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Combat Rounds and Combat Phases

When the players aren't in combat, the GM is free to manipulate time however it suits them to do so. After all, if you lived your character's life for 24 hours of the day then you have serious problems! However, time becomes very important when the characters are called upon to fight something. In this case, Combat Rounds become the definition of time.

Each Combat Round lasts for a minute, and this is split into Combat Phases, each being roughly 10 seconds long. Longer actions, like running into a fight from a distance, can take several Combat Phases. Having a Combat Round gives the fight a framework for the GM to ease the burden of running the show, rather than being a rigid definition of time. A Combat Phase allows PCs and NPCs the chance to perform a single action, such as firing a gun, or making a close combat attack.

Note that Resisted Actions do not use Combat Phases normally, although the GM may decree that the character misses the next Combat Phase or so due to the need to recover.

Initiative and Actions

So how many Combat Phases does a character get? This all depends on the Speed of the character, and what Score they get from the resulting roll. At the start of every Combat Round make a test on the Speed stat, adding any other factors than may affect the result (such as surprise, combat drugs etc). Each character gets a certain number of actions as standard (Table 1) but if they make a very good or very bad roll they may gain or lose actions (Table 2).

Table 1

Table 2

The Initiative check does more that merely determine how many actions your character can take, it also determines in what order the characters actually take their actions. For example, you can have 2 characters, both of whom get 3 actions per Combat Round and both of whom have Speed 50%. However, one rolled 20% whilst the other rolled 29%. Obviously the 20% is faster, and this is represented by the character who rolled 20% getting to go first, because they passed the roll by a greater amount.

After the order of combat has been worked out, each player takes it in turn to use all of their character's actions. If a character wishes to do so, then they can delay their actions until any point later in the round, representing them waiting until another slower player has made their move.

Declaring Actions
A character must declare what they are going to do with each one of their actions. They can allocate them to one of the following categories.

Attack:
This is used to attack an object or person, either from range or in close combat. Any move doing damage to the target is classified as an attack.

Defend:
This is either used to parry an attack with a shield or weapon, or to take evasive action. Any attacks done to you bring this action into play.

Movement:
Whether moving under your own steam or using a vehicle, each action spend moving represents roughly 5 seconds of movement, so you could sprint up to 50 metres (if your character is an Olympic sprinter) or move at whatever speed your vehicle travels at for 5 seconds. You can't spend more than half your actions in a round moving, unless you aren't actually engaged in combat.

Other:
This is for actions that don't fit with any of the other categories, such as changing clips on your gun or trying to juryrig something to fight the bad guys as they keep shooting at you!

Example:
A character with Speed 63% gets 4 actions normally. The character's player rolls 46% for initiative, which means they pass by 17% and get 4 actions. The character is a little way outside a massive brawl that has kicked off, and wants to close the distance, laying down some gunfire as they do so.

Action 1: Movement - Run towards the combat.
Action 2: Attack - Fire handgun at the nearest bad guy.
Action 3: Other - Change clip for the handgun.
Action 4: Defend - Be prepared to dive away from any return fire.

Taking Risks

Obviously there are times that a character really wants to try doing something totally over the top, or they have been caught out, and need to take extra actions to combat more threats than they bargained for. A character is allowed to take more actions than they are normally allowed to, but these extra actions are done with steadily increasing penalties to reflect how much the character is being taxed.

A character is allowed to take extra Attack and Defend actions regardless, but Other and Movement actions may only be undertaken if a skill roll is required to succeed. Every extra action the character takes adds a cumulative -10% penalty to the dice roll, so the first action gets a 10% penalty, the second a 20% penalty and so on. You may continue to take actions until the penalty would be so great as to leave you only succeeding if a critical success was rolled.

Obviously this is used to defend against attacks from enemies, as often the character will allocate their Defend actions only to see themselves get attacked more times during the round. Obviously the character becomes less and less able to defend themselves, meaning characters who get heavily outnumbered will get beaten up eventually. Impetuous characters will tend to find themselves trying to take on more than they can handle.

Critical Success and Botches

Note that the basics of Critical Successes and Failures are already covered in the main game rules section, but there are extra details which need to be taken into consideration when acting in combat.

A Critical Success, if not successfully dodged, causes extreme amounts of damage to the target, signifying the brilliance of the attack. It may hit a vital component, catch the target off guard, or just be so totally breathtaking as to blow them away without a second thought.

Any Critical Successes in combat count as doing double damage to the target. This is after all modifications for armour, so it is perfectly possible for an attack, no matter how awesome, to be negated by the target's armour. If you ended up wounding your opponent to the tune of 2 Health Levels then this would be doubled for 4 Levels of damage.

Any Botches rolled during combat can have 1 of 2 effects. Either the character suffers from a weapon failure or even a weapon explosion, or they leave themselves open to counter attack. The opponent is allowed to make a completely unopposed strike back at the character, which can't be blocked or dodged. Only sturdy armour can prevent the character being hurt.

Called Shots

Often, a player will want to have their character try something spectacular, such as a trick shot or well placed close combat attack. Normally these will be attempts to remove dangerous enemies in a single action. Following on from the main game rules, called shots are anything from -25% to -50% on your Action Score, with -30% probably the best value to use. However, if you managed to achieve this, the Damage and Penetration of the weapon you are using is doubles for that single strike. So a character using a rifle doing Damage 5 at Penetration 60% would find these values doubled to 10 and 120%. Remember that although you obviously can't fail the Penetration roll, the defender can still pass his Armour check by a greater value and so remain uninjured.

If the character manages to pull off a Critical Success on a Called Shot then the target should just die, no questions asked. The attack is just too awesome for words and the poor unfortunate on the receiving end is turned into a greasy smear.

Damage and Armour

Combat is all about the damage you can dish out to your opponents. When attempting to damage an opponent, you need to look at the Damage and Penetration values of the weapon you are using.

Step 1: Make a successful attack on your opponent. This is an attack which is unsuccessfully defended against by your opponent.

Step 2: Make an opposed roll between your weapon's Strength value and the Armour Value of your opponent. If you beat their roll then you cause damage, otherwise they remain unscathed.

Step 3: Compare the Quality of your weapon and the defender's Armour.

Take the Damage of your weapon and add any modifiers from the table above. You then take the final value and subtract it from the Defender's Health Levels/Damage Levels.

Simple and fast I trust. This applies to fighting anything, whether using Magic, Mechs or just your bare fists.

Partial Armour

If you are attacking an opponent who is wearing only a partial suit of armour then you can choose to attack them in an area not covered by the armour. This is made like a normal attack roll, but it gets a -15% penalty. However if you hit then the target takes the damage directly, their armour is of no help in soaking the damage. Of course they can still try soaking with their Natural Armour, but that is unlikely.

Derived Values

Obviously a punch from a Toughness 10 character will hurt a lot more that a character with a Tough of 1. Similarly, you will find the first character will be able to survive a lot more punishment before being taken out of the fight. Note that all derived values are rounded up if you end up without a whole number.

Damage Levels: A character has a certain number of damage levels they can take before being removed from the fray. This is determines by taking your character's Tough value, dividing it by 5 (round up) and then adding 10, for a value between 11 and 30. Now this may seem a lot, but you have to bear in mind that characters losing Damage levels from their own quota will have lost all armour they possess, through damage or role-playing, and thus will be taking considerable damage from each attack, so those Damage Levels will be stripped down quite quickly.

Unarmed Damage: The character can attack with their fists and feet, doing damage equivalent to their Tough/30. So even if you are a very hard character you are not going to be able to kill someone very easily unless you possess a considerable level of Martial Arts or Brawl.

Unarmed Penetration: Obviously following on from the above, a character is going to struggle to damage something that is heavily armoured just using their bare hands. Even Martial Artists are going to find the task almost impossible. Unarmed Penetration is equivalent to Tough/4.

System: Note that unless you are attacking an armoured target, this value does not apply. If you are attacking an unarmoured human or other similar creature, you forgo your Unarmed Penetration and you merely have to make an unmodified roll to beat the target's Natural Armour value. As soon as your opponent goes and starts wearing any form of armour you can start applying your Unarmed Penetration value again. Keep this in mind because otherwise the Unarmed Penetration value will quite often cancel out the Natural Armour value, which means that characters can be hideously vulnerable to mere punches and kicks

Natural Armour: All characters will have a certain innate resistance to damage. This is equivalent to (Tough/3)+10%. Mechs and other vehicles quite obviously supplant this value whereas body armour, such as a Kevlar jacket, would enhance the wearer's natural resistance to damage. More on this in the Defences chapter.

Mega Damage

There will be occasions where the attacker will be using weapons of such magnitude, or the defender will be so utterly incapable of resistance, that the outcome is inevitable. You couldn't hope to survive a nuclear bomb attack, or a shot from an orbital beam cannon, so in cases such as this attacks of this nature are used to kill off the party or as a plot device to have the party escape at the last moment. As a rule of thumb, a human going up against anything more than twice their size should be killed outright should a blow be landed by the enemy, unless the character has some sort of armour or super science gadgets to negate the punishing amounts of damage.

Effects of Damage

This is an optional rule if you want to add the effects of being hurt into the mix. For every 5 Health Levels your character loses, they are at a -5% for all actions unless they have a good reason for the penalty not to apply.

Knocking Characters Out and Bleeding

As a character takes damage, they run the risk of losing conciousness, and when they approach the point where they run the risk of dying they may very well be bleeding, taking more damage all the time. As the character becomes more injured, follow their progress down the injury chart and see what happens to them.

Character still on ½ Health or over: No additional effects are suffered by the injured person, unless you are using the optional rule above for decreasing skills depending on how badly a person is injured.

Character drops below ½ Health: The character has been badly wounded, and may well pass out through the shock and trauma of receiving the injuries. A character who drops to this level needs to make a Willpower check with a +15% bonus to stay conscious, otherwise they are taken out of the fight. A successful Tech/First Aid or Tech/Medicine roll by another party member will wake the character.

Character drops to ¼ Health: Any more damage done to the character will seriously begin to handicap them. This is the point where many would break off the fight, all damage done up to this point is easily treated and can be healed relatively quickly, beyond this wounds are far more severe. A Willpower roll should be made once again, this time with no bonus, and any attempts to wake the character up are made with a -10% penalty.

Character falls below ¼ Health: The character is now bleeding, and every 5 minutes will lose another Health Level. If the character is running around and attempting strenuous manoeuvres such as combat there is a 50% chance of suffering an extra level of damage every 5 minutes.

Character falls to 0 Health: The character is completely incapacitated, and can no longer do anything other than speak or crawl very short distances. A Willpower check with a -15% penalty needs to be made to stay conscious, and only the most basic tasks can be attempted whilst in this condition, no weapons can be fired, vehicles piloted or combat attempted.

Note: An NPC falling to this level should be considered dead

Character falls below 0 Health: The character automatically loses conciousness, and is now bleeding profusely or suffering from other injuries which won't heal without medical attention. The character loses 3 extra Health Levels every 5 minutes until they are stabilised or they die.

Character falls below -10 Health: The character is dead!