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).
Mysticism functions as supernatural awareness. It can be rolled to sense the presence of sorcery. More on this later.
Conflict
Conflict is handled by dividing time and space into discrete units. Time is measured in rounds; each round is about six seconds in duration. Space is measured in spaces; each space is an area two yards/meters across.
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 focus on one or the other. Before rolling initiative, each character must decide whether to maneuver (take physical actions) or concentrate (take mental actions). Those who maneuver use their Quickness skills for initiative; those who concentrate use Command.
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.
Though characters must choose between maneuver and concentration, they need not detail their exact actions until their turn.
Environmental factors (such as surprise) or minor actions (such as darting a single space or drawing a weapon) may give bonuses or penalties to Initiative, at the whim of The Master.
Any skill bonuses or penalties that result from a character's actions last until the character's next turn - i.e., the character's initiative on the next round.
Action
The next step is the action phase. Characters take their turns in order of initiative. A character disabled before his turn gets no actions.
Some actions are free. Drawing a weapon, shouting to a comrade, moving a few paces, and the like; these take little time and require no skill roll. If such actions must be done before more important ones, the character might have a penalty to Initiative (-2 or so per minor act).
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 perform up to four actions on a single round for a penalty to all skill rolls that round. The penalty is equal to the number of actions taken:
| Actions | Penalty |
|---|---|
| 1 | 0 |
| 2 | -2 |
| 3 | -3 |
| 4 | -4 |
This penalty applies immediately. One who has acted once in a round may decide to take another action later, but this action, and every subsequent skill roll (including passive ones such as Defense or Perception), suffers a -2 skill penalty until the character's initiative next round.
Example: Bob the Fighter has a Striking skill of 5 and a Defense skill of 6. He wishes to attack twice this round. For performing two actions, he has a -2 penalty to all skills for the round - his Striking becomes 3, his defense becomes 4. If Bob wishes to make four attacks, his skills will be lowered to 1 and 2. He will also be at -4 Perception.
Those who opt to take no actions on a round get a +4 bonus to all passive skill rolls they are forced to make. For those who maneuver, this means +4 to Defense and Perception; for those who concentrate, it's +4 to Defiance, Observation, and Mysticism.
A character can choose to focus his energies on one skill to the detriment of others. Doing so gives a +1 or +2 (the player's choice) to that skill for the round, but a corresponding -1 or -2 penalty to all other skills. This is only for active characters; it cannot be combined with the passive skill bonus above.
A character that is attacked before his turn may take defensive actions. 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 makes a defensive roll with any bonuses or penalties due to actions on his previous turn. He then gets to act 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 take 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. Bob attacks Fred.
Because Fred decided to maneuver during the initiative phase, he may defend himself against Bob's physical assault without sacrificing his turn. 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 his initiative. He 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. He gets no extra actions, however.
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
Characters have [10 + Athletics] moves per round. Movement must take place before other actions.
Moving one space over stable ground takes one move. Treacherous ground may take more moves per space or may require an Acrobatics roll.
Other movement actions - standing from a prone position, mounting an animal, making a leap, etc - normally take 5 moves or so. Circumstances may make them take more or less.
A mounted character uses the mount's moves in place of his own. Horses and such generally have twice as many moves as a humanoid (or more).
Falling prone is a free action; it takes no moves.
If the ground is not level, The Master may give a character bonuses or penalties to his movement, depending on whether he 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 spaces equal to his Maximum lift / 100. 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 five spaces 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 30 spaces on horseback, however, so adds 6 for a total of 20.Unfortunately, the knight is hit by one of the braced spearmen, whose weapon gives him a damage of 13 (1 for Strength, 12 for the pike). Adding the knight's momentum to this to gives a total of 19. 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 space of distance.
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 spaces. The challenge is +1 for every increment between the attacker and the target.
Example: bows have a range increment of 5. If a target is within five spaces, the challenge number is zero. If a target is between five and ten spaces, the challenge number is 1. Between ten and and fifteen spaces, it is 2. Targets will have these numbers added to their Defense scores (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 | 1 |
| missile weapon | 5 |
| sorcery type | range increment |
|---|---|
| Amelatu | 0 |
| Talamu | 0 |
| Nekelmu | 1 |
| Mahasu | 5 |
| Sabatu | 5 |
| Seheru | 5 |
Senses are also limited in range.
| sense | range increment |
|---|---|
| smell | 1 |
| hearing | 5 |
| vision | 10 |
| mysticism | 1000 * |
* The range limitation on mysticism is used to determine whether the mystic notices the use of sorcery in his immediate area. The prophetic aspects of mysticism 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.