Turn Order and Initiative

Combat begins whenever one character chooses to enact violence onto another and all participants are worthy foes. If your opponent is not a worthy foe, you don’t engage the combat action; you can just roll to see who wins.

The first thing that happens is that everyone involved in combat rolls Join Battle to determine the starting Initiative. Then, you take turns until the combat is over.

Initiative

Initiative is your narrative control in the fight. The higher Initiative you have, the more your character controls the fight. The less Initiative you have, the more your character is dominated by the opponent.

During the fight, your Initiative will go up and down as you take and make attacks.

In costs, i is the symbol for Initiative. So a cost of “2i” means “spend 2 Initiative.”

Gaining Initiative

You gain Initiative by making withering attacks against opponents.

Losing Initiative

You lose Initiative by being attacked; by cashing in your Initiative to make a killing blow; by spending it on effects; and by getting Crashed.

Base Initiative

Your base Initiative is 2 + (Stamina/2, round up). This value is important because it is the value you reset to after making a decisive attack.

Join Battle

Join Battle is the roll you make to enter combat and generate your starting Initiative. You begin the fight with 3 Initiative, plus 1 Initiative for each success you roll.

If you Join Battle and throw yourself into the fray, you roll (Wits + Awareness).

If you Join Battle from stealth or seclusion, you may use Stealth instead of Awareness.

If you Join Battle to escalate a conversation to violence, you may use Manipulation instead of Wits.

Free Action

When you roll Join Battle, you may perform a single unopposed non-damaging combat action. For many people, this is to Draw/Ready your chosen weapon. You may enter a Form, take cover, activate a Charm, etc.

Your free action happens in turn order from highest to lowest.

From the Top

Turn Order begins with the highest Initiative, and proceeds down to the lowest.

Combat is composed of a series of ticks. A tick is a specific number on which someone can act. If you have 5 Initiative, you act on tick 5.

On your turn, you may take 1 combat action and 1 reflexive move.

Delaying Your Action

When your tick comes up, you may spend 1i to delay your action until a later tick. You then hold your turn until you declare that you want to use it.

Flurrying

After you’ve taken your action for the round, you may decide to take a second action by taking a flurry. The second action gets a -3 flurry penalty. The first action next round also gets a -3 flurry penalty. This enables you to make an informed decision as to how you want to act, based on this turn.

Your Turn, In Detail

From a technical perspective, a couple things happen on your turn.

Delying Your Action

Formal Start-of-Turn

When you start your turn, the following happen in order:

1. Effects that last for one turn such as Onslaught, poisons with a duration of “1 turn,” environmental hazards, etc. resolve.
2. If you are Crashed and have 3 or more recovery tokens, remove all your recovery tokens and you are no longer Crashed.
3. If you Rushed or Disengaged last turn and did not get to move, you may move now.
4. Anima flux and ot her “at the beginning of turn” effects resolve.

Middle of Your Turn

You get up to 1 combat action and up to 1 reflexive move.

Formal End-of-Turn

After you spend your combat action and reflexive move or decide to pass, the following happen in order:

1. If you are Crashed, you gain a recovery token. If you did not attack, gain one additional recovery token.
2. Anything which says “until the end of your next turn” resolves.
3. Regain 5m from adrenaline.