ErykTheRed/SuperPowerCrunch

Super Power Combat Crunch

Statement of Purpose

I like Exalted. Lots even. It's fun. But combat is spotty. Which is bad. Problem is, it's built upon a combat system that was somewhat limited in scope and not too great, but that was okay, because that combat system (the old WorldOfDarkness system) was for games that weren't so much about combat. But Exalted is. It's about exciting heroic people doing exciting heroic things, and sometimes whipping around a 12-foot blade to decapitate 7 hungry ghosts and a mercenary.

So, I want to fix combat. That is, I'm working on a complete overhaul of the combat system. And here it is, incomplete and completely untested. It's a work in progress, but I would love input. That's how I've gotten many of the ideas you see here.

Some Subpages

ErykTheRed/SuperPowerWeapons - The rules for how weapons will work.

The Process of Killing Bad Guys

• Initiative
  • All characters have an Initiative value equal to Dex + Wits + Awareness. This is used to determine order of actions. Highest initiative value goes first. Ties are broken by character importance (PCs before NPCs). Your combat turn is considered to begin when it is your turn to act. Your turn thus ends right before your next turn to act. I'm not sure yet how ambush affects the first combat turn. Any charm or spell that lasts until the end of a given turn, or for a certain number of turns, uses the turns of the character who activated them as the standard of measurement. Additionally, regardless of their Initiative total, extras always fall at the end of the order of actions. Extras of the same type or who are cooperating act simultaneously.
    • Note that there is no Initiative roll. Every character simply has an initiative rating. I suppose you could have charms used at the beginning of combat to alter your intiative score for that combat, maybe even involving dice rolls. But whatever. Initiative isn't random now. That's the change. It removes a step so you can jump into the exciting stuff.

• On a character's turn:
  • They may take that turn's actions freely, or they may hold actions to be used later in their turn, at any time. Regardless, the player must declare how many ways they wish to split their action for this turn. They then use however many of those actions they wish immediately, and the rest are held.

• • Actions may be held until the end of the character's turn. Any remaining held actions are lost.

• • Movement is as normal, may be split among actions, used before, during and after actions.

• • Single actions, such as attacks and defenses, may be made as Sweeping actions. This means the action has multiple targets. Dice pool penalties from any of the targets' charms or special abilities are cumulative. Successes are divided among the targets equally, before success reductions are applied and before successes are compared to each target's Wits. This is a single action, including for the purposes of dice pool penalties for split actions and also for the purpose of Rate. This represents any attack or defense that affects multiple targets in a single stroke. If you have more targets than successes on the roll, you assign the successes as evenly as possible (player's choice on how to assign), and the extra targets who did not get a success assigned are ignored. The action against them failed.
    • Sweeping defenses are only possible against multiple simultaneous attacks.

• Actions
  • Attacks (Strikes) - Roll attack pool. If the attack is a Power attack, dice pool is Str + Ability; if it is a Finesse attack the dice pool is Dex + Ability. Weapons are defined as Power and/or Finesse (if both, character may choose), and stunts may allow a character to use one type as the other. Martial Arts attacks are normally Finesse. Brawl attacks are normally Power. Successes may be reduced by defense actions as normal. If the attack is successful, it deals raw damage equal to the weapon/attack's Glance Damage. For each success rolled beyond the target's Wits rating, the raw damage is increased by an amount equal to the weapon/attack's Precision Damage rating.

• • Holds - Special kind of attack that forces enemy to be stuck at a certain range from you. This can represent a clinch, maneuvering within the range of a long weapon (to escape its dangerous end) or even fending an opponent off with a longer weapon (to keep them out of range to fight). Roll attack pool. The attack causes no damage. The effect of the hold lasts until your next turn, after which you must make another hold action to maintain the hold. If the hold is successful, you have successfully held the opponent at a range equal to the Length of the weapon/technique used to perform the hold (remember, unarmed attacks have a base Length of 0). If the target makes an attack with a weapon/technique with a different Length than the Length of the hold, they suffer a penalty to their Accuracy equal to the difference. Holds may be parried or dodged as normal. Additionally, the held character may make further parries or dodges later in the turn to attempt to break the hold. Each success reduces the effective number of successes on the hold. This is cumulative. Once the effective successes are reduced to zero, the hold is broken. These attempts to break the hold can be resisted with a Hold action by the holding character, though his net successes do not increase the hold. Normal movement is impossible in a hold. All movement attempts must be Push actions.

• • Pushes - Another special attack. Forces movement on the enemy. Sort of an anti-hold, in that way. This can be a push, a throw or even wacky swordfight maneuvering. Roll attack pool. This does no damage. Calculate raw damage as normal. Ignore soak. Every three points of raw damage cause one yard of knockback. The attacker chooses the direction of the knockback. Attacker has the option to follow. If held, you must move with the opponent you push. If holding someone, you move with them, unless you choose to release them as part of the push. Additionally, the target risks knockdown if the raw damage exceeds their Stamina + Resistance. They must roll Dexterity + Dodge vs. a difficulty of 1 plus 1 for every three points of raw damage beyond their Stamina + Resistance. If this roll fails, the victim suffers knockdown. Note that the damage is never actually rolled, nor do pushes ever cause health levels of damage.

• • Full Defenses - When activated, resolve as normal in the Power Combat rules. Full Defenses end at the end of your turn.

• • Riposte - If an attack against you misses, you may perform a riposte attack immediately following it, using a held action. This attack may not be subject to an opportunity attack(see below). If you defended against the original attack, each excess defense success beyond the attack successes adds a die to the riposte. Riposte attacks may be any normal kind of attack (Strike, Hold and Push), though only targeting the attacker that missed.
    • Sweeping ripostes are theoretically possible, if multiple simultaneous attacks against you missed. You'd only get the dice bonus from defenses if you performed a sweeping defense against all of the targets of the riposte.

• Aborting to a Defense

• • As a response to an attack, a character may abort their remaining held actions (they must have at least one) to perform a full defense (Full Parry or Full Dodge). The starting dice pool for the defense is as for the normal defense, with the split action penalty that the next held action would have suffered. All held actions are expended by aborting.

• • Alternately, if a character has no held actions remaining, they may abort their next turn's action to perform a Full Defense. This Full Defense does continue into the character's following turn; it lasts until either it runs out of dice, or the end of the following turn (the turn that the action "belonged" to).

• Defending Against an Attack

• • Largely unchanged, you may use a held action to perform a defense against an attack. You may perform a dodge and a parry, but no more than one of each.

• • Opportunity Attacks - If your Initiative + Reach of weapon/technique exceeds that of an attacker, you may interrupt their attack with one of your own. Initiative, for this purpose, is reduced by your current split action penalty (attacker suffers similarly). (The same penalty that would apply to the attack itself.) The opportunity attack resolves first. The result of the opportunity attack may interfere with or make the original attack impossible. Storyteller may allow the attacker to alter his intentions in that case.
    • Defenses can be used as normal against opportunity attacks. The attacker (the victim of the opportunity attack) may, if he chooses, abort his attack and use that action for a defense. Otherwise, he can use another held action to defend.
    • I had thought that I might allow some sort of evasive action, using Dodge, that would try to counter the opponent's Reach and prevent an opportunity attack. I opted not to do this, as performing a dodge against the opportunity attack has a comparable effect.
    • If an opportunity attack misses, the attack it was interrupting is treated as a Riposte (see above).
    • Obviously, one may not perform an opportunity attack in response to an opportunity attack, nor may more than one opportunity attack be performed in response to a single attack.

• Soak - Exalts and other essence-empowered types calculate Soak thus:
  • Bashing Soak - Equal to Stamina, doubled, plus Resistance, plus Bashing Soak of armor.
  • Lethal Soak - Equal to Stamina plus Resistance, plus Lethal Soak of armor.
  • Aggravated Soak - Equal to Lethal Soak of armor.
• Mortals calculate soak thus:
  • Bashing Soak - Equal to Stamina plus Bashing Soak of armor.
  • Lethal Soak - Equal to Stamina, halved (round up), plus Lethal Soak of armor.
  • Aggravated Soak - Equal to Lethal Soak of armor.

• Damage - Soak applies to raw damage as normal. Essence-Ping applies, as described in Power combat.

Unfinished...........