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 traits in conflict with opposing forces.
Perception
Perception is an important trait.
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.
Perception is also 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. Anything that distracts the character from paying careful attention to detail could cause a penalty (a higher challenge roll).
Mysticism functions as supernatural perception. 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 six seconds in duration.
Space is measured in spaces; each space is an area two yards/meters across.
Each round of conflict has three stages:
Initiative
At the beginning of each round, characters roll Quickness to determine initiative. High initiatives act before low ones.
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 trait 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 single space, and the like; these take little time and require no trait 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 trait roll or take significant time; these are important. Characters may take two important actions per round of conflict. A character can move and attack, attack and move, move twice, attack twice, pick a lock and move through the door, jump off a ledge and tackle someone, move and cast a spell, cast two spells, etc.
Some actions may require more than one round to complete. If the character is injured during this time, the action fails.
Recovery
A character who rests for a round recovers one hit of Stamina.
Resting characters take no actions, not even defensive ones. Defense and Defiance are reduced to zero. If the character takes damage or is forced to act, he gets no recovery.
Round Zero
Round zero marks the beginning of any conflict. Whoever acts first automatically gets the initiative regardless of Quickness. 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 may move a single space per round without using an action (but suffering -2 Initiative). Characters can move [10 + Athletics] spaces per action. The character's armor value is subtracted from this.
Other moves - standing from a prone position, mounting an animal, making a leap, etc - take one action.
A mounted character uses the mount's movement 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.
If the ground is not level, The Master may give a character bonuses or penalties to his movement. If the terrain is treacherous, The Master may require an Athletics or 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. The Master should require an Athletics roll based on the distance - two challenge levels per space on average.
Charging characters may add their momentum 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 four 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 28 spaces on horseback, however, so adds 7 for a total of 21.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 20. 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.
Advanced Options
The following rules exist for those who want more tactical flavor in combat.
Extra Time
A character can sacrifice an action for a +2 bonus to one trait for the round.
This leads to a number of combat maneuvers.
One action:
Et cetera.
The Master may allow players to divide their bonus among multiple traits. A character facing both swords and sorcery may want +1 Defense and +1 Defiance instead of +2 to one or the other.
A character attacked before his Initiative may sacrifice actions for bonuses in response to the attack (before the dice are rolled).
Wait
A character is not required to act on his initiative. He can wait to see what others with lower initiatives will do.
A waiting character may take its action at any time, even within the action of another character.
Example: Juk the Barbarian sees Mace the Ugly on a hilltop across the battlefield. Juk wins initiative, but waits to see what Mace will do.Mace charges. Juk 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 gets +10 to initiative for that round. He gets no extra actions, however.
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. This can even involve more than two characters.
All characters involved in the waiting game get the initiative bonus over characters who acted in the previous round.
Haste
A character may choose to sacrifice accuracy for speed. A character who is determined to go first may add +2 to his initiative roll, but that same number must be subtracted from all trait rolls that round. 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 +2 bonus to his Quickness roll. All other trait rolls suffer a -2 penalty for the round.
Push
A character may choose to sacrifice a hit or two of Stamina for a temporary trait boost.
One hit of Stamina gives the character +1 to one trait for a single round. Two hits of Stamina can give +2 to one trait or +1 to two traits.
The decision to push must be made when the character reaches his initiative or uses a desperate defense. Characters can't wait until they've been hit to push their Constitution or Willpower.
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.