Rules Questions Archive/Combat

Combat

 * 1) Acrobatic / Perceptive Defender allows you to replace your Willpower with the relevant skill and all modifiers you have for that skill. You do not add the linked attribute, but you do apply the limit for that skill to each defense test. The Dodging or Full Defense specializations for Acrobatic Defender can apply to this, and the Full Defense specialization for Perceptive Defender can apply to this.
 * 2) A melee attack made from a moving vehicle has its damage increased by the Speed value of the vehicle; however, if the Speed value is greater than the attacker’s Strength, the attacker must make a Strength test against threshold Speed to hold onto the weapon after the attack is made.
 * 3) Throwing large objects can be done by any character with sufficient strength to Overhead Lift that item. If necessary, a Lifting test must be made before you make the test to throw the item. The ranges, damage values, and applicable specializations for the Throwing Weapons test will be ruled in-game by the GM.
 * 4) Initiative Scores are affected only by your Reaction, Intuition, Initiative Bonus, Initiative Dice, and your Wound Modifier. Rolling Initiative is not a test, and is unaffected by effects that care about tests.
 * 5) The ‘Up the Ante’ Called Shot is declared as part of the Location Called Shot you are using. Only 1 Free Action is necessary to do so.
 * 6) The Crystalline Blade quality can use either Blades or Unarmed, decided when you purchase the quality and included as a note on the quality.
 * 7) Bullets/bolts/arrows use the Penetrating Weapon rule when targets are behind a barrier. If the target is directly (within weapon size distance) behind the barrier, swords and throwing weapons can use the Penetrating Weapon rule. No other attacks use the Penetrating Weapon rule. Explosive, Stick-n-Shock, Frangible, and Gel rounds do not use the Penetrating Weapon rule.
 * 8) Suppressive Fire against a Vehicle: If a vehicle is in a suppressive fire area, the GM checks the weapon damage against the vehicle’s Armor rating (+ Personal Armor) to see if the passengers are vulnerable. If the damage is insufficient, only the vehicle’s driver makes a Reaction + Edge test to get out of the suppressed area. If the driver does not, the weapon damage is dealt to the vehicle. If the damage is sufficient and of a penetrating type, passengers can either make a Reaction + Edge + Cover test against the suppressive fire or Hit the Deck without making a defense test to gain the vehicle’s full armor rating as a bonus to their resistance test.
 * 9) Discharging a touch spell requires making an unarmed attack as part of the casting action, rolled during Step 4 immediately after making your spellcasting roll, unless you have already established contact with the target. This unarmed attack must use the Touch-Only Attack rules on Run & Gun page 124 (+2, win on tie, no damage).
 * 10) Harmonious Defense is a Free Action separate from Spell Defense. The two must be activated separately, but if both are active you may use their dice pools for the same spells. Harmonious Defense cannot be activated by accepting a -5 Initiative reduction.
 * 11) Recoil Compensation is only totalled between your weapons if you are/have firing/fired both weapons in your current Progressive Recoil set. If you are dual-wielding but only fire one weapon, only that weapon’s RC is applied to your Recoil. If you start firing a second weapon without resetting your Recoil first, you may then add that weapon’s RC to your total RC. Remember that your Strength (or vehicle’s Body) can only apply to RC once, and chummer also automatically adds the 1 free bullet RC to each weapon.
 * 12) You may fire multiple weapons with the same action if you use the Multiple Attacks Free Action with your firing action; you must pick different targets for each weapon, and your dice pool is split evenly among all targets. (apply all modifiers to the dice pool prior to splitting it, including range penalties, off hand penalties, and up to one weapon specialization)
 * 13) A Smart Firing Platform can be set up with a Complex Action if you are holding the firearm it is attached to. The Smart Firing Platform needs a Smartsoft to benefit from smartgun bonus effects; it can receive Autosofts directly or using an RCC’s Sharing function.
 * 14) Taking a teamwork test in combat turns requires that you hold your action until each participant can act sequentially, with the leader going last.
 * 15) A Combat Turn and a Combat Round are synonymous, and refer to the game interval from the rolling of initiative to the last character reaching 0 initiative. An Initiative Pass is the sequence of the character with the highest initiative moving until the last character involved in the combat moves. An Action Phase is one character’s set of movement, a free action, and either two simple actions or a complex action.
 * 16) Called Shot (Engine Block) causes a Vehicle to turn off. It can be rebooted, but it takes a full Combat Turn to do so, and the Vehicle cannot be controlled remotely while it is off.
 * 17) Thrown items are generally considered to land ‘point first’ on a successful attack. A GM may rule against this for a specific situational reason.
 * 18) Chummer does not add unarmed combat bonus effects to attacks using Claws / Bite / Goring Horns. Unless an unarmed combat bonus you would receive applies specifically to punches or kicks, it does apply to your natural weapon attacks.
 * 19) The Hardened Armor from the metagenic quality Granite Shell does not add its armor bonus to worn armor; you receive +4 armor only if you are not wearing armor. If an attack has AP of -1 or -2, your current Armor rating is reduced AND you only get one automatic hit on the resistance test. If an attack has an AP of -3 or more, your current Armor rating is reduced AND you do not get any automatic hits on the resistance test.
 * 20) Elemental damage secondary effects stack with the effects of called shots.
 * 21) Rockets, Missiles, and launched Grenades can be directly targeted using the normal ranged attack rules when using the Motion Sensor trigger.
 * 22) The Rapid Draw adept power can be used in response to an attack to allow you to Riposte instead of make a Defense Test if you have a properly holstered blade.
 * 23) Toxins can be used in combat in several ways.
 * 24) Melee weapons can be coated in a dose of a toxin with an Extended Logic + Armorer [Mental] (threshold 3, interval Complex Action) test; the coating lasts up to one minute or one grazing hit or better attack. If the toxin has a Contact vector, it is applied on a grazing hit or better. If the toxin has an Injection vector, it is applied only on a successful attack on an edged weapon that deals damage.
 * 25) Gas grenades can be filled with a dose of a toxin. Anybody in the radius of the grenade when it detonates will be exposed to the toxin if it has an Inhalation or Contact vector they are not protected from.
 * 26) Injection Darts/Arrows/Bolts can be filled with a dose of a toxin. Arrows and bolts apply their toxin if they deal at least one box of damage. A dart applies its toxin if the attack scores at least one net hit on an unarmored target or three net hits against an armored one.
 * 27) A Cybergland installed in conjunction with a cyberweapon can coat the weapon or projectile in a dose each time the weapon is used, up to the number of doses it stores.
 * 28) Capsule Rounds can be filled with a dose of a toxin (1 dose for 5 capsules). A Contact Vector toxin is applied on a grazing hit or better.
 * 29) The Called Shot Location attack is handled in the following way.
 * 30) Declare Called Shot for free action
 * 31) Make the attack and defense tests
 * 32) Use each net hit to pick one of the listed effects
 * 33) Target rolls damage resistance against your base attack DV (no net hits)
 * 34) Apply DV limit if remaining damage exceeds the limit.
 * 35) Apply selected effects
 * 36) A Smoke Grenade (or similar effect with undefined severity) applies Moderate Smoke on the first combat turn, Heavy Smoke on intervening combat turns, and Light Smoke on the last combat turn.
 * 37) The Smackdown use of burning edge can only be applied to actions; it does not work on defense or resistance tests.
 * 38) Modifications to your Initiative Attributes cause a direct change to your Initiative Score as soon as they occur.
 * 39) If you are using a weapon loaded with multiple types of ammunition, you must have the order noted on the weapon and track it during combat. If you would fire a burst that contains multiple ammunition types, the effect of the ammunition will be determined randomly with proportional odds given to the composition of the burst. You may not fire a burst containing both flechette and slug ammunition from a shotgun.
 * 40) The Exotic Ranged Weapon skills are used for any attack test using a weapon/strike that is not ruled as a regular weapon type or unarmed. Natural Venom breath, spit, and atomizer / steamer vapor all require this.
 * 41) When an uncontrolled fire is started, the GM will usually either rule that it will go out on its own or that it will burn down the building/area. If detail is necessary, fires start at DV3 with an AP of -2; every Combat Turn the DV is increased by 1 and the objects/terrain adjacent to the fire must resist the fire. Failure to resist the fire means that the fire has spread to those materials and objects adjacent to them will have to begin resisting the fire each Combat Turn. Characters can fight fires by rolling Agility + Intuition to use fire-fighting techniques; each hit reduces the current DV of the targeted fire by 1.