on all actions for that round. If he choose to spend only one blood he would get one extra action and three extra dice for th eround.

I don't care what you pick. Celerity is pretty badass as it is. But let me point out that if you force celerity to cost extra blood during activation, you make it so that anyone short of a 7th gen is unable to use full celerity every round. An 8th gen could only activate up to celerity 3, while a 10th gen or worse would never even be able to activate more than the first level without waitign between levels. If you have celerity 2 you would have to spend two turns just to activate it for a bonus action on your second turn.

Iv already had my piece and am happy with what ever is picked by the st's.

But to simon's point, I dont think it is requiring that you pick and choose each power in order. As in I dont think to access celerity 5 you need to access 1 through 4 and so spend 5 blood. I think if you want to access 5 you spend one blood and just activate that level. That is of course if you are going with the each level needs activation rules.

OK So final answer on this subject as i'm reading it from the book, celerity is activated by a single expendable of a blood trait, each level states that it works in conjunction with the level below it. So, if you activate your celerity you do not have to use the highest level, but you do get all levels below the level you've activated, which costs that single trait of blood. This allows for both elders and neonates to have full access to a common physical discipline.