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nWoD "damage soaking" explain?

Posted by Andrew Wilson
Andrew Wilson
member, 500 posts
Scary? My mask is to keep
your viscera off my face
Thu 17 Jul 2014
at 04:33
  • msg #1

nWoD "damage soaking" explain?

not familiar with this term, I see it popping more and more and I have no clue what it means and I own the rulebook.
Roaming Shadow
member, 288 posts
Thu 17 Jul 2014
at 06:15
  • msg #2

Re: nWoD "damage soaking" explain?

I thought "damage soaking" was an oWoD thing. There, it was a matter of preventing damage before it actually cause harm. So if an effect causes damage, you can roll to "soak" the damage (don't remember what it was based off of), thereby negating it in part of full, before it hit your health track. So if, say, you fall ten feet and would normally take 2 bashing, but your soak roll is 3, you take none.

However, I am pretty sure nWoD didn't use that mechanic.
cero1
member, 1203 posts
Thu 17 Jul 2014
at 13:31
  • msg #3

Re: nWoD "damage soaking" explain?

No, nWoD doesn't use something like that. There is just your Defence stat, that reduces down an attacker's pool by the same number of dice. So if someone has an attack pool of 5 and you have a Defence of 2, the attacker only rolls 3 dice now.

You can also spend a Willpower pt to boost Defence by 2, so in the above example the attacker only rolls 1 die, so likely won't succeed in damaging their target. Of course Willpower is a limited reserve, needing to be replenished by playing to your Virtue and Vice.

You can also spend the action Dodging rather than doing anything else, which doubles your Defence. Yep, you can spend a Willpower pt and add 2 to that, so in the example above, you can spend a turn Dodging, boosting Defence to 4, then spend a Willpower, making your Defence 6 and leaving the attacker to do a chance roll to hit you.

Whatever you do though, Defence doesn't work against Firearms unless within a yard of you or so and also you need to be aware of the attack and able to move to have it work, being tied up or ambushed means you don't get Defence against an attack.
shady joker
member, 1587 posts
Thu 17 Jul 2014
at 15:22
  • msg #4

Re: nWoD "damage soaking" explain?

In reply to cero1 (msg # 3):

 Some supernatural stuff and types of Armor gives you a defense rating against fire arms. Soaking in Story teller let's you cancel damage out on a like Roaming Shadow says. You might be looking at some oWoD material. It is easily to mix the books up since they are rarely labeled clearly and are similar. I have done  this myself.
cero1
member, 1204 posts
Thu 17 Jul 2014
at 15:35
  • msg #5

Re: nWoD "damage soaking" explain?

I wasn't counting the supernaturals there, but yeah, alot do have their own rules for damage... I'd be writing essays if I covered all of them ;)

I don't actually own any owod stuff, the Defence rules I mentioned there are straight from the nWoD Corebook. It's actually surprisingly tough to cause alot of damage in a single roll to a target unless they're restrained or surprised, considering. Of course saying that, I'm talking about starting Mortal characters with 0xp.

All that being said, I haven't mentioned anything new that the God-Machine Chronicle has added.
Axis_Sunsoar
member, 2 posts
Sun 24 Aug 2014
at 05:27
  • msg #6

Re: nWoD "damage soaking" explain?

god machine does add a soak mechanic, but only when taking full dodge actions. it works like this.

you have a defense of 4. you take a full dodge action. you now have a defense of 8. but that number isn't subtracted from the opponents dice pool. instead, you roll 8 dice. any successes you get, subtract from the attackers successes rolled. you can spend will power to get plus three on this roll (after the doubling).
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