Actions and Drama
Combat:
When running an encounter with car-to-car combat, it is probably going to be easiest to cut out a paper representation of your car and use that to keep track of everything. Another excellent option is to use Lego cars with the minifigs attached. This serves several purposes:
- It’s easy to see where you are in relationship to everyone else
- You can use tokens or miniatures for characters or supplies and move them around with the car
- It lets you keep the action simple in a game where a lot can be happening at once
Combat is split into 3 main phases: Initiative, Intention, and Action
Initiative: Roll Wits + Alertness, difficulty 4. The number of successes determines your Initiative for this turn.
Intention: Starting with the lowest initiative and working your way up, each character in combat announces their intention. This is done so that the faster character can react to what the slower characters are doing!
Action: Starting with the highest initiative and working your way down, resolve every character’s action via dice rolls.
That’s it! It is designed so most combat can be resolved in 5 to 10 turns, although it’s certainly possible to have massive, multi-car melees that could go on for much longer.
Combat Step 1: Initiative Rules
Initiative: At the beginning of each combat, each character rolls Wits + Alertness, difficulty 4. The number of successes determines your Initiative for this turn. Any wound penalties subtract from this total.
If there is a tie in initiative, the character with the higher Wits has initiative. If that too is a tie, they both act simultaneously.
*You may play the game by only rolling initiative once per battle as opposed to once per turn. This will speed the game up somewhat, but then the order of who announces their turns gets set and becomes a serious disadvantage for those going last.*
*You can make all enemies act at the same initiative to simplify this portion of combat as well!*
Combat Step 2: Intention Rules
Intention: Starting with the lowest initiative and working your way up, each character in combat announces their intention.
The character with lowest initiative announces what they intend to do, whether that be an attack, preparing a dodge, or taking the wheel from your fallen comrade! Then the character with the next-lowest initiative makes their intention known, and so on, until the character with the highest initiative finally gets to make their intention known.
Adrenaline Points
You start any scene with 2 temporary Adrenaline points. For every success you roll that is also a double number, you get an additional Adrenaline point. You may spend AP to give yourself a single automatic success with any roll, or to soak 1 damage from any attack.
Combat Step 3: Action Rules
Action: Starting with the highest initiative and working your way down, resolve every character’s action via dice rolls.
Now you go through each intention and carry them out, in reverse order that they were stated in. That is, the fastest initiative action will be performed first, then the next-highest initiative action takes place, and so on.
Changing Actions: If it gets to be your time to take an action but that action is now impossible (e.g. chop the head off of an already-decapitated person, starting a car that no longer exists, etc), you may change your action but at a +1 penalty to the difficulty. Otherwise, you must carry out your action as you described it.
| Attack Type | Roll to Hit | Damage* | Range | Difficulty |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Punching/Kicking | Brawl + Dexterity | Strength | 1 | 6 |
| Dodging | Dodge + Dexterity | Subtract Hit Dice | Self | 6 |
| Grapple | Brawl + Dexterity | Strength* | 1 | Opponent’s Stamina +Athletics |
| Spear | Melee + Dexterity | Strength +1 | 2 | 6 |
| Pistol | Firearms + Dexterity | 4 | 10 | 6 |
| Pistol, large | Firearms + Dexterity | 6 | 10 | 7 |
| Shotgun | Firearms + Dexterity | 8 | 6 | 7 |
| Rifle | Firearms + Dexterity | 8 | 25 | 6 |
Attack Complications
Vehicular Combat: Overview
Driving: Driving is everything on the Flat. Few creatures are hardy enough to survive for long on foot, and if you cannot drive then you cannot escape those that do. It’s not a surprise then, that each of the tribes makes each of their war parties as distinct as possible, so that they know when they can drive alongside one of their own.
Combat in cars is much the same as it would be on foot, but the stakes are higher. Sometimes the battlefield is simply the desert road whizzing by underneath your wheels, while you remain locked in a 70Mph dance with a gang of death-worshipping hearse-driving maniacs. Sometimes you can be avoiding pitfalls or traps left by clever bandits; in any case, it beats being smashed to death.
Vehicles: Your Lifeline on the Flat
You simply cannot live on the Flat for more than a day or two without a vehicle. The heat of day and the cold of night are assuredly deadly, and weather will ruin any tent on it’s first pass. The ability to move to avoid weather and deadly predators is paramount to any and all residents of the Flat. In addition, raiders and survivalists are always on the lookout for the easiest marks, so you should be prepared to defend your ride from harm!
| Description | Size | Seats | Body Points | Armor | Mobility | Power |
| Bike | 1×1 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 3 | 1 |
| Moped/Vespa | 1×1 | 1 | 2 | 0 | 7 | 2 |
| Motorcycle | 1×2 | 2 | 3 | 0 | 9 | 2 |
| Small Car | 2×2 | 4 | 5 | 1 | 7 | 5 |
| Medium Car | 2×3 | 5 | 6 | 1 | 6 | 5 |
| Large Car (SUV) | 2×3 +1 | 7 | 8 | 1 | 5 | 6 |
| Moving Truck/U-Haul | 2×5 | 10 | 8 | 1 | 4 | 5 |
| Cherry Picker | 2×2 +1 | 3 | 6 | 0 | 4 | 4 |
| Big Rig Cab only | 2×2 | 4 | 5 | 1 | 4 | 5 |
| Big Rig + Full Trailer | 2×10 | 4 +16 | 8 | 1 | 3 | 6 |
All vehicles have certain statistics that are type-specific.
Size: This is how many slots the vehicle will take up in a 5’x5′ grid. A human takes up a single 5’x5′ grid worth of space, and will typically occupy a single space. A +1 indicates that there is a special seat, such as the top of an SUV or the basket of the Cherry Picker.
Seats: This is how many people can safely ride on this. Each additional passenger will have to come up with some creative seating should they want to hitch a ride. Use common sense and keep pacing in mind when thinking up how additional riders could effect the group. For example, an extra passenger on a moped is a considerable burden, but an extra passenger clinging to an SUV will largely be a danger to themselves!
Body: This is how many points of damage the vehicle can take before they are destroyed.
Armor: This is how many points of damage your vehicle will soak.
Mobility: This is the maximum number of dice that you can use while driving this vehicle
Power: How much power a vehicle has to ram or push another
Driver Rules: The biggest change is going to be the presence of a DRIVER. The driver is essentially wielding the vehicle as a very large weapon. The driver can only roll as many dice for a vehicle as the vehicle has Mobility.
| Driver Action | Roll and Results |
| Standard Driving | No roll |
| Outrunning | Stamina + Drive, Dif6 – Dex Dif |
| Smashing | Dex + Drive, Dif(Mobility of target V) * |
| Evasive Driving | Roll 1 die, |
Outrunning: Sometimes, you just need to drop all the cargo and haul ass. When attempting to escape another vehicle, you will need to roll Stamina + Drive. The difficulty of this roll starts at 6, but it goes up or down depending on how much difference of (Mobility) there is between your vehicle and the one you are trying to get away from; for every point higher their (Mobility), the difficulty is lowered by 1. For example, if you were in a Mobility= 7 Motorcycle and you wanted to attempt to escape a Mobility= 5 Car, your difficulty for the roll would be 4. If YOU were in the car and trying to escape the zippy motorcycle, the difficulty would be 8.
Smashing: This is the most basic ‘attack’ that can be performed with a vehicle. Attempt to hit using Dexterity + Drive (keeping in mind that you cannot roll more dice than the vehicle’s Mobility rating). You deal damage equal to the number of successes + the difference in your Strength ratings.
Example: A car (Power 5) rams a motorcycle (Power 2). If the car slammed the motorcycle with 1 success, it would deal 3 damage to the motorcycle. If the motorcycle rammed the car with 1 success, it would not deal any damage to the car!
Example: The same motorcycle rams the car and this time rolls an amazing 5 successes! Now the motorcycle deals 2 damage to the car.
WORK ON THIS SYSTEM MAKE IT EASY AND FUN!
Repair: A skilled mechanic can repair a vehicle even when it’s on the go. While most of the time it is an extremely risky maneuver, it can be a good use of someone’s time if they are not skilled in fighting. To repair mid-combat, the mechanic must have access to the hood of the car, which usually means crawling around on the outside of the car. A roll of Dexterity + Repair, Difficulty 8, is required to attempt repairs while in motion, and that goes up to Difficulty 9 if you’re also under duress. Any number of successes will repair 1 BP for the vehicle; failure indicates no repair was completed, and a botch means that something goes wrong, such as a tool being dropped into the timing belt (or worse!)