Combat Basics
- Combat consists of turns
- One combat turn lasts about three in-game seconds
- One turn has three phases - Initiative, Attack and Resolution
Initiative. First, we will roll initiative. I will typically call for initiative when the situation warrants. This number is 1d10 roll + your Dexterity and Wits rating added together. The initiative should take into account any minuses due to wound penalties.
To speed up combat and dramatic scenes with rolls, do not wait to post, just go for it. But only post once. After everyone has posted I will make a single group response (based on character initiative ratings). After I've posted, everyone is free to post again. If a lag happens due to lack of posting I will roll initiative for you, I a lag happens due to lack of posting I will make a combat action for you.
Attack. First determine what your character is doing. If you would like to dodge and attack you will need to divide your poll as noted above. Roll to determine the results of your action. Assume all combat actions to be Difficulty 6. More complex attack actions will be of higher difficulty. After rolling, please post your number of successes.
The attack phase is the phase in a combat turn where the actual action takes place. Players roll for their attacks and other actions. Defensive actions are rolled in response to an attack and therefore do not adhere to the normal initiative rules as they are considered resisted rolls (they do, however, take up a full action for the defender, unless they are using the Desperate Defense rules). Once the first action is taken, the player goes to the resolution stage where the results of their rolls are handled including damage dealt and reactions to supernatural powers are decided.
It is during this phase that players also declare what powers they activate or modifiers they spend like Willpower,Glamour, etc. STs may not allow players to do this after, except in the case of Aborting Actions or Changing Targets.
Resolution. Roll damage, soak or other appropriate resistance rolls
Multiple Actions
Occasionally, a character needs to perform more than one action in a turn, such as trying to bypass an electronic lock in a busy office while attempting to avoid attention, or sidestepping an incoming attack while striking the oncoming chimerical monster with a hammer. In such situations, actions can be attempted normally, though all actions become more difficult as the character’s attention is split among them.
The player declares how many actions the character will take in a turn, determining which has the smallest dice pool. That many dice can then be split among the actions in proportions the player sees fit.
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Example: Your character is being interrogated by the sidhe seneschal, due to an accusation of rabblerousing. Your eshu agitator wishes to lie, stating her innocence. As she’s never trusted the seneschal’s motives, she simultaneously reads the seneschal’s reactions to her answers. This is a Manipulation + Subterfuge roll (for which your character has six dice) and a Perception + Empathy roll (for which your character has five dice). Five dice is the smaller dice pool, so you may divide five dice among the number of actions you want to take. That is, you may allocate these five dice as you see fit between the bald-faced lie and the interpretation of the sidhe’s body language.
At the Storyteller’s discretion, certain wildly-disparate action combinations may incur a difficulty increase on top of the split dice pool limitations. Seducing a hoary old sluagh while fencing with a nocker rival is a challenge, and the difficulty will be altered to reflect that. Splitting dice pools to a certain degree may well be impossible in some cases, adjudicated by the Storyteller.
Multiple Actions(Quicksilver)- Repeat Attack and Resolution Phases until all actions are spent. Please note, Quickersilver actions may not be divided into multiple actions.
Initiative Complications: You can delay your action to prepare for someone else’s action or to react to surprises. The character who is delaying goes automatically before a character with slower initiative. So if your character has a higher initiative and decides to interfere with a character with a slower initiative if they make a hostile move, your character’s attempt to thwart the aggressor will go off first before the aggressor’s action.
All multiple actions are handled at the end of the turn and in normal initiative order. They are handled as extra combat turns until every character in a combat with multiple actions has used up all their actions.
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Defensive Actions
Dodging: To have your character X and weave herself out of harm's way, make a successful Dexterity + Athletics (or other similar maneuver example; Flying) roll. The difficulty depends upon the nature of the attack and the distance that the dodging character wants to cover during that dodge. Dodging a hand-to-hand strike is easy (difficulty 6), but dodging firearms at close range is far more challenging (difficulty 8). Dodging firearms at close range would require player to go prone.
Each success on this roll subtracts one success from the attacker's roll; thus, the dodging character needs to roll at least as many successes to avoid that blow as the attacker rolled to inflict it in the first place.
Blocking: To use a body part to deflect a blow, roll Dexterity + Brawl. The difficulty depends upon the attack but often ranges between 6 (for a fist) and 8 (a table). Like dodging, each success scored by the defender removes one success from the attacker's attempt.
Changelings may soak lethal in the grey world but not aggravated damage attacks like the teeth and claws of werewolves unless the character has is called upon the Wryd.
Parrying: When using a weapon to block an incoming attack, roll Dexterity + Melee at diff 6. Parrying cannot be used to defend against firearms (unless you have called upon the Wyrd). Parrying ranged attacks by bows, crossbows, or thrown weapons increases the difficulty of the parry roll by 2, but sufficiently-skilled characters can deflect or even cut arrows with their blades. If the defender is attacked with brawl and defender rolls more successes than the attacker (and the attacker is within the defender’s weapon’s range) the defender reflexively rolls the weapon’s base damage plus the parry’s extra successes that surpasses the brawl attack successes as a damage dice pool against the attacker. This type of attack via parrying does not cost the defender an extra action and is called a rebound attack.
Desperate Defense: If all you want is to get the hell outta Dodge, you can have your character perform a desperate defense. In this case, he's putting everything he's got into getting away from harm -- as noted earlier, he can't do anything else that turn.
For a Desperate Defense, roll your character's Dexterity + Athletics at diff 6. Your character gets to use his full dice pool against the first attack, but he must subtract one die from each subsequent dodge that turn, because it's harder to escape several attacks than it is to duck a single assault.
Resolution Phase
Once the degrees of success are established by the attack phase, players have to resolve the damage dealt by an attack or the results of supernatural power. This is also where opponents roll their soaks or roll to resist supernatural powers in order to determine how successful an attack was.
Damage dice pools typically consist of the base damage for the weapons or attack plus an additional dice per success beyond the first. Strength specialties
do give exploding tens on damage rolls.
Players may then describe the results of their attacks and resolutions with as much flavor and style as is fitting and fun. But st’s can always have a right to say ‘’No thats not how that happened.’’
Once the first player in a combat turn ends their attack and resolution phases, then the second player in the initiative order goes through the attack and resolution phase, then the third, and so on.
Soaking Damage and Damage Types
Soaking damage refers to the roll a character makes to absorb the damage inflicted upon them by an attacker during the Resolution Phase. Normally soaking is done with a Stamina roll (Difficulty 6). However, there are mundane and supernatural methods of modifying this dice pool by using armor or certain supernatural effects. Some damage types cannot be soaked normally by certain types of characters without either mundane or supernatural assistance:
Bashing Damage - All characters can soak bashing damage.
Lethal Damage - Changelings can lethal damage without supernatural aid. Armor will allow greater proficiency to soak Bashing and Lethal. For example, a kevlar vest will protect even a mortal from a certain amount of damage done by a bullet and give the number of soak dice equal to the armor rating of the armor.
Aggravated Damage - May not be soaked normally without a special ability or other specific means of protection in the grey world. A changeling who has called upon the Wyld may soak aggravated damage through the use of mundane and magical armor. (In the dreaming all damage is considered chimerical damage after all). For example, an armored vest may protect a character’s torso from allowing a cold iron knife to penetrate down to the flesh. Again, the number of soak dice given in these cases is equal to the armor rating of the armor.
This message was last edited by the GM at 17:32, Sat 13 Feb 2021.
