House Rules

House Rules
There are many house rules, designed to reflect more balancing or to introduce story elements not normally present in either game. In some respects, it represents a combination of GMC with the original world of darkness. In others, they are completely different rules. While I tried to change as little as possible, you may find that there are many substantial changes. While most of this is applied to combat oriented mechanics (as this will be a combat heavy game), the idea was more or less to provide balance or a different feel, rather than simply put the focus on combat, rather than storytelling. Many of these, such as with weapon mechanics, can be found in the armory.



Firefight Mechanics
-Flanking
-Covering Fire
-Reaction Fire

Additional Mechanics
-Willpower Points
-Cover and Concealment
-Armor and Defense                                                                         

Skill Changes
-Perspicacious (Streetwise)
-Stealth and Fog of War

Attributes and Charts
-Strength
-Stamina     



Willpower Point
Willpower points can provide additionally bonus's than those listed in the books. While ordinarily this can provide a +3 bonus to nearly any roll in the game, it also can be used to add the 8 again quality to your roll, or re-roll one failed roll. Any dice roll can be re-rolled, but you must use the second roll, even if it's lower. Both of these can be spent after a roll is made.

Concealment and Cover
While not exactly a new rule, this will be used extensively in the game. Concealment provides approximately 1-3 negative modifiers to an attack, with complete concealment reducing any attack made to a single chance roll. Cover provides the same modifier, however, in order to do any damage to the target it must first exceed the target's cover all together. Damaging the cover applies as usual for the object in question.

Armor and Defense
Unlike ordinary God machine rules, armor works slightly different, more similar to the original world of darkness; while most armor provides a negative modifier to an attack, armor rating also represents what type of rounds can pierce the armor of the user, and thus cause significant damage (I.E. Lethal, Aggravated) beyond what the armor reduces it to. In addition, defense functions as if in the original world of darkness, equal to the lower of dexterity or wits. You can add your athletics to your defense instead of doubling it on a dodge, however. More information on body armor can be found in the armory.

Firefight Mechanics
These abilities simply represent innate capabilities that can be performed with firearms or in some cases other weapons. They require no special merit or fighting style to be used, and in fact can be modified by certain fighting styles. They can be used by anyone in the right situations, and represent additional mechanical aspects.


Flanking
For every teammate you have flanking the target, you increase your dice roll bonus to attacks rolls by +2 on the successive attack, both when using firearms and other weapons. So, for instance, if you had two individuals flanking a target, this would provide a +2 bonus to the person who fired on the target second; if you had three individuals, the third individual would be provided a +4 bonus, and so on. However, the character must not share the same 45 degree angle area with the target for it to be considered flanking.

Covering fire
Some forms of firing are meant to spook or scare, and not actually cause harm to the target. Every ordinary shot against the target naturally provides a cumulative -1 modifier to all firearms or attack rolls the target makes until their next turn, unless a successful composure + resolve roll is made. In addition, you gain the "covering fire" maneuver, which can be performed in the place of an ordinary attack roll. The covering fire maneuver specifically suffers no cover, concealment, or armor penalties to the firearms rolls to make. When making such a maneuver, make any ordinary firearms attack roll, but do no damage (and don't add the damage of the weapon to the successes). The target of the attack must roll a composure + resolve roll, with a number of successes higher than those of the successes rolled by the covering fire attack; if the individual fails this roll, they are taken off guard, and pinned down too well to react to the shooter, losing their next turn, unless they spend a willpower point. If your firearms rolls equals or exceeds the targets willpower, they must automatically duck in cover, in fear of the attack, not being able to will themselves to walk into a hail of bullets. This does not apply to certain supernatural entities, like werewolves or zombies, creatures without fear, or individuals with body armor sufficient to stop the round being fired.

Reaction Fire
Sometimes, the enemy exposes themselves in such a way that warrants immediate return fire, or that makes them vulnerable to an attack. You may instead spend your combat action waiting to provide reaction fire instead of attacking. If before your next combat action an individual moves into your line of sight, or moves while within in your line of sight, you may make a normal firearms roll against them, suffering a -2 penalty. The drawback is that it takes up your typical firearms move, and if the target doesn't move it's effect won't trigger; you may still move and use this maneuver in the same turn, however. This maneuver can allow you to hit enemies you can't see; so, if an enemy you previously were unaware of moves in to your line of sight, you can make an attack against them. This does not apply to surprised rounds or if you are surprised, but only during or immediately following an active combat situation.

Perspicacious (Streetwise)
Given the limiting and highly specific nature of the streetwise skill, it is instead expanded to apply to a broader range of situations. As a result, "perspicacious" replaces it for this game, indicating how good you are at blending it or accepting or conforming to other cultures. While it doesn't aid your ability to blend in per say, it does increase your ability to understand other culture, whether by intuitively picking up on certain actions, or raw study. While you cannot speak the same language, you can still generally communicate and appear as if you are part of that group. It allows you to "navigate" other cultures, blend in with a crowd better, or even pass yourself as a regular person.

Most roll to trick people into thinking you are a part of their organization take perspicacious + wits/manipulation + subterfuge rolls. Normally, this allows you to understand people and more usefully, how to not offend, off put, or impress them. All abilities and rolls involving streetwise can be replaced with Perspicacious. You may also use your skills in streetwise or, perspicacious when using the contact merit. 


Empathy (Animal Ken), Science (Academics), and Stealth (Larceny)
Due to the overlap and niche only use of certain skills, certain skills have instead been combined together, making these old skills specialties of other skills instead. Specifically, three skills, Animal Ken, Academics and Larceny are no longer skills, and are specialties of Empathy, Academics, and Stealth respectively. Without training in these specialties, you take a -1 penalty to the roll involving said previous skill. So for example, if you wanted to pick a lock of a house and you had stealth 3, a roll that would previously have used the larceny skill, instead you would treat your roll as if you had stealth 2, as you are untrained but generally skilled in these sorts of abilities. However, if you had the larceny specialty when making a larceny roll, then you you would have 2 more dice to roll over someone untrained in this skill specialty, a substantial improvement. In this way the skills are shared in use by other skills, but still less effective than a specifically trained individual. 


Stealth and Fog of War
Stealth has a number of particular uses in the game. While very important, there is a certain fog of war to the game, which permeates the entire game. As a result, unless given a reason otherwise, such as a very loud sound (like from a gunshot), enemies will not inherently notice you or your position beyond 300 meters, particularly if you are prone or in a relatively concealed area. If you make a roll to spot an enemy past 300 meters, for each 100 meters after this range your perception roll suffers a -1 penalty, unless using specialized optics which enhanced your vision (like a scope or binoculars). Your character can still be detected on a perception roll, but does not automatically incur a passive perception roll unless within 300 meters. 

In addition, any time your character's line of sight moves out of the range of a target, the character can make a stealth roll to disappear. Any character not within the immediate LOS of the intended target is essentially considered invisible. You cannot make a stealth roll if you are immediately within the target's LOS or they are currently engaging you in combat unless you are no longer in LOS or have some form of barrier blocking the sight between you. Partial cover allows for stealth rolls, and full concealment provides immediate success. When moving between cover, between two pieces of cover or concealment, you can make a stealth roll to cover your position. During such a movement, the enemy can still see you if you are in an immediate line of sight, but can not make a reaction fire attack against you.

Strength Level
While strength essentially functions as the same, how much an individual can carry without penalty is equal to their strength x 25, with a -1 penalty to all actions if one exceeds this limit, to a maximum of one strength dot, or 25 pounds over the individual's strength. So for example, an individual with strength 3 would incur a -1 penalty if they were to carry 100 pounds of equipment, instead of 75 (3 x 25), and could not carry more than 100 pounds, being over the strength 4 level. The strength level chart below is fpr actively rolled strength, and not passive strength levels.



1. Lift a chair 40 lbs.
2. Lift a large dog 100 lbs.
3. Lift a public mailbox 250 lbs.
4. Lift a wooden crate 400 lbs.
5. Lift a coffin 650 lbs.
6. Lift a refrigerator 1000 lbs.
7. Overturn a mid sized car 1500
8. Lift a small car 2500 lb
9. Lift a wrecking ball 4000 lbs.
10. Lift a station wagon 6000 lbs.
11. Lift a van 8000 lbs.
12. Lift a humvee 10,000 lbs.
13. 12,000 lbs.
14. 15,000 lbs.
15. 20,000 lbs.
16. 25,000 lbs.
17. 30,000 lbs.
18. 35,000 lbs.
19. 40,000 lbs.
20. 50,000 lbs.