Attack

Use the attack action to harm someone in a conflict or take them out of a scene. The attack action is the most straightforward of the four actions—when you want to hurt someone in a conflict, it’s an attack. An attack isn’t always physical in nature; some skills allow you to hurt someone mentally as well.
Most of the time, your target will actively oppose your attack. Passive opposition on an attack means you’ve caught your target unaware or other wise unable to make a full effort to resist you, or the NPC isn’t important enough to bother with dice.
In addition, passive or not, the opposition always counts as a defend action so you can look at these two actions as being inexorably intertwined.
• When you fail at an attack, you don’t cause any harm to your target. (It also means that your target succeeded on the defend action, which could get you get saddled with other effects.)
• When you tie an attack, you don’t cause any harm, but you gain a boost.
• When you succeed on an attack, you inflict a hit on your target equal to the number of shifts you got. That forces the target to try and “buy off” the value of your hit by taking stress or consequences; if that’s not possible, your target gets taken out of the conflict.
• When you succeed with style on an attack, it works like a normal success, but you also have the option to reduce the value of your hit by one to gain a boost as well.
Cynere is locked in combat with Drisban, one of the famed Scarlet Twenty, the elite guard of Antharus. In her inimitable fashion, Cynere attempts to slice him open with her flashing blade. Cynere’s Fight skill is at Good (+3). Drisban defends with his Fight at Great (+4). Lily rolls and gets a +2, for a Superb (+5) attack. Amanda rolls for Drisban and gets a –1, bringing his total to Good (+3). Lily wins by two, inflicting a 2-shift hit. But she decides that isn’t good enough. “I’m also invoking Infamous Girl With Sword,” she says, “because for heaven’s sake, this is what I do, and I’m not letting this punk off easy.” Lily chips in her fate point, making her final result Epic (+7). She gets 4 shifts and succeeds with style, cutting into him with flourish. She chooses to inflict a 4-shift hit, but she could also have inflicted a 3-shift hit and taken a boost, if she’d wanted to. Now Drisban needs to use stress or consequences to stay in the fight!