4. Combat and Equipment

Table of Contents

Combat

Rounds and Turns

Combat is counted in rounds. Rounds are narratively abstract, and typically represent from 5 to 10 seconds in-character time. A round finishes after every character has taken their turn. In the Unchained system, everything happens simultaneously during a round. Therefore, turn order is purely narrative and largely adjudicated by the GM and players involved. If for some reason an initiative order is needed, each character participating in combat rolls 2d6 + Finesse + any other relevant bonuses, rerolling in case of ties.
Enemies go whenever the GM decides they go; usually, for a single enemy, this is either before or after all player characters take their turn. Multiple enemies can be staggered into player initiative, so players and enemies alternate on taking actions. Regardless of what happens in a turn, HP damage and healing only apply at the end of the turn.

Actions and Reactions

On your turn, you can take an action. Any move that buffs, debuffs, or damages a character, or interacts with an object is an action. The most common actions you can take are Attacking in Melee or at Range, using a Force Power, or using a special ability granted to you by your class. As part of your action, you can talk, move, or both. Feel free to be as descriptive as you want with your action, and add whatever flourishes you like. An Attack roll, for instance, can be an aimed shot with a sniper rifle, a flurry of Lightsaber slashes, a punch and a kick, or some combination thereof.
On an enemy’s turn, you can take a reaction. Any move that is described as a reaction, can be taken as a reaction. The most common reactions you can take are Defend and Avoid Harm, allowing you to block or dodge the enemy’s attack. You only have one reaction per enemy. If there is a single enemy, you have a single reaction each round; if there are five enemies, then you can take five reactions.

Enemies

Enemies are not characters like the players control. They have no stats or moves as player characters do, beyond a number of hit points and damage values for each of their abilities, assigned to them by the GM. In addition, unlike player characters, who only have one turn each round, and one action on their turn, enemies can perform more than a single action on their turn. However, no enemy should ever target a player character more than once with an ability on its turn. Consider enemies as much more akin to obstacles the GM uses to impose skill challenges upon the players, than a conventional combat encounter in D&D or a similar game.
On average, if an encounter consists of a single enemy, that enemy should have at least as many Hit Points as the total number of Hit Points of all players present at the scene, up to as many attacks or similar abilities as there are players, and should not deal more damage than half as much as the most powerful player. Encounters with multiple enemies, however, can use large numbers of weaker enemies as well. A troop of cheap mercenaries could reasonably be composed of individual enemies that each have 2 hit points and deal 2 damage, for instance, allowing players with even small amounts of experience to cut through them with ease without getting seriously injured.

Distance and Engagement

The Unchained system does not use numerical measurements of range and distance. Therefore, in a combat scene, a character’s position relative to other characters is defined as either Engaged, Close, or Far:

• Two characters are Engaged if they can hit each other with melee attacks.

• Two characters are Close if either can move and attack the other in melee within 1 action.

• Two characters are Far if they are a significant distance from one another, and thus must use their entire action to move within melee reach, without having time to attack.

GMs always have the final say on character positioning.

Non-lethal Damage

By default, all damage is lethal. However, attacks with certain weapons offer non-lethal options. An unarmed attack, the stun setting on a blaster, or a bludgeon to the head, for example. A character that wants to nonlethally defeat a target can declare they’re using a nonlethal method when delivering a killing blow. In this case, if the attack drops the target to 0 HP, the target treats a result of 6- on their Defy Death roll as a 7. If the target is an NPC, the GM can simply decide if they are conscious or unconscious.
Some weapons don’t have nonlethal options, such as Lightsabers (besides training sabers used by younglings) or explosives. Therefore, characters who conventionally wield these weapons may have to switch to a less effective option if they want to engage in combat nonlethally.

Duels

Dueling is a specific form of contest between players characters, When two or more players initiate combat with each other, they participate in a duel.
Player characters engaging in a duel determine their order of actions by rolling initiative. On your turn, you designate another player character to attack, and you make a roll to Attack in Melee, Attack at Range, use a Class move, or use a Force Power against the target. The targeted player uses their reaction to Defend, Avoid Harm, Resist Influence, or use any Class move or Force Power that can be used as a reaction.
Like any contest between players, failure and qualified success thresholds are disregarded, and instead rolls are compared between two players. Specifically, use the following rules to decide what happens when one player character Attacks another:

• If the attacker rolled higher, the attacker damages the target as if rolling a 10+. the Critical Strike and Sharpshooter talents can be applied if the result is 13+.

• If the target rolled higher, the attack misses, and deals no damage.

• If the attacker and target tie, the target chooses one of the following:
• The attack deals half damage
• The target deals half its damage to the attacker.

Posting Etiquette

In any text-based combat scene, it’s essential to keep posts streamlined to keep things moving at a steady pace. Because of this, each dice roll should correspond to a single text post. For example, if you wish to make a melee or ranged attack against a target, you should declare your intent and make the roll in the appropriate dice channel first, in order to get a total result. Then, based on the result, narrate whether you hit, miss, or hit but incur a complication. Avoid describing a “wind up” to an attack before knowing your results first.
The format of one post per dice roll not only makes quests and events much easier to follow, but also avoids the problem of anticlimactic attacks, where a character might spend several minutes describing an elaborate attack routine, only to miss horribly on the roll.

Equipment

Equipment in the Unchained System is largely abstracted into broad categories for simplicity and ease of play. Unique effects for specific weapons are typically the purview of Class Moves or GM discretion, unless otherwise noted. Each weapon category has a base damage which is added to your character’s relevant stat modifiers when making melee and ranged attacks respectively. An attack’s damage is subsequently reduced if the target is wearing any type of armor. If an attack’s damage is low enough, armor may soak the damage dealt entirely.

Weapons

• Unarmed Attacks: Unarmed attacks have a base damage of 0.

• Regular Weapons: Simple melee weapons such as vibroblades and light ranged weapons such blasters have a base damage of 1.

• Heavy Weapons: Massive melee weapons and heavy ranged weapons such as sniper rifles and heavy blasters have a base damage of 2.

• Lightsabers: Lightsabers have a base damage of 2, and ignore all armor that isn’t made from Cortosis, Beskar, or a similarly resistant material.

• Unwieldy Weapons: Large, fixed emplacements such as artillery or turrets typically have a base damage of 3 or even more (subject to GM discretion), but do not add Finesse to total damage.

Armor

• Light Armor: Light armor reduces damage taken by 1.

• Heavy Armor: Heavy armor reduces damage taken by 2, but typically imposes the Clumsy Bane, unless you have moves to negate it.
• This penalty typically applies on movement-based rolls such as Hide, Trick, and other agility-related Moves at the GM’s discretion.

Resistance and Vulnerability

Some entities or materials may be particularly resistant or vulnerable to certain types of damage, in which case the GM may choose to increase or decrease damage taken from such sources, though typically by no more than 1 or 2 points. For example, droids may be particularly vulnerable to electrical attacks and thus may take additional damage from a Sith’s lightning or an electrostaff.

Tools

Characters are always assumed to have all tools necessary for facilitating their typical skill set unless stated otherwise. For example, a slicer is always assumed to possess an array of analyzers, dataspikes and other items needed to perform their work. However, if the story has granted a character an item of extraordinary benefit to a particular task, the GM will typically grant them a Boon to represent it. Similarly, if events in a scene lead a character to lack the tools necessary to perform a task efficiently, the GM should impose a relevant Bane.