Combat

Rolling Initiative

When you first begin combat, each combatant will make an Initiative roll to decide the turn order. An Initiative roll's dice pool is Speed + Reflexes, and rather than counting the number of successes against a difficulty, the result is simply the sum of all dice rolled. The order of turns is decided by each combatant's total, from highest to lowest. If there's a tie, each of those combatants roll another 1d10, with the higher roll getting the earlier turn. Repeat this until all ties have been resolved.
When a new character enters combat, they will roll initiative before any other turns are taken and placed into the turn order. If their roll is higher than the next combatant in the turn order, they will take their turn immediately, then return to their normal position in the next round.

Actions

On each turn, a combatant has two Actions that they can perform, a Major Action and a Minor Action. Major Actions are usually things that require the bulk of time and focus, such as attacking, but can also be used for a bonus Minor Action as well. Minor Actions are quicker actions that require little dedication, like moving around the batthefield, or handling equipment. When using a combat power, the type of action it consumes will be listed in the power's description. Common actions of each type are listed below. These can be used without needing to have a power dedicated to them.

Major Actions

• Make a Basic Attack
• Summon a cryture adjacent to you
• Use an extra minor action

Minor Actions

• Move a number of spaces equal to your speed
• Shift 1 space
• Recall a cryture
• Swap weapons

Reading a Power

Combat powers are formatted a certain way to streamline gameplay. Each line describes a certain quality of the power in a shorthanded terminology, described below.
Cost: This line describes the resources that the user must expend to use the power. These resources are usually things like Stamina or Mana, which is always indicated after the number. There may be no cost at all, in which case, this line will be omitted completely.
Type: This is the type of the power, for weakness and resistance purposes.
Action: This is the type of action required to use the power. It will be listed simply as "Major Action," or "Minor Action."
Range: This line details how far away a target can be and how large the affected area is. The kind of range also determines whether it provokes an opportunity attack or not.

• Melee X - A Melee power does not provoke an opportunity attack, regardless of the range. The X value indicates how far away a target can be from the user. For melee attacks, X is usually 1, but some have longer ranges. A melee power can’t reach beyond its X value.
• Ranged X - A Ranged power always provokes an opportunity attack from engaged enemies. The target can be up to X spaces away, but attacks may extend beyond that range by taking a -1 die modifier for each additional space.
• Personal - A Personal power only targets the user, unless it is also a Blast, as explained below. Personal powers don't provoke opportunity attacks.
• Blast Y - A Blast power indicates that the power affects every person in an area, rather than a single target. The Y value of a blast indicates how many spaces from the origin point the area extends. This type combines with the others to indicate where the origin point of the blast is.
• Personal Blast Y - For Personal Blast powers, the origin point is centered on the user, and the effect of the power always excludes the user, unless stated otherwise.
• Ranged X Blast Y - Ranged Blast powers have their origin point centered on the targeted space within the X value. Like normal ranged powers, an attack's range can be extended by taking a -1 die modifier on the attack roll for each space beyond X.
• Melee Blast Y - A Melee Blast power always has the blast area adjacent to the user. Effectively, this means that the origin point is Y +1 spaces away from the user.

Attack: This line shows the stats that combine to form the dice pool of the attack, as well as the target's stat that is used as the difficulty.
Hit: This is where the effects of a successful attack are listed. Attacks usually deal a set amount of damage for each hit (or success). Some may have additional effects that happen on a hit as well. Additional hits only count for extra effects if specifically stated.
Crit: Here are the extra effects of rolling a 10 on one of your dice. Most crit effects will add an extra hit, at least, and some inflict status effects as well. The effects in a crit line are cumulative if you roll multiple 10s in the same pool.
Effect: An effect line usually appears at the end of a power, and the effects listed here happen regardless of whether an attack hits or not.

Opportunity Attacks

An opportunity attack is a basic melee attack that a combatant can perform outside of their turn. As described in the previous section, these attacks are triggered by certain circumstances in combat.

You provoke an opportunity attack when you -

• Move (without shifting) while adjacent to an enemy
• Use a ranged power while adjacent to an enemy
• Use an ability that requires Concentration

Roll vs Die Modifiers

A roll modifier is added to the results of each die within a dice pool. For example, let’s say you roll a dice pool of 6 with a +2 roll modifier, and roll 4, 7, 2, 6, 9, and 3. You then add +2 to each of those rolls, resulting in 6, 9, 4, 8, 11, and 5.
A die modifier adds (or removes) dice from a pool. If you are making a roll with a dice pool of 6, but get a +3 die bonus, that means you’ll roll 9d10 as the total dice pool.

Attack Bonuses and Penalties

Some situations are universally good or bad for making attacks in. In the game system, this is handled by giving roll modifiers to the attack rolls when these situations are present. If multiple situations are present, all the modifiers stack, but if there are multiple iterations of the same situation, they only count once.

An attacker gets a +2 roll modifier on attacks when -

• There is an ally adjacent to, and on the opposite side of, the target
• They are at a higher elevation than the target
• The target can't see them
• The target is weak to the attack’s type

An attacker gets a -2 roll modifier on attacks when -

• They are at a lower elevation than the target
• The target is behind cover
• The target is obscured
• The target is resistant to the attack’s type

Types, Weakness, and Resistance

Types are what govern the weaknesses and resistances of combatants. Each cryture has at least one type, and most powers also have a type. Each is good against some types, while also being bad against others. When an attack power and its target both have a type, it may trigger a roll modifier based on the weaknesses and resistances of the defender, as laid out in the following table. These bonuses do not stack, so if a Fire/Lightning cryture is targeted by and Earth attack, the roll modifier is only +2, despite the fact that the target has two types with a weakness to the attack.

Battle Montage

A Battle Montage is a way to resolve easy or unimportant combat encounters in a short amount of time. This gives players more chances to bind new crytures, and gives World Builders more opportunity to tax the players’ resources without dragging things out.
Narratively, these battles can simply be played out in a “theater of the mind” style, where players describe their feats in battle, as the World Builder describes the enemies’ attempts to fight back.

Running a Battle Montage

1. Each PC chooses a cryture to summon. They may spend Mana to summon additional crytures.
2. The Players form ranks by ordering their party members from front to back. Members near the front will absorb excess damage before the others.
3. The party members each “square up” against an opponent. Multiple party members may square up against the same opponent.
4. Each party member chooses a basic power and makes an attack roll with that power as if it's a Talent check. Each Hit rolled against an enemy counts as a Success. The Complexity of the check equals the enemy's Health divided by 5.
5. Each party member may spend Stamina or Mana for a +3 die modifier per point. They may also spend consumables for a +3 die modifier each. A Player may also consume a binding crystal and attempt to bind a cryture they’re squared up against. If all tasks are successful, the binding succeeds.
6. Apply any roll modifiers for weakness and resistance.
7. Each enemy deals damage to the attacking party member based on how many of its task were failed. Choose a basic attack power from each enemy. The amount of damage they deal per failure is equal to the number of dice they would roll with that power. Weakness to the attack type confers +2 damage per failure. Resistance confers -2 damage per failure.
8. For every enemy that didn't get attacked, each of their tasks count as a Failure automatically. The World Builder assigns all of an enemy's damage to the party member in the frontmost rank, then goes from front to back with any additional enemies after the first.
9. After the battle is over, all enemies are assumed to be defeated, in one way or another. Enemies that have more than half their Complexity left are assumed to have been routed, while those with less than half are assumed to have been killed or incapacitated. If a party member consumed a binding crystal, the binding only succeeds if all of the opposing cryture's tasks were successful.