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[edit] Additional Rules

Combat can be tricky or it can be simple, use the style that fits both your group and your style of play. Do not be a rules hog if you do not want to. You're the DM, you're the God, if players do not like how you roll, they don't have to play. The following section is a set of other rules and abilities characters can do while in combat.

[edit] HP and PE Reduction

When an opponent strikes a target with a weapon or spell, damage is accumulated. If enough damage is sustained, the character will die. This happens when the character reaches below 0 HP. However, there are steps to help protect the character from that.

A orc strikes Phil with a great sword. He failed to dodge the attack so he takes the full brunt of the blade. The orc does 26 points of damage to him. The damage is first subtracted from his ST of the armor he is wearing (see Structure System). Once after, Phil can reduce the damage he will receive. His AC is 11 which is first subtracted from the damage, bringing it to 15 points. He then subtracts the damage from his DEF which is only a 3. The remaining 8 points of damage is subtracted from his HP.

That’s a lot better than 26 points of damage!

Armor and defense is important in keeping the character alive. However, your armor and DEF only protects you from physical attacks. Magical damage can only be reduced by resistances, and MGD (Magic Defense). Magical damage does not, however, hurt your armor unless the spell or effect says it does.

Whenever you cast a spell or use a special ability, chances are you will have to pay a PE cost. All the spells in the world of geomancy are divisible by 5 which makes it very easy to work with (it’s why reducing the PE cost is only done in increments of 5). Before the character actually uses the special ability, the cost is first reduced. It does not matter if the spell works, hits, a target, or is successful. If the spell is cast, the PE is used up.

[edit] Jumping

All characters can jump when in light load. If a character is under a heavy load, they cannot jump. Character's can jump their STR in half upwards and their AGI in half across. If character's have a running start (at least 10'), they can jump their STR up and their AGI across.

[edit] Prone

Characters who are prone cannot attack with ranged weapons and can only attack with melee weapons. However they do so at a -4. All characters hitting the target who is prone do so with a +4. It takes one full round action to get back up.

[edit] Death and Dying

When a character reaches 0 HP, they are considered disabled. They cannot attack, move, or defend themselves. Once they reach -1 HP, by being attacked again, they are considered dying and are still disabled but lose an additional -1 HP every round until they stabilize or are healed above 0 HP.

If characters reach -10 HP they are considered dead and must be resurrected via a spell or item. The White Mage class is the only place to find Resurrection and Revival spells and abilities. Some items can be imbued with the ability to revive, but they all stem from those spells.

[edit] Stabilizing

Once a character has been knocked below 0 HP, he begins to lose -1 HP every round until -10. However, every round, the character can attempt to stabilize and prevent any further decay of damage. To do this, the character must make a CON DC 15 that increases every round they fail by +2

Ex: Phil has been knocked unconscious. For the first round, he does not lose HP because he was just knocked unconscious. However, the following round after, he can make a CON DC save and attempt to stabilize. Failure means he loses -1 HP. He rolls a 10 and misses the chance to stabilize this round so he takes -1 HP. On the next round his DC is a 17 and rolls a 18. He stabilizes and no longer loses any HP.

Magic that heals will not bring the character back above 0 HP. Instead, magical healing (from potions too) will bring the character to 0 HP and prevents them from losing damage. The character is still unconscious though until another heal spell is used or rest is gained. The healing skill can also stabilize a character.

[edit] Combat Time

Combat time and game time are two completely separate things with loose formulas to help players and DM’s accordingly.

In combat, there are two things to remember: a Turn, and a Round.

Turns
A turn is one character’s set of events or actions. This includes any one action from the combat list, drinking a potion, casting a spell, or any other set of events. A turn is limited though; a character could not have a full dialog with another character on their turn. They could say a few things but not too much. A turn, in real time, is around 3 seconds. The whole point of the AGI DC increasing for multiple attacks is that simple, it’s trying to squeeze in many strikes into an opponent within that time window. Once the character has taken all of his actions, his turn is over and it goes to the next character’s turn.

Rounds
One round is when every monster, creature, and character in combat has taken one turn. One round is about 12-15 seconds of real time. Spells or items that last for rounds will last until that character has had X amount of turns.

The times don’t quite add up, especially when you are only dealing with two opponents or several large armies fighting. But the point of it is not to make combat time complex. It’s to help simplify things for the DM and to give the players insight on the time of combat. Most fights, even ones in real life, will never last more than a few minutes. Wars and large scale epic battles are something different though and no DM in their right mind would ever play out every single action done by all the players.

There are a lot of things a character can do in a turn, but they do have their limits. The list below are things that a character can do in one turn.

• Move up to his SPD and still attack, cast a spell that is instantaneous.
  
• Move his RUN but unable to attack or perform any other action.
  
• Drink one potion, (a AGI DC could not be used to gain another attack since the character is not striking an opponent).
  
• Say a few sentences and attack or move (not both).
  
• Use a skill that does not require more than one turn.
  
• Anything else must be OKed by the DM first.

[edit] Spell Durations

Many spell bonuses last as minutes instead of rounds. Generally a 5 minute buff or debuff will last the entire fight. Once the fight is over, the bonus is considered lost and must be recast. However if there are numerous fights one right after another, the bonus may carry over. While a round is roughly 15 seconds, these buffs will last maybe 5 minutes. While the majority of the time played will be in battles; however even powerful monsters usually never pass 15 even 20 rounds. This is such a small amount of time. A 5 minute buff/debuff would last the entire fight.

Rough DM’s can obviously keep track of the “round” to “time” ratio if they wish, but a simple rule would be for that a 5 minute buff to essentially last the fight and if there’s multiple fights, to affect them as well. Perhaps after a few waves or battles, the character isn’t even aware the buff disappears and in the middle of the fight, loses it! That can be up for the DM to decide but will help smooth gameplay and manage these bonuses better.

This also translates to many status effects or stat reducing abilities. It will allow that “Frostbite” or “Blind” status effect to really mean something and players and creatures will want ways to either prevent or cure these nasty abilities. It will also mean they are more deadly to pack around. A few of the status effects such as Stun and Confuse will always be based on rounds and not time.

[edit] Weather Effects

Weather affects the character's ability to travel. For the most part, the character's training has earned them no ill effect in combat. The only thing that comes into play is a character's speed and vision. These are optional rules of course and use them only if you see fit. Fog reduces the character's vision to a specific sight out. For example, light fog reduces the character's vision to all but 50' (so they could only see 50' out). Always round down for the speed reduction.

[edit] Extreme Weather

Lava is extremely hot, so hot that it deals a immeasurable amount of damage to the character who even touches it. The same is true for frozen wastes, acidic pools, giant sandstorms, and other types of naturally occurring effects that would otherwise be elemental. Characters can get around these effects with the help of magical resistances. Some types of effects can vary in strength and intensity. The list below determines the most damaging and horrendous natural calamity. Damage is dealt every round. Damage cannot be negated through magical resistances or Magic Defense unless the target is immune to that type of damage at which point they are considered immune to the weather's damage.

Resistance 0-4 - 4d12 damage
Resistance 5-8 - 4d10 damage
Resistance 9-12 - 4d8 damage
Resistance 13-16 - 4d6 damage
Resistance 17-20 - 4d4 damage
Resistance 21-25 - 2d6 damage
Resistance 26-30 - 2d4 damage
Resistance 31-35 - 1d4 damage
Resistance 36+ - None

Each weather effect deals a elemental damage. This is the resistance the damage is based off of. These are a sampling of weather effects, many different types of bizarre, otherworldly, and unique weather effects can occur.

Lava, Magma, Blazing Fire, Extreme Heat - Fire damage
Acrid pools, Swamp Gas, Noxious Poison - Nature damage
Blizzard, Rain Torrent, Water Vortex, Maelstrom - Ice damage
Sandstorm, Avalanche - Earth damage
Thunderstorm, Electric Arcs - Electric damage

[edit] Snares and Traps

The idea of placing ambushes and traps is an idea to struggle with in combat. There are two major hurdles in the way that prevent making traps in combat viable.

The idea of a trap is that it springs to life when a unknowing creature activates it. In combat, placing a trap is noticeable and targets, even upon entering the same space as the trap, can avoid it or even set the trap off with no harm. Ex: If a warrior places a bear trap in combat, all targets know where it's at and all a target would have to do is walk up and tap the spring with his sword. This is relatively difficult to overcome and as such is coupled with the point below.

Setting up a trap takes a decent amount of time. In combat, several rounds would be requires, entailing up to 60+ round for a mere 5 minutes. This further hinders their use for such a short and simple trap. But all is not lost.

Types of Hunting Traps consist of Bear trap, trip wire, sling/net, and pressure plates. These are the basic principals of a trap. Different variations and complexities of traps can be set up. Using Set Snares will help in setting up traps.