Combat Rounds and Engagement

Rounds, Cycles, and Turns

Time in combat is measured in Combat Rounds. Each round of combat is roughly equivalent to five seconds of time. Rounds are made up of a number of cycles. Each cycle, every character gets one turn. Once all characters have taken their turn in a cycle, a new cycle begins.

Each turn, a character can do one proactive action (which cost one action point). Spent Action Points are not recovered until the start of a new combat round. If a character has no remaining action points when it reaches their turn in the cycle, their turn is skipped. Once all characters are out of action points the combat round ends and a new one begins.

Initiative

At the start of combat, characters roll 1d10, add their Initiative Bonus, and subtract their Armor Penalty. This rolled initiative determines the order of turns within a cycle, turns being ordered from greatest to least initiative. Characters use their rolled initiative for the entire combat.

Surprise

Surprise occurs when an unexpected attack is launched against opponents unaware of the attacker's presence or intentions. A surprised character suffers the following:

• -10 penalty to initiative
• Until their first turn in combat arrives they are considered flat footed and cannot defend themselves
• The first attack on the target, if successful, gains a bonus Special Effect
• For the remainder of the round they may not perform any offensive action

Engagement

If characters are in a position in which one could attack another with melee weapons, they are said to be engaged. Characters are engaged at a specific distance, which might make it hard or impossible for characters to attack depending on the reach of their weapon. For example, a character with a halberd might keep an opponent with a dagger engaged at a very long distance, enabling the halberd to attack while the dagger lacks sufficient reach to strike back. A character attacking an opponent with a ranged weapon does not put them into engagement.

While engaged characters cannot move freely. To change engagement distance (or leave the engagement) a character must either use the Close or Open Range special effect, or use the Change Range action.

Entering Engagement

Engagement is initiated when a character can threatan another with a melee weapon. If a character moves to enters engagement while moving at a gait faster than Walk, they cannot attack the opponent until their next turn. Charging is a special exception to this rule and offers its own benefits and risks.

The engagement distance is initially determined by how the engagement was started. A charging character can choose the initial engagement range, but otherwise the engagement range is the reach of the longest weapon between the combatants.

Engagement Ranges On the Grid

Touch range put the combatants on the same square.

Short and Medium ranges put the combatants on adjacent squares.

Long and Very long ranges put the combatants two squares away from each other (so one square between them).