Campaign:Legends/Combat
TL:DR;
SUPERNATURAL STUFF:
Changelings can super-inforce their masks so nobody attacks them unless the changeling is aggressive
Mortals get scared shitless at supernatural stuff
ATTACK RELATED:
Changelings who deal more damage than a target's stamina, or enough to cause wound penalties, can harvest Glamour reflexively.
Any Brawl attack that deals damage in excess of an enemy's size stuns them for the round.
Any blunt or unarmed attack [that's not biting, Angler] that is an exceptional success breaks a bone as chosen by the player.
Guns will fucking kill you
DEFENSE RELATED:
For every ally in reach, ignore one point of Defense reduction from multiple attackers.
If you are unarmed, halve your defense against weaponry attacks. This does not apply if you have Brawl or an unarmed Fighting Style at four dots or above.
Wound penalties are worse now
So, with the timeskip, I have finally gotten the chance to incorporate dem house rules from Armory Reloaded. They apply across the board, and there may be sekret hidden ones for the other supernaturals.
• The Unassuming Mask: When a changeling spends Glamour to reinforce the Mask, his player may make a reflexive Wits + Stealth roll along with his Initiative roll at the beginning of combat. If the roll succeeds, no character can attack the changeling until he takes an aggressive action (such as attacking, drawing a weapon, or using an obvious Contract). Other changelings and the True Fae may attempt a reflexive Glamour roll to attack the character normally. Rationale: The Mask is about more than hiding the physical changes wrought by a changeling’s time in Faerie; it’s a defense mechanism to allow the changeling to escape notice. It only makes sense that, when bolstered, it would make the changeling all too easy to overlook.
• Sup on Agony: If a changeling makes an attack that inflicts more damage than the target’s Stamina, or the attack marks enough boxes on the victim’s Health character to cause wound penalties, the changeling’s player can immediately roll Wits + Empathy to harvest Glamour as a reflexive action. Changelings cannot harvest Glamour from each other in this manner, though they can take Glamour from the emotions of other supernatural beings. Whether any of the Court bonuses (especially fear or wrath, though desire is hardly out of the question) apply is up to the Storyteller. Rationale: Changelings can draw strength from the emotions of others, and few events are more emotional that being beaten, shot or cut open by a living nightmare.
• Watch My Back: Although being ganged up on can be deadly in the World of Darkness, having stalwart friends at your back can even the odds. For every ally within your reach, you ignore one point of Defense reduction due to multiple attackers. For example, if three of your friends are within arms reach during a fight, you can be attacked by up to four opponents before your Defense starts to drop on the fifth. Rationale: This hack encourages characters to stick together and fight as a team, especially when outnumbered.
• Supernatural Terror: Whenever a mortal character sees a supernatural creature doing something that marks it as obviously inhuman, they must roll Resolve + Composure. If this roll fails, the character flees the area immediately, and cannot return until the scene ends or some extraordinary circumstances compel him. For instance, a character might flee a fight when a vampire tears a man’s throat out, but return if he realizes that his wife was approaching the scene from the other direction and might run afoul of the monster. The Storyteller should modify the Resolve + Composure roll as she feels appropriate. An event that can be easily rationalized might receive a positive modifier (the vampire tearing someone’s throat out, for instance, might just be a psychopath — still frightening, but not supernatural). An overt and unmistakable event, though, should receive a negative modifier (a werewolf takes on its hulking half-wolf form and tears opponents apart). A player whose character has the Unseen Sense Merit receives a +1 modifier if the event in question is related to the Merit’s focus. Rationale: Seeing an obviously supernatural event is horrifying, especially if that event comes during a fight. It’s very much in keeping with the themes of the World of Darkness that supernatural characters might scare off witnesses simply by employing their powers — this is one of the ways in which they keep their existences secret, ironically. Someone too scared to fight is probably also too scared to talk.
• Knife to a Fistfight: When an unarmed character is attacked by someone wielding a melee weapon, the defender applies only one-half of his Defense (round down) against the attack. Merits or supernatural powers that add to Defense are not affected. Rationale: Even master martial artists will tell you that if you’re unarmed and your opponent isn’t, the likelihood that you’ll get royally fucked up increases exponentially, and your best bet is to dodge like hell and try to get away. This hack makes Merits like Brawling Dodge considerably more useful when the bad guys break out knives and lead pipes.
• Catch the Blade: Characters with at least four dots in Brawl or a Brawl-based Fighting Style do not lose half their Defense when fighting unarmed against armed opponents in melee combat. This hack obviously only applies if you are also using the “Knife to a Fistfight” hack. Rationale: When cinema trumps realism, masters of the martial arts are easily able to hold their own against armed foes.
• Increased Wound Penalties: This hack changes the way that wounds affect characters. With five open boxes, the character suffers a –1 to all actions. With four, the character loses the ability to spend Willpower for heroic effort, but can still spend Willpower to increase Defense or Resistance traits (see p. 133 of the World of Darkness Rulebook). At three open boxes, the character suffers a –2 to all actions. At two open boxes, the character loses the 10 again benefit (if a weapon would grant the character 9 again, this still applies; a man armed with a shotgun is still dangerous, even if he’s injured!). Finally, at one open box, the character suffers a –3 penalty to all actions. Rationale: It’s difficult to act through pain, and even more difficult to summon extraordinary will when injured. This hack makes wounds more serious.
• Haymakers For All: Any Brawl attack that inflicts damage equal to or in excess of the target’s Size causes the target to lose his next action. Replace the effect of the Body Blow maneuver from Fighting Style: Boxing with the following: “Your character can deliver powerful blows that leave opponents reeling and gasping for air. If successes inflicted in a single Brawl attack equal or exceed a target’s Stamina or Size, whichever is lower, the victim loses his next action.” Rationale: Wild haymakers that stagger the combatants in a fistfight are staples of the tough-guy action hero, and even an untrained fighter sometimes gets the lucky shot that KOs the champ.
• Bone Breakage: Whenever a character rolls an exceptional success on an attack made with a blunt weapon or an unarmed attack, the player chooses one of the target’s bones from the list below and shatters it. The effects of the broken bone persist for the rest of the story. Rationale: Hey, bones chip, fracture, and shatter from a bad hit.
Arm –1 penalty to attacks or skills that require the use of that arm.
Leg –1 penalty to Speed and any Athletics rolls related to running, jumping, or swimming.
Rib –1 penalty to Stamina rolls related to running, holding breath, and similar exertions.
Skull Target is stunned for one turn and suffers a –1 penalty to Mental Attribute or Skill rolls.
• Automatic Damage: The damage modifier on a gun does not add dice to the roll to hit. Rather, the damage is applied automatically provided that the Dexterity + Firearms roll is successful. For instance, if a character with Dexterity 2 and Firearms 1 uses a light pistol (damage 2L), the player rolls three dice. If the player rolls one success, the target takes three points of lethal damage. If the character had been using a shotgun (4L damage plus 9 again), the player would still have rolled three dice, but with one success would have inflicted five points of lethal damage (the gun’s damage rating + number of successes rolled). Any effect that already bestows this effect (Such as Fighting Style: Sniping 5) instead doubles the weapon’s damage rating. Rationale: Guns are deadly, even in the hands of someone untrained in their use. This hack makes it less likely that an untrained person will hit a target, but if they do, they will certainly injure him.