ENCOUNTERS
Encounters are an essential part of any story. The world would be dull without them.
In-game conflict is resolved in one of two ways: talk or dice. Negotiation and conversation should be resolved through talk. Logic and reasoning should be as well, though exceptions can be made if the intellect of a character exceeds that of the player. Dice are needed when characters use skills in conflict with opposing forces.
Perception and Observation
Perception and observation are important skills that deserve special mention.
Perception is used whenever The Master wants to see whether a character notices something, such as images, sounds, or smells that are hard to detect because they are small, faint, or far away. It is not used to determine whether a character notices the obvious, such as a person standing directly in front of him and speaking. It is used to determine whether a character will notice subtle sensory input, like someone sneaking up behind him.
Various factors can affect a perception check. Bright light or pitch darkness can hamper vision. Loud noise can hamper hearing. The challenge level for any situation is up to The Master.
Unconscious characters get no perception rolls - they are senseless. Being asleep is not the same as being knocked out, however; sleeping characters get normal hearing perception rolls when unusual noises occur in their presense. If successful, they awaken. If the noises are very soft, such as someone sneaking toward the sleeper, the perception rolls are more difficult.
Observation is used when The Master wants to see whether a character notices something subtle that is right in front of them, such as an enemy wearing a disguise or someone following them through a crowd. Factors that can affect an observation roll are similar to (but not identical to) those that affect perception rolls. Anything that distracts the character from paying careful attention to detail could cause a penalty (a higher challenge roll).
Divination functions as supernatural awareness. The divination skill can be rolled to sense the presence of sorcery in the area. More on this later.
Conflict
Conflict is handled by dividing time and space into discrete units. Time is measured in rounds, with each round being equal to about six seconds. Space is measured in yards (distance) or square yards (area).
Each round of conflict has three distinct phases: Initiative, Action, and Recovery.
Initiative
The first step in any round is to roll initiative. High initiatives act before low ones.
A character cannot use both physical and mental skills during the same round - he must concentrate on one or the other. Before rolling initiative, each character must decide whether to maneuver (take physical actions) or to concentrate (take mental actions). Characters who maneuver use their Quickness skills for initiative; those who concentrate use their Command skills.
Though characters must choose between maneuver and concentration, they need not detail their exact actions until their turn.
An important effect of this choice: those who chose to maneuever are unable to defy sorcerous attacks, while those who chose to concentrate are unable to defend against physical attacks.
Environmental factors (such as surprise) or minor actions (such as darting a few yards or drawing a weapon) may give bonuses or penalties to Initiative, at the whim of The Master.
Action
The next step is the action phase. Characters act in order of initiative. A character that is disabled before its turn gets no actions.
Some actions, such as drawing a weapon or shouting to a comrade, take little time and require no skill roll. Actions such as these are minor and should happen automatically.
Other actions do require a skill roll or take significant time; these are important. Characters are normally allowed one important action per round of conflict. More may be taken, for a price: one can double the number of actions taken for a cumulative -2 penalty to any skill rolls that round. In other words: one may take one action with no penalty, two actions at -2, four actions at -4, eight actions at -6, etc.
Example: Bob the Fighter has a Striking skill of 5 and a Defense skill of 6. He wishes to attack this round, but also to defend. For performing two actions, he has a -2 penalty to both skills for the round - his Striking becomes 3 and his defense becomes 4. If Bob had wished to make three attacks and defend, his skills would have had a -4 penalty to become 1 and 2.
Multiple minor actions might penalize initiative, but do not cause a loss of skill.
The number of actions a character will take is declared when it is his turn to act or when he is attacked before his initiative. Either event requires the number of actions to be known so that skill rolls can be adjusted, if necessary, for multiple-action penalties.
A character that is attacked before his turn may choose to take defensive action regardless of initiative. This can have one of two effects: if the defensive action needed is the same type of action that the character chose in the initiative phase - for example, the character decided to maneuver and is attacked by a swordsman - the character must declare the number of actions he will take and then make his defensive skill roll. He gets to act normally on his initiative.
If, on the other hand, the defensive action required is a different type of action than the character had planned - for example, the character decided to maneuver and is attacked by a sorcerer - the character must abort the rest of his turn to make a defensive action. That, or take the hit with no defensive roll.
Example: Bob the Fighter and Fred the Fighter are fighting with swords. Both combatants choose to manuever, so both roll Quickness for Initiative.Bob wins the Initiative. He decides to strike Fred once and defend himself at the same time. This gives him a -2 to all skill rolls.
Bob attacks Fred. Because Fred declared physical action during the initiative phase, he may defend himself against Bob's physical assault without sacrificing his turn. He decides to Defend and to attack once. Assuming he survives Bob's strike, he will get to strike back on his initiative.
Example: Bob the Fighter attacks Marco the Mad. Bob chooses to maneuver; Marco chooses to concentrate. Bob rolls Quickness for Initiative. Marco rolls Command.
Bob is more quick than Marco is commanding, so wins the Initiative and tries to swat Marco with his sword. Marco, fearing for his unarmored life, chooses to Defend. Because he had chosen to concentrate rather than manuever during the initiative phase, he must abort his sorcerous attack and any other actions for the round.
If Marco had won the Initiative, Bob might have had to abort his sword attack to defend himself from Marco's sorcery.
A character is not required to act on its initiative. One can wait to see what others (with lower initiatives) will do without penalty.
A waiting character may take its action at any time, even within the action of another character.
Example: Chuck the Barbarian sees Mace the Ugly on a hilltop across the battlefield. Chuck wins initiative, but waits to see what Mace will do.Mace charges. Chuck won the initiative, however, so he may choose to attack first after Mace has covered the distance between them - he was only waiting for his enemy to get close enough to strike. If Mace survives the attack, he may then take the rest of his action.
A waiting character may also hold action until the next round, in which case that character automatically wins initiative for that round without rolling. The character gets no extra actions, however.
The way in which defensive actions are handled has a dramatic effect on the flavor of the game. Whereas each attack is considered an action for purposes of multiple-action penalties, defensive actions (the use of Defense or Defiance) are not. If a character chooses Defense or Defiance as one of his actions, he may defend himself against any number of attacks.
A Master may opt to handle defensive actions differently. If The Master considers each defensive action to be important, then both heroes and villains will have a very difficult time defending themselves against more than one attacker. This is more realistic, but can be harsh. This option should be discussed with the players first.
Some actions may require more than one round to complete. If the character is injured during this time, the action fails.
Recovery
A character that takes no actions or damage during a round recovers one hit of Stamina.
Round Zero
Round zero marks the beginning of any conflict. Whoever acts first automatically gets the initiative regardless of skill. This usually applies to a single individual, but can apply to a group if the action is set to occur on a prearranged signal. After the initial round zero activity, conflict progresses to round 1 and participants roll initiative.
If the initiating individual or group has taken their opponents completely by surprise, then the opponents may take no actions at all on round zero - not even defensive ones. This simulates situations such as ambushes or knives thrown by hidden assassins.
Movement
Movement is considered an important action. Like defensive actions, however, multiple moves take only one action for purposes of skill penalties.
Falling prone is a free action; it gives no penalties.
The following are movement actions:
Standing from a prone position
Moving (10 + Athletics) yards on foot
Mounting or dismounting an animal
Riding an animal for one length of its movement rate *
Making a leap
A character may perform up to four of these during a single round.
Example: Fred the Swift is lying prone on a battlefield. He wishes to stand up, run sixteen yards, jump a trench, and attack a foe on the other side. Standing up counts as one movement action. Running sixteen yards counts as two movement actions (one for every ten yards or fraction thereof), and jumping is one more. These four movement actions combine to give Fred a -8 penalty to the Initiative of his attack. Because he has moved/defended and attacked (two major actions), he will have a -2 to all Strike and Defend rolls.
If the ground is not level, The Master may give a character bonuses or penalties to his movement, depending on whether the character is going uphill or downhill. If the terrain is especially treacherous, The Master may require an Acrobatics roll (on foot) or a Riding roll (mounted).
The above assumes that the character is relatively unencumbered (carrying less than 10% of his maximum weight). The rate of movement for a character is inversely proportional to the amount of weight the character is hauling (see Encumbrance in the previous chapter).
Individuals may sometimes need to jump over things. A character can perform a standing long jump for a number of yards equal to his Maximum lift / 50. A running start doubles the distance. Encumbrance lowers it at the same rate that it lowers running speed.
Characters may add their momentum from a charge to the damage of an attack. This works both ways, however - a charging character will take the same additional damage from any enemy melee weapon that hits him on that round. Momentum gives (and takes) +1 damage for every ten yards of movement.
Example: A brave knight charges a line of soldiers atop his mount. His lance does 14 damage (10 for the lance + 4 for Strength). The knight has moved 40 yards on horseback, however, so adds 4 for a total of 18.Unfortunately, the knight is hit by one of the braced spearmen, whose weapon gives him a damage of 11 (1 for Strength, 10 for the pike). Adding the knight's momentum to this to gives a total of 15. Good thing the knight is wearing his shining armor.
Combat movement is automatic. When finer detail is required - for races or chases - participants should roll Athletics. Each level of the Dos gains the victor one yard of distance.
* Mounts have better movement rates than humans. A horse can move from twenty to forty yards per movement action, depending on its athletics.
Range
The further away a target is, the harder it is to hit. Ranged attacks have challenge numbers based on distance (zero at point-blank range). Against an evading target, these numbers are added to the defensive roll.
Each ranged ability has an "increment" of a number of yards. The challenge is +1 for every increment between the attacker and the target.
Example: bows have a range increment of 10. If a target is within ten yards, the challenge number is zero. If a target is between ten and twenty yards, the challenge number is 1. Between twenty and thirty yards, it is 2. Targets will have these numbers added to their Defense scores (which are zero for fixed objects).
A range increment of zero means that the attacker must be within touching distance of the target.
| attack type | range increment |
|---|---|
| melee weapon | 0 |
| thrown weapon | 2 |
| missile weapon | 10 |
| sorcery type | range increment |
|---|---|
| Amelatu | 0 |
| Talamu | 0 |
| Nekelmu | 2 |
| Mahasu | 10 |
| Sabatu | 10 |
| Seheru | 10 |
Senses are also limited in range.
| sense | range increment |
|---|---|
| smell | 1 |
| hearing | 10 |
| vision | 100 |
| divination | 1000 * |
* The range limitation on divination is used to determine whether the diviner notices the use of sorcery in his immediate area. The prophetic aspects of divination have no limits.
The Waiting Game
This rule simulates scenes in books and movies in which two opponents stop and stare one another down, taking no actions, in the middle of a fight.
If two characters both decide to wait for the other to act and there are no other characters with actions left, then the action passes to the next round. If the characters involved have not acted or taken damage, they get to recover a hit of Stamina.
The waiting game can even involve more than two characters.
All characters involved in the waiting game get the initiative over characters who acted in the previous round. They roll initiative only against one another.
Haste
A character may choose to sacrifice accuracy for speed. A character who is determined to go first may add a bonus to his initiative roll, but that same number must be subtracted from all skill rolls that round. The maximum is 10. The decision to haste must be made before anyone rolls initiative.
Example: Two swordsmen are facing off in an honorable duel. Both come from a school that emphasizes aggressive attack at the expense of defense. Winning initiative is paramount.One of the swordsmen chooses to haste to insure that he gets to strike first. He decides to add a +6 bonus to his Quickness roll. All skill rolls suffer a -6 penalty for the round.
Push
A character may choose to sacrifice a hit of Stamina for a temporary boost of Strength and Willpower. Each hit expended will give the character +1 to both for a single round.
Example: A mighty warrior with a Strength of 5 is trying to hold open a massive door so his weaker friends can slip through. He trades 2 hits for 2 extra points of Strength, giving him a total strength of 7 for the round. At the end of four rounds of exertion, he is down 8 Stamina. He can continue this exertion until his stamina reaches zero, at which point he will collapse from exhaustion.Example: An insane wizard with a Willpower of 4 is trying to hold open open a massive portal to The Abyss so that one of the Great Old Ones can enter the world. He trades 6 points of Stamina for 6 extra points of Willpower, giving him a total of 10 for the round. At the end of the first round, he is down 6 hits. After four rounds of exertion, he is down 24 hits and falls to the ground unconscious.