EDRulebook: 12 Combat

Soon after we re-emerged into the world, we found our lives filled with conflict. It was then we realized that the days fo battle were far from over.
-- Me'gama, Swordmaster of Lowilla In the Earthdawn game, your characters can expect to confront any number of evil or dangerous beings in the course of their adventures. Sometimes you’ll be able to get what you need without combat. Sometimes you’ll have to fight for what you want. This section covers those situations in which your characters must fight to survive and those times when they join battle for the sheer pleasure of matching skills against an opponent.

Combat in Earthdawn happens fast and loose, allowing characters to perform a wide variety of actions. Swinging swords, casting spells, and intimidating your enemies are all just part of the action.

Most of the following rules apply to both the player and gamemaster characters. Whenever the rules apply solely to the gamemaster characters or creatures, they are so noted.

COMBAT ROUND

Combat in Earthdawn is conducted in a series of turns called Combat Rounds. Each Combat Round equals roughly ten seconds of game time. We say roughly because the exact length of each round is not important to the story; it is simply a convenient unit of measure.

During each Combat Round, your character can do a number of things: move, perform a simple task, and use one talent that requires an action. The Actions section, below, outlines precisely what a character can and cannot do in a Combat Round.

To see whether your character can actually perform the actions he desires or to determine how successfully he did so, players usually roll dice in various kinds of tests. If the dice roll succeeds, you roll additional dice to determine how the action turned out or what damage it did. Typically, this involves making an Attack Test followed by a Damage Test. These and the other kinds of tests that players must make during combat are described below in the Actions and Resolving Attacks sections.

The following summary outlines the sequence of a single Combat Round. Each element is explained more fully in the rest of this chapter. The term character refers to any player characters, creatures, or gamemaster characters participating in the combat.

1. Declare Actions
All characters declare the general type of action they intend to perform in the upcoming round, such as attacking, casting a spell, and so on. Also at this time, the characters declare any special actions they have in mind, including any Combat Options.

2. Determine Initiative
All characters make an Initiative Test to determine at what point during the round they can actually perform the actions they desire. Players, of course, roll for their characters’ Initiative; the gamemaster rolls for characters and creatures he controls.

The Initiative dice for player characters and gamemaster characters is their Dexterity dice. The Initiative dice for creatures is listed with the individual descriptions in the Creatures section. Note that some talents can increase a character’s Initiative, while armor and shields can reduce a character’s Initiative.

3. Resolve Actions
At the start of the round, characters stated what actions they hoped to take. Now the characters declare, in descending order of Initiative, specifically which talents, skills, or spells they intend to use and whether they plan to spend Karma Points for any actions. For example, a character may state that he or she intends to use the Melee Weapons talent or to cast the Heat Food spell.

After declaring their specific intentions, characters resolve their actions by making the appropriate tests. If the dice result is equal to or higher than the Difficulty Number of the test, the action succeeds. The character also determines the effect, if any, of his actions at this time.

If a character wants to change his action from what he declared at the beginning of the round, he must increase the Difficulty Number of the new action by +2. See Actions, below.

Declare Reserved Actions

Characters may voluntarily reduce their Initiative in order to perform their actions later in a round. Characters who want to delay their actions in this manner say so at this time.

4. Begin New Combat Round
If any combatants remain after all characters resolve all their actions, begin a new Combat Round.

INITIATIVE

At the start of each Combat Round, each player and the gamemaster makes an Initiative Test to determine in what order the characters may carry out their actions during the Combat Round. The character who rolls the highest Initiative acts first, followed by the character with the second highest result, and continuing through descending numerical order. Player characters, creatures, and gamemaster characters all take their turns according to Initiative.

We recommend that the gamemaster make one Initiative Test for groups of similar characters under his control rather than for each individual character or monster. For example, it makes more sense to roll one Initiative Test for a group of six identical orks than to keep track of the Initiative Test results for each individual ork. On the other hand, if the group consists of five orks and an ork veteran with a different Initiative step, make one Initiative Test for the five orks and then a separate test for the ork veteran.

If two or more characters get the same result on their Initiative Tests, their actions occur at the same time and are resolved in whatever order the gamemaster deems appropriate. If a player character ties his Initiative with a creature or gamemaster character, the player character always takes his action first.

ACTIONS

During each Combat Round, your character can do several things. In a single round he can move, perform a simple action, and use one talent that requires an action.

MOVEMENT

If movement is the only action your character takes during a Combat Round, a character can move up to a number of yards equal to his Full Movement (see the Attribute Table in Creating a Character). If the character wants to perform any other action during that round (attack an opponent, cast a spell, and so on), he can move up to a number of yards equal to his Combat Movement. Consult the Attribute Table.

When a character both moves and takes another action during a Combat Round, his movement must take place all at once, either before or after his other action. For example, a character can move and then attack, or vice versa, but he cannot split up his movement during a round. That is, a character cannot move half the distance of his Combat Movement, attack an opponent, and then use the rest of his Combat Movement trying to get away.

See Combat Options for an optional rule called Splitting Movement. This special rule DOES allow characters to move, attack, and then move again. This rule is provided for the time when gamemasters and players have become very familiar with the game. Before play begins, both players and gamemaster should have a chance to review the rule and decide whether they will include it in the game.

SIMPLE ACTIONS

During a Combat Round, a character can perform a variety of simple tasks that do not require making a test. These simple actions are relatively easy to perform, so automatic that they require little or no effort. Examples of simple actions might be anything from drawing a weapon to speaking.

It is also true that some talents do NOT require a character to perform an action to carry them out. Some of the talents characters can use as simple actions are Battle Shout, Cat’s Paw, Eagle Eye, Flame Arrow, and Wound Balance. Talents that can be used as simple actions are indicated by the word No in the Action category of their description in the Talents chapter.

TALENT TESTS

Most talents in Earthdawn require that a character have an available action to use them. During a Combat Round, a character can use only one talent that requires an action. Talents that require an action always require a Talent Test to determine whether the character successfully uses that talent. This includes all combat talents, most interaction talents, and any use of magic.

The character can use some talents as a skill, which is the same ability learned through instruction and practice rather than powered by magic (see Skills). If the talent requires an action, using the talent as a skill also requires an action.

SPECIAL ACTIONS

At the beginning of each Combat Round, characters can declare any special actions they wish to perform. These most often take the form of Combat Options, but can also include unusual actions such as surrendering to an opponent or retreating (perhaps cowardly, but sometimes wise). Special actions do not require an action to perform; they essentially change a standard action to make it more effective. The various Combat Options available to characters appear in Combat Options.

CHANGING DECLARED ACTION

A character may want to change his action to react more effectively to events happening around him. The game accommodates this with the Changing Actions rule. The rule permits a character to attempt the new action, but increases the Difficulty Number by +2. This rule applies anytime a player changes his character’s action after declaring it.

At the start of a Combat Round, Thom Hammerblade declares that he will attack his opponent, an ork raider. Then Thom notices that one of his companions is going to be attacked from behind. Before the events in the Combat Round reach his turn in the Initiative sequence, Thom changes his action to an attack against his companion’s backstabbing opponent. When Thom makes his Attack Test, he adds +2 to the Difficulty Number, which is the Physical Defense of the target.

RESOLVING ACTIONS

Beginning with the highest Initiative result, all characters attempt to perform their declared actions, one at a time, until all characters’ actions are resolved.

The gamemaster calls out Initiative numbers, starting with the player who rolled the highest Initiative. Each character then takes his or her turn performing actions. Characters often make an Attack Test in combat, but an action might also consist of casting a spell, running at the Full Movement rate, or using a non-combat talent while blows and arrows fly all around. The character makes the appropriate test, announcing the result after rolling all necessary dice, including any Karma dice or Bonus dice. If the result is equal to or higher than the Difficulty Number of the action, the character has successfully performed the action.

The use of some talents can affect a character’s Physical or Spell Defense for an entire Combat Round. (See Talents) When a player declares that his character will be using one or more of these talents in a round, the player makes the Talent Test when the Combat Round reaches his Initiative.

[Ork Rider]

Difficulty Number

The action the character wants to perform or the talent he wants to use are what determine a test’s Difficulty Number. Tests made for combat talents use either the target’s Physical Defense Rating or Spell Defense Rating as the Difficulty Number. The gamemaster decides on an appropriate Difficulty Number for tests that do not involve talents (jumping, climbing, and so on). See Gamemastering Earthdawn for guidelines on making these judgments.

Some talents require that the player roll a certain success level for the action to be effective. Again, see Gamemastering Earthdawn for more details. After the character makes a successful Talent Test, its results also take effect.

Resolve each character’s actions fully before the next character acts, unless the description for that talent specifically states otherwise.

Reserved Actions

A player may voluntarily lower his or her character’s Initiative in the Combat Round in order to act later in the round.

A player using this option simply chooses a new, lower Initiative number and announces it. (The player may find it useful to set aside a die showing the character’s new Initiative number or to write it down on a scrap of paper. This helps the player remember the new Initiative and avoid confusion when the dice rolling starts.) Reserved actions suffer the same Difficulty Number penalty as changed actions.

Reserving actions is the only way that characters can make attacks against opponents using charging or swooping attacks (see Mounted Combat and Aerial Combat for more details).