Combat time is cyclical: everybody acts in sequence in a regular cycle of Phases. Every character can perform one or more Actions in each Phase, doing so in an order determined by an initial Initiative Roll. Each Phase is 3 seconds long. 4 Phases make up 1 Turn of 12 seconds. After every Phase 4, before the next Turn begins, there is a "Post-Turn" period which takes no time. At this time most characters automatically get to Take a Recovery.
Combat always follows a set sequence.
At the start of a battle, each character has an Initiative score equal to their Combat Value (plus their Lightning Reflexes modifier if they have one). If two or more characters have the same Initiative score, the characters who are tied randomly determine which one of them goes before the other. Characters act in order, counting down from highest result to lowest. In every phase that follows, the characters act in the same order (unless a character takes an action that results in their initiative score changing; see Special Initiative Actions).
Even if you can't take actions (for example, because you're unconscious or paralysed), you retain your Initiative score for the duration of the combat.
When a combat starts, if you are not aware of your opponents and they are aware of you, you're surprised. Sometimes all the characters on a side are aware of their opponents, sometimes none are, and sometimes only some of them are. Sometimes a few characters on each side are aware and the other characters on each side are unaware. Determining awareness may call for Perception rolls.
If some but not all of the characters are aware of their opponents, a Surprise Phase happens before regular phases begin. Any characters aware of the opponents can act in the Surprise Phase. In Initiative order (highest to lowest), characters who started the battle aware of their opponents each take an attack action or a move action during the Surprise Phase. You can also take free actions during the Surprise Phase. If no one or everyone is surprised, no Surprise Phase occurs. Characters who are unaware at the start of battle don't get to act in the Surprise Phase and have a -3 DCV penalty during that Phase.
An Attack Roll is made whenever a character attempts to hit another character. The attacker rolls 3d6 and adds their OCV (including modifiers such as combat levels). The target number is 10 plus the defender's DCV (including modifiers such as being Stunned or underwater).
Sometimes a character in a melee lets their guard down. In this case, characters nearby can take advantage of their lapse in defense to attack for free. These free attacks are called attacks of opportunity.
You threaten all hexes into which you can make a melee attack, even when it is not your action. Most characters have a reach of 1 hex, and can make melee attacks against characters up to 1 hex away, while characters with Growth or Stretching have more reach, and thus threaten more hexes. An enemy that takes certain actions while in a threatened hex provokes an attack of opportunity from you.
Two kinds of actions can provoke attacks of opportunity: moving out of a threatened hex and performing an action within a threatened hex that distracts them from combat.
Moving out of a threatened hex usually provokes an attack of opportunity from the threatening character. There are two common methods of avoiding such an attack: the 1-hex step and the withdraw action.
Some actions, when performed in a threatened hex, provoke attacks of opportunity because they divert your attention from the battle. Using many skills in combat provokes attacks of opportunity. However, remember that even actions that normally provoke attacks of opportunity may have exceptions to this rule.
An attack of opportunity is a single melee attack, and you can only make one per Phase. You don't have to make an attack of opportunity if you don't want to, and you cannot make an attack of opportunity if you have used the dodge manoeuvre. You make your attack of opportunity with any manoeuvre that requires an attack roll: you don't have to use the same manoeuvre that you used on your Initiative score. As with any other circumstance in which you use multiple attack manoeuvres in a round, you use the worst OCV and DCV bonus, while all OCV and DCV penalties stack.
An attack of opportunity "interrupts" the normal flow of actions in the Phase. If an attack of opportunity is provoked, immediately resolve the attack of opportunity, then complete the current action (if the attack of opportunity was provoked in the middle of a character's action) or continue with the next character's action.
If you have the Combat Reflexes skill you can make more than one attack of opportunity in each Phase. This does not let you make more than one attack for a given opportunity, but if the same opponent provokes two attacks of opportunity from you, you could make two separate attacks of opportunity (since each one represents a different opportunity). Moving out of more than one hex threatened by the same opponent in the same Phase doesn't count as more than one opportunity for that opponent.
An action's type tells you how long the action takes to perform (within the framework of the 3-second combat Phase) and how movement is treated. There are four types of actions: attack actions, move actions, full-phase actions, and free actions.
In a normal Phase, you can perform an attack action and a move action, two move actions, or a full-phase action. You can also perform one or more free actions. You can always take a move action in place of an attack action. In some situations (most commonly in a Surprise Phase), you may be limited to taking only a single move action or attack action.
In some situations, you may be unable to take a full phase's worth of actions. In such cases, you are restricted to taking only a single attack action or a single move action (plus free actions as normal). You can't take a full-phase action (though you can start or complete a full-phase action by using a move action; see below).
|
Manoeuvre |
Attack of Opportunity? |
|
Attack Actions |
|
|
Block |
No |
|
Disarm |
No |
|
Dodge |
No |
|
Grab |
No |
|
Haymaker |
No |
|
Missile Deflection |
No |
|
Roll With A Punch |
No |
|
Strike |
No |
| Other Attacks | No |
| Move Actions | |
| Move up to half of combat movement | Yes (skill check negates) |
| Crawl one hex | Yes (skill check negates) |
| Draw or sheathe a focus | Yes (skill check negates) |
| Stand up from prone | Yes (skill check negates) |
| Mount or dismount a horse | Yes (skill check negates) |
| Reload a gun | Yes (skill check negates) |
| Use a skill that requires a move action | Usually (varies) |
| Start or complete a full-phase action | Usually (varies) |
| Analyse an opponent's weaknesses | No |
| Attempt to use a non-targeting sense to perceive an enemy | No |
| Resist Knockback | No |
| Open or close a door | No |
| Move a heavy object | Yes |
| Pick up an item | Yes |
| Full-Phase Actions | |
| Move more than half and up to all of combat movement | Yes (skill check negates) |
| Move at non-combat speed | Yes |
| Use a skill that requires a full-phase action | Usually (varies) |
| Retrieve or stow a stored focus | Yes |
| Change clothes | Yes |
| Move By an opponent | No |
| Move Through an opponent | No |
| Rapid Fire at multiple opponents | No |
| Sweep multiple opponents | No |
| Withdraw from combat | No |
| Recover from being Stunned | No |
| Take a Recovery | No |
| Free Actions | |
| Brace for Accuracy | No |
| Shift a Multipower | No |
| Make a Soliloquy | No |
| Make a Presence Attack | No |
| Turn a Power On or Off | No |
| Use Casual Strength | No |
| Drop an item | No |
| Drop prone | No |
| Not An Action | |
| Delay | No |
| 1-Hex Step | No |
You can strike any adjacent opponent with a melee attack. You can fire at any target that is within the attack's maximum range and in line of sight with a ranged attack.
A full-phase action requires an entire phase to complete. Thus, it can't be coupled with an attack or a move action, though you can take a 1-hex step if it doesn't involve moving any distance.
Free actions don't take any time at all, though there may be limits to the number of free actions you can perform in a turn. Free actions never incur attacks of opportunity.
You can move 1 hex in any Phase when you don't perform any other kind of movement. Taking this 1-hex step never provokes an attack of opportunity. You can't take more than one 1-hex step in a Phase, and you can't take a 1-hex step in the same Phase when you move any distance.
You can take a 1-hex step before, during, or after your other actions in the Phase. You can only take a 1-hex step if your movement isn't hampered by difficult terrain or darkness. Any character with a total movement of 1 hex or less can't take a 1-hex step, since moving even 1 hex requires a move action for such a slow character.
There are two ways to change when you act during combat by altering your place in the initiative order: delaying or readying. There is one way to take a defensive action before it is your place in the initiative order: aborting.
By choosing to delay, you take no action on your own Initiative score and wait to act later in the Initiative sequence. You can specify your new place in the sequence (for example, "immediately before Captain Comet's action") or just wait until some time later and act then, thus fixing your new initiative score at that point. You can't interrupt anyone else's action, as you can with a readied action.
Initiative Consequences of Delaying: Your Initiative changes to when you took the delayed action. If you come to your next action and have not yet performed an action, you don't get to take a delayed action (though you can delay again). If you take a delayed action in the next Phase, before your regular action comes up, your initiative score rises to that new point in the order of actions, and you do not get your regular action that Phase.
The ready action lets you prepare to take an action later, after your turn is over but before your next one has begun. Readying is an attack action. It does not provoke an attack of opportunity (though the action that you ready might do so).
You can ready an attack action, a move action, or a free action. To do so, specify the action you will take and the conditions under which you will take it. Then, any time before your next action, you may take the readied action in response to that condition. The action occurs just before the action that triggers it. If the triggered action is part of another character's activities, you interrupt the other character. Assuming he is still capable of doing so, he continues his actions once you complete your readied action. Your Initiative score changes: for the rest of the encounter, your Initiative is when you took the readied action, and you act immediately ahead of the character whose action triggered your readied action.
You can take a 1-hex step as part of your readied action, but only if you don't otherwise move any distance during the Phase.
Initiative Consequences of Readying: Your Initiative changes to when you took the readied action. If you come to your next action and have not yet performed your readied action, you don't get to take the readied action (though you can ready the same action again). If you take your readied action in the next Phase, before your regular turn comes up, your initiative score rises to that new point in the order of actions, and you do not get your regular action that Phase.
You can abort to any defensive attack or move action before your initiative value comes up in a Phase, giving up your next Action to do so. You can also abort to a defensive action after acting on your initiative score earlier in a Phase, but doing so gives up your Action from the following Phase.
Initiative Consequences of Aborting: Your Initiative does not change. If you aborted your action from the following Phase, you do not get to act on your Initiative in that Phase, and you cannot Abort your next action until after your Initiative in the following Phase.