MfGames/SingleRollCombat

Introduction

White Wolf presented a new form of combat with the World of Darkness series. This system uses only a single roll to determine the results of combat. This enables combat to be faster and less roll intensive, which is a good thing to many people. These rules are an attempt to retrofit the defense ideas, but not exact mechanics, into the Exalted game system while still keeping the general feel of the game in place.

Defense

This is not the Defense of World of Darkness, but it is inspired by it. If you want to see the original, pick up the book and send a little money toward White Wolf.

A character's base defense is equal to the higher of their Dexterity or Wits. This is a character's raw ability to get out of the way or avoid the attack. Defense is added to soak, which is calculated normally as per the main Exalted book. This includes Stamina and armor.

Combat Skills

With the new system, there is only a single roll instead of an attack and damage roll. Because of this, these rules uses the attribute that inflicts the damage for the attack.

• Dexterity + Archery
• Strength + Brawl
• Dexterity + Martial Arts
• Strength + Melee
• Strength + Thrown

From the WOD book, all melee attacks (including Martial Arts) used Strength, but the description of Martial Arts indicates that it is combat based on precision and grace instead of raw physical power.

This does lead to another problem, in Exalted, Brawl is pretty much the second cousin to Martial Arts. Brawl gets only a few feats instead of the endless chains of fighting styles of Martial Arts. It also gets less weapons that can be used with the skill. To compensate, either Brawl needs to be given more usefulness or there is no reason to have it. This system treats Brawl as all "hard" martial arts and Martial Arts as the "soft" styles. They both are identical, except for Charms and Style chains.

Weapons may only be used with Brawl or Martial Arts if they are associated with the style. Otherwise, the weapon is considered a Melee weapon with the same skill requirement. This means that any Melee character can pick up a strange weapon and use it, which should be the case.

Lunars can use either Brawl or Martial Arts in their natural forms. Since Dexterity doesn't change, using Martial Arts ensures a constant ability in combat while Brawl changes based on the mouse form or the twenty meter squid form (which probably has a Strength 7 or higher). Also Strength is easier to improve in Deadly Beast Form.

Attacking

When attacking, a character determines the number of dice from their attack (Strength or Dexterity plus an ability), plus the accuracy and damage of the weapon. They subtract the defense of their opponent from this number.

If the attacker still has remaining dice, they roll it and every success counts as 1 point of damage. A ten does not count as double and the character cannot fail.

If the defender has equal or more defenses then attacking, i.e. defense plus soak is greater than attacking skill and damage, there is a chance that they missed. If the attacking character's ability plus weapon accuracy (but not attribute) is equal to or greater than the defense (not including soak) of the defender, they automatically do a single die of damage (plus any Willpower expenditures).

Parrying and Dodging

A character may choose to parry or dodge as appropriate. Successes from these rolls are added to their defense for purposes of that attack.

Charms

Any charm that adds to Dexterity + Attack adds to the attack value. Charms that double the dice from the attack roll, now double the dice from the attack skill (ability plus accuracy) above the defender's Defense (but not soak).

Complications

Multiple attackers against a single defender reduce their defense by 1 for each attacker beyond the first. The first one attacking attacks at full defense, the second character (not attack) is at -1 defense, the third is at -2, and so on. Characters with a low defense and multiple attackers may actually have have their soak "reduced". This is done to prevent a min/max character from creating an untouchable and also to keep play interesting. Anyone can be dragged down, given enough bodies.

A character may spend a willpower on either the attack or the actual damage roll. For an attack, it just adds +1 to the effective attack skill. If spend through a virtue, it adds +1 for every dot of that virtue. A character may also spend a willpower on the damage, assuming they hit. This performs as normal, granting either extra dice or an automatic success. A character may not spend willpower on both the attack and the damage of the same attack.

Comments

Comments welcomed and encouraged.