Combat Basics

Introduction

This article introduces you to basic mechanics for combat

Map & Preparation

Battlemaps

Combat requires the use of square-tiled battlemaps that have a scale of 2 meters (or 5 feet) per tile.

Preparations

Surprise Attack

A completely unanticipated attack will be considered a Surprise Attack and cause the surprised to lose their ability to act during the first round

Prepared Spells and Potions

Before combat, creatures that are not receiving a Surprise Attack and have a minute of preparation time may prepare spells and potions that take effect instantly when combat starts.

Round Structure

Combat is round-based, with Players and the GM acting in alternating turns.

Player Phase

Action: The players declare their action, which consists of:

• Movement
• 1 reaction.
• 2 half-actions, or 1 full-action
• Any additional free actions they have access to.

Then they roll their defense bonus / malus, and apply it to their Save and AC for the round. They also apply any damage over time or status effects inflicted previously, or by the GM.

GM Phase

GM Resolution: The GM resolves the results of any uncertain Reactions and Actions of the players and adjusts the tokens / stats as needed.

• Any PC or NPC at or below 0 HP becomes Incapacitated.

Player Status Effect Tickdown: Any duration based effect (including status effects, spells etc.) on players, that was not applied this round, goes down in duration by one round.

Reaction & Action: GM declares the reactions and actions of the NPCs, with the same conditions as the players.

GM End Round Resolution: GM resolves the results of the Reactions and Actions they declare and apply any damage over time effect.

• Any PC or NPC at or below 0 HP becomes Incapacitated.

GM Status Effect Tickdown: Same as Player tickdown, but for NPC controlled by the GM only.

Additional Rules

• A Round is usually 10 seconds of combat.
• You must declare your actions before rolling.
• You cannot change any actions after rolling for any of them.
• If required, the GM can add an additional turn for third-parties into the round order.

Type of Actions

There are different types of actions that can be taken during combat. They can be broadly split into Movement, Actions and Reactions

Movement

During the action phase, creatures may declare their movement up to their movement speed - Difficult Terrain could impede their movement, costing them 2 tiles of movement or similar. They can move before, during and after their actions, but must declare it properly.

Here are some movement options:

Loading

Typical difficult terrains include, but are not limited to:

• Shallow Water
• Rocky Terrain / Pebbles
• Muddy Ground
• Swamp

Diagonal Movement

Diagonal Movement is allowed in Drase. There's two ways of modeling it, and GM may, at their discretion, pick which methods they prefer. The method can also be used for calculating diagonal range for shooting.:

• Double Cost on Diagonal (Standard): Everytime someone move diagonally, the second square costs 2 tiles of movement. This is the simplest and preferred method without any need for additional graphic.
• Circular Overlay: GM may also overlay a circle with the radius of the movement range and allow the players to move to any tile with the tile's center overlapped by the circle.

Actions

Actions are split up into Full Action and Half Action. In each action phase, your character can perform one full action or two half actions. Unused half actions are forfeit.

From this point on, Opportunity Attack is abbreviated as OA.

Full Actions

Loading

Half Actions

Loading

Free Actions

Free action may not be declared out of turn. A player may only ever declare actions or lack thereof during their phase, when they are declaring their actions - never after they’ve finalized their decisions.

Some actions, like talking or giving small speeches, are free at the GM’s discretion. Actions not included here shall be counted as a free-action, half-action or full-action at the GM’s discretion.

Loading

Reaction

Each creature has 1 reaction per reaction phase.

Reactions are universally triggered by an action or the resolution of an action from the previous phase. The most common reaction is the Opportunity Attack, but other feats may add other types of reactions.

Reactions use the conditions of the two combatants at the point of resolution - but ignores any cover, reach or range penalty.

Loading

Terrain, Cover & Others

Height

Height is mechanically measured in full tiles. In determining reach and range of attacks:

• Distance from height is equal mechanically to regular distance
• Ranged attacks targeting a lower elevation, ignores distance from height’s impact on range.

Example: If you are 24 tiles higher than your target, it has no impact at all. If your target is 24 tiles higher than you, your attack needs to have a reach of 24 tiles even if you are beside the target in the horizontal plane.

Additional Rules

• All attacks targeting a lower elevation gain 1 attack bonus.

Cover

• Half-Cover: -2 when attacking entities behind Half-Cover.
• 3-Quarter Cover: -5 when attacking entities behind 3-Quarter Cover.
• Full Cover: Cannot attack entities behind Full Cover.
• Embrasure: Cannot attack entities behind Embrasure, but can be ignored if making ranged attacks while directly adjacent to the Embrasure

Additional Rules

• An ally smaller than you is considered half-cover
• An ally of the same size or bigger is considered 3-quarter cover
• An enemy is considered full cover.
• When making ranged attacks, you ignore any partial cover you are adjacent to.

Obscuration

• Light Obscuration: Creatures in the area take 1 maluses to perceiving and targeting
  • Examples: Dim light, fog, shadows, snow.
• Heavy Obscuration: Creatures in the area take 2 maluses to perceiving and targeting
  • Examples: Heavy rain, snow, and thick snow.
• Total Obscuration: Creatures in the area cannot be targeted.
  • Examples: Sandstorm. Pitch-black darkness.

Additional Rules

• Dim light has double the radius of its originating light source
• Penalties from an area of obscuration are immediately removed upon leaving.
• Creatures targeting or perceiving entities within an area of obscuration are *penalized *by it.

Fall Damage

• Falls 1+ tiles in height cause a creature to become prone.
• Falls 2+ tiles in height cause a creature to take Size (Tiles Fallen/2) d6 damage, up to a maximum of 40d6 damage.
• If a creature loses 50+% of their max health in the fall, every leg (or equivalent apendages) takes 1 wound.
• If a creature is incapacitated in the fall incapacitates them, every leg (or equivalent apendages) takes 2 wounds.

Additional Rules:

• Damage from falls up to 4 tiles in height is negated if hitting water.
• Damage from falls up to 8 tiles in height is negated if hitting spongy, soft surfaces designed to arrest a fall.
• When a creature falls nearby a surface they can use to break or soften their fall, they or the GM makes a 10 DC Power or Finesse check immediately. Upon success, they either hold onto a ledge or cap fall damage at 10d6

Damage & Status Effects

All damage inflicted and received are typed, each with their own specific critical effects and representation in roleplay.

Some creatures possess Resistance or Vulnerability against specific damage types, where Resistance halves damage received of that type, while Vulnerability increases damage received of that type by 50% (Rounded). Stacks of Resistances and Vulnerabilities cannot compound their effect, they will cancel each other in a 1:1 ratio.

Cut, Pierce and Blunt are defined as Physical damage type, while the rest are defined as Magical damage type.

The Feeling & Lethality section describes what the wound would feel or look like in roleplay, and how lethal it tends to be, described on this scale:

• Highly Lethal (Being downed with this damage make the subject very likely to die in the near future)
• Lethal (Being downed with this damage without prompt care in a few minutes mean they are likely to die)
• Somewhat Lethal (Being downed with this damage can result in death in a few hours, though it doesn’t exclude the possibility of a particular lethal hit for some cases or damage type)
• Less Lethal (Being downed without prompt medical care means death within a day or so)
• Non-Lethal (This damage type is not lethal, or to be more correct - extremely unlikely to kill)

Damage Type	Critical Hit Effect	Feeling & Lethality	Other Effects
Cut	Gains the Bleeding effect	Cut through tissues with bleeding (Highly lethal)
Pierce	Gives the Skewered effect	Puncture through tissues with bleeding (Lethal, especially with vital organs)
Blunt	Gives the Staggered effect	Bruises, cracked bones (Somewhat Lethal, Highly Lethal if you aimed for the head)
Fire	Gains the Burning effect	Burns (Somewhat Lethal)	Set ignitable things that are not being worn or wielded on fire
Force	Gains the Guard Break effect	Feels like blunt trauma, but all over the body (Less Lethal)
Cold	Gives the Slowed effect	Frostbite (Somewhat Lethal)	Put out fire (Excluding surface effects) in area they hit.
Shock	Gives the Staggered effect	Burns and muscles not functioning (Somewhat Lethal - Less Lethal)
Necrotic	Gives the Rot effect .	Tissues rotting and becoming necrolepsic (Less Lethal, but disgusting)
Radiant	Gives the Illuminated effect	Like burns, but less likely to cause shock, organ failure (Somewhat Lethal)
Poison	Gives the Poisoned effect	Muscles, breathing and other bodily function slowing down, nauseousness, and then collapse (Somewhat Lethal)
Acid	Gives the Guard Break effect	Chemical Burns (Lethal)
Psychic	Gives the Confused effect	Headaches, migraines, hallucination, sensors organs not working, reduced consciousness, muscles not working (Non-Lethal)

Unavoidable / Unmitigable Damage

Some damage are considered nigh impossible to protect against or dodge. They are listed as unavoidable / unmitigable, and usually is indicated by not needing an attack roll for them to apply. Those attacks cannot be negated by any mean, including by plays during the reaction phase.

Status Effects

Status effects are temporary conditions applied to a creature, positive or negative.

All status effects have a duration of 1 round and are unstackable unless stated otherwise.

Stacks of status effects are always tracked independently in duration.

Loading

Common Rules

Stealth & Perception

One can try to perceive the presence of hidden people - or hide from them. In this case, one would use your Intelligence modifier (And appropriate bonus, not including level bonus) to detect the enemy. This is also used for detecting objects outside of active combat.

The formula for perception is:

1d20 + intelligence modifier + perception bonuses + level bonus (In Combat) OR career bonus (Out of Combat) 

Object Attacking / Interaction

You can choose to interact with an object and try to destroy it. GM can decide what the AC of an Object is and how many HP it has. They also decide what resistance, vulnerability and immunity it has, as is sensical. For example, one might find a stone door and it would be resistant to acid damage. Objects are immune to Psychic and Poison damage.

Special Rules

Other special rules

Displacement Stacking Rules

If more than one displacement effect was inflicted on a single creature in a round, the one with the strongest degree will be the only one that takes effect (Avoid weird situations like potentially getting hit by 18 displacement attacks and flying across the map). If multiples exist that have the same degree (For example, 3 pushes that all hit) but different vectors, then the one with the highest roll prevails. If this can’t resolve it somehow, then use the last chronologically rolled one.

Non-Lethal Attacks

Some weapons in Drase are labeled with the “Non-Lethal” property, meaning they are much less likely to kill someone. A player, however, may not always have access to such an attack. A player can declare their attack “non-lethal”, which means they’re deliberately aiming to wound and not kill the person behind. This can only be done with physical (not magical) attacks, and impose 1 attack malus. However, if a non-lethal attack is what incapacitate a NPC, they are much more likely to survive the aftermath if given prompt medical care.

Resting

It’s essential to take a breather from combat. Your character may take a short or long rest during a quest / campaign - in general, if you are going from one quest to another, without the GM informing you otherwise, you can assume you’ve taken a long rest or more in between:

• A short rest consists of roughly 15 minutes of rest and regenerates your focus and mana, but only up to your mana limit (Which is 2x your mana amount per long rest).
• A long rest consists of roughly 8 hours of rest including sleep, and regenerates your focus and mana, including regenerated mana for the day. A long rest regenerates 25% of your max HP if well-rested and your character has access to focus or mana. Otherwise, it regenerates 10% of your HP, up to 50% limit - any other healing must be done with normal healing supplies.

GM Mechanics

Mechanics specifically made for Game Master usage. Not for normal players.

NPC Average Hit

You can simplify and greatly reduce the amount of die rolls used by using the following chart for calculating the number of hits a group of monsters or NPC makes against PCs. This ignores critical rolls and assumes static monster damage is used.

This technique can and should be used for calculating large amounts of attacks even if the NPCs weren’t grouped together. For example, 10 NPCs of the same type individually shooting at a single player.

To obtain the numbers of hit a group of NPCs scores on a PC or another group of NPC, simply follow the steps:

1. Calculate AC - Attack Bonus (I.e. To Hit is 0, AC is 20. Get 20)
2. Deduct 3 if there’s an attacker bonus, add 3 if there’s an attacker malus. Reversed for defender. Add / Deduct 1 as needed bonus/malus.
3. Refer following chart for number of hits and inflict damage. Rows marked (X1.5, X2) means the number of hits is multiplied by the number of attackers!
4. When the number of hits is a decimal, round down.
5. Minimal of one hit.

Result	No. Of Atker / Hits
19 or above	10
16 - 18	5
15	3
13 - 14	2
11 - 12	1.5
9 - 10	1.25
7 - 8	1
4 - 6	X 1.25
1 - 3	X 1.5
<= 1	X 2