back(or: The Players Should Always Be Given A Chance To Botch)
At the advice of one of our players I've taken a look at the 3rd ed. combat rules. There are even parts of them I like. There are other parts that I really don't though, and as such I'm heavily revising them. My main problem is the importance of Dexterity in 3rd ed, it plays a roll in all three portions of combat, while other combat stats (Sta, Wit, Str) only play a roll in one. Also, all weapons tend to do the same damage, knives and swords have only a 20% to 10% difference in dice of damage done. So I'm taking many of the concepts of 3rd ed. rules and adding them into the convoluted mess we call our home-brew system.
There are two types of combat that I run. We will call them formal combat and informal combat, for semantic purposes. The goal of combat is to have excitement and adventure while not destroying the rest of the story. As such, we do a lot of things to keep it as short as possible.
Informal combat is entered into when the STs know that the outcome of the battle is certain. Fighting mortals and elders are the two classic examples here. Also, some combat involving a large number of NPCs will be handled this way, since the PCs are generally too small a force to have much influence in the battle, even if they are evenly matched with a single person on the other side.
In informal combat, actions are abstracted. This means the STs might ask for general actions (for each round or for the whole battle), and ask you to roll something arbitrary to see how you do. It should be emphasized that while your actions may have no effect on the outcome of the battle, they will certainly have a great effect on the world after the battle is over. So if you stood toe to toe with Jan you might be looking at a point of courage and a one way ticket out of the city (or to Jan's solarium); if you try to spare the cops, your Humanity will thank you later.
Formal combat -- like Gaul -- can be divided into three parts in our home-brew system (which is always under modification!). There are things here that I expect the players to know. They are bolded.
Initiative is always Wits + Alertness, difficulty 4. You can assume this is the case, so don't bother asking for difficulty.
To-Hit is always Dex + Weapon Ability, difficulty 6, unless the STs tell you a different difficulty. In other words, if you don't hear a difficulty, it's 6, so don't bother asking. Even if hitting the target is pretty automatic, you still need to roll here. That's because To-Hit successes can carry over to the damage roll.
Dodge is always Dex + Weapon Ability + Shield Bonus, difficulty 6 or 8. If you want to know when you can dodge, see below. The important thing is that you can always dodge if you see the attack coming, it may just limit your future options. I'm using the word "dodge" as a generic term for avoiding damage, but dodging may involve anything from getting out of the way of a sword to catching an opponents arrow on your shield. When dodging ranged attacks the Ability used is always Alertness and the target number is 6 or 8 depending on range. When dodging hand-to-hand attacks you use an Ability that relates to the item you have at hand. If you are empty handed you dodge with Brawl. Dodging an armed opponent when you are empty handed increases your difficulty to 8. If you have a knife, stick, sword, shield or anything else you dodge with Melee.
Damage is always Str + Weapon Modifier + (the greater of: To-Hit successes - 1 or 0) diff 6. The difficulty for a damage roll will always be 6, I promise. This makes Dexterity a very important combat skill as it effects attack, dodge and damage.
Soak is always Sta (when not aggravated) + Fortitude + Armor Modifier (when not fire, sunlight, or some magic) diff 6. Sta is not rolled when the damage is aggravated. If you are a mortal or ghoul, Sta is not rolled when the damage is lethal either. When a character's armor is not directly in the way of an attack, it provides no benefit. So fire and sunlight are not soaked by armor. Certain magical attacks, like Path of Blood 5 are also not soaked by armor. Other magical attacks, like staking someone with Movement of the Mind are soaked by armor. Use your judgment or ask the ST. Finally, recall that vampires reduce Bashing damage by half, rounded down after soak.
Dodging is always an option. When the STs are looking at you the wrong way you can dodge. This requires some initiative on the part of the player as we are often busy gleefully rolling To-Hit. If you dodge with all your dice pool your action for that turn is gone. If you dodge after your action this turn your action for the next turn is gone. You can dodge "on borrowed time" for as long as you want, but if you want to do anything else you are going to have to have a turn of inaction. A single action of dodging affects any and all attacks that your character can see/dodge against that turn. So think of dodging as more of an "active defense" rather than a single dodge. You can not dodge if you are held down, being grappled, under an elephant, etc. You can split your action to both dodge and attack. Splitting your action means you take both dice pools you would have and divide each of them in two, rounded down. So if you have 7 dice to attack with your gladius and 5 dice to dodge that arrow coming at you, you would roll 3 dice to attack and 2 dice to dodge. Remember that, again, I'm using the word "dodge" as a generic term that can mean avoiding damage from an attack in any number of ways. In traditional Roman combat, 9 times out of 10 that means catching the attack on your shield, not actually avoiding it.
Celerity is a bit of a special case. A character using celerity obviously can take multiple actions just one might normally with the power. You can also choose to "spend" celerity actions to increase your initiative. Each action so spent earns you 5 dice to your initiative pool. This decision must be made before initiative is rolled.
Certain actions end combat. When a NPC wants to be all noble and shit and say that you've won, or perhaps just heckle you and run, then combat will end then and there. This is often because the STs anticipate that the PCs will be happy with this result and are ready to move on with the game. This may or may not be the case. If it's not the case a new combat round will start and some PCs with low initiative or celerity may lose their actions for the turn that the NPC ended prematurely.
Location, location, location. Its often hard to know where everyone is in a swirling mass of gladii. We've been trying to use pizza box diagrams more and more which will help clear things up. In general, if something happens that doesn't fit your picture of where everyone is, just let it go. Ask for a clarification of where everyone is as soon as possible, but once something has happened it's generally too late to change it. Also, when describing your character's location many PCs (though actually not in this group) tend to vacillate. "I'm keeping my distance ... but I'm not going to look like I'm keeping my distance." Consider vacillations license for the STs to decide where you are.
Creativity is greatly encouraged in combat. Many STs rule this differently. We like short and sweet creativity. Tell the STs what you are going to do. Don't write us an opera about it. And don't tell us what happens, that's our job! "I pick up the fallen soldier's flag and smash him in the head." That's what we're looking for. "I wash the flames over his ammo." Never hurt to try. This is all very good. Remember that there are no hard and fast "mechanics" for creativity. Trust the STs to make things dramatic at the very least. Your called shot to the groin may or may not work, depending on a combination of ST fiat and some special roll. Remember that a single success is very marginal.
Creativity does generally work the same way. Whatever you describe when making your attack will probably happen if you get 5 successes on your To-Hit roll, after dodge has been factored in. So creativity does not alter dificulties, it just requires large amounts of success. If you get fewer successes you still hit. Just because you didn't decapatate the vampire doesn't mean you whiffed completely. So there is basically no penalty for being creative. That's good, I like creative gamers. Creative things include hitting an unarmored area of the target or blinding the target. Many creative things, severing limbs, decapitating, and staking require a base amount of damage as well. To sever or stake you must do three points of damage to the target after all soak and Bashing reductions.
Once you've been creative, and in general at the end of every round, the STs will give a synopsis of what happened that round. You might not get immediate feed back on your staking attempt. For dramatic reasons, we try to pull it all together into a description of the whole combat each round rather than individual actions.
Finally, rules for some of the weapons and armor the characters have access too. All damage and protection is in dice.
Weapons
Fists – Str (bashing)
Scutum – Str + 1 (bashing)
Club – Str + 3 (bashing)
Knife – Str (lethal)
Stake – Str (lethal)
Cavalry Sword – Str + 3 (lethal)
Gladius – Str + 3 (lethal)
Hoplite Sword – Str + 3 (lethal)
Spear – Str + 3 (lethal). +5 dice to initiative until character is
successfully hit, then -5 dice to initiative.
Longsword – Str + 4 (lethal)
Teeth – Str (agg)
Claws – Str + 2 (agg)
Torch – 2 (agg) + 1 (agg) every round until put out
Net – Str (ranged, bashing). After a successful hit target has all
dice pools halved, round down, until target succeeds in a Str +
Athletics roll, diff 8
Sling – Str +1 (ranged, bashing)
Bow – Str + 1 (ranged, lethal)
Pilum – Str +2 (ranged, lethal). If a target with shield successfully
dodges their shield is useless and must be dropped.
Armor
Leather / Hide – 1
Hoplite "Armor" – 1
Light Gladiator Armor – 1
Lorica Hamata (Chain) – 2. -1 die to Athletics rolls.
Heavy Gladiator Armor – 2. -1 die to Athletics rolls.
Lorica Segmentata (Banded Mail) – 3. -1 die to To-Hit and Dodge rolls.
-3 dice to Athletics rolls.
Shields
German Shield – +2 die to dodge rolls. -1 die to Athletics rolls.
Aspis – +2 die to dodge rolls. -1 die to Athletics rolls.
Scutum – +4 die to dodge rolls. -3 dice to Athletics rolls.
Appendix – Advanced Rules
Mounted Fighting – Stirrups aren't invented until 700 CE or so. So mounted combat is not terribly effective in this period. Mounted characters have the advantage of mobility giving them +5 dice to their initiative. This is cumulative with any other initiative bonuses. However, horses are not terribly easy to control in all situations. Certain actions require a Wits + Ride roll. This takes an action to perform, after which the horse is under control. You can split your action to both control the horse and attack as per the usual splitting rules. Charging lines of spearmen would be diff 8, jumping a ditch would be diff 6, and controlling your horse after it is hit would also be diff 6. Because of the lack of stirrups, all physical rolls are halved, rounded down. If there are multiple havings going on, because the character is splitting their action and being on a horse, no rounding is done until the last halving.
Staking through armor – In the gloria-mundi universe a vamire can only be staked by a purely wooden stake. There can't be a metal tip to aide in penetration. This is, obviously, a huge problem, because a wooden stake will simply break when it hits metal armor (any armor with a soak bonus of 2), there is absolutly no chance of penetration no soak is rolled. Note that wooden weapons can still damage targets in metal armor by hitting an unarmored area as per the normal rules for this, see above. The solution to this is opening your target's armor with your standard Imperial issue can opener, the gladius (or any other metal weapon you have on hand). The rules for this are the same as the rules for any other "creative" attack, you need to get 5 successes to hit and 3 successes to damage. After such an attack any potentially successful staking attempt does not suffer from the target's armor, the staking attempt can succeed and, if 5 successes are gained to hit, the armor bonus does not add to the soak roll.
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