Combat in the Brachyr system can be small and personal or large and sweeping, but in all cases one thing remains a constant; your greatest weapon is your allies and the aid they provide. A fight is often deadly, even for those who train exclusively for it.
In the Brachyr system, characters gain damage, which makes it ever more difficult to fight on. Characters heal damage at a standard rate each 12 hours of rest(called their 'natural healing rate'). A character's natural healing rate is equal to their highest tier in any skill. If this skill is Stamina or Willpower, it is instead increased by +1. Some abilities, spells, and items can increase a character's natural healing rate, or heal damage separately.
Combats use an initiative system similar to debates. If a debate devolves into combat or a combat becomes a debate, creatures initiative’s change as applicable. Some abilities allow a creature to keep their Combat initiative in a Debate or vice versa.
Initiative
Your Initiative score is your highest combat modifier. Some abilities improve or penalise your initiative score.
Phases
Movement Phase: The first phase of each round starts with the character with the lowest initiative who moves up to their speed. Then the character with the next lowest initiative moves and so forth.
Aid Phase: Once everyone has moved, all declare their aid actions(order does not matter here).
Attack Phase: Once all aid actions are declared, the person with the highest initiative score may use their attack action. After it is resolved, the person with the next highest initiative does their attack action and so forth. Once everyone has done their attack actions, everyone who took damage(even if you “took 0 damage”) rolls a resiliency check. Then the next round begins.
Movement
You can move a number of hex’s on your action equal to your speed. Your speed is dependent on your race, though can be increased with powers or spells, or by some other means.
Aiding
You can aid someone with any skill that makes sense, granting them access to your tool die as an aid die on the applicable check. This does not mean you lose access to the tool die for your own check for the round. You cannot aid with the same skill two rounds in a row and can only aid 1 person per round.
Aiding doesn’t need to involve using a skill. Passing an ally an item would also count as aiding, as would picking up an unconscious ally you are adjacent to.
You could e.g. aid an ally’s defence roll if you are adjacent to them when they’re attacked. You could aid an ally’s attack with your weapon if you are adjacent to their target, or have a line of effect to the target with a ranged weapon, or with your medical knowledge by pointing out weak points. You could aid an ally on their resiliency check if you are adjacent to them. Etc etc.
If your aid action is to throw or pass an item to an ally, that ally must have a free hand in which to receive the item.
Attacking
To attack a creature, you roll your relevant weapon skill, opposed by the target’s chosen defence skill. If you equal or exceed the target’s defence, the target takes the difference between your rolls as damage.
At least for this playtest, defenders can choose(before rolling defence) to assume they rolled the middle number on each die(2 on a d4, 3 on a d6, 4 on d8, and 5 on d10). This is a more standard static defence value and is intentionally being tested by this playtest. A player cannot choose to take this value after having already rolled.
Creatures underwater gain a d4 aid die on defences against attacks that deal anything except piercing damage.
Damage
Every time you are attacked, you take damage equal to the difference between the attack roll and your defence roll, unless the attack rolls lower than you defence in which case you don’t take damage. At the end of each round, every creature that took damage rolls “resiliency” against their current accumulated damage total.
Your ‘resiliency’ modifier is your Willpower modifier + your Stamina modifier. You can be aided on this by various forms of healing, as well as using certain tools to help in that case as well. The difficulty of your resiliency roll is equal to the current damage taken. If you fail this “resiliency” roll you fall unconscious. If you cannot possibly succeed at this ‘resiliency’ roll, you die.
Healing that removes damage from your ongoing total triggers this resiliency roll as well.
This form of “death check” means that even if you are guaranteed to have died on your turn, you can still have made an attack after the blow that technically killed you.
Many actions can be attempted in place of directly attacking an opponent, and more information on these can be found in the applicable skills. However for ease, the more common ones are listed here along with what skills to search for more information.
Activate[-] - You activate a magical item, trigger a mechanism, drink a potion, throw an explosive, light a torch, or any similar action that takes focus or attention.
Cast[Any Magic] - Unless a spell or magic effect says it takes a certain amount of time, it can be cast as an attack action.
Disarm[Shortsword] - Make a Shortsword check against the Light Armour defence(the 'Parry' ability can be used to defend, albeit without the weapon's tool die) of a target within reach. If you win, place the targets weapon in an adjacent hex. If it's not possible for them to succeed on this defence, you may place the weapon up to 3 hexes away, keep it yourself, or pass it for free to an ally within 2 hexes of the target.
Drag[Unarmed] - Make an Unarmed check(some abilities allow this with other skills) against the Dodge or Heavy Armour defence of someone within reach. If you win, move them into one other hex within reach or into your hex. If you move the target into your hex, you may move to another adjacent hex.
Feint[Deceit] - Make a Deceit check(some abilities allow this with other skills) against the Insight, Psychology, or Willpower defence of someone you can see. If you succeed, you may choose to either not allow the target to dodge a single attack before your next attack phase, or deny the target the tool die of their armour until your next attack phase.
Grab[Unarmed] - Make an Unarmed check(some abilities allow this with other skills) against the Dodge defence of someone within reach. If you succeed, you take hold of the target. The result of your check becomes the DC for any Unarmed, Dodge, Acrobatics, or Coordination attempts the target makes to attempt to escape. A held target cannot move during their movement phase and treat only you as being within reach.
Run[-] - Move your speed again. Attacks from creatures with a higher initiative target where you started this movement, while attacks from creatures with a lower initiative target where you end this movement.
Shove[Unarmed] - Make an Unarmed check(some abilities allow this with other skills) against the defence of someone within reach. If you succeed, the target moves 1 hex away from you. If it's not possible for them to succeed on this defence, they move 1 additional hex for each 5 by which your check exceeds their maximum.
Trip[Polearm] - Attempt a Pole check(some abilities allow this with other skills) against the Heavy Armour defence of someone within reach. If you succeed, the target falls prone. You are treated as having aided all attacks against a target you knock prone, this does not count as your aid action for the round.
The classification of weapons is a tricky and difficult task. As the Brachyr system uses a collection of traits to define any given weapon, the skills for each kind of weapon list a number of associated “Required Traits”. A weapon can only count as being in a single category, and is in the category that is most specific to it.
e.g. a [Slashing, Reach, Reach] weapon is a polearm(Reach(2))adding “Damage” to each of these doesn’t change the polearm or longsword example, but DOES change the hand weapon to a shortsword.
Weapons with the Reach trait can attack hexes further away from you, some abilities and actions depend on your reach. A weapon without the reach trait may target adjacent hexes. A weapon with 1 reach trait may target adjacent and diagonally adjacent hexes. A weapon with 2 reach traits may target hexes up to 2 steps away. A weapon with 3 reach traits may target hexes 2 or 3 steps away but not adjacent hexes.
Weapons with the Range trait can attack any non-adjacent hex less than their maximum. Some abilities may increase this maximum.