RCS:Resolving Combat

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All of the rules in the MTWiki revised combat system are processed as follows:

  1. Combat begins.
  2. Every round:
    1. Each side involved in the struggle calculates its tactics pool.
    2. Each character rolls initiative, and may draw from the tactics pool to increase initiative with majority consensus of the remaining characters on their side.
    3. The initiative cards are sorted in order from least to highest, with ties between cards being resolved randomly. Cards are marked with initiative numbers as appropriate.
    4. The Taking Turn Token is placed on the card belonging to the first character.
    5. Anyone with higher initiative may elect to seize the initiative, placing their card first. The character who seizes the initiative moves their card in front of the current character and takes the Taking Turn Token.
    6. Every turn:
      1. The person with the Taking Turn Token declares an action. (The person declares only one action at a time.)
      2. Anyone with higher initiative may elect to seize the initiative, cancelling the original person's action. The character who seizes initiative moves their card in front of the current character and takes the Taking Turn Token.
      3. If no one seizes initiative, the referee rules whether the declared action is an Incidental Action, a Short Action, or a Long Action, or invents a task requiring a number of seconds to perform and converts that task into a number of Short Actions.
      4. If the person declared a non-attack action, it is now resolved and the process returns to step 2.6.1 if the person has a Short Action remaining.
      5. If the person declared an attack action, it is now resolved as follows.
      6. For each projectile/beam/damage-dealing-component in the attack:
        1. If the attacker is making an Aimed Shot:
          1. Roll to-make-aimed-shot and, if unsuccessful, the specified attack cannot be made and no further attacks are resolved.
        2. Roll to-hit using all appropriate range modifiers.
        3. If to-hit succeeds, the projectile can hit the target. It does not necessarily hit the target.
        4. Roll weapon Aspect and Offset.
          1. If the attacker made a Called Shot, roll to-make-called-shot and modify the Offset or Aspect as appropriate.
          2. If the attacker made an Aimed Shot, the Aspect and Offset are set exactly to where the attacker originally specified the shot placement.
        5. Compute the Penetration of the weapon at this range.
        6. Look up the hit location struck on the person, robot, or vehicle on the appropriate chart. (Players and the referee are recommended to commit the Personal Hit Locations chart to memory to save time. It is quite easy to remember.)
          1. If the hit location struck is "--" (Near Miss), the attack inflicts no Damage, but the target is suppressed and must immediately spend one Short Action to duck back or drop prone if no cover is available, even if out of turn, unless the target is already ducking back or prone.
            • Add a token to the suppressed character to symbolise the fact that they have already spent one Short Action.
            • If a character has already completed their turn this round, the spent Short Action applies proactively to the character's next turn next round.
            • Resolve the next projectile from the attack, if any, taking into consideration the target is now ducking back or prone.
          2. If the hit location struck is behind cover, determine if the weapon penetrates that cover. If so, reduce the Integrity of the cover by the amount of damage the projectile inflicts and reduce the Penetration of the projectile by the amount required to pierce that cover.
        7. Look up the attack's Damage Value from the weapon charts. (Players and the referee should be aware of the Damage Values of their weapons and should be able to provide this from memory to speed gameplay.)
        8. Compare Penetration versus Armour Value in the hit location struck and apply Penetration effects and Exceptional Success effects to the Damage Value according to the standard Penetration/Success rules (pp.70-71, Player's Manual). Round all fractions of Damage Value down to determine Damage Dice.
          • If Damage Dice is zero, the attack fails to inflict damage. Resolve the next attack.
        9. Resolve damage if Damage Dice is greater than zero:
          1. If Damage Dice is three or less, roll the indicated number of dice to determine Damage Points.
          2. If Damage Dice is greater than three:
            1. Roll three dice.
            2. For every two remaining Damage Dice, add 7.
            3. For last leftover Damage Die, if any, add 3.
            4. The resulting number is the number of Damage Points.
          3. Note the total number of Damage Points and whether they are Lethal or Non-Lethal.
          4. If the location struck was the head, add an equal number of Non-Lethal Damage Points to the existing total.
          5. For each Damage Point:
            1. If the Damage Point was Lethal:
              1. Find the first Non-Lethal box available on the chart and replace it with Lethal Damage.
              2. If there are no remaining Non-Lethal boxes on the chart, fill the first empty box available with Lethal Damage.
              3. If the point filled a row with Lethal Damage, roll to avoid unconsciousness.
              4. If the point was the last Lethal Damage point, roll to avoid unconsciousness (unless the point already filled a row and was already rolled).
            2. If the Damage Point was Non-Lethal:
              1. Find the first empty box on the chart and fill it with Non-Lethal Damage.
              2. If no empty boxes remain, find the first Non-Lethal box on the chart and replace it with Lethal Damage, and treat this point as a point of Lethal Damage instead (resolve this point as Lethal Damage above).
              3. If the point filled a row with Non-Lethal Damage, roll to avoid stun.
              4. If the point was the last Non-Lethal Damage point, roll to avoid stun (unless this point already filled a row and was already rolled).
          6. Apply hit location effects:
            • In all following cases, the DM is equal to the number of Damage Dice (not Damage Points or Damage Value) inflicted by the attack.
            • If struck in the head, roll for concussion (1D6+DM > Endurance).
            • If struck in the upper arm, roll for dropping equipment (2D6+DM > Dexterity) or losing grip with one hand on two-handed items.
            • If struck in the lower arm, drop one-handed items automatically; roll for dropping two-handed items (1D6+DM > Dexterity): drop from both hands if roll fails, lose grip with one hand if roll succeeds.
            • If struck in the abdomen, roll for stunning (2D6+DM > Endurance).
            • If struck in the upper leg, fall prone/supine automatically.
            • If struck in the lower leg, roll for falling (2D6+DM > Dexterity).
          7. Determine location injury:
            • Add the number of Damage Points suffered to the running total for this body location.
            • If the total exceeds the Damage Threshold, the location becomes Injured.
            • If the total exceeds the Damage Threshold * 2, the location becomes Incapacitated. Apply Incapacitation effects immediately.
            • If the total exceeds the Damage Threshold * 3, the location becomes Wrecked. Apply Wrecked effects immediately.
            • If the total exceeds the Damage Threshold * 4, the location becomes Ruined. Sever from attached bodily locations as appropriate.
          8. Apply characteristic damage if any Damage Points suffered were Lethal Damage:
            1. Make a pool of Attribute Damage Points equal to the Lethal Damage Points suffered divided by 2 (rounded down).
            2. Roll 1D6 and subtract this number from the Attribute Damage Pool, or use all remaining AttDam Points if this number exceeds the amount of points in the pool.
            3. Subtract this from the characteristic first affected by the attack, as given by the hit location:
              • If head, lower arm, or lower leg, the first characteristic damaged is Dexterity.
              • If torso or abdomen, the first characteristic damaged is Endurance.
              • If upper arm or upper leg, the first characteristic damaged is Strength.
              • If the characteristic of the corresponding location is already zero, the points are lost from a different physical attribute of the victim's choice.
            4. While there are still points remaining in the Attribute Damage Pool:
              1. Roll 1D6 and subtract this number of points from the pool, using all remaining AttDam Points if the number exceeds the points remaining in the pool.
              2. Subtract this number of points from a physical attribute of the victim's choice which still has points remaining.
      7. If the person has one Short Action remaining, the person may opt to "Pass" that Short Action and tap their character for this turn, or may declare another Short Action (and return to the declare step above). They may also declare a Long Action, in which case they will roll to resolve the Long Action at the beginning of the next turn and will have expended one Short Action next turn.
      8. The person taps their character card and moves the Taking Turn Token to the next character in line.
    7. The End-of-Round effects, such as spreading of fire or smoke, are now determined.
    8. The referee arbitrates the strategy of the NPC forces in the battle, and whether they want to continue battle.
      • Sentient NPC forces will generally retreat as a collective whole and attempt to gather wounded comrades before abandoning the field. The referee determines whether a force will want to make a fighting withdrawal, whether the force will immediately retreat at best speed, or whether the force will surrender.
      • Non-sentient NPCs are usually treated individually and each NPC makes decisions on whether to fight, withdraw, flee, or yield on its own.
    9. If there are no willing combatants left on one side or another, the battle is won for the side with remaining combatants. Otherwise, proceed with the next round (go to step 2.1).
  3. Combat ends.
  4. Normalise characteristic damage for every character:
    • If a character did not die, at least one of his physical characteristics must be greater than zero. If all three of his physical characteristics are zero, increase a characteristic of the player's choice to 1.
    • If a character was not knocked unconscious, none of his physical characteristics may be reduced to zero. If any of the three physical characteristics are zero, all such characteristics are increased to 1.
    • Typically, a person will have their Endurance reduced to zero before anything else, due to the abundance of Chest and Abdomen results on the Personal Hit Locations chart.

This wall of text seems quite complicated and intimidating, but you would be surprised how smoothly it progresses. There are many "ifs" which do not normally apply. In many cases, people will use very few of these steps for any given attack. The most time consuming aspect is the application of characteristic damage, and even this takes at most ten or so seconds to roll and apply once you are skilled at the process, and generally takes less than four seconds for ordinary attacks.

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