Combat Talents
Talents are the abilities that make up the the other half of what your character can do. You know they're a good shot, but which weapons are they a good shot with? Do they have sword skills, magical power or other skills?
Of course, talents have limits. In both character creation and leveling up you'll notice you get a fixed number of both social and combat talents. This is a hard limit, and so you can't be good at everything you wish. Choose wisely...
Using Talents is fairly simple. Each Talent has a parent attribute, which you may need to roll to activate it. For example, most Magic use Willpower. In combat Talents will also have an Action Point cost (how many AP it takes to activate) and a Cool Down (how long before you can use it again) or a number of uses (how many times it can be used before you run out and must restock).
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Combat Talents are divided into three kinds;
Warrior Talents - Primarily dedicated to arms, armour and fighting techniques. Warrior talents can generally be used as much as you want without Cooldown, and will only occasionally ask for any additional roles or tests. Physical Prowess, Weapons Skill or Ranged Skill will usually be used for these when a test is called for.
Magic Talents - Powerful magical spells that can inflict significant damage or status effects, but all spells that have a Cooldown can't be used while a Cooldown is active, limiting the use of more advanced and power magics. Often forces the target to make a test, or calls for a Willpower test from the caster.
Skilled Talents - These Talents rely on Intelligence, and often require a second roll or opposed test to function, or act as a boost.
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These are divided into several types of Talent;
Passive - These skills add some kind of permanent, always on bonus to your character - often a bonus with a narrow focus of weapons or talents that are added in addition to the usual Attribute test, but sometimes AP reductions or defensive abilities.
Unique - Occasionally a Talent simply won't fit with anything, and so will be noted as Unique and have additional rules fully governing it's use.
Style - Style Talents are meant to enhance other Talents, and therefore stack directly with them, both to hit and with damage or difficulty resisting it.
Special Attack - Usually a flashy and unusual move that inflicts additional damage.
Attack Spell - These types of attacks are the ones that typically inflict harm. They involve making an attack against your target or targets, although instead of Melee or Ranged Skill you use Willpower to see if you hit. These attacks can be Dodged but not usually parried.
Overwhelm - Some attacks are less flashy. Instead of launching an obvious assault a less usual attack will occur. To activate it make a Willpower Test. Most of these talents will allow the target(s) to make some kind of roll to mitigate or negate the effect.
Enhancement - Enhancement magic improves the target, be it yourself or another, in some way. Most of the time these automatically succeed, but instead require an Upkeep cost of come kind. If a target is unwilling they may make a Willpower save to ignore its effects.
Summoning - Summoning calls a creature or an item into this world. Like Enhancement they automatically succeed most of the time, but take AP to upkeep.
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Curses - To inflict a curse on a target you need part of them, most typically blood in combat. To Inflict a curse make an Intelligence test - on a success the Curse is inflicted. Some Curses will allow a Willpower test to remove them after a set time, others will run out when the focus ends