Combat Rules

Just what is combat rules, and what are general rules, might be hard to decide. This chapter deals with everything that happens only in action and combat scenes, where initiative is rolled and sequences are played out in detail. For other rules, refer to the General Rules chapter.

Hitting Things

In T3, you hit things by making attack rolls, pitting your skill against their Dodge. If you fail to match their Dodge, you miss, and there is usually no effect. If you make it, add the Outcome to the Damage Value of your weapon, and the result is the damage of the attack. The target then gets to subtract his Toughness or Armor Value, and the final result is the number of Wound Points he takes. If he is tough enough, he might take no damage at all.

This is the normal procedure. Many schticks have special rules that change some or all of this.

Cover & Concealment

Characters receive a bonus to their Dodge for standing in places where they are hard to see, or behind heavy objects which can take the punishment. Cover & Concealment is only good against ranged attacks.

Percentage Cover	Percentage Concealment	Dodge Bonus	Example of Cover	Example of Concealment
25%	50%	+2	Being prone at range or behind flimsy cover	High grass, brush, Darkness
50%	75%	+4	Behind wall, tree, car door	Camouflaged or in woods
75%	90%	+6	Behind corner or door post	Hidden inside a bale of hay,
90% or more	NA	+8	Murder hole or gun port

Active Defense

A character who is not surprised has the option of making an Active Defense when attacked. A character can only be engaged in one active defense at the time; if you wish to make a second Active Defense while the bonus from a previous one still applies, you pay the price for the new active defense, and lose the bonuses from the old one.

A normal Active Defense is either a Parry or a Dodge, but the difference is a matter of style. You reduce your shot counter by one, and increase your Dodge value by +3 for the rest of the shot. You can do this at any time, regardless of what your current shot is, as log as you have shots remaining for the sequence.

Active defenses can apply to game values other than Dodge. An example is the defense allowed when you are being sneaked up upon.

There is a wide variety of schticks, especially Fu schticks, that introduce additional types of Active Defense.

Defending Others
You can actively defend another character, but this is a 3-shot action. You can do this with the various bonus defenses (Fu schticks and such), but pay three shots instead of the normal shot cost of the maneuver.
    As an option, you can choose to interpose yourself between the attacker and his target. This voids the normal +3 Dodge bonus for an Active Defense, but redirects the attack to you. It is still a 3-shot stunt.

Multiple Targets

Area Effect

When calculating the effect of an area attack, make but a single roll. Consider the initial attack roll to be the effect against the most vulnerable target, and each successive target gets a +1 bonus to their Dodge rating. Targets get to decide which of them is most vulnerable. If targets are densely packed, an attack bonus might be appropriate; +3 per 10 targets is about right.

Structural Damage

Moving Targets

A moving target can be difficult to hit, even if it has a low Dodge value. A handheld weapon has a minimum difficulty equal to the target's Move.

Snapshots

Movement in Combat

In combat, a character can move a number of meters equal to his Move attribute with any 3-shot action he takes, or he can dedicate an action to running, moving twice that at the expense of other activity.

Movement out of combat is handled differently, see, the rules for the Move attribute.

Range

Weapon	Range	Max
Short	10	30
Normal	20	150
Long	100	1000

All ranged attacks suffer range penalties. This is normally -2 per 20 meters. Certain weapons have other base ranges, as per the examples given here. For each increment of range, you get a -2 penalty. No weapon can shoot beyond its maximum range.

Short Range applies to thrown weapons, snubnose pistols, derringers and other obviously short-range weapons.

Long Range applies rifles and other long arms, but only if you are standing still to fire.

Armor

Armor adds to your defensive Toughness when soaking damage; add the armor adds to your Toughness to calculate your Armor Value, which is then used to soak damage.

Many attacks ignore armor, and use the base Toughness value instead.