All combat is fought in rounds. A round is equal to a few seconds of game time. The reason I chose to keep the specific length of a round unspecific was because combat is chaotic and nothing happens in nice evenly spaced intervals. Flexibility was also a strong reason for this decision.

Order of combat in a round:

• Each character determines his Initiative for the round.
• Each character then states his actions for the round.
• Characters then act in the order of their Initiative.

 INITIATIVE:

Initiative is determined by taking a character’s Agility and rolling 1d6. If the character had an Agility of 4 and rolled a 3, then he would have an Initiative of (4+3) 7 for the round. Initiative can also be affected by Skill Modifiers if a character is in a position to use that skill. If the Swordsman had his sword ready and began combat in hand to hand combat range, then he could add his Skill Modifier (+3 in this case) to his Initiative.

 Initiative also determines the number of actions a character may perform in a round. Take the Initiative total of the character and subtract 6 until you reach 5 or less. If Megaman has an Initiative of 14 this round, he may act on Initiative 14, 8 and 2, for a total of three times this round. Badguy with Initiative 11 could act only twice, once on 11 and 5. As Initiative changes every round, so too does a character’s order of action and number of actions for each round.

MELEE COMBAT:

Melee is any combat fought between combatants in hand to hand. Unarmed attacks as well as muscle powered weapons, such as swords, daggers, baseball bats, etc is fought in Melee. All characters use their Agility to determine the number of dice they use for attacking and defending. Skills add their Modifier to the overall total rolled on these dice (not to the number of dice to be rolled). If Swordsman (who has Swords at +3) with Agility 3 attacks, then he rolls 3d6 and adds +3 to the total. If he were defending he would do the same thing, unless he was attacked by a gunman. Melee skills do not add to Ranged combat attacks and vice versa.

RANGED COMBAT:

Ranged combat is any and all combat fought at range or with a ranged weapon, such as crossbows, guns, etc. All character use their Agility to determine the number of dice they use when attacking and defending. Skill Modifiers only add to the overall ‘to hit’ total and never to defending. No matter how good you are at marksmanship you will be no better at dodging bullets than the next guy.

BLOCKING AND DODGING:

There will be times that a character wishes to block or dodge an attack being made against him, forgoing his attacks for the round and going completely on the defensive. Whenever a character chooses to do this he must state his intention to do so at the beginning of the round, before any attacks are rolled. The character will then not be able to make any attacks that round but may retreat from combat. A character that is completely on the defensive adds 1d6 to his Agility for defending against being hit. He may also add any appropriate Skill Modifiers he may possess. Swordsman would add 1d6 to his Agility of 3 AND add +3 to the total rolled if defending against a hand to hand attack made against him that round.

ATTACKING OBJECTS:

What if a character attacks an object and not another character? The character makes a normal attack as he would any other time. The DM determines the difficulty of the attack and defends with that number of dice. Foxfire is standing a half a block away from a dump truck and fires a Power Blast at it, the DM figures this doesn’t require any great skill to hit so he assigns 2 dice to defend against the attack. The DM should take into account such things as visibility, size, etc, when determining the difficulty level of a particular task.

ARMOR AND DEFENSES:

Whenever a target is hit it has the potential to take damage. When an attack succeeds in hitting a target a number of dice equal to the attack’s strength are rolled. The target will then defend with a number of dice equal to it’s protection level. A howitzer (PF6) rolls 6d6 of attack against a concrete (PF4) wall’s 4d6 of defense. For each success an attack scores against defense, the target takes 1 HTK.

PSIONIC COMBAT:

As with any other combat, but the characters use their Intelligence for Initiative and their Psi to attack and defend. Psyche counts as the mental equivalent of armor or protection from psionic attacks.

HITS TO KILL:

A target can take it’s number of HTK before becoming unconscious or dysfunctional at 0 HTK. A Target will die or be destroyed at a negative HTK equal to it’s HTK value. An injured character recovers 1 HTK after the first day, +1 or 2 additional HTK if resting and or being medically treated. He then recovers his level in HTK per day afterwards, along with any rest or medical modifiers.

COMBAT EFFECTS OTHER THAN HTK:

Sometimes a combatant doesn’t wish to do straight damage to his target. He might wish instead to hold his opponent still or throw him through a wall. This is handled as normal combat, but might require a Strength vs. Strength contest after successfully hitting the target. Rolling multiple successes can also add to the effects of an attack. If Amra wanted to hurt his opponent AND send him into (and probably through) a wall he would use one of his successes to simulate the attack throwing the target. If Amra rolled 3 successes then he would do 2 HTK to his target and throw it across the room. A character might also try to blind an opponent or just knock it down. For some characters who don’t have an attack strong enough to defeat an opponent’s defenses, this is the only way they can survive sometimes.

  If a character scores two successes in damage against his opponent he can choose for his attack to 'stun' the victim. A stun will inflict 1 HTK and the victim will then have to save with a Stamina vs. the attack's Power Factor or be stunned and lose ALL remaining Actions for the round. If he is stunned and has no Actions left in that round then he loses all Actions for the following round. A character scoring 3 or more successes may choose to knock-out his opponent. A knock-out does 2 HTK of damage and forces the opponent to make a Stamina vs. the attack's Power Factor +1 level or become unconscious. An unconscious character will then roll a Stamina vs. the attack' Power Factor check the next round to regain consciousness again. Each round after that the attack's Power Factor drops by one level until the character either succeeds or the PF reaches 0, in which case the character awakens again.

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