Basic Combat Rules
Rounds
Combat, in the world of darkness, is comprised of rounds. Rounds are comprised of player's turns. Each player acts in turn, until all turns have been resolved. Whereupon either initiative is rolled again, or the turn order is run through again depending on how initiative is being handled.
Each round is considered to take roughly three seconds with all actions happening simultaneously.
Initiative
Initiative is handled by rolling a single d10 and adding the result to the sum of your Wits + Initiative. Actions are declared in order going from the lowest value to the highest value and resolved in order of the highest value to the lowest value. This is known as declare up resolve down.
In the interest of speed, the narrator may opt to roll initiative at the start of combat once and have that persist. This is often done in PVE where the stakes are low, because it is faster. Likewise, declare and resolve is an optional means of resolving initiative which is faster, though it denies the winner of the initiative the main benefit of the higher initiative, knowing what their opponent will do. Narrators will always have to balance opting for either of these rules with player agency.
Actions
An individual player's turn is compriesed of one or more actions. If an action is reflexive, it is not considered as having taken any time or using up your action.
Multiple Actions
If you want to take more than one non-reflexive action in your turn, you must have access to magic which allows you do so and/or split your pool. Splitting your pool requires you declare what actions you are taking. You then take the lowest pool in that list of actions and divide the dice you have between the actions you have declared. You must declare, as part of the action roster, how you are spending those dice.
Examples of split actions
Parry & Strike
You take a number of dice aside to riposte your attacker, using the bulk of your dice to parry and a small number (1 or 2) to attack after they have attacked. Since the pool is the same, you divide your dexterity + dodge pool amongst the two actions.
Eg.
Raven and Edmond are fighting an honorable duel.
Edmond has the initiative so Raven must declare.
Raven has a Melee pool of 7, they decide to parry with 5 dice and attack with 2.
Edmond can then decide if he wants to focus his Melee pool of 7 into an attack or split his dice between. As he has the initiative, the choice
Dodge & Punch
Missy the Pooka and Thor the Troll are having a straight up brawl.
Missy has the initiative and so Thor must declare.
Thor declares that he is going for a straight hand hammer. He's just clobbering her.
Missy declares that she will dodge and kick him in the nadgers. Missy has a dodge pool of 7 but a melee pool of 5. So she must divide her five dice between the dodge and punch.
Magical extra actions are defined by your sphere and are beyond the scope of this simple primer.
Attacking
Attacking someone is comprised of four steps.
- You roll your attack and take note of your succeses
- The defender rolls their defense (optional). Each success rolled on a defense subtracts one success from the attack roll.
- If you have one success on your attack, you roll damage. Any successes after the first are added to your damage roll.
- The defender rolls soak and subtracts their successes from your damage dice. The defender then marks off any net successes against their health track
Aborting to a defensive maneuver
Assuming you have not acted, you may abort from your declared action to a defensive action if you spend a willpower point or succeed at a willpower roll versus 6. You cannot do this if you have acted in any way during the turn.
Multiple opponents
Figthing multiple people in close compat causes an increase in difficulty to all actions by 1 after the first to a maximum penalty of +4
