House-ruling Extras

[Skari-dono]

I've been toying with some ideas for house-ruling Extras which should be fitting for both Exalted and Scion, but it needs some work. I thought I could perhaps post my ideas here and get some comments, maybe you can spot something I've missed or have a suggestion for improvement. I also thought it would be a good idea to write these ideas down so that I can look at them from another angle (it's all kinda messed up inside my head).


The idea is to make fighting extras faster and more awesome. In Exalted and Scion, extras are counted individually, so you need to make an attack against each of them separately or resolve it with different set of rules (Mass Combat). What I want to do is to not count extras at all. An attack against one extra is an attack against all of them. I aim at making the PCs look awesome while attacking insignificant pests.


Since I am currently running Scion, both here and in RL, these house-rules are primarily aimed towards those rules (primarily in regards to multiple-action penalties and Epic Attributes). Adjusting these for Exalted should not be too difficult I hope.


The House-Rules

• Extras do not have a will of their own. What the player says the extra will do or what happens to them is exactly what takes place. Extras are, in fact, part of the scenery, much like a chair you can throw around without it trying to run away.
  
• Extras do not have traits in the same manner as more important characters. They have a physical, a social and a mental dice pool, which are assigned 3, 2 and 1 dice as appropriate.
  
• Extras receive certain bonuses depending on their group's size and competence. For every 5 extras, add +1 bonus success to attacks and rolls to resist group coercion (but only where a roll is allowed), as well as +1 difficulty to various actions against the group as a whole (but not attacks, that is detailed below). Competence ranges from 1-5, or possibly more, and adds a similar bonus.
  
• Attacking extras counts as an action, but with some changes. One attack can target multiple extras but no matter how many extras you attack it only counts as one action when dealing with multiple-action penalties.
  
• When attacking extras, you make a normal attack roll as appropriate. Each success on that roll hits one extra, up to the limit of how many extras there are in the scene. Extras do not have a Defense Value that applies to this roll.
  
• Damage is rolled as normal. Each success on the damage roll knocks out or kills one extra, up to the number of extras you hit with your attack roll. Extras do not have a Soak value that applies to this roll. In cases where the Epic Strength bonus is greater than the number of successes on the attack roll, no damage roll is required.
  
• Extras do not attack individually but make a single attack as a whole, regardless of how different they are from each other (such as a mixed group of lesser Titanspawn and cultists). Roll the highest physical dice pool and add the bonus for both size and competence. The damage roll is equal to the physical dice pool + attack successes as dice + competence/size bonus as successes.
  
• Depending on the competence of the PCs as a whole, even giants and some monsters can devolve into extras. It is up to the ST to determine whether these monsters are insignificant enough to warrant them being treated as extras.
  
• These rules can result in one extra running around, getting hit a lot but never getting knocked out or killed (no success on the damage roll). If that happens, that lone extra is elevated to standard NPC status. The same thing happens if the extras somehow manages to kill one or more of the PCs; one of them is given credit for the kill and elevated to NPC status.
  

So there you have it. Writing it down does make it seem a bit clearer and I figure it could work out well enough. I have removed ticks in my standard house-rules so the fighting shouldn't feel as weird, I don't think this would work out so well with ticks but could work well in a PbP environment.


Anyway, had two cups of coffee and nothing to do so I felt compelled to write this down and share it. What do you think?

 

[Shining Lotus Sage]

No time for careful consideration just now, but I think I'll be using this for Exalted. I just have to simplify a few of my other house rules to make space.

 

[ghoti115]

That's really good. I'll stress test it in a few weeks when I get my Exalted group together.


One thing I might change would be to set a limit on the number of Extras that can be attacked each turn. I don't like the idea that all of the extras in a scene could be taken out by two very lucky rolls. You could go by the the the rate of the equipped weapon(s) or the PC's Attribute + Ability rating (including extra dice from Excellency Charms only). In both cases, I would suggest adding any bonus from stunts to the number as well. So a weapon with a Rate of 3 plus a 2 die stunt means you can try to target 5 extras or a Martial Artist with 4 in MA and 3 in Dex and a 1 die stunt could target up to 8 extras (with an option for 7 more from the First Excellency or 3 additional hits from the Second Excellency).


This might help some of my players who feel like the Dawn Caste and the Full Moon Lunar are outshining their character in combat too.

 

[Skari-dono]

The idea is to allow the players to feel like they are really kicking ass, and it doesn't take all that much time to do. In this idea, each success on the attack roll can represent a single attack or you can represent multiple hits with a single attack (a powerful swing that cleaves through one extra after another), so Rate might be a good limit (although it won't help much in Scion). I would probably allow my players to roll the dice first and then describe what happens, then either allow them to roll the stunt dice separately or just add them in as automatic successes. It depends on whether I'll house-rule the stunt bonus for Demigods and Gods in Scion and how.


I sometimes use abstract number of extras in my game, something that won't mess with the players much but enough for each of them to get a chance at showing off. Depending on the house-rules I'm using, I could say that there are enough extras to last for three or four rounds, or up to 10 ticks or something, so their actual number won't really matter.


In fact, you could use the size bonus as a sort of measure for how long you want the fight going. Just decide how long you want the fight to last and that is the size bonus. After each round, this bonus drops by 1, until it reaches 0, at which point either all the extras have been defeated or the remaining extras flee. I presented each size as representing 5 extras in order for it to better fit with the Followers Birthright from Scion (which uses an increment of 5).

 

[Shining Lotus Sage]

Dude. I like the way you run games. As another ST, anyway. Jury's still out on my player's opinion. ;p

 

[Skari-dono]

I often have great ideas (in my own opinion anyway) but I rarely remember to put them into practice. Extras is one thing that I often find kinda weird or just plain stupid, because they usually slow down the action and while they are intended to be quick to handle and dispose of, many of the PCs in my groups just can't hit them or cause any real damage. One player tried to shoot one extra twice and in both cases she only dealt 1L damage, which just frustrated her endlessly (so I made the extra slip and fall head first off the wagon and hit another one in the head, killing them both, as was the initial intention of her stunt).


Since the replies are all positive, I think I'll add this house-rule to my Small Big Heroics. You can tell me how your player-self thinks about it after a couple of fights

 

[Shining Lotus Sage]

Conveniently, I'm playing the weakest combatant!

 

[Action Replay]

Looks really good. I do have a few concerns with this however. I don't actually see an upper limit on the bonus from numbers, so in theory a sufficiently large number of mooks could overwhelm any PC no matter how unlikely the fluff and mechanics say that is. There is also the obscure 5 man/monster limit on close combat. How regardless of numbers only 5 can attack at a time, DVs lower, and the 5'th attack is unexpected. Otherwise it looks good to me.

 

[Skari-dono]

[QUOTE="Action Replay]Looks really good. I do have a few concerns with this however. I don't actually see an upper limit on the bonus from numbers, so in theory a sufficiently large number of mooks could overwhelm any PC no matter how unlikely the fluff and mechanics say that is. There is also the obscure 5 man/monster limit on close combat. How regardless of numbers only 5 can attack at a time, DVs lower, and the 5'th attack is unexpected. Otherwise it looks good to me.

[/QUOTE]
The best way to handle that is to exclude extras from that rule, so although they can technically surround you it does not affect you mechanically. After all, extras should be treated as fluff and not actual characters. That being said, yes, overwhelming forces could beat up the PCs with these mechanics. Treating competence and size with automatic successes does reduce the number of dice you have to roll however, which is why I suggested it. However, you could treat this as dice instead, or require 10 extras per +1 bonus success.


But common sense should prevail. If 5 babies surround one Exalted and attack him, at least one of them is going to get an unexpected attack and the others are going to cause onslaught penalties, and if I remember correctly they are all going to get to roll one die of damage if the Exalted doesn't have Hardness (or maybe that's just creatures with awakened Essence, I forget). But common sense tells us that it just doesn't work that way. Same with extras. Even if 500 of them face off against an Exalt with superior protection, they won't be able to even put a dent in him/her. Same with 10,000 soldiers attacking a Scion God, it just won't matter.


If it would help, we could limit the damage the extras could do to the best (or average) weapon they are using and their physical trait, then apply it to soak. It puts a cap on how effective they are and guarantees that they can't harm powerful individuals with effective enough soak.

 

[Shining Lotus Sage]

Actually, bonus successes for magnitude is already how Exalted handles mass combat. Maybe you can just transition to those sorts of log-scale mechanics after the numbers get high enough.

 

[Esbilon]

There should be a limit on how many extras can effectively oppose a hero at a time. A million people with pitchforks vs one hero with a greatsword and epic stamina on a bridge is not going to end well for the million pitchforks.


Also, tbh I find these rules largely superfluous, maybe because I've already mentally put Extras in the same category as furniture; they're stunt fodder, not something you actually have to roll against to defeat.


On caveat though, I kinda like the idea of an extra being able to harm a very weak hero, or fool a very oblivious one, which is not really an option with the way you're assigning them stats. One might argue that anyone able to do that would instantly be upliftet to a non-extra, though. I suppose it depends on the categories you use; if there are non-heroic mortals between Extras and Heroic Mortals, then that kind of people would fall into the middle category I guess.


Anyway, mostly rambling here. Your rules sound fine, but I don't think they'll really change much.

 

[Skari-dono]

There should be a limit on how many extras can effectively oppose a hero at a time. A million people with pitchforks vs one hero with a greatsword and epic stamina on a bridge is not going to end well for the million pitchforks.

Again, common sense should be employed here. If you can force the extras down a bottle-neck, you seriously limit the benefit of their numbers, which should affect their size bonus.

Also, tbh I find these rules largely superfluous, maybe because I've already mentally put Extras in the same category as furniture; they're stunt fodder, not something you actually have to roll against to defeat.

I agree, but as the rule is written in the books, they are far more difficult to fight and require more bookkeeping. They get full stats except that they have fewer health levels (3) and don't count 10s as 2 successes, among other minor alterations. If anything, I believe my house-rule makes them easier to beat.

On caveat though, I kinda like the idea of an extra being able to harm a very weak hero, or fool a very oblivious one, which is not really an option with the way you're assigning them stats. One might argue that anyone able to do that would instantly be upliftet to a non-extra, though. I suppose it depends on the categories you use; if there are non-heroic mortals between Extras and Heroic Mortals, then that kind of people would fall into the middle category I guess.
Anyway, mostly rambling here. Your rules sound fine, but I don't think they'll really change much.

Mostly they ease up on the bookkeeping. Individually, I don't think an extra should be able to defeat the hero or trick him, any more than a chair could, or a lamp. It could happen, but it should be the work of ridiculously bad luck, or a weak hero (physically or mentally) against a very competent extra. Again, common sense really. If the hero is completely oblivious, any random guy could trick him, or if the hero is a crippled pacifist then a random attack should do the trick, but otherwise it should only be possible by a noteworthy NPC and not an extra.