Combat & Actions

Initiative

Charles and Allen decide they are going to duel over the contents of a chest they found while looting an enemy’s ship. Step number one is to roll initiative. Each player rolls four FUDGE dice, adding their Agility modifier. Both have an Agility modifier of 0. Allen rolls a +2, Charles rolls a -1, so Allen attacks first.

Allen’s Turn

Allen has one Combat Action, and chooses to swing his sword at Charles. Charles has two Defensive Actions, and decides he will use his shield to try and block. Allen has a Weapon Skill (sword) of +1, and he rolls a +2 on four FUDGE dice, getting a total of +3. At the same time as Allen is rolling for his attack, Charles rolls a set of FUDGE dice for his block attempt, adding his shield’s Armor bonus of +2 and getting a total of +5. This effectively blocks Allen’s sword attack and Charles takes no damage.

Charles’ Turn

Charles now attempts to use one Combat Action to strike back at Allen using his club. Allen attempts to dodge the club using his one Defensive Action. Charles has a Weapon Skill (club) of +2, and he rolls a +4 on four FUDGE dice for a total roll of +6. At the same time, Allen attempts his dodge, rolling a +3 on four FUDGE dice, adding in his +0 Agility modifier; giving him a total of +2. This does not beat Charles’ attack roll of +6, and so Allen only partially dodges the attack, and still takes some damage.

Charles subtracts 3 from his attack roll, leaving him with +3, and then he adds the +1 damage of his club for a total of +4 damage. Allen was wearing light armor that gave him a +2 Armor bonus; this armor was able to absorb 2 points of damage out of the total 4 that Charles was inflicting on him, causing Allen to suffer the remaining 2 damage.

Allen’s character has 2 Bruised wounds, 2 Hurt wounds, and 1 Grievous wound. He marks off his two Bruised wounds, counting himself lucky that his armor was there to protect him, and that Charles doesn’t have any other Combat Actions.

After both Allen and Charles take their turns, both characters’ actions reset. The initiative, however, does not reset.

Allen’s Turn

Allen returns the brutal club attack by firing a small pistol at Charles, which Charles attempts to dodge. Allen rolls a +1 on four FUDGE dice and adds his Marksmanship (pistol) skill of +2, rolling a total of +3. At the same time Charles rolls four FUDGE dice and adds his Agility modifier of +0, receiving a total of +2. Allen’s success is greater by 1 point, and so Charles is grazed by the bullet.

Allen pistol damage is +1, which he adds to his previous roll of +2, for a total of +3. Charles has heavy armor with a +3 bonus; however it offers no Bullet Resistance. Without Bullet Resistance he takes the full 3 points of damage. Charles has 2 Bruised wounds, 3 Hurt wounds and 1 Grievous wound. He fills in the two Bruised wounds and one Hurt wound. Due to the pain of his injuries, he now takes a -1 penalty to all physical rolls for being Hurt.

Benjamin’s Moreauvian panther is trying to sneak across a museum floor and break into a locked vault to steal some blueprints for a Dwarven Artificer he owes money to. The museum is lightly patrolled by a few guards, but there are some Machina anti-intrusion devices, so the GM dictates that Benjamin needs a +2 success or greater to sneak across the floor undetected. Benjamin has a Stealth of +2, and after he rolls the FUDGE dice he gets a total of +3. This allows him to creep across the floor without issue. The vault door is large and imposing, and the GM dictates that it will take a Legerdemain roll of +3 to unlock it successfully.

Benjamin has a Legerdemain skill of +1 and in order to get past the door, the GM says he needs a +3 or better due to the Dwarven tech within the door. Benjamin rolls and gets a -1. The GM dictates that not only is the door still locked, but now he must make an additional Stealth roll because of the noise he made when trying to bypass it. Depending on the result of this stealth roll, the GM may impose additional penalties on him, as the guards get more suspicious and the scene gets tenser.

Jenn’s goblin merchant has just found herself in a sticky situation. After attempting to pass off some papier-mache replicas as priceless Old One idols the guards were called, and now she’s running through the alleys of the city with some angry security officers hot on her tail. In a burst of ingenuity she leaps into a barrel of briny pickle water, sucks in a lungful of air, and submerges herself. The guards show up moments later and begin to search for her.

The GM knows that they will probably leave after about 3 rounds or so, but Jenn’s goblin doesn’t know that. The GM has her roll a Survival check to see how long she can hold her breath. She needs to get a +1 or better to hold her
breath, but she will need more if she wants to hold out for more than one round.

She rolls and gets a total of +3, which allows her to hold her breath for a total of two rounds. The normal difficulty is +1, which she exceeded by two points, letting her keep the action going for two rounds. The two rounds pass, and the guards still aren’t leaving. She decides to try her luck and keep holding her breath. The difficulty is now +2 however, as this is the second attempt she has made at this same action. She rolls the dice, getting another +3 total; she holds her breath, praying that the guards leave soon.

Magic Creation

Tesia’s character is a Magister with access to the Fire and Air Magic Schools. Her character has an Incantation skill of +2, so Tesia decides that she wishes to create a new incantation. She decides that she wants to carry a number of wooden spheres around with her, and in battle she wants to light them ablaze and launch them at her opponents. 

Tesia looks into her school’s tiers and finds that Tier One of the Fire School has an effect that summons fire to her hand, and Tier One of the Air School allows her to control the wind around her to lift up and propel small items forward in a 20 ft. blast/level of success. The combination of these two spell effects is exactly what she wants, so without delay she begins to create her magic effect.

Fire is her specialty school. Since this incantation contains a fire effect she does not add the +1 difficulty penalty for an incantation that does not include her specialty school, therefore her base diffculty to cast this effect is 0. The
first effect is Fire 1; the second effect is Air 1 so she adds the tier of the second effect to the difficulty, giving it a +1 difficulty.

She now has a custom incantation that she’s created. The spell has a +1 difficulty to cast, and reads as follows: 

“Flaming Spheres: My character lights several wooden balls in her hand ablaze, and fires them forward in a 20 ft. blast/level of success in front of her; catching anything they hit on fire, and dealing Burning damage.”

Keloh’s warlock wishes to create a new effect that he has recently discovered within his flux-infused blood. First, Keloh chooses the perk Sanguine Secret, which allows him to create a new spell effect. Keloh has 3 spell points to work with, and has access to both the Biomancy School at Tier One, and the Fire school at Tier One. He wishes to create a terrifying fusion of fire and fang, and transform his mouth into a giant toothy maw capable of delivering vicious burning bites. In the Fire School, he finds the effect that reads:

You can cause fire to cover your hands, or coat a melee weapon, adding the Burning template (Page 34), without causing damage to you or the item.

In addition, under Biomancy, he finds the effect: 

You can warp your own body into unnatural and deadly forms. This allows you to add the bite or claw template to your character for +1 damage. This effect lasts for 2 rounds/minutes per level of success.

To determine the difficulty of his new spell, Keloh must look at the difficulty of the individual tiers. Each effect is Tier One so there is no cost for that. There are however multiple effects; each one adding to the difficulty. Keloh adds 0 for the first effect, the second Tier One is also 0 but since it’s part of a multiple effect the difficulty cost for the second effect is 0 divided by 2 with a minimum of 1. The tiers together (0+1) gets 1; therefore the difficulty to cast this spell will be +1.

Keloh decides to name the spell Blazing Visage and describes it as follows:

“I warp my mouth into a giant deadly maw with huge teeth that blaze with flame. This gives me the Bite template at +1, with the Burning template. This effect lasts for 2 rounds/minutes per level of success.”

Monica’s Wyrd wants to create an offensive daemonic Totem in the form of a curved and rusted knife. She decides to make it a Totem for the hex Soul Shred. This hex costs 3 points. With the aid of her grotesque, she begins the crafting process of this totem. The cost to craft this totem is normally the cost of the hex itself, in this case +3, but the grotesque grants the Wyrd a bonus of +1 to this, so the diffi culty ends up being +2. She rolls her Profession (Blacksmithing) roll and receives a +4, more than enough to create the totem.

The next step is to determine how many uses Monica wants to get out of this totem, and so she must determine how many totem points to spend to extend the life of this item. She decides she wants to make frequent use of this 
totem and so she spends 3 points for its initial use, and then another 3 points for two additional uses before the totem is destroyed.