Does Thaumaturgy get a free discipline point?

Question

My group and I have recently gotten into Vampire the Masquerade, 1st edition for you information, and I have been led to the Tremere clan thanks to my love affair with magic. I have been reading whatever I can, but I've come across some confusing passages.

When a character first learns Thaumaturgy, the player selects a path for this character. That path is considered the character's primary path, and she automatically receives one dot in it, as well as one Level One ritual.

Is this an additional dot for the discipline, added to the three you automatically get for disciplines while building a character?

Answer 1

No.

When you select Thaumaturgy you select a path and take one dot in that path and one ritual. That is all you get for taking one dot in Thaumaturgy, but that can be fairly potent if used well especially since you can then learn other level one rituals during play, and some of those can be very handy. While not the easiest to read, that is what the quoted text says and any other reading would be absurdly overpowered.

As a side note, are you sure you are using 1st Edition? As far as I know, the 2ed Player's Guide is the first time paths other than the path of blood were published and the quoted text looks like it is from the 20th Anniversary Edition. The 2ed core book only allowed the path of blood for instance. Though the edition in question doesn't materially change the answer. No edition let the Tremere get an extra discipline dot in that way.