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Partysan
2010-12-20, 09:12 AM
Greetings again, my fellow playgrounders

Once more, and surely not for the last time, I seek advice. This time I want to know about World of Darkness, specifically about close combat.

- in the nWoD, which martial arts (including armed ones) are mechanically effective and why?
- is there something equivalent to those in the oWoD?
- is there a way to mechanically represent a joint lock (esp. in oWoD)?
- which oWoD Vampire and nWoD Vampire and Werewolf powers lend themselves especially well to close combat?

My knowledge about those systems sadly is rather abysmal, so thanks for helping me out!

comicshorse
2010-12-20, 09:28 AM
Greetings again, my fellow playgrounders

Once more, and surely not for the last time, I seek advice. This time I want to know about World of Darkness, specifically about close combat.

- in the nWoD, which martial arts (including armed ones) are mechanically effective and why?
- is there something equivalent to those in the oWoD?
- is there a way to mechanically represent a joint lock (esp. in oWoD)?
- which oWoD Vampire and nWoD Vampire and Werewolf powers lend themselves especially well to close combat?

My knowledge about those systems sadly is rather abysmal, so thanks for helping me out!

1) No idea. My Changeling uses Sword and Shield and it works for him but I've no idea if its particulalrly good. Ditto for my Vampires Krav Maga ( though taking the weapons of attackers is always fun)
2) There was the Combat Book in which you got manouevres based on the amount of Melee or Brawl you had.
3) Probably in the Combat book
4) For OWoD there are loads. Celerity (gives you extra actions), Potence ( huge strength), Fortitude ( damage resistance), Protean ( for aggravated damage claws) and Quietus (for aggravated damage swords). Depending on what your ST lets you get away with Thaumaturgy can be pretty deadly to

stainboy
2010-12-20, 09:33 AM
All I know is oWoD, but the Werewolf core book had a set of combat maneuvers for werewolves. You got one per point in Brawl. I believe Tribebook: Stargazers expanded the list with Kailindo maneuvers. None of it mattered though because the only combat maneuver you needed was "win initiative and dump all your rage."

For non-werewolf stuff, the World of Darkness Book of Combat (think I got the name right) and Demon Hunter X had some martial arts moves.

The Gilded Duke
2010-12-20, 12:34 PM
- in the nWoD, which martial arts (including armed ones) are mechanically effective and why?
- is there something equivalent to those in the oWoD?
- is there a way to mechanically represent a joint lock (esp. in oWoD)?
- which oWoD Vampire and nWoD Vampire and Werewolf powers lend themselves especially well to close combat?


1. For melee damage your two best fighting styles are Two Weapon Fighting with dual wielded greataxes (requires strength 5) or Fencing with a high dexterity. Two Weapon Fighting does more damage, but Fencing does a greater amount of damage at the top of the initiative order, which often makes it more useful. (The second attack from two weapon fighting comes later in the round)

For ranged combat marksmanship does the most damage overall, but it only does bashing damage against vampires and other similarly resistant creatures. It can still do enough bashing damage to be very effective. Make sure to max out your stats to get as much attacks as possible.

For the maximum damage in a single hit, and to do lethal instead of bashing, Archery is the way to go. Your strength is included in your bows attack bonus, and your dexterity is included in your attack roll, making it the only attack that benefits from both stats. With 5 strength and points in the archery fighting style you can use a bow with an attack bonus of +7, allowing your damage to be capped at 7 lethal in one hit, as opposed to the lower and more usual cap of 5.

I think there are some equivalents in oWOD but they weren't implemented quite as well.

Not sure about joint locks, but you might want to check out the Phillipino Martial Arts fighting style from Armory if you are interested in a more control focused fighting style.

NWOD vampire powers: Vigor (aka potence), while in theory it only adds to your roll if you hit... you should be hitting every turn. It also works particularly well with Archery, allowing you to use a weapon of up to +12. There are also a few Carthian Devotions which allow you to add your Celerity to Dexterity, which is particularly useful in a fencing build.

In general though, resilience (fortitude) is the most useful power. Extra health levels are always nice.

Dingle
2010-12-20, 12:50 PM
wod (both) combat: at the most basic level, extra actions are king.

I don't know much about Nwod fighting styles, except that some can give extra actions, which is why a lot of people consider them overpowered.

fancy owod combat: the combat book, or just use action splitting/other moves (clinch, trip etc.)/some combination thereof.
I know owod vampire revised best
ie. judo'd use a lot of trips.
jab, cross, knee to the face would be: split 3 ways (giving dice pools of: -3, -4, -5) attacks would be strike (-4), strike (-3), aimed kick (-5 dice, difficulty 9(+1 kick, +2 aimed at head) damage: str +2(+1 kick, +1 aimed at head) (won't always hit, infact it's not possible unless you're almost a professional figher (dex 3, brawl 3), spending willpower is a good idea))

Joint lock (arm bar or something) would be best represented as a clinch, you do damage every turn, and you've broken the joint(and probably started some internal bleeding) when they have taken enough damage to get to the crippled health level, unfortunately, you've probably had to leave some limb free when you were doing this so you'll be taking damage too.

OWOD
1st and foremost, extra actions, which means rage and celerity.

2(vamp). potence is the second best combat disipline, combines excellently with celerity, and can be used to great effect in grapples (autosuccesses are hard to beat)
Fortitude is the weakest of the physical 3 because it's the most useful out of combat.
Protean/Quietus varies in effectiveness (based on oppoents stamina), isn't always better than a decent weapon (vs mortals or low stamina vampires), but it's useful to help even stuff out when the odds are against you, and other vampires will think twice before getting into a fight with you. (if it'll take a few days to recover from one hit)
Obtenebration combines well with itself, and viscissitude 4 gives great stats.

3. willpower generally useful, and every little helps when your existence is on the line. Also IMPORTANT because it can be used to ignore wound penalties (automatically as a vampire, or with the resist pain werewolf gift). it's also a handy defence against mind control.

4. initiative is verry useful, if you win, you're a round ahead on wound penalties, they don't get to hit you in the round you incapacitate them, and even more importanly, it's a huge tactical advantage
(you get to know what they're going to do, they have to spend willpower to change actions and lose previously declared willpower;
it's even better in group combats because they don't get the benefits of total defence but you can)
(they can't abort to it, and if they declare it, they can be ignored).
not too easy to get, don't dump wits or dex, use blood for dex(vamp), all Rank 2 Ahrouns should get the Spirit of the Fray gift.

5. blood and forms. make sure you're using the best one for your circumstances. Hispo + bite is 1 dex better than Crinos if you're not using arms or pure strength. When in doubt/basic combat: dex is proably best. (initiative, action splitting, defence as well as offence)

SurlySeraph
2010-12-20, 04:07 PM
- in the nWoD, which martial arts (including armed ones) are mechanically effective and why?

As Dingle said, extra actions are where the power is. Kung Fu is good for this, and Combat Marksmanship (from Armory) can be really terrifying. Sniping (also from Armory) is very good, though that's mainly because a skilled mortal with a rifle can kill almost anything anyway.

I'd say Aikido (from Armory Reloaded) is the most powerful unarmed martial art. With enough optimization, you can be pretty much untouchable in melee. Its extra action ability lets you avoid all damage, throw your opponent away from you, automatically knock your opponent prone, *and* do normal damage every time you're attacked in melee if you roll well.


- is there something equivalent to those in the oWoD?

I don't know.


- is there a way to mechanically represent a joint lock (esp. in oWoD)?

NWoD has the Controls fighting style (Armory Reloaded), which is all about joint locks. You can also just use the normal grappling rules.


- which oWoD Vampire and nWoD Vampire and Werewolf powers lend themselves especially well to close combat?

I don't know Werewolf. For Old Vampire, Celerity is king at everything, whether melee or ranged, though Potence certainly helps. In New Vampire, Protean 3 is awesome. 1 Vitae, reflexive action, your unarmed attacks deal aggravated damage. Oh, and you get +1 on them, but the agg damage is the important part. Combined with Aikido or Kung Fu for extra actions, you can really shred people. Vigor is nice, and Resilience is important if you're against a werewolf or something else that also rips faces off in melee, but Protean 3 is how you kill.

The Glyphstone
2010-12-20, 04:11 PM
From what I understand, 1 dot in Dirty Fighting can be incredibly cheesy, particularly between two non-Celerity combatants. Unopposed stunlocks are...interesting.

woodenbandman
2010-12-20, 04:42 PM
I found that Aikido was pretty brutal. You give up your defense and actions for the turn, and if you can get as many successes on a brawl roll as your opponent's damage, you negate the attack and counter with a throw.

TehLivingDeath
2010-12-20, 07:54 PM
Don't know much about nWoD, but Celerity is pretty ridiculous like everyone else has said. I've seen an unexperienced storyteller lose control of the session because, after using a Sethist NPC supposed to be some badass to try and bully the players, one of them got angry, won initiative and blasted the dude two or three times with an elephant gun before cutting off his head.

That was 7 years ago so my memory is fuzzy on the subject, but I remember it was big WTF moment.

Kyuu Himura
2010-12-20, 08:33 PM
one of them got angry, won initiative and blasted the dude two or three times with an elephant gun before cutting off his head

My Story teller wouldn't let us use celerity with guns, mainly because guns get to add successes to the damage roll. He would say that you move faster that the mechanism of the gun.... to which I whole heartedly agreed, because I was the Assamite with Obfuscate 2, Celerity 3, Potence 5 and Quietus 5. 8th Generation, I walked in, one guy was dead, everyone else was very very wounded. Good times

On topic, you can use the Combat Book from OWoD, there you will find interesting rules for combat maneuvers based on your skill with brawling or meleeing. Then we have Kindred of the East and Kindred of the East Companion with some martial arts moves and the martial arts skill. Then you have Demon Hunter X, which introduces the deadly Mo Chi Kung Fu, a Martial art that some eastern monster hunters (read: humans) use to fight werewolves. Unarmed. And Win. No kidding, I played one of these guys, I have killed around 3 garou and an obscene amount of vampires, barefisted.

ShneekeyTheLost
2010-12-20, 09:17 PM
Vamps still aren't as nasty in combat as Werewolves are.

First off, as in D&D 3.5, when you are playing rocket tag, first man wins. In this case, first man is, and always will be, a Werewolf with Spirit of the Fray, which is a simple Rank 2 maneuver.

Second off, you have to dump a lot of points into Celerity. Any werewolf right out of the box has more actions per turn than you do.

Third off, werewolves innately do agg damage with their claws.

Fourth off, Werewolves are going to be stronger. Face it, you can't beat a +4 strength bonus for shifting into chrinos, until you are damn near a primogen.

Fifth off, a werewolf doesn't have to do anything to gain these benefits. They just have them. A vampire has to blow blood points like freekin' dimes at a casino just to be able to get into spitting distance.

Of course, both are punked by Do, the Akashic Brotherhood Magick martial arts. But then, warping reality with a thought tends to do that. Even a starting out Akashic can literally make you want to commit suicide, no save. And, of course, since there are no outward 'holy crap, that can't happen' effects, it's purely coincidental, so no paradox either.

Of course, all this is oWoD. I neither know nor care about nWoD.

mabriss lethe
2010-12-20, 09:43 PM
There are some other nasty and obscure sources (recently cracked open a bunch of oWoD books in the past few week, so it's fresh in mind.) Combat oriented Fomori can be a rather nasty lot. Especially a supernatural fomor.
(read as: Holy crap! a bane infested vampire!) For those ungodly things there are a lot of options
-Vampiric abilities? Check
-Access to basic Werewolf abilities? (rage, gnosis, gifts, umbral travel): check
-Unique and moderately disgusting Fomori powers? check (theoretically includes immunity to sunlight)

Standard Fomori only have access to the last two, but that's plenty, seeing as they have several ways to get extra actions. (berserker power*rage*, extra speed power, and extra limbs)