Chapter VI: Combat, Damage & Movement
C ombaT , d amage & m oVemenT “It’s the hero’s job to die gloriously; it’s my job to get paid.” Marcello Finetti, Tilean Mercenary
C hapTer VI
N o matter what the Player Characters choose to do, sooner or later they will end up fighting for their lives. Such is the nature of the Warhammer World. Success depends on continued survival. Failure leads only to destruction. No one lasts long in the brutal, bloody and
merciless struggle for life unless they are willing to fight. And fight dirty at that. This chapter explains how to work out fights and how to resolve damage from comparable close situations such as traps, falls, fire and the like.
— T raCkIng T Ime —
F or much of play, it isn’t necessary to track the passage of time to the exact second. When players are interacting with NPCs, roleplaying, or using many skills, such precision isn’t needed. The GM simply keeps track of time as he sees fit and makes sure the game moves along at an appropriate pace. If the players tell the GM they want to travel to the other side of Altdorf, for example, he might reply, “OK, it takes you an hour because there are a lot of people on the streets today.” There are no hard and fast rules about this, but the GM should try to be consistent and convincing when judging these things. This kind of loose timing is generally employed when the GM wants to progress the story. It is referred to as narrative time. E ach individual character, including NPCs and monsters, takes a turn within the round. It is therefore necessary to determine the order in which actions are taken. When combat starts, follow these steps to determine what happens: • Step 1. Roll Initiative: At the start of the first round each combatant must roll for initiative. The character’s initiative score is equal to Agility plus 1d10. This score applies for all successive rounds of this combat. Step 2. Determine Initiative Order: The GM ranks all the initiative scores, including NPCs and monsters, from highest to lowest. This is the order that characters will act in during each round of combat. Step 3. Surprise: When beginning a combat the GM determines if any of the combatants are surprised. This only • •
At certain points in the story, exact timing becomes very important indeed—notably during the cut and thrust of close combat, when split seconds will often spell the difference between life and death. In these situations time is tracked in “rounds”. One round equals roughly ten seconds of elapsed time, so six rounds equals about a minute. During a round, every character or creature involved in an encounter takes an individual turn. During a turn, a character can take one or more actions (see Actions , page 126). The GM decides when to switch from loose narrative time to formal rounds. The most common reason for doing so is when a PC or NPC wants to fight. affects the first round and isn’t always necessary even then. Surprised combatants lose their turn on the first round of combat. They are caught unawares and their opponents get a full round’s “drop” on them. Step 4. Characters Take Turns: Starting with the participant with the highest Initiative score, each character takes a turn. During his turn a character can perform one or more actions (see Actions , page 126). Once a character has finished his actions, the next participant takes a turn and so on. Step 5. Round Ends: Once each participant has taken a turn, the round is over. Step 6. Repeat Steps 4 and 5 as Needed: Continue to play successive rounds until the combat is complete or until you have finished whatever it is that is being worked out. • • •
— C ombaT r ounds —
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