Movement

How far you get, and what gets in the way: in a round, across bad ground, up a wall, through water, in a chase and on the road. Every rule here works two ways, theater of the mind and tactical, and they use the same numbers, so a table can switch between them mid-session.

The actions that go with movement - what each Action Bracket lets you do - are at the end, under Actions.

Two Ways to Play

Theater of the mind. There is no map. The GM describes the scene, you say what you do, and the picture lives in everyone’s head. It still runs on the sheet: everything that moves has a Movement Rate in meters, the GM keeps rough distances in meters (“about 30 meters, across the car park”), and the distance puts a target in a Range Band. The band follows from where you end up. The GM gives distances when they matter, and a player can always ask how far. Close enough is fine; nobody measures.

Tactical. The scene goes on a map. One hex is one meter, so Movement Rate is the number of hexes you move, and a map printed at 1 inch = 1 m keeps tokens to scale.

Range Bands

Movement Rate

Movement Rate = 5 + Air, in meters (or hexes).

Exhausted 3 halves it. Grabbed sets it to 0.

Moving in a Round

A move can be split around the other action in a Normal round: move then attack, attack then move, or move, attack and move again, as long as the total stays within your Movement Rate. A Dash and a Sprint are all movement and don’t split.

A Sprint can be bumped like any Slow action: 1 Ki resolves it in the Normal band, 2 Ki in the Fast band. It stays a Sprint - 5x Movement Rate, and nothing else.

Leaving Melee

You can always move away. There is no free attack and no roll to break off. What leaving costs is time: anything that hasn’t acted yet this round, and declared Normal (a move and an attack), follows and attacks if its move reaches where you end up.

• Go early. A Fast move resolves before the Normal and Slow bands. Something else that declared Fast with a higher Initiative still acts first.
• Get far enough. End your move further away than its Movement Rate reaches.
• A Sprint goes last unless bumped, so anything in Melee with you that acts Fast or Normal attacks before you run.

A Grabbed character has Movement Rate 0: escape first, then move.

Disengaging is choosing to leave Melee. A Gift or Flaw that says you can’t disengage means you can’t choose to move out of Melee.

Moving Past People

• Through an ally’s space: yes.
• Through an enemy’s space: no. Go around.
• Ending your move in an occupied space: never, except with Bulldoze.
• Passing beside an enemy costs nothing.

In theater of the mind, the GM rules whether a crowd or a doorway lets you through.

Getting Low

• Belly Down - a free action, flat to the ground on purpose. Your Melee attacks are at Disadvantage, Melee attacks against you gain Advantage, and ranged attacks against you are at Disadvantage - you’re a smaller target. Your own ranged attacks are unaffected.
• Crawl - move while Belly Down at 2m of movement per 1m. Rough ground doesn’t slow a Crawl; Wild Land costs its usual 3m per 1m, with no roll.
• Stand up - one action, from Belly Down.
• Prone is inflicted, never chosen: a failed footing roll, a blow, a fall. You can’t attack, every attack against you gains Advantage, and you can’t Crawl. Recovering from Prone takes one action.

Cover

One rule for every action that gets you behind something. The GM calls the grade:

• Full cover - attacks that need to see or reach you can’t.
• Partial cover (a corner, a car door, a low wall) - attacks against you are at Disadvantage.

Cover wears down. Where it’s plausible (GM’s call), cover can be shot down: attack it as an item, and at 0 Health Levels it stops being cover. See the materials table for what a wall, a car door or a sandbag berm can take.

Advantage and Disadvantage count sources. Belly Down behind partial cover is two sources against a ranged attack: no harder to hit than partial cover alone, but a shooter who Aims (+1) is still left at Disadvantage.

Terrain and Footing

Push through it. Roll Athletics, Difficulty 6, once per turn, when your movement takes you onto bad ground. A success crosses Rough as if it were Clear, and Wild Land as if it were Rough - never better. A failure pays the full cost. Descriptors can argue a different Element for Athletics, as for any Skill. Snowshoes cancel the cost of deep snow.

Footing (ice, a slick deck, loose scree). A normal move across it needs no roll. A Dash, Sprint or Bulldoze across it needs Athletics, Difficulty 6; failure leaves you Prone where the footing gave out.

Tight spaces (a crawlspace, a vent, the gap between buildings). Squeezing through costs 2m per 1m, you can’t attack, and attacks against you are at Disadvantage. The GM decides what’s too tight for a given body.

• Theater of the mind: the GM names the grade as you head onto it, and works out how far you get - all of your move, half, or a third.
• Tactical: mark the hexes. A Rough hex costs 2 and a Wild Land hex 3; after a success, count them as 1 and 2.

Climbing, Jumping and Swimming

Climbing

Climbing costs 2m per 1m. Roll Athletics once per turn at the surface’s Difficulty: success climbs at your full rate, failure at the double cost, and a catastrophic failure (a roll of 20) means you fall. A rope & climbing kit, grappling hook, grapple gloves or ice axe gives Advantage where its entry says. Rain, wind or darkness make a surface one or two steps harder.

Nearly Impossible is not impossible: at this scale, the strongest can climb glass.

Jumping

The distance counts against your movement. To go farther, roll Athletics:

Fall short and you land at your Air distance. If that’s over the gap, you go down it - unless you land next to an edge, in which case roll Athletics, Difficulty 6 to catch yourself. A success leaves you hanging on; climbing up is a climb.

Swimming

Swimming can’t be used untrained. A character without the Swimming Skill who ends up in deep water starts the No-air clock at once, unless they’re holding something that floats.

A swimmer moves at their Movement Rate - water doesn’t cost double. Staying up uses the endurance rule:

The Difficulty drops by 1 each roll, and each failure costs a level of Exhausted. Exhausted 5 means you go under, and the No-air rule takes over. Immersed in cold water adds its own levels on top.

Creatures That Move Differently

A listed mode is a creature’s rate in that medium, with no extra cost and no roll - “14m swimming” swims 14m the way a character walks 14m. Flight, swimming, climbing and burrowing move at the listed rate; glide can only descend or hold height; drift ignores ground costs. A creature with no mode for a medium uses the rules above.

Unless the characters changed the ground. Rubble the party brought down, a room they flooded, caltrops they threw: the creature pays the cost and makes the roll like anyone else.

Chases

A chase is ordinary movement, round after round, with a roll for the route.

1. Declare movement as usual - a move, a Dash, or a Sprint (which can be bumped).
2. Everyone makes a Chase roll, Difficulty 6, with the Skill for how they’re moving: Athletics on foot, Driving, or Piloting. The GM makes it one or two steps harder where the route calls for it. Gear that helps counts (Motorcycle, Off-road SUV). Being faster gives no Advantage - the meters already reward speed.
3. Resolve. One side succeeds and the other fails: the side that failed moves at half this round. Both succeed or both fail: full moves. A critical success moves 1.5x.
4. Check the gap. 1m or less: caught - Melee. Out of sight: broken away, for now.

Out of sight isn’t gone. The GM sets where sight breaks as the chase goes. The quarry then rolls Stealth against the pursuer’s Perception (a creature’s card: “Perception 7 vs. Stealth”). Success, and they’ve lost it. Failure, and it’s back on their trail at the edge of sight. When the characters give chase, they roll Perception or Tracking against the quarry’s Stealth.

Running is exhausting. A Sprint is running flat out: Stamina Rounds free, then Water + Difficulty each Round, starting at 6 and dropping by 1, with a level of Exhausted per failure. Exhausted 1 puts Chase rolls at Disadvantage.

• Theater of the mind: the GM keeps the gap in meters and calls where sight breaks.
• Tactical: track it on the map while it fits; line of sight comes off the map. Past the edge, keep the gap on paper.

Travel

Travel happens off the map; a map comes out when the journey turns into a scene.

Actions

What each Action Bracket lets you do. A Gift or weapon that states its own action cost always overrides these.

Empowered Actions

A Slow round is one empowered action, plus a 1m step before or after it. A bump with Ki carries the empowerment along. Distracted drops the action to a Normal one, and it loses what its empowerment gave.

One per round. Aim and a Called Shot can’t be combined in one round - but Study a Target this round makes next round’s Called Shot roll with Advantage.

Special Actions

Combat Actions

• Dash (Normal) - both actions on movement, 2x Movement Rate.
• Reckless (no action cost) - Advantage on all your attack rolls this round; attacks against you gain Advantage this round too.
• Full Defense (Normal) - you can’t attack; attacks against you are at Disadvantage and your Defense drops by 4 (to a minimum of 0 - lower is better, since attackers add it). Your other action can still be a move.
• Reload - by the weapon: one action for a magazine, speed-loader or crossbow crank; a full Slow action for a tube-fed shotgun; free for a bow from a quiver. See each weapon’s Reload column in weapons.md.
• Grab (one action, from Melee) - an attack roll, then your Potence in d10s against its Soak. Any die over, and it’s Grabbed.
• Disarm - a Called Shot at a held weapon or item; on a hit, Potence against Potence to knock it loose. Gauntlets give the defender Advantage.
• Help (one action) - if you’re at least Trained in the Skill, an ally’s next roll has Advantage. You must be able to reach them, or the thing they’re doing, and you share a catastrophic failure (Helping).
• Ready (one action) - hold it for a trigger you name (“when it comes through the door”); it resolves when the trigger happens.
• Small actions - drawing, swapping or stowing a weapon, or using a simple item, takes one action.
• Escape a hold - see Grabbed.
• Belly Down (free), Stand up (one action), Recover from Prone (one action) - see Getting Low.