Combat Rules Acquired


I'm just going to paste them all right here for now, I'm at work and through these together on the clock. Shh!


COMBAT

Combat in Cavehaven, without any other rules, begins when a hostile party attacks another. Each party involved makes a Skill (Attribute) Check to determine action order (Highest acts first, and then in descending order).

Player characters have Attributes and accumulate Stress. Monsters (and other enemy combatants) do not. Instead, enemies have a number of Hits they can endure before they either run, surrender, go berserk, or some other condition. A swarm of bats reduced to 0 Hits, for example, will scatter, flying away for their lives in every direction, but a brown bear might become frenzied, recovering a number of Hits and fighting to the death!

Enemy combatants often have special attacks or effects, for example, a green slime is poisonous and can corrode lesser metal weapons. While most enemy attacks can inflict Stress on a player character's Might or Skill Attributes, certain psychic or morale based attacks will Stress players' Will or Luck. In fact, at any time a gamemaster/storyteller is free to describe any enemy attack as inflicting a more morale or even fear based sort of Stress at their discretion, applying the Stress to Will or Luck. Perhaps the attack didn't truly damage the character's body in any way, but the threat of the character's mortality is beginning to set in?

On each creature's Turn that creature may move and perform a single Action. After every creature has acted in turn, if both sides are still standing and remain hostile the Round ends and another begins, starting over at the top of Turn order and proceeding through again, repeating until hostilities have concluded.

Combat is inherently stressful. Until a player character has become Battlescarred, every combat encounter they finish, victoriously or not, inflicts 1 Stress to that character to an Attribute if the player's choice.

A player character becomes Battlescarred after it has killed two sentient creatures they have a mortal fear of. Battlescarred creatures have trouble sleeping and enjoy 1 fewer Relief from all Stress relieving items, effects, and activities.

Files

CHECKS.rtf 10 kB
Feb 02, 2022
ItchDoc_v0.0531_LivingAlpha.pdf 6 MB
Feb 10, 2022

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An Action is defined as anything with an uncertain outcome that requires a Check to resolve. Sometimes even moving may require a Check, such as attempting to leap a chasm in the middle of combat, or navigating a slippery surface. In some of those cases, perhaps a successful Check made for movement on a player's turn will award them a bonus Action to take, such as if a player wishes to make a leaping attack, as merely one example. The gamemaster/storyteller is encouraged to reward clever and daring play and players are encouraged to ask if a successful movement Check might offer them a bonus Action on their Turn.