Rules Overview

[Luther]

Basic System
Basically, all dice rolls are d10 - usually bunches of them.  You will generally roll a number of d10s equal to one to three stats (generally 1-5 pts apiece) added together and modified by difficulty.  A lockpicking check, for instance, would be Dexterity + Larceny.  If I was trying to pick a tough lock (-2), and had a Dexterity of 3 and a Larceny of 4, I would roll 5 dice (3+4-2).  This is called an uncontested test because it is not vs. anyone in particular.

The target number for all uncontested tests in 8.  That means that any result of 8 or more equates to one success.  The more successes you get in an action the better, faster, or more effectively you do it.

Any roll of 10 on a d10 not only nets a success, it also entitles you to roll again.  This is called the "10 again" rule.  Sometimes luck or other bonus powers will temporarily give you "9 again" or even "8 again" rolls, giving you the ability to re-roll more dice, and generally giving a more random positive result (thus reflecting wierd luck).  1's have no particular effect most of the time - although some wierd weaknesses or powers may make them takes away successes.

So - in the above lockpicking example, if I rolled a 1,3,5,7,10 I have achieved a single success.  I then re-roll the 10 and get an 8 for another success.  If I had rolled another 10, I would roll again just as before.

In contested rolls, the target number is lowered to 7, and both parties roll.  In the above example, a security guard comes along in the middle of my picking, and I have to duck into a corner and be silent to avoid detection.  This is the guard 's perception vs. my stealth.  The ST (storyteller) decide that this consitutes a Wits + Investigation roll vs. my Dexterity + Stealth.  Rolls do not have to be equal like this - the ST could have made it against just the guard's Investigation if he wanted to favor me, and didn't think Wits played a roll.  He could also give me a a dice penalty or bonus.  In this case, it is very quiet, so any noise will be heard - so the ST gives me a 1 dice penalty.  My roll is therefore Dexterity (3) + Stealth (3) - 1 (Penalty) for 5 Dice.  The guard has Wits (2) + Investigation (1) for 3 Dice.  The guard rolls and get 1,5,10.  On the re-roll he gets a 3.  I roll and get 2,4,6,7.  We both have 1 success.  Because it was the guard's action and netted no successes, he fails to notice me.

The last type of roll is called an extended roll.  In an extended roll, the ST assign a timeframe per roll (for example 1 roll/minute or 1 roll/10 minutes), and a total number of required successes.  It can be contested or not.  In the above example, my character slips into the room after the guard has departed, and tries to open the safe.  The ST rules that this is a difficult (-2) task that is extended at 1 roll/10 minutes, using Wits + Larceny.  He rules that it will require 5 successes (the range is generally between 5 and 15).  My Wits is 3, and Larceny is 4, so with the penalty I have that gives me 5 dice.  I make my first roll and its 3,5,7,7,9 - three successes.  I need two more, and 10 minutes have gone by.  I roll again and get 1,3,5,5,6 - no successes.  The contest fails.  The ST could rule that the safe is just out of my league, and give me no opporunity to retest - however he rules that it is accomplishable, and lets me start again.  My successes zero out and I start all over again with another attempt.

Character Generation
This is even easier then the last one - couple of quick points buckets to allocate and you are done.  Unlike my last game - it in no way, shape or form requires a computer or an advanced math degree to do.  The base scores are the same below as for any wierd beastie type, they just change slightly based on what scary powers you get afterwards.  To make a character you (for reference, please follow along with this character sheet) :

Step 1: Assign Attributes - attributes are arranged in three categories - mental, social, physical.  Each category has three attributes - 1 for resistance (stamina, composure, resolve), 1 for finesse (manipulation, wits, dexterity), 1 for power (strength, intelligence, presence).  All attributes are rated 1 to 5, with 1 being feeble, 2 being average, 3 being above average/strong, 4 being stellar/excellent (generally the max you will see on anyone), 5 being the limit of human capacity (olympic weight lifter, Albert Einstein, Bruce Lee), 6+ (superhuman), with no theoretic max (though above 10 would be ridiculous).

All attributes start at 1.  Characters assign Social, Physical, and Mental to a primary, secondary and tertiary priority.  They then get 5 additional points to distribute between the three attributes in their primary set (plus the three already there), 4 for their secondary, and 3 for their tertiary.  Thus - a well-rounded character will have at least a 2 (average) in all of their stats, a 3 (above average) in one of the stats in their secondary stats, and a 3 in two more of their primary stats.  Purchasing a 5 during character creation requires an extra point - 4 total (and therefore requires that you at least one 1).

Step 2 - Skills - once attributes are assigned, you have almost the same process to assign skills.  Skills also fall into the same three categories (mental, physical, social), and are also assigned primary, secondary, tertiary.  You have 11 pts to spend in your primary, 7 pts in your secondary, 4 pts in your tertiary.  Skills *do not* start at 1.  A 1 in a skill represents familiarity, whereas a 2 would indicate an average professional.  A 5 is again the human cap, with a 4 the highest you would normally see.  It costs an extra point to buy a 5, just as it did with attributes.

Step 3 - Specialties - once you have purchased skills, you have three specialties to disperse.  A specialty gives you a 1 Die advantage with a more specific version of a skill.  If you wanted to be a gunfighter, for example, you could place one of your specialties in the skill Firearms under Pistol.  You can assign two specialties in one skill, but not redundantly - so you can get Pistol and Rifle, but not Pistol twice.

Step 4 - Merits - Merits are bonus mini-powers, contacts, allies, resources, stuff, etc. that your character has.  You have 7 points to distribute between merits.  You'll need the book to do it - so I wouldn't try and do this in advance.

Step 5 - Apply Supernatural Template.  Sorry - this you get no info on.  :-)

Step 6 - Spend EP.  You can gain EP as a starting character by selling down your humanity (which in turn makes you more likely to go crazy) - and some characters will get some extra starting EP to boot because they have a weaker template.  I also might just give everyone a chunk because of how cruddy WOD made starting PCs now.

Combat
Couple of things have to be explained before I can explain Combat:

1) Defense - Your Defense stat is the average of your Wits and Dex rounded down.

2) Health - Your Health Levels are equal to 2 + your Stamina x 2 - so 12 HLs if you have a stamina of 5 - and the average human (Sta 2) has 6.

3) Wounds - there are three types of wound, Aggravated, Lethal, and Bashing.  Bashing wounds are of minimal consequence - they are healed at a rate of 1 pt/15 minutes by mortals and represent bruising and crap.  Lethal - which is inflicted by guns and knives and the like - heals at a rate of 1 pt/2 days.  Agg is the worst kind of damage and is caused by massive trauma, magic weapons, etc.  Agg takes 1 week/pt to heal.

The method for tracking wounds is a little esoteric.  Health Levels are tracked in boxes.  When you suffer a wound, you fill in the right most box of your health track with it.  Asterixes are used to indicate Agg wounds, X's are used to show lethal, and slashes are used to show bashing.  Agg wounds are always to the left then lethal then bashing.  So - if you have 1 Agg wound, 2 Lethal, 2 Bashing (*XX//), and you take another lethal, your leftmost health box would have an asterix (*XXX//), your middle three would have X's and your left two would have slashes.  Because of the shape of these marks, it is easy to add another slash to Bashing damage to make it Lethal on your track, and its easy to add a plus to lethal to make it agg.

Once you are down to your last three boxes of health (all types since they are all on one track), you take wound penalties - -1 if you are on your third to last, -2 if you are on your second to last, -3 if you are on your last.  Once you are out of wound boxes, some very unfortunate stuff starts happening.  First of all - damage gets "promoted".  If you take a point of bashing damage, and you have no HLs left, you locate the leftmost bashing damage and it now becomes a lethal wound.  If no bashing wound levels exist, you upgrade a lethal level to agg.

If your rightmost box is Bashing damage, then all that happens is that you must make an unmodified Stamina rolls once per turn to stay conscious (hard roll since it is straight Stamina).  If your rightmost box is Lethal damage, then you still have the above issue (trying to stay conscious) but you will now suffer an additional lethal level per minute - thereby generating one agg wound per minute.  If you are full-up on Agg damage - you are dead, dead, dead.

If you have temp HLs - say because you boosted your Stamina, these are damaged first and are "extra".  They recover completely the next time you rest (as in sleep), but remain damaged if you deactivate or reactivate the power that granted them until this has happened.  They can only be used once - whether for lethal or bashing damage - they effectively just absorb your first x number of damage levels regardless of type. Agg damage completely ignores temp damage boxes, and always goes straight to your track.

That is probably the most complicated thing in the game.  The rest of this is cake.

4) Action Types - There are three types of actions in the game - extended, instant, and reflexive.  We talked about extended actions already - and they can happen in combat (usually 1 roll/turn).  Instant actions take your turn in the initiative phase.  Reflexive actions don't - you can take one and act in the same turn.

5) Multiple Actions - With a -3 penalty to all actions per additional, your character can act more then once on its turn.  So, you could take 3 actions if they were all at -6.  Rolls may be required for actions that would otherwise not require them - like an Athletics check to make sure you don't fall over while running and performing another task.

OK - now that that is clear, let's talk about the steps in combat:

1) Roll Initiative - Initiative works differently from other rolls.  Instead of a success test, you simply add together your composure and dexterity and roll d10 and add it to the result.  Turns then progress in order descending with ties broken by a simple die roll.

2) Announce Action - if you are performing more then one action, you have to announce all of them at once.

3) Hitting - if you are fighting in melee, you roll either Strength + Weaponry, Strength + Brawl, Dexterity + Weaponry or Dexterity + Brawl depending on which is higher and whether you are using fists or a weapon.  Your opponent rolls Defense + Weaponry, Wits + Dex, or Defense + Brawl depending on which is higher and whether he is armed (although Brawl cannot defend against a melee weapon).  As you will note - that gives the attacker a very slight advantage (as Defense is two attributes rounded down), but defender wins on ties, so an attacker has less then 50/50 odds to hit an equal opponent.

If you are fighting in ranged combat, you roll Dexterity + Firearms or Dexterity + Weaponry (if using thrown weapons or a bow) vs. your opponent's straight Defense with modifiers for cover, movement, range, etc.  Yes, it is easier to hit with a gun then in melee with a struggling opponent - as long as you have a clear shot.  If you are in point blank range, they get their full melee defense as above.

You can opt to go "full defensive", which means you roll twice instead of once for your defense and keep the highest roll.  This takes your action, but can be done out of order.  Every attacker after the first lowers your defense by 1 die.

4) Damage - All weapons do their appropriate type of damage - knive and guns do lethal; bats, rocks, fists, etc do bashing; and scary magic swords, explosives and flamethrowers do agg.  Damage done is equal to Damage Level of Weapon + Successes on To-Hit Roll.  So, a pistol (light ones to 2L) is fired at a dude, and the shooter gets 2 Successes.  The pistol would do 4 lethal wounds to the victim.

In the case of Melee weapons, a Strength roll is also added to the damage, with a Target Number of 7.  Example: Samurai Jack hits the big spooky were-thing with his katana.  Jack scores 3 successes, and a katana has a damage level of 3.  That is base 6 damage.  Jack has a 4 Strength, and gets 2 more successes on his Strength check.  Total damage is 8 Lethal.  (BTW - in this example, Jack is a pretty scary MF.  I am just saying)

Armor directly subtracts from damage taken - 1 Damage Level/Armor Level.  Light Kevlar has an armor rating of 1 - Heavier might have 2.  I will allow dice penalties to bypass armor if they are wearing it instead of it being innate.  So - in the above example, if the were-thing had two armor levels, Jack would only do 6 damage, not 8.

Other rules for combat:

Autofire - Autofire can be done as a 3-round burst or a short spray or a long spray.  A short spray blows 8 rounds, and a long burst blows 15. 3-round bursts give a +1 to hit, short sprays +2, and long bursts +3.  If firing at multiple targets, -2 to die pool to all targets for each target over the 1st (sprays only).  Every success means one bullet hit the target.  Each bullet that hits the target does its straight damage and armor applies each time.  Example: Marco the Mobster opens up on a cop with an Uzi.  The Uzi does 3 Damage Levels, and Marco has a Dex of 3 and a Firearms of 2.  Marco fires a short spray giving him a +2 to hit - for a total of 7 dice.  The Cop has a Defense of 2, for 2 dice.  Marco rolls and gets 3 successes (pretty lucky roll).  The Cop gets 1 success for defense.  Marco hits him with 2 bullets for 3 damage each - enough to put the Cop down.  The Cop, however, has on a bulletproof vest which gives 2 defense against bullets - which in turn lowers each bullet to 1 damage, resulting in 2 Lethal wounds for the Cop.

Armor - Armor has two ratings - Ballistic and melee.  When attacked using a knife, bat, fist, etc - use the melee rating - with a gun, arrow, etc - use the ballistic.  Light Kevlar has a 2 Ballistic and 1 Melee.  Heavier Kevlar has a 3 Ballistic and 2 Melee.  Full riot gear has 4/3 (as I recall - I would need to double check).  Heavier armor also deducts from Defense and Speed - as I recall, Full Riot Gear is a -2 to each - whereas Heavy Kevlar is no mods.  Body Armor doesn't help at all against more esoteric damage forms like electricity, fire, etc. - although generally supernatural armor (i.e. - powers that grant armor) does.  Also - armor which is "bulletproof" - like Kevlar - converts firearm damage from lethal to bashing, as long as the AP level on the weapon is not higher then the Armor level of the armor.

Armor Piercing - Armor piercing weapons ignore X amount of armor when making an attack.

Called Shot - You can take a -2/hit to increase your damage by 1 level at any time.

Experience
Pretty simple here.  You will get 2-3 EP per session - and an extra 2-3 when an arc finishes (usually every 3-4 sessions).  You can spend EP in the following ways (this stuff is for everybody - all supernats have other stuff to spend on):

Attributes - New Dots x 5
Skills - New Dots x 3
Skill Specialty - 3 Points
Merit - New Dots x 2
Morality - New Dots x 3 (will explain in the next post on Morality and WP)
Willpower - 8 Points/Dot

Before purchasing a new thing you must spend 1 Day (8 hrs)/EP studying or practicing before you can purchase something new.  This time is halved if you have a source (book, etc), and thirded if you have a teacher.  You must spend both the time and EP to acquire the ability - but you can spend the time in preperation for having the EP.  If for instance, you want to raise your firearms from 2 to 3 you could do so for 9 EP and 9 days at the range.  A book won't help in this case - but an instructor would cut it the day count to 3.  You could spend the 3 days in the range, and then in the next two sessions, purchase it with the 3 EP you got.  You can only study something from an instructor that has at least the desired score in it.

Willpower

Sort of some final odds and ends here.  You have two remaining scores, Willpower and Humanity.  Willpower starts as Resolve + Composure.  Morality starts at 7, but can be sold down to 5 for 5 EP a pop.

During character creation, you must select a Vice and a Virtue - based on the Seven Deadly Sins and their opposites.

Willpower has two main uses - it is used to power some abilities, and it can be spent at anytime to give three bonus dice on a test.

Everytime you act in accordance with your Virtue for an entire session, you replenish your WP completely.  Everytime you act in accordance with your Vice for a scene, you replenish one point.  Everytime you rest for the night, or equivalent (chill out at the base for a few hours doing nothing but chilling) you get 1 back.  Additionally all will come back between story arcs (aka "Missions").

Morality

Morality represents your characters connection to what makes them human.  The more despicable and abberant their behavior, the more they degenerate and let darkness claim them.  Morality can vary based on perspective and situation, but in general if you perform an act that is lower then your morality score, you need to roll the dice associated with the sin (see table below).  If you fail to get any successes, you degenerate - making you lose one Morality point representing becoming increasingly hard to the world marked by your inability to feel sorrow for your action.  Additionally, you now need to roll a number of dice equal to your new morality score.  If you fail to get at least one success, you gain a derrangement - an insanity to reflect your new mental state.

10 - Selfish Thoughts (5 dice)
9 - Minor selfish act (5 dice)
8 - Injury to another (4 dice)
7 - Petty Theft (4 dice)
6 - Grand Theft (3 dice)
5 - Intentional arson (3 dice)
4 - Manslaughter (3 dice)
3 - Murder (2 dice)
2 - Serial Murder (2 dice)
1 - Mass Murder (2 dice)

Several supernaturals have other major side-effects associated with degenerating other then general insanity like mortals.  These sins are representative, not pure - I don't believe in natural law and neither does the game.  It is really most important to figure out what your character truly thinks is a sin.

If this system seems alignment like and heavy-handed - know that its main purpose is not for humanity, but for many supernaturals that have to fight their darkside.  I am far more likely to force supernats to regularly roll then humans.