Chapter 7: Combat

Two Actions Per Turn

On a Contractor's turn, they get two Actions. Actions may repeat. A Contractor can Strike twice, Move twice, Focus then Strike, Consume then Move, or do any other legal combination.

When attacked, a Contractor may respond with any action. This response is reactive because of timing, but it is not a separate action type and does not spend one of the Contractor's two Actions on their own turn. It uses the normal action grammar, normal Stat, normal costs, normal range logic, and normal consequences.

Initiative

At the start of an encounter, each Contractor makes a Dexterity Skill Check. Initiative cannot be Pushed and has no consequence beyond phase placement unless the roll is a Critical Failure.

Creatures are pre-designated Fast or Slow by the Foreman. Initiative is rolled once per encounter. Surprise acts before initiative.

Round Structure

1. Fast phase: Fast Contractors and Fast creatures.
2. Slow phase: Slow Contractors and Slow creatures.

Within each phase, players choose their acting order freely.

Distance Bands

A Move action shifts one band closer or farther. When a rule refers to a local zone, it means targets that are Adjacent or Nearby unless the Foreman narrows the space.

Attacking

Construct the action through the grammar and roll the appropriate Skill Check. Most basic weapon attacks use Strike and Dexterity.

Against creatures, a successful attack deals weapon damage minus the creature's AP unless an effect ignores AP. Reduce the creature's Constitution by the remaining damage.

Against Contractors, attacks interact with AP and protection. When a Contractor fails a reactive action against an attack or accepts the hit, mark the attack's full damage against their current protection. HP damage happens only when no protection remains, unless an effect explicitly bypasses protection.

Creature Attack Flow

Creatures do not usually roll to hit. When a creature attacks, the Foreman states the target, damage, position, and any special property. The attack will hit unless the Contractor responds.

The Contractor may respond with any action: Moving away, Blocking, Striking to interrupt, Shaping cover, Focusing on the attack, Consuming a shard, or anything else the action grammar and fiction support. The response uses the normal action rules and does not spend one of the Contractor's two Actions on their own turn.

If the reactive action plausibly prevents, avoids, redirects, interrupts, or absorbs the attack and succeeds, the attack is avoided or stopped as appropriate. If it fails, the attack lands first or lands fully, depending on the fiction. The Contractor's action may still occur after the hit if it remains possible.

The primary exception is a Boss, named enemy, or creature with a full character sheet. Those opponents may roll actions like Contractors when the Foreman wants that level of detail. The Foreman may also call for a creature Stat roll for special maneuvers, contested situations, or narrative uncertainty.

Common Reactive Responses

When an attack comes in, the Contractor is not choosing from a fixed defense menu. They are using the normal grammar of action under pressure. Common responses include:

AP and Protection Tracking

At the start of each round, clear all marked damage against a Contractor's protection.

When a Contractor fails a reactive action against an attack or accepts the hit, mark the attack's full damage against their current protection. If the marked damage this round equals or exceeds the relevant AP, protection breaks. Clear marked damage whenever a layer of protection breaks, then use the next remaining layer of protection.

HP damage happens only when no protection remains, unless an effect explicitly bypasses protection. If there is no protection, damage goes directly to HP.

Effects that ignore AP exclude that protection from the AP calculation for that hit. For example, a Precision Strike that bypasses armor checks protection as if that armor AP were absent. Overwhelming ignores shield AP for break purposes.

Protection AP and Break Order

When gear breaks, marked damage resets to 0 and the protection AP drops to the next intact layer.

Worked Example: Gear Break. Pipe wears Medium Armor with 2 AP and carries a Standard Shield with 2 AP. Her current protection AP is 4. During the round, she fails two Blocks against attacks that deal 3 damage each.

• First failed Block: 3 damage is marked against protection. The marked damage is below 4, so nothing breaks.
• Second failed Block: marked damage rises to 6. Because 6 equals or exceeds the protection AP of 4, the shield breaks first. Pipe takes no HP damage. Marked damage resets to 0. Her new protection AP is 2 from armor only.

If she keeps failing reactive actions this round, the armor can break next. Only after armor, shield, and any weapon defense are gone does damage go directly to HP.

AP Values

Desperation Blocking with Weapons

When armor and shield are broken, absent, or unavailable, a Contractor may Block with a held weapon.

• Melee weapons and staffs can be used for weapon blocking.
• Light Ranged weapons may Block in desperation, but a failed Block breaks the weapon.
• Heavy Ranged weapons may Block only if the Foreman allows it. A failed Block breaks the weapon.

When a Contractor successfully Blocks with a weapon, the attack is stopped. However, if the blocked damage is greater than the weapon's AP value, the weapon still breaks. A weapon's AP value equals its damage value. This is intentional: the weapon's damage value also defines how much force it can withstand as protection.

Simple ranged rule: a failed desperation Block with a ranged weapon breaks it. A successful weapon Block can still break any weapon if the incoming damage exceeds the weapon's AP value.

Two-Handed Melee and Overwhelming. Two-Handed Melee weapons have the Overwhelming property. They ignore shield AP for break purposes.

If the defender has armor and shield, the shield may still be physically present and can be described in the fiction, but the break check uses armor AP alone. A strong enough Overwhelming hit can break armor directly even while the shield remains intact.

Worked Example: Overwhelming. Cinder has Medium Armor with 2 AP and a Standard Shield with 2 AP. A Two-Handed Melee attack deals 5 damage and has Overwhelming. The shield is physically present, but the break check uses armor AP alone. The marked damage rises to 5, equals or exceeds the armor AP of 2, and breaks the armor directly. The shield remains intact unless another effect or later hit breaks it.

Gear Repair

Broken gear stays broken until repaired.

Gear is either functional or broken. Do not track cracked, dented, degraded, or partially broken gear unless a special item or scene explicitly says otherwise.

• Repair supplies can restore one broken mundane item automatically when consumed.
• Shape can repair one broken mundane item without supplies, but requires a Skill Check.
• At Camp, Repair Gear uses a Camp Action. Repair supplies succeed automatically when appropriate and are consumed. Shape is free in Scrip and supplies, but requires a roll and may cost Motivation if Pushed.
• At Town Leave, basic repairs are available through smiths or armorers for Scrip. Coiltech, prosthetics, Masterwork items, Legendary items, and unusual gear may require special supplies, a specialist, Town Leave, or contract-scale access.

Reactive Actions Are Ordinary Actions

A reactive action is an ordinary action used in response to danger. It is not a special category, a defensive subsystem, or a separate verb list.

Reactive actions are high-risk when they do not directly stop the incoming threat. The Foreman should let creative responses work when the sentence is legal, but the incoming attack remains honest.

Universal Actions

Sustained Effects

Some effects continue across turns. Sustaining an effect costs one Action each turn. Dropping a sustained effect is free. Resolve is the exception: if Resolve was paid when the sustained effect was established, that effect can be sustained without spending an Action until the Foreman rules the scene has changed. If a Contractor takes damage while sustaining, they must succeed on a Focus Skill Check or the effect drops.

Healing Cap. No effect can raise Current HP above Maximum HP.

Prone

A prone Contractor is on the ground.

• Disadvantage on Skill Checks while prone.
• Cannot Move to a new location while prone.
• Standing costs one Action and immediately ends prone.