Combat

Who Goes When

Combat takes place in Rounds, which are divided into Actions, which are ordered by Speed calls.

Rounds

Each Round begins with a Speed roll. At that point you may roll your Speed dice, and add any one skill. If you add a skill, that is the only skill you can add to ANY roll this Round-- unless you used Speed (3) skill, at which point you can use your skills normally. Everyone gets one Action per Round by default. If you do not roll Speed, that is your only action this Round. If you roll speed, you get an additional number of actions equal to Successes/3 (rounding). This means 2 successes gets you a second Action, 5 successes gets you a third Action, etc.

If all of the Actions in the Round resolve and the combat is still in progress, another Round begins. ("Speed rolls!")

Actions

Within each Action, the order of play is determined by your current Speed stat (including any buffs or disads); higher numbers go first. When your Speed number is called, you can take your action, or Hold for a later speed call if you want to wait for someone else to act.

Actions are resolved more or less simultaneously within a single Speed call.

At the bottom of the Action (Speed call 0), any Holds must be used, or they are lost.

Doing Things

During each Action you have both "diceless" and "diced" moves that you can take.

Diced and Diceless actions can be taken in any order.

Diceless

• Movement. The most common diceless action. You can move up to your Move stat in hexes (terrain may provide modifiers) as a diceless action.
• Simple / unresisted action. This could include drinking a potion, conveying significant information, reading the signs on the wall, etc.

Dice

In general, during each action you have one set of dice available for active rolls, that may be split any number of ways. The number of dice you have in the action is equal to the lowest substat you are rolling. So if you want to try to Fast Talk someone while swinging a sword at someone else, you would have the lower of your Charisma and Strength dice, which you would split betweem the two actions as you see fit. (If you added a skill other than Speed (3), you would only be able to use that one skill on the relevant dice.) You could, however, swing your sword at any number of people if they are within range, dividing your dice equally and applying your Sword skill to each roll.

Important things about Diced actions:

• Your one die pool is used for both offense and defense, so if you decide to use your dice to attack in your speed call, you won't be able to use them to block or dodge in later speed calls.
• If you have used your diceless action to Move, you can usually do a simple / unresisted action such as drinking a potion by using a few dice of the relevant stat.
• You can roll your Move dice and add Running or Athletics skill. This gives you an additional 2 hexes of movement per success.

Reactive Dice

Sometimes Charles will tell you to make a roll in response to something that is not directly related to what you are trying to do during your action, e.g.:

• "A Broken miracle occurs; everyone make a DI roll."
• "As you walk around this corner, make a Per roll."
• "Strange gas surrounds you; make a Con/Toughness check."

In general these are not considered active rolls, and so do not count towards your die pool. (Saying "I actively search for hidden things" would use your dice on a Per roll, however.)