Eighth Attack Mayhem

This section discusses my Exalted Errata thoughts regarding Negative Dice Pools.

If all negative dice are ignored in favor of even a single bonus success, and you follow the Onslaught rules as written, then you get this scenario:

Solar A and Solar B are fighting equally skilled opponents with the admirable DV of 7. Solar A and Solar B, however, greatly differ in skill and fitness.

Solar A with Dexterity 1, Melee 1 and Second Melee Excellency, attacks 8 times with his pair of slayer khatars (assuming the orichalcum bonus applies).

His first attack is at -6 net dice pool (counting the accuracy bonus for the item), 2nd at -7 net, 3rd -8, 4th -9, 5th -10, 6th -11, 7th -12, and 8th at -13 net dice pool. Now he spends 2 motes of Essence on each attack, and gets 1 success on EVERY ATTACK, regardless of how negative his pool has become. By the 8th attack he is scoring 1 automatic success (despite having negative 13 dice in his pool) against his opponent's non-existent DV of 7 (which has been wiped out by the onslaught penalty). Score, a hit on swing number 8.

Solar B is a khatar princess with Dexterity 5, Melee 5 (or Martial Arts 5), Special +3 Slayer Khatars, Second Excellency (for Melee or Martial Arts) and she attacks 8 times with her slayer khatars.

Her first attack is at 5 net dice pool, 2nd at 4, 3rd at 3, 4th at 2, 5th at 1, 6th at 0, 7th at -1, and 8th at -2 net dice pool. She spends 2 motes of Esscence on each attack. On her final attack, she gets 1 automatic success against her opponent's non-existent DV of 7 (which has also been wiped out by the onslaught penalty). Score.... uh, the same minimum hit on strike 8 as wussy-boy up there. Crap.

Note that each of them has lost 8 from their own DV, which renders both of them equally defenseless (barring additional actions on their part), despite wussy-boy's clumsiness combined with very basic skill and the heroic excellency of khatar princess.

Alternately, if negative dice count against individual bonus successes on a 2 dice per 1 success basis, Solar A would automatically miss on the 8th attack, because he cannot buy enough successes to wipe out the negative 13 dice, while our khatar princess could buy one or more additional successes in order to hit.

As others have said, "To each his own." But I don't like the scenario where a clumsy oaf with very basic training automatically gets the same results as a supernally skilled warrior with olympic levels of natural grace.

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