Combat

Characters are going to come into conflict with others at some point. Sometimes this will result in combat.

Basic Rules

1. A combat round has 3 phases: Pre-combat, Combat, Post-combat.
2. Declare Pre-combat abilities: Players may activate abilities which can be used during the Pre-combat phase.
3. Combat: Players roll a skill which they are able to use during combat, either the Martial skill or a skill for which the character has a trait stating it can be used for combat, such as Arcane Blast for Spellcasting. The default TN is 10. A PC who meets or exceeds the TN passes the combat with no other consequences, a PC who rolls below the TN takes 10 hp damage per point below the TN. This means a PC rolling an 8 on a combat roll will take 20 hp of damage if the TN is 10.
4. Use Post-combat abilities: Players are able to declare the use of Post-combat abilities during this phase.

Rounds

Most combats against NPCs only takes one round to resolve, this is meant to keep combat quick and focus on character roleplay rather than having to write a dozen different ways to perform one's most common attacks over and over. Combat against large enemy forces or a particularly powerful opponent may take more than one round. If a combat can not be resolves in three rounds or less, it is likely what the PCs are going up against is too powerful for the resources they bring to bear. An example of something too big for PCs to wholly defeat is a mercenary company with only a few people, but a round of combat may be enough to buy the PCs an opening so they can flee or execute a plan which required going through a small part of that force.

Most of the time, a round represents a few minutes of fighting, but the length of a round is intentionally somewhat vague, depending more on the narrative's needs than a specific amount of time.

Combat Between PCs

1. Combat proceeds according to the basic rules unless otherwise noted.
2. All PCs will roll a combat ability. The default TN is 10.
3. If one side has more PCs on it than the other, the side which is outnumbered has +2 to their TN needed to hit per PC by which they are outnumbered. That is to say if there is 1 PC going up against 3 PCs, the side with 3 PCs will roll against a TN of 10 while the side with 1 PC will roll against a TN of 14 (10+2+2). It should be noted this means while an outnumbered PC is at a disadvantage, that PC is still reasonably likely to damage the other side.
4. When a PC drops to 0 hp, they are not yet dead. To kill a PC, another PC must use the Lethal Intent ability of Inner Focus. Regardless of any other factors, if Lethal Intent is not used the PC at 0 hp survives, somehow. How this occurs may take a variety of forms but they will survive the situation (so no simply capturing them with the intent to render them helpless and using Killing Blow later).