Taking Action
Combat Game Mechanics, Active Phase Encounters The Developer Combat Game Mechanics, Active Phase Encounters The Developer

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.

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