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.)

Fighting

Named vs. Mooks

The most notable thing is that opponents are either Named or Mooks. Named characters have hit points, and you have to deal them enough damage if you want them unconscious or dead. Mooks have a number of successes, and the amount of damage you do doesn't matter; what matters is the number of successes you hit them with. So a spell that does 10 hit points / success is no more effective than a fist that does one hit point / success, assuming the same number of successes.

Mooks generally just die when you do them enough successes of damage.

Damage and Death

You can take the first 35 points of damage without worrying about it. After that, each time you take damage you have to make Con checks, with each success covering an additional 3 points of damage (so three successes would mean up to 44 points of damage could be ignored). When you have more damage than your Con check lets you soak, you fall down, unconscious and possibly dying, depending on how much you missed by.

• -1 to -10: You're unconscious. You'll wake up in a few hours with a headache. Someone with any healing skill can bring you around fairly quickly, out of combat. Magic (or miracles, or whatever) which gets you back to 35 or fewer wound points will wake you up immediately.
• -11 to -20: You're dying, but it'll take a while. Someone with any healing can try to keep you from dying. A healing skill roll keeps you from dying if they get (amount you're negative)/3 or better successes. Healing magic keeps you from dying if they get you back to 35 or fewer points of damage. If magic/miracles/etc. gets you less negative, but doesn't fully deal with the problem, healing skill can take up the slack.
• -21 to -30: You're dying, and it'll happen soon after the end of the combat. First Aid skill is no longer good enough to save you. Other healing skills can save you as above. Expect some sort of long term damage (broken arm, concussion, etc.), and if you want a cool scar, you can get one. Magic healing won't keep you from dying, but will make it easier for healers to save you. Miracles will keep you from dying, if they get you back to 35 or fewer points of damage. Other weirdshit methods of giving you hit points back will be special cased as necessary.
• -31 or worse: You're dead. Sorry. As a hero, however, you are entitled to a dramatic death scene. If you don't feel like this fight qualified, you can pretend not to be dead and tell me at the end of the run that you died. We'll figure out an appropriately dramatic exit for you in the next run.

Healing

Healing can come from several sources.

• A First Aid roll (Int with First Aid (3) or Medicine (5)) will heal 2 hit points / success of the damage you have taken. A subsequent First Aid roll with more successes will heal you up to that amount.
• Magical healing usually comes from Red (Blood) or Green (Potions). These will stack with each other and with First Aid, and the amount healed will depend on the spell cast.
• Divine healing can come from various sources. This will stack with First Aid and Magical healing of various sorts.

Notes

• It's theoretically possible to be knocked out and then woken up by more damage, if you blow a first Con check badly and then make a second one well. If that happens, you can stand up and join the fight again, but if you were dying, you're still dying.
• If you are taking damage from casting Red spells, keep track of that damage separately, as it is not healable by First Aid or Magical means.