Combat Exchanges

Combat is resolved through exchanges rather than fixed turns.

An exchange is a short burst of threat, movement, attack, defense, position, and consequence. The acting player rolls once, and that roll decides how the immediate exchange breaks.

The current draft assumes that player characters roll. NPCs shape the roll through Talent tier edge, threat scale, position, pressure, group coordination, weapons, and consequences rather than rolling separate attacks.

Use these principles for the first-pass combat model.

Use this loop when running a fight at the table.

Do not treat the loop as fixed initiative. It is a procedure for deciding who rolls, what the roll means, and how the fight changes.

When in doubt, prefer the ruling that makes the current threat explicit and leaves a clear new state after the roll.

Use this procedure for a combat exchange.

For an even duel between equally matched combatants, the current test baseline is 2 dice before pressure, help, position, and other leverage.

Exchange results should leave a concrete state behind. If no wound is inflicted, there should usually be a position change, pressure, objective progress, resource loss, exposed ally, lost opportunity, or changed momentum.

Do not pause for an enemy roll. The enemy side acts through the active threat, the difficulty of the player roll, and the consequence applied after the result.

Momentum belongs to a side, not to a fixed turn order.

Momentum is not the same as spotlight. In a group fight, the table should rotate spotlight among participating player characters even when the same side keeps momentum.

When the player side has momentum, choose the next acting player character by spotlight priority.

When every participating player character has rolled once, clear the spotlight cycle.

Use this table when a player character attacks or otherwise presses an enemy in combat.

Attack outcomes can be adjusted by equipment tags, position, high-match effects, and the declared intent.

Use this table when an enemy side has momentum and a player character must defend, cover, escape, hold ground, or resist the immediate threat.

Against a surrounding or coordinated group, Clean Success may remove one pressure but fail to fully seize momentum unless the character also creates space, gets cover, or uses an appropriate Talent.

Combat Talent tier shapes outcome quality rather than simply changing the dice pool.

For the current test model, compare the acting player character’s relevant combat Talent tier to the active enemy threat’s relevant combat Talent tier.

This asymmetry preserves a small player-character edge while keeping stronger enemies dangerous. These percentages are first-pass tuning values, not final advancement math.

Tier edge should usually be applied after the roll’s base outcome is read and before wounds and momentum are resolved.

Weapons, armor, shields, tools, cybernetics, powered gear, and far-future protection use equipment tags.

Equipment tags do not normally add a flat bonus. They shape what is possible, who controls position, what pressure applies, whether a wound is softened or worsened, and which consequences make sense.

In one exchange, use the tag interaction that matters most. A spear’s Reach, a shield’s Shield, a vest’s Hardened, or a plasma lance’s Volatile should change the situation clearly, but they should not turn one roll into a stack of small modifiers.

Wounds are combat-facing Conditions.

Use these first-pass defeat guidelines for standard human-scale combatants.

Defeat does not always mean death. It may mean surrender, collapse, disarmament, retreat, capture, being pinned, or becoming unable to keep fighting.

Use wound severity consistently.

If a result could be either harm or position, choose the consequence that best matches the declared intent and the active threat. A spear thrust may inflict a Minor wound, but a shield rush may instead separate a foe from the doorway. A defense Breakthrough may inflict a Minor counter, but may also create escape, disarmament, or broken pressure.

When an effect would create repeated minor bookkeeping, convert it into a named Condition or objective state instead.

Disarming, pinning, stunning, restraining, forcing surrender, and taking someone alive are handled through Nonlethal Combat and Capture.

Use nonlethal intent when the acting character wants to remove a target as an active threat without relying on lethal wounds. The exchange still uses the same outcome bands, momentum rules, Conditions, and equipment tags.

Combat pressure is short-lived danger that affects the next relevant roll.

Common examples include Off-Balance, Pressed, Crowded, Exposed, Pinned, Disarmed, Separated, and Surrounded.

By default, combat pressure removes 1 die from the affected player character’s next relevant combat roll. If the pressure persists beyond the immediate exchange, turn it into a named Condition.

Pressure should be concrete. Say what changed in the fiction: the character is driven toward the ditch, their shield arm is pinned, the mace controls the approach, or a second enemy is cutting off retreat.

Use pressure as the default cost when a wound would make the fight too abrupt or when the consequence is mainly positional.

Pressure should not stack as anonymous penalties. If several pressures apply, name the most important one, worsen position, increase severity, expose an ally, or convert one pressure into a Condition.

Group fights still use one player roll per exchange.

Multiple opponents create group pressure, active threats, and cohesion changes rather than individual NPC turns.

When the enemy side has momentum, choose the active threat for the exchange.

Relative numbers should matter. If coordinated enemies outnumber active player characters, add combat pressure to the exposed character. If they outnumber active player characters by two or more, worsen the next consequence unless the players use Cover, Engage, terrain, magic, or a Breakthrough to break the angle. If a trained formation still holds its angle, reduce the first wound or removal effect against the group each spotlight cycle unless the attack breaks position, targets leadership, uses area force, or exploits a clear weakness.

A trained formation should not test cohesion just because one member falls. Test formation cohesion when at least half the group is removed or disabled and its leader, standard, position, route, oath, or command structure has also been compromised.

Player characters can support each other without creating fixed turns.

An assisting character should be exposed to fallout. Help should matter because it creates shared risk, not because it is a free bonus.

Use threat scale to avoid giving every opponent the same wound capacity. The reusable version of these scales is defined in Threat Templates.

A single minor beast is usually a Minion. A swarm of minor beasts may be dangerous because it creates group pressure, Conditions, disease, panic, or environmental complications. Group, swarm, formation, hazard, magical, and technological threats use Threat Templates.

Enemy groups can lose the fight before every member is individually defeated.

Track cohesion fictionally unless a later subsystem needs a formal clock.

Common cohesion break triggers include:

When cohesion breaks, the enemy may retreat, scatter, surrender, bargain, abandon the objective, or become easier to defeat individually.

The following matrices show the tuned first-pass duel model for a player character against a non-player character.

Assumptions:

Later combat work should define scene objectives and NPC-only conflict shortcuts.

The current document is a combat chassis. It should be playtested before detailed weapon lists, armor math, monster stat blocks, or tactical subsystems are added.