How does Trinity / Storypath Combat feel. What is cool? What would you change?

[LordHeru]

So the general chain of events make sense to me. Though I gotta read the defense roll rules again to make sure I get that part.

I'm getting slightly confused on the Soft Armor 2 element.

If the enemy didn't have that does that mean they only would need to spend 1 Success to overcome the Dodge stunt in the target's defense. Giving them basically 3 floating successes to do what they want?

Beyond that I think I see what is going on, though I am going to need to stew with the words to make sure. Maybe even personally make variant operations to make sure I get it.

But here is my other question - with the base of 3 plus taken out health levels I still think they could only have one, maybe two, combat encounters without issue. But even more if a party of four players goes up against a larger amount of baddies then they might loose things due to numbers.

How is this epic.

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Related to the whole first-aid thing it mentions that each level can only be moved once per scene. How would that apply in say the actions of storming a building to rescue their friend.

Lets say they fight in the Lobby and limp to the elevator. While going up first aid is applied to bandage things, making it so say the Bruised condiiton they had is now gone (but they still have the injured condition). When can another application be used on Injured to make it bruised, right then, or do they have to wait.

But yeah, this is a good example of what I mean. The party has learned that the big bad has captured their reporter friend and is holding him hostage on the top floor. As this is like a major season finale they decide to go guns blazing.

Battle in the lobby.

Then maybe they take the elevator so its peaceful.

Then battle in the reception area right before the big guy's penthouse elevator

Then elevator to penthouse.

Then battle in the penthouse.

This sort of thing happens alot. Wouldn't this cause health level issues and such.

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As a final thing, thank you all for responding. I don't mean to hyjack this thread or anything but I really want to make sure I get this system. I LOVE Storypath and Trinity and so not getting this one element is annoying to me.


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PS. As a note this whole convo is 'ignoring' the idea of Talents, Psions, and Novas having other health levels due to gifts and powers and such. That and I assume Scale will also effect it - though If igure scale would just say "no point in rolling, you can't harm his Defense" and the game moves on.

(There is no roll to shoot the Hulk, he just laughs at puney bullets)

[Florin]

If the target had no soft armor, you'd have two free successes to spend on other stunts. You'd still need to overcome the Defense of 2 (base 1 + 1 dodge stunt.)

As for your scenario, that is where things like hard and soft armor come into play. Hard armor gives you a zero-penalty health level for each level, and it refreshes every scene.

Also, mostly what you would be fighting are minor characters who are going to be taken out with one injury and won't have fantastic dice pools. So, the characters will be attacked a lot but only suffer superficial damage, maybe up to a Bruised level.

[LordHeru]

Awesome.

Okay so I was reading the rules and I think I got it. I'm gonna give some examples.

I'm fighting someone. They have no armor nor dodge. I roll and get 1 Success. This is enough to beat their Defense, so I hit. Since they have no armor Inflict Damage is a 0 cost stunt. They take an Injury Condition.

I'm fighting someone. They rolled for Defense and got an additional success, used it on the Dodge Stunt. They now have Defense 2. They have no armor. I need to gain two successes to hit, but the Inflict Damage Stunt is still 0 cost. They take an Injury Condition.

I'm fighting someone. Their Defense is 1. They are wearing Armor 1. I need to roll 2 Successes, one to go Defense and one to buy the Inflict Damage Stunt. They get hit and take an Injury Condition.

Modify to the above. I realize I don't want to use the Inflict Damage and instead one rto use the Blinding Stunt with my second success. This means when they attack me next they need to get an additional success (that is two) to overcome the increased Difficulty. They take no damage.

I'm fighting someone. They are wearing a Flak Jacket, which gives Soft 1 and Hard 1. They roll Defense get a boost, making it Defense 2. I need to roll 3 success, 2 to hit and 1 to bypass the soft armor. I do that and they take an Injury Condition, which is the additional one with no penalty due to the Hard Armor.

I'm fighting someone. They have Defense 2, Hard 1, Soft 2. I need to at minimum 4 successes (2 to overcome Defense, 2 to overcome Armor). I am this kickass warrior ninja from the stars and between my roll and my Enhancements I have 9 Successes. I use 2 to bypass Defense, 2 to Inflict Damage, 4 for Critical, and 1 for Knockdown. Not only do they mark off the Armor health as gone but one of their three regular levels is gone to, oh, and they are prone.

I just defeated someone in combat but was Bruised during it. I choose Bruised Ribs cause the dude slammed into me. We are in the elevator and I successfully due a First Aid action. I downgrade the Bruised Condition, leading to me entering into the next fight 'healthy'.

I say 'healthy' because I'm probably like still hurt, but its not enough to cause me issues due to how much a badass ninja from the stars I am. (lol)

Wait, one more. So in the above encounter not only was I Bruised but I was also Injured. If I First Aid myself I can remove the Bruised Condition. Can I then use the freed up slot to weaken the Injured Condition so its a new Bruised Condition or do I have no choice but to enter combat with say Bruised and Maimed as available but Injured still used.

Are these accurate?

Are there things I am missing here that might make better or more understandable examples?

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Also, so the standard health levels is three plus Taken Out. One could also gain 2 others by increasing Stamina. Leading to 2 Bruised, 2 Injured, 1 Maimed, 1 Taken Out. One can Also have 2 Armor health levels 'above' Bruised that protect with no penalty.

I know the above seems obvious but I figure why not ask, just to make sure.

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One more question. Could Conditions also relate to say alien things like you are successfully targeted by an alien mind control ray and there was the Inflict Injury Stunt used against you. You are Bruised with say 'Alien Thoughts' that causes a -1 Defense as a voice in your head is trying to tell you to obey.

[Florin]

I'm iffy on the first aid example. I THINK you only downgrade the Bruised but still have the Injured, but someone else can correct me on that if I'm wrong.

Other than that, you have it down. I'd probably run the Alien Thoughts as a Status Condition, but they would work as an Injury just as well, I think.

[LordHeru]

Cool. Awesome. Thanks.

Yeah, now I just have to remember and put it into action and such.

I will say that I do find it easier to conceptualize when I think of Health levels and such. But I am glad I understand it, at least in basics. Cause now its time to see how Talents and then Psions change it, hehe. (Let alone Novas, who probably have the ability to not just purchase additional Health levels but also additional Soft Armor that increases Defenses.)

Actually, thinking on it, the way things can be modified is nifty. There is the base Health Levels based on Stamina, which I figure can have its ratio modified by template or power, that give penalty. Then there is the Armor Health Levels, which come from armor but also powers, which have no penalty. Then there is the Soft Armor which increases the cost of the Inflict Stunt, which while has a max of 2 in the Trinity Core I figure other templates could potentially make it higher. And then there is the Defense stat that increases the base number of successes needed to even hit, which can be modified up there depending on how one rolls defense.

All these things interact in simplistic but complex ways. Which, considering I think I get it, is kind of cool.

But its even cooler because there is the actual Rolled Dice and then there is the Enhancement successes and then there is Scale which basically can just say "don't even bother."

I love Eureka moments when elements of a game system all come together. hehe

(The best Eureka moment for me was when I finally, after years, got the Ars Magica Arts math. Me being able to look at a spell and go 'so that is how they got the levels to line up' was just like the best feeling ever. hehe)

(This is pretty up there too. lol)

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Am reading Aeon and got to the Kinetic Shield power in Perkinesis. It raises a psion's soft armor by Mode dots. Which means a psion with Mode 5 would have Soft Armor 5 which means five successes needed to use the Inflict Damage Stunt. That's pretty cool.

Question though - does the Soft Armor provided by say wearing Armor Stack with the Soft Armor provided by the power. Would it cost a person wearing a 2 point soft armor and a having 5 modes in Perikinesis, 7 successes to get through or just 5.

[Mateus Luz]

Soft Armor stack, and thing gets crazy pretty fast due to it.

One thing you may need to know is there are 3 kinds of physical damage and a bunch of energy damage. Physical can be Balistic Edged or Blunt, and most armors cover just against one of them, there is a tag that allow to cover 2 kinds and another for 3 kinds. When the armor don’t cover that kind of damage, the armor is ignored.

Energetic damage can only be covered by special armor with the Environmental tag specific to it, like fire resistant, cold resistant, radiation resistant, etc. Perikinesis is the exception, as the Energy Shield works against it.

[Bunyip]

Related to the whole first-aid thing it mentions that each level can only be moved once per scene. How would that apply in say the actions of storming a building to rescue their friend.

The entire thing isn’t one scene.

Battle in the lobby. - scene
Whatever means they take to go up - elevator, stairs, wait for others to arrive, check out the security monitors, whatever. - scene
Then battle in the reception area right before the big guy's penthouse elevator - scene
Whatever next - scene
Then battle in the penthouse. - scene

This sort of thing happens alot. Wouldn't this cause health level issues and such.

No more than any other game if the characters take a lot of damage in the early stages of the scenario and don’t pause to deal with it.

[LazyGM]

That was a fantastic read, so thumbs up on that. Its cool to see a campaign being played and such.

That said, and I in no way would demand you do more work, but if you are willing, yeah, I wouldn't mind seeing a more blow-by-blow analysis. I get the general gist of things but for some reasont here is a mental dissconnect with how the theory works in practice in my head. Its frustrating because I love the Storypath rules. But I just don't seem to get this element.

First off, thank you.

It took a little while to re-wire the mind for Storypath (we've been playing V5 for the past two months) but I have something of a blow by blow.

So, here’s the breakdown of the fight. Note that the player’s aren’t combat specialists, so baseline dice pools are around 4-5 dice, but both Antonin and Lucio have psi powers that can buff Attributes up and all of them have at least +3 enhancement on their weapons in addition to tags that help out.

Also, I couldn’t find how and when Momentum was spent but the player’s had gotten the hang of the base system as this was like the seventh session so they did spend Momentum when they could.

Initiative: Kim (Allied NPC) Jodie (PC) Phantom (Enemy) Bailey (Allied NPC) Antonin (PC) Lucio (PC).

Round 1
Kim throws herself to the ground and crawls, with inhuman agility, along and around the cubicle walls to take a flanking position to the right, “I’m in position”.
(Essentially a double-move, since the enemy is invisible)
Jodie walks up to cover just to the left, focuses past the aberrant and uses her telepathy to calm the soldiers down. She manages to get them down to what she hopes is a manageable level of fear and anger.
(Moving near cover, in order to justify defensive stunts later, and using a psi power).
The invisible enemy doesn’t seem to act so Antonin, unsure of how to proceed, attacks where he thinks the Phantom is but only manages to send a computer screen flying with his telekinetic psi-gauntlet. Bailey goes to the right and tries to shoot at the shrouded Divergent but misses.
(Both attack and miss, here the simple antagonist system makes it harder for player’s to help out since the Phantom has Defense 7 while intangible/invisible, where a proper character would have defense and soft armor seperate. I would change how antagonists work as a house rule for future games.)
Lucio focuses on the bio-electrical currents in the room and forces the electrons to become visible. The Phantom’s nervous system now glows with a sickly green light.
(A psi-trick Lucio figured out in an earlier encounter)
Jodie can sense that the two Enfants are closing in fast.
(As she can sense minds, this is free information)

Round 2
With their enemy revealed, Kim pounces into close combat and rips into the Phantom with her biokinetic claws. Antonin joins in, and manages to hit something.
(Since Defense drops to 5 because they kinda can see him, they both do a point of damage against their enemy. Note that Antonin took Jodie’s initiative spot.)
In response the aberrant roars and tears off part of Antonins armor, knocking the vitakinetic down on the ground in the process.
(First point of damage goes to the armor, also the Phantom had 1 success over to use the trip stunt)
Before the Phantom manages to dig his claws into Antonins chest, Lucio fires a laser blast, hitting the spectre in the eye.
(Lucio, going before Bailey, scores a critical hit, taking two health levels off the antagonist)
With inhuman speed the Phantom flies into Lucio, and makes a reality-shattering howl but Lucio’s enhanced reaction speed allows him to dodge away.
(Aberrants can spend Corruption to get extra actions, the attack fails after a good defense roll from Lucio)
Bailey curses and tries to track the creature, he manages to keep it pinned down but not injuring it.
(So, if I recall, I decided that the Phantom’s soft armor was 2, so the near-misses could be used to purchase stunts.)
Jodie senses how the sub-aberrants are phasing up through the floor to the left and right of them, but the Phantom is almost in her face so she tries to electro-laser it to oblivion. The shot goes wide and hits the roof, frying a light panel.

Round 3
The green tendrils of nerves in the outline of man claws toward Lucio once more and he manages to avoid another banshee scream.
(I believe that I tried two attacks, failing both. what’s worse, I can’t even buy off the 1 point pin down complication and take another health level of damage.)
Bailey’s overwatch punishes the creature and Kim leaps through the air and rips the Phantom’s head off. The body falls to the ground in Lucio’s lap and Kim howls in triumph.
(Since the final health level is filled the enemy is taken out.)
The malicious ambient corruption pops like a balloon bursting, leaving only the trace corruption of sub-aberrants.
“Bailey, behind you!” Jodie mindlinks, and blasts electro-laser at the Enfant standing in the corner to the right, a few metres from their teleporter. She manages to injure it.
(One health level of damage on the mook)
Bailey turns and empties his clip into the general area where the ghostly killer should be. Blood splatters on the walls as he hits.
(Another health level of damage)
The Enfant retaliates by emptying its automatic rifle at Bailey and runs towards the upper right corner, closing in on the general.
(The npc takes a health level of damage)
The second Enfant fires at Antonin and gets a critical hit. Antonin feels the burning sensation of a bullet lodging somewhere in his guts.
(Antonin takes two health levels of damage, and two Injury Conditions, since we used the ones from Conditioned Responses, I won’t reprint them here, instead pretend that he gets Bruised Ribs and the Cracked Ribs from the Core Rules p.107, and that makes everything much harder.)
Lucio tries to protect Bailey and forces the Enfant into cover.
(The mook uses the Dive to Cover stunt)
Antonin, in pain, tries to decide what to do. He could hide and try to heal, but would consume the others energy in doing so. He decides to target the aberrant that the group is focusing on and destroys its cover, and thinks to the group, “I’m injured but I’ll live.”
(Despite his increased difficulty he manages to score a critical hit on the cover and takes it out

Round 4
“Dr. Severin, heal yourself, we don’t need our powers combined for this. I think that I’ll try to view the world through a child’s eyes.” Kim thinks, and breaks the link. Suddenly she can see the Enfants and moves closer to the one that’s injured.
(Kim shapeshifts and moves)
Lucio fires at the barely perceivable spectre and manages to kill it with his laser.
(I do believe that this was a critical hit, taking the mook out)
Bailey ducks into cover and reloads. Jodie tries to command the remaining Enfant but fails, but she manages to sense what it is about to do.
“He is going for the general!” she informs the team.
(An example of failing forward with a mind control power)
The creature pulls a grenade and moves towards the lobby, Antonin tracks the Enfants corrupted life energy and engages. He is bruised and injured yet somehow manages to disarm the near-invisible assassin!
The grenade is thrown away from the bystanders and goes off, causing property damage only.
(The math was against Antonin on this one, he would have to hit a difficulty of at least seven, maybe he used Momentum. Either way he won against the last remaining Mook.)

Round 5
Kim can see the creature and leaps over it and Antonin, placing herself in the way of the Enfants path to the general. She swipes with her claws, tearing into flesh and manages to grab hold of the sub-aberrant. She roars and thinks, “Shoot at me, it’s right here!”
(Kim does a health level of damage and uses the leftover successes as an aid stunt for her allies)
Jodie follows orders but the stress gets her to be dangerously off target, unluckily hitting Antonin in the back of the thigh. The electrical blast tears his ligaments and he cries out in pain.
(This was pretty fun, a botch that gives another Injury Condition to Antonin, this was from Conditioned Responses as well I believe but lets call it a Broken Leg.)
The Enfant shifts out of Kim’s grip, pulls his knife and grapples Antonin. The blade goes into Antonin’s spine with a sickly crack and laughing the mutated man says, in french, “You’ll never walk again.”
(Antonin fills in his final health level, a Maimed Condition that pretty much means he won’t be able to use his legs.)
“Yes, I will!” Antonin yells defiantly, trying to use the last of his strength to crush the skull of the beast that maimed him. He misses and falls down to the ground, not feeling his legs, everything above is pain and misery.
(All the injuries add up to making it basically impossible to hit the enemy. Before locking in his action, I warn the player that the mook might try to kill him, so he could choose to start healing with his psi-abilities instead but he goes for broke)
Bailey empties his clip again with controlled bursts, carefully positioned to not hit Kim or the bystanders behind her. Lucio lines up a shot as well and the both of them do massive damage.
(Leaving the mook with one health level remaining)

Round 6
The last child of the Phantom stagges back into the taloned embrace of Kim and she makes his last moments short, using her signature move of decapitation and kicking the instantly visible body to the side. It lands beside Antonin with a thump. They all feel the oppressive corruption that remains vanish. It is over.
(And Kim, stealing another kill from the players)

So in the above fight, one of our players got brutally damaged, filled in every injury condition box. But he was the Wolverine of this game, so I think that it was part of the fun. But the Storypath system can get the player characters into a death spiral, where every injury makes it harder and more likely that they will ultimately fail. Reminding the player's that they can opt to get taken out earlier in the fight is one way of preventing that.

Also note that I don't track conditions on antagonists, what I end up doing is keeping track over how much damage they took, the narrative of the fight, and decide how injured they are if they end up surviving the encounter, if it matters.