Editing Mnemon Explains Solar Combat (section)

===General===


Allright. I'm reasonably confident now that you're not going to die. This is good, because as much as I loathe you all, let me assure you that I find some Peleps, Cathak or Ledaal that won't shut up about their successful Wyld Hunt infinitely worse.

Now we're going to get onto the topic nearest and dearest to my heart - killing people. Pay attention, and you'll do a lot of it (and while you're at it, why not polish off the last of the Tepet for practice?).

Let's talk some general principles.

Do not, for the love of Gaia, blow your big attack in the first turn

Defence in this game is good. It's very good. It's so good, that the first time you fire up a huge attack against a Dragon Blood, it won't work. Honestly, if you pour 10 motes into Excellent Strike and have a swing, he'll Full Dodge, buy some Dodge dice on the cheap, you'll hit him with a couple of extra successes, and he'll soak the damage down to the minimum 1 die with his heavy jade armour that he got cheap with his superior Artifact background. Then, if your defence isn't well set up, his buddies will slam you into the ground. This is how Wyld Hunts operate. Don't play into their hands.

Instead, start with probing attacks. Make them spend essence on defence when your attacks are free. Learn how they defend, and the moment they're weak, punish them. Why do you think battle-poetry always describes a decent exchange of blows before any serious wounding is done? Because that's the way combat works, it's naturally dramatic.

That's not to say be too miserly with your essence, however. I strongly recommend that you spend (as opposed to commit) at least some motes as soon as you can - after all, you're going to be earning 2-4 motes a turn back from stunting, right?

NB: As a general rule, don't spend essence if your GM doesn't award stunts according to the rules. Commit it all away on scene-length charms, and only spend it when a REALLY juicy opportunity comes up, or when you need it for defence. It's boring, but it's tactically a much better idea. Conversely, if your GM awards stunts normally, make sure to NOT commit too much essence - leave yourself some room to regain motes from stunts!


The immortal question...death of a thousand cuts, or death of instant obliteration?

A frank look at combat tactics for Exalted (like, for instance, this one) might conclude that Damage is disadvantaged compared to Accuracy. After all, without a high attack pool, you'll never get to apply your base damage in the first place, attack successes convert to damage anyway, and no matter how pathetic your damage, you'll always do the minimum 1 damage, so you'll always be able to just wear an opponent down.

This is all true, but like the idea that you don't need Soak if you have a good enough Defence, overlooks just how useful Damage can be. In fact, damage is even more useful than soak because it doesn't really suffer diminishing returns in the same way; more damage is almost always more useful.

The principal advantage high damage gives you is time - less attacks to disable an opponent. While it is certainly very possible to kill virtually anyone with a long series of minimum damage attacks, it is rather time consuming. In a duel, this may not be a problem, but in the far more common situation of two or more groups engaging in battle, being able to swiftly slay an opponent - even a lesser one - takes pressure off your Circlemates and allows them to concentrate their abilities against the most formidable foes. Furthermore, it is extremely likely that you will increasingly find yourself in the position of having objectives other than killing your foes (as will they), and as such you may simply not have time for a full-length heroic duel. Being able to score a quick wound, or slay a foe's escorts and move on could be decisive.

The first critical damage threshold is 8L base damage (conveniently accessible to anyone with a Str of 3 and a daiklaive). This will allow you to automatically kill an unarmoured extra with only 1 success on the attack roll. Not only does this avoid the humiliating spectacle of having to attack an extra more than once, it allows you to guess how many successes you'll need to automatically kill an extra based upon their armour (usually the only lethal soak they'll have), and take multiple actions accordingly. For instance, if you're attacking extras with a lethal soak of 4, you'll need to do 13L to automatically kill them - 5 successes if you have 8L base damage. With an attack pool of 16, you'd want your last attack to have 10 dice (which has an expected 5 successes). 4 actions and a +1 stunt gets you 13, 12, 11 and 10 dice, meaning you're almost certain to kill 4 extras without needing to roll damage. If you're confident of getting a +2 stunt you could take the risk and make 5 attacks at 13, 12, 11, 10, 9 dice, and probably kill 5 extras. Against unarmoured extras, you'd only need 1 success, so with a +1 stunt you could take seven actions at 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4 dice. In general, however, you probably want to avoid rolling less than 5 dice when you can, owing to the risk of botching.

14L base damage is another fairly crucial threshold, though more difficult to obtain (Grand Daiklave + Str 3 being the easiest method, though a Str 4 character with a daiklave, Essence 3, Increasing Strength Exercise and orichalcum hearthstone bracers can also do so). At this level of base damage, you can automatically kill any Elite Troop extra (usually clad in Lamellar) with a single success. Crucially, a single attack success will allow you to do two damage dice after soak to your average Dragon Blood clad in articulated jade plate - the heaviest armour we commonly send out into the field on our ungrateful children. It will also allow you to do four dice damage on a single success against the extremely common reinforced jade breastplate (Dragon-Blooded get six total dots of artifact (split 3, 2, 1) for Artifact 3 - a reinforced breastplate, daiklave and a minor wonder being a very common assortment). When doing this much damage, it is usually possible to swiftly kill a young Dragonbloooded either by overwhelming them with a rapid series of attacks, or by striking ruthlessly with offensive charms when their defence is weak.

Furthermore, being in the region of 14L base damage helps against certain powerful beings, such as gods and some Lunars, that can ignore attacks doing damage beneath a certain threshold (much as with Invulnerable Skin of Bronze). Powerful Gods can ignore attacks doing less damage than half their soak - so Ahlat, with a soak of 35L, can ignore any attack doing 17L damage or less. Hence, you need to do 18L just to do minimum damage against him! Such protection is extended to those wearing Warstrider armour as well, so if you plan to quarrel with powerful gods or Warstrider pilots, make sure someone in the circle can exceed 15L damage with relative ease!

Doing decent damage also tends to stun enemies, since the health levels inflicted needs to exceed their stamina in order to stun, and becomes the difficulty of the Stamina + Resistance roll to avoid stun (remember waaaay up at the top I told you good Stamina + Resistance was useful? This is why).

Now, I know what you're thinking - "But Mnemon, why do I need high base damage? Surely I can get all the damage I need with my Excellent Strike + Hungry Tiger Technique + Leaping Tiger Attack combo!"

Well, I have two answers for you. Firstly, as a domineering matriarch, I don't actually care what you think. Secondly, you're right, each Dawn ability and the Athletics ability have charms that increase damage - sometimes spectacularly. However, ALL of these charms are more effective when enhancing a high base damage than a low one, because you want as many points of damage pushing past soak to become damage as possible - you don't want to be spending lots of essence just to get past the soak. Having a high base damage might mean you only need to activate your offence combo once to kill a powerful foe, or only need a single charm rather than a combo to slay a lesser foe. It's just more efficient.

Finally, having a good base damage is less demanding tactically. You're pretty much guaranteed to do something significant so long as you can hit, meaning that if you can keep your defence up and keep attacking, you'll probably do all right. This makes it rather helpful for beginners, since it's less frustrating while you're learning to look for openings.

Defence and attack pools are more potent in combat, but damage is always useful - grab it if you can.


====So how do I get decent damage?====

Generally damage is a function of the combat ability you choose to fight with, as that dictates the weapons and charms available to you. However, there are a number of more generic means to increase the damage you deal.

*Strength. Not only through giving the Attribute a decent rating, but the charm Increasing Strength Exercise. ISE is fairly expensive in terms of essence (especially since it's committed essence), but those extra few points of damage can make a great deal of difference over the scene if you're skilful enough to hit consistently.
*Orichalcum Hearthstone bracers. While 2 artifact dots for an extra 2 damage might seem a bit much, the two damage applies to all attacks - including unarmed or ranged attacks, particularly helpful for non-Melee fighters who might otherwise struggle to reach higher base damages. Power Combat also upgrades Hearthstone Bracers of all kinds to provide 3 bonus dice to all dodges, and your GM may use this change even if not using Power Combat.
*Athletics charms. Leaping Tiger Attack and Thunderbolt Attack Prana both double damage - after soak and after it is rolled respectively. Usually Leaping Tiger Attack is more useful, as it is slightly cheaper and allows a full sprinting move, wheras Thunderbolt Attack Prana prevents movement. However, TAP is more useful for meleeists, as when put in combo with Fire and Stones Strike it results in more damage (F&S converts damage dice to automatic successes, which TAP will then double).


====Mobility and Target Selection====
''offensive movement''

Almost every time your initiative arrives, one of your opponents will be more vulnerable than the others, by virtue of poor position, having failed to reserve sufficient defence, being forced to spend a great deal of essence or simply being weaker. Circumstance can bring even very powerful opponents into this position.

Fall upon these foes and kill them without hesitation or mercy.

If no such foe presents themselves, hold your action until they do, or pick a foe likely to be vulnerable to the tactics of a Circlemate who is yet to act, and attack them furiously in order to divert their defensive resources.

Unless you plan to use social abilities to force a relatively bloodless surrender, there is no use in wounding many enemies rather than killing a few. A wounded enemy can still take actions, and can still get a lucky roll, even if down a few dice. An incapacitated foe can do nothing. Every foe you kill is one less drain upon your Circle's defensive resources, and becoming outnumbered by Solars is certain doom for nearly any foe. This does not mean you must commit to a single foe once you have wounded them; do not hesitate to abandon a foe that you have wounded if there is a target within your range that you have a better chance of killing.

In short, on your turn, identify the most vulnerable enemy within your range (movement range for Melee, Brawl and Martial Arts, movement range + weapon range for Archery and Thrown), and attack them. For hand-to-hand fighters, this usually means moving.

Moving in battle nearly always helps. Not only does it allow you to attack the foe least able to defend against you, but crossing scenery makes it easy and natural to incorporate that scenery into your descriptions - allowing easy stunt bonuses. Furthermore, it allows you to seize the most tactically viable ground for your attack - if you have the high ground, your opponents lose dice from all actions against you - especially useful against opponents who dodge and parry, as both actions will be penalised. This is even easier on attack than defence, for an attacker only needs relatively higher ground than whoever they're attacking, rather than needing to grab the highest ground in the area (since an attacker could otherwise simply move to higher ground still).

====How do you know when a target is vulnerable?====
*An unarmored target is almost always vulnerable, since even with good defences they're likely to be badly wounded by a lucky hit. Even targets using charms for soak are usually worse off than armored targets, since they usually need to spend essence - often a great deal - to bolster their soak, and can be quickly ran out of essence in this fashion. There are exceptions, particularly some Lunars, Solars and Earth Immaculates, but even these tend to be vulnerable while putting up their scene-length soak charms, and thus can be killed swiftly if caught unawares.
*Virtually any target other than a Celestial Exalt who has already been attacked that turn will have been forced to use defence actions, and will have few if any actions left to defend (and at reduced dice to boot). This goes doubly if they've also attacked. As a bonus, you'll almost certainly have been able to tell how skilful they were when they were attacked, and you'll have an excellent idea of how badly you'll maul them. Even if they spent essence to defend against or survive the earlier attacks, they're still an excellent target, since you can force them to spend more, moving them quickly towards being exhausted.
*Any enemy who uses an offensive charm without a combo signature is vulnerable, since you know they can't use any defence charms. The exception to this is Dragon-Blooded, who can still use reflexive charms, but don't hesitate to fall upon them like hungry wolves if they've used a Simple or Extra Action charm, since their reflexive charms simply aren't good enough without actions to back them up, or so expensive that it's almost as good as wounding them anyway. In my opinion, if they're stupid enough to not make me Empress, and then compound it by using a Simple charm in front of a Solar, they deserve to be spitted on an eight foot golden razor. Useless inbred leeches. Watch out against Earth or Water Immaculates, though, since they actually have some rather nice Reflexive defence charms.
*Enemies in difficult conditions. Prone enemies, those thigh or waist deep in water or mud, on the wrong side of scree or abatis - they'll all have defence penalties against you. Wounded enemies also count, and will be quicker to finish off to boot.
*A sorcerer casting a spell is exceptionally vulnerable. On the downside, they may explode when you gut them, so don't try this unless you have decent soak or are feeling lucky.
*Any enemy in a clinch is extremely vulnerable. Kill them swiftly.
*An enemy unable to defend against your attack mode is vulnerable. For instance, if your enemy is relying on reflexive dodges, hit them Cascade of Cutting Terror, an undodgeable attack. If they are unable to use perfect defences, use Accuracy Without Distance, which is a perfect attack - even if they get more defence successes than your attack successes, the attack will hit for base damage. As an extension of this, anyone relying on their Soak to defend is deeply vulnerable to non-damage deleterious effects of a hit (Ox-Stunning Blow, anyone?).
*An opponent who has not acted is not vulnerable, but by attacking them and forcing them to abort to a defence, you may consume enough of their defensive resources to make them vulnerable to a Circlemate.

Concentrating your Circle's attacks on a single target is usually a good way to go, since that will overwhelm and quickly kill most enemies. There's no need to concentrate on this, however, since it's quite likely that the most vulnerable target available to you will be the one just attacked by a Circlemate.

These tactics are exceptionally effective, but there are occasions where you should not use them relentlessly. When facing a group of enemies, some who you could easily kill, and some who would be difficult foes for you, but impossible for some of your Circlemates, you should probably ensure that you leave enough lesser foes for your Circlemates to fight, and engage the greater foes. Otherwise, your Circlemates will probably whine because they have nothing to do, and I think all of us hear enough whining as it is, don't you? Wishy-washy types like Arianna would probably say you're hogging the spotlight and not being a good player too. Of course, if there's plenty in the field for your less-combatitive friends to do, you won't need to worry about this too much.

Whether or not Extras (who are always vulnerable by their nature) can be safely ignored depends on your circlemates - if their defences are poor enough that massed extras (particularly archers, where more than five can attack an individual at once) pose a threat, you may want to kill the extras swiftly. Some situations somehow manage to produce limitless streams of extras, however (filthy Pattern Spiders), and if you suspect such is the case, ignore them.