Combat

One of the staples of role-playing games is combat. Nothing quite raises the drama and tension of a story like a literal life or death struggle with your opponents. Combat is up close and personal, chaotic, and usually quick. To resolve a combat encounter in an orderly and fair manner while still maintaining the drama, we use combat rounds to break down all allowable actions and the order they occur. Each round represents just a few seconds of time, generally enough time for a quick spell casting, firing a bow, a quick attack and parry with a sword, or drinking a potion. The types of rounds, how they are resolved, and what actions are allowed are listed below. Once a round is complete, if there are still combatants alive to fight, you start at the top of a normal round and go again until one side is dead or has fled the battlefield.

Combat Round

Combat can be started when both parties see or hear each other or when one party catches another by surprise. Based on the situation, combat will begin either with a surprise round or a normal round. For example, the party is taking their time stealthily moving through the forest and hears a group of ogres up ahead. The ogres are in the middle of an argument, and they do not hear the party approaching. When the party attacks, the GM would initiate a surprise round to start that encounter. Conversely, if the party is walking down the street singing and laughing and their hated enemy is running down the street towards them, neither party is surprised by the others presence and combat would begin with a normal round.

Surprise Round

An opposed roll is taken by one member on each side, if attackers roll higher, they gain surprise, if they roll 5 over the other side, they gain full surprise. The opposed roll uses different bonuses depending on what side you are on, attacker or defender.

• Attacker rolls d20+lowest party members Stealth skill bonus.
• Defender rolls d20+highest party members Perception bonus.
• If both parties have stumbled into each other, each side rolls a d20 with no added bonuses.
  • For example, the party comes across a group of goblins foraging in the woods and decides to attack them. Someone from the party rolls a d20+the lowest stealth bonus of the party and the goblins roll d20+the highest perception bonus in the group. If the party rolls higher than the goblins, they have surprised them and if they rolled 5 higher than the goblins result, they have full surprise. If the goblins roll higher, they are not surprised, and a normal round ensues for combat).

Depending on the result of the opposed roll, one party may attain surprise or full surprise over the other party, and they gain the following effects for that round:

• Surprise: Attackers roll their dice with Advantage and defenders roll with Disadvantage during that round.
• Full Surprise: Attackers roll their dice with Advantage and defenders cannot take any actions during that round. 

Normal Round

Everyone declares what they are going to do within X seconds or minutes depending on the complexity of the situation and the size of the group as determined by the GM. The GM can give you a set time to make your plans each round or they can let you know you are taking too long as necessary. Each round is only a few seconds long so there is not time to make overly complex and coordinated plans and time is of the essence.

Initiative is rolled (Outlined in the Initiative section below).

Each group takes their actions in order. GM and players work together to narrate what happens (i.e., the GM decides who hits first and applies damage, players describe killing blows or what special effect or condition to bestow).

Additional Factors in Combat

Opposition rolls are used for things like shutting the door before the enemy gets through and the higher roll wins.

Timer dice: roll the die determined by the GM and that is the number of rounds until something happens like the ceiling collapses, cliff falls away, barrels explode, etc.

Declared Actions

Before Initiative is rolled for the round, each player declares their action and the GM declares the actions of each creature. Once the round begins, the actions declared cannot be changed. Since a round only represents a few seconds in time it would be nearly impossible for someone to start swinging at one creature and then change their mind and run over to another creature and attack it instead.

Players can switch the order of who takes their actions each round during their group initiative, so the group can use the declaration phase to come up with some interesting tactics.

For example: The players declare their actions for the round and determine that Larry is going to cast a Sleep spell on the goblin pack, Jenny is going to attack the nearest goblin standing after Larry casts his spell, and Bruno is going to standby to counter spell anything the enemy wizard might throw at them.

The GM can allow a change in declared action if the circumstances warrant it (e.g., Carl declared that he was going to shoot an arrow at the ogre across the room, but before his action that ogre is killed. There is an orc right next to the dead ogre so the GM determines that Carl can easily shift his target the tiny amount necessary to fire on the orc instead. However, if Carl were charging at the ogre with a spear and the ogre was pushed out of the way before Carl got to it, the GM could say that Carl just keeps running past the ogre and cannot change his direction in time).

Initiative

Once everyone has made their declarations for the round, one player in the group rolls a d10 for group initiative and the GM rolls a d10 for initiative for each group of creatures in the combat. In most cases, this will be one big group, but the GM could have all the normal creatures as one group and a boss monster as another group as an example of multiple groups. The highest roll goes first and so on until each group has taken their actions.

Initiative is rolled at the start of each round so initiative order can change from round to round to represent the chaos and changing momentum of battle. Note, this can result in one group going last in a round and then first in the next round and getting two sets of actions before the other group gets a response, but that is just the chaos of combat.

To Hit Rolls

Each player and creature involved in combat rolls a to hit roll against the target or spell DC to determine if their attack succeeds. A to hit roll is made with a d20 + the bonus of the applicable skill (i.e., a melee weapon attack is d20+melee skill bonus, a spell casting is d20+casting skill bonus, etc.).

The GM can determine that a player or creature has Advantage or Disadvantage or Cinematic Advantage on a to hit roll and that roll is made with two or three d20's as per the Advantage and Disadvantage rules in the Dice section of the rules. Examples of situations granting Advantage would be several players attacking the same creature from different sides or flanking the creature, attacking a surprised creature, attacking from the high ground. Examples of situations granting Disadvantage would be attacking while on a slippery or unstable surface like a boat deck in a storm, attacking a creature several times smaller than you (trying to knock a pixie out of the air), or acting while Exhausted.

Long Range Attacks

None of the weapons or creatures in the game are given maximum ranges for their attacks, but the GM can determine that a specific attack is outside the normal accurate range of a given attack and assign Disadvantage to the to hit roll (e.g., Jen is an accomplished archer and attempts to fire an arrow at a troll that is on the other side of a large chasm. The GM determines it is an extreme shot with a bow and Jen is given Disadvantage for her to hit roll for the shot).

Called Shots

Aiming for a specific location on a target, called shot, or taking special actions against an unwilling target gain Disadvantage on the to hit roll (e.g., Linda attempts to shoot the wand out of a wizard’s hand. She makes her standard Ranged attack roll with Disadvantage on the roll).

Cover

Hiding behind cover provides Disadvantage when attacking a creature under cover. A creature under cover also takes half damage from any area effect attacks or conditions coming from the other side of their cover. Direct attacks that succeed in hitting a creature under cover provide full damage.

Sneak Attack

If an attacker successfully used the Stealth skill in the previous round and attacks an unsuspecting target, they gain Advantage to hit.

Critical Failure

A roll of 1 on a d20 for to hit is a critical failure and always misses even if bonuses would normally allow the roll to succeed. What happens on a critical failure is determined by the GM or the GM and players together as appropriate. Sample critical failures are:

• The attacker that rolled the failure drops their weapon and loses an attack on the next round either retrieving the weapon or drawing a new one.
• The attacker that rolled the failure trips and gains the prone condition, they lose their next round attack while they get up and any attackers during that round gain Advantage for them being prone unless they take the Parry/Dodge action for that round.
• The attacker that rolled the failure misses their attack and is so overextended that they their opponents gain Advantage to hit for the next round.

Critical Success

A roll of 20 on a d20 for to hit is a critical success and always hits even if the roll would not have succeeded with bonuses applied. When using a melee or ranged weapon critical successes are considered critical hits and the weapon damage rolled for that attack is doubled. For spells, the effect of a critical success is listed in the spell description. In some cases, a GM and the players may decide to apply a custom effect to the critical success instead of doubling the damage. The custom effects take the place of doubling damage and are not to be stacked with the double damage effect. Sample critical hits are:

• The attacker that rolled the success wounds the target for the normal amount of damage and then disarms the target.
• The attacker that rolled the success wounds the target for the normal amount of damage and then knocks the target prone allowing any attackers to gain Advantage to hit in the next round.
• The attacker that rolled the success forgoes all damage to the target and rushes into a successful grapple of the target.

Damage (DMG)

Every weapon or attack rolls an appropriate die for damage. In most cases the die used to determine the damage a weapon, spell, trap, or other standard attack causes is listed in the item/spell/trap description in the Setting Pack.  A critical hit doubles the amount of damage rolled (i.e., Tammy rolls a 20 for to hit on a sword strike and gets a critical hit. She rolls a d6 for damage and rolls a 5. She doubles the damage to 10 for the critical hit).

Weapon Damage Optional Rule

In most cases, the standard damage rules will be more than enough for many groups. However, if you are finding the options for damage dice that can be assigned to attacks to be a bit limiting, you can use this set of optional rules in your setting.

• Weapons can be given tiers or classifications appropriate for your setting that describe the relative power of the weapon 
  • For Example, you could rank them as:
    • Masterwork
    • Common
    • Shoddy
• Based on the weapon tier or classification you can designate weapons that roll damage with Advantage or Disadvantage. In other words, a weapon rolling damage with Advantage would roll two of the listed damage dice and take the highest roll as the damage dealt on that attack.
  • Using the example ranks above:
    • Masterwork: Rolls DMG dice with ADV
    • Common: Rolls listed DMG dice for the weapon
    • Shoddy: Rolls DMG dice with DIS
• This rule can also be applied to creatures in your setting as well if the GM decided that certain creatures were very skilled or very poor fighters.
  • For example:
    • A regular bear rolls d8 for DMG
    • A Dire Bear in addition to being stronger, rolls d8 DMG with ADV as it has been determined to be a fiercer fighter and likely to cause more damage with its attacks. 
• This rule should only be applied to physical weapons wielded by an attacker and physical attacks from creatures. Spells, traps, explosives, and other types of damage causing effects would not likely deal more or less average damage based on any quality ranking, although they could still be capable of critical hits or misses.

Damage Reduction (DR)

Armor and other effects have a DR rating. Before Damage is applied, it is reduced by the DR of the creature being hit (e.g., Bob is a warrior charging into battle wearing a maille shirt with a DR of 2. An ogre takes a swing at Bob and hits him. The Ogre rolls a d6 for damage and rolls a 5. DMG 5 minus DR 2 means that Bob only takes 3 points of damage from the hit). Some special weapons or some non-damage types of spells may disregard DR and will indicate that in their listing (e.g., The sleep spell is not affected by any armor you are wearing so the armor's DR is not applied to the sleep spells effects).

The amount of damage you take can affect your ability to keep fighting or successfully perform other actions. Listed below are the effects of reduced hit points due to damage:

• Full Hit Points: no effect
• Half Total Hit Points: -2 penalty to hit (GM determines if this penalty applies to other actions during combat)
• One Hit Point: lasting wound
• Zero Hit Points: Dead

Minions die on one hit. Regular monsters and bosses have a set amount of hit points.

Non-Damage Attacks

Most of the time the combatants are seeking to kill or wound their opponents enough to render them no longer a threat. However, there are times when you may wish to subdue, or incapacitate a foe so you can interact with them later. In these cases, you can make attacks on the target that are not intended to kill or maim them. These generally fall into three types of attacks.

• Subdual: A regular to hit with Disadvantage (e.g., Bob attempts to knock out an orc for questioning later. He rolls a standard attack roll with Disadvantage to reflect the fact that he is limited in his responses while attempting not to permanently hurt the orc). Subdual damage does not cause a lasting wound if the target falls to 1hp. Once the target is reduced to 0hp, they are unconscious.
• Grappling: An opposed roll with the attacker and target rolling a d20+Feats of Strength bonus. If the attacker rolls higher, they have grappled the target and if the defender rolls higher, they have evaded the grapple.
  • Breaking a grapple: On the next round if the grappled defender has not been fully subdued (i.e., tied up, knocked out, etc.) then they can attempt to break the grapple with a regular grapple opposed roll.
• Spells: Many spells like sleep, charm, and others do not cause regular damage and can be opposed by the targets. In these cases, the target makes a d20 roll with a skill bonus and DC listed in the spell description.

Actions

During each round, a player may perform one attack and one move action. The other actions listed below will specify if they still allow for an attack or move or if they take up both of those actions when performed.

• Attack (normal combat action and to hit target number). You can perform this action before, after, or during a move action.
• Parry/Dodge (no attack damage, but Disadvantage added to foe to hit roll until your next action and if they move away, you get a free attack). This action uses your attack and move actions.
• Move (normal movement around the combat area. If you move away from a foe, they get a free attack). This action can be before, after, or split up by an attack, disengage, or use/ready item action.
• Disengage (roll a normal to hit and if you succeed, you can move freely about the combat area and the foe does not get a free attack, but you have also spent your attack action)
• Use/Ready Item (used in place of an attack or parry/dodge. Could be used to ready a new weapon, activate a magic ring or wand, get something out of a pouch or bag quickly, etc.). You can still move before, after, or in the middle of this action, but cannot perform a regular attack action (if the use item action involves an attack like activating a magic wand, the use item action is your attack action).
• Sprint/Flee (move quickly across a large distance to engage or flee from an opponent. If you are fleeing from the opponent, they get a free attack on you. This takes up your attack and move action so you cannot attack when using Sprint/Flee.