Myths and Legends Combat pt.1

Combat in Myths and Legends is divided into rounds and turns. Each round consists of a turn taken by each creature involved in the fight. Turn order is determined by initiative rolls of all participants, any ties are officially resolved by comparing the initiative modifiers of the tied parties however alternatives methods can be used depending on the preference of the gamekeeper. Initiative modifiers are the combined total of the creature's Fortitude and Ingenuity modifiers without any training bonuses. During a creature's turn it has all of the following options available to it in any order. Movement, Actions, and Extra Actions. Some of the actions including attacking and spellcasting were discussed in the post prior to this and will be talked about in lesser detail than others.

Movement is not measured in units of distance as it is in Dungeons and Dragons, but in space measurements. A creature's speed is marked as Movement Points which are spent each time it moves from one space to another, to best accommodate for this method of movement and for the purposes of different attacks which may impact or pass over multiple spaces and is considered to be their base walking speed, it is recommended to play with hexagonal tiles for battle maps if they are available. Some creatures may have special movement that either supplements or replaces their walking speed, such as flying or swimming and these forms of movement can be restricted by the environment, such as a large winged creature being unable to fly in a confined space. It is advised that these factors be considered by the gamekeeper and fairly applied to both players and their foes alike. Some forms of movement that a particular creature may not be naturally inclined towards, such as swimming or climbing, may result in the call for a Fortitude based roll to make sure the creature is able to continue to perform the strenuous activity without tiring. These kinds of movement will cost double the points to move the same number of spaces as moving normally. If a creature does not reach a point where they can continue to move normally during these difficult movements, they are unable to take other actions as they continue to spend their energy to focus on traversal. Vertical jumps and leaping for distance take all movement points available to a creature, meaning that no movement can be made prior to or following the jump. There is one exception to this rule, which will be discussed shortly with actions.

The most common action taken in any given combat is to attack the enemy in some capacity. In Myths and Legends, the attack action allows a creature to use all weapons it has equipped, or all available natural weapons such as teeth or claws, to attack any enemy within range of said weapon. As mentioned in the Core Mechanics section, an attack follows this chain of events. The attacker selects their target and the weapon they will be using, rolling a D20 and adding the applicable modifiers against a target value for how likely their weapon is to hit accurately, and rolling the damage dice for the weapon if the attack lands successfully. The defender will reduce the damage taken accordingly with their armor value after the damage dice are rolled. Certain weapons marked as precise will allow the attacker to try targeting a specific body part of the creature they are trying to attack. This adds a D12 accuracy roll to the process after successfully hitting the target. Results of the accuracy dice will always fall on the same table. 1-6 will reduce the damage done by the result of the roll to a minimum of 1 as the attack hits improperly, 7-11 allows the attacker to either inflict a status effect on the target in accordance with the body part and weapon or will deal extra damage marked on the weapon's stats in addition to the damage dice, and a 12 will allow the attacker to both apply additional damage and inflict a status effect. When attacking if the die lands on a 20 before adding modifiers, known to most as a natural 20, the attack is considered a critical hit. For Myths and Legends, a "crit" is officially resolved by dealing the maximum damage the weapon is capable of inflicting without modifiers, followed by a damage roll as normal, including the extra damage for a precision attack if the attacker chooses to inflict damage rather than a status effect. If a precision attack is preceded by a critical hit, the attacker may choose to treat the accuracy roll as if they had rolled a 7-11 rather than actually roll the die.

Spellcasting is the second most likely action to be made in combat as the various schools of magic allow a wide variety of damage, protection, and utility. As previously stated in the Core Mechanics, all spellcasting regardless of what type or what difficulty level must be resolved by the roll of a D100. Every spell has a difficulty level that this roll must match or exceed, or the spell will backfire against the caster in some way. The result of this backlash is found in a list associated with the type of magic being used and the numerical result of the dice roll. As spellcasting can be a longer process than regular attacks with various incantations and micro-ceremonies some spells may take more than one round to successfully cast. In these instances, the spell's casting time is noted in a number of rounds and will specify what may be required to ensure that it won't automatically fail as a result of being cast incorrectly. This may appear as multiple spellcasting rolls being required, or an increase in the spell difficulty for trying to feed more power into it over longer periods of time, among other potential requirements. In the event of magic backlash as a result of a casting roll failing to meet the difficulty level of the spell, only the immediate consequences must be shared with the players, and it is fully up to the gamekeeper to decide if they wish to share the backlash lists with their players at any point during the course of play. Some spells may be able to have their effects reduced or even prevented through the results of Resilience rolls, which will be discussed later, or simply may not deal damage; in these situations, it is the duty of the caster to announce what form of Resilience roll can be made and what a successful roll will result in.

Finally, for the last of the regular actions is to rush. This action combines movement with the option to attack at once. Rushing will double the movement points of a creature and allows for a single melee attack against an enemy they stop moving within range of. The rushing creature may choose not to attack and simply use the rush to increase their movement, which can be stopped before the full amount of movement is used. In this case, any movement that may not have been used is not caried over to subsequent turns. An attack made during a rush cannot be made as a targeted attack, even if the weapon is labeled as precise. At any point during a rush, including the end, a creature can choose to leap or jump, but will lose all remaining movement upon landing.

This topic has proven to take much longer to explain than I expected, so for the sake of brevity, I will make a separate post dedicated to the list of Extra Actions that players and their enemies can take in combat. Because these actions are more complicated and are more closely tied to the various different stats and skills, they take the majority of the list of possibilities but also tend to be much more situational. For now we will end this post with the rules for player character deaths. Though death is an expected outcome of all combat, more often than not this is not something that many player characters will experience. Rather than simply being debilitated and forced to wait while making a single roll each turn to determine their character's fate, Myths and Legends allows a higher degree of roleplay and instructiveness with a character who is dying. Similar to dungeons and dragons, a dying character must make death saving throws on a D20 against a baseline of 10 at the start of their turns. A dying character in Myths and Legends, however, is not immediately knocked unconscious upon hitting 0 hp. Before any death saving throws are made, a dying character suffers all rolls unfavorably meaning that two dice are rolled and the worse result is used, their movement is halved, and they cannot use any specialized movement. This allows the option for a dying character to try to fight back, though the odds are heavily against them. Upon taking any damage in this state, or failing their first death save, the character's body begins to fail them, and they can no longer move or make any actions. At this point all the character is capable of is basic speech. Upon taking more damage, or failing the second death save, they fall unconscious. Finally with the last failed save or any further damage being done, the character is dead, and their soul separates from their body. If the dying character is healed by any means before the third failed saving throw, they are considered stable but continue to suffer the effects of dying. To fully recover from dying, a character must receive healing and spend a full day at rest. If the damage that would put the character into the dying state exceeds their maximum health, then they are killed immediately, without the opportunity to make any death saves.