Combat is a frequent occurrence in the Magitech Chronicles. Frequent enough that this chapter is the primary reason why I chose to write my own system rather than adapt one of the more popular ones.
Combat is important in an RPG, but if you aren’t careful it can take over your game. You can find your sessions devolving into fifteen minute bridge scenes connecting three hour combats, and that’s no fun for most players or GMs. At least, it isn't fun for me, or the people I play with.
With that in mind we’ve created a simple combat system. Many areas, such as specific modifiers, are left up to the GM so that it can be arbitrated on the fly rather than spending 20 minutes hunting down a rule. We give you the basics, and let you take it from there.
Running Combat
Magitech Chronicles combat is broken into rounds, with each character acting according to their initiative score. Each character has two actions, though different powers and abilities can provide more.
Characters with a higher initiative act first, and the initiative order continues sequentially until all characters have exhausted their actions, or passed. The round finishes, and the next one begins, until combat ends.
Combat Overview
- Roll Combat Initiative. This lasts the entire fight.
- Begin with the highest initiative. The acting character may move, attack, sprint or use both of their actions in a gamemaster-approved way.
- Proceed to the next highest character on the list, and repeat step 2 until you reach the end of the round.
- Begin the next round.
Determining Initiative
Each character’s Base Initiative is equal to their agility + archetype bonus.
A character’s Combat Initiative is equal to Base Initiative + d6, and resets at the start of each combat. You'll kick off combat by having all characters roll a d6, and the game master doing the same for the NPCs (non-player characters).
Innate Defenses
During character creation all characters purchased Innate Defenses, spread between Brace, Dodge, and Skepticism. The GM decides which defense is relevant against a given attack, but in general Brace blocks melee attacks, dodge blocks ranged, and skepticism resists spells.
Active Defenses
Characters also purchased either body armor, or spellarmor. Some may possess a racial armor rating, like hatchlings. If your character possesses armor or resistance from any source make sure those were recorded. This is where you'll be using those defenses.
Masteries
Each character begins play with a mastery, and there is a high likelihood it will be applied to a combat skill. When making a roll masteries succeed on a 4, 5, or 6 rather than the usual 5 or 6.
Accuracy
Certain weapons or skills add accuracy dice. Each point of accuracy provides one die to the roll.
Range
A weapon may fire up to its range attribute with no penalty. It may fire up to double range at a +2 DT, and up to triple range at a +4 DT.
Armor Penetration
Certain weapons negate some or all armor. AP subtracts directly from armor, with a minimum of zero.
Movement & Sprinting
Characters may spend an action to move their agility * 2 in squares or hexes, whichever you're using. If you're doing this abstractly with no combat map, then I usually use meters or yards.
Characters may instead choose to sprint, which consumes both actions but allows them to move their agility * 5 in squares. Sprinting lowers brace to 0 for that combat round, but raises dodge by 1.
Rolling to hit
A character may spend an action attacking someone, casting a spell, or entering the abort code to the freighter’s self-destruct sequence. Your GM ultimately decides exactly what constitutes an action, but in general it’s any specific task that can be solved with a single relevant die roll.
To resolve an attack, cast a spell, or use most skills a character rolls a number of d6 dice equal to their relevant skill, plus their relevant attribute.
For example, if Aran has a 5 agility and a 4 ranged, then he'll roll 9 dice when casting a spell through his spellrifle. Each die with a result of 5 or 6 counts as a success.
If their total number of successes equals their opponent’s defense, the attack hits and damage is determined. Each extra success increases the damage by one point.
Determining Damage
Each weapon or spell has a fixed damage rating. This damage is applied against any relevant armor or resistance, and the remainder is subtracted from the character's hit points.
In the example above if Aran rolled 4 successes and his opponent had a 2 skepticism, then Aran would do 2 additional points of damage because he has 2 extra successes.
See the spellcasting chapter for details on spellcasting, but Aran could also have increased the magnitude by spending more spell pool, which would have further raised the damage.
Applying Defenses
Check the spell or attack type to determine if the target possesses any relevant defenses. In the case of a void bolt the target would need either void resistance, or magic resistance to reduce the damage.
Let’s say that Nara cast her void bolt at a tech demon. Tech Demons come from void catalysts, and often have void resistance. This one has 3 points.
Nara’s 6 points of damage is reduced by 3, and the demon takes 3 points of damage. She barely scratched it.
Recording Damage
Let’s say our demon friend has 19 hit points. He takes 3 so after Nara’s spell he’s got 16 remaining. Odds are good she’ll switch to another type of spell, like fire, so that she can avoid his hefty resistance on the next attack. Hopefully her next spell is more lethal.
Let’s say it happens to do 16 points of damage, reducing the demon to zero hit points. What happens?
If a character is reduced to zero or less hit points they gain the downed status until someone uses a heal spell or first aid to stabilize them. Downed characters are incapacitated, unconscious, and pretty well screwed.
If a character takes more than their fortitude in damage while downed, they die. Note that this does not apply to the attack that gives them the downed state. If a spell knocks them to -10 HP and they have a 3 fortitude, then they will only die if they take 3 points past that attack.
The character will not awaken until they reach 1 hit point.
Lingering Damage
Some attacks inflict lingering damage. Acid will continue to corrode. Fire will continue to burn. Boiling water will continue to scald. Lingering damage has a countdown of sorts. On round one it does full damage, then one less each round until it is gone.
For example if Briff were set ablaze from a fire bolt spell that inflicted 3 lingering damage he would take 3 points immediately, then 2 points next round, then 1 point, and then 0. High levels of lingering damage inflict a LOT of damage. Lingering 3 will inflict 6 damage. Lingering 10 will inflict 55 damage before it expires.
Healing & Recovery
Let’s say that our tech demon’s body is clinging to life. He doesn’t have a life mage to heal him, so he has to heal normally. All characters gain their fortitude in hit points back each day. All characters also regain all spell points each day, assuming they got a good night's rest.
This means that a character who’s ass has been severely handed to them can require 3 weeks of bedrest to get back to full hit points. Our demon has a 3 fort, so he’d need seven days to get the 21 hit points back unless he’s got a demon buddy with first aid.
A successful check using the first aid skill doubles the amount of hit points recovered, but even that means 4-6 a day for most people. This is why magical healing is so valuable, and why no life mage will ever lack for a job. Healing beers are always highly sought after, too, which makes Drifter brewers very popular.
With first aid our demon would be feeling good after about three days, and fully healed after four. Brutal.
Instant healing is amazing, and everyone wants it.
Flanking & Edge
Certain skills and abilities will award the character with an Edge. Edge provides +2 successes to all attacks. Scoundrels, for example, gain an edge whenever their opponents are unaware of their presence.
Two characters working together may gain an edge by flanking their opponent. If a character is facing two or more opponents, and cannot place their back to a wall, then all their opponents are considered to have an edge.
Note that you cannot stack edges. +2 successes is the maximum bonus.
Hesitating
As long as it is a character's turn and they have an action remaining they can choose to hesitate. This removes them from the initiative order, and they keep their remaining actions. They may re-enter the initiative order at any time, and if they do so they go before anyone else on that initiative. That remains their new initiative for the remainder of that combat.
Getting The Drop
Getting the drop is basically an ambush. If your opponent is unaware of your presence, and you have not yet initiated combat, then you get the drop on them. This gives you one full round of combat before your opponent(s) can enter the initiative order. You may take both full actions, as may everyone on your side if the enemy is unaware of them when combat begins.
Splitting Actions
A character may split an action into multiple parts, but doing so requires them to evenly split their dice pool. They gain a 1 die penalty for each extra action.
For example, if Aran wanted to attack twice with his nine dice, then he'd lose a die for splitting his action, which leaves him with 8 dice. Aran would get 4 dice for each attack.
Common Penalties
- Reduced visibility(cover)- +2 ranged difficulty
- Blinded- +4 difficulty all attacks
- Prone- +2 difficulty and requires action to stand
- Sickened- +1 difficulty per level of severity
- Beyond normal range- +2 difficulty per range increment
Scaling Encounters to Fit Your Party
Combat is the Magitech Chronicles is designed to be lethal. Don't get caught outside of cover, and armor up. Some groups, though, are less combat proficient than others. What do you do if your group is a bunch of relic hunters and scoundrels? What if no one took life magic?
You can add the lesser template to the encounters. This template makes the monsters in the bestiary dramatically weaker, so your party will have a much easier time overcoming them. A lesser Wyrm kill still lets the party say they killed a dragon.
Lesser Template
Cut hit points by 50%.
Lower all defenses by 1, minimum 1.
Lower armor and resistance by 2.
Lower all dice pools by 3.
Sometimes, though, your party has the opposite problem. What if they wreck everything you throw at them? What if you have nine players, and they're all geared for combat? Use the greater template, and add more demons.
Greater Template
Increase hit points by 50%.
Increase all defenses by 1.
Raise armor and resistance by 2.
Raise all dice pools by 3.
-
Comments