Actions

In combat, you must do two posts and an optional roll. Post, roll?, post. The first post is to declare your intent, the roll is to determine the success of that intent if it’s required, and then the second post is to express the success or failure of that roll or intent. Combat is one of the few times a GM just patiently waits for their turn to control NPCs.

A turn is 12 seconds, and one minute is 5 turns.

Types of Actions

Your initial post should contain two actions unless you have a Trait that lets you do more.

Attack

At the start of combat, your GM will inform you what the difficulty is for all the NPCs. This difficulty is represented as a multiple of 10, and the number should be added onto the Challenge Scores when you are rolling to see if you hit. The skill for hitting an entity is Aiming, and the statistic varies based on the type of attack. Generally:

• Melee: Strength
• Bows, Crossbows, Thrown Weapons: Dexterity or Strength
• Magic, Psi: Intelligence
• Guns, Blasters: Dexterity
• Theurgy: Wisdom

If an attack is successful, roll for damage before your second post and denote how much damage your target is taking.

Should you decide to attack with an item that is not explicitly a weapon, or should you decide to throw an item in a way to cause damage, or should you decide to throw a non-throwing weapon, you would roll Aiming + Aiming; add on Strength for melee attacks and Dexterity for throwing attacks.

Brawling

If you don’t want to use a weapon, you can use your fists. To do so, you would do an Aiming + Melee Skill Check and add Dexterity. If you succeed, damage is equal to 1d(Strength). So if your strength is 0, you do 0 damage; if your strength is 5, you do 1d5 damage; if your strength is 10, you do 1d10 damage.

Defend

If you have nothing to defend yourself with, increase the Challenge Score to hit you by 5. If you have something to defend yourself with, use that instead to increase your Challenge Score. On a Wild Success, your defensive item is destroyed or you take 1.5x damage.

Dodge

Increase your Challenge Score to hit you by your Dexterity and the difference between your and your attacker’s Flying, Swimming, or Walking speeds depending on the current environments you are each in. So if you are in water with a Swimming speed of 25 ft. and your attacker is on land with a Walking speed of 20 ft., and your Dexterity is 10, your attacker’s Challenge Scores will be 15 points higher. However, if your Swimming Speed was 20 ft. and their Walking speed is 25 ft., their Challenge Scores would be only 5 points higher. (Attacker speed - Dodger speed + Dodger Dexterity.)

On a Wild Success, you take twice (2x) damage.

Item Usage

You may choose to use an item on yourself or a fellow PC if they are within 5 ft. of you. Alternatively, you may throw an item to somebody else to use. All non-throwing items have a base thrown range of 25 ft., done with Aiming and either Dexterity or Strength.

Movement

Your character may move using Flying, Swimming, or Walking depending on their environment. Indicate which direction they are going and how far. The maximum movement you can make is based on your individual character and their current environment. (Read more about movement.)

Reload

Reloading a weapon takes one action unless otherwise noted by a Trait or the weapon itself.

Skill Check

You can choose to perform a Skill Check in the middle of combat.

Utility

This is when your character does something to support themselves or another character, whether it be shielding another character with an item or casting a healing ability.

Writhe

If stuck in a binding of some kind, whether it be a grapple or vines or a whirlpool, you can attempt to escape by writhing. Writhing is a unique Skill Check that uses Sneaking + Survival.