Mass Combat
Contents
Mass Combat
“It is forbidden to kill; therefore all murderers are punished unless they kill in large numbers and to the sound of trumpets.” —Voltaire
Mind’s Eye Theatre is intended for theatrical combat, providing characters a feeling of risk, danger, and the potential of deep personal loss. Most conflicts happen in a one-on-one environment, but on occasion, larger battles and epic, climactic fights occur. When that happens, Storytellers should use the mass combat system. This system allows many characters to be involved in a single conflict, without burdening the Storyteller or slowing the game down in miniscule rules trivia. This system is designed to heighten drama, allowing both the attackers and the defenders to have a fair chance at victory.
Remember that a Storyteller’s first job is to make sure everyone’s having fun. It’s often better to break a large combat up into smaller clusters, thus allowing individual characters to stand out and have dramatic moments. It’s neither fun, nor realistic, to have 10 characters standing in line, dealing damage one after the other to a single, overwhelmed target. Nor is it beneficial to the game for players to spend the majority of a night’s game in combat rather than roleplay. Combat has its place and can increase tension, provide drama, and help the World of Darkness feel gritty and dangerous. Still, remember first and foremost: this is a game, and games are meant to be fun for all participants.
Maximum Attacks Per Round
As noted previously, combat turns are broken down into individual rounds, beginning with an everyman round and continuing through each Celerity round until all character actions have been completed.
During an individual round, a character can only be targeted by a limited number of challenges:
• One Social challenge
• One Mental challenge
• Up to two Physical challenges
This limitation on the number of attacks within a single round applies even if a particular challenge fails. If a character is targeted by, but successfully resists, a Social challenge, that character cannot be the target of another Social challenge until the next round.
During a mass combat scene that contains three rounds, a character could be targeted in the following ways:
• Everyman: She could be targeted by one Mental and one Social power and two Physical attacks.
• First Celerity Round: She could be targeted by two additional Physical attacks.
• Second Celerity Round: She could be targeted by two additional Physical attacks.
Characters cannot ordinarily use Social or Mental powers during Celerity rounds. Although the maximum attack limits are the same, during a standard Celerity round, players will likely only need to track the number of Physical challenges.
Challenges resulting from your own powers, friendly actions that require a challenge to perform, and static challenges, do not count towards these maximum attack limits. For example, a character testing to overcome your Majesty is not considered to be targeting you with a Social power, and thus would not prevent you from being targeted by someone else’s Dread Gaze during the same round. Allowing an ally to contact you with Telepathy during a combat round will not prevent a hostile Mental power from targeting you in that same round.
Storytellers should be aware that unethical players may try to abuse these maximum limits. A character cannot have an ally target them and cause minimal damage (or use a trivial effect) in order to avoid being targeted by more dangerous challenges in that round. If the Storyteller suspects that players are attempting to abuse the system, such players should be given a single, strong warning — and then told to leave the game if such behavior continues. Cheating is reprehensible, and players who resort to such tactics are exhibiting extremely childish behavior.
Mixed Challenges
A mixed challenge is a challenge that compares two different character attributes. A power with a mixed challenge might require a character to make a Mental + (skill) challenge versus the target’s Physical + (skill or Willpower) test pool, or so forth.
When you utilize a mixed challenge, the type of challenge is determined by the defender’s resistance attribute for the purpose of maximum attacks per round. For example, the above challenge uses the defender’s Physical attribute, and would count against the maximum number of Physical challenges a defender can be targeted by for that round.
Mass Combat Tactics
In a mass combat situation, you may take the normal range of actions, use any appropriate powers and disciplines, and utilize combat maneuvers exactly as you would in solo combat. Additionally, you may choose to spend an action to perform one of the following mass combat tactics:
• Assist Attacker
• Assist Defender
Mass combat tactics can only be used to augment or defend against Physical attacks. Individuals using Social or Mental challenges against a target, or being targeted by such challenges, cannot receive assistance from mass combat tactics.
Assist Attacker
Instead of using your standard action to attack, you may instead expend your standard action to “Assist an Attacker,” thus boosting another character’s attack. It is often a good idea to assist other attackers if you suspect that an enemy will reach her maximum Physical attacks this round. This way, you can still contribute to the combat even if there are more people attacking than can target an individual during a given round.
When you assist an attacker, you must choose the individual you are going to help and offer to assist her. The attacker can refuse your assistance, in which case you cannot target her with this tactic and do not expend your standard action. If the target accepts your assistance, spend your standard action and describe how your character is helping with the attack. This allows the character you are assisting to perform one of the standard combat maneuvers without expending Willpower for that maneuver. Both attacker and assistant must agree on the specific combat maneuver to be applied. No other pools, powers, weapon qualities, or other advantages belonging to the individual assisting the attacker apply to this attack.
Example: Two Brujah lovers, Celia and Montague, are in desperate combat against their Nosferatu enemies. Seeing that Montague wants to pin one of their attackers, Celia offers to assist attacker, and Montague accepts her assistance. Celia chooses to distract the Nosferatu with a raucous yell, allowing Montague the chance to attempt a Grapple combat maneuver on that opponent for free.
A player may choose to spend her standard action and assist an attacker at any time during the round, even before her turn in the initiative order. A player may also hold her standard action, waiting for the opportunity to assist an ally later in the round. A player cannot choose to assist an attacker if she has already used her standard action that round, or if she has no standard action during that round.
Only one combat maneuver can be applied to a challenge through the assist attacker tactic. Even if two or more characters offer to assist an attacking character, the attacker only receives one free combat maneuver. It is possible to have two combat maneuvers in effect on a single challenge, by adding the free assist attacker combat maneuver to a challenge in which the attacker is also spending a point of Willpower or taking advantage of an attribute focus.
Assist Defender
Once per round, when one of your allies is attacked, you may expend your simple action in order to move up to three steps to the defender and shield her from that attack. Characters using the assist defender tactic become the target of the incoming attack.
When you assist a defender, you must choose the individual you are going to assist and offer to assist her. The defender can refuse your assistance, in which case you cannot target her with this tactic, and do not expend your simple action. If the target accepts your assistance, spend your simple action and describe how your character is defending her from the attack. Thereafter, make the challenge against the attacker as though you had been the original target of the attack. If you win the challenge, you negate the attack, preventing it from affecting either you or the original defender. If you fail, the attack affects you as though you had been targeted normally.
Example: Our Brujah, Celia and Montague, are overwhelmed by the power of their Nosferatu assailants. Seeing one lunge toward Celia with a massive sword in his hands, Montague offers to assist defender, and Celia accepts his assistance. Montague leaps in front of the sword’s slash before it can hit his beloved, and the attacker makes the challenge with Montague as if he had been the original target of the blow.
A player may choose to spend her simple action and use the assist defender tactic at any time during the round, even before her turn in the initiative order. A player may also hold her simple action, waiting for the opportunity to assist an ally later in the round. A player cannot choose to use the assist defender tactic if she has already used all of her simple actions for that round, or if she has no simple action during that round. Assist defender does not use a character’s standard action; even if she expends a simple action to use assist defender, the character acts normally on her standard action when her initiative arrives.
When you use the assist defender tactic, both you and the original defender are considered to have been targeted with a Physical attack for the purpose of determining maximum attacks per round. A well-coordinated group of defenders can use assist defender tactics to avoid being overwhelmed by a superior force — at least, for a little while.
An attack cannot be redirected by assist defender more than once. If two or more characters wish to assist a defender against a single attack, the character with the higher initiative has the first option to utilize this tactic. If she does so, any other hopeful defenders stand down without expending their simple actions.
A character can only use assist defender once per combat round, even if she has multiple simple actions to spend during that round. A character cannot use this tactic if she is incapable of moving to within two steps of the character she wishes to assist. Characters lying prone, or prevented from moving through some other means, cannot use this tactic.
If you utilize the assist defender tactic against an area of effect attack (an attack that targets multiple individuals), you assist only the character you have chosen to defend. The others are still targets of the assault, as per normal rules. If the area of effect attack originally targeted both the defender and the individual using assist defender, the character using the assist defender tactic makes only one test with the attacker. If the character using assist defender wins the challenge, she negates the attack, preventing it from affecting both herself and the original defender. If she loses the challenge, she takes twice the damage or suffers twice the effect of the incoming power (once for herself, and once for the character she was protecting). Each effect or damage from this attack is applied singly and can be reduced by armor or Fortitude as though the defender had been struck by two separate attacks.
A character cannot assist a defender if she is not solid. However, it is possible to make yourself the target of an attack that will not harm you, as long as you could have been a possible target of that attack. For example, a cloud of mist jumping in front of a shotgun blast will have no protective effect. However, a Gangrel who is immune to fire may leap in front of a gout of flame. If she is successful, the flame will strike the Gangrel, even if the damage inflicted will be reduced to nothing.
If the attacking character does not wish to use her declared Physical attack against the individual who declared the assist defender tactic, she may choose to lose her standard action and not attack at all this round. The simple action used to enact the assist defender tactic is also lost, but any movement performed as part of that tactic is completed. Both the defender and the secondary defender are considered to have been targeted by an attack for the purpose of determining their maximum attacks per round.
Stock NPCs and Mass Combat
On occasion, Stock NPCs will become involved in mass combat scenes. Remember that Stock NPCs are background characters. While they can be useful, they should never be given as much attention or allowed as many options for drama and glory as an actual player character. When a Stock NPC uses the assist attacker tactic, she provides a +1 bonus to the attacker’s Physical attack. When a Stock NPC uses the assist defender tactic, she provides a +1 bonus to the defender’s Dodge-based defense test pool. Like a normal use of mass combat tactics, no action or defense can be modified by more than one mass combat tactic. If a player-character and a Stock NPC wish to modify the same attack or defense, the Storyteller should always favor the player-character over the Stock NPC.
Order of Actions in Mass Combat
In some circumstances, both an attacking character and a defending character may choose to utilize mass combat tactics to modify the same challenge. A Storyteller resolves this situation in the following order:
1. On her initiative, the initial attacker declares her intent to attack with a Physical challenge, describes the nature of her attack, and targets the initial defender.
2. A second attacker declares her intent to assist the initial attacker. The initial attacker accepts the assistance.
3. The second attacker spends her standard action and describes the nature of her collaboration. The Storyteller agrees the second attacker’s action is possible (and useful) and grants the attackers a free combat maneuver to add to the attack. The two attackers decide which combat maneuver they will apply.
4. Before challenges are attempted, the Storyteller asks if any characters would like to declare the intent to use the assist defender tactic. If so, the initial defender may choose to accept the assistance.
5. The second defender spends her simple action, takes steps toward the initial defender, and makes herself the new target of the attack.
6. At this point, the attacker may choose to continue with the attack against the new target or to abandon the attack and lose her standard action. If she chooses to continue the attack, she may apply a second combat maneuver to the attack through the normal methods, such as by spending a Willpower or taking advantage of an attribute focus. The free combat maneuver gained from assist attacker cannot be altered.
7. The Physical challenge for the attack is performed between the original attacker and the second defender. This is a standard challenge, run exactly as if the secondary defender had been chosen as the original target of the attack.
8. If the secondary defender wins the challenge, she negates the attack, preventing it from affecting either herself or the original defender. If she loses the challenge, she takes the damage or suffers the effect of the incoming attack. In either case, the original defender takes no damage and suffers no effect.
9. Both the original defender and the secondary defender note that they have been attacked by a Physical challenge this round.
10. This challenge is over. Players then proceed to the initiative of the next character involved in the mass combat.
Chapter 4: Introduction to Core Systems
