Starting Combat

Combat starts in two ways: 1. within a Combat area, the enemy can see you, you can see them - it's obvious you are going to fight. Or, 2. by surprise when someone attacks another sometimes out of the blue. Using proper hide rules, this can be an ambush. Once Combat starts you determine Initiative.

Initiative is grouped up into teams how many forces are working together, everyone rolls Agility whoever rolls the highest makes it their teams turn. The person who rolled the highest can also go first or choose who on their team can go first, either when you are out of actions or don’t want to spend them all just yet you can past the baton to someone else on your team or even on the enemy team if all your teammates agree. 

While its another teams turn you can still use reactionary abilities whenever you wish. There are ways to bring the Initiative back to your team, with a successful reaction. This will take the turn back to your team and allow you to act again. 

At the end of every round everyone rolls Agility again to see who goes first.

Actions

During Combat you are given three Actions. Certain Abilities or conditions may change this. Actions are used whenever you’d like to do something within Combat. Some Actions can only be taken on your turn, while others can be used in reaction to something else. Either way, they always use one of your Actions.  During a Chase, you get Chase Actions equal to one-fifth of your movement. More information about Chases is listed in the Chase section. 

Attacking

Attacking is the most common Action taken in Combat. To Attack you use one of your Special Skills: in most cases you use Martial when using a weapon, Magic when casting a Spell and Divine when using your Powers. 

Attacks are split between Physical, Light and Mental. Physical go against your opponent’s Physical Armour; Light against Light Armour, and Mental against Mental Armour. Physical and Light attacks can either be Ranged or Melee, while Mental attacks all work the same. Find more detail in the Attack rules section.

Calm 

When someone around you has to do a Mind Save, you can spend an Action to help them, adding half your Diplomacy  to the roll they do as long as they’re within your range. 

Cure 

When someone around you has to do an Endurance Save you can spend an Action to help them, adding half your Medicine to the roll they do as long as you’re right next to them. 

Disengage

When you are standing right next to an enemy, you are considered Engaged with them. While Engaged, you must be cautious; certain things might trigger an Opportunity. Things like Moving Away, Casting a Spell, or using two Actions in a row that aren’t attacking the enemy can all allow them to trigger Opportunity. To prevent this from happening on your turn, you can Disengage; but if the opponent Disengages they can’t take Opportunity on you. 

Grappling

In Combat, it might be beneficial to grab an opponent and keep them locked in for your allies to beat up. On your turn, use an Action to grab your opponent, and use roll Athletics against their pack. If you succeed you and they gain the Restrained Condition; with the caveat that you can still move half your Movement and spend an Action to make the person you grappled use the Protect reaction on you.  On your enemy’s turn they can spend an Action to make an opposing roll again. If they repeat this roll they gain a Plenty; repeat it again, a Plenty +.  Grappling is Shatterable. 

For Grappling entities much larger then you, you may work together with your team to pin the entity. If the companied size of everyone equals that of the entities you will have it grappled.

Help

Help Actions can be done to assist those around you when they are making a Skill Check, but not an Attack. Add half of your score for that Ability or use half your Diplomacy. Someone must accept Help for the Help Action to work. The Lightbringer can determine if the Help Action can’t be taken. Some general rules: you must be next to the person you are helping or at least be within range of them.  The Help Action is great to use outside of Combat and should be used during group rolls; for example; Looking Around or Everyone Hiding. 

Hiding

Hiding is a way to gain advantages in Combat. On your turn you can spend an Action to hide yourself or something, you roll a Stealth check against the opponent’s passive Perception. To hide you must be Obscured from the person you are hiding from, or be able to come off as being defeated. As long as you are Obscured you stay hidden from the opponent. You can move around half your Movement. 

When you successfully Hide, you gain a Bounce + to your Attack roll. As long as the Attack is direct, the opponent can’t use Reactions against your Attack. Once you’ve Attacked someone you count as being Revealed to your opponents and must Hide again unless you defeat the opponent.  

If you enter Combat hidden and land a direct hit on an enemy, you cause everyone on the opposing team to gain the Dazed condition. This is called an Ambush. 

How’s it Looking?

Once per round, a player can call to make a Medicine Check against the opponent’s Stealth Passive to get a general idea on how the opponent is looking. If they are over ¾ HP they are good; 2/4 alright; ¼ bloodied and when in the Dim Light state. 

Interact

The Interact Action is a catch-all Action whenever you want to interact with anything: press a button, use an item, pick a pocket, open a door, etc. Interacting with someone costs an Action and sometimes might cause you to do a Roll Check to see if it will succeed.

Look

Sometimes in combat someone or something is hidden from you, you can spend an action to roll Perception to spot something hidden. 

Move 

You can spend additional Actions to replenish your Movement. 

Opportunity 

Opportunity is a special Reaction, in which it can’t be used as one you must spend an action on Opportunity, it triggers when someone does one of the following things while they are within Melee range to your character: Try to move away from you, or passed you, try to use a Ranged Attack on you, try to cast a Spell (Magic), or spend two Actions in a row not attacking you. You get to do a special Attack on them with a +2 to roll. With an Indirect Hit, you deal no damage, while on a Direct Hit brings the turn back to your team.  

Shove 

You can spend an Action to Shove an opponent. Roll Athletics against your opponent's PAC. On a Direct Hit they are moved back one space + another space for every size larger you are then them.

Team Attack

When someone calls for a Team Attack, choose a target on the battlefield; as many allies as you want can join this team attack as long as they aren’t standing in an adjustaent space to an enemy that ins’t the team attacks target. The person who calls the Team Attack will do the Attack roll and everyone else will help that roll with the Help Action (without spending an Action). The person who calls the Team Attack determines the Armour class the Team Attack is going against. Everyone in the Team Attack loses as many Actions as they spent on their own Attack.

Each character may take part in a Team Attack once around, Mental attacks can’t be used in a team attack.  Great for having lots of enemies act when they’re attacking one target. 

Trip

You can roll an opposing Acrobatics check versus your opponent’s Acrobatics or Athletics to try to trip them up. When they are Tripped, they fall prone. 

Reactions

When an Action is used against you, you may use a Reaction. You have infinite Reactions, but after your first you gain a -1 every time you use another Reaction this resets every new round.  Reactions have the benefits of denying Damage, but each one has a risk to it. You always have the choice to just take the hit. You can choose to spend one of your Actions with your Reaction to ignore any negatives you might have and give you a +2 to the roll. 

I recommend having a piece of scrap paper beside you to make checks to keep track of every Reaction you use. 

Clashing

Clashing is a way to not just avoid Damage, but to deal Damage to the person who attacked you. When you are attacked you can use an attack of your own to Clash the opponent as long as their attack roll would deal damage or counts as a Shove, Grapple, Touch or Trip. Whoever rolls the highest wins the Clash 

(It’s good practice to tell a player they are going to be attacked before rolling so they can decide if they are going to React.)

If you win your Clash, you do no Damage if it’s an Indirect Hit and half on a Direct Hit. If you lose a Clash and the opponent has an Indirect Hit it becomes Direct; and a Direct Hit for them gains their Damage Modifier again. 

You can Clash Melee Attacks with Melee Attacks, but Range Attacks can only be clashed with Melee Attacks. If you want to deal Damage after winning a Clash against a Ranged Attack, you must be able to reach the opponent with your remaining Movement. Ray Attacks such as Lines or Cones can only be clashed by other Ray Attacks. 

Dodging

Dodging is one of the ways you can avoid all Damage from an Attack. You will do a contested roll against the attacker’s roll using your Acrobatics if you Dodge out of the way, and can move two spaces. To Dodge an Attack you must be able to move away from the Attack with those two  spaces of Movement. Moving away with a Dodge doesn't cause an Opportunity.

Mercy

When an enemy is about to attack, you can do an opposing Diplomacy roll to beg for your life. This goes against the opponents MAC, dose not work on entities who are acting with Unhonourable motives or have no sense of honour.

Protect

This reaction while counts to the reactions you’ve used that round doesn't require a roll. As long as you have movement to spare you may get in front of a hit for your ally taking the damage for yourself. The person attacking gets a +2 added to their attack for hitting you.

Attack & Damage Types

There are three main Attack types in God Marked: Physical, Light and Mental. Abilities that are Attacks will say what kind of Attack they are. Weapons by standard are Physical.  

Attack Roll: An attack roll is any roll that goes agasint someones PAC LAC or MAC. 

Physical Attacks: Go against the opponent’s PA (Physical Armour)

Light Attacks: Go against the opponent’s LA (Light Armour) 

Mental Attacks: Go against the opponent’s MA (Mental Armour). You can’t Dodge or Clash a Mental Attack.  

There are many different Damage types in God Marked. Abilities will state what Damage type they are if you deal one type of damage equal to someone’s focus threshold and over 25 points of damage they will gain a condition if stated.

Abyssal: Adds to another making it ignore residences or immunities. 

Blunt: Dazed Condition.

Collision: This special damage type comes from when two entities or objects hit each other.

Fire: Burn condition.

Frigid: Restricted condition.

Lightning: Paralyzing condition

Poison: If poison damage can either stand on it’s own or add to another damage type, if added to another damage type or something that causes a condition the poison will make the condition last multiple rounds. A cure action or an endurance opposed roll must be made against the set skill level determine by 10+ the modifier used to cause the condition.

Celestial:  Celestial Damage adds to another, making it ignore resistances or immunities.

Stab: Pierced condition.

Slash: Bleeding condition.

Armour, Hits & Defence

When you first build a character on your sheet, you will see three different types of Armours: Physical, Light and Mental. Each base starts at 10, adding your Athletics mod to Physical, Arcana mod to Light, and Mind mod to Mental. When you are attacked, an enemy is trying to get over your Armour; if they do, they get a Direct Hit; if they don’t they get an Indirect Hit. 

Direct Hits mean you do full Damage; Indirect Hit means you take half damage.

Defence is special: you don’t start with any Defence but there is one for each Armour. Whenever someone on their roll goes under your Defence and then with their Modifiers doesn't beat your Armour, they deal no Damage or do no effects to you at all with an Ability. Defence can’t go above 20. 

Armour Health is a second health bar you can gain. You can’t stack Armour Health, only gaining it from one source. If your normal HP is 0, Armour Health won’t bring you back from the Dim Light state.

Conditions

Conditions are things placed onto your character that will cause effects to them either good or bad. Conditions unless stated otherwise in an ability last until your teams first turn next round. 

Bleeding: When you have the bleeding condition every space you move or are moved  you take a d6 of damage. 

Burn: The burn condition causes the person with it to take the attack modifier of whoever causes it to damage every action that is spent.

Confusion: When under this condition all direct hits count as indirect, when you make an indirect hit you end up doing the attack to yourself and a crit fail you end up hitting an ally. 

Dazed: When hit with the dazed condition you can’t take any actions are forced out ofd your team's turn and can only act once everyone else has spent their actions. 

Heavily Obscured: With this condition your range is changed to 1, you have a plenty + to all your Perception checks and attacks. When you have this condition you deal no damage/no effects on indirect hits. Anyone can hide from you. 

Immune: the Immune condition means you are immune to a certain damage that it specifies. 

Paralysing: When paralysed you lose an action and your movement. When you do a save against the condition every 5 under the save is another action you will lose. 

Resitent: When you are resistant to something you take no damage on indirect hits and half on direct. 

Restrained: While Restrained you are unable to move, you can use weapons, but can’t add your  Martial to the roll or damage Modifier & when casting a spell you count as disarmed from your focus . You can still use powers. All attacks on a Restrained enemy count as a direct attack. You can spend only one action a round to try to break out of the restraints. If someone is Restrained for 3 rounds in a row without breaking free, they can no longer try to break out. If the last opponent is restrained and they have no way of attacking anyone, combat ends.

Obscured: With this condition your range is halved, you have plenty on all Perception checks.

Pierced: A pierced targets PA & LA go down by half the Modifier of whatever pierced them. 

Slowed: A slowed creature has to spend double their movement to do anything, on a flying creature they fall from the Sky when slowed is infected.

Cover

When behind an object that is at least 2 tall and a space wide, you are covered. Ranged attacks can’t go through cover, as well AOE won’t hit you unless they specifically go around Cover.  Characters 2 sizes larger count as cover to characters smaller then them. Cover also breaks line of sight good for hiding.

Damage of Objects

Objects in God Marked do damage when thrown, dropped or otherwise hit someone in some way with force. Objects do damage based on size if it's not a weapon. Objects hit everything based on the size they are. 

A one space sphere does a d6, you add a d6 for each space bigger the object becomes. Once it makes it past 10 space spheres it will do double damage. When attacked with an object you can use anything with an object breaker to try and break the object before it hits you.

Dim Light State

When a character hits 0hp they enter the Dim Light State, when you enter this state a few things happen. Any powers you were using that don’t leave permanent effects shatter, for example a Metal champions vehicle would shatter, but not a wall they made with mould metal. 

You also get a choice when you enter this state to Lay, Stand, or Final blow.

Lay: If you choose to lay you are prone, if you get attacked you can’t be killed unless it goes over your respective Armour Class, you get one action and move half your movement. If you stay rested for three rounds you exit the dim Light state with one hp but a state of tiredness. Most enemies aren’t out for murder and will tend to leave you alone if you leave them alone in this state. 

Stand: If you choose to keep fighting you keep all your movement and actions, you can’t be killed unless its a direct hit or equal to your focus threshold. 

Lay & Stand are an agreement between the players and gm. If the player chooses to rest they’re saying they don’t want to die here, if the player chooses to keep fighting they’re saying they’re willing to take the risk of death. Try to respect this & make it clear if your players are going into a fight where resting isn’t an option. 

Final Blow: You can do one last attack that counts as a Supermie critical no matter what. You die after this. 

Team Work

Your greatest tool in combat is Team work there are two way working as a team can really help sway the path of battles that aren’t just team attacks.

Surrounding

You are able to surround enemies in God Marked making combat against them easier. You gain a plus 1 to your attack roll for every additional person that is one space from the enemy when you attack. Up to a plus 5 in total. 

Dogging

Alternatively, you gain a plus one for every different teammate who attacks in a row un interrupted on the same target, up to a plus 5 in total.