Combat in The 10th Branch | World Anvil

Combat

Combat area

All fights take place on an area divided into 6 lines - a player's front line, midline, and backline mirrored by the ones belonging to enemies (unless one of the sides gets ambushed). Unless specified, each line can hold any number of entities.  

Initiative

At the start of the fight, everyone participating in the fight rolls a d6 and adds their Perception to it. The result decides the order in which all entities on the combat area will move.  

Combat

Actions

All entities partaking in combat can make 1 action during their turn. For a thing to be considered an action, it needs to take the character's full attention. As such, attacking, using abilities, using gear, or using the items in the environment are considered an action. On the other hand, changing weapons, talking, or pulling something out of one's inventory are free actions.  

Attack roll and damage roll

Attack roll determines if the attack hits, while the damage roll determines how much it hurts. The dice needed and modifiers are written down on each weapon's card.  

Reactive defense

During combat, people actively try to dodge incoming attacks, sometimes with better and sometimes with worse results. As such, when an attack roll is performed, the targeted character makes a roll for Dexterity to see if they were hit.  

Critical

Should an attack roll exceed one's defense roll by 5 or more, a critical attack is performed. In such a case, another d6 is added to the damage roll and all modifiers are doubled.  

Movement

All entities on the combat area can move to the neighboring line during their turn.  

Range

Melee weapons (unless specified otherwise) can only attack entities that are located in the same line as the attacker or one of the neighboring lines.
Each ranged weapon has its effective range specified next to its other statistics on its gear card. Attacking an enemy outside of the effective range can be done with a negative modifier (-1 per each line of difference between the target and effective range).  

Healing and resuscitating

If equipped with any medical gear, players can use up their action to heal themselves or another entity. The amount of healed HP can be no greater than the healer's Mind (unless stimpacks are used, which always heal the maximum amount they can).  

Dying

Whenever the character's HP drops to 0, they are dying. If they are healed during the next 3 turns, they come back to life with their Constitution (and with it the maximum amount of HP) lowered by one. The character who doesn't get healed during those 3 turns or whose Constitution would drop to 0 due to the healing procedure dies permanently.  

Special actions

Dual wielding

All characters can dual wield 1-handed weapons, though attacking with both of them in a turn comes with a -4 penalty to the second attack without possessing an ability that mitigates it.  

Defensive stance

Players can decide to not take any action during their turn and instead focus on defense. In such a case, they can add the second d6 to their defense roll.  

Dash

Players can decide to not take any action during their turn and instead focus on movement. In such a case, they can move from one line to the other twice during their turn.  

Taking aim

If it is too hard to hit the target because of its high defense, the players can focus on aiming during their turn. In the next turn, they can add the second d6 to their attack roll.  

Grappling and shoving

Instead of attacking, one can decide to either immobilize or move the enemy. In both cases, one needs to be in melee range and make a Strength or Dexterity roll (their choice) against the enemy's roll using one of the same two attributes. In the case of grappling, should the roll succeed, the target is immobilized and the only thing it can do is to try to break free. With each failed roll, their Constitution temporarily drops by 1. Should it fall to 0 in such a way, the target is exhausted or loses consciousness.
In the case of shoving, a successful roll pushes the entity by 1 line away from the one pushing (their choice if the two of them are in the same line).  

Cover

Once in a while, obstacles can show up in the combat area. In such cases, they can be used as a cover both by the players and their enemies. Depending on how much one's body is covered by the cover, the one using it can benefit in few ways. Depending on how much of their bodies is covered by the cover, they get a bonus of +2 (a quarter of body hidden), +4 (half of the body hidden), or +6 (whole body hidden). Additionally, in the last case, it might be completely impossible to hit the enemy, depending on the weapon used and the material from which the cover is made of.

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