Initiative
Combat order is usually based on marching order and who takes or cedes initiative. See Initiative for the full sequence.Actions in Combat
On your turn, you can:
- use one Primary Action
- use one Move Action
- spend your Reaction, if you wish
- take reasonable Free Actions
Making Attacks
Roll D20 plus relevant modifiers. You are trying to reach a total of 16.
Roll to hit and damage at the same time to speed combat. The defender may then attempt to deflect, then reduce damage with armour if appropriate.
Success Threshold
- Total 16+: Hit
- Exact number needed on the die: Critical hit. Bypasses armour and deflects unless the defender critically deflects.
- Natural 1: Critical miss. Make SDF check and consult the critical miss result if failed.
- Natural 20: Telling blow. Add D3 damage, or forgo that and reroll weapon damage, taking the second result.
Deflection
When struck, the target can make a Deflect attempt:
- Base deflection target starts at 20 (very hard)
- Success: No damage (or half damage vs large opponents)
- Failure: Take full damage, reduced by Armour Rating (AR)
- Critical hits cannot be deflected except by a critical deflect.
Armour and Damage
- AR (Armour Rating): Reduces damage taken (typically 1-3 points)
- AP (Armour Penetration): Reduces effectiveness of target's armour
- Different weapon types are more/less effective against different armour types
Health and Wounds
When you take damage, subtract armour or resistance where applicable, then reduce HP.
If you take more than 5 HP damage in a single blow after damage reduction, a medium creature may suffer a wound. Larger or smaller creatures may have different wound thresholds.
If you are wounded in combat, you are automatically fatigued. The first save is to become tired instead. Further wounds progress fatigue toward tired, exhausted, useless, incapacitated, and dead.
Out of HP
When HP drops to exactly 0, you are useless. If HP goes negative, you are unconscious.Blows against an unconscious opponent automatically hit and are telling blows.
Recovering Wounds
- Wounds reduce your Maximum HP
- LIF check (with penalty equal to Wounds) required to recover
- Critical failure on recovery: 1HP becomes scar tissue or warwound
Conditions
Combat can inflict various conditions:
- Wounded: Bleeding, reduced effectiveness
- Stunned: Cannot take actions
- Prone: Must use movement to stand
- Blinded: Disadvantage on attacks
- Frightened: Cannot approach source of fear
Fatigue
After round 6 in combat, characters who have taken strenuous actions begin making CON saves after their turn. On a failure, they gain a fatigue level. Spells and attacks are strenuous even if the character does not move.
| Level | Condition | Combat Effects |
| 0 | Unfatigued | No fatigue penalties |
| 1 | Fatigued | -5' move, -1H, does not threaten |
| 2 | Tired | -10' move, -2H, loses reactions and cannot deflect |
| 3 | Exhausted | Half movement, -3H, loses reactions |
| 4 | Useless | Loses primary action, 0 movement, free actions only, treated as incapacitated |
Further fatigue while useless makes the character unconscious. Further fatigue while useless and unconscious kills them.
Resting for a round with no action and no movement allows a CON save to lose a fatigue level if the character is exhausted or less.