Feint

Agility: 9 + (DEX/5)
Cost: 3 Character Points; +1 to roll per +2 points
This Agility Skill allows a character to trick or outmaneuver an opponent in HTH Combat, thereby obtaining a short-term advantage in the fight. It’s most commonly used in armed HTH Combat, such as swordfights, but also applies to unarmed HTH Combat.
Using Feint requires a Half Phase Action. If a character’s Skill Roll succeeds, his opponent automatically gets to make a PER Roll or Feint roll (opponent’s choice) in a Skill Versus Skill Contest. (The GM can allow the use of other appropriate Skills, such as a Knowledge Skill of the fighting style the character’s using or a relevant Analyse.) If the opponent wins the Contest, the character gains no benefit from Feint. If the character wins the Contest, he obtains a +1 OCV bonus for his next attack. (This might increase to a +2 if the character’s roll succeeded by half or was a Critical Success.) He must use that bonus for his very next attack (either in the same Phase or his next Phase) and must make that attack against the opponent he engaged in the Skill Versus Skill Contest with. If he attacks anyone else or doesn’t make an attack as his next Action, he loses the bonus. (However, at the GM’s option the character could perform a Zero Phase Action or Action that takes no time before making the attack that gets the bonus.)
If a character fails his Feint roll, and his opponent succeeds with a PER Roll at -2, the attacker suffers a -2 OCV penalty on his attack, since his target has seen through the “feint” and knows what to expect. If a character fails his Feint roll badly (by 4 or more), he’s put himself in a worse position as the result of his failure — if his opponent’s next Action is an attack against him, that attack receives a +1 OCV bonus. If the opponent does anything other than attack the character in HTH Combat on his next Action, as described above, he loses this bonus.
Using Feint becomes progressively more difficult against the same opponent as he learns to see through the character’s tricks. Each time after the first a character uses Feint against a particular opponent in a combat, he suffers a cumulative -2 penalty to his roll.

At the GM’s option, the opponent may receive a +1 bonus to his PER Roll in later combats because he remembers some of the character’s moves. Thus, sooner or later a recurring enemy learns how to avoid the character’s tricks. Other characters who have watched the character fight, or who make the character’s Reputation roll, may also know of his tricks, thus earning the same bonus even if this is the first time he’s ever fought them.
At the GM’s option, the character can use Feint in a different way: as a Complementary Skill to his HTH Combat Attack Roll. If so, any bonus obtained is subject to the rules above. Since this can provide a significantly higher bonus than the standard use, the GM may rule that it takes a Full Phase Action instead of just a Half Phase. Also at the GM’s option, a character using the standard rules for Feint may receive Complementary Skill- like bonuses to his OCV if he makes the Skill Roll by a greater degree (i.e., a +1 OCV bonus if he makes the roll exactly, with an additional +1 OCV for every 2 points he makes the roll by.
Ordinarily Feint only applies in HTH Combat. At the GM’s option, characters can also use it in Ranged Combat. This might simulate firing an extra shot to lure or force the target into position for the killing shot, particularly careful aiming, or the like.
If the GM doesn’t want to allow Feint as a Skill, characters can achieve much the same result by buying appropriate Combat Skill Levels with Limitations like Requires A DEX Roll and Extra Time (always requires a Half Phase Action to use; -1⁄4).
If the GM thinks that allowing characters to Feint with any HTH Combat attack is too broad and unbalancing, he should require characters to buy Feint the same way they have to buy Fast Draw: by Weapon Familiarity categories (with “Barehanded” counting as a single category for unarmed attacks). Thus, a character with Feint (Blades) can’t trick opponents when he’s in a fist-fight or wielding a spear.
The Feint Skill is highly appropriate for Fantasy Hero campaigns, particularly Low Fantasy and Swords And Sorcery games that feature a lot of HTH Combat.