Bonuses (Quick Witted, Dash, etc.) – Penalties

Surprise!

A surprise round occurs whenever a combatant or group of combatants attack another combatant or group that isn’t aware of the first group (or at least isn’t aware of their hostile intent) until they’ve begun opening fire. A hidden sniper opening up on an unaware scavenging convoy, or a group of raiders launching rockets at travelling merchants from a hidden alcove in a bluff before rushing down with knives and guns are good examples of this; a guard firing from his extremely-visible post at oncoming attackers, or a shrieking psychopathic raider running out of cover wielding a board with nails in it are not (usually) cause for a surprise round.

When a surprise round occurs, the attacking group’s members (and any character with the Quick Witted perk) all roll initiative. They all receive a single action for the round (instead of the two actions from a standard round). If the attacker is targeting someone who didn’t expect to be attacked at all, as when an ally character stabs you in the back, the target is looking the other direction, or the target is asleep, then this is cause for a sneak attack critical–see the subheading with that name below. When all of them have completed their actions, normal combat begins, and initiative is re-rolled for all characters (though some GMs may prefer to keep the existing initiative order and simply add the surprised characters into the existing line up).

Movement

During combat, characters can move up to their listed move speed (top middle of your character sheet) for each action spent moving. In other words, they can only do this twice if that is ALL that they do with their turn. Other actions, such as firing a weapon, dodging out of the way of an explosion, or performing a maneuver will reduce the distance your character can cover in a full round by half. If running (spending both actions to move), a character can move up to three times their listed speed. Note that while dodging costs an action and will reduce your maximum movement, the act of dodging will generally move a character from where they were previously standing. Other modifiers to movement speed are outlined below.

CHAAARGE!

A charge is a special kind of movement that takes both of a character’s actions in a round. Charging allows a character to move at a run (x3 movement speed) and follow it up with a melee or unarmed attack if at the end of their movement they are adjacent to (within five feet of) an enemy. This prevents characters from performing any other actions that round. If attacking with horns at the end of a charge, the attack deals an additional 3d6 damage. Charges made with two horns (such as by a minotaur or buffalo) deal 6d10+STR instead of 6d6+STR.

A character must be able to move at least 15 feet in a straight line to perform a charge.

Optional Rule: When charging, if a character has a suitably ferocious battle cry (or is suitably frightening looking – Terrifying Presence would help) it may provoke a fear check in their intended target and its allies. Bonus points if the player actually yells this battle cry while their character is charging.

Jumping

While not actually combat specific, jumping vertically and horizontally do come up. How high or far a character can jump are determined by their ground ‘base’ movement speed.

The rule of fetlock is this: a pony can jump half as far as they can move in a single action. If they get a running start before the jump (at least a full movement action’s worth of distance) they may increase that jump distance by 5’. For high jumps, the height is half of the long jump distance, rounded down.

If a pony cannot move at least 10’ in a single action, they cannot jump a gap of 5’ without a running start. If they cannot move at least 5’ in a single action, then without a running start then cannot jump any appreciable distance at all! For convenience, a table of jump distances based on movement speeds is provided below.

Sneaking

In order to sneak during combat, a character must either roll their sneak skill as an opposed roll with whatever enemies are present, or be under the effects of a stealth field. Whether or not this roll is successful or they are detected, they may spend the rest of their sneaking-action moving up to their listed sneak speed. If they choose (as might be a good idea if they obviously failed their roll), this movement can be forfeited and turned into a held action to attempt to dodge away from or block incoming attacks. In either case, rolling sneak to attempt to hide is considered a free action that can be performed once per combat action. Essentially, moving at sneak speed simply allows a character to maintain the MFD of their sneak roll for the purposes of contested rolls.

Characters that are sneaking can only move up to half their listed move distance per combat action. This value is rounded down to the nearest five feet, which means that even taking both of your actions in combat to sneak may not move you as far as taking one action to simply move. A character’s base sneak speed without considering perks, traits or hindrances is thus effectively equal to 5 x (AGI/4), rounded down.

Sneak speed can be substantially increased with perks, traits, or if a character is under the effects of a stealth field. Characters under the effect of an active stealth field (such as would result from the use of an invisibility spell, a stealthbuck, or a zebra invisibility cloak) can sneak at their full speed, but receive a -25 roll penalty to sneak while doing so, usually more than compensated for by the effects of the stealth field; all stealth fields provide a constant bonus to sneak rolls while active.

Hellhounds, sand dogs and other burrowing creatures that are underground count as being under the effects of a +50 sneak bonus/ 2 MFD non-magical stealth field for the purposes of underground movement while sneaking, as long as they are fully underground and no other creatures occupy their tunnel. Enemies take the stealth field as an MFD step penalty to PER rolls to notice them. Penalties to sneak for the invisible character translate directly into bonuses for those making PER rolls against a stealth field.

Remember to take your character’s sneak penalty due to weight into account when rolling sneak! Starting at wt. 50, for every 10 macs beyond 50 (rounded up) characters take a -5 penalty to sneak.

Date: 2015-12-11; view: 815