Combat Summary Chart
Stage One: Initiative
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Everyone rolls Initiative: The result of a die roll + Dexterity + Composure. The character with the highest Initiative performs her action first. Or you may yield your character's action until later in the Initiative queue or intro the next turn.
- Unarmed close combat: Strength + Brawl, minus target's Defense and armor
- Armed close combat: Strength + Melee, minus target's Defense and armor
- Ranged combat (guns and bows): Dexterity + Firearms, minus target's armor
- Ranged combat (thrown weapons): Dexterity + Athletics, minus target's Defense and armor
Add bonus dice based on weapon used or effect performed, and then subtract penalties for circumstance conditions. Roll your remaining pool. Each success equates to a Health point of damage inflicted, the type of which is determined by the nature of the attack. The Storyteller describes the attack and wound in narrative terms.
Possible Modifiers
- Aiming: +1 per turn to a +3 maximum
- All-Out Attack: +2 with Brawl or Weaponry attack; lose Defense
- Armor Piercing: Ignores amount of target's armor equal to item's own rating
- Autofire Long Burst: 20 or so bullets at as many targets as the shooter wants, pending Storyteller approval. A +3 bonus is applied to each attack roll; -1 per roll for each target if there's more than one
- Autofire Medium Burst: 10 or so bullets at one to three targets, with a +2 bonus to each attack roll; -1 per roll for each target if there's more than one
- Autofire Short Burst: Three bullets at a single target with a +1 bonus to the roll
- Concealment: Barely -1; partially -2; substantially -3; fully, see “Cover”
- Dodge: Double target's Defense
- Drawing a Weapon: Requires one action (one turn) without a Merit, and could negate Defense
- Firing from Concealment: Shooter's own concealment quality (-1, -2 or -3) reduced by one as a penalty to fire back (so, no modifier, -1 or -2)
- Offhand Attack: -2 penalty
- Prone Target: -2 penalty to hit in ranged combat; +2 bonus to hit when attacker is within close-combat distance
- Range: -2 at medium range, -4 at long range
- Shooting into Close Combat: -2 per combatant avoided in a single shot (not applicable to autofire)
- Specified Target: Torso -1, leg or arm -2, head -3, hand -4, eye -5
- Surprised or Immobilized Target: Defense doesnÕt apply
-Touching a Target: Dexterity + Brawl or Dexterity + Weaponry; armor may or may not apply, Defense does apply
- Willpower: Add three dice or +2 to a Resistance trait (Stamina, Resolve, Composure or
Defense) in one roll or instance
Fighting is a series of instant actions, demanding however long it takes until someone surrenders or is rendered unable to fight.
Combat involves a single dice pool roll per attack. The result determines whether or not your character hits and how much damage he inflicts on his target. The dice pool is determined as above, but the equipment modifier depends on the weapon used. A knife is more deadly than a fist, and a gun is more deadly than all.
Each success gained on your attack roll represents a point of damage inflicted against the target's Health trait. When the target has no more Health left, he is unconscious or dead (depending on the type of damage done).
There are three types of damage: bashing (caused by blunt weapons such as fists or clubs; these wounds heal quickly), lethal (caused by sharp weapons such as knives and bullets; these wounds heal slowly) and aggravated (caused by devastating supernatural attacks; these wounds take a very long time to heal).
There are a number of complications involved in combat, such as a target's Defense trait (which is subtracted from any melee attack dice pools targeted against him), penalties for armor, for hiding behind cover, and more. Details are described in the following chapters, but the basics are simple. Roll to hit and apply successes as damage.
Example: Let's see how it looks in action.
Your character tries to shoot at a thug who just killed his friend. Your character's Dexterity is ***, his Firearms **, and he's using a Glock 9mm pistol, which provides a dice modifier of +2. Your dice pool is therefore made up of seven dice.
The thug is about 30 yards away - that's within the pistol's medium range. A -2 penalty is applied to attacks at medium range. So, your dice pool to reduced to five dice.
But that's not all. It's raining cats and dogs. The Storyteller decides that there's an additional -1 penalty for poor visibility. That leaves you a dice pool of four.
The roll yields a 3, 5, 8 and 9 - two successes. The thug is hit. He suffers two points of lethal damage to his Health. It hurts, but it's not enough to stop him and he staggers away. Your character needs to decide whether to give chase and close the distance, or try to fire again at a receding target.
