Combat
Combat in V5 is a conflict, not a turn-by-turn tactical grid. When violence begins, establish what each side wants and resolve actions with the normal contest rules. Use the basic conflict order unless the Chronicle has chosen the optional advanced conflict rules.
Who acts first
In the basic rules, action order follows the fiction:
- Close combat between characters already engaged
- Ranged combat
- Newly initiated physical combat
- Everything else
Break ties with the most relevant Attribute + Skill, such as Dexterity + Wits or the Skill being used. A surprise attack should normally be established with an appropriate test, such as Dexterity + Stealth against the best opposing Wits + Awareness. A successful surprise attack may begin against Difficulty 1.
Physical conflict
When two characters directly oppose one another, both roll the relevant pools. The character with more successes wins. The winner's margin is the difference between the two results and is normally applied as damage to the loser's Health.
Typical pools include:
- Close combat: Strength + Brawl, Dexterity + Melee, or another appropriate combat pool
- Dodge: Dexterity + Athletics
- Ranged combat: Composure + Firearms for a normal firefight; Resolve + Firearms for deliberate sniping
- Quick-draw: Dexterity + Firearms
- Thrown weapons: Dexterity + Athletics
Use the pool that matches the action and fiction. Do not create a separate Defense statistic.
Damage
The winner of a physical conflict applies the success margin plus the weapon's damage modifier. Damage type depends on the target and weapon. Vampires normally halve Superficial Health damage, rounding up, before marking it on the Health tracker.
A character whose Health track fills becomes Impaired. Further damage while Impaired converts Superficial damage to Aggravated damage and can trigger the V5 Crippling Injuries rules. A Health track filled with Aggravated damage incapacitates a vampire into Torpor rather than creating a new death subsystem.
Multiple opponents
A character defending against multiple close-combat opponents suffers a cumulative one-die penalty to each subsequent defense in the same conflict. Ranged attacks do not become harder merely because several opponents are attacking the same target.
Criticals and Hunger
Criticals and Hunger dice use the normal V5 rules. A critical can determine the outcome of a conflict even when the opponent has more ordinary successes. A Messy Critical changes the consequences through the Beast; it does not create a separate automatic Frenzy rule. A Bestial Failure is a failed test with a Beast-driven complication; it is not itself a Frenzy trigger.
Social and other conflicts
Physical combat is one application of the general conflict system. Social conflicts normally damage Willpower rather than Health. Mental conflicts use the relevant tracker and pools. Use the same contest structure unless a specific rule provides a different procedure.
Do not invent a new combat subsystem when a V5 contest, difficulty, damage modifier, or specific Discipline rule already resolves the situation.