Power Combat is basically an optional set of rules for combat in Exalted.
Details follow:
- Unskilled Penalties: The Exalted, due to their inherent versatility, do not suffer from the -2 penalty for not having a skill. They simply roll the straight Attribute.
- One Activation Per Instant: You can't activate more than one instant charm at a time. Instants are small, man.
- Applicability of Perfection: Perfect defense charms stop what they say they stop. You can go AROUND them, but not through them. You can't perfect dodge something that's undodgeable, for instance. Heavenly Guardian Defense is an exception in that it specifically blocks unblockables, as written in the text. Seven Shadow Evasion, on the other hand, does not say it can dodge undodgeables...so it can't.
- Multiple Defense Actions: You can only use each type of defence once per attack. For instance, you can dodge and parry (given charms) but you can't dodge twice.
- Full Parry: You can now abort to a full parry. The first parry is made at your full Dex+melee pool, with successive parries subtracting 1 die per parry. No, you can't parry the same attack twice just because you aborted to full parry. Parries are limited by the Rate of your weapon.
- Increased Stunt Essence: Double the number of points of Essence a character regains for a successful stunt.
- Martial Arts Weapons: Martial Artists are considered unarmed when attacking using the favored weapon of the style they practice.
- Donning Light Armor: It takes time equal to the armor's mobility penalty in minutes to don it. In the case of armor with a mobility penalty of 0, it takes 1 minute. Rushing takes 30 seconds. (10 turns, at 3 seconds/turn)
- Extended Movement: Exalts can move up to Dex + 12 yards and still take a full dice action. A full movement action is (Dex * 3) + 20 yards per action.
- Fly-By Attacks: Flying things can only be attacked via hand to hand combat on the initiative tick when they attack a foe in hand to hand combat. Coz otherwise they're out of reach. Flying, get it?
- Characters other than the target who wish to attack Flying Thing must be able to move into range reflexively, and suffer a -3 penalty. Characters with long weapons such as spears suffer a -1 penalty. Alternately, someone could leap up to attack, or grapple them down to the ground.
- Hopping Defenses: There's a whole long bit about how Exalts can use charms to escape combat by being far away. Jumping charms like Monkey Leap, for example. There's a bunch on how to chase them down, too.
- Natural Soak: Natural soak is what you get when you take your armor off. Stamina-based, and charms that enhance the character, rather than the armor. They usually mention natural soak in the descriptions. Piercing damage does NOT halve natural soak.
- Piercing Damage: Piercing damage is done by target arrows, but now also by sharp weapons that punch through armor, and some bashing weapons that crush it. Also added to piercing damage is Clinches, due to the wrestler's ability to manipulate limbs, etc. Piercing damage still does NOT halve natural soak.
- Initiative: If people are being lame and all holding their actions til the end of the turn, then use this rule. A negative modifier equal to the number of initiative points a player holds his action is applied to all offensive actions made later in that turn. Initiative is meant to not only reflect speed, but the window of opportunity that the Exalt can exploit to attack. This does not penalize noncombat actions, nor charms that tell you to hold your attack.
- Wound penalties are applied to initiative totals.
- Increased Minimum Damage: Without effects that specify otherwise, a character's soak cannot reduce the damage of an incoming attack to below the permanent Essence of the attacker. This replaces normal ping damage. Hardness can negate this if the Raw (pre-soak) damage is lower than the Hardness value.
- Dice Pool Penalties and Essence: Penalties can never reduce an Essence-user's dice pool below his permanent Essence score. Difficulty still applies as normal. Wound penalties DO still apply. Effects that reduce an attribute, ability or dice pool to an arbitrary value DO still work. Apply these effects before subtracting penalties.
- Dodging: Permanent Essence is now added to your dodge rolls.
- Clinches: Clinches and holds are now one thing. A clinch is an unarmed attack (though you can use brawling aids) with acc, def, dam of 0, and rate 1. Clinch damage is bashing, and piercing. Successes on clinch rolls add to damage done on the clinch when the attacker chooses to do damage.
The clinch roll is Str or Dex + Brawl or MA, which can be dodged or parried.
- The player of the target may attempt a clinch roll as a defensive action to take control of or escape fom the clinch on the turn in which it is initiated, but only if he still has an action with which to do so.
- On each subsequent turn, the players of both characters make a clinch roll on the highest initiative of the players. This is the dice action for all participants. The grappler with the greatest number of successes controls the clinch, and can choose to..
- Damage equal to (Str+extra successes)
- end the clinch
- hold the opponent without damage.
- If the character decides to end the clinch, he can, at his option, push his opponent back a number of yards equal to his Strength, or knock his opponent prone.
- The player of a character in a clinch with multiple actions may attempt multiple clinch rolls. He makes his contested roll against his opponent's last clinch roll, while his opponent does not roll at all. Each of these attempts is considered a separate attack or control attempt.
- Hardness: Certain types of armor and soak provide extra protection, and thus ignore any attacks whose RAW damage (That's pre-soak) is less than their Hardness value. This negates ping damage.
New and Changed Equipment
- All weapons now have a Rate, which is the maximum number of times the weapon can be used per turn, without the use of Essence. (Splitting actions, etc.) This used to apply only to Ranged weapons. See the chart in the PG.
- Material Bonuses in Power Combat
- Orichalcum +1 Acc, Def, Rate
- Moonsilver +2 Acc
- Jade +3 Speed
- Starmetal +2 Damage
- Soulsteel +1 Acc, drains Essence
- Clinch Enhancers: Aid only in clinches. Pankrator's cestus, razor harness, crushfist.
- Heavy and Superheavy Artifact Armor: Heavy armors have Hardness 3. Superheavy have Hardness 4.
- Hearthstone Bracers: These now, in addition to their normal powers, add a 3 die bonus to all dodge attempts made by an attuned character. This does not give you a free dodge pool.
New and Changed Charms
I'm only going to list the names here, because I'm lazy. All charms are from the Corebook, unless another book is listed in parentheses.
- Archery
- (AB) Exquisite Relic Bow
- (S) Immaculate Golden Bow
- (S) Piercing Ghost Barb
- (S) Trance of Unhesitating Speed
- Athletics
- (AB) Mist Over Ice
- (S) Feather-Foot Style
- (S) Monkey Leap Technique
- (S) Spider-Foot Style
- Brawl
- (AB) Inescapable Iron Grip
- (AB) Rapacious Lamprey Technique
- (S) Crashing Wave Throw
- (S) Dragon Coil Technique
- (S) Fist of Iron Technique
- (S) Sledgehammer Fist Punch
- Charisma
- (L) Cunning Porcupine Defense
- (L) Deadly Beastman Transformation
- Dexterity
- Endurance
- (AB) Pain-Eating Focus
- (S) Armored Scout's Invigoration
- (S) Essence-Gathering Temper
- (S) Front-Line Warrior's Stamina
- (S) Tiger Warrior's Endurance
- Manipulation
- (L) Hyena Jaw Technique
- (L) Scimitar Claw Technique
- Martial Arts
- (AB) Fivefold Wound Absorbing Method
- (AB) Soul-Flaying Strike
- (DB) Bottomless Depths Defense
- (DB) Perfection of the Earth Body
- (S) Armor-Penetrating Fang Strike
- (S-Eclipse)Crushing Claw Technique
- (S)Essence Fangs and Scales Technique
- (S) Essence Venom Strike
- (S-Eclipse)Joint-Locking Technique
- (S-Eclipse)Mantis Form
- (S) Striking Serpent Speed
- Melee
- (AB) Resplendent Shadow Blade
- (AB) Elegant Flowing Deflection
- (S) Blazing Solar Bolt
- (S) Golden Essence Block
- (S) Glorious Solar Saber
- (S) One Weapon, Two Blows
- (S) Peony Blossom Attack
- (S-Night) Steel Devil Style
- Presence
- (S) Majestic Radiant Presence
- (S) Terrifying Apparition of Glory
- Resistance
- (AB) Bone Arsenal Method
- (AB) Crimson Petal Armor
- (AB) Flowing Wound Defense
- (AB) Inauspicious Shadow Plate
- (S) Durability of Oak Meditation
- (S) Glorious Solar Plate
- (S) Iron Kettle Body
- (S) Iron Skin Concentration
- (S) Spirit Strengthens the Skin
- (S) Unfailing Tortoise Technique
- Sorcery
- Incomparable Body Arsenal
- Invulnerable Skin of Bronze
- Wood Dragon's Claws
- Stamina
- (L) Claws of the Silver Moon
- Strength
- (L) Spine-Breaking Technique
- Thrown
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