Combat

This page details combat in Fallout: New York.

Initiative
Initiative determines who goes first in combat. Normally, a 1d10 roll is made for every character at the table. Who rolls the highest without going over their Agility goes wins Initiative. If that is the GM, the non-player characters go first. If that is the Players, the player characters go first. From there the order circles around the table until combat is resolved.

Action Points
Action Points represent how many actions you can take per round. A character with a large number of action points is is quick, nimble and able to react under pressure. Players with poor Agility will have no less than 3 Action Points. Every action in combat will use at least 1 Action Point.

Here is a quick reference on Base AP costs.

Movement
Combat is done on a grid with each square representing a 5' x 5' space. Players who are experienced with D&D 3.5 and Pathfinder will be right at home with this grid.

Character while holding a weapon can move 5' or one square by spending 1 Action Point. Moving with a weapon holstered allows a character to move 10' or two squares for 1 AP. This means a character can holster their weapon and quickly navigate the battlefield at the cost of being unable to immediately return fire.

Non-standard moment doubles the AP cost. If a player wishes to go prone and low crawl, sneak, or cross rough terrain, they will have to spend 2 AP for every 5' traveled.

Standard attacks
Characters make an attack roll to hit a target. On a normal attack roll, they player rolls a percentiles, 2d10, trying to roll equal to or less than corresponding weapon skill. For example, if a character attacks with a shotgun while their Guns skill is 50, then they must roll 50 or below to hit. Any number above 50 is a miss.

Certain perks like Commando and Gunslinger and greatly increase accuracy. If the same character had the Commando perk, which gives +25% accuracy for all two handed firearms, then they would hit with a Guns attack roll of 75% or lower.

There are many conditions that would cause accuracy to be easier or more difficult. These are called Degrees of Success, or DoS and will be outlined later in the chapter.

Players with a high AP making several attacks that round should roll several pars of 2d10 in order to save time.

Missing with explosives
Close only counts in horseshoes and hand grenades. If you miss with an explosive weapon it will still do splash damage. Roll 1d4 to determine the direction it missed with the "1" always pointed in the direction of your attack and rotating clockwise. Every 10% you missed by moves the blast center of your explosive by 1 square. Note: Unless you critically miss AND roll a 3 for the miss direction, you can't drop an explosive on top of yourself or fire a missile behind you into the party.

Critical hit
A Critical hit is a guaranteed hit and does double damage. The chance to critical hit it derived from the characters Luck statistic and the critical multiplier of the weapon. An averages score of 5 Luck using a weapon with a 1x critical multiplier will have a 5% chance to hit.

Luck x Weapon critical multiple = Critical hit chance 5 x 1 = 5%

Certain perks like Finesse and Better Criticals will greatly the effectiveness of critical hits.

Critical miss
A Critical miss is guaranteed miss and something will go wrong. This is based on the characters As a rule of thumb for the GM, don't be a dick. Make it help the story or be a minor inconvenience. No one felt good about a game when their weapon randomly blew their face off so don't do it. Unless the weapon was in very bad repair while the party had repair kits, then it's just funny.

Chance for a critical miss.

11 - Luck = Critical miss chance

11 - 5 = 6%

From the above example a character with 5 points in Luck would have 6% chance to miss and would do so when rolling a 95% or above.

Sneak attack critical
A sneak attack critical is a guaranteed hit and does quadruple damage. With a successful Sneak on an unaware target you can hit them with a devastating critical hit. I silenced or melee weapon works best as there won't be enough noise to alert nearby enemies to your presence, allowing you to wipe out large groups with some well timed maneuvering.

Damage
Each weapon will have a base damage listed with it. Typically this is 1d6 for one handed weapons and 1d8 for two handed weapons. As the caliber and quality of the weapon goes up, so does the base damage. On a successful hit, the player rolls the base damage on the weapon and adds all applicable bonus damage and multipliers.

Bonus damage
Bonus damage comes in many forms. Most often it come from high skill with a weapon. Other sources include perks, equipment, chems, high quality ammo, and good weapon condition. Certain types of ammo have special qualities such as Armor Piercing or Incendiary. Attacks done with Melee Weapons receive an bonus based on Strength. There can be a great deal of particulars so having the totals added up and ready on your character will help make combat run smoother.

Splash Damage
Splash damage is an area of effect of pain common to explosions. Attacks with explosive weapons like grenades or missile launchers often blanket an area with explosive fire and shrapnel. They also have large amounts of damage dice thrown by a player with a big happy grin on their face. Take the total damage after all bonuses and multipliers have been applied and that is the splash damage.

Calculating Damage
Damage multipliers may make basic math required at the table. If you find this to be bogging down the game, then try writing a quick reference chart on you character sheer or a note card. A weapon with 1d6 bonus damage will only have six possible outcomes and a little prep work will go a long way.
 * Roll base weapon damage
 * Add total bonus damage
 * Include Ammo effects
 * Lastly, apply damage multipliers

Damage Resistance
Incoming damage is reduced by a percentage equal to your damage resistance and rounded down. The only source of DR is the chem Med-X which grants 25% DR. This can be a useful tool, but is only found in limited quantities and can be addictive.

Damage Threshold
Damage Threshold represents the stopping power of your armor and your ability to shrug off damage. Any damage per hit that is equal or less than your Damage Threshold is halved and rounded down. If a character's DT is 15 and they are hit for 10 damage, then the only loose 5 Hit Points. Armor should be kept in good repair, as letting it degrade to 25% condition or less will reduce it's effectiveness by half rounded down.

Degrees of Success
The are variables that will makes some situations more or less difficult than others. Degrees of Success, or DoS, is a means to have dice reflect that. For minor, moderate or severe changes in the situation, change the dice roll by 10, 20, or 30 respectively.

For example, if a player had to pick a lock at night. The low lightning would increase the difficulty by 2 DoS, or 20%. If the player has Sneak 70, then they would need to roll 50 or lower to successfully pick the lock.

Prone
Going prone makes it easier to shoot and harder to get shot. Going prone means lying down on your stomach to better steady your weapon and present a smaller silhouette to your enemy. Attack rolls with ranges weapons become 1 DoS easier while ranged attacks against you become 1 DoS harder. Going prone costs 2 AP.

Cover
Cover is any material likely to stop bullets. This can be 6 inches of concrete, 12 inches of wood, or 18 inches of dirt. Targets behind cover are 2 DoS harder to hit.

Range
Weapons have an effective range. Weapons can fire up to this effective range, but will miss anything beyond it. As a rule of thumb, most firearms have range of 30'.

Thrown weapons, like hand grenades and spear get a bonus to range equal to one square per every three points in Strength.

Morale
The enemy's will to fight. Breaking an NPC's moral can sometimes be the quickest and easiest way to end a fight. Most people in the wasteland are fighting to survive and won't fight to the death. Killing their leader, hitting them for over 50% of their health, reducing a group to 50% or less strength, or just setting them on fire is quick way to end their fighting spirit.

Depending on the situation, NPCs may run, surrender, or be willing to talk. If you are feeling merciful or diplomatic you can use this to your advantage. Of course, taking pot shots at a fleeing and defenseless enemy to loot their corpse can sometime be it's own reward. The situation is up to the player on how they wish to handle it.

Death
Once a characters Hit Points are reduced to -10 they are dead. No amount of Stim Packs can bring them back. A character at 0 is knocked out. A character between -1 and -9 Hit Points is bleeding out and will need to be stabilized or they will loose 1 HP per round. Use of a Stim Pack or a successful Medicine check will stabilize a character to 0 HP.

A good encounter will be balanced so as to challenge a party and not send it into a meat grinder. A player can always spend a Bottlecap, the player currency, to not die that turn.

End of Combat
Combat ends when one or both sides are unwilling or unable to fight. This could be when all the enemies are dead, have surrendered, or ran away.