Rules

Juncture Modifiers

Traps

All traps have a rating, usually the creator's Fix-It skill, that determines how well they work.

Traps can be detected by a variety of means, Intrusion, Fix-It and Sorcery being the most common. Make a skill check against the rating of the trap when scanning an area. This generally is not dangerous.

A character blundering into a trap still gets a Perception or Intrusion roll to detect it. If he was wary of traps, walking slowly and checking his way, he gets a +3 modifier (as for Active Defense). If this roll fails, he has triggered the trap, and it is sprung, with an attack outcome equal to his negative outcome on the detection check.

Once triggered, a trap works like any other form of attack; damage values and other effects should be set by the GM beforehand, but can often be quite high for powerful trap mechanisms. The damage rating is generally no higher than the trap's rating.

If discovered, a trap can usually be circumvented with ease. If you know where the poison needle is, you will not be stung. In cases where the trap must be disarmed separately, this can be done as a +3 stunt once it is detected for what it is.

Unnamed Characters

Unnamed characters are the extras of the story. They are not heroes, nor important villains. Though they can be quite skilled, they are expendable and easily fall in combat. A large group of unnamed characters should be enough to faze any hero, though.

The gamemaster need not bother with bookkeeping for unnamed characters. Either they are active, or they are out. They usually have a group initiative, and perform only 3-shot actions, so that all are in synch. An unnamed character can defend, but expends three shots doing so. Lay the figure down; until it's next action, it is defending, with all the appropriate bonuses. When it would normally have taken it's next action, you instead stand the figure back up.

When an unnamed character takes any kind of damage in a fight, or suffers an interaction setback, he is out of the game. He may survive, but he has lost his will to fight and the cameras lose interest in him. If he takes more damage than his Constitution, he is obviously dead, and may go with a gory effect.

Unnamed characters don't spend Fortune, Fu or Magic points. They cannot use effects that require them to do so. They can still use Fu, Animal and Race schticks, spending one-third their Fu on each such discipline, They cannot use disciplines costing more than that.

Victims
This is a special type of unnamed character. He is almost always on the hero's side, and often has lines and personality, but he is still as fragile as any other unnamed character. Victims are added to the story to help the players a little, and to provide dramatic motivation by providing convenient target's for the villains.

Blindness

In an action adventure, temporary blindness is common, due to blindfolds, darkness, noxious fumes and such. Of course, many actions simply become impossible when you are blind. The GM may also require separate actions and Perception rolls in order to figure out where the enemies are. But these are the general modifiers to the actions you can still take.

A blind character has half Move and two points of impairment. In addition, all visually targeted actions over any range suffer a further -2 penalty. This applies to all ranged attacks and Perception rolls. Many schticks and special abilities mitigate these penalties.

Concealment Ratings

Gear has concealment ratings, which determine how large and/or bulky they are, and hence what kind of clothing they can be hidden under. Concealment ratings have the following broad categories:

Negligible
This item can be hidden when you are in a swimsuit or, and is small enough to hide in your mouth or up your ass. This is the only type of gear that can be hidden from a strip search. No more than ten centimeters long or two centimeter thick.

Pocket
Small enough to hide in a pants pocket, an evening dress, or under an evening jacket. These also fit in a purse. A pocket-sized object can be smuggled into a ballroom and might pass a pat-down search. About fifteen centimeters long, two centimeters wide and ten centimeters high. It needs to be without protrusions.

Jacket
Can be concealed under normal outerwear or bulky indoor clothing. Big guys in form-fitted suits can barely conceal them, too. Any pat-down will discover the gear. About twenty-five centimeters long, three centimeters wide and fifteen centimeters high.

Trenchcoat
Now we are talking big stuff. It takes a long coat to conceal one of these, and there is no chance of passing even a cursory close inspection. About fifty centimeters long, ten centimeters wide and thirty centimeters high.

Unconcealable
These are just to big to carry around hidden, though you cold use a golf-bag or ski-bag, depending on the gear.

In general, a character wearing appropriate clothes can always hide an item, and a character without appropriate clothes cannot. You can use Investigation or Perception to spot a hidden weapon, with a difficulty of the bearer's Deceit or Charisma. Metal detectors and such requires Fix-It to operate rather than Investigation.

Continuos Actions

Fumble

Sneaking

Sneaking is a common stunt used to move undetectably. Typical abilities for sneaking are Intrusion, sorcerous invisibility, the creature power Blur Form or an arcanowave Chameleon Suit.

You remain undetected as long as you match your targets' Perception, and may move one meter per point of outcome. Normally, you must stay under cover, but some forms of sneaking are like invisibility; you can move unseen in plain sight. It is possible to actively search for intruders, a 1-shot action gives +3 to Perception for this purpose, like an Active Defense.

Sneaking is often a prelude to an attack. If you launch an attack against a wary opponent, your opponent's Dodge is reduced by your outcome, but never to a value less than his Agility unless he was completely immobile.

When two people are playing hide-and-seek, roll competitive sneak rolls. The difficulty is your opponents Sneak or Perception. If both you and your opponent fails, you meet, and neither has surprise. Success indicates you know someone is there, but cannot pinpoint him, and can add you Outcome to later rolls. An outcome equal to your opponent's Perception means you can draw a bead on him, catching him with a Dodge of zero (yes, you are immobile for long periods while sneaking).

Experience

Impairment

Stunts

A stunt can be almost anything; its a way to say "action" that smells like burning rubber. Climbing up a wall is an Intrusion stunt, casting a spell is a Sorcery stunt. If a task is not difficult enough to merit the name stunt, you probably should not bother to roll for it.

Interaction Stunts

Almost any skill can be used for stunts. Seduction, Intimidation and Deceit are especially common choices, but Martial Arts, Guns, Fix-It or almost any other skill will do. The GM will have to judge what defense value to use depending on the stunt; if you can't come up with one, use either the same skill (Fix-It to figure out how to avoid that device) or the Dodge value.

Basically, there are two approaches. Either you stall for time, try to distract the guy, and hope for better times or help from your comrades. Or you don't care if he whacks you, and try to accumulate effect over time without impairing his actions.

Slowing them down is a simple matter of causing them to loose shots. Every point of Outcome causes a loss of one shot from the current shot counter. The minimum loss is three shots.

Setting them up is a matter of stacking up your Outcome to another character to use later, on a later stunt. Your Outcome becomes a bonus to the next action directed at this foe (as appropriate for the stunt description). If applicable, this next action could be a Dodge. This is especially relevant when the target is too tough for you or has Damage Immunity to your type of attack.

Setback

In either case, an Outcome matching the guy's attribute means the stunt succeeds and the target suffers a setback. What attribute to use depends on the situation; Agility for most physical stunts, Perception for most tricks. The exact result of the setback depends on the situation, the GMs whim and your ingenuity in describing your stunt.

Attack Stunts

Certain stunts can be made as a part of an attack, often a called shot. Such stunts generally suffer a -2 penalty because you try to do damage and have some fancy effect. If it hits, it does normal damage. If the damage is equal to your target's Constitution score, he reacts to the damage by doing whatever you wanted him to do (within cinematic reason); drop his weapon, fall off the ledge, fall over, and so on.

Example Stunts

Knockout

A knockout is an attack stunt and suffers the usual -2 penalty; more if the target is wearing a helmet. It can only be tried under special circumstances as the GM permits. Don't expect to be allowed a chance in a general combat, but when knocking out a (named) guard or kidnaping someone, it may work. If the attack stunt succeeds, the target is knocked unconscious for a short while.

Disarm

A disarm can be done in two ways; as an Attack Stunt (shoot or chop the guy in the arm) or as an interaction stunt. Using guns for a disarm interaction stunt is a called shot at -2. Clean Shot can be a great merit here.

A grapple is an interaction stunt using Martial Arts. Scoring a setback indicates a pin. Tearing peoples arms out of their sockets is an attack that does Strength damage but ignores armor. Bashing their heads against the pavement does Strength +4 damage, but is only possible while grappling.

Damage

Structural Damage

Structures lack Dodge or armor, they have only Toughness. An attack that exceeds the structure's Toughness reduces that Toughness by one; an attack whose damage matches twice the structure's Toughness destroys it.

Poison

Cinematic poison rules work differently in and out of combat.

When you damage somebody with a poisoned attack, the poison will inflict additional damage at the end of the sequence. A victim only takes damage from the worst poison at the end of each sequence. The base damage is the poison's potency, usually based on some value of the poisioneer, such as the Medicine, Sorcery or Creature Powers skill, and the victim soaks using Constitution. If prepared and using an antidote, he can substitute his doctor's Medicine skill.

Out of combat, the main problem is delivering the poison. Any witnesses (including the victim) can make Medicine or Investigation rolls to recognize the poison for what it is. When successfully poisoning someone with a non combat poison (slow, deadly poisons), your victim must then make a Death Test using Constitution or Medicine skill with a difficulty equal to your poison potency skill. After half the time till death has elapsed, your victim becomes violently ill, but before that, there are no obvious effects.

Until the poison takes full effect (usually at the end of the sequence), it can be neutralized by quick medical action. Make a healing roll (usually with Medicine or Sorcery) against the potency of the poison; this roll can substitute for the patients Constitution roll when resisting the poison.

There are many types of poisons. When somebody fails a death test caused by poison, they usually do not die. A paralyzing poison would cause either total rigidity or muscle collapse. Poisons can also cause sleep, disease-like symptoms or coma. Subtle poison require a Medicine or Investigation check vs. your Medicine action value to realize what happened. A hallucinogen causes the victim impairments, delusions and uncontrolled behavior. Many diseases, and the Blast effect disease, work the same way. Instead of inflicting damage, these inflict an accumulating Disability Rating. For every full five points of Disability Rating, the victim suffers one point of impairment. Any doctor can try to reduce Disability Rating, make a Medicine check against the Disability Rating, and reduce the Disability Rating by your outcome. This can be done once per day per disability.

Healing & Health

Death

	Shuffling Off The Mortal Coil Table
	Outcome		Time Before Snuffing It
	-1		6 hours
	-2		4 hours
	-3		3 hours
	-4		2 hours
	-5 to -9		1 hour
	-10 to -12		30 minutes
	-13		15 minutes
	-14 or worse		Right Now!

When wound points go beyond 30, a character may begin to die. Make Death Test, a closed Constitution roll with a difficulty equal to the number of Wound Points past 30 the character has received. If he makes the test, everything is fine. If not, he starts to die, and will snuff it after a period determined by the negative Outcome of his Death Test, as given on the Shuffling Off The Mortal Coil table.

Stabilization

A character who has failed a Death Test but not yet expired can be saved with a Stabilization roll. The difficulty is the amount the death test was failed by, that is the same value that determines the time left until death on the Shuffling Off The Mortal Coil Chart.

A success indicates the character is saved, but must spend a lengthy period in hospital or other care before you can go adventuring again. If you manage to roll twice that, the character not only lives, he is as good as new and will wake up with only bruises to show for his near-death experience. A failed attempt reduces the time remaining until death, just as if the character had failed his Death Test by one more point. This can shorten his remaining life span, as well as make future stabilization attempts more difficult.

Sometimes, people can heal on their own, without medical attention. A character can opt to make a Constitution roll to stabilize himself rather than waiting for a healer to show up. Failing such a roll has all the normal consequences of failing a stabilization roll, however.

A well-equipped hospital always manages it's Stabilization roll to save a character if he is brought in on time, but only scores a normal success.

Striking a character that is down is not only unchivalrous, it is also not very effective. Worsen the character's Death Test result by one, just as if he had received unsuccessful Stabilization attempt. If you are alone with a helpless and/or unconscious character, the GM may rule that you simply snuff them automatically. He may also judge you a psychopath.

Alcohol & Drugs

Intoxication is measured in servings. A serving is a glass of wine, a bottle of beer, a shot of spirits, or a mixed drink. Characters can drink a number of servings of alcohol equal to their Constitution without ill effect. Such inebriation should still be played out, as judgment and self-discipline is still affected. Continued drinking gives the character one point of impairment for each multiple of his Constitution he drinks. When impairment reaches -3 (and with each level thereafter), you must make a Constitution test as if recovering from a failed Death Test with a margin equal to the impairment suffered. It is possible to drink yourself to death.

The body fights the alcohol, reducing impairment level one every four hours.

Characters who know schticks from the fu Path of the Empty Bottle ignore the alcohol impairments to their Martial Arts skill. All other skills are still impaired normally.