Structure of Combat

Combat is broken down into four phases, constituting what is called a round. Firstly Setting the Scene to give everyone at the table an idea of where their characters are currently fighting, against who they are battling it out and foreshadowing any event they will need to react to. Once the scene has been set, the players then discuss what they plan to do by Announcing Intent. Once each player has decided, the Game Moderation will begin Resolving Actions. At the end of the round the Environmental Actions are resolved. All these phases are repeated until there is a clear resolution to the encounter.

Setting the Scene

At the start of each round the Game Moderator provides a description of the scene, including details of the environment, zones and participants. Additionally, they can also provide a brief recap of the events that have recently transpired.

When setting the scene, it is a good idea to foreshadow some of the events that may transpire during the round, such as hearing the sounds of shouting and hoof-steps to indicate that more adversaries are about to join the encounter, or noticing dust and rocks beginning to tumble from the roof of a cave to symbolize a potential cave-in. All this information is critical for the players, so that they may make the most well-informed decision for what actions they intend to do.

Announcing Intent

After having the scene described, the players then have a brief period of time to discuss what they will be attempting to do during the current round of actions. Once the players have concluded their discussion, or the Game Moderator has decided that enough time has elapsed (this is a useful toll in situations where the characters wouldn't have much time to react to the situation), each player will announce what actions their character will attempt to perform. When announcing, the players do not have to determine the targets of their actions, just the action itself.

As an example...

Ellis is planning to use their sword to Strike a Goblin that they are currently engaged with. Ellis would announce that they are going to perform the Strike action during this round.

Knowing that Ellis is going to perform this action Jacklyn (another player at the table) may take the opportunity to assist by distracting the same Goblin with the Taunt action.

It is good to remember that each round of actions happens very quickly, usually within five to ten seconds. Because of this fast and chaotic pace, the players should try to resist discussing in-depth strategies with each other. That said, your game table may have differing preferences around the level of discussion that is allowed during the Announcing Intent phase. It is best to have a discussion around what is acceptable prior to starting a campaign, usually during a Session Zero event.

Performing Multiple Actions

Although a round of combat only lasts for a short amount of time, characters have the ability to perform more than one action, as long as they do not perform the same action multiple times (unless they have a talent, omen or some other condition that would allow it).

Additionally each action you perform imposes a compounding -2 penalty to each subsequent action in the round. Each penalty either reduces a single dice result's face value by 2 or the face value result of two dice by 1. Each dice can only be reduced down to a minimum of 1.

As an example...

Michael has chosen to perform two actions this round, their first action being to Intimidate a target and a second action to Strike a target. After perform the Intimidate action, Michael gains a -2 penalty to any additional action roll they make during this round.

When Michael makes their Strike action, they will need to make their skill roll and before announcing the result either reduce the result of one dice by 2 points or reduce the result of two dice by 1 point. Let's say that Michael rolls his dice and receives a 1, 4 and a 9. Since one of his result dice is already a 1 they cannot reduce the value of that dice any further. Michael has three options:

• they can apply the -2 penalty to the middle dice, reducing it from a 4 down to a 2. Since their other dice is an 9, Michael will still receive an omen , however their is a higher likelyhood that the outcome of the skill roll will be a failure.
• Michael may choose to reduce their 9 down to a 7, sacrificing their omen for a better chance of achieving a success
• or, they may choose to reduce both their 4 down to a 3 and their 9 down to an 8 which will still allow them to gain an omen, and a mediocre chance of success.

Since performing multiple actions adds an increasingly larger reduction to your dice outcome, players are encouraged to perform less actions during a round of combat. Performing many actions earlier in the round results in the player having a harder time defending themselves and fighting later in the round. Instead players should aim to either coordinate actions with each other ot spread out their actions across multiple rounds.

Instant Actions

In some cases, your character may be able to perform an action that has the Instant trait assigned to it. These actions are performed straight away and are considered to be part of the same action your character is performing. This means that instant actions to not incur the additional -2 penalty, which only applies after the current action has been resolved. When it comes to gaining Omens, since they are considered to be part of the same action, you cannot gain the benefits of an Omen you've already taken, even if it's listed as an option on the additional action, unless the Omen contains the Repeatable trait.

Under normal circumstances a character would not be able to perform the same action twice in a single round of combat, however this rule doesn't apply to instant actions. This means if you've already performed the Strike action and you gain an Omen that allows you to perform the Strike action as an instant action, then you can perform that action an additional time.

Alternative Form of Play

If you want to play things a bit differently it is possible to add a bit of secrecy and deception into this phase. Instead of having each player announce what action they intend to perform, have each player announce the type of action. For example if a player was intending to use the Reposition action, they would announce their intent to perform a Movement action type instead. The player will then need to remember what specific action they intended to perform when it comes around to resolving their action as they still are not able to change the specific action without incurring a penalty. This mode of gameplay works well when using Action Cards, as the players can then place their desired actions face down.

Resolving Actions

Once the players have announced their actions the Game Moderator will then begin to resolve those actions in the order of Influence Actions, Movement Actions, Interaction Actions, and lastly Combat Actions.

Actions of the same grouping, are then resolved from smallest distance between the character and the target to the largest distance (see Zone Ranges for more information of these distances). Starting with characters with a target they are engaged with. Secondly resolving actions for characters who has a target within Close range. Followed by the Near range, then Far range and lastly any in Distant range.

Resolving Triggered Actions

Triggered actions, can be resolved at any time when their Trigger condition has been met. For example, a character may immediately use the Defend action when that are being targeted by a combat action. As with any other kind of action, Triggered actions will also impose the -2 penalty each time they are used.

Environmental Actions

Lastly the Game Moderator will be able to engage any environmental actions (sometimes known as Lair Actions) which are happening around the characters. These environmental actions may or may not directly affect the player characters or the other participants in the scene. For example, debris falling from the roof of a cave or tunnels collapsing in on themselves, may require the players to consider moving their characters out of harms way. These environmental actions may also require the participants to take Triggered Actions in an attempt to not suffer consequences as a result of the environment.

As an example...

The party are attempting to cross a rickety wooden bridge high above a deep chasm. As an environmental action the wood planks beneath their feet give way and the players must make a jump to safety or suffer a tremendous fall into the chasm below.

Concluding Combat

TBD...

Movement and Positioning

Unlike many other TTRPGs, Contingency RPG does not utilize a grid or hex based system for tactical/combat encounters. Instead positioning has been abstracted into zones that represent a physical (or even non-physical) space, within which characters are considered to be freely moving about as they are performing their actions.

Zones

Zones are abstract representations of an area of space tha can be inhabited by player characters or other creatures and NPCs.

Zones may also have traits associated with them that can affect how the players interact and move through those spaces.

In the above example we have three different zones; Forrest Clearing, River Rapids and Narrow Corridor.

• The Forrest clearing has the Exposed trait, which might represent a lack of things for characters to hide behind, meaning that they may not be able to take the Hide or Take Cover actions.
• The River Rapids has the Forced Movement trait, which might represent the strong current of the river forcing the players to make a movement action each round or be swept downstream.
• And the Narrow Corridor has two traits, Limited Space and Intimidating, which might represent a lack of space limiting the number of characters that can be in the zone at the same time, as well as it being an intimidating space, which might require the characters to make a Focus triggered action roll in order to move into that zone.

Zone Ranges

Engaged

You are going toe-to-toe with another character/creature in close melee combat. If you are using miniature models or virtual tokens this is depicted by moving the two models/tokens so that their bases are touching.

Close

You and another character/creature are within the same zone, but are not currently engaged with each other.

Near

You and another character/creature are in different zones that are adjacent and connected to each other. Two zones may still be considered near to each other even if their direct connection has a barrier in-between, such as a locked door or high ledge.

Far

You and another character/creature are in different zones that are not adjacent to each other, but still have a connection.

Distant

You and another character/creature are widely spread apart in different non-connected zones. This would be up to a distance where they could still be visible to you, just very far away.

Zone Barriers

Not all zones are easily traversable and a character/creature may be required to perform a specific movement action to travel between two zones, such as jumping across a crevasse or climbing a ladder, of initially undergo an interaction action to unlock access to a given connection, such as lock picking or brute forcing open a door.

An an example...

Aial, an Avali Pugilist, is attempting to move across to an adjacent zone. However the zone has a barrier in the form of a wide crevasse which can be leaped over. The Game Moderator indicates that it is a Hard (6) difficulty, meaning that Aial will need to get a 6 or higher on a skill roll in order to jump across the crevasse.

Changing Landscapes

It is possible for zones to alter and change over the course of an encounter. Zones may have additional traits added or removed from them. Zone barriers may be created, destroyed or altered. New zones may appear or be created. Existing zones can be removed, split into smaller zone or even merged/combined.

As an example...

Nephis, a Human Hunter, is riding atop a horse drawn carriage and is attempting to jump across to another carriage while fending off goblins. At the start of the encounter the carriages are traveling side-by-side and it is an Easy (3) difficulty to leap across.

At the start of the next round, the carriages start to diverge increasing the gap between them. The difficulty to leap between the carriage could then be increased to Tricky (5) as they are further apart and still traveling at a high speed.

Taking a Step

As a part of one action each round, when your character is not engaged, they can choose to "Take a Step" in order to do one of the following things:

1. Move to an adjacent zone, as long as there is no barrier or skill check needed to do so

   

2. Move to become engaged with another adversary (or ally) that is currently in the same zone as you.

   

3. Move to interact with a device or object that is currently in the same zone as you.

   

Taking a step does count as movement, but is not considered a standalone action and hence does not impose the -2 penalty to further dice rolls in the round. As taking a step is not an action, you do not need to announce that you plan to do it during the Announcing Intent phase of the round.

If your character is restrained or unable to physically move about, then they cannot take a step. Additionally, taking a step must be performed as part of another action, so if your character is unable to perform their intended action (which is different from failing the skill roll for the action), then they cannot perform the step and must remain where they started from.

Repositioning

Although taking a step will enable characters to move about the map, moving just a single zone each round can become laborious when you need to move multiple zones. If needed your character can perform the Reposition action to move multiple zones during a round. When performing this action you make the associated skill roll, with the result of that roll representing a number of Movement Points, equal to 1 plus the result value, that you can spend to traverse the map. Under normal circumstances, moving between two zones, without a zone barrier in the way, will cost 2 Movement Points.

In the above example Shawn, a Scoundrel Elf, wants to reposition into the same zone as a creature that is 3 zones away. Shawn will need to perform the Reposition action, making a skill roll using their Agility attribute and Mobility skill. If Shawn was able to get a result of six (6) then they will have seven (7) Movement Points available to spend when moving across the map, allowing them to move up to three zones away.

Challenging Terrain

In the world not all terrain is created equally, and this concept can be applied to our combat zones as well. In some situations your zones may have movement modifiers applied to them, which will adjust the cost required for a character to move into, out of or across a zone.

When determining the additional Movement Point cost, take the higher value of either the zone your are moving out of or the zone you are moving in to. As an example, if the zone you are moving out of has an additional cost of +2 and the zone you are moving in to has an additional cost of +1 then the moving character will need to spend an additional 2 Movement Points on top of the requirement point spend (for a total of 4 Movement Points) in order to move into the next zone.

Helpful Tools

There can be a lot of things to track during a round of combat, which can make it easy to forget what actions your announced during the start of a round.

Action Cards

One way to help player track what they announced is to have a deck of cards that have their character's available actions printed on them. This way, at the start of the round, each player can select the action cards associated with the actions they intend to do, placing them on the table in front of them. Then as each phase of the round is resolved, the player's can reveal the action cards they placed down allowing them, and the others at the table, to visually keep track of what actions are still yet to be resolved.

Additionally, you can print out character specific Action Cards that have a reference to any Omens a character has access to as part of that action.

Playing Actions Face-Down

By using Action Cards in this way, you can also introduce an element of deception and bluffing into your combat. In this version of play, the players have the ability to select actions that differ from what they say they are choosing, such as saying they intend to perform the Parley action, but selecting the Intimidate action instead. During the start of the round each player places their selected actions face-down, revealing them as each phase of the round is resolved.

Note

The back face of each card, should indicate the type of action (eg Influence, Movement, Interaction, Combat or Triggered) that is represented. This indication helps the Game Moderator smoothly resolve the round of actions, by allowing them to know which players to address during each phase.

However you utilize Actions Cards, always remember that the game is built around developing a collaborate narrative experience for all of the players around your table. Secrets and deception can be fun, but always make sure that it is the right fit for your table and story.