Combat System

Combat

The combat system is designed after the Feng Shui system, and remains essentialy the same. This system is created to be fun and fast, and make the rules of combat interfere with the story as little as possible. Combat systems in RPGs tend to be the most rules intensive part of the game, simply because of the high chance of your character dying. The rules below are layed out in a step-by-step process that will be used for every combat round we play.

1: Initiative - At the beginning of each combat round, each player rolls a 10 sided dice and adds the resultant number to their Speed stat. The initiative dice does not explode (reroll). Any powers that affect the Initiative roll must be used at this time. Any powers that stipulate that they are to be used before the combat round begins must be used before anyone rolls initiative.

In order to hopefully make the combat process more clear, I'll be using Fnord's charcter, Ehlric Lineas, as an example, as he demonstrates a battle against an Iron Giant. For the purposes of the example we're going to assume that Fnord didn't increase Ehlric's stats at all at character generation, and that he has no magic junctioned to his attributes. In other words, all the numbers on his sheet are the same as the beginning template for a Tamer. The only exception to this is that we will assume that he purchased 5 points in the Sorcery skill, bringing his Sorcery action value to it's starting maximum of 10.

Fnord rolls the initiative dice and gets a 8. He adds this to Ehlric's Speed of 8 for a total of 16. The GM rolls a die for the Iron Giant and gets an 9. Even though that's a good roll, Iron Giants are notoriously slow. The GM adds the die roll to the Iron Giant's Speed of 3, for a total of 12. Ehlric will be acting first in this combat.

2: Shots - Combat actions in FFVIII take different amounts of time. Each combat round is broken up into a variable number of 'shots'. Each shot is one point of initiative. Therefore, the highest initative determines how many shots any particular round will have. You can think of a 'shot' as movie shots or angles, but all they really represent is the amount of time it takes to take an action.

Normal combat actions such as firing a gun, or hitting someone with a sword, take 4 shots. Using an Item costs 3 shots. Dodging only costs 1 shot. All non-standard actions will have their shot cost listed. Characters can continue to take actions for as long as they have shots remaining.

Ehlric has 16 shots, from his initiative. The Iron Giant only has 12. Ehlric could take 4 normal combat actions this round, to the Iron Giant's 3 actions. Note that because Ehlric's initative is the highest in this combat, he sets the total number of shots for the round, 16 in this case.

3: Combat Actions - Combat begins with the highest initative. Whoever's initative total is highest declares an action, and executes it. The player then subtracts the shot cost of the action from their current shot, and gets ready to go the next time they have an action.

The GM calls out each shot in turn, giving people a chance to act on whatever Shot their character gets an action. The players are responsible for remembering when their characters can act. This proceeds until the round reaches Shot 1. When all the shot 1 actions are finished, the round is over and it's time for a new round. There is no Shot 0.

Ehlric acts first on Shot 16. He swings his staff at the Iron Giant, a 4 shot action. Subtracting 4 shots from his total of 16, he sees that he can act again on shot 12.

Because there are no other combatants, and the Iron Giant doesn't act until Shot 12 as well, the GM skips over shots 15, 14, and 13. Shot 12 arrives, and Ehlric elects to send his pet to attack the Iron Giant this time. Deciding for the Iron Giant, the GM has the monster attack Ehlric with it's enormous sword. Because the characters are acting on the same shot, the actions take place simultaniously. Ehlric's pet claws the Iron Giant, while at the same time the Iron Giant drops it's giant sword on Ehlric's head.

4: Dodging - Dodging is one of the few actions that can be taken when it's not a character's turn to act. Whenever a character or monster is attacked, they have the option to dodge. Dodging raises a character's Dodge score by 3 points. The dodge score is the character's highest combat skill bonus + their evade attribute.
Suppose Ehlric has 5 points in his Taming Skill, which gets added to Willpower, normally. Now, with an Evade of 4, he adds those 5 points to get a total dodge score of 5.

Dodging costs 1 shot. When a character dodges, they subtract 1 from the next shot they would have been able to act on. If one party in a combat is sufficiently fast, it's possible to use up ALL your shots dodging, and not get any agressive actions. Any time this happens, it's nature's way of telling you that you're in big trouble.

Magical attacks can be dodged, but this happens only rarely. Instead of using the Dodge rating, the difficulty of targeting someone with magic is simply their Magic Evade attribute, no Action Value comes into play. Since the attacker will be using her Sorcery Action Value to cast the spell, she usualy has a signifigant point advantage. A player can still chose to have his character dodge a magical attack, but the 3 point bonus is applied only to the Magic Evade attribute, dodging does not allow a character to use his Dodge rating against magic. An example of attempting to dodge magic can be found in the Damage example.

Ehlric, having tasted that sword once, has decided that he never wants to do that again. Both he and the Iron Giant act again on Shot 8, but Ehlric decides to postpone his action to Shot 7 in order to dodge. This time, when the Giant's sword comes down, Ehlric is able to roll to the side and avoid it. The very next shot, he takes his own action against the Giant.

5: Success and Failure - The success and failure of combat actions is handled like any standard dice-roll. The character choses an action, rolls the dice and adds the result to the appropriate Action Value. If the final result is higher than or equal to the difficulty, the action succeeds. If it is less than the difficulty, the action fails.

The difficulty of most attacks is the Dodge rating of the target. The dodge rating of any target is simply his or her Evade attribute.

Ehlric, having dodged the Iron Giant, acts on Shot 7. He swings his staff again, and so rolls his dice and adds them to his Martial Arts Action Value of 11. (Reflexes 8 + Martial arts 3) The dice are not with him this time, and he rolls a -4, making his final result 6. Luckily for him, Iron Giants can't move quickly at all, and they have a reduced dodge score as a consiquence. The Iron Giant's Dodge rating is 6, and Ehlric connects. If he had rolled one point lower on the dice, he would have missed the Giant entirely.

6: Damage - Each weapon, spell, and other attack type has a damage rating. This number is simply applied to the target as damage, when a hit connects. Physical damage is reduced by the target's Toughness, magical damage is reduced by the target's Spirit. The final damage is the weapon or attack damage, minus the appropriate defensive attribute. Note that it is possible to hit, but fail to do any damage if the opponent is too well armored, or the attack is too weak. A pistol is simply not going to penetrate tank armor.

Characters recive a damage bonus for making a particularly well-placed hit. Every point that an attack exceeded the defender's dodge roll adds to the damage. So if a character rolled 4 higher than what they needed to hit, they would apply 4 extra damage to the target. Accuracy counts, but only on physical attacks. Magical attacks don't recive any extra damage for a well-placed hit. On the other hand, magical attacks are nearly impossible to dodge.

Ehlric's damage for his staff is 12 (His Strength of 8 + 4 for the weapon type). Since he rolled exactly the Iron Giant's Dodge when attacking, he gets no bonus damage for accuracy. Unfortunently for Ehlric, the Iron Giant has a Toughness of 15! This has really not been Ehlric's day, and he's dissapointed to see his staff bounce off the steel hide of the giant with no effect at all.

If he'd rolled better, and gotten 4 or more above the Giant's dodge of 6, he would have had enough accuracy to place his staff blow on a weak point in the armor, and would have managed to do at least a little damage.

The next round, at the beginning of the round, Ehlric decides he's had enough of this, and casts Thunder. Fnord rolls the dice and adds them to Ehlric's Sorcery Action Value of 10. The Iron Giant, fearful of electricity, attempts to dodge.

Fnord rolls a 2, and so his final result is 12. The Iron Giant has a Magic Evade attribute of 1, and even with dodging, it only rises to 4. The Iron Giant has no hope of escaping the lightning bolt, and Ehlric grins as the Giant fries.

The Thunder spell has a damage of 15 (Ehlric's Sorcery AV +5), and the Iron Giant's Spirit is 7. Normally the Iron Giant would suffer 8 damage, but it is weak to lightning. Against lightning attacks, it's spirit is reduced to 3, so the Giant takes 12 damage!

7: Actions Carrying Over - When a character reaches the end of a round, and doesn't have enough shots to perform another full action, but still has some shots left, one of two things happens.

If the action is a regular 4 Shot combat action, or shorter, the character can take the action normally, and ignore the lack of extra shots. For instance, there is no penalty for performing a 4 shot regular attack when the character has only 3, 2, or even 1 shot remaining. However, as soon as the character hits 0 shots, no further actions can be taken, not even dodging.

If the action is a longer one, for instance Summoning a GF, which takes around 8 shots normally, the action would have carried over to the next round, resulting in an initiative penalty.

Ehlric finds himself at the end of yet another round against the tough Giant, with only 2 shots left. He figures he might as well start summoning Infernus now, and so he begins the summoning action.

Summoning is a 8 shot action, and Ehlric only has 2 shots left. Fnord starts the summoning as normal, and notes that Ehlric is out of shots for the round*. The next round, he rolls initiative for Ehlric as usual, and gets a 13. However, he's 6 shots in debt from the last round, and so he has to reduce his initiative to 7.

If he'd cast another spell at the Giant instead, he wouldn't have to reduce his initiative, since 4 shot or shorter actions don't carry over to the next round.

8: Summery - Combat proceeds as follows above, until one side or another is defeated or runs away. What happens when a character reaches zero hit points will be covered in the section on Health and Misc rules. Below is a list of common combat actions, their shot cost, and a brief description of how the mechanics of them work.

Action	Shot Cost	Description
Attack	4	A regular attack can be a physical attack with either a melee weapon or a ranged weapon. The player rolls the dice and adds it to the appropriate action value, Martial Arts or Weapon Focus for melee weapons, Guns or Weapon Focus for ranged attacks. The attack succeeds if it equals or exceeds the target's Dodge rating. Critical failures include anything from hitting a friend to dropping a weapon, to breaking a cruicial bit of equipment.
Cast Spell	4	Any spell being cast from a Spell Matrix counts under this type of action. If the target is willing, in the case of a healing spell, for instance, the caster simply needs to get any positive result, after rolling. Even a 1 succeeds. On unwilling targets, as is the case with most damage and status spells, the caster has to roll equal to or higher than the target's Magic Evade attribute. Critical failures usualy explode in the caster's face in a particularly unpleasant way. Spells can only be cast on targets that the caster has a line of sight with, transparant walls can be cast through, opaque ones cannot. Fogs and blinding effects do not prevent someone from casting, only solid AND opaque barriers do so. A mage can hit any target within his Sorcery AV x 3, measured in yards. So a caster with a Sorcery AV of 15 can hit targets within 45 yards.
Draw Spellshards	4	To draw a Spellshard, the player rolls and adds the result to the character's Sorcery action value. In order to successfuly draw a Shard, the final result must equal or exceed the target's Spirit or Magic Evade, whichever is higher. Success means that the character has drawn the targeted Spellshard into his Spell Matrix. Failure simply means that he must try again, if he really wants that shard. Critical failures prevent the character from ever drawing from that particular monster again.
Sense Spellshards	2	To sense the presence of Spellshards, and determine what they are, the player rolls and adds the result to the character's Awareness action value. The difficulty is the target's Magic Evade attribute. Success means that the character can identify all the draw-capable spellshards that the target has. Failure means the character must try again. On a critical failure, the character will be unable to sense anything meaningful about that particular monster for a full moon cycle.
Reloading a Gun	1-5	Reloading a Pistol takes 1 shot, reloading an automatic rifle or SMG takes 3 shots, and Reloading a Shotgun, Rifle, or Revolver takes 5 shots.
Using an Item	3	To use an item, such as a healing potion or some other such useful thing, the character simply spends three shots, and declares an intention to use the item. Potions and other "normal" items can be used automaticaly. Targeting an unwilling recipient of an item requires the Guns, Weapon Focus, or Martial Arts skill, whichever the player wishes to use. The difficulty is the Dodge rating of the unwilling target, and success means the item was used correctly. On a failure, or critical failure, the item is usualy just lost. However, some items that mimic spells or destructive effects can be dangerous on a critical failure.
Summon GF	10 + Variable	Summoning a Guardian Force is one of the most time consuming things a character can do. Each Guardian Force has a shot cost of up to 10 just to summon it, and then the actual Guardian Force ability has a Shot Cost as well. It's not impossible for a character to spend an entire combat round or even part of a second round just to summon a GF. However, the increadible power of these spirits often makes it worth it. More information on Guardian Forces will be avaliable in the section devoted to them. The compatability of a character with his GF is always subtracted from the shot cost to summon, but not from the shot cost to use the actual ability.

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