Combat and Initiative

Determining Initiative

1. Before combat begins each Player or character must roll a D20 plus any initiative modifiers they have. 

   • Each creature can roll as well or all creatures can share an initiative.

   • If all creatures share an initiative each time a creature takes their turn it still counts as a turn for the sake of turn based attacks and abilities. 

2. All combatants are placed in order based on their roll, highest goes first. 

   • In the event of ties both characters reroll and the one that rolls highest gains +0.5 to their initial initiative roll. The one who rolls lowest keeps their initial initiative roll.

   • All characters start with +0 to their initiative but can increase it through a few specific means. 

3. Turn order 

   • 1 turn is the shortest amount of time in an encounter. Each player and NPC gets a turn over the course of a rotation.

   • 1 Rotation is the time it takes for all combatants to take their turn. 

   • 1 Rotation is 6 seconds.

   • 1 minute is 10 Rotations.

Alternate Initiative Rules

1. Enemies are arranged into group of 1-3 and each group shares an initiative in the turn order.  This reduces the number of turns in the turn order and can change the flow of combat.

2. No more than two players can go consecutively. This allows creatures to act more frequently and makes combat more difficult and dynamic. 

Planning Phase

1. The planning phase takes place at the very beginning of the encounter. This allows players to take a moment and look over the terrain, enemies, map layout, and possible points of strategic value. 

2. The players should take a few minutes to decide on a plan of action, this will help combat move more smoothly and limit conflicts of action. 

3. Whichever group (Players, enemies, or both) initiated the encounter can make a swift action to prepare for combat. This action cannot be used to attack. 

Taking Your Turn

During and out of combat, every character has actions they can take. What actions they can take depends on their class, race, skills, perks, and spells among other things. 

During combat every character has 2 Full Actions, 1 Swift Action, 1 Free action, and 1 Reaction. 

Here is a list of some of the most common actions. 

Actions that require more than a full action. 

Some actions require more than one full action, these actions are very few and will normally specify if they do. 

Some common actions that do require multiple full actions are:

• Putting on or taking off Medium Armor (2 Full actions)

• Putting on or taking off Heavy Armor (1 Full turn)

Full action (2 per turn)

Full actions are the most common type of action that can be taken. These take thought and planning along with significant movement of the character's body. 

• Moving - move squares equal to your movement 

• Moving through rough terrain reduces your movement according to the type of terrain unless you can fly over it .

• Attacking - use your currently equipped weapon. If you miss, your action and one attack's worth of AP is consumed. 

• Grapple - Roll Vigor to grapple a target, the target must roll Dexterity or Vigor to avoid it.

• If they fail they cannot move and cannot avoid attacks until freed by succeeding a vigor roll against the attacker’s vigor.

• Get up - If knocked down you must take an action to stand before you can act. 

• Any skill roll other than Cognition, Intellect, or sneak.

• Disengage- As a full action you can disengage from adjacent combatants, preventing them from taking an attack of opportunity against you. You move 5 feet in a chosen direction. 

• Cast most spells. 

• Removing or putting on Light Armor, gloves, helmets, boots, or clothing.  

• Two swift actions

Swift action (1 per turn)

Swift actions are quick and simple, such as throwing a dagger. They take little time to perform and can be done with minimal movement. 

• These are actions that only take a moment.

• Using an item, switching weapons. 

• Trip- You and a target within 5ft[] must roll Dexterity. If you roll higher the target is knocked down at the beginning of their turn. 

• Cognition or Intellect rolls.

• Entering stealth- must have something to hide behind or in.

• Take a 5ft step in any direction. 

• Two free actions

Free action (1 per turn)

These are actions that don’t really take effort or time to be completed.

• Taking flight, landing (While already less than 5 feet above the ground), etc. 

• Some spells

• Winking or similar minor gesture

• Is required to use your reaction

Reaction (1 per turn)

This action is dictated by the spell or ability you are using. You cannot make a reaction if you have used your reaction.

Anything that requires a reaction will dictate a trigger, this is the event(s) that must occur before that ability or spell can be used. An attack of opportunity is an example of an ability that uses a reaction.

Attack of Opportunity:

This requires a reaction. 

If a character moves within 5 feet of another character, and continues to move, the stationary character can make a single melee attack against the moving character without using AP. This includes forced movement.

Attacking

1. When a player chooses to attack they first choose what weapon they are using

   • Only one attack action can be made per full action (even if you only swing once or miss).

     1. If you miss, you lose the AP of a single swing but must use a second full action if you want to attack again. 

   • Switching weapons is a swift action.

     1. Thrown and placed weapons do not need to be equipped before use

2. When attacking you roll D20+your skill bonus

   • If a player is not proficient with the weapon they are using their skill bonus is reduced by half when using it. If their skill bonus is a negative they still suffer the full negative when rolling to hit. 

   • The defender checks their Dodge or Armor against the attacker’s roll. 

     1. Player wins on ties. 

        • In PvP, defender wins on tie. 

     2. A natural 20 is counted as a 25 + any bonuses 

        • This does not guarantee a hit.

   • If your roll is above your character’s critical threshold you deal additional damage equal to the maximum damage of your weapon or spell.

   • If a natural 1 is rolled, something negative happens, such as a failed spell, dropped weapon, or worse depending on the situation, GM, and campaign.

3. When calculating damage your DR reduces the damage taken.

Damage

1. If a weapon uses AP that is used to determine how many times you can swing or fire the weapon in a single rotation. 

   1. If a weapon has a damage of D10, an AP cost of 10, and you have 80 AP you can swing up to 8 time dealing 8*D10 damage

   2. You can attack fewer times if you so choose

   3. Regardless of how many times you hit, you only roll to hit once per target. 

   4. AP is a stat that dictates how many times you can attack in the same rotation, it is not a pool that can be drained (such as with magic)

   5. Attacking with an AP weapon still requires a full action unless otherwise specified.

2. If a weapon deals constant damage it does not have an AP cost and instead damage is dealt to a target every turn, you still only roll vs Armor or Dodge once per Rotation.

3. Full health players cannot be killed in a single hit

   1. If a single attack would reduce a player from full health to negative hit points they instead have 0 health and are unconscious 

Damage Resistance:

• Damage reduction (DR) is applied regardless of whether you used Armor or Dodge.

• If you are hit by an attack, DR reduces the damage you take. 

• For every point of general DR you have, all incoming damage is reduced by 1.

  • This can be applied per hit or per attack, depending on the type of game you want to play. Per hit will make combat less deadly, while totaling the damage and applying it per attack will make combat move faster and player attacks will feel more powerful. 

• DR is based on the combined DR stats of your equipment, but may come from other sources such as spells and racial bonuses.

• There are 3 types of DR in LoT: DR, Elemental DR, and Arcane DR.

  • DR applies to all standard damage types: Damage, bleed damage, non-lethal damage

  • Elemental DR applies to all elements: Fire, ice, acid, etc.

  • Arcane DR applies to all arcane damage types: Dissonance, blight, solar, etc.

Flanking

• For each adjacent enemy beyond the first, a character has -2 Dodge and Armor. 

• This applies to enemies as well. Surrounding a powerful enemy can significantly increase the party's ability to hit them.

Overshield:

1. Overshields are magical barriers that grant your character special benefits. 

2. Overshield is a second health bar that takes damage before your actual health. 

3. While you have overshield your health can only be damaged after your overshield has been removed or if an attack ignores overshield. 

   1. Any attack that does not break your overshield cannot apply status effects. This does not affect attacks and effects that do not deal damage or target a character’s willpower. 

4. Overshield is not restored by healing spells or potions and can only be restored by items, spells, or abilities that specifically grant or restore overshield.

5. Overshield does not benefit from the DR of the character, only its own DR. 

6. If you have an overshield, gaining a new overshield replaces your current one if the new one is larger or has a different effect than your current one. 

7. Gaining a new overshield does not restore or stack on top of your existing overshield.

8. Overshields that do not grant additional health instead last until the conditions listed are met, however they still count as as an overshield and are lost if a new overshield is gained

Sneaking

1. When a character or enemy enters stealth they roll using their sneak bonus, record this roll. 

2. A character cannot enter stealth if an enemy has them in their line of sight. 

3. If a character or enemy is sneaking, all characters and enemies that have line of sight to the sneaking character must roll Cognition or awareness with an SR equal to the sneaking character’s sneak roll. This must be done at the beginning of each character’s turn before taking any actions. 

   1. Only characters that succeed the roll can see the sneaking character

4. If a character or enemy attacks while sneaking, and the target has failed to see them, the attacker rolls with advantage. 

5. Different actions can affect your sneak roll, anyone that is sneaking must roll sneak again at the end of their turn and apply any of the following modifiers incurred during their turn:  

   1. Moving greater than half your movement speed in a single full action gives a -3 to sneak. 

   2. Flying causes the character to have -5 to sneak, unless they have stealth soaring or hovering wings.