Editing Mnemon Explains Solar Combat (section)

====A Quick Note on Dice Adders and Extra Action Charms====


Many people consider raw number of dice to be a decisive advantage in combat. It most certainly is not. While having large pools is extremely useful, having excellent charm technology that makes good use of those pools is more important - for example the size of a Solar's parry and dodge pools is less important than his ability to use both reflexively against all attacks.

Furthermore, the Solar dice advantage is not great. Lunars can add less dice, but usually have bloated pools owing to their warforms that are much larger even without dice adders. Sidereals can add extremely few dice, but can alter the probability of gaining a success. Dragon Blooded can add only a few less dice than Solars, and often more cheaply.

Do not be fooled into thinking Excellent Strike, Wise Arrow and Precision of the Striking Raptor are decisive advantages; they are not. They are inefficient, and unless your base damage is considerable, may not result in much damage at all. They are useful to brute-force past large defences, and in combo with charms that amplify their effects (such as Hungry Tiger Technique). Otherwise, however, it is usually better to attack a more vulnerable target with another offence charm that will have greater effect, such as Fire and Stones Strike or Cascade of Cutting Terror.

Similarly, Extra Action charms provide more dice than simply taking multiple action penalties to act multiple times, but consider whether those dice are necessary, for they come at two prices. The first is their mote and willpower cost, which might be better spent elsewhere. The other is their locking you into a specific type of action - almost always multiple attacks in the same ability - preventing you from mixing combat styles in the turn, or mixing in non-combat actions. Once again, a high base damage is more likely to make this worthwhile.