nwod streamline combat

Collective Combat
The  basic  idea  is  simple:  all  allies  roll  their  dice together in one big pool, and split up successes to affect their  opponents.  This  has  far-reaching  effects  on  the combat procedure.

Step One — Declare Dice Caps:
In these rules, you don’t decide what your character is going to do until you already know the results. You do, however, declare a dice cap. Inspect your character sheet for dice pools that cover actions your character might want to execute during the turn. Set your character’s dice cap to the lowest dice pool for one of these actions. For example, if your character wants to use a supernatural power with nine dice, or strike with a fist using six dice, pick six dice — your character might strike or use that power, depending on how the dice fall. Include equipment bonuses.If your character opts for the Dodge maneuver her dice cap is automatically 0, but her Dodge adds to her side’s collective Defense.

Step Two — Total Dice:
Create a dice pool equal to the total of all allied characters’ dice caps. Add one additional die per character to reflect strength in numbers. You’ll end up with an enormous dice pool, but don’t worry. That’s the way it’s supposed to be.

Step  Three  —  Total  Defenses:
Defense  works a  little  differently  because  it’s  now  your  character’s general  resistance  to  danger.  It  even  applies  against ranged attacks. Calculate it using the lowest of her Wits, Dexterity, or  Composure,  to  cover  mental,  social,  and physical threats. Add her supernatural power trait (Blood Potency, Primal Urge, Gnosis, Wyrd, etc.) to represent general protective abilities.Your character may opt not to act offensively and double her base Defense (increasing the group’s collec-tive Defense) as for the Dodge maneuver, but Brawl and Weaponry Dodge don’t function in these rules, so if you use them, don’t use those Merits.Once  you  know  everyone’s  Defenses,  add  them together,  and  add  one  additional  point  for  each  ally (again, strength in numbers). This is the group’s collective Defense rating.

Step Four — Roll the Dice:
Subtract the enemy side’s total Defenses from the combined dice pool, just as for individual combat, with two differences: • No group is ever left with less than one die per member. If the modified dice pool would reduce the dice pool below that, convert the difference to chance dice (dice that only succeed on a roll of 10, but do benefit from  the  10-again  roll  —  see  the World  of  Darkness 91 Rulebook, page 124). The worst a pool can get is one chance  die  per  ally.  Each  failed  chance  die  brings  a dramatic failure down on one member of the group. The players choose who suffers a dramatic failure.

• If the allies face more than one group of defenders, subtract the higher of these groups’ totaled Defenses. Once you figure these pools, roll and then note each side’s successes.

Resolution
After  following  the  steps  in  the  last  section,  each side will be left with a pool of successes. This is the currency they use to achieve their objectives in the fight. The successes don’t belong to any particular character or action until the players devote them to specific results. Until that point, they’re an abstract measure of the entire side’s successes. Here’s how you break them down:

Step Five — Set the Resolution Order:
It’s easiest to resolve events for one group at a time. Use a variant of the phase rules (p. 89) to administer this, so that the actual results of the turn don’t take effect until every side has had a chance to allocate successes. The  order  of  actions within  a  group  is  of  critical importance. Each side has a finite number of successes to spend, so players who go first can use them up before allies can act. You can’t have ties, because this creates confusion over priority access to group successes.The  easiest  way  to  settle  this  is  to  use  standard Initiative,  but  consider  variations  such  as  those  found in  this  chapter.  Initiative-boosting  abilities  should not affect  this  order,  because  it  represents  not  just  speed, but  the  general  ability  to  seize  control  of  the  group’s advantages.  We  recommend  that  you  vary  the  order every turn or scene.

Step  Six  —  Spend  Successes  and  Narrate  the Results:
Each player spends group successes on combat results, depleting the amount available to anyone who goes after her. You  can  spend  successes  on  any  actions  with  dice pools no lower than your dice cap. For example, if you picked  a  dice  cap  of  six,  you  can  spend  successes  on actions covered by a Strength + Brawl pool of six or a Dexterity + Firearms pool of nine, but not a Strength + Weaponry pool of four. These successes act just like successes from the appropriate  dice  pool.  A  weapon  usually  inflicts  damage equal  to  its  successes.  A  supernatural  power  has  the effect it would impose at that number of successes, too. You can spend as many of the group’s successes as your dice cap, but you’ll probably want to spend less to leave some successes for allies’ players. You can even choose to fail by spending 0 successes, passing the opportunity along to another player