The Kindred Curse

[adambeyoncelowe]

On the issue of vampiric bodies and Life or Matter, BJD specifically points out that vampires don't usually have DNA anymore. It's seen as remarkable in Thin Bloods by Netchurch, who obsessively studies such things. They also aren't, strictly speaking, perfectly preserved at Embrace--only their outside appearance is. Internally, their organs wither and shrink, and their bodily fluids are all replaced with blood. Again, this is mentioned in BJD, but it's also confirmed in the FAQ in the Revised ST Handbook and appears in Netchurch's reports in The Time of Thin Blood. I think VTM1e also establishes these as rules of vampire physiology (and that was likely repeated again in the 2e corebook, which was basically just a hardcover reprint of 1e with minor changes).

So you do need to factor in restoring a working human body from the cellular level up, as Heavy Arms said earlier.

[Vilenecromancer]

So I was looking through older books trying to figure out ideas for NPCs, when I found something that actually answers the question of this thread 100%:

The minimum Spheres necessary to undo the Embrace are Entropy 4, Life 4, Matter 4 and Prime 6. This Effect is considered vulgar with witnesses (after all, some would say it's the reversal of a supernatural curse) and is performed at +1 difficulty for every century (or fraction thereof) since the vampire was Embraced and every generation the vampire is below 13th (although it doesn't get any easier at higher generations). Thus, the difficulty to return the mortality of a 550-year-old, eighth-generation elder would be an impossible 24 (or difficulty 10 with 15 successes, should the Storyteller feel generous). Obviously, this Effect is not performed lightly - there are no mages who make a habit of going around restoring lost humanity to the undead, especially the powerful undead. There is no way to restore an Awakened Avatar to a victim of the Embrace, even after successfully reversing that Embrace.