When it is not actively your turn to act in combat, you are in what is called the Defensive Turn. In a defensive turn you can not do anything except participate in story interaction and defend yourself against attacks. You cannot move, use items, use skills, cast spells, use minor runic manipulations, or attack. You can only defend, evade, or use defensive skills, including counter attack.
Back to top1) Defense Actions
When in the defensive turn, you can only do the following:
- Defend: you can defend against attacks to yourself
- Guard: if you have the ability to guard, you can defend others.
- Use defensive skills: you can use a defensive skill during the defensive turn.
- Counter Attack: if you have the skill to counter, you can counter.
- Make Attacks of Opportunity: if a target trigger's an Attack of Opportunity, you can make use of it.
In the active round you can freely act as you like, within the confines of 1 of each action rule. However in the defensive round you are defending, more or less. Your defense could be to counter attack or aide an ally, or it could be to defend yourself.
2) Special Defense Situations
There are situations which can affect how well you or your enemy target can defend or evade. Because of your limited cone of vision whenever an enemy target attacks you from a location outside of your frontal cone of vision, your chances at making a defense decrease. You are still able to defend or even use a defensive skill, however because you are being attacked outside of your field of vision, you react slower to the attack which decreases your ability to defend. These situations are attacked from behind, attacked from the side, or attacked while distracted, and they can apply to enemy targets as well.
Other situations make it difficult to defend against an attack as well. For example, a projectile attack could be near impossible to defend from, but would not hinder your chance at making a defense check, whereas a covert attack could make it so that you could not even have a chance to make a defense check. Below is a table describing all of the various special defense situation.
Special Defense Situations Table: Shows the situations which could decrease your chances of defending or evading.
| Defense Situation | Description of Situation | Effect on Defensive Strategy |
|---|---|---|
| Direct Melee Attack from the Front or Thrown Object (Thrown Object is not Throwing Weapons but objects and weapons not meant for throwing) | A basic attack coming from the frontal view of your character. | No effect, changes, or penalties. |
| Attack From Behind or while distracted. | Any attack coming from behind your character, or while you are distracted. | Requires a successful hard perceive check to defend from, attacker gets +5 to hit chance |
| Attack From the Side | Any attack coming from the left or right of your character. | Attacker gets a +2 to hit chance |
Most Projectiles and Throwing Weapons (weapons meant for throwing) | Defending or evading against a projectile shot from a bow, crossbow, or other basic projectile weapons | Attacker has weapon given bonuses to hit chance; Hard React check needed to defend against |
| Explosions or Large Areas of Effect | Defending or evading against any area of effect attack that covers more than one space. | No hit chance check needed to affect targets unless targets are on the edge of the area of effect. |
| Seen Single Target Spells | Defending against any spell that affects only a single target and can be seen. | No penalties or bonuses |
| Invisible or Very Fast Single Target Spells | Defending against any spell that affects only a single target and either cannot be seen or is extremely fast. | Hard to Impossible React Check needed to defend against, +2 hit chance for fast, +5 hit chance for invisible |
| Covert Attacks | Defending or evading against any hard to notice attack. | Required hard to impossible perceive check to defend against |
3) Defensive Skills
There are certain skills that you can use to help you defend while in your defensive round. There are also skills that you can use to help your allies defend. As long as the skill is a defensive skill, you can use it during your defensive round.
Example on Taking Damage
Bob has 30 Vitality and his armor has 10 defense and Physical Armor of 18. An enemy attacks and first needs to roll above 18 for hit chance. If the enemy makes the hit chance, the enemy attacks and does 20 damage to Bob. If Bob did not have any armor, it would have killed him. Luckily he does. Bob can now make a defense check. If he succeeds, his armor will reduce some of that attack. Lets assume he succeeds.
First we need to determine how much of the damage is not absorbed by the armor and is dealt against his Vitality. Remember it is done in this order: Damage - Armor Defense = Damage that got through - Vitality.
- 20 - 10 defense = 10
- 30 Vitality - 10 = 20 Vitality
Bob is left with 20 Vitality remaining. So while he is hurt, at least he is still alive. He would be hurt a lot worse if he didn’t have his armor.
If you are using roll20, dealing with damage is seemless. As long as you have put in values for Vitality, Soul, and Power to your token, you will have the bars that show those values. If you get hit, you can put in the damage your vitality receives in the right bubble for the stat, and hit enter. Once you hit enter the bar and value will adjust to show how much Vitality is left.
4) Defending Against Spectators
During the course of the battle, if there are any spectators, some of the spectators may try to attack you. You would then need to defend against them, however it may not be as simple as defending against an enemy participant.
In order to defend against a spectator, you first have to make a successful perceive check check. If the attack is coming from a hidden spectator, you would need to apply any penalties. If you succeed at your perceive check, you can defend against the attack like any other attack, otherwise you have to take the damage.
Defending against a spectator does not draw them into battle as participants, unless you use a counter attack skill as your defensive action.
5) Taking Damage
Despite how hard you try, there will come a time when you will take damage. Therefore it is important to understand how to calculate any and all damage you receive. This is also important for GM’s when figuring out damage for the NPC’s you fight. All damage is handled exactly the same way, whether you are a player character or a GM controlled NPC. Lets say the enemy target his you and deals 20 points of damage and you were unable to successfully make a defensive action. If you are not wearing any armor, that damage will go against your Vitality. Hopefully you are wearing some armor otherwise your character will not last.
Below is how your character's armor works to protect your character:
- Physical: Physical Armor or Physical Resistance is your armor's protection against physical damage. When someone makes a physical attack against you, they must roll their hit chance. If their hit chance is equal to or less than your Physical Armor, you will receive no damage. If it is greater than your physical armor you will receive the damage dealt.
- Magical: Magical Armor or Magical Resistance is your armor's protection against magical damage. When someone makes a magic attack against you, they must roll their hit chance. If their hit chance is equal to or less than your Magical Armor, you will receive no damage. If it is greater than your magical armor you will receive the damage dealt.
- Defense: This is any defense given to your character by your armor. This score is not added to your defense trait in Fortitude. The defense trait check simply allows for using the defense score of your armor. Should you succeed with your defense check you will get to reduce the damage dealt to your character by the armor's defense score.
6) Death
Should your character's Vitality ever reach 0, your character is dead. Only very specific spells are said to help here.
Once your character's Vitality reaches 0 or less, you can make 1 Vitality Save through to stand back up with 1 Vitatlity. You get one free Save Check upon death. Any additional use costs you 1d% points worth of EXP. Should you fail your character stays dead. You get once try per round, at a cost of 1d% points worth of EXP after your one free check. After 4 rounds you are simply dead and only a very powerful spell could hope to bring you back.