Dramatic Systems

Summary of basic dice mechanics:

• Typical base difficulty for all rolls is 6. (+rules difficulties)
• Before rolling, you may (ST discretion) spend a Willpower to add an automatic success.
• Roll a number of d10's equal to your dice pool.
  • Every die greater than or equal to the difficulty is a success.
  • Every die showing 1 cancels a success. Even the auto-success from Willpower may be canceled this way.
  • If you roll a 1 and no successes (even before cancellation), then it's a botch.
  • If you have a relevant specialty, then re-roll 10s. (+rules specialties)
• In non-combat situations, trying the same thing again after a failure (not botch) is typically +1 difficulty (cumulative).
• Resisted rolls: Two characters roll, successes cancel 1:1, defender wins ties.

This is an attempt at a common set of rules suitable for situations involving characters from multiple game lines. Players can use different rules if they all agree (+policy hand waving).

• For combat situations, see the Combat page.
• Abilities:
  • If a roll is stated in terms of a primary ability, then a relevant secondary ability can be substituted at -1 difficulty.
  • If a roll is stated in terms of a secondary ability, then a relevant primary ability can be substituted at +1 difficulty.
  • If you don't have the ability at all, then consult the Lack of Ability guidelines.
  • If a substitution is explicitly mentioned below, then it's reiterating these clauses, not stacking with them.
• Actions without a roll are automatically successful.
• "Reflex" rolls don't count as actions.
  • Spending from a pool is a reflex, unless otherwise noted.
• If multiple options for a stat are listed, then the ST decides which one is relevant, or may let the player do so.
• If you're trying to do multiple things in a single turn, see the Combat rules for multiple actions. Split actions (mundane) reduce your dice pools, extra actions (supernatural) don't.

Normally automatic

Vampires spending blood

• For healing, see the Combat rules on supernatural healing.
• Otherwise reflex.

Getting up from the ground

• If you spend a full turn doing it, then it succeeds automatically.
• Shifters in a form with four or more legs can do it as a reflex at the start of a turn.
• Otherwise, it takes an action slot and you must succeed at Dexterity + Athletics vs 4.

Moving

See Combat rules on movement.

Readying a weapon

• If you spend a full turn doing it, then it succeeds automatically.
• Otherwise, it takes an action slot and you must succeed at Dexterity + (Melee or Firearms as relevant) vs 4.
• Loading a gun with ammo and shooting it in the same turn requires an automatic gun or a revolver with a speedloader.
• Mages use same rules for grabbing a focus out of a pocket. Digging it out of a crowded rucksack may take a few turns to find it.

Starting a car

• Takes an action slot, but succeeds automatically unless you're hot-wiring it.

Physical feats

(this section to be filled out further)

Climbing

Difficulty	Description	Sample
2	Easy	Large tree with many stout branches
4	Simple	Cliff with many handholds
6	Straightforward	Tree with thin branches
8	Treacherous	Cliff with very few handholds
10	Nearly impossible	Slick or sheer surface

• Dexterity + Athletics, 5 to 20 feet (average 10) per success
• Feral Claws (Protean) or Bonecraft bone spurs (Vicissitude): -2 difficulty
• Under duress (e.g. someone throwing rocks at you from above): +2 difficulty or more
• Other common modifiers: steepness, handholds, smooth/slick surface, weather
• Botch: Fall straight down (take falling damage as usual) or roll down, must spend a Willpower to try again

Heavy weight

Strength	Feat	Lift	Carry (normal)	Carry (max)
1	Crush a beer can	40 lbs	25 lbs	50 lbs
2	Break a wooden chair	100 lbs	50 lbs	100 lbs
3	Break down a wooden door	250 lbs	75 lbs	150 lbs
4	Break a 2' x 4' board	400 lbs	100 lbs	200 lbs
5	Break open a metal fire door	650 lbs	125 lbs	250 lbs
6	Throw a motorcycle	800 lbs	150 lbs	300 lbs
7	Flip over a small car	900 lbs	175 lbs	350 lbs
8	Break a 3' lead pipe	1000 lbs	200 lbs	400 lbs
9	Punch through a cement wall	1200 lbs	225 lbs	450 lbs
10	Rip open a steel drum	1500 lbs	250 lbs	500 lbs
11	Punch through 1" sheet metal	2000 lbs	275 lbs	550 lbs
12	Break a metal lamp post	3000 lbs	300 lbs	600 lbs
13	Throw a station wagon	4000 lbs	325 lbs	650 lbs
14	Throw a van	5000 lbs	350 lbs	700 lbs
15	Throw a truck	6000 lbs	375 lbs	750 lbs

• You can automatically lift/break something if your Strength is high enough.
  • Otherwise, roll Willpower vs 9 and add successes to your effective Strength (max +5 at ST discretion).
  • Multiple characters may all make this roll and add to the character with highest Strength.
  • Difficulty may vary based on environmental conditions or frenzy in progress.
  • Lifting is all or nothing. Merely dragging an object a short distance requires 1 level less.
  • On a botch, you take 1 level of bashing damage (you either strained something or dropped the object on your foot).
• Your normal carrying capacity is Strength * 25 pounds.
  • If you're over your NCC, then all your physical actions are +1 difficulty, and your movement rate is halved for every 25 pounds over NCC.
  • You can't move at all while carrying twice your NCC.
• If you have Potence, it adds to your effective Strength for these actions.

Intrusion

System	Difficulty
Briefcase, old car	4
Modern car, house	5
Deadbolt, wall safe	6
Corporate keypad / card swipe	7
Bank vault, top secret keypad / card swipe	8
High security voice / retina print	9
Fort Knox, NSA weapons lab	10

• This is for going somewhere in person and bypassing security measures without brute force (e.g. breaking and entering, evading security devices, picking locks, cracking safes).
  • For brute force, use Heavy Weight instead.
  • For remote electronic hacking, use Hacking instead.
• Roll Dexterity (mechanical) or Intelligence (electronic) or Perception + Security or Technology.
  • Requires appropriate tools. Improvised tools are +1 difficulty or more, specialized tools matching the system are -2 difficulty.
  • Some tasks require a minimum ability level to try at all, e.g. 1 for most house/car locks, 2 for a safe or keypad lock.
  • Failure sets off alarms, if any. Car alarms are often ignored, but home/building alarms usually aren't.
• Setting up such security measures: Roll Intelligence + Technology, difficulty to bypass it is (3 + number of successes).

Jumping

Garou form	Feet per success (vertical)	Feet per success (horizontal)
Homid	2	4
Glabro	3	4
Crinos	4	5
Hispo	5	6
Lupus	4	7

• Hare's Leap gift doubles the distance.

• Roll Strength (+ Athletics, if a horizontal running jump) vs 3. You jump 2 feet vertically or 4 feet horizontally per success.
  • If that's not far enough, but there's some sort of handhold within reach, then you must succeed at Dexterity + Athletics to grab it.
  • Before jumping, you can roll Perception + Athletics; on 3+ successes, you correctly determine how far you would need to jump.
  • Difficulty may be modified by weather conditions or narrow jumping space.
  • Diving board adds 1 foot per success.
  • Flexible pole triples the distance, but pole vaulting is +1 difficulty.

Pursuit

• This is for openly following someone. To follow someone without being noticed, see Shadowing instead.
• If one party is significantly faster, then they automatically win. If they're roughly the same, then use the following rules.
• Target's lead is measured in units of 2 yards (foot chase) or 10 yards (vehicle chase).
  • ST may pick an initial amount, or roll target's Dexterity + (Athletics or Drive as relevant) and give them an initial lead of one unit per success.
• Pursuer and target now both roll Dexterity + (Athletics or Drive as relevant).
  • Treat these as resisted rolls; each success increases or decreases target's lead by one unit.
  • Extra actions give extra rolls per turn. If one party has more than the other, then the additional rolls are unresisted.
  • If lead reaches zero units or less, then pursuer catches up.
  • If pursuer gets fewer successes twice in a row, or botches, then they lose the target.
  • At ST discretion (max once per turn), pursuer may also need to roll Perception vs (6 + units of lead). On a failure, the target hides in a crowd or alley or something, and the pursuer must re-roll Perception (at +1 difficulty, etc.) to find them again.

Shadowing

• This is for following someone without being noticed. To openly follow someone, see Pursuit instead.
• Part 1: Keep track of the target.
  • Tail rolls Perception + Investigation or Streetwise (urban) or Survival or Primal Urge (rural).
  • ST decides how many successes tail must accumulate to continue keeping track until the target reaches their destination.
  • If the tail fails twice in a row, or botches, then they lose the target.
• Part 2: Avoid being seen by the target.
  • Roll Dexterity + Stealth (walking) or Drive (vehicle).
  • If target suspects they're being tailed, they resist with Perception + Alertness or Streetwise (urban) or Survival or Primal Urge (rural). If their total ever exceeds the tail's by five or more, then they spot the tail. (They may also switch destinations, whether they spot the tail or not.)
• Typical modifiers: crowds, light/dark.
• Multiple tails working together:
  • If they've trained together before, then they can all roll and combine successes, and/or split up into two groups and switch off whenever they want (each switch resets resisted totals to zero, but only the active group contributes successes).
  • If they haven't trained together before, then they can still combine successes, but they're all +1 difficulty and can't switch off.
• Tracking a target with a bug or satellite is pretty trivial. Even if they're suspicious, they must roll Intelligence + Alertness vs 9 to notice a reappearing tail.

Sneaking

• This is for sneaking through a location without a potential observer noticing you. For following someone without being noticed, see Shadowing instead.
• Sneaker rolls Dexterity + Stealth vs (observer's Perception + Alertness), or resisted by observer's Perception + Alertness (sneaker wins ties).
  • If there are multiple observers, then sneaker is compared to each one separately.
  • ST decides how many (net) successes you must accumulate to reach your destination. Sneaker can roll Perception + Alertness vs 7 ahead of time to determine what they would need.
  • Typical modifiers: light/dark, weather, distractions, camouflage, familiarity with the area, equipment such as infrared sensors.
• Powers such as Obfuscate may allow sneaker to auto-succeed.

Social feats

(this section to be filled out)

Mental feats

(this section to be filled out further)

Computer hacking

Typical pool is Intelligence + Computer.

• Secondary abilities can be substituted for Computer at -1 difficulty:
  • Computer Hacking to hack into a system or detect a hacking attempt
  • Computer Programming to design software
  • Cryptography to decrypt encrypted data (if it's otherwise accessible) - may require extended rolls over days/weeks/months and 20+ successes
• Other attributes may be substituted for Intelligence at ST discretion:
  • Wits for working fast
  • Perception for finding information
  • Social attributes for social engineering
  • Dexterity for hardware

System	Hours per roll to hack in	Difficulty
Palmtop, smartphone, tablet	1	5
Laptop, desktop	2	6
Minicomputer, small network	3	7
Mainframe, large network	4	8
Supercomputer	5	9
Using a quantum or trinary computer	-2	-1
Hacking into a quantum or trinary computer	+2	+1
Security software	+1 per level	+1 per level
Cracking software	-1 per level	-1 per level
Social engineering	variable	variable
Known back door	-4	-2

Hacking into a system:

• Must have physical or network access to the system. Wifi may have an unpatched vulnerability, but that doesn't help with an air-gapped system inside a Faraday cage.
• Roll Intelligence + Computer (difficulty varies) to hack into the system. Successes form a secondary pool that you can use to work on the system.
• Can be extended, but requires either longer connection time (more chances for someone to detect you), or +1 difficulty (cumulative) on each additional roll (same as if you were trying again after a failure).
• Botch = hacking attempt is detected.

Task	Difficulty
Find information on a specific subject	6
Already know part of the name/location	-1 to -3
Find connections between multiple pieces of information	7 or more

Detecting hacking:

• Secure systems used by large corporations or the government pro-actively check for hackers every 4 to 12 hours.
• Secure system used by the military, intelligence agencies, or the Technocracy may check as often as once every hour.
• Roll system operator's Intelligence + Computer vs (hacker's Intelligence + Computer). On a success, hacking is detected.

If someone detects your hacking:

• They can resist your rolls with their Intelligence + Computer.
  • If they accumulate 5+ successes more than you on these resisted rolls, then you're ejected, and they get a free roll to find any back doors that you left behind. (After this free roll, you can roll to hack into the system again.)
  • If you accumulate 5+ successes more than them on these resisted rolls, then you succeed at hacking in (if you hadn't already), and you get a free roll to do something with the system. (Starting with your next roll after this free roll, they can continue resisting you.)
• They can also just watch and see what you do, or counter-hack your system using their full Intelligence + Computer pool (they don't need to hack into your system because you already connected to theirs).

Creating security software:

• Spend a week and roll Intelligence + Computer vs 7.
• The level of the software equals half the successes (round down).
• Businesses can buy existing security software (max level 3).

Creating cracking software:

• Same process as creating security software, but difficulty 8 (general purpose) or 6 (only works on specific types of systems).

Miscellaneous:

• Sloppy filing: All use of that system (even legitimate) is +1 difficulty and takes twice as long.
• Back doors: Normal systems are checked every few months, high-security systems every week or even every day.