Attacks and Damage

Defense

Every character has a Defense score. Defense represents how difficult a character is to hit in melee — their ability to dodge, weave, and avoid incoming attacks through instinct and physical awareness.

By default, Defense equals the higher of the character's Agility or Perception. A fast character avoids attacks through reflexes. A perceptive character sees them coming and shifts before they land. Most people have a Defense of 1 or 2. A character with exceptional reflexes or sharp awareness might have 3 or 4.

Attacks

An attack is an Action. It follows the normal 7-step resolution flow.

Ranged Attacks

A ranged attack uses Combat: Firearms (or the relevant weapon discipline). The GM sets the Risk based on the situation.

Every ranged weapon has an optimal range — the band or bands where it performs best. A trained character making a clean shot at optimal range faces Risk 0. That is the baseline — a professional doing their job in good conditions.

Risk modifiers for ranged attacks:

These modifiers stack. The GM sets the final Risk using these as guidance, not as a rigid formula. The fiction always takes precedence.

Shooting into melee deserves special attention. A Costly Success might mean the shot hits the target and clips the friendly. The GM assigns the cost. A Critical Failure could be outright friendly fire. When allies are tangled up with the enemy, every pull of the trigger is a gamble.

Note that stacking modifiers can push the total Risk high enough that the character's Skill cannot cancel it below the Hard Limit of 6 uncancelled Risk dice. When this happens, the shot simply cannot be made. The situation is beyond the character's capability. A skilled marksman can attempt shots that an untrained character physically cannot. The trained/untrained split and Skill cancellation are already doing this work.

Melee Attacks

A melee attack uses Combat: Melee (or the relevant weapon discipline). The GM sets Risk based on the target and the situation.

The baseline Risk for a melee attack is the target's Defense score. The defender's ability to avoid, absorb, or deflect blows is reflected in this number before they take any active response. A nimble fighter is harder to hit than a lumbering civilian, even before they spend a Reaction to parry.

Every melee weapon has an optimal range — the band where it performs best. A blade is optimal at Point Blank. A polearm or staff might be optimal at Close. Melee weapons cannot be used beyond their optimal range — the weapon simply does not reach. A melee weapon used inside its minimum range suffers +1 Risk — a polearm at Point Blank is too long to maneuver effectively. Rushing a polearm user and closing to Point Blank is a legitimate tactic.

A character attempting a melee attack against a target at Close range with a Point Blank weapon must first close to Point Blank (free movement) as part of the attack.

Risk modifiers for melee attacks:

Aiming

A character may spend 1 Minor Action to aim before making an attack. Aiming reduces the Risk of the attack by 1. A weapon with the Accurate quality reduces the Risk by an additional 1 (for a total of -2 Risk when aiming).

A weapon with the Inaccurate quality does not benefit from aiming at all. The weapon is too imprecise for careful aim to matter.

Aiming requires a target. The character commits to a specific target when they aim. If they switch targets, the aim is lost.

Reactions

Each character gets one Reaction per round. A Reaction is not part of your turn. You use it on someone else's turn, in response to something happening to you. A character's Reaction is not affected by the Condition Track. Even at Impaired, a character retains their Reaction.

The most common use of a Reaction is to contest an attack. When a character is the target of an attack, they may spend their Reaction to turn the attack into an active contested roll — both sides roll, Successes cancel one-for-one, and whoever has remaining Successes wins.

How the defender contests the attack determines what they roll:

• Dodge — the defender rolls the higher of Agility or Perception + Athletics against the attacker's pool. Represents physically getting out of the way. Only effective at Close range or nearer — at Short range and beyond, the defender cannot see and react in time.
• Parry — the defender rolls Agility + Combat: Melee against the attacker's pool. Represents deflecting or blocking the attack. Only effective at Point Blank.

Other uses for Reactions — such as diving out of the way of an explosion, catching a thrown object, or countering a Focus ability — will be defined by their respective rules. The GM may allow creative uses on a case-by-case basis.

Multiple Attackers

A character only gets one Reaction per round. Against multiple attackers, the defender must choose which attack to contest. All other attacks resolve as standard rolls against GM-set Risk. Being outnumbered is genuinely dangerous. Skill cannot overcome action economy.

Cover

Taking cover costs 1 Minor Action, provided the GM agrees there is something to take cover behind. This establishes light cover.

A character in light cover may spend 1 additional Minor Action to establish heavy cover — bracing behind a wall, fortifying a position, getting fully behind a vehicle. Establishing heavy cover from nothing costs 2 Minor Actions total.

Light cover makes you harder to target but does not stop bullets. Heavy cover does both. The material itself absorbs part of the hit.

Attacking From Cover

A character in cover who attacks must expose themselves to do so. When they attack, their cover is lost. After attacking, they may spend 1 Minor Action to re-establish cover.

At Impaired (1 Action, 0 Minor Actions), a character can attack from cover but cannot re-establish it. They are exposed until their next turn — if they get one.

Damage

Every weapon has a damage rating — a fixed number representing how many steps it moves the target on the Condition Track before other factors are applied.

Ranged weapons deal their damage rating directly. A CRG handgun has a damage rating of 3. A coaxial plasma rifle has a damage rating of 6. The weapon does the work, not the wielder.

Melee weapons add the attacker's Strength to the weapon's damage rating. A blade (+1) in the hands of a Strength 2 character deals 3 damage. The same blade swung by a Strength 4 NorAellian deals 5. Some melee weapons are too small or light to benefit from physical power. These are marked with the Light quality and deal only their damage rating. Weapons with the Finesse quality add Agility instead of Strength.

The result band of the attack modifies the damage:

Soak can reduce damage to 0. If a weapon cannot overcome the target's protection, the shot bounces off. This is intentional. Some weapons genuinely cannot hurt armored targets. Find a bigger gun, aim for a gap, or get close enough to crit.

If the damage moves a character past Staggered on the Condition Track, they still only take one Wound. Overflow does not carry over. The track resets to Impaired as normal.

Soak

Soak reduces the damage a character takes from a hit. Soak comes from armor and cover, not from Abilities. A character's toughness is already represented in their Wound capacity (Strength + Will). Soak represents external protection.

Other rules may add additional sources of Soak — species traits, Focus abilities, or special equipment. These will be defined in their respective modules.

Common Consequences

The GM determines the specific consequences of Costly Successes and Critical Failures. The following lists are not exhaustive. They are a reference to reach for in the moment.

Costly Success (Attacker)

The attack hits, but something goes wrong for the attacker:

• Out of ammo. Weapons with ammunition are spent and must be reloaded (1 Minor Action).
• Weapon dropped. The weapon slips from the attacker's grip and falls at their feet. Picking it up costs a Minor Action.
• Position exposed. The attacker's cover is lost, or their location is revealed to enemies who didn't know where they were.
• Collateral damage. The shot hits something it shouldn't — a console, a bulkhead, a bystander. The environment changes.
• Overextended. The attacker is off-balance or out of position. +1 Risk on their next action.
• Friendly clipped. When shooting into melee, the shot grazes an ally. The ally moves one step on the Condition Track.

Critical Failure (Attacker)

The attack misses and something goes seriously wrong:

• Disarmed. The weapon is knocked away to Short range. Recovering it costs movement and a Minor Action.
• Weapon malfunction. The weapon jams or overheats. Clearing it requires an Action.
• Friendly fire. When shooting into melee, the shot hits an ally instead of the target. Full weapon damage applies.
• Stumble or fall. The attacker ends up prone.
• Opening given. The target may make a free attack against the attacker using their Reaction (if available).
• Position compromised. The attacker is forced out of cover, or enemies close one range band.

Costly Success (Defender, on a Contested Roll)

The defender avoids the worst of it, but it costs them:

• Thrown off balance. The defender moves one step on the Condition Track from the effort of dodging or parrying.
• Forced movement. The defender is pushed back one range band.
• Guard broken. The defender loses their Reaction for the remainder of the round.
• Gear damaged. A piece of equipment is broken or dropped.