OMBAT

Rounds and Initiative

Combat occurs in rounds generally lasting a few seconds. When the game master declares combat has begun, all players roll Alertness to determine initiative. The highest score goes first, then the next highest, until everybody has made their moves. Initiative is rolled once for the entire combat scene, or once per round, whichever your group prefers.

Characters get two actions per round. They may borrow one of their actions from the next round, giving them three actions this round and one in the next. (They could of course borrow an action next round from the round after that, but a wise player will choose to slow down and take a breath incase they need three actions again later.) If a player still needs more actions, they can buy them with Luck Points or Character Points.

Once a round ends, the next one begins, continuing until the scene ends (with the task completed, the opponent subdued, and so on).

To speed up gameplay, players should use all their actions together before moving on to the next combatant. A player may wait to see what another character will do, but waiting counts as an action.

Movement

Unencumbered characters can move 10m per action. Characters can move up to 5m in a round without having to use an action.

Attacking and Defending

When it's the player's turn they choose the actions their character will take that round. The may attack, defend, or do something else entirely.

Base Combat Difficulty — The base difficulty to attack someone is the result of opponent's active or passive defense roll, modified by range and other factors.

Active Defense — The target character can opt to use an active defense, which affects all attacks that occur after the defender's turn in the current round but before the defender's turn the next round. Active defenses are defensive maneuvers that the target consciously exercises, such as dodging, blocking, or parrying. Each of these is represented by a skill and counts as an action.

A character may make an active defense only when his turn comes up in the initiative line, but the total for the roll is effective for all relevant attacks made against the character that occur after the character's current turn but before his turn in the next round.

Remember: if a character acts later in a round than his attacker, he cannot take his turn sooner and use an active defense to replace the passive defense value — his reactions just weren't fast enough. If the roll is lower than the passive defense value, the character has succeeded in making himself easier to hit — by miscalculating where the attack would be placed and actually getting in its way. The active defense total is modified as the situation dictates.

Dodge — The character attempts to anticipate the final location of an attack from any source and be in another place when it comes. This is done by rolling the dodge skill.

Block/Parry — The character attempts to stop his opponent's attack by intercepting it and either stopping it with a block or deflecting it with a parry. The rolls one of the character's Martial Arts skills if he has something in his hands) to block it.

Full Defense — A character who foregoes all of their actions for a round to completely protect themselves from attacks makes a full defense. The total rolled takes the place of the base combat difficulty from the time the roll is made to their turn in the next round.

Full active defense value = any active defense skill roll + 2D

Combat Difficulty Modifiers — Here are a few of the most frequently used modifiers to the combat difficulty.

Range: The effectiveness of an attack made at a distance depends on its range. All range modifiers are added or subtracted from the combat difficulty. (Most combat occurs in short range, so usually you don't have to worry much about this modifier.)

Concealment: When a target is protected by something — poor lighting, smoke, fog, foliage — it makes them harder to hit. This is represented by a cover modifier, which is added to the combat difficulty.

Aiming: Aiming involves careful tracking of the target. Characters may perform it against moving targets, but they cannot themselves do anything else in the round in which they aim. Each consecutive round of uninterrupted aiming add 1D to the character's ranged attack skill, up to a maximum bonus of +3D.

Determining Success — Once the combat difficulty has been determined, the attacker rolls the die code in his character's combat skill and compares the total to the combat difficulty. If it equals or exceeds the combat difficulty, the attack hits, probably doing damage or having another effect that the attacker intended. If it was less than the combat difficulty, then the attack misses.

Area Attacks — That grenade has to be around here somewhere. Usually a failed area attack shouldn't harm the intended target, but they can't just ignore it either. It's easiest if the game master decides what happened with the attack and what actions, if any, everyone should take.

Determining Damage

If a character successfully hits his target, he may have done damage to it. To determine the amount of injury caused, roll the damage die code for the weapon. The defending character rolls their Fortitude + armor die code. If the attacker's roll is equal or greater, the difference between the attacker's roll and the defender's is applied as a wound.

The wound levels in the adjacent chart should have checkboxes on the character sheet. When a wound is received, check off the corresponding box. If that box is already checked then move to the next box. The character suffers the penalty of the highest level marked.

You have a couple options depending on how deadly you like your combat. When applying a wound to an already wounded character you can simply check the box if it is open, otherwise you escalate it to the next available level. The second option is to take your worst wound and increase it to the next level.

Example:

A defending character has 2 successes inflicted on him from a damage roll. As a result he receives has in Injured (2) wound and has -2D to all actions from now on. Later the character is hurt again, this time with an Injured (1) wound. Depending on your rules, the character either marks off the Injured (1) box and carries on with the wound they had previously, or their Injured (2) wound is escalated to Seriously Wounded.

Stunned is a temporary condition. All actions have a -1D penalty for one turn. The rest are permanent and apply the indicated penalty to all actions until healed.

Remember to include the Effect Value. Each extra success of the attack attempt adds 1D to the damage roll.

Strength Damage — Melee weapons in the D6 system often have damage values in the form of STR + X while weapons in this game have a fixed value. If using melee weapons from another game use 3D for the STR value.

Physical Cover — Physical cover effectively adds to the character's damage resistance, as long as the game master decides that the cover is able to absorb some of the damage. Treat the cover as additional armor when rolling to soak damage.

Repeat

If the fight isn't finished after one round, then return to Step 1 and do it all over again. Repeat these steps until the fight is resolved in favor of one side or the other.