Editing Scratch:Basic Rules

In combat characters take turns performing actions. At the beginning of combat, roll a twenty-sided die for each character to determine the order of their turns. This is the character's ''initiative'' roll. Characters take turns in order from the highest initiative to the lowest. If two characters have the same initiative, break the tie by rolling another die for both characters until one of them rolls higher. That character goes before the other.

Characters have ''hit points'' which determine whether they are ''healthy'', ''injured'' or ''incapacitated''. Characters usually start combat with their maximum hit points. A character's ''toughness'' ability level is his maximum hit points. ''Stamina'' is half of a character's toughness, rounded down. A healthy character has more hit points than his stamina.  An injured character has at least one hit point but no more hit points than his stamina. Characters can never have less than zero hit points. A character with zero hit points is incapacitated and cannot perform actions.

'''Agility''' is 10 plus the character's stealth, acrobatics, quickness or flying ability level, whichever is greater. Agility is the difficulty of ''normal'' attacks which should be physically avoided or blocked. If a character has 2 levels of acrobatics and 3 levels of quickness, then his agility is 13. If he is targeted by a normal attack and the attacker's roll is 13 or more, then attack is successful. (If the roll is 12 or less the attack fails fails.)

'''Intelligence''' is 10 plus the character's detection, command, healing or craftsmanship ability level, whichever is greater. Intelligence is the difficulty of actions like deception, persuasion, intimidation, mind reading and mind control. These are called ''psychic'' attacks regardless of whether their power is psychological or supernatural.  

'''Strength''' is 8 plus the character's toughness or 10 plus the character's wrestling ability, whichever is greater. This is the difficulty of ''force'' attacks that should be resisted physically, but not by moving out of the way or parrying the attack.

Every character can do some basic combat actions.

(A character can also do nothing instead of an action.)

'''Hold''' is a close range force attack. Make a roll against the target's strength. If the hold is successful, it delays the target until the end of the target's next turn.

 

'''Distract''' is a close range psychic attack. Make a roll against the target's intelligence. If the distraction is successful, the target is delayed until the end of his next turn. Each character can only use this attack once per battle.

'''Evade''' is a regular action which allows the evading character to add his acrobatics, quickness or flying ability level to his agility until his next turn. A character without one of those abilities can also evade, but his agility does not change.

'''Catch''' is a close range attack which can be used against an evading character. The difficulty of this action is 10 plus the whichever ability level the character added to his agility when evading. The catching character can add his detection, acrobatics, quickness or flying ability level to his catch roll. If the roll is successful, the evading character's agility returns to normal.

'''Escape''' is a regular action which allows a character to leave combat. A character can escape the battle if he evaded on his last turn and has not been caught or hit since that turn. The character cannot perform actions or be attacked for the rest of the fight.

'''Take cover''' is a bonus action which an attacker can use before a long range attack. A character can only use this action if there is some kind of cover, like a hill, a wall or a large box to hide behind. The attacker subtracts 2 from his long range attack rolls until the end of his current turn, but the attacker's agility is increased by 2 until the beginning of his next turn.

'''Toughness''' ability level is a character's maximum hit points, and represents armor, size or other damage-resisting traits. Characters who are big, physically fit, armored or highly motivated usually have 4 or more toughness. A cop who stays in shape and wears light body armor would have at least 4 toughness while a large, highly trained, veteran medieval warrior in heavy body armor could have 8 toughness. A child or elderly person may have only 2 toughness. The average horse might have 6 toughness. A war elephant with light body armor would have at least 10 toughness. Some characters might have only 1 toughness because they are particularly fragile or because they are unmotivated and give up as soon as they are injured. Characters without toughness may not perform actions in combat rounds.

'''Shooting''' is used to perform a powerful long range normal attack against one character. Make a shooting roll against the target's agility. If the attack is successful, it causes 2 damage. If the attack is automatically successful it causes 5 damage instead of 3 damage.

'''Blasting''' is used to attack multiple opponents simultaneously. The blasting attack is a long range normal attack which targets up to three separate enemies. A character cannot target a single target more than once with the same blasting attack. Make a blasting roll against the agility of each target. Each target successfully attacked receives 1 damage.  

'''Knockout''' is used to perform an extremely devastating knockout attack.

This is a close range normal attack against a single target.

If the attacker is healthy, the attack causes 4 damage. If the attacker is injured, it causes 2 damage.

'''Fighting''' ability level can be added to basic attack rolls if no other abilities have been added to them. If the attacker is healthy he can do two basic attacks as a single action, adding his fighting ability level to both rolls.

'''Wrestling''' ability level can be added to basic attack and hold rolls if no other abilities have been added to them. If the attacker using wrestling ability is healthy, he can do one basic attack and one hold as a single action, adding his wrestling ability level to both rolls.

'''Stealth''' helps a character go first in combat by sneaking around. Add 10 times the character's stealth ability to initiative rolls. If a character has 3 levels of stealth ability and rolls 17 with his initiative die, then his initiative is 47 (17 plus 30.)

'''Detection''' helps a character go first in combat by detecting enemies who are sneaking around. Add 10 times the character's detection ability to initiative rolls. If a character has 5 levels of detection ability and rolls 8 with his initiative die, then his initiative is 58 (8 plus 50.)

''Surprise'' is a long range psychic attack that requires stealth or detection ability. Make a stealth or detection roll versus the target's intelligence. If the attack is successful, the target is frightened until the end of his next turn. Frightened characters must evade or escape. They cannot attack or heal. Each character can only use this attack once per battle.

'''Acrobatics''' is used to get up, across, or over three-dimensional structures and obstacles like ropes, nets, ledges, ladders, fences, trees and cliffs. Acrobatics can be used to catch characters who are trying to escape by using acrobatics, quickness and even flying when these three-dimensional structures are in the combat environment.

'''Quickness''' is used for movement on relatively level ground. Quickness is used to catch characters using quickness or no ability to escape, but it can also be used to catch characters escaping with acrobatics, swimming or flying when the environment does not allow them to get far from solid ground (short trees, shallow water or low ceiling for example.)

'''Flying''' is used to move through the air when there is room to fly. (There is usually room to fly outdoors but not indoors.) When a flying character evades or uses a long range attack, he cannot be attacked with a close range attack until his next turn, unless the attacker can also fly. Flying can be used to catch characters escaping by climbing unless obstacles like tree branches protect climbers from fliers, and it can be used to catch characters escaping by swimming if the water is shallow. A character with no flying ability cannot fly, and cannot get flying ability unless there is a good explanation for why then can fly now when they could not fly before.

'''Swimming''' is used to evade, escape and catch characters who are trying to escape in water. When a character is in water, add his swimming ability to his agility and close range attack rolls in addition to the ability levels normally added to agility and attack rolls. When there is deep water in the combat environment, characters escaping by swimming cannot be reached by characters who using  flying, quickness or acrobatics. A character without this ability does not know how to swim. Most land-dwelling species can only develop one or two levels of swimming ability without special equipment.

'''Healing''' allows a character to try to revive incapacitated characters and heal injured characters. A character cannot heal himself with this ability. The difficulty of reviving an incapacitated character is 10. The difficulty of healing an injured character is 10. After being successfully revived a character is still injured, and has only one hit point. After being successfully healed a character is barely healthy, with 1 hit point more than half of his maximum hit points (rounded down.)

'''Craftsmanship''' is an ability which allows a character to maintain and improve his allies' equipment. For each level of this ability, a character can give a traveling companion a temporary +1 bonus to an ability which is already at least level 1. He cannot give a second temporary bonus to an ability which has a temporary bonus from himself or someone else. The bonus lasts until he removes it or they are no longer traveling companions. He cannot remove or add bonuses in combat. He must make a success roll to add a temporary bonus in a hurry (usually difficulty 10.) If the roll fails he cannot use that temporary bonus until he is no longer in a hurry.

'''Command''' is an ability that provides a character with one or two minions whose total ability level is no greater than the character's command ability level. These followers cannot have command ability. A character 4 command could have 1 minion with 4 total ability levels, 2 minions with 2 total ability levels each, or a minion with 1 toughness and another minion with 3 total ability levels. For example:

Minions can continue fighting even after their leader has escaped or been incapacitated. Minions cannot be healed by using healing ability in combat.

''Intimidate'' is a long range psychic attack that requires command ability. You cannot intimidate an enemy if he has more strength than you. Make a command roll versus the target's intelligence. If the attack is successful, the target is frightened until the end of his next turn. Frightened characters must evade or escape. They cannot attack or heal. Each character can only use this attack once per battle.

 

 

 

 

 

'''Piloting''' ability allows a character to operate an air or space vehicle.

A twenty-sided die is rolled for each character to determine their initiative order. Chokestar's initiative roll is 4, but his 3 levels of stalking ability add 30 to that roll for a total of 34.  Flipfire rolls 17 and Breakhelm X-19 rolls 14. So Chokestar goes first, followed by Flipfire and then Breakhelm X-19.