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Message: <blockquote data-quote="NiTessine" data-source="post: 5848216" data-attributes="member: 475">More or less. Here's a short example of how a fight might go. There are no set combat rounds as such - the challenges change as a fight progresses, and most fights will probably be over with a single challenge, which may take anything from three seconds to several minutes. Enemies that are hit are usually taken out immediately, player characters get to burn Fitness points (which they'll usually have from 1-3, depending on how many Fitness abilities they have picked) to remain standing. If there are no more Fitness points, they're out and it depends on the enemy's weapon how badly they're hurt. If it was a fistfight, he'll just be KO'd and will be back in action soonish, but if someone came at him with a fire axe, he's gonna need medical help, like, now.You begin by determining the base Enemy's Toughness - 10 for your average person, 15 for a cop, 20 for a professional soldier, as examples. Then you calculate the balance of power. This is stuff like positioning, who has the better gear for the circumstances (the guy up in the tower 300 feet away with a sniper rifle has a certain advantage over the knifefighter in the open field, but if the fight occurs in a space the size of a bathroom stall, that gun is only going to get in the way), numbers, surprise, fear and other limitations.The advantages are tallied up, and the Difficulty Level of the situation is adjusted accordingly - say, four gang members (Enemy Toughness 10) are waiting for Fritz and Jacques behind that door. They have the advantage in numbers, but Jacques barging in was quite unexpected and the two stalkers have the element of surprise on their side. The gang members have pistols, though, while the stalkers are unarmed. This is two notches against and one in favour of the stalkers, which ups the Difficulty Level of the challenge to 15.Jacques decides to charge in screaming, grabbing a chair and swinging around wildly, trying to knock out the enemies and get in their middle so they can't fire their guns without hitting their friends. This, the GM figures, is a pretty good idea under the circumstances. Perhaps leniently, he gives it a 4.Fritz follows right behind to try and disarm one of the gangbangers. Trying to grapple with a pistol doesn't sound so smart to the GM, so he gives this idea only a 2.Jacques also describes his screaming and mad swinging in such a characterful and lively fashion that the GM gives him a 4 for his roleplaying. Fritz isn't quite so entertaining, but his actions do reflect his Firearms ability and inexperience in close combat that he still gets a 3.Additionally, Jacques has the Melee ability, so both his Idea and Roleplay get +1, for a total of 5x5=25. This is two levels of success above the Difficulty Level, and so his wild swinging drops three of the gangbangers in a few, chaotic seconds of swearing, screaming, and breaking furniture.Fritz, on the other hand, is screwed, because he's not anywhere near the target number. He grabs the gangbanger's gun, they struggle for a moment, and it goes off. He screams in pain and his player screams "I burn a Fitness point!", turning the shot from a life-threatening and incapacitating wound into something that still needs to be treated and hurts like a mother.Now, there's one gangbanger left with his gun out but badly rattled by the surprise and suddenly being all alone, versus an angry Jacques holding the remnants of a chair he broke on a man's face and a Fritz down on the floor, bleeding but operational, with quite a few guns now lying around...</blockquote>

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