Combat Skills
Table of Contents
Primary Item (H2)

For use in con­junc­tion with the vio­lence rules.

Also see arms and armor.

melee

Grants pro­fi­cien­cy with a top­ic of melee weapon.

Top­ics: Snap & Lash, Guard & Bash, Hack & Slash, Hew & Thrust, Hand-to-Hand, Spear & Ward, Maul & Split, Crush & Strike, Lunge & Jab

Attack

Attack a tar­get with­in reach.

  • Move up to 1 meter.
  • For every edge you have, roll at +2 and deal +1 dam­age.

Roll Melee. Suc­cess means you hit: roll your weapon’s dam­age and apply it to a ran­dom body area on the tar­get.

Counter

Coun­ter­at­tack in reac­tion to an ene­my attack.

  • You can only counter with Melee.
  • You can’t counter with infe­ri­or reach.
  • Coun­ters may not be defend­ed against.

block

Block in reac­tion to an ene­my attack. Roll Melee:

  • If your reach is supe­ri­or, roll with an edge.

Suc­cess means you block: Roll your weapon’s block stat and sub­tract it from the incom­ing dam­age.

shoot

Grants pro­fi­cien­cy with a top­ic of bal­lis­tic weapon.

Exam­ple: Shoot: Pis­tol.

Top­ics: Pis­tol, Lon­garm, Stron­garm, Bow, Sling

Attack

Shoot at a tar­get with­in range. 

  • Move up to 1 meter.
  • For every edge you have, roll at +2 and deal +1 dam­age.
  • Your weapon must be loaded.

Roll Shoot.

  • -2 if attack­ing out­side your weapon’s range. Addi­tion­al -2 per full range incre­ment beyond.

Suc­cess means you hit: roll your weapon’s dam­age and apply it to a ran­dom body area on the tar­get.

  • Your weapon’s rate of fire stat delays how often it can attack. This delay requires you have the weapon in hand. 

throw

Grants pro­fi­cien­cy with a top­ic of thrown weapon.

Top­ics: Cast & Tan­gle, Flip & Fling, Hurl & Pitch

Attack

Attack a tar­get with­in throw­ing range, which equals your Might plus a mod­i­fi­er added by the item.

Missed throws may hit inter­ven­ing tar­gets like any oth­er ranged attack. Oth­er­wise, failed rolls made to throw cause the thrown item to land d6 meters long or short of the tar­get and d4 meters to the left or right. 

All top­ics of Throw can be used for sim­ple items (rocks, grenades) thrown over­hand or under­hand.

Catch!

Throw an item to a com­pan­ion with­in line of sight. All top­ics of Throw can be used for this.

Roll Throw. If you suc­ceed, your ally catch­es the item.

Hand-to-hand

Attack and defend with naught but your body. A top­ic of Melee.

Attack & Block

Unarmed attacks are treat­ed as a weapon:

  • 1d4-1 blud­geon­ing dam­age, reach 0, block 1

You can block and counter with Hand-to-hand. You can move 1 meter while attack­ing.

If you hit with Hand-to-hand and apply at least 3 dam­age, you can select an effect below in lieu of the dam­age:

  • Grab the tar­get or their weapon.
  • Shove the tar­get back 1 meter. They are stag­gered.
  • Escape a grab if you are grabbed.
  • Yank a grabbed weapon. Tar­get must suc­ceed Might or lose it.
  • Throw the tar­get if they are stag­gered and you are grab­bing them. They suf­fer as if falling meters = your Might.

While grabbed:

  • Attacks against you are made with an edge.
  • You can­not dodge
  • You can­not move away from the grab­ber
  • You can’t attack with weapons with reach greater than .5 m.

The fol­low­ing are spe­cial rules for the top­ics of Melee and Throw.

cast & tangle

Used for nets, slings, and bolas. A top­ic of Throw.

spin time

All Cast & Tan­gle weapons must be spun for one turn before attack­ing, requir­ing 1 action. You can still use your oth­er action while spin­ning a weapon.

Tangling

Some weapons entan­gle tar­gets rather than dam­ag­ing them. They have a tan­gle area, usu­al­ly 1–3 meters, where­in hit foes are grabbed if they don’t dodge suc­cess­ful­ly at a penal­ty equal to the tan­gle area * 2. They are grabbed by the weapon, not the throw­er, and can attempt escape by cut­ting it (1–2 wear per cut.)

flip & Fling

Used for throw­ing knives, axes, and any­thing that turns end-over-end. A top­ic of Throw.

quick to hand

After throw­ing a Flip & Fling weapon, you always have anoth­er ready to hand so long as you had it strapped or pock­et­ed.

hurl & Pitch

Used for javelins, spears, and darts. A top­ic of Throw.

skewering

Tar­gets impaled by a Hurl & Pitch weapon suf­fer 2 speed penal­ty while it remains embed­ded. This includes tar­gets whose shields are pierced by one—they must dis­card the shield to shed the penal­ty.

crush & smash

Used for one-hand­ed weapons, usu­al­ly swung blud­geon­ing and pierc­ing weapons. A top­ic of Melee.

Two-handing: Armor piercing

If you use two hands to attack and deal pierc­ing dam­age, your tar­get’s armor’s hard­ness is effec­tive­ly 1 low­er.

Guard & Bash

Used for shields. A top­ic of Melee.

Blocking

While block­ing, shields func­tion as armor rather than apply­ing a block val­ue. Dam­age remain­ing after a block may still dam­age you. You block ranged attacks at -2.

Shove

You can shove with Guard & Bash per Hand-to-hand.

ward

Ward your­self with your shield. For 1 turn, hit loca­tion rolls equal to or less than your ward cov­er­age hit your shield. You can react while ward­ing. Oppo­nents bypass­ing your ward must tar­get a body area.

Your ward cov­er­age equals your shield­’s cov­er­age + your Guard & Bash lev­el.

Hack & Slash

Used for one-hand­ed slash­ing, blad­ed weapons. A top­ic of Melee.

Two-handing: edge alignment

When two-hand­ing, reroll one dam­age die result of 1 per attack.

lunge & jab

Used for thrust­ing pierc­ing weapons. A top­ic of Melee.

Riposte

If you ful­ly block an ene­my attack and have block points left over, you can apply them as pierc­ing dam­age to the attack­er.

hew & thrust

Used for adapt­able two-hand­ed slash­ing and thrust­ing weapons. A top­ic of Melee.

Cleave

You can hit anoth­er, adja­cent tar­get if you dealt the pri­or tar­get a dis­mem­ber­ing (6+ dam­age) wound or a knock­down.

Adjust grip

You can deal your weapon’s full dam­age at any range with­in its stan­dard range, even if you are grap­pled.

maul & split

Used for heavy two-hand­ed weapons. A top­ic of Melee.

Destructive

Shields and weapons block­ing your attacks gain 1 wear.

snap & lash

Used for whips. A top­ic of Melee.

entangle

If you apply at least 2 dam­age, you can grap­ple the tar­get in lieu of if. The grap­ple ends at end of round or if you approach the tar­get.

spear & ward

Used for very long two-hand­ed weapons. A top­ic of Melee.

At the ready

Read­ied attacks made with Spear & Ward always get an edge.

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