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Battle! The clash of swords and spears upon shields—the whistle of arrows and sling bullets—the howls and screeches of demons and the exultations of mighty warriors as they jump into the fray and fall into the dust! Combat can be the most exciting part of the game, but it’s also the most complicated and structured. The previous two sections cover how actions resolve and attributes work. This section explains how to tie all these mechanics together to play fast, fluid battle scenes.
Be on Your Guard!
Be on Your Guard!
On your turn, you can draw and wield up to two armaments from among those you carry—one in each hand. Some armaments require both hands. Arms offer offensive as well as defensive benefits, along with your armor.Your grace protects you from getting hit by an attack. But even if an attack hits you, armor and most armaments provide an additional layer of defense called guard. An attack might strike you but bounce off your armor or get parried aside by your spear shaft, preventing a lethal wound.Think of guard as a buffer added to your grace. If an attack beats your grace but doesn’t beat your grace + guard, you prevent the attack from inflicting life damage—though the force of the blow still staggers you and reduces your grace, leaving you more vulnerable.Armor Guard is your base, passive defense. It includes your body armor and your helmet, along with the natural armor provided by a Shinarian’s clay form or the thick cuticles of certain Zordin. Active Guard includes your Armor, plus the guard bonus from an armament you wield defensively, like a shield, spear, or sword. Active Guard only includes the guard value of one such armament at a time.
- If you hold two armaments, choose one to actively guard with.
- Only shields can be used to actively guard Ranged Attacks.
Chom the Champion’s active guard includes his Laminate cuirass Armor (+1) plus his Heavy Shield (+3) = +4. If he lost his shield, he could defend with his Spear: his active guard would drop to +3 and leave him vulnerable to ranged attacks.
Items & Conveyances details all the arms and armor available.
Move to Attack!
Move to Attack!
The standard melee Attack is the core action you’ll take during battle, but it’s also fairly complex. A standard attack can inflict two types of damage: to grace (as they stagger from the blow) and to life (as you draw blood). How much damage depends on who’s attacking and what they’re wielding. An unarmed strike or a thrown rock inflicts:
- -1 grace, and
- life damage equal to your core Strength
For example, the hero Wandu has 5 grace and has nothing to guard attacks with. The hero Chom has 3 grace but wears armor and holds a shield, so benefits from +4 active guard. Here are the outcomes if they’re attacked:
Keep your grace up, hero! The Stand Fast action restores your grace to max, and provides good defensive options too, but it costs -1 strength.
With her high grace, Wandu is less likely to take a hit. But with his formidable defensive gear, Chom is less likely to take a lethal hit. These thresholds change as you take grace damage, leaving you more and more vulnerable. After getting hit, Chom’s thresholds look like this:
And after another hit:
At zero grace, melee Attacks can’t miss you, and the grace damage they inflict saps your life instead!
The Flow of Battle
The Flow of Battle
Battle is more than just defending and attacking. Before battle begins, the Guide and heroes set the stage:
The menacing figures are still distant, so the heroes may have time to prepare. The Act First action determines whether they can, and so marks the transition from a more freeform conversation to the structured turns of battle, when every second matters.
Guide: You were not long ascending the cliffside and traversing the forest, but in that time a mist has risen from the Sea of Clouds—or perhaps the isle has sunk—so that the village beyond the forest is now enveloped in a gray haze. Through gaps in the trees you see only indistinct shapes of small, one-room houses built right at the forest edge, which ring the empty pond-harbor beyond. You also smell the scent of rot.
Matreyis: Any people or movement? I have ✪Farsight, remember.
Guide: The mist makes it hard to see much further than a stone’s throw. You can peer through the mist, but it will cost you -1 awareness.
The conversation between Guide and heroes has established low visibility, along with the presence of village houses that provide cover to hide behind and high ground to climb on high. That information is freely provided, but when Matreyis asks about potential threats, the Guide “charges” her for it.Matreyis: Deal. (Reduces her current awareness by 1.)
Guide: There are two figures beyond the houses, just shades in the mist. You see only that they’re tall and gaunt—and they’re steadily moving toward you.
Chom: Aha, other people! Perhaps we should introduce ourselves.
Wandu: Um, you can, big boy. I want to hide behind one of these houses.
The Transition to Turns
The menacing figures are still distant, so the heroes may have time to prepare. The Act First action determines whether they can, and so marks the transition from a more freeform conversation to the structured turns of battle, when every second matters. The Transition to Turns
Guide: Before anyone does anything, Maneuver yourselves to Act First.
Wandu: (rolls a d10). That’s a 9.
Matreyis: (rolls a d8). A solid 3.
Chom: (rolls a d4). A mere 2.
The heroes don’t know what these figures are yet, but the Guide does: they are ghouls, creatures who are slow-moving but can magically sense the presence of living beings. The ghouls have average awareness (3), and normally this would be the threshold heroes need to beat to Act First. But the Guide reduces it to 2, since Matreyis did spend awareness to scout the situation—and communicates this.Guide: Matreyis, it’s a good thing you took a closer look through the fog. You only need to beat 2. Sorry Chom. Matreyis and Wandu, what do you do?
Matreyis: I’d like to get to high ground. Can I climb up to a rooftop?
Guide: Sure. The walls are mudbrick, easy enough to clamber up. Move yourself to Rush.
Matreyis: (rolls a d6). A 3. That equals but doesn’t beat my weight. Nuts.
Guide: Well, tally 3 focus. You clamber most of the way up.
You never know which gaunt, shambling figures in the mist will turn out to be ghouls.
Getting Into Position
Heroes use the Rush action to reposition themselves on high or to run across a relatively long distance during battle. The heavier a hero is, the harder it is to move this way.Getting Into Position
Wandu: We’re near the houses, right? Can I try to hide behind the closest one, so these mystery figures don’t see me?
Guide: Sure. You can try at least. Roll to Evade their detection.
Wandu: (rolls a d10). A 10! Hopefully that’s enough . . .
If the house was further away, the Guide could have called for Wandu to Rush to reach the cover it provides before Evading. But they’ve established the heroes are near enough to the houses. And Wandu’s result easily beats the ghouls’ awareness of 3.Guide: You stay out of sight. That leaves Chom. Unfortunately, Chom, you failed to Act First, so you can’t act in this round—but you mentioned something about introducing yourselves to these figures? You can still do that. What do you say?
Chom: I stand in the open and say: “Ahoy, strangers! Be you friend or foe?”
It’s now the ghouls’ turn to act. The Guide takes the opportunity to properly introduce these creatures and in the process “translates” Chom’s bad Act First roll, explaining why he might hesitate as these creatures approach.Guide: The figures make no answer, Chom, but continue striding toward you with strange, stiff steps. And as they draw near through the mist you see that they are not people of flesh but rather creatures of clay, living statues, with magical glowing markings carved upon its form. Their hands stretch toward you, and—perhaps this is why you hesitate to act, Chom—their faces are horrific, disfigured, with deep gouges and hollow eyes. Perhaps you’ve heard tales of such creatures, remnants from the lost kingdom of Shinar, said to drag bodies and souls to the realm of death. They’re called ghouls, and they attack!
Mapping out battle. If you’d like to use a battle-map, try using a side-view map rather than a top-down map—think Zelda 2 instead of Zelda 1. This does a better job showing height and altitude, which matter more than lateral positioning.
Resolving Attacks
The Attack action uses your Move die. In battle, unless a character is Restrained or Standing fast, everyone is assumed to be in motion all the time. When you attack someone, your roll represents not just how well you swing your sword but also how deftly you charge toward your foe to close the distance between you.Resolving Attacks
Guide: Chom, the creature surges toward you and tries to grab you. (Rolls d6.) That’s a 3 to Attack.
Whether you’re playing the Guide or a hero, clear, quick communication is vital to keep up the frantic pace of battle. You can add colorful descriptions of the actions and outcomes, but try to keep them short and simple. When you Attack, say who you’re attacking, what kind of attack it is, and what your final result is.Chom: Ho, a miss!
When you’re the target of an attack, say what the outcome is. Does the attack miss? Do you guard the attack with your arms or armor? Or does it strike a lethal hit? The attacking player doesn’t know how much grace or guard you have.Trading Blows
Attacking is risky, for heroes and foes alike: any melee attack can trigger a counterattack, which costs -1 awareness. If you wish to counter, say so as quickly as possible after you’re attacked. Trading Blows
Guide: You sidestep out of the thing’s reach. Matreyis, the other ghoul—
Chom: Wait! I counterattack the creature with my spear. (Rolls a d8) A 4.
Guide: You sidestep, stab—and hit. Your spear sinks into its soft clay form. But the blow does not stagger the ghoul as it surely would a being of flesh. The creature doesn’t even seem to react.
A 3 beats the ghoul’s grace (1), but not its guard buffer (+3 = 4). Usually Chom’s spear would inflict -1 grace on a guarded hit, staggering a foe. But the ghoul, like Shinarian heroes, has an ability that reduces its grace damage. The Guide makes sure to telegraph this to the heroes—and also marks off -1 awareness to have the ghoul counterattack Chom back!Guide: In fact, it counterattacks back, grasping at you again! (Rolls a d6). A 4.
Chom: A hit, but I guard with my shield.
The ghoul makes a Grab-Attack, which doesn’t inflict damage but instead triggers a Restrain or Shove Brace action on any hit (even a guarded one).Guide: The ghoul still gets hold of you. As a following action, it pulls you close and tries to Restrain you. (Rolls a d10) Does a 6 beat your strength?
Chom: Aye, it does.
Guide: Take -2 grace. The creature is quite strong, and the scent of rot fills your nostrils as the creature wrestles you to the ground.
Thus ends the ghoul’s turn—an attack, which triggered a counter (Chom), which triggered another counter (the ghoul), which triggered the ghoul’s following Restrain Brace. This action doesn’t trigger anything—you can’t counterattack a Restrain—so the Guide moves on to the next ghoul’s turn.Tracking turns. Triggered actions happen in between turns—and a preponderance of triggered actions can make it tough to keep track of who has actually taken their turn. Try using markers or flip-cards to keep track of who’s gone in a round.
Using Abilities in Battle
Using Abilities in Battle
Guide: Matreyis, the other ghoul sees you climbing almost-but-not-quite up the side of the house. It tries to grab your legs: (rolls d6) 5 to Attack.
Matreyis: Nooo, that’s a hit. But—wait. I saw this coming the whole time. I use one of my ✪Stratagems, “One Step Ahead.” It has Maneuver disadvantage on that attack, and it misses if it doesn’t beat my core Awareness, 5.
Guide: These things are not good at Maneuvers. It just misses. And that’s it for the ghouls. Heroes, what do you do?
Matreyis: I’ll keep climbing, away from this thing. (Rolls d6). A 1! Ugh. But with my leftover focus, at least I make it up to the roof.
Wandu: I’m gonna sneak attack the one holding Chom and stab it with my dagger. (Rolls a d8). A 2, but with my ✪Ambush ability, that turns into a 7!
Guide: A lethal hit! You stab one of its glowing magical marks. Damage?
Wandu: 1 grace and 4 life.
Guide: Again, it doesn’t stagger, but it jerks and spasms weirdly. It has to Brace to hold onto Chom. (Rolls a d10.) A 5 against your strength, Chom.
Chom: Good is stronger than evil! My strength is 5.
Guide: You’re free of its grasp, and it’s your turn.
Chom: I’ll take -1 strength for a ✪Mighty Blow. (Rolls a d8). A 6 with my spear.
Guide. A lethal hit.
Chom. 3 grace damage, and 8 plus (rolls d10) 9 life damage—17 altogether.
Guide. That’s just enough. At the force of your blow, the dim lights on the ghoul’s body-markings go out, and it collapses, rigid as a statue.
This Mastermind ability can be used any time. It costs 1 stratagem-focus, which Matreyis has kept in reserve. Be prepared to tell the Guide how your abilities work.
Ghouls have a d4 Maneuver die, which can’t beat 5. The Guide doesn’t need to roll.
Heroes can act in any order they like during the Hero Round.
This ability from the Insurgency lore yields a +5 bonus to any Attack from the hidden position, which Wandu gained on her previous turn.
Because the ghoul took life damage, it must either release its Restrained victim or take -1 awareness to Brace as a counter to hold on. It tries, but fails.
This Champion ability dramatically increases an attack’s damage. And a good thing too—a ghoul can take a lot of damage. This one still had 16 life after Wandu’s lethal hit.
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