Combat

Many of the Encounters that a group of adventurers will experience will involve battling with opponents using weapons, magic, and various abilities and skills. From a rules standpoint, Combat is, understandably, the most structured part of the game.

Combat takes place in a series of Rounds; in each Round, every participant in the combat will have an opportunity to do things - they will take their Combat Turn. Determining the order in which players and gamemasters take their turns, and the types of actions they may perform during these turns, is described below.

Initiative

A single d6 is rolled to determine initiative at the beginning of each Combat Turn. On a 1-3, the enemies, controlled by the Gamemaster, go first. On a 4-6, the Player Characters go first. Each "side" can determine what order their members wish to act in, and this can change each turn. This hopefully encourages team tactical planning.

The Combat Turn

A Combat Turn consists of two parts: Movement, and Action.

Movement allows a character to move a distance up to their Speed value away from their starting location. Movement can be broken up, with some or all occuring before an Action, and the remainder taking place after the Action.

Actions might be retrieving an item from a backpack (such as a spellbook), making an attack, reloading a crossbow, or casting a spell. Weapons or items that are already in hand, or that are worn in a scabbard, sheath, bandolier or other "quick grab" contrivance do not require a separate action to be readied; you can draw a sword and strike with it in as a single action. Re-sheathing a weapon, however, does require an action. (Alternatively, you can simply drop one weapon on the ground and draw another.)

During a combat turn, a character can also communicate with allies or foes, whispering or shouting no more than a sentence or so while performing their Movement and/or Action. Relaying complex instructions, however, would constitute an Action on its own.

Melee and Reach Combat

Combatants standing more or less toe-to-toe and swinging weapons at each other are said to be in Melee combat. Typically, melee combat requires that the opponents be adjacent to one another (though the use of a weapon with exceptionally long reach may modify this somewhat.) Weapons used in meleee combat are hand-held, or are a natural part of the combatant. Melee combat typically relies on brute strength; this is reflected by the use of the STR bonus to enhance damage. Sometimes, though, it can rely on agility, finesse, and precision use of a weapon; in these cases a DEX bonus may be used instead.

Reach combat is similar to melee, except that there may be some small space between combatants. The length of the weapon will determine the maximum distance; the weapon descriptions will specify this.

Range Combat

In Ranged combat, the opponents are generally some distance apart, and the weapons are projectiles launched in some manner at the foe. This could involve throwing things as well as using bows, slings, or other devices to propel the weapon. In order to engage in Ranged combat, the target must be at least 10ft (3m) away from the attacker. Accuracy with ranged weapons requires an innate ability to account for windage, gravity, and the movement of the target. The ability of a combatant to make the mental calculations needed to accurately make a ranged attack is represented by the use of the AWA bonus on such attacks.

Most ranged attacks cannot simply be deflected away; the effect of an arrow striking a target is not simply to tire the target out a bit. Thus Ranged Attacks have the benefit of applying their damage immediately as Direct Damage. The target's DEX bonus, as well as any physical (or natural) armor or shields still come into play, but any damage not stopped by these is applied against Injury Points, not Stamina Points.

Standing off and firing arrows does not immunize a character from the stresses of combat. To represent this, characters making ranged attacks must expend stamina points to do so. An untrained user of a ranged weapon must roll a d4 to determine expended stamina points. An acquired Weapon Specialization in a ranged weapon assumes that the character has learned some economy of effort; expended stamins for such characters is halved (rounding up).

Resolving Combat

There are no "to hit" rolls. You roll for damage only. Initially, damage dealt to a creature or character draws down that creature's or character's stamina points. Think of this as "wearing down your opponent" in the early stages of a fight.

For melee combat...

For ranged combat...

There are times where opponent's DEX bonus may not come into play. These are described in various other places in these rules.

Critical Hits

Each time the die roll results in a maximum value for that die type, you roll an additional die of that type and add it to the total. This is often referred to as "exploding dice", and it serves to offer the thrill of the "critical hit" that other rules systems offer.

Level 1 damage with Shortsword
Level 3 damage with Shortsword
Level 9 damage with Shortsword

Damage Dice

Each combat attack form, including spellcasting, will specify the type of dice (d4, d6, d8, or d10) that it uses to calculate damage, but does not specify a quantity of dice to be thrown. This quantity is known as the Damage Level Multiplier, and is a function of the attacker's character level. At Level 1, you roll one die of the specified type to determine the damage done in a combat round (subject to the exploding dice provision described above). At Level 3, you roll 2 dice, and at every odd level beyond, you add another.

Magical Weapons will specify a bonus that is added to each damage die rolled. Thus, for example, a Longsword+1 wielded by Level 2 character will do d6+1 damage, but when that character reaches Level 3, it will do 2d6+2 damage. The magical bonus is not applied, however, to any additional dice generated by the "exploding dice" feature.

Example

Tombril, a 9th level character with 55 Stamina Points is using his +2 short sword to attack a club-wielding Hill Giant. Tombril's STR bonus is +8. His DEX bonus is +5, and his armor gives him 3 Armor points, for a total of 8 Defense Points. The Hill Giant, a Level 12 creature, has an STR bonus of +9 and a DEX bonus of +3. It's tough skin acts a bit like armor, adding another 1 Armor point for a total of 4 Defense Points.

A 5 on the Initiative Die in the first round indicates that Tombril goes first. He rolls 5d6 for damage, and gets 5, 3, 4, 3, and 2, for a total of 17. Adding the sword's magical bonus and his STR gives 35. Subtracting the Giant's Defense Points from this total gives a damage result of 31. As this is all slashing damage from the sword, 31SP are taken from the Hill Giant's starting amount of 68, leaving it with 37 SP.

The giant now attacks back with its nonmagical club. The Giant rolls 6d6 and gets 6, 5, 3, 6, 2, and 6. The three 6's "explode" for three more rolls, giving a 5, 1, and another 6. That last six is rerolled once more and a 2 results. All these are added up for a total of 42. Adding in the giant's STR bonus gives 51. Tombril's 8 Defense Points are subtracted from this; he takes 43SP in damage - clearly a severe, and lucky, blow! Tombril is left with just 12 SP.

It's time for Round 2, and the process repeats, starting with Initiative being rerolled. Tombril is lucky and gets to go first again. He realizes that he may not survive another swing of the giant's club, so he decides that a judicious retreat is in order. Since the giant does not pursue, the combat encounter is over.

Power Attacks

A player or a creature controlled by the Gamemaster has the option to declare a Power Attack before rolling for combat damage. In a Power Attack, the number of damage dice is doubled - but the weapon is assumed to be broken and unusable after the attack. (Declaring a Power Attack, then rolling really poor damage is this system's equivalent to a "Critical Fail".)

Parrying

Characters may choose to devote their combat turn to actively deflecting or avoiding damage instead of inflicting some. They must be equipped with either a weapon or a shield, or both to do so. If a character decides to parry, it cannot make an attack on its turn, but incoming damage from all sources is mitigated until their next combat turn. Futher detatils and restrictions depend on what equipment is being used to parry.

Parrying with a Weapon

The character will suffer no damage from incoming attacks as long their weapon remains intact. If any attacker rolls a damage die that explodes, the attack blow is assumed to shatter the character's weapon. The damage that causes this will be fully mitigated, but no further damage reduction is possible, and the weapon is useless. If the weapon used for parrying has a magical bonus, an additional exploding die roll is required for each magical plus before the weapon is shattered.

Parrying with a Shield

The character will suffer no damage from incoming attacks until they begin their next combat turn, assuming their shield can sustain the damage. The shield takes double damage from absorbed blows. If the shield takes enough damage to be destroyed, additional damage will affect the character - including any excess damage from the blow that destroyed the shield.

Surprise Attacks

When two opponents or groups encounter each other, it is possible that one or both are not expecting it, and consequently take a moment to realize what's happening. If neither or both sides are surprised, there is no effect, and combat will begin with an Initiative roll. If one side of an encounter surprises another, that side gains the opportunity to take combat turns without their opponents doing so. (In other words, the surprising side takes their turns before the first initiative die is rolled.) It is left to the Gamemaster to determine what situations or conditions will require a determination of surprise. Alternatively, a random roll could be used (good for random encounters). Roll a d6. On a 1, the opponents gain a surprise round. On a 6, the adventuring party gains a surprise round. On a 2-5, neither side is surprised (or both are).

Sneak Attacks

Sneak Attack is a combat tactic designed to employ stealth, planning, and accuracy to deal potentially devastating damage to an opponent. To calculate damage done by a successful sneak attack, roll number of damage dice rolled indicated by the attacker's Damage Dice Multiplier. Explode all maximum rolls as usual. The attacker's appropriate bonus (STR for power melee or reach, DEX for finesse melee or reach; AWA for range attacks) is added to this. The target's DEX is never subtracted. The target's armor points may or may not be subtracted, as explained above. Any resulting damage is applied as Direct Damage - it does not affect the target's Stamina Points, but instead registers as Injuries immediately.

Sneak Attacks cannot also be declared to be Power Attacks. After the attack, if the attacker has movement remaining, they may use it, but cannot use it to return to concealment.