Combat in Of Hearth & the Harrowing

Combat in Basic Roleplaying games runs the gambit from highly simulationist to very narrative, depending on which optional rules are used. For Of Hearth & the Harrowing we lean in heavily on powers so have pulled back some of the crunch in some areas, such as simplifying initiative.

The best way to see how combat really runs is to play the game, but here is an example from the Core Rulebook of how combat runs:

The heroes Tomas, Hamish, and Gareth encounter four corrupted wolves while exploring a cave. The wolves rush to attack and the heroes need to defend themselves.

Prepared Firearms

Tomas and Gareth were both prepared with loaded and readied firearms (a flintlock pistol and musket respectively) so the first round of combat they get to go first, firing a volley at the wolves (see Prepared Range Weapon on page ###).

Gareth has a Musket skill of 46% and rolls a 42. Its a hit. He rolls 1D10+4 damage, getting a total of 9 points of damage. The wolf has two points of armor but firearms count armor as half, reducing the attack to 8 points of damage.

With a health of 14, and a major wound threshold of 7, this means the wolf is down to 6 health and has taken a major wound (see Major Wound on page ###). Gareth’s player rolls on the Major Wound Table and gets a 55. The shot blows one of the wolves legs clean of and while the wolf is not dead, the shock of the blast makes it unable to fight and it falls to the ground whimpering and bleeding.

Tomas has the power Snap Shot and he decides to use two levels of the power (see Activating Powers on page ###). He marks off 6 of his 11 hope to use the power, then rolls against his power’s skill of 56% and gets a 31. He hits and does 1D8+2 for the pistol and an additional 2d6 for the power! A total of 13 damage, minus the wolf’s 1 point of effective armor and another major wound is caused.

The gamemaster tells Tomas that because he did a major wound and left the wolf with only 1 or 2 health (in this case 2) the wolf is taken out of the combat. Tomas’ player rolls on the Major Wound Table to see roughly where he hit the wolf and describes his killing blow.

Normal Combat Order

Now combat proceeds to normal combat order. All combat participants act in DEX order from highest to lowest (see Rounds on page ###). This makes the combat turn order normally Hamish (DEX 15), Tomas (DEX 14), the corrupted wolves (DEX 13), then finally Gareth (DEX 12), with Tomas and Gareth having already gone in the first round.

Hamish is armed with a knife and has no desire to get in close to corrupted wolves, so he hangs back behind Gareth and decides to use the Hold action until he is needed (see Hold on Page ###).

Next the two remaining wolves go. One charges at each Tomas and Gareth. The wolf attacking Tomas gets a Success so Tomas decides to use more hope to trigger his Riposte power at level 1.

He rolls the power (skill rating 57%) and gets a 63, scoring a Success. This counts as a successful parry (see Defend on page ###), knocking aside the wolves attack, and allowing him to do 1D6 damage back.

The use of the power costs him 4 more hope, leaving him perilously low at 2 hope. If something causes him to lose those 2 hope he will fall unconscious (see Hope, Horror, and Stress on page ###)! Still he does 3 points of damage to the wolf after its 2 armor is subtracted from a D6 roll of 5 damage.

Gareth is not as lucky. The wolf attacking him rolls a Critical Success (see Critical Success and Damage on page ###). Gareth attempts to parry with his shield (skill rating 52%) but rolls a 89, failing to parry the critical attack. As a bleeding type attack, this means the damage is maximized for the weapon but the wolf’s damage modifier is still rolled. Also, the wound is bleeding for 1 point of damage per round.

The wolf’s damage is 1D8+1D4 so the critical attack does 8+1D4. The gamemaster rolls a 2, for 10 damage. Gareth has heavy armor on which reduces damage by 7 points, but unfortunately critical hits bypass armor. He takes all 10 points of damage plus 1 damage at the end of each round.

This is enough for a Major Wound, which the gamemaster rolls now. He rolls a 14, marring Gareth’s face and causing him 1D3 (he rolls a 2) CHA damage. Gareth makes a Luck roll to see if the CHA loss is permanent and gets a 42 out 60. Once the wound is healed, the CHA will be restored.

Hamish comes off of hold after seeing Gareth’s injury. His new DEX order for the initiative will be the next DEX order. Since the wolves went on 13, this means for the rest of the fight (or until he holds again) Hamish will go on 12.

Healing in Combat

Normally using Medicine to heal someone takes ten minutes (see Recovering Health on page ###). Hamish doesn’t want to wait that long so he uses his Triage power. Like many powers Triage breaks one of the established rules, in this case it allows for a Medicine check to happen in one round rather than ten minutes.

Hamish has a rating of 67 in Triage, and rolls a 6, scoring a Critical Success (10% of skill chance or less). He gets to choose two effects, so stops the bleeding and heals Gareth 1D3 health. On the healing he rolls a 2, meaning Gareth is now only down by 8 health and is no longer bleeding.

Combat Continues

From there the combat will continue, it is Gareth’s turn to attack the wolves back, and he is out for revenge!