Special Attack Rules
Two special cases of attacks involve modified rules.
Indirect Attacks
Indirect attacks such as thrown hand grenades often produce damage over an area, and any objects within that area may receive damage. Indirect attacks will be indicated by “(indirect)” following the test’s range specifier.
Because the center of that area is typically reached by throwing or shooting which requires a skill test—and because misses have a greater potential to harm allies or innocents—indirect attacks are handled in a different way than direct attacks.
To make an indirect attack, the actor chooses the target location and makes a Test of the appropriate skill, such as the Weapons » Hand Grenades skill, with the success target based on range to that location in the usual way.
If the test fails and the attack misses its mark, the following method is used to determine where the center of the damage area actually lands:
- First, set aside any successes.
- From the remaining dice, compare the number of 1s and 2s. If they are equal, disregard. Otherwise, look up the count of the highest number of these die values in table 15 and note the indicated direction.
- Repeat step 2 with 3s and 4s.
- Starting from the desired target location, find the offset for the actual location in each direction noted in steps 2 & 3 with the following formula:
(5 - #SUCCESSES) meters
Indirect Attack Miss Direction
| Die Value | Relative Direction | Illustration |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Too Near |  |
| 2 | Too Far |  |
| 3 | Wide Right |  |
| 4 | Wide Left |  |
Ambrose is trying to throw the Holy Hand Grenade at the Beast. He marks the target in his mind, pulls the pin, counts to five (“three sir!”), and throws.
At the current range, the success target is 3S. Ambrose rolls 8d6 with 
. Because he only rolls two successes, he misses his mark. But where does it land?
There are more 2s than 1s, and more 4s than 3s in the roll. Looking up 2 in table 15, we find that the throw went too far. Looking up 4, we find it also went wide left. With 2 successes, the throw missed by 3m (5 - 2) in each direction.
The Holy Hand Grenade explodes 3m behind and to the Beast’s right (Ambrose’s left). Luckily, since it has an explosive radius of 4m, the Beast still takes some damage.
Sustained Attacks
Sustained attacks occur when a weapon or attack repeats or streams continuous damage without additional direct action by the actor. An example of such an attack is sustained fire from a fully-automatic firearm or a spray of flame from a magical spell. Sustained attacks allow the attacker to dramatically increase damage inflicted on a target, or to spread damage across multiple targets in a single action. Weapons or capabilities which can perform sustained attacks are indicated with the Sustainable feature.
In a sustained attack, additional dice called Sustain Dice are added to an attack’s dice pool, representing the continuing action of the damage. To perform a sustained attack, the actor must declare the number of sustain dice that will be added to the attack’s dice pool. With the assembled pool including sustain dice, the attack is resolved normally.
Two factors determine the number of sustain dice that can be added to an attack.
- Each sustain die added to the attack incurs a sustain cost. Any sustainable attack will list its sustain cost, often in the form of units of ammunition, fuel, or some other limiting factor. To determine the maximum possible sustain dice for an attack, divide the total available units by the attack’s sustain cost. The number of sustain dice used in the attack cannot exceed this number.
- For each AD spent on the attack, a number of sustain dice equal to the attack’s sustain rate can be added, as long as the total number does not exceed the maximum calculated by sustain cost.
Seeja is tracking a target she’s injured and has him cornered in a narrow defile. She knows he’s hiding somewhere in the underbrush from his blood trail, and she needs to finish him off before he can regroup and counter-attack.
Seeja crouches down and flips her rifle to full-auto mode. She eyes the likeliest group of bushes and as soon as she spots movement in them, she fires a sustained burst, emptying her magazine.
Her assault rifle has the Sustainable feature with a 4 sustain rate and a sustain cost of 3 shots.
The weapon’s magazine holds 30 shots, so the most sustain dice she can add is 10 (30/3).
Even though she’s spending all 5AD on the shot and based on the weapon’s sustain rate that would result in 20 sustain dice (5 × 4), the magazine will be empty at 10 so that’s all she can add. Her base pool is 10d6 (PRW + Skill + 5AD), but with the 10 sustain dice she has a whopping 20d6.
Because the target is behind full cover, her success target is 7S. Even so, her full-auto burst gives her 9 successes and a 3 success margin for 12HP.
The enemy probably didn’t survive. Still, she closes in cautiously to make sure.
Sweeping Attacks
A sustained attack may be swept across multiple targets, spreading its damage among them. In order to do so, the arc or “sweep” of the attack must be declared along with the number of sustain dice. If a sustained attack is declared with a sweep and the attack specifies a ranged success target, the attack’s success target is determined based on the average (the mean, though GMs are encouraged to approximate to keep things moving fast) of the range to objects within the sweep.
A sweeping sustained attack is considered continuous throughout its declared arc of sweep, so an actor cannot selectively target within the swept area (for example, to exclude allies). If the attack is also Chainable, exclusions can be achieved by chaining multiple sweeps.
If the declared attack includes a sweep, the resulting total damage is divided equally between any objects within the swept area so long as those objects are within the attack’s effective range.
As with Area Damage, an actor who is within the area of the sweep, is aware of the impending damage, and has reserved 1 or more AD for the dodge action may attempt to reduce the received damage. The actor rolls dice as usual for a dodge, and subtracts the number of successes from the share of damage they would have received (one point of damage reduced for each success).
Thanmore is surrounded by Shades and backed up against a wall. He’s killed a few with his sword, but the 3 left are confident of a kill this night.
Thanmore sets his feet. He isn’t dead just yet. Calling on the power of the In-between, he sweeps his hand in an arc encompassing the Shades and Calls Flame.
Between his Skill dice and 2AD, he has a base pool of 9d6. Calling will EX-bind 3AD, but this is his last chance. Call » Flame is Sustainable, with a Sustain Rate of 3 and a Cost of 1EX/3. He can afford to bind 2 additional exhaustion dice, so he sustains the flame as long as he can, adding 6 sustain dice for a total pool of 15d6.
The larger pool gives him 6 successes, for a success margin of 5. At 3HP/SM, the called flame does a total of 15HP, spread across the three Shades—Just enough to kill them all.
It’s a good thing too, as sustaining the flames cost Thanmore an additional 2EX. With only 1AD left unbound, he’s exhausted and desperately needs a minute to catch his breath.