Resisted Rolls: Player vs. PCs & NPCs
A resisted roll occurs when two or more characters attempt an action at cross purposes. The most common type of resisted roll is a combat roll where one character is attempting to injure another. For every resisted roll, the character with initiative is considered the aggressor while characters still awaiting their turn are considered defenders. The benefit of being the aggressor is that only the aggressor can inflict damage during a resisted roll. A defender may use a combat skill (like De’Carta) to counter a combat skill but their defensive response will be a block or a parry—not a counterattack.
The aggressor begins by declaring to the GM the sort of action they would like to perform (e.g. a combat strike with a weapon, playing a game of chess, telling a bold-faced lie, etc.). The GM will then ask the players who have characters targeted by an aggressor’s actions what sort of defense they would like to use. Some defensive tactics are fairly common and have a standard response, such as detecting a lie using Perception + Subterfuge. Other scenarios are open to a wide range of defensive possibilities such as a character wishing to avoid being hit by a knife may chose to use Dexterity + Dodge, or they could try to use Dexterity + Brawl to grapple the attacker, or they could roll Manipulation + Persuasion to try to talk the assailant down from their violent course of action.
Once the attack and the defense are declared the GM will ask both players to roll simultaneously. For many types of resisted rolls the difficulty for the attacker can be found on the defender’s character sheet under the headings: To Hit (used for combat rolls), To Entrance (used for emotional manipulation rolls), and to Dominate (used for logical reasoning and persuasion rolls). For the defender, the GM will usually need to assign a difficulty based on environmental factors (like rough terrain), societal factors (like a lie coming from a notorious con artist), or mental factors (the defender was attacked in their sleep and is still groggy). In some cases, the GM will need to establish the difficulty for the attacking character as well. Once the GM establishes the difficulty, the Players may invoke any powers or advantages on their character sheet which can lower (or raise) the difficulty further from the standard set by the GM. As with static rolls, the GM is the final arbitrator for establishing the difficulty resisted rolls.
Once the attacker and the defender have rolled their dice pools, the GM will tally up the number of successes from both parties. If the defender scores more successes than the attacker, the attack fails and the GM will narrate how the attacker is now in a less advantageous position due to their failure. If the attacker scores more successes, the attack succeeds the GM will narrate the result and possibly call for a damage roll if an injury was sustained during the encounter. If both sides roll the same number of successes, the attack is considered a stalemate with neither party gaining an advantage over the other. If the GM has declared that an attacker or defender has advantage, the player with advantage wins on a tie.
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