WoD is a great game. After running a WoD game for two years now, understanding more of its intricacies, I have to admit that I found myself charmed by its simplicity. Some people call it a "mediocre" system, but I personally find that it stands up to the rigors of actual game play quite nicely and that it even has some solid strengths: Simplicity and invisibility. You can easily call for a roll, calculate the results, and then sweep the mechanics under the rug and get back to the drama of your story without a hiccup, and it's simple enough while being interesting enough that I often choose it as an introductory game: it's easy to pick up, without being so simple that players stop and ask why we're bothering with a system at all.

While essentially flawless in the sense that it won't break down on you in the middle of a game, it does lack a certain flavor and versimilitude that I look for in alot of my games. Combat isn't interesting enough, and leaves many players scratching their heads at the result. None of this is new: We all know about the dreaded "gun nibble," and the way certain factors just blend together into one tasteless grey blob that quietly resolves who kills who, but never leaves your players jumping up and down about how awesome the fight was.

I don't generally like to hack rules. White Wolf isn't paying me to rewrite their rules, quite the opposite: I'm paying to play their games. I wasted two months trying to fix 7th Sea and threw up my hands halfway through the project, as my experience left me with an even greater awareness of how flawed the game was. On the other hand, I spent 3 weeks rewriting the WotG martial arts (using the Million Style Manual) and I was delighted with the results, and gained a greater understanding of how well put together WotG really was. So, with a fire in my belly, I set out to fix WoD, and found it to be far more consistent and balanced than I realized when I first set out. I wanted to share my results with you, in case anyone else had a similar love of WoD, but wanted a game that had a little more bite, a little more dazzle, to it.

Whiff vs Whittle

Most fights in WoD are between people with relatively close dice pools, which are quite a few dice higher than defense, and generally inflict a health level or two of damage per roll: Consider the Strength 3, Brawl 3 character in a fist Fight with a Strength 2, Dex 3, Brawl 3 character. The result is... not much of a difference, and neither character really hitting the other very hard. We roll off, again and again, with each character taking a point or two of bashing damage, and then someone finally drops, if the players don't fall asleep from boredom first, "whittling" one another..

You never get a sense of how powerful, how different these stats are. Everything melds together flavorlessly. The stronger character doesn't really FEEL stronger, and the agile character doesn't feel more agile (especially if he lacks the Wits to go with that Dex). To really feel a difference, you have to overwhelm your opponent, and that's where you start to see these maxed out character wielding great axes in battle (For that matter, most weapons feel the same, and you just reach for the "biggest" one)

Compare and contrast this situation with what you typically see in GURPS, the polar opposite: in a typical GURPS exchange, neither character will hit the other. They will constantly struggle to hit one another until one of them finally gets lucky (or outsmarts the other) and lands a devastating blow that's often enough to finish the fight (or set his opponent reeling enough that we can secure our victory in short order).

Alot of people dislike this constant exchange of blows where neither character hits the other, "whiffing" one another, and we certainly don't want the complexity that GURPS brings (the simplicity and ease of WoD is its strength, remember). However, "whiff" brings some interesting elements with it: the knowledge that an unlucky roll could have devastating consequences, or that a lucky roll would finish the fight off quite quickly. We don't want as much whiff as GURPS has, but we do want less whittle than we currently, something to make the players hold their breath a little while the dice are falling to the table, something that helps differentiate the stats out of this mass of grey, and makes the strong characters feel strong, the quick characters feel quick, the tough characters feel tough.

Thus, we must focus less on getting many successes (more successes should be gravy), but on getting one. We should, however, make that one success count more. The Dogs of War solution ALMOST did it, and it served as the basis for my redesign, but it only does one of these two things: it makes a single success more lethal, but doesn't make that single success less likely. The result is that a Shotgun is EVEN BETTER when compared to a revolver than it was before, and that a little old granny who can barely scrape together 3 dice to hit someone is just as accurate before, and even more lethal.

In short, I want combat to "look" more like the first graph, where we often find that one success is all we need, but getting that one success is the main struggle of the fight. We want to see players struggling to turn 1 or 0 dice to 4 or 5, and see a difference between powerful (high potency) characters and graceful (high defense, high attack pool) characters.

Further Considerations

Looking deeper into the rules, I discovered a few more little problems that have bothered me for awhile:

You're Unconcious or you're Dying: In the World of Darkness, you're either taking bashing damage (after which, you have to make rolls to see if you stay concious) or you're taking Lethal damage (which also makes you check to see if you stay concious AND inflicts internal bleeding on your character). In real life, it's possible to pass out from the sort of injury that WoD considers lethal (a bullet or a knife wound) without requiring immediate medical attention to stabilize your condition or risk DEATH.

You can't dodge bullets: It's true that you can't dodge bullets. They move too quickly to sidestep, and you certainly can't parry them the way you can parry a weapon. However, there is a world of difference between someone you've ambushed (no defense, not moving) and someone who is actively avoiding being shot. It's alot easier to hit a still target than a moving one. While the rules contain "killing blow" rules, that really represents putting your gun to someone's head and firing, or stabbing someone who's been tied up, not a sniper pegging an unaware target from half a mile away (there's still a solid chance of missing such a roll completely). Furthermore, certain ranged combat moves (Gunslinger) cost your character his defense, which isn't much of a penalty in a ranged-combat fight.

Kung Fu!: Fighting Merits are questionably balanced, especially moves like Whirlwind blow. Ideally, someone who spends X experience on Kung Fu shouldn't be any better than someone who spent the same experience on Brawl. I know that someone people max out Brawl at character creation and then pile all of their merit points into Kung Fu, but it shouldn't surprise anyone that he's a better hand-to-hand fighter than someone who maxed out brawl and then spent all his Merit points on Resources and Contacts.

Dramatic Combat
Core Changes

Potency: certain weapons and the core strength of a character provide bonus successes to an attack provided the actual roll is successful.

Finesse: certain weapons provide bonus dice to attacks, representing greater accuracy and flexibility.

Combat Changes

Armor: Armor now reduces the number of Health Levels an attack inflicted, rather than reducing dice.

Shock: After a successful attack, regardless of the nature of the attack, the target takes one additional Bashing Health Level. Armor cannot reduce this damage.

Grapple: When grappling someone, additional successes effectively increase the Strength of the grappler, making it harder to escape.

Hit Location: Heads suffer a -3 to hit, but grant +1 potency. Hearts are a -4 to hit, and also grant +1 potency. These rules only apply to humans and other creatures that the GM feel would suffer from similar vulnerabilities.

Autofire: In addition to gaining more dice when firing a burst, you gain additional bonuses:
Short Burst: Up to 3 Bullets (+1 die)
Medium Burst: Up to 10 Bullets (+2 Dice, 9 Again)
Long Burst: Up to 20 bullets (+3 dice, 8 Again)

Strength now provides Potency to Weaponry and Brawl attacks.
Strength 3 +1 Potency
Strength 5 +2 Potency
Strength 8 +3 Potency
Strength 10 +4 Potency
Per Strength +2: +1 Potency

Melee Defense is now the higher of Dexterity or Wits. Ranged Defense is now the lower of Dexterity or Wits.

Revised Ranged Weapons Table
Light Revolver +0L Potency +2 dice Range: 20/40/80 Clip: 6 Str: 2 Size: 1 Cost:••

Heavy Revolver +1L Potency +1 dice Range: 35/70/140 Clip: 6 Str: 3 Size: 1 Cost: ••

Light Pistol +0L Potency +2 Dice Range: 20/40/80 Clip: 17+1 Str: 2 Size: 1 Cost: •••

Heavy Pistol +2L Potency -1 Dice Range: 30/60/120 Clip: 7+1 Str: 3 Size: 1 Cost: •••

Rifle† +2L Potency +3 Dice Range: 200/400/800 Clip: 5+1 Str: 2 Size: 3 Cost: ••

Small SMG* +0L Potency +0 Dice Range 25/50/100 Clip 30+1 Str 2 Size 1 Cost •••

Large SMG*† +1L Potency +0 Dice Range 50/100/200 Clip 30+1 Str 3 Size 2 Cost •••

Assault Rifle*† +2L Potency +0 Dice Range 150/300/600 Clip 42+1 Str 3 Size 3 Cost •••

Shotgun†
(Slug) +3L Potency +0 Dice Range 20/40/80 Clip 5+1 Str 3 Size 2 Cost ••
(Shot) +2L Potency +2 Dice

Crossbow**† +0L Potency +3 Dice Range 40/80/160 Clip 1 Str 3 Size 3 Cost •••

* Autofire.
** 3 turns to load, can be used to stake (-4).
† requires two hands.

Melee Weapon Table
Sap +0B Potency +1 Dice Size 1 Cost • Knockout

Brass Knuckles +1B Potency +0 Dice Size n/a Cost • Brawl

Sap Gloves +1B Potency +1 Dice Size n/a Cost •• Brawl

Club (wood) +1B Potency +1 Dice Size 2 Cost n/a

Mace (metal) +2B Potency +1 Dice Size 2 Cost ••

Maul (metal)† +3B Potency +1 Dice Size 3 Cost ••

Knife +0L Potency +1 Dice Size 1 Cost •

Rapier +0L Potency +3 Dice Size 2 Cost ••

Sword +1L Potency +1 Dice Size 2 Cost ••

Katana +1L Potency +1 Dice Size 2 Cost ••• Durability +1

Great sword† +2L Potency, +1 Dice, Size 3 Cost •••

Small Ax +1L Potency +0 Dice Size 1 Cost •

Large Ax† +2L Potency -1 Dice Size 3 Cost ••

Great Ax† +3L Potency -2 Dice Size 4 Cost •••

Stake +0L Potency +1 dice Size 1 Cost n/a (Heart -4)

Spear† +0L Potency +1 dice Size 3 Cost • +1 Defense

† requires two hands

Armor Table

Reinforced Clothing 1/0 Armor Str 2 Defense -0 Speed -0 Cost ••

Kevlar Vest (thin)* 0/1 Armor Str 1 Defense -0 Speed -0 Cost •

Flak Jacket* 1/1 Armor Str 2 Defense -1 Speed -0 Cost ••

Full Riot Gear* 1/2 Armor Str 3 Defense -2 Speed -1 Cost •••

Leather (Hard) 1/0 Armor Str 2 Defense -0 Speed -1 Cost •

Chain mail 2/0 Armor Str 3 Defense -1 Speed -2 Cost ••

Plate 2/1 Armor Str 4 Defense -2 Speed -3 Cost ••••

* Bulletproof items downgrade bullet damage to bashing.

Special Merit Rules

Brawl Dodge and Weaponry Dodge also inflict 1 HL of damage (bashing for Brawl Dodge, and whatever is appropriate for the weapon in hand for Weaponry dodge) if an opponent Dramatically Fails his attack while you use the special dodge rules. These Merits do not improve your defense against ranged attacks.

Duck and Weave increases defense against Brawling attacks to the highest of Dexterity, Wits or Brawl.

Fighting Style Merits are purchased one move at a time. Thus, beginning the game with both Precision Attack and Iron Skin costs 3, rather than 2, Merit points

Extra Action Merits are considered 1 attack for the purpose of lowering defenses.

Special Supernatural Rules

Vampires are immune to shock (as are any supernaturals who have “dead bodies,” such as Prometheans). Increasing Strength, Dexterity or Stamina with Blood does not increase derived statistics, including Potency. However, Vigor certainly improves total strength for the purposes of Potency.

Werewolves gain new bonuses in their wereforms: increases in strength also increase Potency if appropriate. Werewolf claws add +1 finesse (and Lethal damage), while werewolf fangs add +1 potency (and Lethal damage). The armor of Gauru form subtracts health levels of damage, just as all new armor does.

Mages aren't affected by these rules. Specifically, magic spells work as they always have. Spell-based attacks do not have Potency; mage Armor continues to penalize dice pools, rather than health levels.

Combat Hack: Dramatic Combat
Most of the time I spent on designing these rules came from testing them, and all my results (including the graphs above) came from running dice simulations 10,000 times and averaging them together.

In general, these changes don't really improve the role of Strength in melee as much as I thought it might (I originally thought that Dexterity would need to become the "to hit" stat, but that made it far too powerful in practice). Regardless, Dexterity does become more important under this system, but having a higher Stamina is generally more useful than having a higher Dexterity (which suits me just fine, as Dexterity also plays a roll in gaining initiative, something my simulations didn't consider, and Dexterity is the "main stat" in ranged combat).

The potency bonuses to strength would seem to create "tiers" where people would stop ("Why by Strength 4 when Strength 3 is already so good and Strength 5 is so far away?") but allowing it to remain as the main Melee to hit stat ensures that you're at least getting that bonus "to hit" die, able to use heavier weapons, and with the higher defenses in the game, that extra die really matters.

The weapon totals GENERALLY give the same "turns until kill" in the new system as the old system. An axe, for example, might kill a typical person in two blows, but getting those two blows (especially with the -1 to accuracy) can take a couple of tries, so it evens out, in practice. They tend to be a little faster than the old system, but I don't inherently see that as a problem. Guns tended to be faster, but that wasn't taking into account the fact that they have to contend with a (lesser than melee) defense penalty. EDIT: I feel I should note that this sytem makes less skilled character slightly less lethal (they have a much harder time getting that one success) and more skilled shcaracters slightly more lethal (they were hitting constantly anyway, but now they get bonus damage as well). I find this desirable, however: A master sniper should be one-shotting standard humans, and a completely unskilled granny with a revolver should have a hard time hitting anyone.

Some of the other changes evolved out of the other changes I was making. The armor change, naturally, came because reducing successes in a system where you'll see several HLs of damage on a blow (plus an automatic, "unsoakable" health level of bashing damage) meant you wouldn't see someone's hard-earned attack just evaporate away. The Auto-fire changes came about because I felt an automatic attack should be both more accurate and more lethal (and 9-again/8-again do more and more damage the more dice you bring to bear, which fits the nature of automatic fire nicely). The new hit location rules make targetting shots a little more interesting and a little more sensible (previously, targetting the head meant you did LESS damage)

Incidentally, with these changes: the Rifle is the best weapon if you're low on dice (so particularly good at hitting at a range), the Shotgun is best if you have a great dice pool, and the Assault Rifle is the most dangerous weapon provided you're willing to rock and roll with it. I like that different weapons are more useful in different situations. Oh, and please forgive the Heavy Pistol: I'm aware the original Heavy Pistol was an ACP .45, but I felt the desperate need to make it into a Desert Eagle .50, because that feels like THE WoD heavy pistol to me, and I wanted to make the weapon feel different from a Heavy Revolver.

Melee weapons are potentially more lethal (A great Ax in the hands of a Strength 5 character deals 5 automatic damage) than a ranged weapon (A shotgun only offers +3), but a ranged weapon has a far better chance of hitting (both more accurate and less defense) and often more flexible (automatic attacks). Also note that the Bashing weapons and Brawling weapons are generally upgraded in power: Bashing damage is already pretty weak compared to Lethal damage, so now a mace is comparatively more powerful than a sword, despite having similar construction.

The Grapple rules are untested, I'm afraid, but I typically noticed that control of a grapple flopped too easily, and weighed strength far above skill when it came to controlling a fight. These rules don't change much, but they should make it a little easier to hold onto someone without being Strength 10.

Finally, Merits. Brawl Dodge and Weaponry Dodge are less useful when it's easier to raise your melee defenses to high levels, so I added a minor effect (a riposte, in effect) both to make the merit more attractive, and to make using it more interesting. Duck and Weave was no longer useful at all, and so needed a boost. In general, to my astonishment, the Extra-Action merits fixed themselves: they're really only useful if you have an overwhelming pool (someone with 15 dice effectively attacks with 54(!) dice, while someone with 5 dice remaining only effectively attacks with 14) and with the higher defense, it's pretty easy to find your pool dragged down to low numbers. I did, however, adjust Sap Gloves (from the Possible Modifiers of Brawl, in the skill section) and noted that extra attacks against a single person count as a single attack for the purpose of reducing defense, and clarified how fighting merits are purchased. These are old house rules of mine.

When it comes to supernaturals, it make sense for "dead body" characters to ignore Shock, and gives Vampires a special little edge in a fight. Werewolves are pretty devastating with these changes, but the change helps differentiate claws (more useful when you're trying to get your mitts on someone) and fangs (best for devastating damage). Finally, Mage spells don't really allow for Potency (the casting of the spell and the inflicting of damage are handled in one roll, so it doesn't make sense to "spend casting successes on potency" of something similar) and Mage Armor needs to use a more gradual rise than "Armor 1 at Arcana Rank 2, Armor 2 at Arcana rank 4, Armor 3 at Arcana rank 6" and clearly can't reduce 1 HL of damage per rank of Arcana.

Ideally, if you use these rules, nothing should really change about your game. Strength doesn't suddenly leap in usefulness, the Great Ax doesn't suddenly become a crap weapon. The WoD system, and I must emphasize this, works perfectly fine. These rules should just change how it FEELS, though. If they don't, I've done something wrong.

Dramatic Combat
So how does this feel in actual play?

First, a baseline: the standard WoD

Let's compare a werewolf in Gauru form with average physical stats (2) and a Brawl of 3 to a Vampire with average physical stats (except for a Dexterity of 3) and a Brawl of 3, as well as Vigor 3 and Celerity 3. Assume the vampire has already activated Vigor.

The werewolf, in Gauru form, has an attack pool of 10 (using fangs. Why would you use claws?), and a defense of 3 (2, +1 from armor). He regenerates 1 bashing per turn. He has 11 Health levels, vs the vampire's 7.

Assume the vampire goes first and with his pool of 8 dice (lowered to 5 after defense) and we see that he'll average 1.66 successes (thus, 1 or 2, usually 2 successes) per attack. The vampire then activates Celerity, giving himself a defense of 5

The werewolf then attacks with is 5 dice (10-5), getting 1.66 successes, all of which is lethal. He heals 1 point of bashing damage, wiping out (usually) half of what the vampire does to him.

We don't need to work this out turn by turn: the werewolf will kill the vampire in about 4 or 5 turns, and he clearly has the upper hand (Gauru is awesome, but that's why it has a limited timer). The vampire might all-out dodge (reducing the werewolf's attack pool to 3) but that just delays the inevitable, or the Werewolf might all-out attack (going from 5 to 7), but that just makes that second success a little more likely, at the cost of handing the vampire, oh, maybe 1 more success. Maybe. These tactical decisions don't really mean much.

Now, the Dramatic Combat system. Here, because the werewolf has a Strength of 5, he has a Potency of 2, and his fangs give him another +1 if he bites with them, for a total of +3 automatic successes if he hits. However, his attack dice pool with his fangs is 8, 9 with his claws. He abosrbs one health level of damage with his armor, and regenerates 1 bashing. His dexterity of 3 gives him a melee defense of 3, and he still has 11 Health Levels.

The vampire also has a strength of 5 (for Potency +2) but lacks the natural weaponry of the werewolf. His defense, however, is 3, 6 with Celerity.

Assume the Vampire goes first: He has an attake pool of 8, 5 after the Werewolf's defense. If he successfully hits (and with 5 dice, that's highly likely), he'll do a minimum of 3 damage (the core success, +2 potency) and then 1 more bashing damage from stun, for a total of 4. WHAM! We can feel how physically powerful the vampire is. The werewolf, however, will absorb 1 of those with his armor, and regenerate another, showing how insanely tough the werewolf is (only 2 damage)

On the werewolf's turn, he has some hard choices. That Defense of 6 reduces his core dice pool to 2 for his fangs (50% chance to hit! But he deals a minimum of 4 Lethal if he hits (no shock against vampires)), while his claws have 3 dice (66% chance of a success! and 3 minimum lethal). Choices choices. Clearly, though, over time, the werewolf will probably win this fight, and assuming fangs, it'll take two successful hits, which will hit about half of the time, meaning this fight will take... an average of 4 turns!

But let's consider our tactical options. What if the vampire All-Out dodges? That increses his defense to 9 (3 x 2 = 6 + 3 from Celerity = 9), which will wipe out all of the Werewolf's attack ability with anything, lowering him to a Chance Die, which might give the vampire a chance to take advantage of a critical failure. What if the werewolf all-out attacked? Losing his defense gives the vampire another 3 dice (!), making it far more likely that the vampire will inflict some serious harm, but those +2 dice turns his Fangs from a chancy attack (50% on 2 dice) to a pretty sure thing with 4 dice.

Choices, suddenly, matter. Spending WP to lower someone's pool from 2 to 0 happens alot more often, and is much more useful.

I've run one game so far with this system, with an ax-murderer rushing some college students. In one memorable moment, he swung his ax at one of the player character, an ax that just hammered into a promethean for 5 health levels of damage and... he missed. How often do misses happen in the old system? Now you feel that massive weapon breezing past your character and that huge investment in defense feels worthwhile.

I've been pleased with it so far. I'm still making adjustments and, occassionally, I'll try to report my results.