Special Attacks

Use the following rules for special melee or ranged strikes.

Area-effect Attacks

Attacks that affect more than one target or an area are classified as centered blast, cone, or uniform blast.

Fray: Area-effect attacks are difficult to dodge. If you make your Fray ÷ 2 roll and are within one meter of the edge of the affected area or something that would provide you with cover, you take no damage. Otherwise, even if you succeed, you still take half the damage.

Centered Blast

Blast weapons like grenades, mines, and other explosives expand outward from a central detonation point. Most blast attacks expand outward in a sphere, though certain shaped charges will direct an explosion in one direction only. The explosive force is stronger near the epicenter and weaker near the outer edges of the sphere. For every meter a target is from the center, reduce the DV of a blast weapon by −2.

Cone

Attacks with a cone area effect begin with the tip of the weapon and expand outward in a cone. At point-blank and close, this attack affects 1 target; at range, it affects 2 targets within a meter of each other; beyond range it affects 3 targets within a meter of the next. Cone-effect attacks that damage inflict +1d10 DV at point-blank and close and −1d10 DV beyond range.

Uniform Blast

Uniform blast attacks distribute their power evenly throughout the area of effect. Examples include fuel-air explosives and thermobaric weapons that disperse an explosive mixture in a vapor cloud and ignite it all at once. All targets within the noted blast radius suffer the same damage. Damage against targets outside of the main blast sphere is reduced by −2 DV per meter. If the attack inflicts other effects (such as shock), that effect only applies within the main uniform blast area.

In space, there is no atmosphere to propagate an explosive shockwave; reduce the DV by −10 per meter. Adjust the DV reduction as appropriate for thin atmospheres.

Scatter

Weapons such as grenades must go somewhere when they miss, and you might still catch your target in the blast radius. To determine where a missed area-effect attack falls, roll a d10. The direction the top pointed part of the die is pointing is the direction the attack scatters, treating yourself as the target for orientation purposes. The result of the die roll is how far away the attack lands, in meters. For each superior failure, double the scatter distance. This determines the epicenter of the blast; resolve the damage against anyone caught within its radius of effect as normal. You may need to fudge this result for microgravity or other situations where three-dimensionality matters, or you can roll another d10 to judge orientation on the z-axis (1 being “above” the target, 10 being “below”).

Attacks Against the Helpless

When making an attack against an incapacitated, paralyzed, sleeping, unconscious, or similar helpless target outside of combat, make an attack test. If you succeed, you kill/destroy them. If you fail, you inflict the maximum DV possible (which may still kill them). This assumes you have the time to carefully position and line up a lethal coup de grâce. It does not apply to opponents who are vulnerable during combat action turns; such attacks are conducted as normal, with no defense.

Blind Attacks

Attacking a target that you cannot see is difficult at best and a matter of luck at worst. If you cannot see, you may make a Perceive Test using some other available sense to detect your target. If this succeeds, you attack with a −30 modifier. If your Perceive Test fails, you attack at −30 and your attack has a straight 50% chance of automatically missing.

Called Shots

Sometimes it’s not enough to just hit your target — you need to shoot out a window, knock the knife out of their hand, or hit that hole in their armor. You can declare a called shot before you initiate an attack, choosing one of the outcomes noted below. Called shots suffer a −10 modifier. If you succeed with a superior success, the results below apply instead of the superior success result. If you hit but do not score a superior success, you simply strike your target as normal. You cannot make called shots with area-effect attacks.

Bypass Armor

Called shots can be used to target a hole or weak point in your opponent’s armor. If you score a superior success, you strike an armor-defeating hit, and their armor is halved. The GM may rule that an opponent’s armor doesn’t have a weak spot or unprotected area and disallow such called shots, or they may require a successful Perceive or Hardware: Armorer Test to spot one first.

Disarm

You can take a called shot to knock a weapon out of an opponent’s hand(s) or other appendages. The victim suffers half damage from the attack (reduced by armor as normal) and must make a SOM Check at −30 modifier to retain hold of the weapon. Otherwise it scatters 1d10 meters away. An additional superior success may be used to double the modifier to −60, inflict full damage, or to keep the weapon in your grip instead of knocking it away.

Knockdown

You may call your shot to knock an opponent down rather than injure them. A knocked-down opponent is prone and must take a quick action to stand again. An additional superior success may be used to inflict damage as normal.

Redirect

A called shot can be used to push your opponent in a specific direction. A redirected opponent is pushed, pulled, knocked back, or otherwise moved 2 meters in your direction of choice. An opponent who is redirected off a roof, out an airlock, into traffic, or in some equally dangerous direction may make a REF Check at −30 to catch themselves in time, though they will remain hanging in a precarious position if they succeed. Additional superior successes may double the modifier or inflict damage per normal.

Specific Target

A called shot can be used to strike a specific location on your opponent: disable a tool on a bot, strike someone in the eyes, or injure their leg. The GM determines the result. For example, the opponent may be blinded or dazed, have their movement hindered by half, or may lose the use of a specific component.

Coated Weapons

You can coat a melee weapon with a drug or toxin, including those secreted by ware like poison glands. You may only apply one dose at a time. The next time you damage a target with the weapon, they are exposed to the drug/toxin and the dose is used up. On a critical failure, you dose yourself. Only drugs/toxins with the dermal or injection vectors may be applied this way (Application Methods).

Demolitions

Use Hardware: Demolitions skill to place, disarm, or manufacture explosive devices such as superthermite or grenades.

Placing Explosives

If you intend to simply create a damaging blast, no skill test is needed to smack an explosive in place and run. However, you can use Hardware: Demolitions Tests when placing explosives for one of the following effects:

• Increase the amount of damage inflicted against an object/structure by +1d6 per superior success. Criticals will halve armor.
• Shape a centered area effect blast towards one direction only. If the angle of effect is 180 degrees or less; double the DV. If the angle of effect is 90 degrees or less, triple the DV.
• Target a structural weakpoint for a specific effect, such as destroying the supports to collapse a bridge or blowing a hole open in a ship’s hull without killing everyone in the room inside. The GM determines the effect.
• Make disarming the explosive more difficult. Anyone seeking to disarm must beat you in an Opposed Hardware: Demolitions Test.

Skills like Know: Engineering can serve as a complementary skill to a Hardware: Demolitions Test (Complementary Skills), at the GM’s discretion.

Disarming Explosives

Most explosives can be disarmed with a Hardware: Demolitions success test, modified as appropriate to the difficulty. If the character placing/making the explosive intentionally made it difficult to disarm, treat this as an opposed test instead.

Making Explosives

A character trained in Hardware: Demolitions can make explosives from raw materials. These materials can be gathered the traditional way or manufactured using a nanofabricator. Even nanofabbers with restricted settings can be used, as explosives can be constructed from all manner of mundane chemicals and materials.

Making explosives is a task action with a timeframe of 1 hour per 1d10 DV. On a failure, the resources are used but no explosive is made. On a superior failure, the mix appears to succeed but is extremely weak or more potent than expected (whichever is more likely to be problematic). If a critical failure is rolled, the demolitionist accidentally triggers an explosion.

Shock Attacks

Shock attacks use high-voltage electrical jolts to physically stun and incapacitate targets. Shock weapons are particularly effective against biomorphs and other biological creatures, even when heavily armored. Synthmorphs, bots, and vehicles are immune to shock effects.

When hit with a shock effect, make a SOM Check. Add your energy armor as a positive modifier. Apply a modifier for different sizes: very small −30, small −10, large +10, very large +30. Failure means you lose neuromuscular control, fall down, and are incapacitated for 1 action turn (+2 turns per superior failure) and stunned for 3 minutes. Success means you are stunned for 3 action turns.

To inflict shock without doing damage in melee simply requires a touch attack (+20). To inflict shock plus damage requires a regular melee attack.

Two-handed Weapons

Any weapon noted as two-handed requires two hands (or other prehensile limbs) to wield effectively. This applies to some melee weapons (diamond axes, spears, etc.) in addition to larger firearms and heavy weapons. Using such a weapon single-handed incurs a −20 modifier. This modifier does not apply to mounted weapons.

Wielding Two or More Weapons

You can wield two weapons at once in combat — or even more if sleeved in an octomorph or other multi-limbed morph.

Extra Melee Weapons

If attacking multiple targets in melee with the same complex action, simply make each attack separately (Multiple Targets).

Treat the use of two or more melee weapons against one target as a single attack, rather than multiple. Each additional weapon applies +1d6 DV to the attack (up to a maximum +3d6). The penalty for the Dominant Limb negative trait is ignored in this case.

Extra limbs (beyond 4) count as extra weapons for the purposes of unarmed combat, but they are counted as pairs. A biomorph with a set of extra arms, for example, would deal DV 2d6 in unarmed combat, rather than the standard 1d6. Some other weapons (claws, densiplast gloves) are also counted in pairs for this purpose.

When defending against melee attacks with multiple weapons/limbs, you receive +10 per extra weapon or pair of limbs, to a maximum of +30.

Extra Ranged Weapons

You can wield a pistol in each hand for ranged combat, or larger weapons if you have more limbs (an eight-limbed octomorph, for example, could conceivably hold four assault rifles). These weapons can all be fired at once towards the same target, using a single complex action. Handle each weapon as a separate attack, with a cumulative multi-attack modifier of −20 for each attack after the first (i.e., no modifier for the first attack, −20 for the second, −40 for the third, etc.).

You cannot fire multiple weapons against separate targets at once; each attack requires a separate complex action.