Core Combat Terms

​​​

Turn Order 

Regardless of whether characters are involved in Space of Ground Combat, they will utilize Turn Order to determine who acts in what order. At the start of any combat, players make a Turn Order Roll, which involves rolling 2d10 and adding both their Wisdom and Celerity​ Attribute Modifiers to the roll. Characters are then placed in order, with higher rolls being placed higher in the Turn Order. 

​

If two characters tie on their turn order roll, the character with higher Wisdom Attribute Modifier is placed higher on Turn Order. If both characters have identical Wisdom, the character with a higher Celerity Attribute Modifier is placed higher. If the characters are still tied, have the characters perform a tiebreaker roll.

​

Next, characters are separated into those involved in Space Combat and those involved in Ground Combat. The Turn Order is split into the Space Turn Order and the Ground Turn Order. Once both lists are made, combat can proceed. Combat is performed in periods of six (6) seconds called Cycles.

​

Some Maneuvers (ex. Jostling) reference they "increase a characters position on the Turn Order". When a characters position on the Turn Order is increased, the move up on the Turn Order above the character who preceded them. Unless otherwise specified, if a character increases their Turn Order position on their turn, they typically do not receive any benefit until the next cycle.

​​

​

Action Points

In order to perform actions and maneuvers, characters need Action Points (AP). Unless specified otherwise, characters always regain AP at the start of their turn in the Cycle. Characters may only gain AP once per cycle. So a character transitioning from different combat types or altering their position on the Turn Order do not gain AP twice in a single cycle.

​

When gaining AP, Characters gain AP equal to twelve (12) plus their Celerity Attribute Modifier. When characters regain AP, it is always reset back to this value, regardless of how much AP they had remaining. For example, if one character has two (2) AP remaining at the end of their turn and another has four (4), both characters would have twelve (12) AP (plus their Celerity Attribute Modifier) at the start of their next turn.

​​

Damage Scales

Since SolarLink includes both Space and Ground Combat, there are two scales of hit points and damage. Generally, Ground Combat utilizes HP and dmg while Space Combat utilizes DHP and DDMG. One (1) DHP and one (1) DDMG is equal to ten (10) HP and ten (10) dmg.

Whenever a target with DHP is dealt dmg, there is a good chance no damage is dealt instead. Dmg dealt to targets with DHP is always divided by ten (10) and rounded down to the nearest integer. For example, an attack that does seven (7) dmg is rounded down to zero (0) DDMG to DHP targets. Alternatively, whenever a target with HP is dealt DDMG damage, the DDMG damage is multiplied by ten (10). This results in DDMG from spacecraft, on the rare occasion they hit an individual, to almost certainly be lethal.

​

Some maneuvers may refer to increasing or decreasing damage by one damage die. This means the type of dice rolled for damage is changed to a lower or higher die. The "die" order is: 1d2, 1d4, 1d6, 1d8, 1d10, 1d12. If a die would be increased from a 1d12. If a damage die is increased from 1d12, it is upgraded to become 2d6 (same maximum, but increased minimum and average). If a character has multiple damage dice (ex. a d6 and a d8), always increase the lower of the two die (the d6 increases in the prior example).

​

Damage Types

All sources of damage to HP or DHP have a damage type associated with them. These damage types are chemical, electrical, light, light, physical, thermal (cold), and thermal (hot).