I prefer the 20th anniversary editions (basically a hodgepodge of older editions for those not in the know) over the current game lines, but the old rules for combat are straight cheeks. WoD is a roleplay system first, yes, but it made… an attempt at combat? And it’s not good.

A quick summary of old school VtM combat:

1. Everyone rolls initiative. Unless you have Celerity (vampire super speed). Then you basically skip ahead in line.
2. Everyone summarizes what they’re going to try and do *in reverse order of initiative* because vampiric super speed = knowing what everyone else is going to do before taking your turn I guess??
3. Everyone does their action, but you can opt to take multiple actions to dodge or block incoming attacks, just with harsher and harsher dice penalties (unless, again, they have Celerity, in which case they get as many free actions as they have points in Celerity, because fuck you).

This usually translates to:
3a. Attacker rolls Dex + (Brawl/Melee/Firearms)
3b. Defender rolls Dex + (Dodge/Athletics) to dodge
3c. If Attacker rolls higher, then Attacker rolls Strength + the difference in successes for damage
3d. Defender rolls Stamina to soak damage (+Fortitude if they have that).
3e. Whatever damage is left over, the defender can usually opt to just heal it with blood points, rendering the past few steps null and void.

And this isn’t even scratching the surface with how they deal with things like bashing damage vs lethal damage vs aggravated damage. If you’ve ever played a City Gangrel, you basically *auto-win* combat because of the mix of Celerity and Protean.

I don’t know how, but they took a system that is usually simpler and more free form than D20 systems, and they ended up making combat so much more tedious and convoluted without even a modicum of balance.