Most fighters must get by without magick. Even then, though, various tactics and circumstances can change elements of combat — wearing armor, being knocked over, fighting blind, and so forth. For the magickal systems involved, see The Book of Magick; and for general applications of magick in combat, see Magick and Violence.
In game terms, most circumstances can be handled by raising or lowering either Difficulties or dice pools. (You’ll rarely do both at the same time.) Some of the more common combat-oriented circumstances include:
As mentioned under Phase Two: Defense, you can have your character abort zir planned action in favor of a defensive maneuver, so long as ze has an action with which to act. Such abrupt changes of plan technically require either a temporary Willpower point or a Willpower roll, Difficulty 6. (Your Storyteller has the final say about that requirement.) Ducking out of your original plans is considered a reflexive action, as described in The Book of Rules, and isn’t counted as an action in and of itself.
Attacking from surprise, an assailant can get the upper hand on zir opponent. In game terms, the attacker rolls Dexterity + Stealth (+ the Arcane Background, if ze has it) in a resisted roll against zir target’s Perception + Alertness.
If the attacker wins, then ze gets 1 attack roll against zir opponent before any initiative rolls are made; if ze’s got successes left over after canceling xyr successes out, then ze can add 1 die to zir attack dice pool for each success. Let’s say that Lee Ann surprises a rogue Acharne Cultist; if her player rolls 4 successes to the Cultist’s 2, then she adds 2 more dice to her attack pool.
On a tie, the attacker goes first but the defender can take a defensive maneuver. And if the defender wins, then xe spots the ambush before the trap springs, and both parties roll their normal initiative.
Certain situations and characters make ambush impossible. Sneaking up on someone when you’re wearing power armor isn’t feasible, and some people (especially Time Masters) seem impossible to surprise. Ultimately, the Storyteller gets the final call regarding the potential of an ambush... which doesn’t mean, of course, that the attacker knows in advance that zir assault will fail.
Thick coats, flack suits, cybernetic armor, and other methods of protection absorb the damage of an attack. In game terms, armor adds dice to a character’s soak roll and allows a human being to soak Lethal damage as well as certain types of Aggravated damage — a vampire’s fangs, most likely, but not fire, or Life Sphere magick.
Light armor is easy enough to move around in, and Matter-based Effects can turn business suits or lingerie into cloth-weight armor too. Most forms of normal-tech armor, though, get cumbersome. Certain types of armor inflict a penalty upon the wearer’s Dexterity-based dice pool and demand time to put on or take off. Slipping on a biker jacket takes a single easy action, but a cop donning riot gear needs several minutes to suit up properly.
Shields: Shields, meanwhile, act as protective gear that can be brought to bear when facing an enemy. An opponent who’s facing your shield in hand-to-hand combat adds +1 or +2 to zir Difficulty to hit you, depending on the size of the shield in question. If it’s being used to ward off projectile weapons (bottles, rocks, bullets, etc.), then a shield also acts as armor, reducing a blow by 1 success for every level in the shield’s Rating.
That said, a shield occupies one hand, restricting the user’s movements and potential activities. Blocking a specific incoming attack (say a volley of bullets or a swung fire axe) may demand a Dexterity + Melee roll and a dedicated shield blocking action. Shields are heavy, too, and they suggest that you’re looking for trouble. Outside of riot-trained police (who often use them in formation) and medieval reenactment enthusiasts, you won’t find many people in the 21st century using shields.
For various types of protective gear, see the Armor and Shields chart, under Combat System Charts.
Normal combat rules assume that everyone’s able to move more or less freely. Certain handicaps, however, change those rules:
Given the power they command, why should mages stake their survival on mere human weapons and tactics? Everything, from lightning bolts and disintegration beams to one-inch punches that shatter a person’s ribcage, is possible for fighters who have the Spheres to use such tactics and the Will to employ them with deadly effect.
For more details, see Magick and Violence.
A character who’s fighting several opponents at close range suffers a penalty of +1 Difficulty per attacker to both zir attack and defense rolls, up to a maximum penalty of +4. Fighting two opponents, for instance, would add +2 to those Difficulties, and fighting five opponents would add +4 Difficulty.
A mage who has Correspondence 1, Mind 1, or Time 2 and has an active sensory Effect in one of those Spheres going at the time of combat can ignore this penalty. Essentially, such Effects give zir an enhanced view of who’s doing what to whom.
For some odd reason, folks often wind up fighting on ice, in rainstorms, through the middle of burning factories, and so on. When throwing down in ugly circumstances, the combatants might add between +1 and +3 to the Difficulties of their various rolls. The specifics depend on the situation, but the terrain may be more dangerous than the warriors themselves — see the Environmental Hazards section for details.
Avatar Storm or no Avatar Storm, mages can cross spells and blades with spirit entities. Such beings often lack physical substance unless they materialize, so the process of fighting them can be rather strange... certainly different from the tactics and experiences involved in fighting mortal adversaries.
Story-wise, spirits are ideas and essence embodied in often flexible forms. Depending on the nature of the individual spirit, such a being might appear as an ephemeral tempest, a bizarre monstrosity, a ghostly mist creature, an apparently normal person or animal, a chattering tangle of incarnate geometry, or anything you might imagine. In that form, the entity often attacks with not only its limbs but also its Willpower Trait and various mystic Charms: spiritual powers that resemble magic but somehow fit into the way things are even when their effects are clearly impossible by scientific reckoning.
The details regarding spirits and their powers can be found under Umbrood Spirit Entities. For now, we’ll simply mention these following combat-essential rules:
Physical attacks go right through a spirit unless the spirit has materialized or the weapon has been enchanted with the Prime Sphere or the Dimensional Science/Spirit Sphere. Given the bizarre consciousness of most spirits, Mind attacks upon Umbral entities tend to affect the mage instead of the spirit. A combination of Spirit 2 and Prime 2 acts like Life magick on an Umbral entity, with one exception...
Regardless of the state of the Gauntlet and Avatar Storm, mages don’t wind up fighting spirits very often unless those mages pass into the Otherworlds themselves. When hostile spirits engage the Awakened folk, however, it’s a good idea to remember that such antagonists are not human. They’re made of different stuff than we are, and they work by rules that most mortals can’t even comprehend.
(For more details, see Spirit Combat on the Order of Battle chart, The Otherworlds, and the aforementioned Umbrood Spirit Entities section.)
Aiming an attack at a certain location — the gun hand, eyes, the back of a knee — is more difficult than a simple strike but can have marvelous rewards. In game terms, a character targeting a specific location adds to zir normal Difficulty but adds to zir damage dice as well. A targeted strike may bypass armor, knock an object out of the opponent’s hand, or have other effects based on the attack and location involved.
| Target Size | Difficulty | Damage Modifier |
|---|---|---|
| Medium (arm, briefcase) | +1 | +1 die |
| Small (head, hand, gun) | +2 | +2 dice |
| Precise (eye, heart, kneecap) | +3 | +3 dice |