Combat

P&P should be played with a strong narrative focus. The story that unfolds while playing the game is what matters most. However, because super powered slugfests are such an important part of the superhero genre, combat is one place where the rules get a bit crunchier. Whenever the heroes are involved in combat, use the following rules, which build and expand on the basic system.

Edge

During combat, time is broken down into pages. A page represents a few seconds of time in the game world. Every character involved in combat gets a turn to act on each page. Characters act in order of their Edge, from highest to lowest. If you prefer to handle initiative randomly, have characters make Edge rolls when combat begins and use their successes as their effective Edge for that battle. When characters have the same Edge, action order is as follows: heroes, villains, foes, and extras.

You can always hold your action in reserve, waiting to act in response to something that might happen later that page. If whatever you were waiting for doesn't happen, you lose your turn to act on that page. If two or more characters hold their actions waiting for something to happen, action order among them is resolved according to their Edge when it does.

Actions

All characters get one turn to act on each page of combat. When it's your turn to act, you can move and perform one or more actions. An action is a brief act that requires a bit of attention. Being that this is combat, attacks are the most common type of action, so actions and attacks are often synonymous. You can also defend yourself and perform as many free actions as the Game Master considers reasonable. Free actions are minor actions, things like drawing, sheathing, or dropping an item, opening or closing a door, or saying a few words to someone within Close Range. Once everyone has taken their turn to act (or chosen to skip their turn), the current page ends and a new one begins.

Multiple Actions

You can perform more than 1 action per page, but if you do, you suffer a −2d penalty to all challenge rolls per extra action taken. For example, if you perform two attacks on one page, you suffer a −2d penalty to each. If you perform three attacks on one page, you suffer a −4d penalty to each. And so on. You have to declare your multiple actions before making any challenge rolls. Actions and movement are different things, so you can't use multiple actions to move farther than normal.

Range

Range is handled abstractly in P&P. Rather than measure distances precisely, three range classes are used to approximate distances. Close Range covers anything from physical contact to within the distance an ordinary person can move in one page. Distant Range covers anything beyond Close Range but within range of most weapons and Powers. Extreme Range covers anything beyond Distant Range but close enough to see (within limits—the Moon is past Extreme Range). As a very rough rule of thumb, it can sometimes help to think of Close Range as being within about 50 feet, Distant Range as being within about 500 feet, and Extreme Range as being within about 5,000 feet. The Game Master always determines the initial range class between combatants.

Throwing Range

Ordinary people can accurately throw weapons and light objects as far as Close Range. Of course, characters with superhuman strength can often throw things much farther than that. If your Might is greater than 6d, use the table below to determine how far you can accurately throw things. Your throwing rank equals your Might minus the object's weight rank (minimum 0d).

Movement

Like range, movement is also handled abstractly. Moving up to or away from someone already within Close Range of you takes one page. Moving doesn't prevent you from taking actions, so you can move up to someone within Close Range and take a swing at them on the same page. Moving one range class closer to or farther away from someone takes 2 pages, unless you have a power that lets you move faster than normal (a Travel Power) at 6d or greater, in which case you can cross one range class per page. This assumes you're fighting in an ordinary environment with terrain that limits how fast characters with Travel Powers can move. If the battle is happening in wide open terrain, the Game Master is free to let characters with Travel Powers at high ranks cross 2 or even 3 range classes in a single page.

Chases

Chases through open terrain are usually won by whoever is faster, which is why they're boring. Luckily, most chases occur in locations where maneuverability is just as important as speed, places like crowded city streets, dark sewer tunnels, or the cramped airspace between office buildings. In this Quickstart, chases like these are resolved with challenge rolls using Agility or a Travel Power and should be handled narratively, using the rules provided in Chapter 2. Travel Powers let you move much faster than normal, so characters use only half their Agility when competing against characters using Travel Powers.

Attacks And Defenses

Attacks are handled like any other challenge roll. When attacking, you make an attack roll using the Trait that corresponds to your attack, and your target makes a defense roll using the Trait that corresponds to their defense to determine the threshold you have to beat. If you roll more successes than your target, the attack hits and inflicts damage or a special effect, as discussed below. If you don't beat the threshold, the attack either misses the target or hits them but has no effect.

The table below indicates the Traits used to perform common attacks and defenses. P&P doesn't distinguish between accuracy and damage or defense and damage resistance. Attackers use one Trait that lumps accuracy and damage together for their attack rolls, and targets use one Trait that represents either their defense or their damage resistance — whichever is better — for their defense rolls.

Active And Passive Defenses

There are two kinds of defenses: active and passive. Active defenses represent attempts to block, dodge, or parry attacks, while passive defenses represent the ability to resist or withstand attacks. Agility is a common active defense, while Toughness, Willpower, and Powers like Armor and Force Field are common passive defenses. The only distinction between active and passive defenses is that you can't use active defenses if you're surprised, unconscious, or otherwise unable to actively defend yourself.

No matter how many defenses you have available to you, you always use only one defense against each attack, normally the one with the greatest rank. Of course, this is an abstraction. You aren't really choosing between dodging and resisting attacks when you defend yourself. In the game world, you're probably trying to avoid getting hit, and if you do get hit, your passive defenses are there to protect you. As a result, you always use the best defense available to you when making defense rolls.

Damage

Every net success rolled on a damaging attack inflicts 1 point of damage. Damage reduces a target's Health. Once a target's Health has been reduced to 0, they're defeated, and are knocked out for the rest of the scene. Health can't go below 0. Once a fight ends, you can make a Hard (2) Toughness roll to recover 1 point of Health for every net success rolled. You can also do this after every night of rest. Non-player characters recover from their injuries as quickly as the plot requires.

Lethal And Subdual Damage

There are two kinds of physical damage: lethal and subdual. Most weapons and attacks inflict lethal damage, but unarmed attacks and certain light blunt weapons inflict subdual damage. The only real difference between the two is that you use half your Toughness as a passive defense against lethal damage, and your full Toughness as a passive defense against subdual damage.

Special Effects

Powers like Ensnare, Mind Control, and Stun inflict conditions and effects other than damage, called special effects. Attacks that inflict special effects last a number of pages equal to half the net successes rolled on your attack (rounding up as usual), and expire at the end of your turn to act on that page. For example, if you roll 3 or 4 net successes when attacking a target with the Stun Power, your target will be stunned for 2 pages. You can stack a special effect's duration by attacking the same target multiple times. If the duration of a special effect ever equals or exceeds the target's current Health, the target is defeated by the effect, which then lasts for the rest of the scene. For example, a friendly neighborhood superhero might defeat criminals with Ensnare by leaving them bound in sticky webbing.

Breaking Free

If you're suffering from a special effect, you can try to break free of it when your turn to act comes along, as long as you haven't been defeated by it. Make a challenge roll using the passive defense identified in the Power's description against the Power's rank. If successful, the special effect's duration is reduced by half your net successes. If you reduce the duration to 0 or fewer pages, you break free of the effect and can act immediately, but you suffer a −2d penalty to other actions on that page.

Grappling

Grappling is often just close-in fighting, another way of inflicting damage in close combat. You don't need special rules for that. However, sometimes what you're attempting is a grab, hold, or escape. A grab is any attempt to take a weapon or other handheld item away from your opponent. A hold is any attempt to control or restrain your opponent. An escape is any attempt to break out of a hold. In this Quickstart, these moves require a Might roll against your opponent's Might and should be handled narratively, using the rules provided in Chapter 2. If you aren't already in grappling combat, your opponent can use an active defense instead of Might to resist your attempted grab or hold maneuvers.

Special Attacks

Comic book combat involves more than just smacking each other around. Combatants often employ special attacks and tactics, from the mundane to the distinctly superheroic. While it would be impossible to cover every comic book trope, the following section includes some of the more iconic.

Area Attacks

Explosions, blasts of dragon fire, and other attacks that target a large area rather than an individual are called area attacks. Area attacks target everyone in their area of effect, whether friend or foe. You make a single attack roll, and everyone in the area makes their own defense roll. Because these attacks target an entire area, they're hard to evade. Targets using active defenses must halve their defense rank unless they forfeit their next turn to act diving out of the area or behind cover.

Charge Attacks

If you have a Travel Power, you can use it to perform a charge attack, an attack in which you slam into your target at high speed. If you have Density or Growth, you can use those Powers instead, relying on your increased mass for damage. Either way, you get a +2d bonus on your attack roll for the charge attack, but you suffer a −2d penalty to your defense rolls until after your next turn to act.

Strategic Attacks

A strategic attack is any attempt outmaneuver, outsmart, or otherwise gain an advantage over your opponent without harming them directly. Strategic attacks work like ordinary attacks, but the Traits used to perform and resist them will vary depending on what you're doing — this is always determined by the Game Master. If successful, a strategic attack will have one of the effects listed on the table below, which will last until the end of your next turn to act. You pick the effect from the options available to you, depending on your net successes. All penalties imposed by multiple strategic attacks are cumulative. You can find examples of common strategic attacks below, but feel free to get creative and make up your own.

Fancy Footwork: Outmaneuvering an opponent or getting them turned around, off balance, or exactly where you want them. Use Agility or a Travel Power against your opponent's Agility or Travel Power.

Overpower: Knocking or shoving an opponent back, down, or aside. Use Might or a Power that affects physical objects (like Telekinesis) against your opponent's Might or any active defense they prefer.

Psych Out: Angering, confusing, distracting, or unnerving an opponent with banter, jokes, threats, suggestive comments, and so on. Use Charm or Command against your opponent's Willpower.

Take to School: Performing a fancy fighting maneuver like disarming or tripping an opponent. Use a regular attack roll against your opponent's active defense or one of their physical Abilities — the Game Master determines whether to use Agility, Might, or Toughness, depending on what you're trying to do.

Team Attacks

When characters coordinate their attacks against a single opponent, it's called a team attack. This covers all classic team attack tropes, including things like hitting an opponent from opposite sides, blasting the same spot on an opponent's armor, or throwing your ally at an opponent like a fastball. When performing a team attack, you and your allies have to wait until the end of the page to take your actions, and you all have to target the same enemy. This grants you a +2d bonus to your attack rolls and lets you spend 1 Resolve to have your 6s explode. As mentioned earlier, that means you get to roll those dice again to try generating extra successes, and you can keep rerolling them as long as you keep rolling 6s.

Special Situations

The following section provides rules for some of the more common situations likely to arise in mundane and superheroic combat, as well as rules for handling minions. Use these rules as a guide when adjudicating the various antics, edge cases, and wild ideas that inevitably arise when supers throw down.

Ambushes

Ambushing someone requires a successful challenge roll using your Covert against your target's Perception. When using deception or seduction to catch a target off guard in a different way, roll Charm instead. If you succeed, your target is surprised— they can't act or use active defenses on the first page of combat. Targets with embellishment rights can say they were only partially surprised, allowing them to use their active defenses, but that's about it. If you fail, the target isn't surprised and can act normally.

Going All-Out

When attacking or defending yourself is all that matters, you can go all-out. All-out attacking grants you a +2d bonus to your attack rolls, but halves your defense ranks (both active and passive) until after your next turn to act. All-out defending grants you a +2d bonus to your defense rolls until your next turn to act comes around, but prevents you from attacking or performing other actions when it does. You can still move and perform free actions while all-out defending yourself.

Minions (Situations)

Minions don't have Heath. Whenever you hit a group of minions with an attack, you defeat 1 minion per net success rolled, or up to 2 minions per net success rolled when making an area attack (up to the number of minions in the area). If the attack inflicts harm, defeated minions are knocked out. If the attack inflicts a special effect, defeated minions are subject to the special effect for the rest of the scene.

Additionally, minions act in groups. A group of minions can always break into two or more groups to attack multiple heroes, but each group acts like a separate character. In combat, a minion group targets one enemy per page, making one attack roll opposed by one defense roll. Because that single roll often represents multiple attacks with weapons of some kind (natural or handheld, heck maybe both) minions always get a bonus to their attack rolls. The bonus varies depending on the number of minions in the group (even if it's just one poor sap), as shown on the table below.

Modifiers

The Game Master can apply modifiers ranging from +4d to −4d to account for specific conditions and situations. For example, you should get a −2d attack roll penalty when attacking someone behind partial cover or a −4d attack roll penalty when attacking someone behind almost total cover. You should also get a −1d penalty to your attack and active defense rolls in dim lighting or a –3d in total darkness.

Super Tip!
In the real word and the world of superhero comics, fights often end when one side looks around, realizes they've been beaten, and surrenders. It should be the same here as well.