War of the Dead House Rules

World of Darkness: War of the Dead
GM
Time
Game Time
4th Saturday of the Month
The Survivors
Anastasia "Stas" Morgan Andrés "Andy" Dimaculangan Johnny Ray Jackson Miss Velvet Above Average Vance Strider

Combat Hacks

Aggravated Called Shots - As a result of called shots to the head of any organic target, all damage counts as Aggravated damage. This imposes a -5 modifier on the 'to-hit roll'. Rationale: Damage to the head with anything hard or fast enough to crack the skull often causes brain damage, and that's a pretty sure way to kill a person.

Bleeding Out - Any wound that causes at least two points of Lethal or Aggravated damage, and is inflicted by a firearm, blade, claw or any other source that causes deep tissue damage, begins to bleed profusely. The victim suffers one point of bashing damage each turn the wound is left unattended. Bleeding victims can be stabilized with a successful Intelligence + Medicine roll, with a -1 penalty for each point of lethal damage caused by the initial wound. Rationale: A gunshot might not kill a person, but the resultant blood loss very easily can and does.

Bone Breakage - Whenever a character rolls an exceptional success on an attack made with a blunt weapon or an unarmed attack, the player choses one of the target's bones from the list below and shatters it. The effects of the broken bone persist for the rest of the story. Rationale: Hey, bones chip, fracture and shatter from a bad hit.

• Arm: -1 penalty to attacks or skills that require the use of that arm.
• Leg: -1 penalty to Speed and any Athletics rolls related to running, jumping or swimming.
• Rib: -1 penalty to Stamina rolls related to running, holding breath and similar exertions.
• Skull: Target is stunned for one turn and suffers a -1 penalty to Mental Attribute or Skill Rolls.

Dangerous Explosives - Characters standing within the Blast Area suffer half-again (round down) the flat Damage of the explosive, plus damage rolled. Characters outside the blast area still suffer the possibility of being hit by flying shrapnel and debris. Roll the Damage rating of the explosive against any character outside the primary radius of the explosion but still within half the Blast Area in yards (round down). An explosion with Blast Area and Damage of 4 inflicts four dice of damage against characters within a 5-6 yard radius of the explosion. Rationale: Explosives kill and maim with fearsome ease. You shouldn't be blase about handling them.

Freezing Under Fire - Whenever a character is fired upon, the player must roll a Resolve + Composure. If the roll succeeds, the character can act normally. If the roll fails, the player must spend a Willpower point for the character to act (this Willpower point bestows no other bonus on any rolls the player might make that turn). If the character has no Willpower to spend, for whatever reason, they freeze up. A character who has frozen up regains control on their next action, or sooner if a comrade devotes an action to snapping them out of it. This does not apply to Characters with the Combatant Merit. Rationale: Being shot at is terrifying, even if the shots don't stand any real chance of hitting. Loud noises trigger our panic responses, and the sound of bullets careening off nearby surfaces is enough to try anyone's courage.

Shooting Through Cover - Subtract the durability of cover material from the shooter's dice pool. If the Durability of the cover is higher than the damage rating of the gun, or if the gun does not use solid slugs (birdshot for instance), the bullets do not penetrate the cover and the target is unharmed. Bulletproof glass or armor piercing bullets provide exceptions, of course. The former oprates at a higher level of Durability against bullets, while the latter ignores Durability entirely. Rationale: Glass doesn't provide much of a defense against bullets.

Special Action: Patch Up

• Dice Pool: Dexterity + Medicine + equipment
• Action: Extended (one success is required per -1 penalty to be negated; each roll represents one turn of first aid work)
  • Dramatic Failure: Your character's ministrations only serve to increase the pain and discomfort of the patient's injuries. They suffer an additional -1 on all actions for the rest of the scene, on top of any wound penalties they are currently suffering.
  • Failure: Your character fails to make progress toward reducing the patient's penalties.
  • Success: Your character makes progress toward improving your patient's functionality. Once you have accumulated successes equal to the total penalty you wish to remove, the patient ceases to incur those penalties until the end of the scene. At the end of the scene, the penalties return, and a character cannot be subject to more than one patch up per story.
  • Exceptional Success: Your character makes tremendous progress toward patching up the patient. In addition, if you roll five or more successes beyond the target number, the patch-up jb lasts until the end of the chapter instead of the end of the scene.
• Suggested Equipment: Set of surgeon's tools (+1), field surgical kit (+1), military surgical kit (+2), access to surgical facilities (+3)
• Possible Penalties: Lack of tools (-1 to -4), bad weather (-2), distraction from noise (-1) to imminent danger (-4)

New Merit: Combatant (2)

• Prerequisites: Resolve (2), Brawl, Firearms or Weaponry (1)
• Effect: Your character either has training in how to handle themselves in a fight, or has been in enough crisis situations that they don't lose their head when people start getting hurt. A number of combat hacks do not apply to this character: Freezing Under Fire