Damage Effects
Bleeding: Bleeding damage is done in the form of Bleed Counters.
At each Upkeep, Any affected by Bleed Counters takes Damage equal to the number of Bleed Counters.
At each Upkeep, after Bleed Counters have done damage: Remove half of Bleed Counters rounded down.
Hemorrhaging: Hemorrhaging damage is done in the form of Hemorrhage Counters.
At each Upkeep, any affected by Hemorrhaging Counters takes damage equal to 3x the number of Hemorrhage Counters.
At each Upkeep, after Hemorrhage Counters have done damage: Remove One Hemorrhage Counter.
Exsanguination: Exsanguination removes of Bleed Counters and Hemorrhage Counters.
Remove all Bleed Counters and deal 2 damage per counter removed.
Remove all Hemorrhage Counters and deal 5 damage per counter removed.
Stunned: (v:X) Victims of Stun lose their next X Action Slots.
Agony: Victims of Agony take a -4 Penalty to all Stress Checks or must pay 1 additional Stress to activate Static Stress Effects.
Frostbite: Victims of Frostbite become Maimed in the affected Limb.
Slow: (1/4 to 1/2) The affected loses a quarter or half of their Action Slots for the duration of the Slow.
If the affected has Reserved Slots, they immediately lose a quarter or half of them, as the effect applies.
Weakness: (1 to 10) The weak take multiplied damage.
Resistance: (1 to 10) The Resistant take divided damage.
Damage Types
Physical Damage
Cutting: Wide open wounds that cause Bleeding.
Penetrating: Deep wounds that cause Hemorrhaging.
Ripping: Perilous wounds that cause Exsanguination.
Striking: Damage from heavy impacts and hard chops.
Elemental Damage
Shocking: Those affected by Shocking Effects may be Stunned.
Scorching: Those affected by Scorching Effects may suffer Agony.
Freezing: Those affected by Freezing may suffer accelerated Frostbite and Slow.
Erosion: (1 to 10) Damage against Constructs, Objects, Weapons, and Armor are multiplied.
Special Damage Types
Biological: These Effects when triggered affect the victim based on their Vitality: Resistance
Corrosive: Most Corrosive effects deal massive damage against Constructs, Objects, Items and Equipment.
Designer Effects: Specialized damage effects are governed by their Effect description.
Divine: (1 to 10) Damage against Weakness: Divine is multiplied.
Damage against Resistance: Divine is divided.
Diabolical: (1 to 10) Damage against Weakness: Diabolical is multiplied.
Damage against Resistance: Diabolical is divided.
Initializing Active Phase
An encounter begins with an (v:20 Awareness) check, this check determines the Active Phase Cycle order.
In cases where multiple players have the same Awareness result, they gain their Action Slots simultaneously.
Non-Player Characters do not go in the Active Phase Cycle. The Story Guide uses special rules for NPC actions.
Stay Action: A player with a higher Awareness roll may choose to start their Active Phase later in the Full Round, but once their place is assigned in the Active Phase Cycle it can't be changed.
Initialization Actions: Some Effects may only be used during initialization. These are applied or resolved before the beginning of the first Active Phase Cycle.
Full Round: The Repeating Cycle
A Full Round is Five seconds.
The Full Round begins when the character with the highest Awareness Result gains their Action Slots and starts their Active Phase.
They may use or convert their Action Slots to Reserved Slots.
Once they have used or converted their Action Slots into Reserved Slots, the next person in the Active Phase Cycle gains their Action Slots.
When the character who is last in the cycle either uses or discards their Action Slots the Full Round ends.
All Reserved Action Slots at this point are lost to Hesitation, and the Story Guide begins Upkeep.
Taking Action
Active Phase Cycle: Once Awareness is determined and an order is made of who goes when from highest to lowest, we list everyone in the Active Phase Cycle. Those who rolled the same (v:20 Awareness) gain their Action Slots simultaneously.
The last character’s Active Phase before Upkeep is called the Final Phase.
All Actions taken at this point, before the last character uses or discards their Action Slots, cost Four times as many Action Slots to activate, aka, Final Phase Actions.
Slots not used are discarded due to Hesitation.
Slot availability: Characters gain their Action Slots at the beginning of the Active Phase.
Until a player gains their Action Slots in the current Full Round and has Reserved Slots, they cannot move or react to other's actions.
Action Slots: All players have a base of (5 +/- Agility) Action Slots per Full Round.
Abilities, Equipment, and some special effects may modify the total number of Action Slots a character has at their disposal in a round.
Reserved Action Slots: If a character does not use all of their Action Slots and ends their Active Phase, all remaining Action Slots become Reserve Slots.
Only skills and abilities that clearly state they may be used with Reserved Slots may be executed with Reserved Action Slots.
Many abilities will have different costs depending on whether they are used in Active Phase, Reserved Phase, or Final Phase.
Interrupting Interjections or Active Phase Actions is possible only if the possibility is highlighted in the Effect used.
Executions and Knockouts of Vulnerable targets with Reserved or Final Phase Slots will interrupt their action.
Non-standard action lengths: Actions that are normally considered as part of another action consume one action slot if more than one character has to interact with the objective or object.
Combo actions: Some Effects require multiple characters to both have active Action Slots or Reserved Slots and be within a certain proximity to each other to be usable.
In these cases, the active character spends their Action Slots in order to initiate the action, and the other character(s) spend their Reserve Slots to finish the action.
Multi-Round Actions: There are many instances where we might take multiple rounds to perform an action.
They have to use their Action Slots to begin the action, and will use their gained action slots in the next Full Round in the Active Phase to complete the action.
If any Effect would cause them to not be able to finish the action between this round and the next, they lose the Action Slots spent.
What ever (v:X) rolls attributed to the action still take place at Activation.
Even with a successful check, Multi-Round Actions may still be interrupted.
In some cases, Multi-Round Actions are interruptible. Effects are resolved at the end of spending the Action Slots.
All rolls attributed to these actions are resolved once all the Action Slots to use the ability are spent on the Full Round of their conclusion.
Upkeep
At the end of a Full Round, the Game Master and Players go through the upkeep process.
During Upkeep all of the following mechanics are resolved, as well as any outsider mechanics that use Upkeep to resolve.
Round countdown - Any actions, buffs, or debuffs that have a duration tick down by one or resolve.
Damage and Healing over time effects activate during Upkeep.
Encounter Outro
Once all threats are played out, the Story Guide may choose to run outro in a few different ways.
One is All Resolve, the other is the Slow Burn.
All Resolve: Is the easy way out. We end all combat effects immediately, leave the Active Phase Cycle, and clean the board. This is a cut the show to move things into the next scene.
Slow Burn: On the other hand we will continue to go through rounds, allowing players to volunteer up to their available Action Slots each round to work together to resolve an issue, and the Upkeeps keep coming.
Slow Burn Notes: Stronger poisons and bleeding effects can still kill a character if left untreated. A heal over time effect can be added up to figure out how much is regenerated. Attempting to revive a downed or dead character is a good reason to go through a Slow Burn.
Physical Stress
Physical Stress is measured 0 to 10
Physical Stress is the main resource for Physical Effects.
We track it in the same column as we do Hit Points on our character sheets.
Burnout: Reaching 10 Physical Stress causes the character Physical Burnout - Strained.
Physical Burnout - Strained: On reaching 10 Physical Stress after Effect Activation the character loses 20% of their total Hit Points.
This loss of Hit Points potentially causes them to be Vulnerable if Hit Points drop to 0.
They become “Maimed: Strained” for (v:4) days. Any time during those (v:4) days that they use an ability that may cause Physical Stress, they lose 10% of their total Hit Points and add one day to their recovery time.
Mental Stress
Mental Stress is measured 0 to 10
Mental Stress is the main resource for Mental Effects.
We track it in the same column as we do Hit Points on our character sheets.
Burnout: Reaching 10 Mental Stress causes the character Mental Burnout - Seizure.
Mental Burnout - Seizure: On reaching 10 Mental Stress prior to Effect Activation the character drops to 0 Hit Points and become Vulnerable.
They Seize out, Dropping Prone and remaining Stunned for (v:6) Full Rounds.
After the Seizure, they remain Mind Fogged for the next 6 Full Rounds, unable to use Effects that cause Mental Stress.
After the Mind Fog, Mental Stress drops back to 9/10 and normal Relaxation Rules Apply.
Vocal Stress
Vocal Stress is measured 0 to 10
Vocal Stress is the main resource for Vocal Effects.
We track it in the same column as we do Hit Points on our character sheets.
Burnout: Reaching 10 Vocal Stress causes the character Vocal Burnout - Lost Voice.
Vocal Burnout - Lost Voice: On reaching 10 Vocal Stress the character Chokes, Interrupting Effect Activation.
Second they become Mute for (v:10) Full Rounds, rendering them Unable to use Abilities and Effects that cause Vocal Stress.
At the end of Mute, Vocal Stress drops back to 9/10 and they become Near Mute for One Hour, reducing the range of Abilities and Effects that cause Vocal Stress to One Square.
Stress
There are Three Types of Stress: Physical Stress, Mental Stress, and Vocal Stress.
We track the three types of stress separately in the same column as our Hit Points
Each Stress is measured 0 to 10
Building Up Stress: Abilities that call for *** Stress (v:X) require us to roll the X value when activating their effects.
Rolling a One on these checks increases our Stress by One.
The least stressful abilities are (v:20).
The most stressful abilities may inflict non-variable stress. “Activation 5” for example will increase stress by a full 5 points on activation.
Channeled and other abilities that resolve during Upkeep may have ongoing stress build up. “Upkeep 2” for example will increase stress by Two during every upkeep until the effect resolves.
Relaxing: Avoiding the use of an ability or effect associated with a type of stress for One Hour reduces that type of stress by One. For example, when Relaxing Mental Stress we can still use Physical or Vocal abilities and recover Mental Stress. Another example might be that we only use Physical Effects and recover from both Vocal Stress and Mental Stress.
Vulnerable
When we reach Zero, (0) Hit Points, we become Vulnerable.
Some Effects may cause Vulnerable even when Hit Points are above Zero (0)
While Vulnerable a character may be targeted by Maim Effects and Cinematic Execution Effects.
Maim Effects
While Vulnerable characters may be Victim of Main Effects.
There are three types of Maim Effects: Sensory Deprivation, Dismemberment, and Breakage.
Sensory Deprivation: During Sensory Deprivation, all checks and passive effects relating to the specific sense takes a -5 Penalty until the specific sense is restored. Sensory Deprivation from a Maim Effect is permanent until restored by proper healing.
Blindness: Loss of Sight
Deafness: Loss of Hearing
Ageusia: Loss of Taste
Anosmia: Loss of Smell
Anesthesia: Loss of Somatosensation, Numbness.
Dismemberment: Losing a limb will cause the Maimed to bleed out in Two Minutes. (24 Full Rounds)
Breakage: While the Maimed won’t bleed out, they still suffer the same effects of Limb Loss.
Losing or Breaking One Arm or Hand makes two-weapon and two-handed fighting impossible.
Losing or Breaking both Arms or Hands makes fighting with weapons impossible.
Losing or Breaking a Leg increases the cost of basic Movement to 3AS|6RS|9FP
Losing or Breaking both Legs increases the cost of basic Movement to 4AS|8RS|12FP
Losing your Tongue removes your ability to speak, use Wordsake effects, and you may bleed out.
Cinematic Execution
While a Target is Accuracy Game Mechanics Vulnerable anyone may use Cinematic Execution.
There are two types of Cinematic Execution: Lethal and Non-Lethal.
Lethal Cinematic Execution: 3AS, Active Phase Only, Victim Dies.
Non-Lethal Cinematic Execution: 3AS, Active Phase Only, Victim is rendered Unconscious for 10 Hours.
Unconscious
An Unconscious character is totally unaware and dead weight.
Unconscious characters Auto-Regeneration is reduced to 10% Hip Points per Hour.
An Unconscious character may regain consciousness by regaining 100% Hit Points.
Some Effects and Items may wake Unconscious characters.
Damage will not wake an Unconscious character.
Impact
Impact Area of Effects have a point of origin and a Travel Vector.
Impact AoE deal damage to Armor first.
Impact AoE may pass through environmental barriers, they must reduce the objects they Hit Durability to 0. Damage spent reducing the Durability of an object such as a wall is subtracted from the total damage before it affects the next Target in the line of Impact.
Impact AoE kill their Victims if they drop them to 0 Hit Points.
Impact AoE may Maim Unarmored Victims. 50% Chance without them being Vulnerable, 100% Chance on Vulnerable.
Engulf
Engulf fills the area without an Impact.
Engulf Effects ignore Armor, but may still damage it.
Impact Resistant Effects do not apply to Engulf Effects.
Engulf AoE like Toxic Gas, kill their Victims if they drop them to 0 Hit Points.
Engulf AoE travel freely around objects in their area.