Exalted Drug Addiction

There are entire swathes of Creation whose residents smoke, drink, snort and chew themselves into a blissful lack of cognizance every day of their lives.

When to Check for Addiction

• When a character has taken greater damage than their Temperance rating while in a single session of using a drug.
• When a character uses a drug more times in a week than their Temperance rating.
• The first time a character uses a drug that inflicts Lethal damage.

Addiction Resistance Check

• Difficulty: Toxicity of the Drug.
• Roll: Wits + Integrity against psychological addiction. (Lower of Wits or Stamina) + Integrity against physical addiction. Essence + Integrity against spiritual addiction.
  • Modifiers: -1 per other Addiction possessed by the character. +1 for a Temperance of 3+.
• Psychological Addiction: All drugs have the potential to cause psychological addiction. Failing this roll gives the user a Psychological Addiction to that drug.
• Physical Addiction: Only drugs that inflict Lethal or Aggravated damage cause physical addiction (unless a specific drug notes otherwise).
• Spiritual Addiction: Only drugs that are specifically noted as inflicting spiritual addiction, or drugs that inflict Aggravated damage, cause spiritual addiction.

Psychological Addiction

• A psychological addiction is treated as an Intimacy, of the (Addiction) type.
• Each scene spent indulging in the drug is treated as one scene of successful Intimacy-building. If the character consumes enough to normally give cause for an Addiction Check, it counts as two scenes of Intimacy-building.
• Attempting to abstain from the drug can erode that Intimacy. For each opportunity to indulge, or for each day avoided entirely, the character may roll Wits + Integrity, difficulty of the drug's Toxicity.
  • Success means the character resists, and reduces the Intimacy by one dot.
  • Failure means that the character must indulge if possible, or seek out such an opportunity, as a natural mental influence. The character may spend a point of Willpower to resist that urge for the day (although another temptation in the same day requires another roll). This does not count as eroding the Intimacy, however.
• If the Intimacy is not Established, eroding it has no ill effects.
• If the Intimacy is Established, the character suffers an Internal Penalty equal to the Penalty of the drug he is attempting to free himself of until the Intimacy is gone or until he takes more of it.

Physical Addiction

• A physical intimacy is treated the same as a psychological addiction, with the following changes:
  • The roll to abstain from the drug is (lower of Wits or Stamina) + Integrity.
  • For each day the character who has an Established physical addiction Intimacy goes without the drug, he takes a number of levels of damage equal to the damage of the drug, scaled down one letter step (thus, a cocaine addict takes 3B per day). This damage is unsoakable, though it does heal normally. Drugs that are physically addictive, but do not inflict Lethal or Aggravated damage instead inflict half their damage rating in unsoakable bashing damage.
  • The character begins suffering the Penalty as soon as the Intimacy begins being eroded, Established or not.

Spiritual Addiction

• A spiritual addiction is treated the same as a physical addiction, with the following changes:
  • The roll to abstain is (lower of Wits, Stamina or Essence) + Integrity.
  • While eroding an Established spiritual intimacy, Essence recovery is penalized by 1 per dot of the Intimacy, per hour (minimum recovery of 1). Essence recovery returns to normal upon beginning to build an Intimacy toward the drug once more.
  • The character takes damage and suffers the Penalty noted above, whether or not the Intimacy is Established.

Long-Term Drug Use

For each season, make a roll for each Addiction Intimacy, based on what kind of Intimacy it is.

• Psychological Addiction: Roll Wits + Integrity, difficulty of Toxicity of drug, +1 per year addicted. A failure on this roll subtracts 1 from a Physical, Mental or Social Attribute. This failure also removes one dot of Temperance. This is a penalty, rather than an actual loss of the dot, which returns after a month of recovery time (or week for Exalts) per dot once the Intimacy is totally eroded.
• Physical Addiction: Roll for the effects of a Psychological Addiction. Additionally, make a Stamina + Integrity roll, at the same difficulty. Failure causes the addict to lose access to his smallest-penalty Health Level. Like the dots above, it is still there, but may only be recovered once the Intimacy is totally eroded.
• Spiritual Addiction: Roll for the effects of both psychological and physical addiction. Additionally, make an Essence + Integrity roll, at the same difficulty. Failure causes the addict to lose (Intimacy rating) number of mote capacity from his Essence Pool, staring with Personal and moving into Peripheral. This Essence is considered involuntarily committed into the spiritual addiction itself, and is only freed up once the Intimacy is totally eroded (being freed up at a rate of 1 per day once the Intimacy is gone).