Combat

Combat in Fae Domains is resolved in ten (10) second intervals called Combat Turns.

Basic Combat

All combat in Fae Domains follows the same basic flow.

1. Determine initiative.
At the beginning of each turn of combat, Everyone involved in the fight makes a Reaction Test and records the Margin. If someone fails the Reaction Test, count his margin as zero (0). Each combatant gets to take an action proceeding from the one with the highest margin to the one with the lowest margin. Anyone who botches the Reaction Test (see the Botch Optional Rule in the Making Tests chapter) can not act during the current combat turn.
If two characters have the same Reaction Margin, the one with the highest Reaction Attribute goes first. If it is still a tie, they move simultaneously with the effects of each action applied after both characters act. (It's possible for both character's to kill each other at the same time.)

2. Resolve Actions.
A character may attempt any action the Gamemaster deems reasonable. Even without the right skills, it's possible for characters to pull off some actions just by the Attribute Modifier involved. Some of the more common actions are described in the Resolving Actions section below.
After a combatant takes an action, subtract 25 from her Reaction Margin for a short action or subtract 50 for a full action. If the character's Reaction Margin is still greater than zero (0) then the character gets an additional action when the new Margin is reached. Keep subtracting the appropriate amount each time an action is performed until the Reaction Margin reaches zero, meaning the character has taken all the actions he can in that turn.

3. Repeat.
If there are any combatants still fighting, begin a new combat turn and go back to step 1.

Resolving Actions

Actions that a character may take are divided into three types. Free actions are the simplest and take almost no time to perform. Short Actions take a little time, but you can often perform two or more within a typical combat turn. Full Actions require the most time and can be fairly complex.
Delay action: If a character does not want to act yet when his turn comes up, he or she may voluntarily lower his Reaction Margin. If this lowers a character's Margin enough that she loses an extra action, then that action is forfeit.

The following actions do not take any significant time to perform. The character may take free actions in addition to another action when her turn comes as long as it does not conflict with any other actions taken at that time. A character may gesture and speak while running, but he could not gesture and swing a two handed greatsword simultaneously.

• Drop Prone: A character may drop to his or her stomach without using her action.
• Drop Object: A character may drop an item he is holding without losing an action. The object may be damaged by the fall if it is fragile. Assume the base damage of the fall to be 10. See the Equipment Damage section of the Equipment chapter for more information.
• Gesture: The character may gesture with a free hand.
• Speak: As long as the character's mouth is free, he may speak a short phrase up to 5 syllables. (Keeps conversations short in a ten second combat turn.)
• Walk: A character may walk a distance up to his or her Walk Move Rate in yards.

Short actions do not take as long to perform as regular actions. after performing a short action, subtract 25 from the character's Reaction Margin. If it is still greater than zero, the character may take another action this turn (full or short action).

• Change Position: By taking a short action, a character may stand up, lie prone, kneel, squat, sit or change his position in any other reasonable way. (Standing on your head requires an acrobatics test and a full action.)
• Pick up or set down an object: The character may pick up an object or set one gently on the ground.
• Ready Weapon: A character may draw a weapon, nock an arrow to a bow, or in some other way prepare a weapon for combat.
• Take Aim: By expending a short action aiming at a target, the character gets a bonus of +5% to his next attack. The character may continue to aim until the aiming bonus is equal to half his combat skill in the weapon he is aiming with. If he takes any other action than aiming, attacking or holding his action, the character loses all accumulated aiming benefits.
• Move: A character may move a distance up to twice her Walk Move Rate in yards by taking a short action. This action may not be combined with a walk free action.
• Dodge: When a character is attacked, he may dodge if he has an action left in the turn. The action is spent as a short action. The character makes a dodge test and subtracts his Dodge Margin from the Attack Margin of his opponent. if the Dodge Margin is greater, the character completely sidesteps the attack.
  The character may move half the margin in feet to get away from his opponent.
• Block / Parry: A character may also choose to forfeit a short action (as under dodge above) in order to block or parry an attack. The character makes a Shield, unarmed, or Melee weapon skill test. Then the character adds Margin% times the shield's or weapon's Defense Rating to his Armor rating. If the attack does more damage than the full Defense Rating of the weapon or shield, then the item is damaged. See the Equipment Damage section of the Equipment chapter for more information about damaging items.
  An unarmed block is slightly more complicated. To stop an edged weapon, you either have to catch the flat of the blade, the handle, or the arm swinging the weapon. The Defense rating of an unarmed block is equal to the character's Agility Attribute.

The following actions take a full 50 from a character's Reaction Margin when they are executed:

• Acrobatic dodge: Identical to dodge above, accept for two things. An acrobatic dodge takes the character's next full action, but allows her to make an acrobatics test and add the margin to her dodge test. If the acrobatics test fails, the character may not dodge.
  The character may also move a number of feet equal to the dodge margin horizontally and half that vertically.
• Run: A character can run up to his or her Run Move Rate in yards.
• Attack: The attack is the most critical point of combat. The instructions for resolving attacks are detailed in the Attacking section below.
• Cast Spell: The character may cast a spell, if he has the appropriate Affinities. For instructions about resolving spell casting, go to the Magic chapter.

1. Make the attack test.

Apply any of the modifiers from the combat modifiers chart below which are suitable and make a combat skill test.

Combat Modifiers
Situation	Modifier
Offhand use	-10%
Large weapon	-20%
Two handed grip	+20%
Blindside attack	+15%
Rear attack	+20%
Blinded (including darkness or invisible foe)	-60%
Attacker prone	-10%
Attacker kneeling/ sitting (Melee)	-5%
Attacker kneeling/ sitting (Missile)	+5%
Ranged attack	-5% per range
Offhand use: When the character is using a weapon which is not in his primary hand (usually the right hand), she must subtract 10% from her skill test. Characters with the ambidextrous trait can ignore this modifier.
Large Weapon: Wielding a weapon that is longer than half the character's height can be unwieldy and difficult. Subtract 20 from his skill test to reflect this difficulty. This penalty can by negated by holding the weapon with a two handed grip.
Two handed grip: Some weapons have a handle that is large enough to be used two handed. If the character holds the weapon with two hands, she may add 20 to her skill test. This is usually used to offset the penalty for large weapons, but some weapons like the bastard sword use this effect to give the character a slight edge.
Blindside attack: If your character is attacking the target from the side, add 15 to the skill test. This will not apply if the character has the wide angle vision trait.
Rear attack: Attacking someone from the rear where they have no chance to see it coming adds 20 to your character's skill test. If the target has the all around vision trait, your character will not get this bonus.
Blinded: Any time your character can not see his opponent, subtract 60 from the skill test. Some reasons you may be unable to see your target include darkness, an invisible opponent, or if your character is actually blinded.
Attacker prone: If the attacker is laying flat on the ground and does not wish to take the action to get up, she may attack from that position. Subtract 10 from the skill test.
Attacker sitting or kneeling: If the attacker is in a sitting or kneeling position, subtract 5 from the attack test. However, kneeling gives a character more stability when firing a missile weapon. When using a missile weapon from a kneeling position add 5 to the attack test.
Ranged attack: If this is a ranged attack, the distance to the target may modify the roll. Divide the distance by the weapons range rating and round down any fractions. Multiply this by 5 to calculate the penalty for the attack test. Regardless of the modifier, a weapon can not hit a target beyond the weapon's maximum range. See the Missile Weapon Range Modifier Chart below for clarification.

2. Determine damage.

Multiply the weapon's Base Damage by the Margin of the attack test as a percentage. {Say you hit with a margin of 25 with a weapon of 100 Base Damage. It would do 25 damage (100 x 25%) not 2500 damage (100 x 25)}

3. Adjust for armor.

Subtract the target's armor rating from the damage. If the attack does more damage than the Defense Rating of the armor, then it is damaged. See the Equipment Damage section of the Equipment chapter for more information about damaging items.

4. Apply damage.

Add the damage to the target's Wounds (or Fatigue if it is stun damage).

5. Check for Death or Unconsciousness.

If the character's wounds total more the her Wound Points, she is dead. If her fatigue totals more than her Fatigue Points, she is unconscious. See the Damage and Fatigue chapter for more information.

Attacking to Stun: A character often finds the need to subdue an opponent without killing it. In order to do so, she should declare she is "attacking to stun." If the character's weapon is blunt, there is no penalty. A slashing or piercing weapon requires a -10% skill penalty to do stun damage because you are not attacking with the normal striking surface (i.e.. the flat of the sword). Stun damage is applied to Fatigue instead of Wounds.

Called Shot: Sometimes there is an advantage to striking a particular part of your target. You may want to strike an unarmored place or hit the eyes. When making a called shot, a character declares exactly where he or she wishes to strike the target. The Base Chance of Success is reduced by 20% for a called shot, but if it hits, add 20 to the Margin.

See the Special Called Shots section below for some useful ways to take advantage of the called shot attack option.

Charge: If the character attacks immediately after taking an action to run either in the current combat turn or the previous one, he may add half his size to the base damage of the attack.

Multiple Attacks: If a character has multiple weapons readied (two for normal humans), she may attack with as many as she chooses by dividing each Combat skill by the number of attacks.

The thrown weapons skill is a special missile weapon skill which allows the character to hurl weapons by hand. The Maximum Range that an object can be thrown is equal to the character's Strength rating divided by the twice weight of the object (or six times the size attribute). The range of the object is equal to 10 yards.

If the character throws an item with no damage rating (like a chair), the object does an amount of damage equal to its Size attribute (or weight divided by three).

Unarmed Combat Maneuvers

There are many ways to strike someone with your body. The following list gives the base damage of most unarmed attacks as well as a modifier to the unarmed combat skill for characters using that maneuver.

Holds

Each full action the character administers a hold, the target will receive a base damage of STR divided by two. The attacker must make a normal unarmed attack test with a +25 modifier. If this test fails, the hold is broken.

If the character does not take an action to damage the target, the target is still held, but no further damage is taken during that action.

The target may try to break a hold with a full action. Each character chooses to either use Strength or Unarmed combat to make a test. The Character maintaining the hold gets a +10 modifier. Whoever gets the highest margin wins. If the target of the hold wins, the hold is broken. If the one maintaining the hold wins, there is no change. If the target manages to get twice the holder's margin, the hold is reversed and the target may begin a hold on the attacker with his next action.

The target of a basic hold may perform normal actions, but must drag the grappling character around until she is removed. The attacker's weight is added to the target's total weight carried. Limb holds work the same way, but the target may not use the held limb. If the limb is a leg, cut the targets movement rate in half. The submission hold keeps the target from doing anything but trying to break the hold.

Pursuit

Pursuit occurs when one party decides to flee from the battle and another party tries to catch them. Pursuit is handled in a very abstract way in Fae Domains to keep the game fast paced and try not to bog it down with any more details than necessary.

Both the pursuer and the pursued make a test based on how they are each moving. The chart at the right lists the appropriate skill or attribute for most types of movement:

Modify the test based on the terrain each character is moving through. Whoever rolls the highest margin wins. Subtract the loser's margin from the winner's margin and multiply the resulting percentage by the Move Rate of the winner. The winner may open or close the distance between them by up to the resulting distance.

Aerial Combat

Flight can become complex very quickly. I spent several days trying to simplify sines, cosines, and drag coefficients before I realized they were unnecessary to keep the excitement of flight in the game. The following system is inexact and rather limited, but is easy to use and still keeps the spirit of airborne dogfights.

While a creature is airborne, keep track of its direction, altitude, and current speed.

Aerial Combat allows several movement actions which are not available to land based warriors. If an airborne creature does not take at least one flight movement action within a combat turn, he will glide (as the free action listed below) straight forward at the end of the combat turn (reaction margin 0, right after anyone who failed their reaction check). This may result in the character colliding with something.

Some creatures that can not truly fly can glide. In such circumstances, count the creatures Fly MR as equal to her Walk MR.

Free Actions

• Glide: The character travels at up to his Fly MR if capable of flight, or Walk MR if he can not fly. For every three yards the character glides, he will lose one yard of altitude.

  If a character chooses to move less than his full MR, she may not move a farther distance in his next glide action. She must either Dive or Fly to increase her speed back up to her regular MR.

• Dive: This is a controlled fall which the character may easily pull out of. Make an Aerobatics test with a +30 modifier to recover level flight (or gliding). If the character glides as the next action after a dive, the character may move up to 1.5 times her normal MR and ignore the drop in altitude if she desires.

• Fly: Requires the flight capability. The character may move up to his Fly MR and need not loose altitude unless he chooses to.

• Climb: Requires flight capability or an updraft (updrafts occur at the Gamemaster's discretion). The character may move half his fly MR up and up to 4/5 his fly MR horizontally.
• Swoop: The swoop is a dive followed by an attack. Treat the swoop as a charge attack.

Character's often fight while riding horses or other beasts. When a mounted combatant uses the charge attack option, add the mount's Size to the character's for calculating damage.

Free Action

• Command Mount: It requires a free action to give your mount a command. The mount will not react to your command until it gets an action. If the mount is unsure of what to do, it may delay its action until its rider gives it a command.

Fighting underwater can be very tricky. The water will cause your swings to be slow and clumsy and missiles are practically useless. Melee attacks under water use half the character's skill. Dodging is more an act of swimming than lunging aside so use the average of the character's dodge and swim ratings to make dodges.

Special Called Shots

A called shot may do more than just let the attacker bypass armor. The following are special called shots that have additional effects:

• Disarm: A disarm is a special attack made with the intent of knocking the weapon from another character's hands. The character makes the attack as a normal called shot. If the attack succeeds, the target must make a Strength test and roll a greater margin than the attacker to maintain his grip. If he fails, the weapon is knocked from the target's hand. If the target is holding the weapon with more than one hand, this maneuver must be executed again for each one to actually knock the item away from the target. No matter how many hands have been knocked away, the target may take a short action to return his grip to normal. (a Ready Weapon Action)
• Item Break: This called shot is used to destroy an item in one of the target's hands or on his person. Very small objects may require a - 40 penalty instead of the normal -20 called shot penalty. If the attack is successful, apply damage as described in the Equipment Damage section of the Equipment chapter.

  Example: Brutus realizes that the evil wizard relies on his wand for most of his power. A wand normally has a DR of 5, but this one is enchanted and has an effective DR of 85. (WOW!) Brutus manages a lucky strike and does 90 points of damage with his long sword. Only 5 points of damage penetrate the wand's DR (90 - 85). The wand now has a DR of 80.

• Head: Head strikes may have different effects depending on the type of weapon employed.

  If the attacker uses a stun attack, the target may be knocked unconscious. If the attacker does more than half the target's FP in a single shot, the target will fall unconscious.

  If the attacker does more than half the character's WP in a single shot, the character dies. Edged weapons sever the head and other weapons pierce or smash the brain.

  Note that some traits may make a character immune to some or all of these effects.

• Limb: If the target takes half his FP in stun damage from a single shot, the limb will be numbed and unusable for the rest of the combat turn and all of the next one.

  An edged weapon strike that does half the character's WP in a single shot will sever the targeted limb. A Thrusting or blunt weapon will mangle the limb to the point that it can not be used if the attacker does more than half the targets WP in a single shot.

• Chest: Causing half the target's FP in a single shot to the chest with a stun attack will wind the target. The target may take no other actions until he succeeds in a stamina test to catch his breath. Each test takes a full action.

  If the target takes half her WP in a single shot to the chest, the attacker has struck something vital and the character will drop dead in 1 to 10 combat turns. Roll a ten sided die. The result his how many turns the character will live. At the end of the last turn, the character dies.

• Abdomen: A stun attack that does half the target's FP in one shot to the abdomen doubles the target over in pain. The character can take no further action until she succeeds on a Willpower test to get up and carry on. Each test takes a full action.

  An attack that does half the target's WP in a single strike sentences the character to a painful death. The character will die in 1 to 10 minutes (roll a ten sided die). During these final minutes, the character must make a willpower test each time he attempts to take an action. Failing the willpower test means that the character's pain overwhelms him and he can not act the rest of the combat turn.

• Nerve Center: A stun strike to a nerve center effects the character in the same way as an abdomen shot to stun. An attack to wound will have the same effect as a stun shot, but use the targets WP instead of fatigue points.