WEDNESDAY JUNE 2 Guns & Ammo (Well, Mostly Just Guns) – We’ve looked at the basics of close combat, but the World of Darkness isn’t the Bronze Age. People have much more sophisticated ways to hurt each other – namely, they have firearms. At its core, a firefight works like close combat: the attacker rolls his dice pool (in this case, Dexterity + Firearms + weapon damage +/- modifiers) and every success inflicts a point of damage upon the target. The key modifiers in play are different, however. Most notably, the target’s Defense trait doesn’t normally apply. (Good luck dodging a bullet, friend!) However, targets can make use of concealment (hiding behind objects to make themselves harder to hit), and attackers suffer penalties for shooting at anything beyond a weapon’s short range. Both parties can also use special moves (such as firing an autofire burst or going prone) to influence the dice pool. Example: The monster from the box is dead, but Sandy’s troubles continue – someone wants to make sure she doesn’t talk to anyone. She leaves her home to find Tony, her deranged second cousin, waiting for her with a pistol. Tony is waiting across the street (15 yards away), and when Sandy notices him, he opens fire. Tony has 2 Dexterity and 2 Firearms, and his pistol has a damage rating of 1, so his player’s basic dice pool is 5. Sandy’s Defense doesn’t apply, and she isn’t wearing any applicable armor, so no modifiers come into play. Fifteen yards is within the pistol’s short range, so no modifier there either. Tony doesn’t wait for Sandy to get fully out in the open before he fires, however, so the Storyteller rules that she is barely concealed, which imposes a -1 penalty. Further, since Sandy hasn’t acted yet this turn, she chooses to sacrifice her action and go prone, dropping to the ground. This imposes a further -2 penalty. Therefore, Tony’s player rolls (5 - 1 - 2 =) two dice. He gets a 1 and an 8, for one success. Sandy is shot, and she suffers one point of lethal damage. |