Chronicles of Darkness House Rules

D10 - (Chronicles of Darkness aka. New World of Darkness 2e)
These are house-rules used for mortal humans in the system - not the setting.

Attributes
No changes to attributes.

Skills

 * Craft, Science and Academics can only be used for single rolls, not extended rolls if one doesn't have a specialty in the relevant topic. Increase requirement for success ratio in extended rolls by 5 if the specialty applies closely or is to a nearly related subject or an over-arching subject that is viewed as a little too unspecific.
 * Playing a sport or playing an instrument or what not, does not use athletics or expression, it uses "Hobby" merit, which is a new merit, the details how good a character is at a specific hobby-related subject. Requirements for this merit are at the GMs discretion, but should be assumed to be 1-2 dots in the parent skill (football requires at least a dot in athletics, and singing requires at least a dot in expression).
 * Weaponry becomes "Alertness" and is added to perception checks.
 * Brawl becomes Melee, and it is used for all melee attacks, armed, unarmed or using natural weapons.

Merits

 * Giant is now a 2 dot merit. A character without the giant merit or the short merit will be somewhere between 5'5" and 5'11". the first dot doesn't come with any fluff-disadvantages, and simply costs a merit point, but the first dot also only signifies that the character is taller than average, making the character above 6 feet in height - the world average being below 6 feet. The second dot makes the character extremely tall, bordering on, or exceeding 7 feet, and comes with fluff-wise disadvantages.
 * The short merit now also comes in 2 variants. A character without the giant merit or the short merit will be somewhere between 5'5" and 5'11". The first dot of "short" makes the character smaller than 5'5" but taller than 4'10". The second dot of "short" makes the character 4'10" or shorter, effectively being a "little person".
 * Fighting-styles are removed from the game. Maneuvers are generally always available to everyone, but that doesn't mean that you can pick any unique dot from a fighting style and attempt to use it - these are for the majority removed, but certain maneuvers normally only available through fighting styles that are rather essential are preserved and generally available now.

Advantages

 * Perception is calculated by adding wits and composure together, dividing the result by two and rounding down, and then adding Alertness.
 * Defense is calculated by adding wits and dexterity together, dividing the result by two and rounding down, and then adding the skill of choice (melee or athletics).
 * Speed is Size+Strength+Dexterity, how ever note that other creatures than humans may use a Species Modifier instead of their size, or in addition to it.

Combat

 * A character may optionally use Melee with defense to attempt to block or parry attacks respectively. This only applies where it makes sense - A character cannot try to block or parry bullets. Blocking or parrying may be required to perform certain maneuvers.
 * Ranged- or Melee Attack Values are respectively used, in place of attributes, for ranged and melee attacks. Melee attack value is strength and dexterity added together, the result divided by 2 and rounded down. The ranged attack value is wits and strength added together, the result divided by 2 and rounded down. When rolled, both include their relevant skills - Ranged attacks use athletics or firearms, and melee use melee.
 * If a character lacks a specialty with the particular weapon they are using, and the weapon is more than a 0L or 1L rating, then the character loses the 10again rating and reduces the weapon's damage effectivity by 1 point, though the weapon can never deal more than 3L, and also loses any passive qualities (bonus to defense or to hitting specific targets etc.) as well as any accessory bonuses  - the exception would be obvious things like, night-vision scopes and full-auto fire. It's permitted to take broader specialties such as "Auto-loader pistols" or "Micro SMGs", or for instance "Service Weapons" for characters who may have training with a range of very specific weapon models.
 * In a grapple, any maneuvers made against a character are made with penalty equal to the difference between the two character's strength and size, respectively added together. Example: Character A wants to throw Character B to the ground, so Character A adds the difference between the size of Character A and Character B, to the difference between the Strength of Character A and Character B. Let's say that Character B is 1 point larger than Character A, but Character A is one point stronger than Character B, so in this case he adds nothing.
 * More than one person can effectively grapple the same target, but when this happens, the main-grappler (who ever has the highest dice pool) adds a +1 for each person assisting him in the grapple, to his effective grapple-defense, and can perform one grapple maneuver against the target per participant on his side.