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General Rules

Actions

Actions are the fundamental method by which players, through their creatures, interact with the fictional world.  Examples of Actions are lifting a heavy object off of a companion, eavesdropping on a conversation between an enemy and a rival, or attacking a monster to defend an innocent bystander. Really anything can be an Action. It is up to the Game Master, or GM, to determine any outcomes of the Action, whether successfully completed or not.

Before that though, the GM will determine if an Action requires adjudication through a Skill Check. If the task is trivially easy or if the consequences of failure are not great enough, then the GM should determine that no Skill Check is required. Otherwise a Skill Check is called for. Then the GM must determine a Difficulty for the Action.

Action Templates act a guide for setting the Difficulty of any Action. They start from a baseline Action, and describe how the Difficulty changes when aspects of that Action are changed. They are meant as a tool for GMs to empirically calculate the Difficulty of most Actions. If your table prefers a more ad hoc playstyle, then your GM may choose not to use them, or use them less often.

Skills

Skills represent groups of Actions (see Creature Creation for how to determine your creature's personal Skill levels). All Actions will fall into at least one Skill category. If the Action is particularly complex, e.g., assault a castle, then it should be broken down into smaller Actions that each fit into a single Skill category.

Note that each Skill has a particular die or set of dice associated with it. The Interactive Skill Sheet has a list of each of these.

Skill Checks

If the GM asks you to perform a Skill Check, simply roll the die or dice associated with the Skill for which the GM told you to roll, e.g., Stealth, and add any relevant Modifiers.  Then the GM will subtract from that total the Difficulty of the Action you are attempting.  A result greater than or equal to zero means you succeeded, and a negative result, failure.  The higher the result, the better the success, and the lower the result, the worse the failure.  A success or failure and degrees thereof means something different for each Action.  Degree of Success is thus defined as the difference between your roll and the Difficulty, i.e., Degree of Success = Roll - Difficulty.

There are two main types of Modifiers. The first type, and that which is always relevant is your Skill Modifier, which is specific to your creature/character.  Skill Modifiers are calculated automatically in the Interactive Skill Sheet when Character Points are assigned to one or more skills.  The second type, called Circumstantial Modifiers, will only be relevant in certain situations.  These can include a large variety of things: weapons, armor, cover, weather, terrain, etc.  Action Templates detail the most common Circumstantial Modifiers for each Action, but ultimately the GM determines the overall Circumstantial Modifier appropriate to each Action.  

The last component of a Skill Check is Difficulty.  Many things affect the Difficulty of a given Action.  The most common will be listed under each Action in Action Templates.  For example, hitting a 1-m target from 100 m away is far more difficult than from 10 m away.  The general rule is that for every doubling in some measure of the real-life challenge, it will result in a +10 modifier to the Difficulty.  Similarly, if something is easier, the Difficulty would be reduced, e.g., an Action that is twice as easy would have 10 taken off the Difficulty.

Generic Modifiers

Most often, one can use Action Templates to determine everything one needs to know to assess the Difficulty of an Action. However, the table below can be used to quickly estimate any arbitrary Modifier given a already known Difficulty. For example, if an Action is roughly 50% harder, then the Difficulty would increase from its previous value to 6 more. To be even more explicit, suppose the Difficulty of lifting a weight of 10 kg is 10; then the Difficulty of lifting a weight of 15 kg would be 16. The scale was chosen such that a change of +1 represents the smallest change worth tracking. So, GMs should ignore changes smaller than 7%.

Percent Harder Difficulty change
7% +1
15% +2
23% +3
32% +4
41% +5
52% +6
62% +7
74% +8
87% +9
100% +10

General Difficulty

While not a common occurrence, sometimes the GM will need to determine a Difficulty for an Action that has no template (or if your table has decided not to use them). In such cases, the general rule is that a Difficulty of 10 represents something that a commoner, or the average person, can accomplish about half the time under normal circumstances.

Action Points

Action Points (AP) are a way of keeping time in a turn-based system, effectively making time a resource that creatures can spend.  The conversion from AP to real time is 2 AP per second.  Every round, each creature will receive 8 AP.  Any Action has a minimum of 1 AP, regardless of its base AP.  On their turn, they can choose to spend their AP, or they can save their AP for things like dodging or blocking that occur on someone else’s turn.  You may reserve as many AP as you want to react. However, if you do not use them, all but 4 (TBD) of these AP will be lost at the start of your next turn.  These reserved AP may only be used for reactive actions like Dodge, Block, or Move.  These Actions do not count as Deferred Actions (see below).

Example of Action Point usage with carry-over:

  • everybody has 8 AP at start of combat

  • wolf 1 attacks human - 4 AP; human defends - 1 AP; wolf 1 reserves 4 AP

  • wolf 2 attacks human - 4 AP; human defends - 1 AP; wolf 2 reserves 4 AP

  • human attacks wolf 4 AP; wolf 1 defends - 4 AP; Human reserves 4 AP; wolf 1 now has no reserved AP

  • wolf 1 gets 8 AP, carries over 0

  • wolf 1 attacks - 4 AP; human defends - 1 AP

  • wolf 2 gets 8 AP, carries over 2

  • wolf 2 attacks twice at 4 AP each; human defends twice at 0.5 AP each

  • human gets 8 AP; carries over 0

Action Point Bonus

Each Action has an associated base AP value, but that base value may be modified for either a benefit or a penalty, depending on whether the new value is higher or lower than the base value, respectively (see the table below).

AP/base AP Bonus
1/8 -70
1/4 -30
1/2 -10
3/4 -3
1 0
2 5
3 7
4 8
8 9

Note that trying to speed up or slow down an Action by more than a factor of 8 does nothing, i.e., a positive bonus of 9 is the maximum that can be achieved and a negative bonus (penalty) of 70 is the minimum.

Deferred Actions

Sometimes, you will want to take an Action but not during your turn. For example, all of your potential targets could be hiding behind cover or you might not know which of the targets is hostile, if any. In these cases, instead of spending Action Points (AP) immediately during your turn, you can instead allocate AP towards an Action, or a Deferred Action, that will occur during another creature’s turn and that is not Dodge, Block, or Move. To do so, you must specify the type of Deferred Action (see below) and a Facing Direction (or simply “Facing”---see below). You gain the Lined Up and Focusing statuses. If something causes you to lose either of those statuses before you take your Deferred Action, there is a chance the Deferred Action is lost. 

There are two types of Deferred Actions. An Overwatch Action can take place at any point before your next turn, can be against any target within your field-of-view (determined by your Facing), and can be done with anything in hand; however, there is a -12 modifier for performing the Action.  A Held Action is a Deferred Action with several things declared when the Action is taken: the Action itself, a specific target, and a triggering event. This triggering event could be “if anybody draws a weapon” or “if anyone attacks me.”  A Held Action conveys a -3 modifier on the triggered Action.

Example of AP usage with Deferred Action:

  • archer has 8 AP

  • archer allocates 4 AP for interrupt attack on target X

  • archer saves 4 AP for defense when not his turn

  • 12 AP at start of next turn

  • 4 AP to shoot target X

  • 4 AP allocated for interrupt attacks

  • 4 AP saved for defense

Facing

In most circumstances, the direction your character is facing is not important. However, there are a few occasions on which the Facing Direction, or simply “Facing,” of a creature is important. Two of these situations are for Stealth and Deferred Actions. There are 6 Facings, 4 of which are aligned with the 4 cardinal directions, North, South, East, and West; the last two are Up and Down.  When taking a Deferred Action, you must select one of these directions to Face. The Deferred Action can only be taken against targets inside the hemisphere centered on that Face. For Stealth, the Facing of a target determines how difficult the Stealth attempt will be. Trying to sneak up on somebody from the front is much harder than trying to sneak up on them from the rear!

Statuses

Lined Up

Important when holding a Deferred Action.  It can be disrupted by using Action Points for anything besides what is causing Lined Up or by taking damage.

Focusing

Performing any Action temporarily puts one in a Focusing state, including ones that require more AP than you currently have. If you spend enough AP to complete the action on your turn, the focusing status goes away once the AP are spent. If you do not spend enough AP to complete the action on your turn, the focusing status remains until you spend the rest of the AP to complete the action on your next turn. If something attempts to disturb your Focus, for instance, taking damage, you must make a Mettle skill roll.  Failing a Mettle check doesn’t necessarily mean you fail the Action you were Focusing on; it merely adds a penalty to the Action depending on how badly you failed it (see [Generic_MOD]).  Base DC of sword swing and bow shot are different---shooting a bow is much harder, so taking the same amount of damage should have a relatively greater effect on the bow shot.

Moving

Under normal circumstances, a target’s motion is encapsulated in its attempt to dodge. However, in some specific scenarios, a target may not be dodging but may still be moving quickly.  This scenario is relevant to being targeted by an archer (see Archery). If you moved, i.e., took a move action, in the last round, you have the Moving condition.

Blood

Blood is the essence of your creature’s life, in many cases literal Blood, but not necessarily.  When you take physical damage, you reduce your Blood.  If your Blood is reduced to 0, your creature is dead.  Other effects happen at different fractions of your maximum Blood (see [Wound Effects]).  Blood is determined by your Creature’s Size (see [Creature Sizes]).

Certain Actions or Actions done in a certain way might require your creature to spend some of your body’s energy reserves, captured by three different pools, Wind, Stamina, and Health/Blood.  See [Action Templates] for how much Wind and/or Stamina.

Wind is the smallest pool and comes back the most quickly.  The average person has a maximum Wind of 2500.  It comes back by taking a “breather.” A breather is a period of time at least 1 minute in duration when you are not using wind. At the end of a breather, one recovers 20% of their maximum wind. As an example, jogging requires 1 Wind per AP and 5 stamina per AP.  Movement at higher speeds requires a lot more Wind per AP and more Stamina per AP (see [Running Distances]). Being unable to breathe for any reason causes 2,500 wind damage per minute the condition persists.  When Wind runs out and you still take Wind damage(e.g., asphyxiation or drowning), it goes instead to Health/Blood.

Your maximum Wind is determined by your Fitness Skill Modifier.  It is calculated automatically on the Interactive Sheet. 

Stamina is the next largest pool and comes back the next most quickly.  The average person has a maximum Stamina 40,000. Stamina is recovered by taking a short rest. A short rest is a period of time at least 10 minutes in duration during which you are not using any stamina. At the end of the short rest, you recover 10% of your maximum stamina.

Your maximum Stamina is determined by your Fitness Skill Modifier.  It is calculated automatically on the Interactive Sheet. 

While wearing armor, your Stamina for all actions increases by a factor (TBD).

*** CHANGE TO “LEVELS” SYSTEM.  ***

Health/Blood is the longest term form of energy, which your creature uses to keep itself alive.  The average human female’s maximum Health/Blood is 20,000; see [Creature Sizes] for others.  If your creature’s Health reaches 0, your creature dies.  If your creature does not receive enough sleep, food, or water, your creature takes Health/Blood damage for each day the condition persists (see [Health Damage]).  

The recovery of Health/Blood occurs after a long rest, which, if this includes 8 hours* of sleep, and if you received sufficient food and water over the course of the day, you recover an amount determined by a Hardiness roll, with penalties applied according to [Wounded Penalties].  This means that the roll can be so bad as to actually reduce Health/Blood rather than increase it. This would indicate that the wounds or damage are too severe for the body to heal on its own and medical intervention such as that provided by the tend wounds action is required to heal.

*Note that you cannot begin to recover Health/Blood until Wind and Stamina are both full.

Damage and Unconsciousness

Ways to fall unconscious: 

-Brain trauma (concussion) — directly attacks H/B pool (50%)

-Not enough oxygen in the brain

-Not enough blood in the body (50%) - results from low H/B pool

-Dehydration or lack of nutrition - out of stamina

-asphyxiation - out of wind 

Out of wind, unconscious

Out of stamina, unconscious

H/B <50%, unconscious

Still to deal with micro-unconsciousness (short duration concussions) 

deal with through loss of wind and small loss of H/B.

bleeding

Stamina damage spills over to Health/Blood if you go negative, e.g., forced labor or “knocking someone out.”  

Ideas: “Focus” pool — controls concentration and consciousness due to brain trauma

Does hardiness affect health regen rate?

What if you get 4 hours of sleep?

What if you get water, but no food, or vice versa?

Rests:

Short Rest (10 minute), restores all Wind from the Stamina pool.

Medium Rest (1 hour), restores all Stamina from the Health pool.

Long Rest (8 hours), restores ¼ of your creature’s Maximum Health if your creature had sufficient food, sleep, and water.

For tables: only keep track of modifiers to greater than ⅓ of a standard deviation of the dice roll (or +1, whichever is larger).

Aggregate multiple attempts using TBD bonuses (diminishing returns like time)?

***somebody in melee with you penalty?

***moving backwards requires double AP cost.

***same penalty as using a halberd?

Sometimes, no single skill in the skill list completely captures the skill required for an action. Rather, the action requires a combination of skills in the skill list. Examples of this might include a game of poker, which would involve social interaction, perception, and reasoning skills. Rock climbing is a combination of Brawn and acrobatics. In other cases, there may be multiple ways to complete an action that utilize different skills. The action templates describe which skills are used for this action and whether the player chooses a skill to test or tests both skills. However, not every action imaginable is captured in an action template. Poker, for example, is not an action captured in a template. In these cases, the GM can create an action template before a session or, if the action is encountered unexpectedly, define the action template live by asking the players to roll certain skills in their list or choose one of a group of skills to roll to test the success of the action.

For Skills that must be combinations of other Skills, the rule is that you must succeed on both (or all, if more than two), but you will be given a +X to all rolls.  X depends on which skill it is.  The idea is that the X is determined by the factor decrease of having to roll both…

Grappling:

Subdue action: This is achieved by making an unarmed attack on your opponent opposed by their defensive action. They can oppose with either the dodge or parry action. The consequence of success is the level of penalty imposed on physical action the subdued creature attempts. The level of consequence needs to be compared to damage to make sure it isn’t OP.

Escape action: If you have the subdued condition with any penalty, you can attempt to break out of a subdue on you by testing your dodge or parry skill.  This is opposed by the subduer’s unarmed attack action if they wish to maintain the subdual.  Success reduces the subdued penalty by an amount determined by the consequence. This can not provide a positive subdual modifier.

Permanent Injury:

Group Checks:

Sometimes characters will need to act as a group to accomplish a task. Generally, these types of checks fall into one of three categories. The first group are checks where the characters combine their skills to attempt a skill test. In these cases, one roll is made for the group by the character with the highest modifier with bonus determined by the skill modifiers of the others in the group. The table below shows the modifier bonus for a pair of actors where delta is the difference between their skill modifiers. For larger groups, add individuals one at a time using the new modifier as the top skill for each successive iteration. If done correctly, this should mean that every doubling of the number of actors should increase the modifier by about 12 assuming they are all equally skilled to begin with.

The second type of group skill check is the type where if one of them fails, they all fail. Stealth can be an example of this type of check. In this case, every individual in the group rolls against the DC. To succeed at the check, all of them must succeed.

The third type of group skill check is the type where only one needs to succeed for the group to succeed. Searching can be an example of this type of check. In this case, every individual in the group rolls against the DC. To succeed at the check, only one must succeed.

Which type of check is called for in a given situation is adjudicated by the GM. Also, the number of individuals that can effectively contribute to the group check is determined by the GM.

Flanking as a bonus for attackers?

In a given combat round, each subsequent defensive action against a different attacker accrues a -X penalty to parry/block/dodge. This penalty resets to zero at the start of your turn.

How to deal with massed combat? You need to be aware of an attacker to dodge/parry, but can you be aware of an attacker when there are 100 hundred archers firing at your unit of 100 men? You can’t tell what to dodge, and dodging might end up putting you in the path of another arrow. In that case, the only thing to do is to take cover (under a shield if you have one). Mechanics currently doesn’t reflect this.

Conditions

Attention (X): -X to parry/dodge/block attempts where X is the number of attackers you wish to be able to parry/block/dodge this round -1.

Flanked (X): 2 or more enemies whose lines-of-sight to you are 90 degrees or more apart inflict the flanked condition on a creature. This applies a -X penalty to parry/dodge/block attempts where X becomes 1 at 90 degrees apart, 2 for 135 degrees apart, and 3 for 180 degrees apart, 4 for 225 degrees apart, 5 for 270 degrees apart, 6 for 315 degrees apart.

Defense prep (Noticing) action happens on your turn (attention determined here)

The actual defensive action happens when attacked. (flanked determined here; attention and flanked applied here) Can only defend against targets that you have marked for attention.

Two examples are considered. One is the situation with a large number of potential attackers on a battlefield. There is a cost to attempting to track all of them at once that needs to be accounted for, and if you aren’t paying attention to them, you can’t dodge them if they attack you. Thus, some element of defending against a creature must be done on your turn before the creature decides if it is going to attack you or one of your companions.

The other case is the wolf pack scenario where multiple attackers are bringing down a more powerful foe. In this case, they all prepare to defend, but, when the creature swings at one of them, the others strike. If they have to prepare their whole defense beforehand, there is no benefit to the wolf pack and they can’t strike when his back is turned because they spent their AP preparing to defend because they didn’t know who it would attack.

Thus, we conclude that some element must be done on the player’s turn to satisfy the first edge case, and some element must be reactive to satisfy the second edge case.

Prone: -24 to movement skill, ranged attackers will suffer the larger of -24 or their normal arcing penalty on the attack.

Subdued (X) condition: If a subdued creature tries to move, it has to drag the subduer with it.  The subdued creature’s speed is reduced by an amount determined by the difference in their Creature Sizes as shown in table Y. In addition, the subdued creature suffers a negative X penalty on all actions involving physical movement. To be clear, -X penalty applies to the subdued creatures movement speed before it is reduced by the amount shown in table Y.

Injured (X)

Ill (X)

Tired (X)

Winded (X)

Encumbrance:

Being encumbered can affect each action you attempt, depending on the action. The description of each action includes an encumbrance fraction that varies from 0 to 1. The modifier to that action is then computed as Encumbrance Modifier = (Encumbrance fraction)*(Encumbrance), where Encumbrance is the number located next to the mass of equipment you are carrying on your character sheet (there is also a table called [Encumbrance] as an example).  

Effective Weapon Properties

At several points in the rules, we will refer to the Effective Weapon Damage (EWD), Effective Weapon to-Hit (EWH) bonus, or the Effective Weapon to-Parry (EWP) bonus. What these values are depends on two things: 1) the weapon’s intrinsic Damage (ID), Hit (IH), and Parry (IP) modifiers and 2) the Brawn Skill (BS) and Weapon Skill (WS) of the creature wielding it.  

Every weapon has another property, called Brawn Required to wield (BR). When a creature with a different brawn than this wields this weapon, the EWD, EWH, and EWP are modified to reflect the creature’s overabundance or dearth of brawn.  Specifically, the difference between a creature’s BS and their BS is what determines the modifier: see [Effective Weapon Properties].  Note that each property (damage, hit, and parry) depends slightly differently on this difference, and hence the three separate modifiers fD, fH, and fP.

The effective weapon properties are thus:

EWD = ID + fD(BS-BR)

EWH = WS + IH + fH(BS-BR)

EWP = WS + IP + fP(BS-BR)

A list of weapon examples (for BS=0 creatures), including their ID, IH, IP, and BR, can be found in [Weapons].

3 classes of weapon:

-Crossbow-like: only care about having enough BR

-Melee-like (including thrown): harsh penalties for not having enough BR, flat into linear “returns” for excess BR

(⅔. ⅓, 

-Bow-like: similar to melee, but caps out in the middle