nWoD Combat Styles

[Username17]

So I was fiddling around, looking at nWoD combat styles. And they are crazy unbalanced and all over the map. But it got me thinking: do people want something like this implemented for aWoD? Obviously, combat styles would be more of a "build your own salad bar" than the arbitrary fixed progressions of nWoD, but I think there might be something there that people want.

For those of you who don't know, nWoD combat styles are a special merit that you buy in ratings - like Finances or Contacts. Only for each dot you have, you get one specific special combat ability. These abilities come in a fixed order, and have a tendency to be subtle variations on a rather short list of abilities. However, like 4e combat maneuvers, these subtle variations often switch a useless ability into an awesome one or vice versa since things like "adds a rider effect" can be anything from +/-2 dice on another test all the way up to your opponent not getting to take turns. Different combat styles are 3, 4, or 5 dots long, with very little correspondence between the power of any particular maneuver and how many dots you have to get. Some maneuvers stack because they have the same requirements, and some are exclusive and do not stack.

So the basic list of abilities that combat styles can give you is:

• Gain an initiative bonus when armed appropriately.
• Add +1 to your attack or defense (just one for each combat style).
• Increase your defense.
• Double your defense and skip your attack, then get a minor benefit.
• Spend a Willpower to get a bonus effect instead of +3 dice.
• Add a rider effect to your attack (usually small).
• Add a Rider effect to your attack (usually large) if your attack does as many wound levels as your target's size (which is 5, meaning that it won't happen).
• Replace your attack with a status condition.
• Attack twice. The second attack is at -1, and you lose your Defense for the entire round.
• Multiattack. You get a number of attacks equal to <Stat> minus 2. And your extra attacks are at a cumulative -1 each, and you lose your Defense for the round.
• Shift a couple of dice from defense to attack or from attack to defense. This always comes with the rider that you can't run or charge.
• Reduce the penalty for targeting specific body parts with your attack. A reduction of -1 is usually free (like the +1 to attacks), but a reduction of -2 or -3 usually requires giving up your Defense, and a reduction of more than 3 costs a Willpower.

So once you have that list, you make a new combat style by giving it a name and some required weaponry and some ranting about the theory behind each one. Since having a weapon of some kind increases your dicepool by about 50% and often gives you other benefits as well, fighting styles that use Brawl are basically for dumbasses (and to a lesser extent: Werewolves). Furthermore, you'll notice that the really good attacks, the ones that double your combat effectiveness and more, all involve you not being allowed to use your Defense. So any maneuver that involves increasing your defense is for idiots. Even discounting the fact that guns ignore defense and so do a host of special maneuvers and your defense is degraded by one every time you get attacked, the fact is that if you're mart you'll be taking actions that mean that even if you could use your defense you don't get one.

So how does this work out? Well, let's give two book examples: Staff Fighting and Escrima.

• Staff Fighting (total of 3 dots)
  • You can substitute your normal attack for a special trip attack where you make an opposed Strength + Weaponry + Weapon roll against their Dexterity + Athletics. If you win, they fall prone and take one bashing damage. Verdict: Decent for dog piling elders
  •• If you make a successful targeted strike against the head and dish out 5 damage in one go, your target is knocked out. Verdict: you can already do this (nWoD, page 168), so this "maneuver" does nothing even if the action was worth doing, which it is not.
  ••• Super Multiattack: Get one attack against each target within 3 yards, with a -1 penalty for each extra target. Verdict: Potentially crazy awesome, except for the part where the moment it pays off, you're about to die because getting ganged up on in this game involves losing in one round.
  
  Filipino Martial Arts (Four Dots)
  • You can initiate a grapple with a Strength + Weaponry test instead of Strength + Brawl Verdict: What fucking ever.
  •• You can perform an attack that does half damage, but if it would have done as much damage as the target's stamina, they drop their weapon. Verdict: Terrible
  ••• You can make an attack at -2, and then your opponent's next attack is at -3 Verdict: Decent, but nothing to write home about/
  •••• Your Defense doesn't degrade when you get attacked by multiple enemies Verdict: Fucking Awful.
  
  Archery (Four Dots)
  • You get +1 Strength for purposes of what kinds of bow you can use and how much damage you do with them. Verdict: Depending upon what your strength happens to be this is either a breakpoint that is totally sweet or basically meaningless. On average, it's good.
  •• You get to load your bow for free. Verdict: absolutely required to be an archer as a valid life choice
  ••• Double your bow range. Verdict: generally pretty meaningless, since combats rarely take place outside of regular bow range.
  •••• Ignore Cover Verdict: decent
  
  Combat Marksman (Five Dots)
  • Add your Firearms skill to your Initiative when you are armed with a gun. Verdict: very good. You aren't even required to shoot that gun. You can gain a decent size Celerity worth of Initiative and use it to cast a spell or run away.
  •• You get to reload your gun for free. Verdict: decent, but not as necessary as the same bonus for bows
  ••• You get to burn through twice as many bullets and get +1 to your attacks. Verdict: Good
  •••• Even if your opponent would get their defense against your gun attacks, they don't anyway. Verdict: Perfect for the little "ha ha!" But it probably won't do anything if your opponents are threatening.
  ••••• Multiattack. Based on Composure. Verdict: Probably the best one of these, since it can be used with any gun and has no special limitations.

As you can see, the individual maneuvers range from pointless and even detrimental all the way to fucking hardcore awesome. And the collection of those maneuvers that any particular style happens to have are similarly random. So Escrima has basically no good maneuvers and it sucks donkey balls, while Combat Marksman is made entirely of blazing awesome dipped in badassery and hardcoredness.

-Username17

[Silent Wayfarer]

Buff composure, use CM with a .50 cal?

[Koumei]

A better designed combat school system would be desirable for aWoD, I think.

Incidentally, I am kicking quickdraw to the curb for my character to take the starting dot in Combat Marksman, and totally intend on boosting that over time. And I've upgraded the handgun to a small SMG, because who doesn't want the option to go full auto for another +3?

[Username17]

Buff composure, use CM with a .50 cal?

Since Combat Marksman powers are 100% compatible with Sniper maneuvers, the game seriously wants you to eat a fuck tonne of peyote and go on a bell tower rampage. It's like totally fucking insane how brutally effective that shit is.

However, like in every other game ever made, the correct choice is "Antimaterial Rifle" for anyone with super strength and "shot gun" for anyone else. Under nWoD rules, these weapons have a special rule called "8 again" where you get an extra die for every hit you roll, which raises your average damage per die from 1/3 to .42 which is a very large change when you are picking up your dice and rolling them 3, 4, or 5 times in succession.

-Username17

[Lokathor]

Sounds oddly like Yoko from TTGL.

But yeah, getting access to more special powers is always cool in a game. It also lets you make a Badass Normal from time to time when the story asks for it.

[Gelare]

My only concern is that in all the games I've played, people are already pretty dang effective at combat. Which I recognize is a function of the people I play with, but if one of my Bagheera players could set some of his flavor-rific advancement on fire in exchange for delicious combat bonuses, he totally would, and he's already got three initiative passes.

[Username17]

My only concern is that in all the games I've played, people are already pretty dang effective at combat. Which I recognize is a function of the people I play with, but if one of my Bagheera players could set some of his flavor-rific advancement on fire in exchange for delicious combat bonuses, he totally would, and he's already got three initiative passes.

If something like this were to be implemented, probably the thing to do would be to allow people who specialized their Combat skill to select a number of special combat maneuvers equal to their Combat skill off the big list of special combat maneuvers.

It would end up being a power-up to combat monsters, even though of course over powered crap like "Rapid Fire" would not make the cut. But the real question is whether the increase in combat character stylistic uniqueness would make up for that?

-Username17

[CatharzGodfoot]

But the real question is whether the increase in combat character stylistic uniqueness would make up for that?

If it's a matter of 'I get more dice with the only attacks I ever make', I think the answer is clearly no. If it's 'I can use guns as equivalent strength clubs', the answer is probably yes.

But really, your 'qualities' take up a lot of the slack. People can already be ambidextrous or have weapon finesse.

[Orion]

I'm instinctively against this, as it seems to be the definition of vertical power.

But if you stuck to handing out weird options, buffing weak weapons, and the like, I guess it could be okay. Though you could just write up individual maneuvers as Qualities.

If you wanted combat styles of any significant power, the obvious thing to do would be to take a page from Exalted's playbook and write up "Mystical Martial Arts" as disciplines. That would also create the rules framework for a "hunters" game.

[Draco_Argentum]

I'm a big fan of gunslingers having something to do with their gun other than auto attack. Orion is right though, making people's gun action better is just asking for combat to be further polarised. It already seems to be completely polarised as is.

[Username17]

Were this to go forward, the following nWoD maneuvers would not go into the mix:

• Thrust: +1 to attack rolls.
• Rapid Fire: Take extra attacks.
• Body Blow: If you do enough damage to make take your opponent half down, they don't get to act next turn.
• Iron Skin: Gain +1 Armor against bashing attacks.

Those would not go in, because even the ones that are shitty are just raw powerups that there is no reason to not use or take. Things that might go in could be something like these:

• Riposte: When you have taken a defense action and someone attacks you, you can cash out your defense bonus after their attack to make an attack against them.
• Brutal Blow: You can inflict lethal damage with N weapons like fists and baseball bats.
• Temple Strike: Accept a higher threshold on an attack to stun an opponent you damage.
• Deadly Radius: Take a penalty on your attack and make your attack against all nearby enemies.

Stuff that has some sort of genuine tradeoff and does something.

-Username17

[Gelare]

select a number of special combat maneuvers equal to their Combat skill off the big list of special combat maneuvers.

...which is to say six. I vote you divide the combat skill by two, and round up, because your Combat is six anyway, six is a lot of things to keep track of, and you don't want to bother picking so many for disposable monsters. Round up so that people with Combat 1 can get in on the action and so that there isn't even more reason to go from 5 to 6.

[Username17]

I suppose that if people want more than three maneuvers, they can jolly well shill out for more than one specialization. Just going through the lists in nWoD, I can see place for the following:

• Do lethal damage with N weapons.
• Do N damage with Lethal weapons (not valid on explosives).
• Penalty to hit, but attack stuns if it wounds.
• Penalty to damage, but attack knocks enemy over if it hits.
• Penalty to hit, but increase the threshold to hit you.
• Penalty to hit, but attack multiple enemies at once.
• Make a grab as a complex action, but if you succeed you can tie your target down/hand cuff them as part of it.
• Disarm your opponent.
• Use a combat test in place of a stunt for you or someone else to escape.
• Take a defense action as a Simple Action, but the benefit applies against only one opponent.
• Take an attack as a Complex Action, but the damage is increased if it lands.
• Take a damage penalty on an attack, but reduce your opponent's defense threshold for the turn if the attack lands.
• Reload weaponry for free.
• Attack does no damage, but target's next attack is made at penalty.
• Attack as a complex action, but penalties for ganging up against you are vastly increased.

So that's 15 maneuvers, and none of them seem horribly bad from a vertical powerup sort of point of view.

PS: I just want to make it abundantly clear that the fact that the Kung Fu "Focused Attack" is a reduction in the penalty for making called shots and the Two Weapon Fighting "Focused Attack" allows you to attack an enemy more than once is ten flavors of bullshit. Actually, I think having two different combat maneuvers that are in no way similar with exactly the same name, separated by less than a page is exactly what is wrong with official World of Darkness products just in general.

-Username17