Fear the Dark - Combat and Action

2025-05-07

I meant to get this post out back in April, but prep for Forge Midwest and several home maintenance problems stacked up on top of each other and I didn't get to it. Since I managed to run three playtest sessions at FMW, I wanted to get a baseline of what I was using out here for people to see. Without further ado, here are the combat rules as they existed for the playtest:

round procedure

1. GM sets scene
   1. declares intentions for each monster, including movement, attacks, or specials
   2. declares any environment effects
   3. sets threat to each character (place relevant damage in front of the characters it will apply to if they don't address it)
2. players act, one at a time
   1. declare actions, up to two per round, including:
      1. movement, up to one zone
      2. attacking (roll 2d6 and add modifiers. use the lower die if the foe is armored, the higher die if it is not. place damage value in front of monster it will apply to)
      3. defending (roll 2d6 and add modifiers, use the lower die if not armored, use the higher die if armored. check for armor damage. remove defense from )
      4. maneuvering (declare a desired effect, negotiate with GM for cost. by default, roll 2d6. choose one and immediately reduce guard pool by that much. if it's the lower die, add a die to the friction pool. maneuvers may reduce the severity of monster actions or obviate them entirely, removing those threats from the table for this round)
3. resolve actions
   1. check damage values in front of each monster and player character. apply the highest value in front of each combatant to their guard pool.
   2. if the guard pool is reduced below zero, an injury takes place. monsters their own rules for injury values. players roll 3d6 and take that level of injury, using the lowest die if they are reduced to -1 to -5 guard, the middle at -6 to -10 guard, and the highest below -11 guard
4. check friction pool
   1. roll the friction pool and look for matches. if any occur those events will change the situation of the combat
5. begin a new round and return to step 1

The intended flow for the combat is to present a situation in much the same way that games like Into the Breach or Tactical Breach Wizards do - present a problem for the players, let them decide on actions they want to take to solve that problem, and then resolve enemy actions after the players have moved through their turn. I have opinions on how it worked, but those will have to wait for the more detailed playtest report!