The combat/conflict system is beautiful in its simplicity. Firstly, all conflicts follow the same system; both physical and social battles are fought using the same rules and types of actions, the only thing that changes are the actually skills used.
First, the GM frames the scene, describes those involved in the conflict, as well as the environment. Crude maps will be drawn! People will be placed upon them! Then, initiative is rolled! Once the turn order is established, rounds go through until the conflict is over. On one's turn, there are 5 basic actions which can be taken; attack, manoeuvre, block, sprint and full defence. Each character gets one basic action per turn, but may also be able to take a supplemental and/or free action in addition.
Attack - Perhaps the most obvious and the one that will end fights, attacking to deal damage to opponents. You may attack any opponent in the same square as you with a melee attack, opponents up to 1 square away with a thrown attack or up to 2 squares away with a true ranged attack. You roll your appropriate skill to make your attack, while your defender makes a roll to defend; the skill you use to attack may alter what the defender is able to use. If the attacker wins the roll, every point he beats the defender by turns into damage and he also gets to add weapon damage to this. If they tie, the weapon damage may still see the defender hurt, as long as their armour isn't equal to it. If the defender wins, the attack fails to connect, regardless of any weapon damage bonus.
When an attack hits, the defender takes stress. Each character has a number of stress boxes, each labelled with a number beneath. If an attack connects for an amount of damage, you mark off the box with that number (and only that number. 3 damage marks off box #3, not boxes #1-3 as it would in many other games). It an attack hits a box and finds that box already filled, it "rolls up" and fills the next one higher instead. (so a 2 damage hit when the #2 box is already full goes instead to #3) If there are no empty boxes to the right (in other words, the attack shifts to the right and is outside of their stress track) the character is either taken out or needs to absorb consequences in order to take the hit.
Each stress track defaults at 2 boxes, but certain skills can increase them; Endurance for physical, Conviction for mental and Presence for social.
As mentioned, if your stress taken has nowhere to go, you are taken out, meaning you have lost the conflict. This does not mean you are dead, the fate of your character depends on one's enemy as the situation. It would be fairly strange for a character to fall over dead during a social conflict in most circumstances (although it's in theory possible, if it was something such as a trial where a guilty verdict is death). Typically, being taken out will be a setback for the characters but only in the most extreme circumstances will it resolve in character death; I will endeavour to let you know when a conflict is deadly at the beginning of it so you can take steps. Either way, win or lose, when a conflict is over, all stress gained during it is removed.
After all, we've already mentioned Consequences a few times. As above, stress is removed at the end of a conflict, consequences are a different matter. Characters can take on a consequence in order to reduce income stress, but the effects of one last much longer; it's trading off the ability to keep going now for a longer term injury/problem. A consequence will cancel out incoming stress from an attack, converting it into the consequence instead but be warned; it cannot retroactively convert stress over, only the stress you're receiving from this attack can be cancelled out. The exact nature of the consequence is up to the player to suggest, if the GM considers it appropriate for the level, it will be allowed and apply. There are four levels of consequences with increasing severity and recovery time, as well as increasing ability to negate damage. One last note is a character cannot begin the time to remove the consequence until something to trigger recovery has occurred; in the case of physical that's usually an appropriate level of physical attention and/or healing magic, whereas mental or social may involve a kind word or shoulder to cry on.
Mild Consequence cancels out 2 incoming stress and the effects last one scene after recovery begins. Things that make people say "Walk it off", such as a bruised hand, nasty shiner, winded, flustered, disgraced.
Moderate Consequence cancels out 4 incoming stress, and the effects last until the end of the next "session" after recovery starts; the exact timing on this varies due to the GM, but will likely be around 3-5 scenes. They're the sort of things that make people say "You should really get that looked at/get some rest", such as Bad First Degree Burn, Twisted Ankle, Exhausted, Drunk.
Severe Consequence cancels out 6 stress, but the effects last for the next story arc (possibly less if the arc proves to be a long one, GM;s decision). These are things that make people go "Man, you should really get some serious help", such as a broken limb, bad second degree burn, crippling shame, trauma inducing phobia.
Characters can take one consequence of each severity (although certain skills at high levels or certain stunts will allow you more), once the consequence slot is used it cannot be used again until the previous consequence has been recovered from. Multiple consequences can be absorbed at a time to stack their damage reduction, such as combining a mild and moderate consequence on the one attack to negate 6 incoming damage. If consequences remove the stress from the attack to 0, the attack is negated, but any additional damage beyond what's absorbed will still need to be marked in one's stress track. So, if your character gets hit for 5 stress and you decide to take a moderate consequence, you’re left with a 1 stress hit. Keep in mind that the normal rules for taking stress apply for this—empty boxes get filled in, filled boxes “roll up” to the right. That means that, even if you take a consequence, the leftover stress might take you out anyway…be careful about this!
As for what consequences actually do, they function as temporary aspects on your character, functioning exactly as an aspect would. That said, there are likely few situations where you can use an aspect gained from a consequence to gain a bonus (although you're welcome to try, a physical wound may open doors socially etc.) and many more where it can be used against you. On the plus side, you still do get fate points from this if it's used against you.
Now, you may be thinking to yourself, "But you said there were 4 levels of severity, I only see three". The last one is called Extreme Consequences and it is a last resort. It's set apart because it's almost more of a plot device than a normal consequence and doesn't follow the normal rules for recovery; you can only have one extreme consequence at once and it'll only clear at the end of a major story arc. When you use this, it cancels out 8 stress from an attack; in exchange, it permanently changes you, choose one of your aspects and remove it, instead replacing it with the consequences of this attack. This fundamentally changes who your character is. Because of this, you should reserve it for the greatest of sacrifices or the most heinous of traumas—for those times when you absolutely must push to the bitter end and have no other choice. You may not change your high concept, not your trouble, and no amount of healing, supernatural or mundane will speed up recovery. Furthermore, your new aspect is treated as one of your permanent aspects, when the recovery time ends, your extreme consequences slot opens up to be used again, nothing else happens, your aspect doesn't go back. Once recovery has occurred, you may be able to alter the aspect during a milestone but you'd have to be able to justify the renaming as something that reflects the experience, you can't just say "Well, time's up, I want my old one back."
Concessions
Sometimes, pursuing a goal in a conflict comes at too high a price. Heaven knows what might happen to your character if he gets taken out and has a bunch of consequences to deal with later. Losing can be a very daunting thing—possibly more than you want to deal with at the moment. If loss seems to be inevitable, you can offer a concession instead of continuing the conflict. A concession is basically a special form of being taken out—you lose the conflict, but you get to decide your character’s fate on your own terms instead of your opponent’s. That way, your character doesn’t have to take any consequences you’re not willing to take and can avoid fates that might arise from being taken out by the opponent, such as getting captured, killed, humiliated, etc.
A concession has to pass muster with the group before it is accepted—the conditions of the loss still have to represent a clear and decisive disadvantage for your character. If the group (note that your opponent is part of the group for this!) feels like your character is getting off easy, you’ll need to rework the concession until it’s acceptable. Here are some guidelines for determining what constitutes a “clear and decisive disadvantage.” These may also be used to represent defeat conditions if the character is taken out:
The character has at least one moderate or worse consequence as a result of the conflict.
The outcome creates significant difficulty for the character in the future. The character might offer a concession to avoid getting maimed, but maybe that means an artifact he was protecting gets stolen, or something along those lines.
The outcome creates a situation that restricts the character’s behavior in some significant way, like owing a large debt to someone. This may require adding an additional, long-term, temporary aspect to the character, separate from his consequence track, so that the defeat can be enforced via compels.
Finally, a character cannot be saved from a roll that takes him out by offering a concession. You have to offer the concession before the roll that takes out your character. Otherwise, it’s cheating the opponent out of victory.
Cashing Out: The Bright Side of Defeat
Losing a conflict, either by concession or by being taken out, grants the player one fate point per consequence taken in the conflict. This is called cashing out of the conflict. You can think of this
as a compel of each aspect taken in the conflict, because the assumption is that those consequences directly contributed to the character’s defeat.
Hooboy... alright, back on track
Manoeuvre - A catch all term for a very flexible option, manoeuvres cause an effect rather than dealing damage in order to make further actions easier. A manoeuvre either creates a temporary aspect on a character/the environment or removes a temporary aspect in the same manner. What you can do with one is very flexible, anything from an arrow to the knee in order to reduce an opponent's agility to tripping or disarming them, to extinguishing the light sources in a building to make the battlefield darken, aiming at someone, kicking over a table for cover, all of these are examples of manoeuvres. As with attacks, you roll an appropriate skill vs an opponent's appropriate defence skill, or vs a flat difficulty when interacting with the environment.
Once a manoeuvre has been successfully completed, a temporary aspect is placed on the target. On subsequent turns, you may "tag" this aspect, allowing you to gain a bonus as if you'd spent a fate point. Exact success on a manoeuvre (as in, you matched the difficulty/opposed roll exactly) creates a temporary one-shot aspect, as soon as its tagged it disappears. If you exceed the difficulty, the manoeuvre lasts until the conflict ends, or it's removed via another manoeuvre. In this case, however, subsequent taggings of the aspect created beyond the first will require use of fate points; only the first one is free.
Another interesting idea for a manoeuvre is teamwork; you can use a manoeuvre to assist another character in their action, giving them a temporary aspect "assistance from x". Multiple people can set this up, until the person receiving all the assistance gets their turn, at which point they can tag all of the manoeuvres to make one hell of a roll. Enough people coordinating can often lead to herculean success— many hands, after all, make light work.
Block - Another catch, this time preventing certain actions. Any time you're actively working to prevent something, be it protecting someone or something in a direct sense, to raining covering fire down at an open doorway to keep anyone from accessing it. The character initiating a block rolls the appropriate skill to determine the block strength; until their next turn, anyone who tries to do something covered by the block must make a roll to bypass this block strength. In the case of a block defending another person, the attacker rolls the one roll against the block and the defender's own dodge skill; the higher of the two applies to limit the attack. Generally, there are two sorts of blocks, ones that affect multiple enemies but only restrict a single though, or ones that affect a single enemy but restrict most things. The aforementioned covering fire on a doorway would prevent any enemy from accessing it, but said enemies are free to take other actions without having to come against the block. Alternatively, one might draw sword and ready shield, and stand stalwartly before a dangerous foe; the foe can neither flee nor strike at another without first escaping the block, but other enemies are not affected by this.
Grapples are also a kind of block, but also require you to tag an appropriate aspect in order to commence; this can be a temporary aspect caused by a consequence or manoeuvre or it could even be a core aspect of the enemy the player has assessed. The grapple rules work basically the same as a normal block, except that the player in control of the grapple can make attacks against their foe whilst blocking them, albeit at a slight penalty due to doing so as a supplemental action (resolved at -1). All in all, it's a potent way to wear down a foe and keep them out of the fight at the same time, as long as you're able to keep a hold of them.
Sprint - Lastly, characters can use a Sprint to move a zone on the battle map. It's hard to visualise, but keep in mind what I said earlier about the effective range of weapons, zones tend to be quite large and most battlefields won't present a huge number of them; this isn't a 5ft square grid. Now, most movement rolls will be pretty easy, because there's nothing stopping it; such rolls are difficulty 0, so unless you roll a negative result, you'll always be able to move one zone. Each point you exceed the difficulty in your roll to sprint (which is typically athletics, but could be other skills as justified), you may move one additional zone. Sometimes, however, it's not so simple to move from one area to the next; when difficult terrain or fences block your path. This complication is called a border and the GM gives it a difficulty rating. Typically, rough terrain is Average (+1), fencers and other such barriers are Fair (+2) and extreamly high walls, barbed wire and other fortifications are Good (+3) borders. If there's a border, you must meet or exceed its value to be able to move through there, with any amount you exceed it by turning into additional movement available.
In situations where there's no border, you can also just move as a supplemental action, meaning you make the movement and resolve your main action at a -1 penalty. Within the same zone, movement isn't an issue, you're assumed to always be able to reach everyone/everywhere within it.
Free and Supplemental Actions - I've mentioned them a bit here and there, but there are some actions that don't count as your main action for the turn. Free actions are just that, free, they tend to be situational but don't cost you anything and there's no limit. Defence rolls are a free action, as are some perception rolls to notice things changing etc. Fairly easy stuff. Supplementals are a little more than they, and as a result they impose a -1 penalty on your main action. The most common ones of these are mentioned above, as grapples and shifting 1 zone as a supplmental.
Overflow - Sometimes, you get lucky and succeed so well at something, you end up with extra shifts you don't get to spend on anything; you succeed far more than anticipated and simply don't need those extra shifts to complete the action. (Note: A shift is generated for every point you beat the difficulty or opponent's roll by). When this happens, the extra shifts are called overflow and you're allowed to spend them to take an additional, after-the-roll action if you so choose. The action is resolved at the value of the overflow, so two shifts of overflow is resolved as a fair (+2) action. The main restriction is that this action cannot be an offensive action and must be consistent with the sort of activity that generated the overflow; movement is fine, and so is any other action that the GM allows as supplemental. Specifically, this is a good way to fit non-conflict actions into the middle of a conflict scene. Overflow can only legitimately happen by chance—most often by a really good roll of the dice. So if you know you need 2 shifts to accomplish something, invoking additional aspects to get 6 shifts so you can have overflow doesn’t cut it. Also, no matter how many shifts you have of overflow, you can only take one additional action, and you have to commit all your shifts to that action.