Bringing V.TES back to a pure state.

Remove the maneuver step, remove additional strikes and the press step.

Combat is one round, one chance, one opportunity.

Seriously, combat is nearly perfect. Its ways to avoid combat that are broken. Earth meld is probably the best combat card in the game, or at least the best strike. Im not suggezting we print some thing like:

Chuck Norris roundhouse kick:
Combat, cost 1 blood, potence.
[potence] strike. Send all vamlires controlled by other methuselahs to torpor. The table splits into tiny slpinters.
[POTENCE] as above, but all tables in the room break instead.
[Obeah+potence] as above, and untap a copy of the great beast you controll. Only useable 12 times a turn.

But seriously, combats one of the most cut n dry things in the game once you get it down. Politics are stupidly complex even if youve been playing awhile. If anything, break them into 4 phases and start a thread on a more natural vtes. Vampires scheme, they dont argue over if thier primogen casts one vote against areferendum already passinv by 327 votes because they are mad about getting hif by 1 krc damage 6 turns ago. Combat is about playing the game and moving cards. Pitics are supposed to be about some negotiAting but have becoming a 45 minutes excuse to run the time out at every tournament. Talk about deviating from natural state of things.....

You know, combat IS part of the Jyhad. Ever read Chicago: by Night? Menele and Helena's epic combat encounter in the 19th Century put both of them in torpor and set the stage for the next 150 years of Chicago history. Lodin getting dunked in the late 20th Century changed the entire face of the Chicago Jyhad again.

In the VtM literature and in real life politics, assassination is a potent political tool. Vampires in the world of the RPG have to have an answer to threats on their person or face bad consequences when physically powerful opponents come looking for them. Oddly enough those answers in the RPG include stealth & hiding, political alliances, support of a leader who provides protection, "meat shield" flunkies, defensive discipline powers, or just kicking ass yourself in combat. Does this sound familiar? Like in real life, VTES combat may have unpredictable results. About the only combat strategy that VTES doesn't simulate well is attacking or defending in groups.

Beast, Leatherface of Detroit disagrees with this thread B-)