NWod Mass Effect/Combat Rules
Preface to nWoD combat mechanics
So, we need to take a hard look at how the combat mechanics are going to work before we can figure out how the powers will work. I'm going to run through a few of the basic assumptions of normal nWoD.
First up, nWoD fighting is supposed to be pretty short, nasty stuff - the kind of thing where a few hits can take someone down. nWoD fights are generally things you want to avoid getting into at the drop of a hat because they can go very wrong indeed. At the same time, combat-specced characters can fight very competently and my Werewolf campaign players can attest to the deadliness displayed by both sides in a fight between battle-ready characters. I think we can roughly stick with this as a core notion, fights should be brutal affairs and not the sort of thing that you leap into lightly, but the technology, competence and powers of the PCs will be plenty enough to a) make them pretty tough and b) make them quite dangerous. This should, I think, balance combat at a good spot.
A normal nWoD character has 7 health levels, assuming they are Stamina 2. They also probably have a Defence of 2. When you roll your attack dice pool, you subtract the target's defence from the number of dice you roll. Armour is also subtracted from the dice pool, but some Armour also lowers the Defence of the target anyway (and usually makes up for it by, for example, being effective against bullets). Characters have Defence 0 against bullets, unless the shooter is in melee range of them, so against guns kevlar armour et al are rather handy.
Weapons just add dice to your attack pool. This does have an odd effect, in that high-damaging weapons like, say, a heavy pistol, are more likely to hit than low damaging weapons. In normal nWoD this isn't really a problem - it makes combat quick and effective by boiling the whole attack down to one roll, and isn't particularly noticeable to be honest.
So, our Mass Effect conversion.
To rework this for Mass Effect...
Firstly, Armour and Shields will be pretty common. I expect all the characters will have at minimum some light armour if they know there's going to be a fight.
I like the idea of Shields basically being a number of health levels that attackers have to get through before they reach the crunchy centre. We could have them regenerate during a fight but I'm thinking that might be too much book-keeping. Various Archetype Merits may give some people access to shield boosters/rechargers, but apart from that I reckon it should be that shields have always recharged at the beginning of a fight, but recharge too slowly to do so during combat. It makes the powers that do give shield boosts/recharges or throw up biotic barriers more interesting.
Now, Armour. See, the problem with using the existing nWoD Armour-is-Defence method is that Shields rather bugger it up. Say Bob the Soldier is shooting with his dakkagun and has a pool of 9 dice (3 Dex + 3 Firearms + 3 from the dakkagun's damage rating). He shoots at Dave the Invincible, who is wearing Heavy Armour (3 points Armour! Dave's normal Defence from his Wits/Dex is irrelevant because he's being, well, shot and can't dodge bullets). Dave, being invincible, isn't standing in cover at the moment so we don't need to worry about that variable right now. Bob's attack pool is therefore down to 6 dice.
But wait! See, Dave has a big Shield rating. Bob shoots and gets 2 successes, knocking 2 health levels off Dave's 5 shield levels.
So... somehow this mean's Dave's Armour has penalised Bob's attack pool even though he never actually got to the point where his bullets hit the armour.
Therefore!
I suggest the following hack.
Weapons do not add dice to the attack pool. Instead, if the character hits with their attack pool (just Attribute + Skill, and any other suitable modifiers) then the weapon's damage rating is added to the successes as health levels of damage. So, Bob uses an assault rifle (damage 3) and scores two successes on his attack pool, therefore inflicting 5 points of damage. This takes the 'harder-hitting weapons are more accurate' problem out of the equation.
Except, you know, we did this in a game that Phil ran using the nWoD system and it was hilariously lethal. Also, that Armour rating means that most attack pools will be tiny (in the above scenario, poor Bob is down to 3 dice after Dave's 3 armour!).
So.
Armour doesn't subtract from the attack pool.
Instead, it is simple damage reduction from any damage that gets through shields. So a suit of medium armour (let's say Armour 2) would knock two health levels of damage off an attack.
End result is:
Attacker has an attack pool of Skill + Attribute. Most of the time with shooting, they'll be facing a Defence of 0 - honestly, it's pretty fucking easy to hit someone with a gun at close firefight ranges, that's why everyone has shields etc.
If they score any successes, they do that many levels of damage, plus a number equal to their weapon. So a person who shoots and hits for 2 succcesses with a shotgun (damage 4) ends up doing 6 health levels of damage.
Those health levels first strip off shield levels. So let's say the target has 3 shield levels, leaving 3 health levels to go through. Armour does not affect damage to shields. It only deducts from attacks once the shields are down, so the target (with Armour 2 in this case) knocks 2 points off the 3 health levels that go through.
In the end, then, they take 1 point of damage. They're going to be in trouble next time they get shot, though.
Other considerations:
Defence still applies to the attack pool, so when it comes to melee attack pools may get quite small, but if melee weapons also add health levels on a hit then it could still be fairly decisive for whoever gets the hits in.
Shield levels will need to be numerous enough to not make them totally irrelevant in the face of firepower (ie no 1 or 2 shield levels except for really minor personal stuff; I'm thinking shields are probably normally 4 or 5).
Armour needs to be kept low in rating mostly, so that the scary juggernauts who bullets ping off are the exception, not the rule.
In summary
Weapons add their damage rating in health levels to a successful attack - they do not add to the attack pool of dice itself.
Shields are additional health levels that are not affected by armour's damage reduction. They automatically recharge between fights. A soldier's shield is probably 4 health levels of buffering.
Armour is damage reduction against hits once shields are down. Light armour is the most common form and offers Armour 1. Full combat armour is heavier and offers Armour 2. Armour 3 is like, fuck, I don't know, heavy-power-armoured and not standard issue.
Biotic Barriers will probably work as shields but interact slightly differently with different powers and so forth.
This gives us differentiation between the different forms of protection, gives guns a solid wallop while removing the 'big guns hit better' problem, and keeps combat fairly dangerous while giving the sense that characters are benefitting from the personal protection advancements of the somethingtyfirst Century or whatever time zone we've ended up as a result of all this crazy space stuff.
