Actions

Judging Actions

When you want to do something, tell the referee. If she thinks that both success and failure are possible, she will ask you to roll 2d6 and add any attribute or skill scores that she deems appropriate. If the roll comes up 12, roll another d6 – on a 5 or a 6, add another 1 to the result and roll a d6 again. Keep adding 1 on a 5 or 6 and rolling again until the die comes up a 4 or less. Similarly, if the 2d6 roll is 2, keep rolling a d6 and subtracting 1 from the result on a 1 or 2 until the d6 comes up 3 or more. To succeed, this roll must meet or beat a difficulty class that she assigns (difficulty class will be abbreviated DC). The harder the task, the higher the DC. Here are some guidelines:
routine 2 Success is nearly guaranteed to anyone remotely competent. The only reason to be concerned is if failure comes with severe consequences.
simple 3 Failure is rare but possible if you really flub it.
challenging 5 There is some real risk, but if you are good at what you do you will succeed more often than not.
difficult 7 Professionals will succeed only about half the time.
very difficult 8 Typical professionals will succeed less than half the time.
folly 10 It will be rare for a typical professional to succeed at this task. Only the highly skilled will have much of a chance.
nearly impossible 12 Failure is nearly guaranteed unless you are truly exceptional
The DCs are open ended - the referee might decide that a total klutz might need to make a DC -1 check just to walk down a staircase; or that a world class climbing expert still must make a DC 17 check to climb up a wall covered in grease in pitch blackness while in a severe storm with howling winds and driving rain.

If the roll exactly matches the difficulty, you achieve a moderate success - you have succeeded, but it is nothing special. If your roll exceeds the difficulty, the amount by which you beat the difficulty is called the degree of success. The more degrees of success, the more spectacularly you succeed. If your roll fails to beat the difficulty, the amount by which it is lower is called the degree of failure. The more degrees of failure, the worse you messed up.
  • Ten degrees of failure is a spectacular failure. You really mess things up much worse than they originally were.
  • Four degrees of failure is pretty bad. You probably made things worse or hurt yourself in the attempt.
  • Two degrees of failure makes it pretty clear you weren't even close. It might be embarrassing, but at least you probably didn't cause additional problems.
  • With no degrees of success, you just manage to scrape by.
  • Two degrees of success is pretty good. You did a bit more than the bare minimum to avoid failure.
  • Four degrees is exceptional - you made it look easy and stylish, and generally went above and beyond.
  • Ten degrees of success is spectacular! Your achievement is remarkable and total.
  • Things that can go wrong
    • Extra use of resources
    • Action uses excessive amount of time (particularly in time critical situations)
    • Information harmful, embarrassing, or inconvenient to the character is revealed to others
    • Damage to equipment
    • Unintentional injury – to character, allies, or innocents.
    • Excessive property damage
    • Setback – attempted action makes success more difficult in the future
    • Action reflects poorly on character; annoyance, offense, embarrassment, or other poor reactions by those affected or observing.
    • Action results in confusion, misinformation, or poor coordination among allies

Risky Business

For some tasks, the referee may allow you to choose to take extra risks to make succes more likely – but any failures worse. Typically, you can take up to a +2 to such a task, but add twice this amount to any degree of failure.

Example: Joshua the explorer is trying to scale a cliff. A pack of predatory arrowheads are chasing him, so Joshua is very motivated to get up. The referee tells him it is will require two DC 8 tasks to climb up, with each task getting him 5 meters up the cliff. Joshua takes the full +2 to his task against Coordination + Climb skill. His first roll is a 6 - normally this would be a mild failure, with Joshua unable to find a safe path up. But with the +2, Joshua succeeds, scrambling up the first five meters of the cliff. But he has another five meters to go. His next roll is a 5. Even with the +2, it is not good enough, and fails by 1. If he hadn't taken the risk, he would only have not found a way to get up, being stuck on the side of the cliff with the arrowheads howling below him. But since he took risks, the degree of failure increases by 4, to a total of 5. Joshua falls onto the jumbled boulders of the talus field below, with the arrowheads bounding in to feast.

Opposed Actions

If you are competing against someone else, both of you roll the dice and add your attribute and/or skill. Whoever achieves the greatest degree of success wins. If you both get the same degree of success, no progress is made on either side (if the purpose of one contestant is to hinder the action of another, this "tie" actually means he succeeded). In essence, your opponent's roll is the DC you have to beat.

Mana

The Polynesians believed in a force they called mana. If you have mana you will be successful, gain power and fame, and be victorious in battle. In the Rough Methods game engine, great heroes and villains (including any PC) can have Mana points that help them achieve remarkable things. Each PC starts the game with some Mana, and gains more between encounters and major episodes (see the Rewards and Consequences section). The referee gets to decide how much Mana NPCs start an encounter with.

You can gain additional Mana in the game. If you do something that makes everyone laugh, or that is especially dramatic, or which exemplifies good role-playing, or that leaves everyone in awe of your amazing coolness, the referee can award you an extra Mana Point.

You can spend Mana Points to do the following:

  • Increase or decrease a roll by up to 2 per d6 or 3 per d10 rolled.
  • Reroll any die or dice roll, and you can choose which roll to use.
  • Automatically make any Penetration Limit roll into 2, regardless of the actual roll – including any Goodies your opponent spends to change the roll, or any other method that others may have to influence the roll after the fact. This only applies to the Penetration Limit rolls you make to determine how much injury you personally take.
  • Arrange a fortunate happenstance or happy coincidence. You get to say what difficulty you want to overcome, the referee gets to decide what happens (although you are free to make suggestions!). Maybe those handcuffs you are in just didn't happen to latch. Perhaps the king's seneshal is an old childhood friend. Or it could be that when plummeting to your doom out of an airplane, below you is a hillside covered in deep, soft snow that can provide a relatively non-fatal landing.
Your Mana can only affect certain rolls
  • Rolls which you make, such as your attribute, skill, attack, and defense rolls; as well as armor and Penetration Limit and penetrating injury effect rolls for attacks that hit you.
  • Rolls which someone else makes that directly affects you if that person lets you spend your Mana on that roll. For example, if you get shot and your medic buddy is patching you up you can spend your Mana to help him make you better. When Mongo the Terrible runs you through with his spear of DOOOOM, however, he's not going to let you spend Mana to nix his attack roll. Spend the Mana on your defense roll instead.

You can spend Mana on a roll up until the time that the success or failure has been adequately determined and effects of that roll start to be applied. For example, if you make an okay defense roll and then your opponent makes a spectacular attack roll, you can choose to spend Mana on your defense roll before the effects of the attack are determined but not after you start rolling for armor, penetration limit, and suchlike.

If players start accumulating Mana, the referee is probably not giving them enough challenges. Throw more or tougher enemies at them, with poor footing, bad lighting, environmental hazards like boiling lava or treacherous cliffs slick with ice that need to be scaled, and in circumstances that favor the opponents. The referee's goal should be for Mana to be spent thick and fast.

Dueling Mana: What happens when two people can spend Mana on the same roll? If increasing or decreasing a roll, it works pretty much as expected - the increases or decreases just add normally. To make things easy, if one person directly adjusts the dice values and the other re-rolls, add the adjustment to the chosen re-roll. If both parties choose to re-roll, roll three times and each person can choose one of the rolls to discard.

Athletics

Lifting and Carrying

If you are lifting or carrying a weight (in g-kg) of +1 RS to your Carry value, you take a -1 encumbrance penalty to your Agility, Reaction Time, Brawn, and Strength, and an additional -1 encumbrance penalty for every additional RS beyond this. Half of this is applied to a RS penalty to your movement (don't round). Note that this means that your Action Score is decreased by your encumbrance penalty, your Action Points are row shifted down by your encumbrance penalty, and the encumbrance penalty is subtracted from all die rolls for tasks such as Fight or Evade skill rolls (but not Shoot – that's based on Precision rather than Agility) compared to your unencumbered scores.

With a one-handed lift, you can hoist up to a -3 encumbrance penalty object with one action. Using both hands, you can pick up an object with an encumbrance penalty of -6. You can carry on your back a weight that gives up to a -7 encumbrance penalty. All of this can be increased using extra effort (see below), at the expense of rapidly wearing yourself out. Any lift or carry at your limit costs one Breath point (see below).

Tactical Movement

You can move as far as your Base Move value in meters per combat turn without taking a Move action or otherwise accruing penalties to your actions from movement. Your Base Move can be decreased for bad footing, wading through swamps, and the like. Bad footing will also give a -2 penalty to any Defense roll you make.

High Speed Movement

At high enough speeds, you will need to keep track of how fast you end up going and in which direction (called your movement vector).

From a stop (i.e. if you do not have a movement vector), you can move a distance of ¼th of your Maneuver value and end your turn without a movement vector. At this speed or less you don't need to worry about turning restrictions or keeping track of movement vectors. If ¼th of your Maneuver value is higher than your Top Speed, you simply don't need to keep track of vectors at all unless you are operating a vehicle or utilizing another form of movement where you can go faster.

If you move faster than this, you will need to keep track of your vector movement. Your movement vector is how far and in what direction you will move at the start of your next turn, before accounting for any maneuvers you make on that turn. On the turn you change your movement vector, you move half the amount of the vector change. If you are using a map, put a marker on the map at the end of your turn showing your movement vector, which will be located a distance away from you equal to your movement vector and in the direction of your movement vector. This is where you will end up on your next turn if you don't do anything to change it.

    Speeding Up or Slowing Down: You can increase or decrease the distance of your maneuver vector by up to your Maneuver value, whichever is less.

    Turning: If you use your Maneuver only to turn while staying at the same speed, each 60° turn requires "spending" an amount equal to your current speed from your Maneuver value this action. Any leftover points from your Maneuver lets you drift off of a straight ahead bearing by one meter to the left or right. These add to your vector, so once you accumulate as many drifts as your current movement, you turn your direction by 60° and lose your accumulated drifts.

    Any Maneuver value that is "spent" is regained on your next action - you always start each action with your full Maneuver.

    Turning and Speeding Up or Slowing Down: Rather than try to use the Pythagorean Theorem in play, here's an easy way to divvy up your Maneuver between acceleration and turning … from the marker for your movement vector, put a second marker any distance from the vector marker up to your Maneuver. The distance from the vector's end to the second marker perpendicular to your movement vector is the amount of Maneuver you can use for turning, and the distance along your movement vector is the amount of Maneuver you use for acceleration or deceleration. Note that if you are using a hex grid for movement, this will still leave you with some ability to move side to side even if you used all of your Maneuver for speeding up or slowing down, and vice versa.

In high speed movement, you cannot Wait - you must make your movement as soon as you have the action points to do so (if combining actions, you can choose to delay the other action until a later time, however). If you drop to a speed less than ¼th of your Maneuver value, you no longer need to worry about high speed movement on your next action.

Movement Modes

For motion other than walking and running, special rules may apply.

Crawling: If on your hands and knees, or if wriggling on your belly, your Top Speed is 1/5 the rate when moving in your normal stance. You have a -2 penalty to all actions that involve being light on your feet, and are considered to be hindered in combat. This only applies to generally human shaped creatures - snakes have no penalty slithering on their bellies, nor do four footed beasts need to "crawl" unless they need to squirm along without supporting themselves on their feet.

Swimming: In the water, a skilled swimmer (Competence level or higher) can swim at 15th her running rate. Intermediate swimmers have a swimming speed of 17th their running speed, and beginning or unskilled swimmers 110th their running speed. Swimmers have a -2 penalty to all actions that involve being able to move quickly and freely, and are considered to be hindered in combat. Those who are swimming in difficult or hazardous conditions (such as rough waves, turbulence, or trying of save a panicking rescuee) should make a Swim + Brawn check when they first encounter the hazardous condition and every minute thereafter to keep their head above water. If they fail, they go under, but can make an additional check to resurface every three combat rounds. A typical DC for this check is 7, but the referee can adjust it for particularly easy or hard conditions.

Unskilled swimmers are treated as beginners for swimming speed, and any attempt at swimming is considered a hazardous condition, with a DC 7 check to stay afloat – but an unskilled swimmer adds her Coordination to her check as well as her Brawn and Swim skill.

Climbing: If you are climbing, you only move at your crawling rate. Just as with crawling, you have a -2 penalty to all actions that involve being able to move quickly and freely, and are considered to be hindered in combat. In addition, you get extra encumbrance based on your own unencumbered weight: 25% of your weight when climbing a steep slope, 50% of your weight for climbing a vertical wall, and your full weight for climbing on an overhang. This will very likely slow you even more. For difficult climbs, you may not be able to use your maximum climbing move. Roll a task of Coordination + Brawn + Climb skill for every 1 to 10 meters climbed (referee's choice), with a difficulty determined by the difficulty of finding proper hand and foot holds. Crossing particularly challenging features might require another climb check just for that feature. If you fail, you make no progress that action. Failure by five degrees or more means you fall.

Climbing is a task where you can take extra risks, exchanging up to a +3 to Climb skil with the tradeoff of increasing any degree of failure by twice that amount. If you fail, you can try again only by accepting increased risk.

Jumping: The distance you can jump from a standstill is value of [Brawn-1] + Step. The height you can clear from a standstill is value of [Brawn-3] + Step, and you can reach a height of value of [Brawn-3] + your height + your reach. When running, the distance you can jump is value of [Brawn/2 + score of [movement per action] + Action Score - 6] + Step. If you jump from a moving platform, you will go a distance value of [Brawn/2 + score of [movement per round] - 6] + Step.

If you can jump farther than your Maneuver (from a standstill) or your current speed (from a moving start, if more than your Maneuver), you don't make the jump instantly. Instead, you move along the trajectory at the speed given by your maneuver or current speed. You are unable to maneuver while in the process of jumping (unless you can glide or fly).

In environments with different gravities, the value-taking step will be modified according to the score of the gravity compared to Earth's gravity (for example, in 110th of Earth's gravity, add 7 to the final score before taking the value.

Flight: Not everyone can fly, but some characters may have special powers that let them get airborne. In addition, when a characters fights a Zhǎngshānese Fènghuáng, rides a repulsor-bike, or pilots an aircar, you will need to know how fliers get around.

  • Floating: The simplest form of flight is simply floating. If you have a Density score of -7, you will be more or less neutrally buoyant in Earth's air near sea level (this decreases with altitude, so for example you need a Density score of -7½ at the top of Mount Everest). If your density is less than that of the surrounding air, you will gain altitude until your density matches that of the air; likewise, if your density is more than that of the atmosphere you will sink. Unless you can control your density to some degree (even by picking up and dropping ballast), you will generally end up floating at an undesirable altitude compared to where you want to be. Without some form of powered flight, you simply float with the wind. Your motion is that of the local windspeed.

    Floating is effortless, and costs no Breath Points to use. Just drifting while floating does not require a Run maneuver in combat.

  • Gliding: With wings or airfoils, the basic form of moving through air is gliding. Gliding is effortless, requiring neither Breath Points nor a run action in combat. Without some means of propulsion, all you can do is glide.

    Gliders will have a

    • Wing Area score (0 for non-gliders)
    • Glide score (typically -2 for non-gliders)
    • Lift Aid score (from 2 to 5).
    Your Glide score determines your glide ratio. This is the ratio of the distance you drop compared to the distance you move forward. For example, if you have a glide ratio of 1/10, you drop 1 meter for every 10 meters you move horizontally. This does not depend on weight! If you weigh more, you glide faster and drop faster, but still glide at the same angle. Nor does it depend on the local gravity or air pressure (although in a vacuum or near vacuum, you will need to go so fast to avoid stall that for practical purposes you can't attain a glide in the first place).
    Glide score <0 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11
    Glide Ratio 1/0 2/1 1/1 1/2 1/3 1/4 1/5 1/7 1/10 1/15 1/20 1/30 1/40 level
    Horizontal Move
    (Glide Speed fraction)
    0 × 0.4 × 0.7 × 0.9 × 0.95 × 1 × 1 × 1 × 1 × 1 × 1 × 1 × 1 × 1
    Acceleration score+24 +23 +22 +21 +20 +19 +18 +17 +16 +15 +14 +13 +12 -∞

    Gliders should make a note of the following:

    • The glider's Flight Strength is the minimum Strength needed to lift the weight of the gliding character plus any payload he is carrying - found as
      • score of [weight in g×kg] - 13.
      If a glider carries something heavy, his Flight Strength will go up. This will increase the glider's gliding speed, and the speed he needs to reach to start gliding at all. If the glider's Load Strength is less than his Flight Strength - 3, he cannot fly at all - his wing muscles are not strong enough to support his weight.
    • The speed at the glider's optimum Glide Ratio, in meters moved every turn, is
      • value of [(Flight Strength - Wing Area score)/2 - Size - Action Score + 15].
      For long distance gliding, it is useful to note that this speed is
      • value of [(Flight Strength - Wing Area score)/2 - Size + 15½] km/h.
    • The stall speed is given by
      • -(Lift Aid)/2 RS to the speed at optimum Glide Ratio.
      At this speed, your Glide Ratio is shifted to the left by your Lift Aid score. If moving slower than this through the air, the glider will stall. A stalled glider will go into free-fall until it gains enough airspeed to exceed its stall speed.

    A glider can change her airspeed by adjusting her angle of attack (how directly she cuts through the air) and by deploying flaps or their equivalent that create drag.

    • Decreasing your angle of attack gives a steeper dive and a faster speed. You can freely decrease your effective Glide Score, resulting in a steeper descent acording to the Glide Table. Half the amount you decrease your effective Glide Score is applied as a positive RS to increase your gliding speed.
    • Increasing your glide angle increases your lift but increases your drag even more – you slow down, but actually descend at a steeper angle because of the increased drag. You can shift your glide angle to the left on the glide table by up to a number of columns given by your Lift Aid score, while simultaneously reducing your speed by half that number of RS.
    • Tucking or folding your wings (if you don't have fixed wings) will increase both your glide speed and stall speed by up to your (Wing Area score)/2 RS.

    Since a glider moves with the wind speed, it can gain altitude (or at least descend less rapidly) if it soars in updrafts. These updrafts tend to be spiralling thermals of heated air billowing up from the ground or air close to the ground moving up when it encounters a hill, mountain, cliff face, or large ocean wave. In some latitudes, there is a continual updraft over the ocean due to the large scale circulation of the earth's atmosphere. When gliding in such an updraft, the glider's rate of descent is slowed by the upward rate of ascent of the air; if the rate of the air's ascent is higher than the glider's rate of descent, the glider moves upward at a rate of the air's rate of ascent minus the glider's normal rate of descent in still air. If any are to be found, a glider (or its pilot) can find an updraft on a task roll against Awareness + Pilot (glider) skill or Awareness + Fly skill, The DC depends on the current conditions and the rate of ascent you are searching for – under "typical" conditions the DC is 5 + score of [rate of ascent in m/turn]. If you are riding on thermals, you will need to turn in a tight spiral to stay in the thermal before gaining enough altitude to glide to the next thermal. If you are gliding along the wind moving over an obstacle, you will need to move along the obstacle.

    Ground Effect: Within a wingspan of the ground (or other surface, such as water), lift is enhanced. Stall speed is reduced by one RS.

    Wing Clearance: When in use, wings stretch out on either side of the character to a distance equal to half the flier's wingspan:

    wingspan = value of [Glide Score + Wing Area/2 + Size - 5.5] meters,
    or the character's Reach, whichever is more.

    Exotic Environments: The gliding speeds given above assume Earth standard atmospheric density. If a glider is gliding in an atmosphere of a different density, Row Shift both the optimal glide angle speed and the stall speed by half the number of Row Shifts to get from Earth standard air density to the air density of the surrounding atmosphere.

    The composition or temperature of the air does not matter for the purpose of gliding, except as it changes the density – in which case the change is figured as above. Unless, of course, the composition or temperature is so extreme as to dissolve the glider's wings, make it burst into flame, or poison the pilot so that he loses control. But this is handled using different mechanics than the gliding rules.

    The effect of different gravities is already accounted for by changing the glider's weight, and thus changing its Flight Strength.

    Gliding in Tactical Movement

    When gliding, your maneuver can only be used to change direction, not to speed you up or slow you down. If you want to speed up, you need to dive at a steeper angle so that gravity can pull you faster. If you want to slow down you need to flare up your wings to increase your drag – or pitch up until you are gliding upwards, and let gravity pull back on you.

    For tactical movement, the amount of speed change as the glide angle varies can be important. Make a note of

    value of [-Glide score - 2× Action Score + 10].
    When gliding at your optimum glide ratio, this is the amount that gravity adds to your movement every turn. It is also the amount that drag subtracts from your movement every turn, so that the two cancel each other out. It order to change your speed, you need to alter things so that they no longer cancel out.
    • Diving more steeply will increase the acceleration due to gravity. Diving at a shallower angle will decrease your acceleration. For every shift in glide angle to the left by one column, increase the gravitational acceleration by +1 RS; for each shift to the right, by -1 RS. If you level out into level flight, the gravitational acceleration is zero. If you start climbing instead of descending, find the gravitational acceleration as if you were descending, but it subtracts from your movement instead of adding to it.
    • The drag depends on speed. Going faster will increase your drag and going slower decreases drag. For every ±½ RS to your speed, shift your drag deceleration by ±1 RS.
    • The drag also depends on angle of attack. Changing your angle of attack or deploying flaps or spoilers will also affect your drag. You can get up to a +1 RS to your drag deceleration for every level of Lift Aid you have.
    • Tucking or folding your wings (if you don't have fixed wings) will reduce your drag deceleration by ½ levels for every -1 to Wing Area score. It will also increase your stall speed by the same number of RS – be sure you are going fast enough to avoid a stall.

    To start a glide, you need to be moving faster than your stall speed. You might attain this by running and jumping, or by dropping off of a tall object. If you drop, you gain airspeed using the above rules by shifting results so that you are "gliding" at a Glide Ratio of 1/0 (straight down). Once this exceeds your stall speed, you can use your maneuver to pull up into a less precipitous glide.

    Once you have a decent gliding speed, you can use these rules to pull up and glide level for a while (until drag slows you below your stall speed), or even to glide upward to get a bit of additional altitude if drag and gravity do not slow you down too much.

  • Powered Flight: With powered flight, you can apply your Maneuver to motion through the air. It really helps if you have either the ability to float or to glide, since otherwise you must divert value of [14 - 2× Action Score] of your Maneuver downward in order to counteract gravity. (In exotic environments, add an additional RS of the score of the local gravity compared to Earth's gravity). Using 15th or less of your Maneuver costs no Breath Points; using more than 12 of your Maneuver costs two Breath Points; and between these two costs one Breath Point. Only Maneuver used for forward or upward thrust costs Breath. Movement during your turn that does not cost a Breath Point does not require a move action in combat.

    If you can glide you can add your Maneuver value to the amount you speed up or slow down when gliding. The usual method of using powered flight is to fly level and thrust forward to counteract the effect of drag. Rather than try to match your thrust to the drag you generate at different speeds, it is useful to pre-calculate the following quantities:

    • Your top speed in level flight is
      • value of [(score of [flying Maneuver] + Flight Strength + Glide Score - Wing Area Score)/2 - Size + 10]
      Maintaining this speed costs 2 Breath Points per action. At this point, your forward maneuver is exactly cancelling the aerodynamic drag you are experiencing. If you stop flying (or don't fly as hard), the drag at this speed is equal to your flying Maneuver.
    • In level flight, the speed at which you only spend one Breath Point per action is your top flight speed reduced by 1 RS. At this speed, your Drag is half your flying Maneuver.
    • Your cruising speed in level flight is your top speed reduced by 2½ RS. At your cruising speed, the drag you experience is 15th of your Maneuver. For long distance flight, it is useful to note that this sustained cruising speed is
      • value of [(score of [flying Maneuver] + Flight Strength + Glide Score - Wing Area Score)/2 - Size + Action Score + 8] km/h

    You can also use your thrust to stay airborne while moving slower that your stall speed, by diverting some thrust downward to counteract the force of gravity. Gravity normally pulls you down with an effective Maneuver of value of [14 - 2× Action Score]. Subtract any downward diverted thrust from this, every full -RS of this from the unmodified value gets you -½ RS to your stall speed.

    If your Traction Brawn is higher than your Move Brawn, you can use Traction Brawn instead of Move Brawn for calculating the Maneuver used for countering gravity, as well as for providing slow, steady thrust – such as for pulling heavy loads. This thrust is called Static Thrust, and can be recorded on your character sheet. It does not aid in acceleration, deceleration, or changing direction.

    Some flying vehicles can only apply their flight Maneuver straight forward or use it for turning. They cannot apply their maneuver to lift themselves up while in forward flight. This is typical of airplanes that must taxi in order to exceed their stall speed before take-off.

    If your Flight Strength changes, RS your Flight Maneuver by the same amount in the opposite direction (i.e. as your weight goes up, your Maneuver goes down). This also applies to gliding, although there Maneuver is only used for changing direction.

    For floaters, the amount subtracted from your movement every turn due to drag is value of [2× score of [distance moved this turn] - Size - Streamlining - 3× density score - 18 + Action Score]. To maintain speed, you must counteract this with your flight Maneuver.

Riding

When you ride a mount, you direct the mount on your actions, and the mount follows your most recent commands on its actions. It is often useful to use a wait maneuver to allow you to command your mount when it moves.

If you have the Ride skill and if your mount has been trained to the saddle, you usually don't need to roll for basic commands like starting, stopping, turning, speeding up, or slowing down. If you or your mount is untrained, or if you are trying to get your mount to do something unusual or difficult, roll a task of your Charisma plus Ride skill plus your Mount's Smarts (usually -4 for a horse) plus your Mount's Ride skill (representing its training at being ridden). Difficulty is 0 for basic commands, but may be more for advanced maneuvers. Proficiency with a riding style (Western, English, Mongolian, etc.) and job (cutting cattle, racing, heavy cavalry, etc.) apply for both the rider and mount.

Mounts sometimes have their own ideas about what to do … or what not to do. Horses are prey animals, and tend to spook or shy from the oddest things. They might also decide that no, they're not going to jump that obstacle because it's just too high. To convince a mount to do something that it doesn't want to do is a contested Task of the rider's Charisma plus Ride skill against the mounts Spirit. The referee may impose bonuses or penalties depending on how much the mount is opposed to doing what you want it to do (or insistent on doing something you don't want it to do).

In practice, in tactical combat the player can control the mount as he would his character unless the referee decides that the character needs to make a Ride check to get the mount to do something (or if the referee decides that the mount spooks, or goes chasing off after a mare in heat, or something similar). A rider who does not have at least Competence in Ride skill suffers a -2 penalty to all attacks while his mount is in motion. Careful Aim is impossible while mounted unless the mount is standing stock-still. The Aim score of any ranged weapon is limited to a maximum of the rider's level of mastery with the Ride skill (+1 if the weapon is stabilized) if the mount is in motion.

Sometimes, it can be difficult to stay seated on a mount when the mount does something vigorous or unexpected. This can call for a task of Coordination plus Ride, at a difficulty set by the referee appropriate to the situation. A typical difficulty is the same difficulty as the Coordination task set for the mount minus the degree of success the mount attained on its task roll or plus the degree of failure.

Staying on a mount that is purposely trying to get you off is handled as a grappling contest, with the character grappling the mount and the mount attempting an escape. Prior to the initial buck, the rider gets to make one grapple attack to see how well he was holding on when the mount starts to buck. Riding tackle can give a significant bonus to the rider: a good saddle would be +1, a bit and bridle +2, and stirrups another +1. The rider can use his Ride skill instead of his Fight (Wrestling) skill if he so chooses.

Shots aimed at the rider may hit the mount. Shots that miss the rider by (mount's Size - rider's Size) or less have a 50% chance of hitting the mount (hit on a roll of 1-3 on 1d6). If the rider is sitting (as opposed to performing some crazy stunt involving standing or hand-stands or something equally crazy) and is shot in the leg from the side, hits to the leg on the other side of the mount get to count the mount as a barrier. Hits to the leg on the same side of the mount treat the leg as a barrier for the shot hitting the mount. From the front or back, shots to the hips or torso have a 2-in-6 chance of hitting the mount in the head or neck (from the front, the mount provides cover to the rider; from the back, the rider provides cover to the mount). Similarly, shots that hit a rider from above or below have a 4-in-6 chance of also hitting the mount (with cover allocated as appropriate). The referee may ignore this when it seems silly (for example, shooting a mahout in the torso won't risk his elephant, since elephants' heads don't go up that high).

Exertion

Exertion is tracked with Breath Points. You start with Breath Points equal to your Stamina. Any action with significant muscular effort costs one Breath Point. This includes any melee or thrown attack, any grappling action (including escaping from a grapple), getting up quickly, moving more than a Step in an action, drawing a bow with a Minimum Strength of your Strength or one less, or spanning a crossbow with a Minimum Strength of more than your Strength-1. A full action of maximum exertion, such as running at more than half of your Top Speed or Maneuver, costs two Breath Points.

Once you are out of Breath, any action costing Breath will give you 15 of a Fatigue point. You can recover one Breath by taking a Recovery action and succeeding a DC 6 Vigor check.

Hint: It may help to keep track of Breath Points with small, non-edible counters that are not used for other things in the game - shells, beads, bottle caps, pieces of paper, or the like. An abacus could potentially be useful, sliding the beads up as you gain Breath Points and back down as you use them.

Extra Effort

With extraordinary effort, you can accomplish great things - but it will cost you. By spending an additional Breath Point, you can add +1 to your Brawn for one action. With a DC 7 Spirit roll and two additional Breath Points, you can add +2 to your Brawn for one action.

Combat

NPC Categories

Mooks: Mooks are largely disposable in-game encounters ("characters" is probably being too generous) usually with a combat purpose and without any real character development or even name. Traditionally, their primary purpose is to fill out the hordes of bad guys for the heroes to take down in large numbers. However they can also be used as masses of troops by the good guys as well, or serve as crowds of bystanders that get in the way. Common random encounters, even if found only in ones and twos, can also be mooks since it makes the book-keeping easier.

Referees can switch this up a bit - maybe the characters can get to know one of their mook underlings or a mook sergeant of the opposing forces, who can be fleshed out a bit, get a name and a personality and a back-story. And then likely be quickly killed off in the next fight, because that's what happens to mooks.

Mooks typically occur in groups - a horde of barbarians, a squad of goons, a gang of thugs, a platoon of soldiers, a pack of wolves, or a squadron of VTOL gunships are all examples of groups of mooks. The mooks in a group are all largely interchangeable, to make the book-keeping easier. Give them all the same attributes and traits, and mostly the same skills. There can be some differentiation to allow increased effectiveness and combined arms - in a fire squad, the machine gunner has proficiency with machine guns, while the grenadier has proficiency with grenade launchers, and of course the radio-man has the Use Gear (radios) skill. Their combat skill in their primary proficiency should be the same, however. When interacting with mooks outside of combat, you can mix up their Personality Traits a bit (this member of the local police force is a bully, this one can be bought, and that one is trying to live up to hopelessly idealistic principles in a flawed world), but that doesn't matter when the bullets are flying and swords are flashing.

A group of mooks of the same type all act at the same time. They all have the same initial roll for Action Points at the start of the combat. To some extent, you can consider a Mook group as a single unit when in combat. If you have several Mook groups, each can act independently - the Zox shock troops get to act at a different time than the warbot mecha, who act separately from the assault drone swarm, even though they are all fighting in the same combat or even on the same side.

Mooks are more easily incapacitated by injures than heroes (and more deterministically incapacitated as well, to avoid excess die rolls that can slow down the game). This lets you get them out of the way while giving the PCs the chance to act all action-hero-y and look awesome while doing so. Mooks also do not get Mana - for Mooks, the dice fall where they may and they get no second chances or lucky breaks to save them. A mook will be down and out of the fight (dead, incapacitated by pain or injury, demoralized and pretending to be dead, or anything else that takes it out of action) when it suffers

  • Any Injury of Score 7 or worse
  • a penetrating injury of score 5 or worse to a limb, or
  • a penetrating injury of score 3 or worse to the head, neck, torso, or hips.
Exception: Mook Squirm or Gummis are not especially incapacitated by penetrating injuries. It always takes an Injury Score of 7 or more to take the Gummi or Squirm out.

Exception: Mook machines or robots are not automatically disabled by having parts blown off. Injury to a limb or sub-assembly only incapacitates that limb or sub-assembly. Penetrating injuries to the main body, or any part that houses their main motor, energy storage, or computer, will incapacitate the machine or robot normally. Squirm mobiles are essentially biological robots, and are also affected by this rule.

If the actual state of the mook is important after the combat is over, the referee can decide its fate.

Remember than not all the bad guys need to be Mooks – the squad of enemy soldiers may be led by a dashing and infuriatingly competent captain who gets all the lucky breaks and keeps coming back. Also keep in mind that you can use the Mook rules for individual encounters as well – that marauding rogue robo-tank smashing up the village can be a Mook if it is only incidental to the plot and you just want some temporary action to occupy your players for a bit. Mooks can also be quite dangerous – assassin drones and warbots and elite commandos might be Mooks, but they can still have enough physical prowess to make fighting even one of them a chancy endeavor.

Major Characters: The NPCs that are not Mooks get to use the more detailed injury rules, which may end up sounding more gruesome but lets you know whether the NPC lives or dies, and how he is maimed and mangled. This gives the NPC a chance to come back later, possibly with vengeance in mind. It also gives the character a chance to keep going despite grievous injuries, and to perform heroic (or villainous) last deeds even when mortally wounded.

The non-Mook NPC also acts on his own initiative and as his own character. He does not automatically get Mana, but the real movers and shakers of the world, and the real bad-asses, should get a store of Mana to use. If you choose to make an NPC a non-Mook, you are implicitly saying that he is important enough to put up with the extra book-keeping.

If you want a character to be memorable, don't make it a mook.

Combat Time and Pacing

Each "step" in combat takes a time of one combat round. This is approximately three seconds. Within this time, you get a number of Action Points you can use. You can spend 5 Action Points to take a turn. If more than one character has enough Action Points to take a turn, whoever has the most Action Points goes first. On a tie, whoever will have the most Action Points after taking their turn goes first. If its still a tie, you can have a contest of Coordination and if that's a tie then both characters go simultaneously (resolve the effects of each action after both characters have acted – it is possible for both characters to shoot each other dead).

At the end of the round, any unused Action Points up to 5 are carried over into the next round. Any Action Points beyond 5 are lost.

Starting Combat: On your first turn in any combat, you may start your turn with extra action points held over from before combat started. Roll 1d6-1 – this is your Action Point pool at the start of combat, in addition to your normal Action Points the first round. There are two exceptions to this:

  • If you are expecting trouble and waiting for it to happen (as if you were taking the Wait action), you start combat with 5 Action Points plus your usual Action Points at the beginning of a round.
  • If are caught unaware, make an Awareness check with a DC of 8. The degree of failure subtracts from the initial 1d6-1 roll for starting Action Points.

Multiple Actions: In your turn, you can take one or more actions. Each additional action beyond the first imposes a penalty of -2 to Coordination, Spirit, Smarts, and Awareness for things you are trying to do. Actions that do not normally require a Coordination check can be considered to have a DC of 0, so that taking many actions in your turn risks failing at even routine tasks.

Rate of fire: Firearms and muscle powered weapons with an ROF of one present no problems, you can use them every action (unless you are interrupted by reloading or something similar). Semi-automatic firearms can also be fired at their full ROF every action. However, full auto firearms and some energy weapons are limited by the mechanics of the gun, the cooling system, or the power supply rather than the character's reflexes. For these weapons, the maximum number of shots in one combat round is 3×ROF.

Hint: It may help to keep track of Action Points with small, non-edible counters that are not used for other things in the game, as was suggested for Breath Points. Be sure you can tell them apart, though - perhaps use different colored beads, for example, or beads for Breath and bottle caps for Action.

Attitude

At the beginning of each turn, choose your combat Attitude. This lasts until your next turn. If unstated, you are assumed to have a Neutral Attitude.
  • Neutral: You get no special bonus or penalty for attack, damage, or defense.
  • Raging: You have +1 Brawn, but subtract 2 from any defense roll made. You cannot move away from your target. This posture costs one additional Breath point.
  • Powerful: You have +1 Brawn, but subtract 1 from your coordination this turn. You cannot move away from your target. This posture costs one additional Breath point.
  • Probing: You add 1 to any defense against melee attacks, but your muscle powered attacks are delivered with -1 Brawn.
  • Committed: You add 2 to any one attack roll, but subtract 3 from any defense roll.
  • Cautious: You add 1 to all defense rolls and Awareness checks for situational awareness, but subtract 2 from any attack roll.
  • Focused Defense: You add 2 to one defense roll, but subtract 3 from any attack roll.

Combat Actions

What do you do when it is your turn to act? Here are the options:

Attack: An attack is a task, with a difficulty that depends on how hard your target is to hit. To attack, roll for your Coordination + relevant combat skill + your Attitude modifier.

The base difficulty of an attack is minus your target's Size attribute, plus the larger of your Size score and (-2 + the score of the range from you to the target on the Score-Value table). The minimum difficulty is 0. An attack can never have a base difficulty of less than 0. Note - this means that an attack against a target of your own Size within twice your reach will have a base difficulty of 0.

Your target usually gets to make a defense roll, for example by ducking out of the way, parrying with its arms or a weapon, or blocking with a shield. This is a task of Coordination with a difficulty of 0. The final difficulty of the attack is (base difficulty) + (degree of success on target's defense roll).

Circumstances can affect both the attack and defense rolls

Indeterminate Cover

Deterministic Cover

Light Cover
-1

Moderate Cover
-2

Heavy Cover
-3

Near Total Cover
-4 or more

Intervening Person (melee)
-1

Intervening People
-1 per person

Grappling
-1 (& over-penetration)

Human shield
-2

Prone
-1, plus additional cover
Condition Bonus/Penalty
Any Attack or Defense
Cramped -Bulk
Slightly Cramped -(Bulk - X)
Any Attack
Target behind cover
    Light cover (30%) -1
    Moderate cover (50%) -2
    Heavy cover (70%) -3
    Near total cover (90% +) -4 or more
Any Defense
Bad footing -2
Hindered -2
Stuck -3
Attacked from behind -2
Duck behind cover +2
Melee Attack
Bad footing -2
Hindered -2
Stuck -3
Melee Defense
Weapon Def + your Def - opponent's Def
Retreat by one step +1
Ranged Attack
Careful Aim +2
Ranged Defense
Dive prone +1
Duck behind cover +1

Targets that are completely unaware of an attack, or which just don't care enough to try to defend, have a defense roll that is considered 2. If the target is completely stationary, bound, incapacitated, or immobile, the defense roll is considered 0.

If you are the target of an attack, you must declare that you are making a defense before the attack is resolved, otherwise you do not get to defend and your defense roll is considered 2.

If you are using a weapon in melee combat, add the Defense Score of your weapon and subtract that of your opponent from any defense rolls you make. The Defense score has no effect against ranged attacks.

Cramped: If you are fighting in a cramped environment (like inside a vehicle, or a close crowd of people) , attacks suffer a penalty equal to the Bulk of the weapon relative to the attacker's Size (that is, subtract the wielder's Size from the weapon's Bulk). This is never a bonus! If (Bulk - Size) is less than 0, there is no modifier.

Some conditions might be only slightly cramped. In this case, subtract a few degrees from the Bulk of the weapon before figuring the penalty. For example, a typical indoor hallway or stairway would have a penalty of (Bulk - Size - 2).

Many (even most!) cramped conditions can also qualify for the hindered or stuck conditions. Slightly cramped conditions are not usually also hindered or stuck conditions from the crampiness alone. Grappling is always considered cramped.

The cramped and very cramped penalty may be waived for thrusting and shooting weapons when the environment is only cramped in one or two directions (like a straight hallway or shaft, which is not cramped going along the direction of the shaft or hall; or a battle line, where the direction in front of the line is not cramped). Note that size matters - what may be slightly cramped to a human may be roomy to a Tweechi, and fully cramped to an enhanced bear.

Attacked From Behind: Attacks from your rear 180° arc are at -2 to defend against. Since movement of ¼th of your Maneuver value or less lets you turn as much as you want to, you can be assumed to turn to face any single opponent. The main problem comes when they gang up on you from different directions. If you are attacked when running, or if caught by surprise from behind, you don't get to automatically turn to face your attacker.

Bad Footing: Uneven or unstable surfaces - jumbled boulders, talus slopes, thick mud, sand that shifts under your feet, floors slippery with blood or piled high with corpses - all make defense and melee attacks more difficult. In conditions with bad footing, apply a -2 penalty to defense and melee attacks. Ranged attacks are not affected.

Careful Aim: If you only fire one shot and do not move more than a step, you can take Careful Aim during your attack. This gives you a +2 to your Shoot skill. If your weapon is braced on a solid, immobile object, you also get an additional +1 to Aim. If you aim, and your attack roll fails by three degrees or less, you know you will miss and do not have to shoot at all. Careful Aim is part of your attack action and includes the attack, it is not a separate preceeding action.

Concealment: If your target is concealed, by darkness, fog, or heavy undergrowth, for example, you need be able to see it in order to attack it. This usually calls for an Awareness check. If you succeed, you can roll to attack normally. If you fail, you can attempt area fire where you think the target is but cannot attack directly.

Cover: If your target is partially covered or concealed, you have a penalty to hit it. If you miss, but the cover penalty makes a difference, your shot still might affect it: treat the cover as a barrier (see below), and the shot acts as area fire (see below) against an area the Size of the target.

If you hit in spite of the penalty, your shot strikes past any cover to hit the target. On a direct hit treat the cover penalty toward the degrees of success for determining hit location and goodies (see below) – it isn't actually harder to hit the parts that are exposed. This assumes, of course, that your targeted hit location is not behind cover. Deterministic cover is cover that protects a known set of hit locations, such as if your target is firing back from around a wall with only his head, arms, and chest exposed. Indeterminate cover is when you cannot be sure which hit location will be protected (like when shooting at a target in a crowd, or running through thick vegetation). If the target is hit behind indeterminate cover, there is a chance the hit location you are targeting is not visible: For light cover, the chance is 3-in-10; for moderate cover, 5-in-10; and for heavy cover, 7-in-10. For near total cover, roll 1d10 for the single exposed hit location.

For every intervening person (or other obstacle of known Size and location) between the attacker and the target, apply a cover penalty of -Value of [2 × (Obstacle's Size - Target's Size)]. Keep track of fractions when adding up each person and obstacle, and round to the nearest whole number at the end (a -½ rounds down to -1). For people as obstacles that are the same Size as the target, note that this is -1 per person in the way. If the person or obstacle is being grappled and deliberately used as a shield, double the cover penalty for attacks coming from directions the person or obstacle is shielding. Note that this requires enough control from grappling to orient the person in a desired direction. For normal grappling where the grappler's orientation is not determined, use the normal cover penalty - but any attacks that hit the intended target are subject to over-penetration against the person being grappled. If your target is engaged in melee combat with an opponent that is between you and your target, that opponent counts as cover with the usual penalty.

Lying prone is a special kind of cover – some of your body is shielded by the rest of your body. Attackers on your level who you are facing have a -1 cover penalty, possibly more if you are behind rocks or dirt mounds or thick brush. Being prone lets you make better use of available cover – against attackers on your level, you are usually considered to have at least light cover (-1) regardless of your orientation unless you are on a completely flat surface devoid of cover (like an open lawn or tarmac), and at the referee's discretion what might be light or medium cover for an upright character could be considered medium or heavy cover for you.

Dive Prone: If you are caught out in the open, you can dive to the ground as part of your defense. If being prone would make it harder to hit you, you get a +1 to your defense roll against that attack and thereafter you are prone. Against subsequent attacks, you are considered prone and get any bonuses for being prone (but since you are already prone, you can't dive prone again to get a further bonus to your defense).

Duck Behind Cover: If you are being attacked and you have nearby cover, if you can get behind that cover and if it improves the amount of cover you have, you get a +1 to your defense roll. If that +1 makes the difference, the cover acts as a barrier to the incoming attack. You can do this without issue if you do not need to take a step, just duck back. Otherwise, use the Moving while Defending rules (see below) to see if you can reach cover.

Hindered: If you can technically take a step, but not act freely, you have a -2 to defense and any melee attack. If you are hindered because you are being grappled, use the grappling penalty instead.

Retreat: If you take a step away from an incoming melee attack to get a +1 to defense. See the section Moving while Defending under the Defense action.

Stuck: If you are unable to take a step, you have a -3 to defense and to any melee attack.

Defend: You can choose to use your action only for defense. This gives you a second defense roll at no penalty against incoming attacks. Be sure to take the Focused Defense Attitude or Cautious Attitude to aid your defense rolls. All of the rules for the defense action also apply to free defenses taken in between your turns.

You can even defend against attacks not aimed at you, such as area attacks (to get out of the way, requiring moving while defending) or attacks aimed at others (to knock aside their weapon with your own or to jump in the way of their blow). In these cases, to successfully negate the attack's effect you need to beat the attacker's degree of success of his attack roll (not counting any other defense roll) with your defense roll.

The rules allow you to borrow movement from multiple actions because otherwise it unfairly penalizes those with a high Action Score. Since fast-acting characters can split up the same speed into smaller sections during which they react, if you could only borrow movement form one action someone who could react faster would end up being not able to move as far as a character with a slow reaction who takes large lumps of his movement at once. Intuitively, you would expect the character with fast reactions would be better at jumping out of the way, not worse!
Moving while Defending: For a defense taken as your action, this is straightforward. Just move while you take your defense (possibly combining it with a Move action if you really need to get somewhere).

However, a defense is normally made as a reaction to another event, not as an action of itself. However, sometimes you really need to move in order to save your bacon. For example, you might need to duck back behind cover, or dive out of the blast radius of a bursting warhead. In these circumstances, you can use movement not used in your previous action, or borrow movement from subsequent actions. If you have not accumulated a movement vector, you can always take a single step or dive prone while defending. Otherwise, you can use or borrow an amount from your Maneuver of up to your defense roll, in meters, row shifted by (Brawn/2 + Action Score - attacker's Action Score). As usual, one-quarter of your available Maneuver can be used to move without accumulating a movement vector, and from a stop you can move up to one-half of your available Maneuver while gaining a movement vector of twice the distance moved (if you can't slow down in time before hitting something, you take collision damage).

Moving as part of a defense only helps against an attack directly targeted at you if it allows you to get behind cover, if you retreat from a melee attack, or if you Dive Prone (in which case the Duck Behind Cover, Retreat, or Dive Prone modifier applies to your defense). However, it is very useful against area effect attacks aimed at a location you just happen to be in. By diving out of the area or behind cover, you can reduce or eliminate the damage from the effect as if you were at the location you moved to when the effect occurs.

If you use movement not used from a previous action, you can only do so if it would not have made a difference to any tasks you attempted. For example, if you took Careful Aim on your previous turn, you would not be able to take more than a step (and not even that if that step was part of your previous Careful Aim Attack action). If you did not take a Run action, you can't use any un-used running movement from your previous turn.

If you borrow movement from your next turn, then on your next turn you are treated as if you made that movement on that turn. For example, if you took more than a step during your defense you could not take Careful Aim; and if you took your full Base Move during your defense you would be unable to move on your next turn without taking an additional Run action (and suffering the -2 penalty for multiple actions as well as entering into high speed movement).

If you borrow more movement than you could accomplish in your next turn, you don't get to take your next turn (you spent it moving) and any move you could not have made during that turn is taken away from the subsequent turn. And if you moved farther than can be accounted for on that subsequent turn you lose that turn and borrow from the turn after it. And so forth.

You must pay back as much movement as possible on each turn in which you have borrowed movement. If this means you need to take run actions and accelerate up to your full Maneuver, then that is what you must do.

Multiple Defenses: You get one free defense between each of your turns (but see the Evade action, below). If you need to make more defense rolls than that, you will need to borrow actions from your next turn to take additional Defense actions. Each of these borrowed actions will act like a normal action on your next turn, including earning you a -2 penalty on both your immediate defense roll, all subsequent defense rolls until your next turn is over, and all task rolls taken on your next turn.

Unlike other actions, you don't have to declare multiple defenses ahead of time. So you get your first defense at full skill, your next defense at -2, your third at -4, and so on, until your turn comes around again.

You only need to make one defense roll (and action) against any number of shots from a rapid fire attack or bullets in a multiple projectile attack.

Defending Someone Else: If you defend another person or object, you get to make melee defense rolls to block attacks aimed at them if you can reach the attacker's blows. To defend against a ranged attack, you either need to be close enough to reach the attacker's weapon, or you can throw yourself in the path of the attack so that it hits you (you will then act as a barrier, and any Penetration you take is removed from the Penetration of the attack. You also get to remove the Penetration taken by your armor, both as the attack goes in and, if it penetrates all the way through, as it goes out).

Recovery: A recovery action gets you one Breath Point back with a DC 6 Vigor check. If you take a recovery, you cannot take any other actions on your turn. You can defend against attacks, but if you do so you do not regain your Breath Point.

Concentrate: Some tasks, such as hacking into a security system or guiding robot drones, require your full attention, and use up your actions while doing so.

Focus: At the start of your turn, you can spend your entire action preparing for your next specified action. When you take that specified action, you get a +2 bonus. You must have the same attitude on your focus action as the action it is preparing for. In order to benefit an action, the Focus must have been the immediately preceeding action (and thus you can't stack more than one Focus to increase the benefit beyond +2). If in the time between your Focus and when you execute the action you are preparing for that action becomes impossible, then you automatically fail (although you can choose to not take that action and do something else without the focus bonus). If you take a defense between your Focus action and the action you are preparing, you lose the benefit of your focus.

Tasks which normally take more than one action are assumed to already be using Focus turing the actions of that task, you do not get the benefit a second time.

Example: Groolor is observing an enemy Zox camp from within some bushes on the top of a hill. He sees a Zox captain come out of its shelter. This is a high value target and Groolor decides to take him out. But the captain is a long ways away and will be tough to hit, so Groolor braces his disruptor and takes a committed focus action to prepare for taking a disruptor shot with careful aim at the torso of the Zox scum. This uses up his action (and because taking more than one action when focusing is counter productive, his turn as well). On his next turn, if the captain is still visible, Groolor will have a +2 to shoot the captain from his Focus, another +2 for Careful Aim, +1 to Aim for a braced weapon, and +2 for a Committed Attitude. This is a total of +6 to Shoot skill and an additional +1 to Aim, which will be helpful for putting that filthy Zox dead on the ground.

Wait: If you are waiting, you can resume acting at any point in the Action Point sequence. If one combat round ends and another begins, you can only carry over 5 of your unused Action Points, as usual. If someone else has already started an action, you will need to interrupt them to act before they do. To interrupt someone is an opposed Reflexes task. You get a +2 on this task if the other person needs to move more than a step before taking their action – if you can accomplish your action with the other person at that distance (for example, you can't hit someone with a sword until she steps into range. If you both have melee weapons with the same reach and are trying to hit each other, you don't get the +2 to go first).

Evade: This allows you to make one defense roll that is used against all attacks, whether you know of them or not. You do not get any benefit from any melee weapon Def score, or from the Focused Defense attitude. You can make additional defense rolls against specific attacks you are aware of. These are treated as normal (not Evade) defense rolls; take the better of the specific dense roll and your evade defense roll as the score to use against the incoming attack.

Draw a weapon: If your weapon is kept in a holster or scabbard, it takes an action to draw it before you can attack. It can take considerably longer if the weapon is kept someplace less accessible, such as a sack or backpack.

Reload: Most ranged weapons eventually run out of ammunition and must be reloaded before they can be fired again. To reload a cartridge firearm with loose rounds, your first action reloads a single round and subsequent actions reload two rounds each. If the ammunition is stored in a clip, detachable magazine, or speed loader, you can load all the rounds in one action. All this assumes the ammunition is easily accessible. Referees can require additional actions to fish rounds out of a backpack or box.

Firearms that must be loaded with loose powder, wadding, and shot take considerably longer to reload. This time will generally be given in the weapon description.

An archer or crossbowman can draw and place the arrow or quarrel in one action.

Get Up: If you are prone or sitting, it takes an action to get up.

Run: It doesn't take an action to move a number of meters your Base Move value or less. Moving any faster than this takes an action. You can only take one Run action per turn.

Hit Location

You just took your action, attacked, and hit your opponent! But where did you hit him?

Unless you state otherwise, you are assumed to be aiming at the center torso (the chest, for humans and other vertebrates). If you hit by 4 or more, your attack hits the chest. Otherwise, roll 1d10 on the hit location chart.

If you prefer, you can aim for a different spot. If the hit location is in the central body (e.g the chest, abdomen, or hips), treat this just like the assumed case except that on a hit by 4 or more you hit your chosen location. For a peripheral hit location (e.g. arms, legs, head), your attack DC goes up by 2. A hit by 1 or less still means you roll 1d10 on the hit location chart. Otherwise, your shot hits the indicated spot.

There is one special case: if your opponent used his Fight skill to defend against your attack and you succeeded in hitting with zero degrees of success, you hit your opponent in his arm (or whatever appendage he was using to defend himself). This never applies to targets who are defending using their Evade skill.

Roll on his Hit Location Chart. This will tell you the spot that got hit first.

If the hit location has numbers after it, ranged or piercing attacks that have enough Penetration to go all the way through after rolling for Penetration limit have a chance of hitting other body parts. Roll 1d6, on a 1 you hit the hit location number given by the first number in the list, on a 2 you hit the second number, and so forth. The first body part hit provides cover for subsequently struck parts. If the second part also has numbers after it, you can roll for another hit body part, but (a) you can't hit the same part twice with one shot, and (b) you can't hit more than one core location twice with one shot.

The hit locations are followed by columns listing special injury effects that can occur with penetrating injuries. The details will be described below, in the damage section. There are three main special damage mechanisms – Nerves (divided into Brain and Spine hits), Circulation (divided into Heart/Great Vessels and Major Vessels hits), and Respiration (divided into Airway and Lung hits). Some of these are abbreviated in the hit location table: you can't fit "Heart/Great Vessels" into the column descripton, so it is just called "Heart" despite also indicating hits to the aorta, carotid, jugular, vena cava, and pulmonary artery. Similarly, "Major Vessels" is shortened to "Vessl" in the table.

Avoiding Analysis Paralysis

Sometimes there are so many options to consider, it can bog down the flow of the game while you try to choose the optimal set of attitude, where to aim, rate of fire, how to spend goodies, and etcetera. Remember - each combat round is only three seconds long!

Referees, feel free to give players only to the count of three to decide what they are going to do. If they are still dithering at that point, they take a Recovery action for the combat round while deciding what to do.

Players, simple fast statements about what your character is going to do are usually enough. Things like "I move over here and shoot that guy".

Goodies: If you get more degrees of success than necessary to directly strike your chosen hit location (i.e. 4+ DOS if targeting central locations, +2 DOS if targeting peripheral locations), you can use the extra degrees of success to target tender or vital areas more precisely. Each additional DOS lets you shift the 2d6 roll for armor or penetration limit by one in either direction; or spend 2 DOS to shift the 1d6 roll for nerves, circulatory, or respiration on a penetrating hit by 1 in either direction. Regardless of how many DOS you spend, you cannot shift a die roll beyond its normal limits (the armor and penetration limit rolls, for example can't be reduced below 2 or increased above 12).

If your attack has a damage roll (such as most melee attacks), you can spend degrees of success to increase the damage roll on a 1-for-1 basis; these can be spent before or after using degrees of success to determine hit location. Again, the damage roll cannot be increased beyond 12.

Damage

So you hit your foe. Now what?

Weapon damage is related to how big of a hole it makes. The Penetration (Pen) value of the blow is a measure of how deep a hole the weapon is capable of producing. The Wound value of the blow is a measure of how wide the hole is. There are a few fiddly exceptions to this, like bullets that expand or tumble when they are inside the body which are more convenient to model with a modified blow-through - but for basic purposes this description will suffice.

If the weapon's Pen starts with '+' or '-' and ends with 'RS', the weapon is muscle-powered. The listed number is the row shifts on the Score-Value table the weapon increases your unarmed damage. Roll 2d6 and apply the listed row shift and your unarmed row shift to find the penetration delivered by the blow. Note that many ranged weapons, such as bows and crossbows, are technically muscle powered but only store a fixed amount of energy so they do not get this modifier.

Other weapons, such as bullets, beams, and arrows, have a fixed Penetration - the amount of stuff they can punch through is fairly constant. It is the details of how they hit things that makes the damage effects variable.

Blunt Trauma: Blunt trauma can sometimes get through armor to smash up the wearer even though the blow did not get through. This is reflected in the Blunt score of the armor, which describes how well the armor distributes a blow over a wider area, and the Pad value, which reflects the padding.

Determine the Injury Score of the impact to the armor based on the Penetration the armor absorbed and the attack's Blunt Wound score. If not listed, assume that Blunt Wound is equal to the listed Wound score. Reduce this by the Sharp Score of the weapon (if any). If the armor's Blunt score is larger than the attack's Blunt Wound score, reduce the Injury Score by (armor's Blunt - weapon's Blunt Wound). Then ⊖ the Injury Score by the armor's Pad Score, if any (if the attack's Blunt Wound is larger than the armor's Blunt, add the difference to the Pad before ⊖-ing). This is the Injury transmitted to the wearer as blunt trauma.

  • If needed, the Wound score of the blunt trauma is the larger of the armor's Blunt score and the Blunt Wound score of the blow that struck the armor.
  • The Penetration delivered to the wearer is found by subtracting the Wound score from the Injury score, and taking the value of that number. This is usually only important when determining if enough Penetration was delivered to cause a penetrating injury, or if there is a question of if the penetration can exceed the penetration limit roll.
The damage is of type Smash.
Damage to Armor: Cumulative damage can degrade armor and make it less protective. Find the Damage Points absorbed by the armor and compare to the armor's Injury Thresholds. If the Injury Score is 11 or worse, the armor will become less effective.
  • Injury Score 12 – the Armor's Activation becomes 4 if it was not already higher.
  • Injury Score 13 – the Armor's Activation becomes 5 if it was not already higher.
  • Injury Score 14 – the Armor's Activation becomes 6 if it was not already higher and Armor Score decreases by ½ from the original value.
  • Injury Score 15 – the Armor's Activation becomes 7 if it was not already higher and Armor Score decreases by 1 from the original value.
  • Injury Score 16 or more – the Armor is completely destroyed.
Not all armors will be damaged by all attacks.
  • Flexible armor, such as anything made of cloth or leather, is not degraded by Smash-type damage.
  • Conductive armor is not degraded by Arc-type damage.
  • Otherwise, anything that penetrates armor will degrade it.
  • Armor will be degraded by any attack from something that is harder than it is even if it is not penetrated … a steel axe can chop wood, but a wood club can't do much to a thick steel plate. In rough order of increasing hardness:
    • Organics, such as leather, wood, and cloth.
    • Mineralized organics, such as bone or shell.
    • Very soft metals, such as gold or lead.
    • Soft metals, such as aluminum or copper or silver.
    • Bronze.
    • Iron and steel.
    • Rock and ceramics.
    • Advanced armors, such as adamant and carboplast.
    • Specialized armor piercing bullets and similar projectiles.
  • Brittle materials, such as glass, diamond, or shatterplate, will be degraded by any attack that passes a threshhold Injury Score – +9 is typical – even if it doesn't penetrate or isn't hard enough.
  • Finally, apply common sense! If a result seems silly, the referee shouldn't allow it.
Since keeping track of damage to armor can be a nuisance, the referee can ignore it except for armors that are likely to be significantly degraded during a fight. It can be assumed that the armor is repaired after the battle. Armors with their injury thresholds grayed out can usually neglect damage. Others, such as shatterplate or deflector screens, are likely to fail after repeated hits. These are not grayed out and tracking damage is important.

Armor and Barriers: If your opponent has armor, it will help to protect him from your blow. The protection is fairly variable, however - the blow might hit at a shallow angle and bounce off or hit square and deliver all its energy; it may hit a weak join or strike where several pieces overlap for maximum strength. Roll 2d6 and shift the result by the number of row shifts (RS) indicated by the armor description and the number of RS for the AP score of the attack that hit. Subtract the result of this armor roll from the Penetration of the attack. If the armor roll is greater than the Penetration, the blow is completely stopped.

Armors may provide different protection against different kinds of attacks.

If there is a barrier between the attacker and the target, it will act like armor (but will not cause blunt trauma). Barriers get a separate roll from armor.

The AP value only applies against armor and barriers that stop attacks by virtue of their material strength, toughness, and rigidity (such as wood, stone, tough hide, shell, or metal plate). AP does not apply to liquids, gels, powders, fine granular materials (like sand or dirt), or anything that is particularly soft and squishy (like meat, organs, or bodies). The limit of of the AP score that can affect the material is the difference between the Mech and Rad armor scores.

Many armors have an activation roll. If the armor roll is less than the activation, the blow bypasses that armor altogether. Layering can help here - if one piece of armor is bypassed, other pieces can still provide some protection. To make life easy on yourself, only roll the dice once and apply that roll with appropriate multipliers to all worn armor, and adjust the net multiplier to the closest row on the Score-Value table.

Penetration Delivered to the Target: The amount of Pen that gets past armor is available to punch into the target. However, there are limits - powerful attacks can punch right through the target. The maximum Pen the target can absorb before the attack just punches all the way through is its Penetration Limit die roll (2d6 for a Size 0 target like most humans).

Penetrating Injuries: If the Pen delivered to the target is half or more than the Penetration Limit die roll, and if the Penetration Limit die roll before row shifting is more than five, the blow penetrated deep enough to affect vital organs. This is a penetrating injury. Injury Scores of 10 or worse are always considered penetrating regardless of the Penetration Limit die roll.

Wound Delivered to the Target: The Wound Score measures how wide the attack is. Bigger holes cause more damage than narrower holes for the same amount of Penetration. As a rough guideline, an attack creating a circular hole has Wound = score of [diameter in cm] - 2, an attack making a linear gash has Wound = score of [width of gash] - 3.

If the attack's Wound score is larger than the target's Wound Score Limit, the attack is larger than the target and some of the attack just passes him by: decrease the effective Wound Score for this attack against that target to the Wound Score Limit. If the Wound Score is larger than the target's Large Wound Limit, the attacks are considered a Large Attack (see the section on Area Attacks).

Injury to the Target: The target sustains an injury with an Injury Score given by the Wound Score + score of [absorbed Pen] + target's Injury Susceptibility, rounding down to a whole number after all the math is done. If there is an extra ¼ to the Injury Score left over, the target also records a second injury with a score of 2 less than the primary injury; an extra ½ gives injury of 1 less than the primary; and an extra ¾ gives two extra injuries of score one and two less than the primary. A target can have a number of different injuries with different Injury Scores, but if the target already has an injury with the same Injury Score, erase the pre-existing injury and increase the Injury Score of the new injury by 1. Note that this can cascade if the target has a number of injuries to the same location in an increasing sequence of Injury Scores.

Example: Our hero Helen Highwater has had quite the rough-and-tumble adventure recently, with three injuries that have injury scores of +4, +5, and +6. When fighting her way out of a pirate base, a pirate hits her in the gut with a club, causing a new injury of +4 Injury Score. Since this is the same as one of her pre-existing injuries, that injury is erased and the Injury Score of the new injury is bumped up to +5. But again, this matches a pre-existing injury, so that one also goes away and the Injury Score goes up to +6 – which then cascades up due to the already existing +6 injury to a +7. The net result is that after getting clobbered, Helen only has one injury, and that one has a +7 score. Ouch!

The higher the Injury Score, the worse the effects on the target. A +3 injury will hurt, but is pretty minor. At +7, the injury is starting to get pretty serious. At +9, things are really severe. Once you reach +13, the injury is so awful that entire body parts are entirely destroyed. And at +16, the whole body is disintegrated.

Sometimes it is necessary to distinguish between the injury the target just took and the injury score he ends up with. What you just took is called the initial injury, and what you end up with is the accumulated injury.

Effect:

Throwing

The distance you can throw a light object (with a Size up to your Size-4½) is value of [11 + Brawn]. For every half-degree by which the object's Size exceeds this limit, the distance is row shifted down by one. If the object has a listed WSize attribute instead (such as listed melee and thrown weapons), the light object limit is WSize = your Size-1.

Often, instead of just wanting to throw something as far as you can, you want it to end up in a certain place. This is a ranged attack with Aim 0. The speed of the thrown projectile is value of [5 + Brawn/2], with a further shift down a column for every degree by which the WSize of the object exceeds your Size-1 (or, equivalently, for every degree by which the Size of the object exceeds your Size-4½). Spread is +14, and DA can usually be neglected for anything heavy and dense enough to cause significant damage. Maximum range is 1.5×Speed², equivalent to the previous method of finding the maximum range.

Melee Attacks (Advanced)

Unarmed Blows: A punch, kick, head-butt, knee strike, elbow strike, or the like does Smash damage with your Unarmed Penetration and Wound. Many life forms and machines have natural weapons that can increase this damage.

Any Pen absorbed by armor from an unarmed attack is taken as damage by whatever body part is striking the blow, with Wound given by the attacker's unarmed Wound score.

High Speed: If melee attacker is moving rapidly with respect to his target, his damage may be increased. Effective Brawn for the attack will be Brawn ⊕ 2×(score of [distance moved this turn] + Action Score - 8). If both the attacker and target are moving, find the velocity in meters per second of both as value of [score of [distance moved this turn] + Action Score - 3], and find the relative motion between them. The effective Brawn then becomes Brawn ⊕ 2×(score of [relative motion] - 5).

Note: the Action Points in the above formulas correct for the fact that high Action Points mean you get to act more often, so for the same movement on your turn you will be physically going faster.

Cramping: If you have a short weapon and are fighting against an opponent with a longer weapon, it can be advantageous to get inside their reach where you can attack effectively and they are hindered by the length of their weapon. First, however, you need to get past their weapon.

After engaging with an enemy, and if your Attitude is not Cautious or Probing, you can take a step toward your enemy with any melee attack action. Resolve the attack, but if successful you do not hit your opponent but rather deflect his weapon to allow you to step in close. You can choose any level of Cramped or Slightly Cramped condition for attacks thereafter, until your opponent can regain his distance. If your opponent takes a step as part of his defense, you can maintain the cramped condition if you advance to counter this on your next attack against him.

Someone who is Cramped by an opponent (but not grappled) can escape the cramped condition by making a melee attack in the same way that you can force a Cramp – you will not cause damage, but can keep your opponent from following you as you move away so as to maintain a favorable distance. This requires making a step, and can be done with any Attitude. If you do not have room to move far enough away, you cannot escape being cramped.

Example: Helen Highwater is fighting a corrupt sheriff. Helen has a disruptor sword (Def +3, Bulk +3) and the sheriff has a disruptor glaive (Def +4, Bulk +6). Helen is initially at a disadvantage due to the glaive's length – she has a -1 to defense rolls, and the sheriff has a +1. Helen takes a double action on her turn, the first to get inside the sheriff's reach and impose the Cramped penalty on any weapon with a Bulk of 4 or more and the second to attack the sheriff. Because it is a double action, Helen has a -2 on all rolls associated with those actions but if she succeeds in closing the sheriff will have a -3 penalty on attack and defense rolls with his glaive because of the Bulk of his weapon until he can lengthen the distance again.

Grappling: Sometimes, it makes more sense to grab something and restrain it than to hit it. The amount that something is hindered by something grabbing it is tracked by Control points. If you tie your opponent up real good, this is simulated in the game by a grapple attack that achieved a lot of Control.

As long as you have any Control at all on your opponent, he cannot separate himself from you. If he tries to move away, he will need to drag you with him. Enough Control will give your opponent penalties to do things involving physical activity:
  • < Carry, -4 RS: No penalty, other than being attached.
  • ≥ Carry, -4 RS: -1 penalty to Coordination.
  • ≥ Carry, -3 RS: -2 penalty to Coordination.
  • ≥ Carry, -2 RS: -3 penalty to Coordination.
  • ≥ Carry, -1 RS: -4 penalty to Coordination.
  • ≥ Carry, +0 RS: -5 penalty to Coordination. At this level and higher, any physical activity requires a Coordination check against a DC 0 (unless the Coordination or Coordination-based skill check already has a higher DC), and the Coordination penalty applies to the check.
  • ≥ Carry, +1 RS: -6 penalty to Coordination.
  • ≥ Carry, +2 RS: -7 penalty to Coordination.
  • ≥ Carry, +3 RS: -8 penalty to Coordination.
  • ≥ Carry, +4 RS: -9 penalty to Coordination.
  • ≥ Carry, +5 RS: -10 penalty to Coordination.
  • At even higher levels of Control, continue the table at an additional -1 Coordination penalty for every +1 RS to the Carry multiple.

    If you have grabbed a specific body part of your foe, any actions using that body part are at an additional -1 to Coordination as long as your established Control exceeds his Carry -7 RS. A body part grab also allows you to contest any action made using that body part – straight Strength vs. Strength, with Strength penalized with the same Control penalty as Coordination.

    Grapple Attack: Make a Melee attack using your Grapple skill. If you succeed, you establish Control Points on your opponent equal to 2d6 Row Shifted by your Strength - 2. You can spend degrees of success (as Goodies) to increase the 2d6 roll as if it were any other damage roll – each DoS spent adds 1 to the 2d6 roll – except that for grapples the 2d6 roll can go above 12!

    Once you have grabbed your foe, you can keep making Grappling attacks on subsequent actions; the Control Points from different attacks add.

    If you are only using one hand to grapple with (or escape with), you are at -1 to effective Strength when figuring Control. This can be important if you plan to, say, grab your foe with one hand and then stab him with the knife you are carrying in the other hand. If you grapple with your legs as well as your arms you are at +1 to Strength. Creatures with odd body shapes follow these rules for the effect instead of the description - a python that is using its entire torso to wrap up its victim leaving nothing with which to brace itself will get +1 to Strength for the purpose of grappling; the same python trying to constrict two victims at the same time would count as "one hand" for each victim, at -1 to Strength for each of them.

    If you have Control, at any time you can let go to give up some or all of that Control.

    Grapple An Item: If you grab an item that someone is holding, you can try to prevent them from using that item and can even try to wrestle it away from them. Your foe can be assumed to have 2d6 Control Points Row Shifted by their Strength, with an additional -1 Row Shift if the item is only held in one hand. Any Control Points you obtain can either be used to maintain a hold on the item, or remove Control from your foe's grip on the item. Control Points that you have on the item impose the usual Coordination penalty to attempts to use it with an additional -1 penalty as if it were an arm grab (and your foe's Control on the item likewise affects your attempts to use the item). If you remove all of your foe's control points on his item, you will have wrestled it away from him. Likewise, if he removes all your control points on his item, he will have broken your grip on the item.

    Escape: If you are grabbed, you can try to escape. An escape is handled exactly like a grapple attack, except that you remove Control that has already been established on you. Note that you always have the option of counter-grappling to establish Control on your foe rather than removing it from yourself.

    Shoving: Make your grapple attack as usual, but instead of applying the Control to your opponent, apply it for effect in order to move him. Your opponent will take the Coordination penalty on his next turn only as he is knocked off balance.

    In addition, you can force your opponent to take a step for every 2 points of Coordination penalty. If this is farther than you can move and you have your opponent grappled, you can choose to either limit the distance your opponent moves to your own move, or let go so your opponent goes farther. You cannot shove someone farther from the distance you move than the maximum distance you can throw them. An opponent flung in such a fashion must make a Coordination check at a DC given by 2 + your margin of success or fall down at the end of his involuntary movement.

    Takedowns: Treat a takedown as a shove, but instead of forcing movement, a penalty of -3 lets you force your opponent to change position – for example, knocking him down from standing, or flipping him over on his belly if he is on his back. If you force your foe prone and get on top of him, you have him pinned and 15th of your own weight plus that of your gear counts as encumbrance to all his actions.

    Throws: Many martial arts teach methods to knock down an opponent by using his own strength against him. To reflect this, on her first action after a successful defense, if her opponent has not yet had another turn, a grappler can attempt any of the effects from Shoving and Takedowns (above) but RS the roll for effect Control by the victim's own Brawn. (Since the victim's Brawn also makes his Carry higher, against which you compare the effect Control, the two effects counter each other with a net result that Brawn no longer factors in to how much the victim gets thrown around).

    Trips: A trip is handled as a throw, except when an opponent moves up to or past the grappler, within the grappler's reach.

    Pickup: This is a modification of the Takedown rules. Instead of forcing your opponent into a different posture, you can simply lift him into the air. Your must inflict a Control penalty at least as large as the encumbrance Penalty your victim imposes on you for picking up or carrying him, including the weight of all his gear. If your opponent weighs more than you can carry, the pickup automatically fails.

    Once you have your opponent picked up, you can carry him as if he were any other object. You can automatically perform a takedown at any time.

    Very small opponents are easier to lift. If your intended victim weighs less than half of your lowest encumbrance limit, you don't need to roll for a pickup — it is automatic with any grapple.

    A quick-and-dirty estimate of the control penalty needed for a pickup is
    -(6 + 3 × victim's Size - grappler's Strength)
    This neglects extra weight due to carried equipment. Also, if the victim has a Density score, it counts toward their Size.

    Smash: If you use a throw, shove, or takedown to move your foe into a solid object, he suffers a collision. The base Penetration is your unarmed Penetration with an additional RS of +1 if you are using both hands, and your difference in Sizes (upwards if you are larger, downward if your victim is larger). You get an additional +½ RS for every degree of Coordination penalty from Control, either from a grapple, shove, takedown, trip, or throw, up to +2½. (To be consistent for the rules for determining damage from Melee weapons, if your foe is much smaller than you this maximum additional Pen should be reduced – +2 if his Size is 3 or 3½ less than yours, +1½ if it is 4 less, +1 if 4½ less, +½ if 5 less, and no additional Pen if less that 5 under yours. Essentially, you are using your victim as the club, and lighter victims don't hit as hard.) If your opponent also falls to the ground, add the Penetration of a fall from twice the foe's Reach to this base. The Wound is your opponent's unarmed Wound score. But remember, in a collision the smaller object generally keeps rolling Pen limit rolls to produce a series of wounds until all the Pen is accounted for. If you are strong enough to just lift your opponent into the air, you can swing him like a club into solid objects, or literally throw him, to the same effect. You can also just shake your victim like a terrier shakes a rat, again causing the same damage – but in this case you use your own unarmed Wound score and the opponent only gets one Pen limit roll before additional Pen blows through.

    Breaking Things: When you have a Grapple you can use your hold to twist parts of your opponent until they break. You need to have a limb or the head grappled. Find damage as if for a smash, except that only well designed, fully articulated rigid armor can protect against this damage.

    Squeeze or Strangle: If you have your foe grabbed by the torso, you can squeeze them to prevent them from breathing. If your have inflicted Control on your victim in excess of his Carry, he must beat you in a contest of Strength or he will suffer from suffocation. On each of his turns, he can attempt another Strength contest to breathe again.

    A strangle is handled as a squeeze, but you must grab your victim by the neck and you can apply the strangle regardless of the level of your Control, and your victim is at a penalty to the Strength contest given by the usual Control penalty. While strangling, you are also causing your unarmed combat damage to the neck.

    Choke: A choke cuts off the flow of blood to the brain (compared to a strangle, which collapses the windpipe). To apply a choke you need to grab your victim by the neck. Once the choke is set your victim makes a DC 2 Vigor check on his next turn, and every subsequent turn until he escapes or you let go, with the control penalty for the grapple applied to your victim's Vigor check. On a failure he takes Fatigue given by value of [degree of failure]. Unconsiousness occurs at the "Mild Shock" level. This Fatigue recovers at a rate of value of [3+vigor] per turn.

    Normally, this choking Fatigue will not directly kill, but if held for too long it can cause brain damage or death. For every 3×Stamina choking Fatigue inflicted, take 1 Concussion point.

    Strike to Grapple: Most carnivorous animals can grab at the same time they are dishing out damage with their teeth and claws - when a crocodile locks its jaws around you, its teeth cause damage as weapons while its jaws hold you in a grab. Likewise, the leopard that pounces on you holds you down with the same meat-hook claws that rip into your flesh. The same attack roll is used to find Control from grab and injury from the animal's natural weapons.

    Melee weapons used in piercing attacks can also be used to strike to grapple. The same attack roll is used to find the effect of the grab and to resolve the weapon strike. The weapon must penetrate armor and cause a penetrating wound for the grapple to take effect.

    Beat or Bind: This is a technique used to knock your foe's weapon out of line or readiness with your own. It can be used with any melee weapon – use it to strike at your opponen't weapon. Roll for effect Control, the Coordination penalty applies up through the end of your opponent's next action. Axes and other melee weapons with hooks can use a beat against an opponent's shield as well.

    Weapon Trap: Melee weapons that are hooked (again including axes) or with slots or trapping prongs can catch an opponent's weapon. Treat this as a beat or bind, but your weapon can maintain control over your opponent's weapon or shield, as for a normal grapple. This is treated as a nomral grapple an item maneuver, except that you can only prevent your opponent from using his item – you cannot use that item yourself. As with normal grapples, you can continue to build up Control over your foe's weapon, and he can try to escape. The downside is that you cannot use your weapon for anything else; and that the Control only applies to your opponent's weapon, not your opponent himself – if he simply drops his weapon he has no penalty.

    Ranged Attacks (Advanced)

    Projectile Spread: Weapons that shoot projectiles have an inherent inaccuracy or spread to the stuff they shoot out. This can cause limitations, but can also be exploited.

    These weapons have a score called Spread, which is the combined range and Size difficulty for an attack in which the inherent inaccuracy will still put all the shots into the target. The lower the Spread score, the more the shots tend to deviate from their aimed trajectories. For longer ranges or smaller sizes, the shot – even if perfectly aimed – can end up hitting someplace else or even missing the target altogether. Usually, in typical engagement ranges, Spread can be ignored. However there are some weapons, such as primitive smoothbore firearms, where the Spread can be limiting even at fairly close range. And there are some, such as shotguns, where the Spread is critical to how they function!

    Size and range score: This is the range score from the shooter to the target, minus the target's Size score. It is the same number that comes into evaluating the base difficulty to hit a target.
    Benchmark: A good rifle can shoot into one Minute of Angle, or MOA, which is 160th of one degree. A good handgun or shotgun might be able to shoot into 5 MOA. Primitive muskets would typically get 20 to 30 MOA. One MOA corresponds to a Spread of +25. Spread can be found as +25 - Score of [MOA].

    • The most degrees of success you can get for determining hit location and goodies is Spread - [Size and range score].
    • If the Spread is less than the [Size and range score], use Spread in place of the Size and range score when determining the base chance to hit. However, the attack is now an area fire attack against a Size given by the [Size and range score] - Spread and a Shot score of zero … single shots are likely to miss altogether.

    Area Fire: Area fire is when you shoot into an area rather than at particular targets, giving a chance for your shots to strike anything in that area. For example, you might spray down an area with bullets from a machine gun. Or if your enemy is holding the door shut you can empty your pistol into the door, hoping some of the shots hit the guy on the other side. Or maybe you actually missed or over-penetrated your intended target, and your shots keep going and can threaten people farther down range. For area fire, you can combine the shots from several different actions on your turn into one area fire attack.

    Choose an area into which you are directing your fire. Determine the size modifier of this area.
    Benchmark: One square meter has a Size score of +1. Therefore, an arbitrary area will have a Size score of (Score of [area in m²])/2 + 1.
    Make an attack roll against the area, not targets in it. If you hit the area, everything in the cone from your weapon to the area and beyond has a chance to be hit. The attack has a Spread score that depends on the Size of the area attacked and the range to that area
    Spread score = range score to target - target Size.
    Also determine the Shot score:
    Shot score = Score of [number of shots that hit the area]/2
    For every potential victim of the attack, find the Saturation score
    Saturation score = Shot score + victim's Size - victim's Range score - Spread score

    or (perhaps more conveniently)

    Saturation score = Shot score + (victim's Size - area's Size) - (victim's Range score - area's Range score).

    These two methods are mathematically equivalent, but when hosing down a given area, the second method is quicker to apply for victims in that area because the difference in Range scores goes away and you only need to worry about the Sizes and Shot score. The first is easier when you have a known Spread score (like for multiple projectile attacks or fragmentation).

    The Value of [2 × Saturation score] is the average number of times the victim is hit. To determine the effect, use
    Saturation score Effect
    0 or more This causes normal damage for the attack except that Wound is increased by the Saturation score. If the average number of hits is lower than the number of potential hit locations affected, roll for hit locations for each average hit. For special effects of injury to that hit location, treat the Wound score of the attack as if it were the Wound score of an individual projectile. If the average number of hits is more than the potential number of afected hit locations, simply assume that every potential hit location is struck with potential special injury effects to a hit location figured as if with a Wound reduced by Score of [number of hit locations]/2 from the total Wound. For more than one average hit, it is treated as an area attack, except use the original Wound + (Saturation score - 3½) instead of the LWL.
    -1 or less The potential victim might be hit by a single projectile. This causes normal damage for one projectile to a randomly determined hit location. The shooter cannot spend degrees of success to target a specific location or use goodies because he is not actually shooting at what got hit.
    Saturation Roll Die type
    -1 5- d10
    -2 3- d10
    -3 1 d10
    -4 6- d100
    -5 4- d100
    -6 2- d100
    -7 1 d100
    When checking for special effects of penetrating injuries (nerves, circulatory, respiration), add 1 to the 1d6 roll for every additional shot that hits the same location.

    Multiple Projectile Attacks (Shotguns, Canister): Shotshells and other multiple projectile attacks have a Shot score that works the same way as the Shot score of an area fire attack.

    Spread is typically 11 for shotguns, but with a choke this can be increased to 12 or 13.

    If the range score - Size is Spread-3 or less, all the projectiles will hit the same hit location – simply increase the Wound Score of a single projectile by half the Shot Score and treat it as a single projectile attack. If the range score - Size is greater than the Spread, treat it exactly as an area fire attack (because the shot pattern completely covers the target's body).

    Otherwise, the shot pattern spreads out to include more hit locations but still mostly hits the target.
    Range - Size Hit locations
    ≤Spread-3 1
    Spread-2 2
    Spread-1 5
    ≥Spread all
    Treat the special effects of injury to affected hit locations in the same way as for area fire. The hit locations must be adjacent to each other, and centered on the base hit location determined normally. As with area fire, group together injuries from hit locations with identical effects (for example, if you affect 4 hit locations and two are covered by armor, treat this as two injuries, one combined from the two hit locations that hit the armor and the other from the two that bypass it).

    Misses: If you miss your target, you might hit someone or something else. Treat this as area fire against a Size of the target's Size + degree of failure of the hit roll.

    Over-Penetration: If you hit your target with a ranged attack, and the target and his armor does not absorb all of the blow's penetration, the attack can hit people down-range. Treat this as area fire against a Size of the target's Size.

    Fragmentation: Explosions often throw out large quantities of lethally fast fragments or shrapnel. This fragmentation is an area effect attack (see main text) that is treated as an area fire attack with a Spread score of 0 and the listed Shot score. If the victim is in contact with the munition when it bursts, he takes an additional fragment injury to the hit location(s) in contact, with Wound score increased by Shot score; and at an additional +1 to Wound score if the munition was inside the victim.

    Micro-Shrapnel: For large quantities of very small pieces of shrapnel, it is easiest to simply list a Penetration of the shrapnel blast, the DA range, and the combined Wound of the blast at a range of 1 meter. This is treated as an area attack, affecting all exposed hit locations. The Wound will be reduced by the Range Score from the blast to the victim; Penetration falls off according to the DA. If the micro-fragmentation explosion happens in direct contact with the victim, the Wound is increased by +3½ from the listed Wound at 1 meter; if the exposion occurs inside the victim, the Wound is increased to +4½ over the listed Wound. This gives results identical to fragmentation when the victim will be hit by more than one fragment per hit location out to ranges where the DA does not make Penetration so low as to be irrelevant. Some modern munitions, such as DIME (Dense Inert Metal explosive) warheads, act like micro-shrapnel explosions.

    Minimum Strength: If a weapon has a listed Min Str or RCL (recoil), you have a -1 to your hit roll for every point by which your Strength is less than the Min Str or RCL. The difference between these two is that RCL increases when using Rapid Fire (see below).

    If the Min Str score is two number separated by a '|' symbol, the first score is the Strength needed to prepare the weapon for firing (such as cocking a crossbow or drawing a bow), and the second score is the Strength below which the weapon has a penalty to use. For a weapon like a crossbow, if it can be cocked by some method other than the user's native Strength (such as by using pulleys, levers, or other contrivances), it can be used as if from a Strength of the second listed score.

    Rapid Fire: Many firearms allow the attacker to fire several shots in one action. All shots must be fired at the same target.

    If you fire more than one shot in an action, the RCL number for your attack goes up by score of [number of shots fired] - shooting lots of shots makes it harder to hit your target. Your target makes one defense roll. Each shot you fire shares 1d6 but rolls a separate d6 to add to it. The sum of the common d6 and the individual shot's d6 gives the usual 2d6 roll for determining if you hit and effects such as shot placement and goodies.

    Suppressive Fire: Mooks under fire must make a Spirit check to expose themselves to fire - DC of 6 to return fire from cover, DC of 9 to stay out in the open. Major characters, including PCs, have the freedom to evaluate the risks and take actions that they see fit. Robots, even mook robots, are not generally subject to suppressive fire rules; the referee may decide that certain other mooks (such as fanatics, or primitives who don't understand the danger that guns represent) are also not restricted by these rules.

    Range: The effectiveness of ranged weapons decreases the further away the target is. The following effects apply:

    Damage Attenuation: Projectile weapons and some beam weapons have a Damage Attenuation (DA) attribute. Every time the projectile or beam travels this distance (in meters), the Penetration is reduced by -1 RS.

    Lasers cause damage using near-visible light - light in the near infrared, near ultraviolet, or visible part of the spectrum. These beams are attenuated by poor atmospheric conditions. Mist, smoke, fog, dust, and other suspended particulates will give a -1 RS to Pen for every -1 penalty to vision-based Awareness rolls. This is in addition to any listed DA. Beam weapons that are not based on near-visible light do not suffer from this effect.

    DA is usually a result of interaction with air (such as aerodynamic drag for projectiles). Consequently, for non-Earth-like atmospheres, divide the DA by the atmospheric density relative to Earth (which can usually be assumed to be equal to the relative atmospheric pressure).

    Focus: Beam weapons that emit focused beams have a Focus value. These beams start out wide at the gun and are focused to a small point at the target using optics (such as mirrors and lenses for light-based beams, or quadrupole magnets for particle-based beams). Focused beams have a Focus score instead of a Spread score, representing how tightly the beam can be focused at distance. The farther away the target is, the larger the spot and the less penetrating the beam will be - for every range band beyond the range score listed under Focus, reduce Pen by -1 RS, increase AP by +1 RS, and increase Wound by +½ RS. When AP is increased to +0, reduce Pen by -2 RS and increase Wound by +1 RS for every range band instead.

    Speed: The slower a projectile travels, the more it can be affected by gravity and wind, and the more the shooter needs to lead the target, making it harder to hit distant targets compared to an absolutely straight line of sight. This is represented by a Speed attribute, which is roughly 1/4 the velocity of the projectile in meters per second. For every full multiple of the Speed attribute (in meters) from the shooter to the target, increase the DC by one, up to an increase of half the Range Score (at which point you are lobbing the projectile on a ballistic arc like artillery, rather than just shooting mostly straight and hoping to correct for bullet drop). In addition, the longer it takes for a projectile to reach its target, the easier it is for the target to dodge out of the way. For every full multiple of the Speed attribute (in meters) from the shooter to the target, row shifted by minus the target's Action Score, the target gets a +1 bonus to its defense roll.

    Maximum Range: Some ranged weapons have a maximum range beyond which they cannot shoot, abbreviated Max.

    Arcing Fire: Many kinds of ranged weapons lob projectiles on high arcing trajectories, such as arrows, trebuchets, mortars, howizers, or even just a thrown rock. If you can see the target, the initial attack is handled the same as any ranged attack, remembering that the maximum increase to hit DC for the arcing motion of the projectile (handled by the Speed value) is one half of the Range Score.

    Artillery: If you are shooting at an immobile target (such as a fortification, or a spot of land), you can substitute your Smarts for your Coordination when making attack rolls with an artillery piece. Generally, to qualify for an artillery piece, the weapon cannot be aimed by hand but rather firmly mounted or stably braced and adjusted with mechanical or electronic controls. Don't forget to take the benefits of Careful Aim, Committed Attitude, and Focus. The artillery piece is automatically braced for the purpose of careful Aim. Naturally, immobile targets get no defense roll, although those in the area of effect can make a defense roll to clear the area before the shot hits if they are aware of the incoming shot.

    If you know the range to your target, and have access to a good set of artillery tables, you can adjust the angle (and possible speed of the projectile, depending on the weapon) to compensate for the range. This allows you to ignore all Speed penalties to hit (but does not eliminate the Speed bonus for your target to defend). You need a way to estimate the distance to your target; when you shoot you will end up shooting at this estimated point, not the actual target.

    Indirect Fire: An artillerist does not need to be able to see the target herself, as long as she knows its location.

    If a second person (known as a forward observer) can determine and communicate the location of the target to the artillerist, she can shoot her artillery at that location. The forward observer does not need to know where the artillery is; the artillerist does not need to know where the forward observer is. Indirect fire is occasionally possible in the Age of Sail to the Age of Steam, but it usually requires the forward observer to be within shouting distance of the artillery, perhaps because the artillery is sheilded behind a hill for protection against direct return fire. In the Age of Industry to the Atomic Age, indirect fire is usually carried out with communication over radio conveying location using shared gridded maps of the area. In the Information Age, the forward observer is more likely to communicate the GPS coordinates obtained by a range finder or drone.

    Indirect fire uses the same basic procedure outlines above:

    • The forward observer estimates the position of the target with any of the methods listed. In addition to finding errors in range, you also need to find errors in bearing – roll 1d6 with 1 being the direction away from the artillery and count clockwise in 60 degree increments instead of rolling for close/far.
    • The forward observer tells the artillerist his estimate of the target location.
    • The artillerist lays in her guns to fire at this estimated position.

    A forward observer is not needed to shoot at a known location on a map (assuming you have the map), or in other circumstances where the artillerist happens to know where to shoot even if she cannot see what she is shooting at.

    Artillery is often registered on certain important points by firing and correcting until the shells land in the right place. Thereafter, as long as neither the artillery pieces or the target points move, the artillery can automatically be set to hit within the Spread effect of the targeted location.

    Time of Flight: Now the artillerist fires her shot. Because the shot is a projectile, it takes time to reach the target. For low angle trajectories, assume that the projectile moves ten times its Speed value in meters every turn. High angle trajectories may be needed to clear high intervening obstacles, or when using mortars (which can only fire high angle shots). For game purposes, figure high angle shots move half as fast over terrain as low angle shots.

    Dispersion: Now check to see how close the artillerest got her shots to the place she was actually firing at.

    If your point of aim was actually in your target area, then a normal hit on the target hits the target area. You are now hitting what you aimed at.

    If you were shooting at an estimated point that was not inside of the area you were trying to hit, and your artillery pieces have a listed Spread score, make a task check with a DC of the Spread score - Aim score - 2. If you succeed, your shot hits within the innate dispersion of the artillery piece. This is an area with an effective Size of (Range score to target) - (Spread score of artillery piece), which corresponds to all shots landing within a circle of radius Value Of [effective Size -3] meters.

    If the artillery piece does not have a listed Spread score, you can assume that it is shooting at a 1 meter wide area for an effective Size of +1; hitting that spot is a task with DC of the Range score - Aim score -1.

    If this task score fails (which is likely, given the usual high number for the Spread for artillery) the shots will land a distance Value Of [effective Size -3 + degree of failure] meters away from the estimated target point. Determine the direction of the miss by rolling 1d6 with 1 being the direction away from the artillery and count clockwise in 60 degree increments

    For artillery without a Spread score, this relationship can be extended in the other direction to account for how good your shot was: the shots will land a distance Value Of [effective Size -3 - degree of success] meters away from the estimated target point.

    For artillery with a spread score, you can find where the shot lands by rolling 1d10 - 5½, and then row shifting by -8 + effective Size as the distance in meters the shot lands away from the central point of aim, with positive distances being further from the artillery piece and negative distances closer. Then repeat this for the distance the shot lands in the transverse direction, with positive distances landing to the right and negative distances to the left.

    If the artillery does not have an area effect, you can skip most of this and use the usual rules for Area Fire to see if a round that lands within its normal spread hits anything in that area.

    Adjusting Fire: The artillerist shoots her shell, and it hits some bit of non-descript land at some distance from her target. Whoever is observing the fire can now use the rules for estimating distance from a reference point to figure out how far away (and in what direction) the shot landed from the target. If this is the forward observer, he can then communicate this new target information to the artillerist. The artillerist knows that if she does not adjust her artillery piece, she will hit the same spot (or at least within the normal spread of that spot); adjusting the aim from this known coordinate is more accurate than just trying again. The DC to hit the new estimated target location uses the Range score of the new target location from the place where the previous shot hit instead of the range the artillery piece actually has to shoot.

    For any shots after the first two, the artillerist also knows how much a given adjustment changes the shot location, and can use this to proportionally guide the next shot – give her an additional +3 to her task roll to hit.

    Once an artillery piece has been dialed in, each subsequent shot will hit within the normal Spread distance of the artillery without any further adjustment.

    Fuses: Fuses are used to get a shell to burst at the right time, place, or under the right circumstances.

    In the Atomic Age and later, there are many fuse options:

    • Impact detonation. The shell delivers no impact Penetration to the target, but the full effect of the shell's warhead occurs right on the target.
    • After impact, allowing the shell to deliver some or all of its penetration to the target before bursting, or bursting at a set distance after its first impact.
    • Altitude. The radar in the fuse detects when the shell is the right altitude over the ground and then bursts.
    • Proximity. You get to treat a target that is smaller than the set Size as if it were that Size for the purpose of hitting it; but when the shell bursts it will be at a distance of Value Of [set Size -1] meters from the target.
    • Timed. A timer in the shell bursts the shell a given time after it is shot. Ideally, this occurs at the altitude you wanted it to burst at. Choose the place and altitude where you want the shell to burst, and make a DC 7 task of Smarts + Shoot (Artillery). Roll high/low on a d6 – high means the fuse bursts late, low means it bursts early. For shells on a low angle trajectory, an exact success means the shell bursts a distance of Speed meters before (for an early burst) or after (for a late burst) from the intended point, and an altitude of 13 Speed meters above (for an early burst) or below (for a late burst) the desired altitude. For a high angle trajectory, both the range and altitude are off by -1 RS of the Speed in meters. Every degree of failure increases this discrepancy by +1 RS; every degree of success decreases it by -1 RS. When the altitude reaches zero, or if the shell runs into something without exploding, the shot stops going forward. If it penetrates armor from the impact Pen, it will eventualy explode inside the thing it hit. If it does not penetrate the armor it is up to the referee whether it just stops there, gets stuck in the thing it hit, bounces, or rolls around for a little while until its fuse runs down.

    During the Second World War, only the Americans and their allies had altitude and proximity fuses, but other fuse types were available.

    In the Age of Industry, impact, after impact, and timed fuses were available.

    In the Age of Sail and Age of Steam, the only fuses were timed fuses consisting of lengths of burning fuse cord, ignited by the powder charge that fired the shot. The artillerist would need to cut the fuse to the right length and attach it to the shell. These are treated as normal timed fuses, but the DC to set the fuse is 12.

    Before the age of sail, there were no fuses. You just shot things and let them do whatever they do when they hit.

    Guided Rounds: Starting in the mid Atomic Age, artillery rounds can be laser guided. A person with a designator who can see the target needs to shine the designator's laser beam on the target. When the artillery round reaches its target, check to see if the user is successful in keeping the target designated at the end of flight. This is treated as an attack roll, except use the gunner's Smarts + Use Gear (weapons systems) in place of Coordination + Shoot. If the target is evading, it can get a defense roll against this lock-on attempt as usual. Once you know that the shell is flying at the right target, make a melee attack roll with the shell's Homing score substituting for the usual Coordination + Fight score to see if it successfully impacts what was being designated.

    By the Information Age, artillery shots can be GPS guided. The shells go directly to the provided GPS coordinates, no roll needed.

    Starting in the Automation Age, you can fire rounds that can use image recognition to home in on a target. The target can be designated by identifying and object in a streamed video feed to the artillery team before firing, by a controller watching the round's video telemetry in flight, or by allowing the round to automatically determine viable targets and autonomously choose the best one to strike. The cameras of the round will be multi-spectral, combining visible light, near infrared, thermographic, and near ultraviolet camera images for increased target discrimination and improved ECCM capabilities. Homing rounds will have a Homing score that the round uses to strike its target as a melee attack in place of Coordination + Fight skill, an Evasion score that it uses to evade attacks aimed to shoot it down, and an ECCM score used in place of Awareness to see if it is fooled by counter-measures such as decoys, jamming, or flares.

    Area Attacks

    An area attack affects all targets over a wide area. Anyone caught in the threatened area will be damaged (although barriers provide normal protection unless the attack is engulfing, see below). Anyone fully caught by the attack will take Wound of the character's Wound Score Limit; all hit locations are affected but use an initial Injury Score determined from the Large Wound Limit for determining specific effects to each body part. Cover that is not penetrated by the attack will reduce the Wound by the cover penalty.

    If the target is wearing armor, divide up the attack against groups of hit locations afforded the same protection by the armor; the Wound score against each of these sections is:
    Number of hit locations Wound
    1 LWL
    2 LWL+1
    3 LWL+1½
    4 LWL+2
    5 LWL+2¼
    6 LWL+2½
    7 LWL+2¾
    8 LWL+3
    9 LWL+3⅛
    10 WSL
    Accumulate the separate injuries normally. Again, damage effects against any individual body part are found using the LWL for finding initial Injury.

    Since area attacks typically are averaged over a large area of the body, there is less variability on armor protection and penetration blow through. Consequently, roll 4d6 for both and discard the highest and lowest rolls.

    When an area attack hits armor with an activation, apply a portion of the damage that bypasses the armor instead of the usual activation mechanics:
    Activation Wound bypassing armor
    2 none
    3 -11
    4 -7
    5 -6
    6 -4
    7 -3
    8 -2
    9 -1
    10
    11
    12 full

    Area attacks can be aimed at individual targets, in which case the target gets to defend as usual. If the target fails, the attack's effect is centered on the target. If the attack misses, it flies past the target – if there is an obstruction past the target that the attack could detonate against, it will do so at that point; otherwise the attack just flies far downrange (for thrown weapons, or attacks with relatively short range, it can be assumed to travel the Max range of the attack).

    More commonly, however, an area attack is aimed at a spot on the ground. A one meter diameter patch of ground has a Size of +1 and will not defend. Make a roll to hit a chosen spot of this size, and misses will be centered on a spot a distance of Value of [degree of failure on the hit roll] meters away in a random direction. Anyone caught inside the area will be affected, see the Defense action for details on how to get out of an affected area (or at least get behind cover that can protect you when the attack goes off).

    Large Attacks: An attack with a Wound score of the target's Large Wound Limit or more is treated as an area attack. Find the number of hit locations affected using the Number of hit locations table (above, used for armor effects) appropriate for the attack's Wound score. The hit locations affected will be adjacent to each other (so that an attack affecting 2 hit locations won't affect just the head and lower leg). Roll the central hit location, and spread out from there.

    An attack with a roughly round area of impact affects a diameter of value of [Wound - 12].

    Area Effect: Any Area Effect will cause a given amount of Pen over a defined area (such as out to a given radius, or in a line with a given width, or a cone that starts at a source and spreads out to a given width at a given distance), with Wound of the target's Wound Score Limit to all hit locations. Typically, this will be burn damage (as from an explosive fireball), but other types are possible.

    Engulfing: Many area attacks (like flamethrowers, fireballs, floods of acid, or vats of cryogens) can flow around walls and corners to burn those hiding behind them. Measure the shortest distance around any barriers to the target; if this is less than the radius of the effect, the target is affected by the attack.

    Splash: Some effects are patchilly distributed, such as splashes of damaging liquids or the dancing flames of a fire. Apply a Wound of (score of [2d6] + splash score + Size), up to a maximum of the WSL.

    Cloud: Clouds occupy a volume, and affect anything in the volume. They drift with the wind. New clouds produced within existing clouds make the cloud larger - add extra area to the edges of the cloud closest to the source with the same area as the newly emitted cloud. If there is ambiguity, expand the cloud downwind.

    Explosions: The overpressure of explosive blasts can cause direct trauma, can lift victims up and hurl them, can throw deadly fragments of the things that they broke, and can crush victims by collapsing structures on top of them.

    For any of an explosion's effects, when finding the range score from the explosion source to a victim if the victim's Size score is higher than the range score use the Size score instead.

    Pulse: Pulse explosions cause damage to everything within line of sight of the explosive. Immediately adjacent to the pulse, everything takes the full effect. The effect decreases by -2 RS on the Score-Value table times the range modifier from the source to the victim. If the victim's Size score is larger than his range score, use the Size score in place of the range score. Typical pulses cause flash burns from radiant heat, exposure from ionizing radiation (neutrons or gamma rays), or visual or audial overload.

    Point Defense

    Sometimes, you need to shoot down a projectile or munition that is coming at you, or at something else that you care about. You must first be able to detect the projectile – for biological organisms this mostly limits them to large, slow moving objects like spears and arrows launched from far enough away to give enough time to notice it. However, people don't shoot down projectiles much anyway. Usually, it is a machine doing the shooting, and they can use fast computer processors and sensors like radar or lidar to detect, identify, and track the target.

    You must also be able to react in time. A projectile moves a distance of ten times its Speed rating every combat round. The distance it will move on each of your turns is its Speed row shifted by 7 - your Action Score. If you were waiting for a projectile to get close enough, or for a specific target to shoot, you can make your attack immediately. If you were waiting to shoot down projectiles coming from an unknown direction, make a contest of your Coordination + Reaction Time with that of the shooter; you get a bonus to this roll equal to the bonus you would get to defend against the attack due to the projectile's Speed. If you succeed, you can try to shoot the projectile down. You can shoot a number of shots equal to value of (degree of success - 7 + score of (rate of fire)), with a minimum of 1 and a maximum of your weapon's rate of fire. Otherwise, the projectile may close the distance before you can get your shot off.

    Shooting a projectile down is treated like a ranged attack against the projectile. The projectile Size is listed in the weapon stat table. The range of the projectile can be more involved. If there is only one incoming projectile and you are taking only one shot, you can target the projectile at any range you choose between the projectile's location when you start your action and its location at the end of your action. If the projectile is coming at you, you might want to wait for the projectile to get close enough that you don't have any penalties to hit. But if the projectile has an area attack you might want to shoot it down farther away than that so when it explodes (or otherwise does what it does) you are not caught in its area of effect. For projectiles aimed at someone or something else, it would make sense to shoot at its distance of closest approach to you.

    If you have multiple shots, you can use all of them against the same projectile, or against different projectiles coming from the same shooter. Against one projectile, between shots the projectile will move at least a distance equal to the distance it can move on your turn divided by the rate of fire of your weapon. This is likely to mean that different shots will have different range scores, and if the projectile was close to you when fired you might not be able to get off many shots against it. You still roll one die in common for all your shots, but roll the other dice for the different shots in sequence so they can be compared to the changing DC for the shot due to changes in range. If your enemy is shooting at you with a cluster of projectiles all fired at the same time (like a multiple projectile attack, or shots from separate weapons fired simultaneously), the same rule applies. Otherwise, you can target multiple incoming projectiles independently with the number of shots you allocate to it using the rules for single shots.

    For simple dumb projectiles, you only need to match or exceed the base difficulty of

    -2 + range score - projectile Size
    in order to hit. Guided projectiles, however, will have a Coordination score and may have increased their Evade skill. These projectiles get a defense roll, which is added to the base difficulty required to hit.

    After you hit a projectile, you must disable it. Find the injury to the projectile normally. Warheads typically have Density +1 and Structure Brawn +0. They will be disabled as a Mook, and disabling due to penetrating injury will set the warhead off. Kinetic projectiles are tougher. Standard bullets have Density +2½ and Structure Brawn +0; armor piercing rounds have Density +3 and Structure Brawn +8. A kinetic projectile is much harder to stop – figure an Injury Score of +13 or more is enough to break it apart or knock it off course so that it is no longer a threat.

    Absorbed Pen = min[(2d6, RS by Size + Density + (Structure Brawn/2)), delivered Pen]
    Injury Score = score of [absorbed Pen] - 2 × Size - Density - (Structure Brawn/2) + Wound
    Simplifying by assuming that the attack has enough Penetration to exceed the Pen Limit roll and that the Wound is less than the Wound Limit,
    Injury Score = score of [2d6] - Size + Wound
    Injury Score ≥ +3 to disable a warhead
    Injury Score ≥ +13 to disable a kinetic projectile.

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