Options, Modifiers, & Grappling

Combat Options

• Aggressive Stance - Trading offense for defense, this gives you +3 steps for Attack and Damage tests, but gives opponents +3 steps on attack tests to hit you. For missiles this means ignoring the enemy to make a really good attack, but is likely to get you clobbered.
• Defensive Stance - Using the Defensive Stance Combat Option gives +3 Physical Defense, but reduces all other steps by ­3. You can take a defensive stance and still attack, but the attacks will be poorly aimed and without as much force.
• Attacking to Knockdown - This does no damage, but uses the result of your damage test minus armor as the difficulty of the target's chance to keep their feet in a knockdown test, making it much more likely your target falls over.
• Attacking to Stun - This does damage as normal, with two minor changes: 1) Attack to Stun damage can't kick someone over their death rating; 2) All Stun damage goes away fifteen minutes after the fight is over, and can be recovered in fight as normal.
• Called Shot - Hitting a particular target (like an armor flaw) gives a ­3 step penalty to the Test.
• Giving Ground - For every 3 feet yielded, gain +1 PD. A character may yield 3 feet for each rank of skill being used (like Melee Weapons). You must declare how many feet you plan to yield. If you have the higher initiative, then you choose the direction of movement; if not, your opponent does, but you'll stop right at the edge of a death situation.

  You can state that you are giving ground DURING your opponent's action. Two fighters can give ground to reach other in a single round, resulting in a series of advances and retreats across the field of battle as each one attacks, then defends.

• Going Inside a Shield - It's possible to get around an opponent's shield for your main attack, and therefore ignore the bonuses it gives. If you state you want to try and do this, I'll check your initiative against their initiative + shield Armor Rating. If you're still higher, the attack goes inside the shield. If not, you still get to attack, but at a ­2 step penalty due to the failed maneuver.

Situation Modifiers

• Blindside Attack - When a you can't see your attacker, the attacker gains +2 steps to the Attack Test. The attacker must be able to see his target to use the blindside attack bonus, otherwise it's Darkness.
• Darkness - Characters who find themselves fighting in the dark but who do not have any type of night vision must reduce the step of all their tests except Knockdown tests by ­3.
• Harried - A character under attack by 4 or more melee opponents at once (or those swarmed by smaller creatures) is Harried. Harried characters reduce the step of all their tests by 2.
• Knocked Down - A character who is knocked down (see Make Knockdown Test) subtracts ­3 from his Physical, Magic (and perhaps Social) Defense Ratings. Knocked-down characters also reduce the step of all tests by ­3. These penalties remain in effect until the character is back on his feet.
• Surprise - Surprised characters can't act during the round in which they are surprised, and have a ­3 to their Defense Ratings (all three). The effect of surprise ends as soon as the next Combat Round begins. You can stave off Surprise with Perception tests against the situation, as determined by the GM ­ this is often the Stealth scores of the potential surprisers.

Grappling
This is a standard Unarmed Combat attack, but to hold rather than hit. If you roll a Good success you've successfully grabbed the target; record your result. This does no damage, but the target can't do anything except to try to break free.

To break free of a grapple, the target makes an Unarmed Combat (or Body) Test using the result of the Grapple Attack Test as the Difficulty Number. If the dice result is equal to or higher than that number, the target breaks free of the grappling character.

Once you've grappled an opponent, you can maintain the hold simply by declaring that you are doing so as your main action.

   

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