Combat – Messin’ up the Wastes

It is a rare day indeed when you can safely traverse any part of the Equestrian Wasteland (or any of its neighboring wastelands, for that matter) without being shot at, stabbed, or blown up. That’s why this section of the rules exists – so everypony (or zebra, griffin, alicorn, hellhound, etc.) is on the same page when it comes to combat.

Combat in this system is turn-based. This means that combat is generally divided up into rounds, during which most or all players and characters (i.e. combatants) will act in a set order to take actions. Remember that rounds in this system are modeled as six-second periods. Every round, a combatant that receives a turn will have two actions during their turn, allowing approximately three seconds each. These actions can be any number of things – shooting, moving, taking cover, casting a spell, performing an aerial maneuver, attempting to hide, hacking a terminal, etc. Talking is considered “free,” and doesn’t take an action as long as the message is kept relatively short and within reason. Monologues and longer messages may take more than a few seconds to deliver, and should be counted as such for the purposes of determining actions spent, if they are all that a character is doing during their turn.

Everything in this section is organized as logically as possible, in the order that each type of action happens during a typical combat sequence; at the beginning of combat every character (and the GM) rolls initiative, and then they can move, shoot, or do whatever else it is they’re planning on doing. If anything here confuses you, there’s a handy quick reference at the end of this section to try and present all of the options a character has in terms of what they want to do during their turn, with their associated cost in terms of actions.

Now that that’s all out of the way, LET’S GET READY TO RUMMMMBLE!

Combat Initiative (“Who Shot First”)

Because combat in this system is turn-based, deciding who (or what) will act first within a turn is very important to resolving what occurs. An initiative roll decides this order of action– at the beginning of combat, every character involved rolls d% (1d100). The numbers rolled determine the order in which players and their opponents act during combat, lower numbers going before higher numbers. Players may add or subtract a value up to their AGI MFD ¼ target number to their initiative rolls. Temporary penalties to agility reduce the ¼ value by 5 per point. Players must decide whether they add or subtract after before announcing their initiative at the beginning of a combat round, after rolling d%. Perks that modify initiative (such as Quick Witted) can make this roll’s result higher or lower. As there are no real “critical successes,” spending luck cards with the Live by Luck rules to reroll initiative only let you redo the roll, and don’t alter your chances.

In the event of ties, there are a few ways to handle the situation. You can either have both actions occur simultaneously, or you can have whichever character has the highest Agility attribute score go first. If both of the tied characters have the same agility score, resolve actions simultaneously.

As an optional rule, because turn based combat models a very short period of time, characters that roll the same “tens place” on their initiative roll (i.e. 40-49, 70-79, etc.) resolve their actions and then carry them out simultaneously. This allows for the possibility that characters can interrupt each other’s actions, or kill each other in shooting duels within the same instant.

Combat can technically ‘start’ before an enemy ever comes into range. For example, if you’re aware of someone before they’re aware of you (as occurs frequently when you’re sneaking around) you and your friends can prepare to ambush whatever unfortunate hasn’t noticed you. When this happens, you start combat with something called a “Surprise Round”, effectively catching the unaware opponent with their pants down (not that most ponies where pants, but you know what we mean).

So, a character’s initiative is:

1d100 ± (MFD ¼ AGI)

Date: 2015-12-11; view: 811