Action Chaining

Some actions are chainable. Chainable actions allow successes in one action to influence subsequent actions of the same type.

When an actor succeeds at an action that is chainable, any dice showing a six from the successful roll can be reused in the dice pool for another action of the same type, as long as the subsequent action follows immediately after the previous one, and the actor can continue to chain that action.

Action chaining is limited by the actor’s chain limit for that action type and by available AD. The actor’s chain limit for a given action type is the number of dice allocated to the capabilities that enable chaining of the relevant action type. An actor must have at least 1AD available to spend for each chained action after the initial action. Actions cannot be chained across rounds.

 

The first chainable action counts towards the actor’s chain limit, so for example, an actor with the Unarmed Combat skill cannot chain punches and kicks until they have allocated at least two dice to the skill.

 

Tam has trained for years and has an Unarmed Combat skill of 2 and a Grappling skill of 3. As he tries to sneak into Lord Periman’s keep, he takes a corner too fast and finds himself face-to-face with a house guard.

Tam manages to move first in the turn order, and lashes out with a punch. His roll is : three successes for 3 damage. But Tam isn’t finished yet.

He chains a second punch to the first. Using only 1AD, he would normally have 6d6 again. But since two of the previous successes were 6s, he can roll 8d6 (2 from Unarmed Combat, 3 from PRW, 1AD, and 2 chained from the previous attack). His second punch is a lucky , doing 5 damage.

Tam’s at his chain limit for unarmed attacks, and he doesn’t want to bring the rest of the household guards with the noise of a battle, so he switches tactics to grappling.

With a Grappling skill of 3, the skill’s default, and his PRW, he has eight skill dice to roll, and he’s still got 4AD left. He lunges forward for a Clinch, spending 2AD and rolls 10d6 with . The guard has a PRW of 2, and hasn’t trained in Grappling, so the best he can do is contest with , negating one of the sixes, but leaving Tam with a 6 and a 5.

Two successes are all Tam needs, and he’s now immobilized the guard’s arms and body. He chains from the Clinch to a Takedown attack, spending only 1AD but with the six from the previous roll he has another 10d6. This time the roll is . The guard struggles, but with his roll of fails to get free.

The guard is on the ground (prone) and Tam has three successes to chain into his next move. He drops and tries for a choke-out. With his last AD, skill dice, and 3 dice chained from the previous attack, he’s got 12d6. He rolls , and the guard struggles to break free with a lucky , but it’s not enough and the guard is fully immobilized as Tam gets him in a choke hold. If he can hold it for another few seconds, the guard will be unconscious and Tam can get on with his infiltration.