Attacks

An attack is a direct assault that causes momentary or lasting harm to an opponent in the form of stress and consequences. An attack is always rolled as a contest between the character (the attacker) and the opponent (the defender). There is no limit to the number of times someone can roll to defend against attacks in an exchange, even against multiple attackers.

 The skill used for an attack depends on the attacker’s agenda and preferred methods; Fists, Guns, and Weapons are most often used for physical conflicts. The skill used for an attack also determines which skills are allowed to defend against the attack—Athletics is the catch-all defense skill for physical conflicts, but Fists can be used to defend against other Fists attacks, and Weapons can be used to defend against both Weapons and Fists attacks. The skill descriptions in**Skills**  indicate which skills are usable for defense and which  skills they can defend against.

 If the attacker wins the roll, the shifts he acquires translate into a stress value he can inflict on the defender (see “*Resolving Attacks*” below). If the defender wins, the attack fails. If the attacker and defender tie, the attacker “connects” with the defender, but without a weapon or some other stress-booster, the margin of zero means no stress will be inflicted.

####  **Social Attacks**

Keep in mind that not all attacks are necessarily physically violent—a particularly persuasive argument, lie, or distraction can be considered an attack if it directly affects the opponent. Social attacks are appropriate in situations where the action contributes directly to removing the opponent as a factor in the conflict. Social attacks usually use Deceit, Intimidation, or Rapport against the opponent’s Empathy or Discipline. See**Social Conflict** and **Mental Conflicts**  for further details.

### **Resolving Attacks**

When an attack succeeds, it inflictsstress on the target. Stress is an abstract representation of the difficulties that threaten to take someone out of a conflict. In a physical fight, stress can be minor cuts, bruises, fatigue, and the like. In a social or mental conflict, it might be loss of willpower, composure, or emotional control—when Harry insults a Denarian and can see the anger flare up in its eyes, that’s stress. Of course, when the Denarian pops Harry in the snoot for pissing him off, that’s stress, too. Stress is not lasting (lasting effects are represented by consequences, which we’ll cover shortly) and can usually be shaken off between scenes or whenever the character takes a moment to compose himself.

 The best way to look at stress is that it’s the closest of close calls. That left hook might not take your character out of the fight, but his knees wobble a bit. Your character might have parried that sword blow, but he’s losing momentum and getting tired. That bullet might not have hit your character, but he’s agitated, and one of these times he just isn’t going to be able to hit the deck quickly enough. This outlook can help you represent stress in the face of different sources of harm.

 By default, a character has three types of stress that he can take, based on the kind of attack used against him. The physical stress track is used for stress such as wounds and fatigue. The mental stress track represents psychological and emotional trauma. The social stress track represents the gradual loss of personal composure in the face of social pressure.

 When your character takes stress, mark off that box (and *only* that box) on the appropriate stress track. For instance, if your character takes a two-point physical hit, you should mark off the second box (and *only* the second box) from the left on the physical stress track. If your character takes a hit and finds that box already marked off, you should “roll up” to the next empty box on the right and check that off. If there are no empty boxes to the right (in other words, the hit would “roll off ” the end of the stress track), the character is either **taken out**  or needs to take **consequences**  to absorb the hit. Each stress track defaults to 2 boxes, but certain skills can increase them: Endurance can increase the physical stress track, Conviction can increase the mental stress track, and Presence can increase the social stress track.

### **Weapons and Armor**

A weapon can inflict additional stress on a target when you succeed on an attack and, likewise, armor can mitigate stress. Weapons and armor are given numerical ratings, usually from 1 to 4. Any successful attack adds the weapon value to the stress inflicted, but subtracts any relevant armor value. Keep in mind that a tie on an attack roll *does* connect—if you have a weapon rating, you would add the rating to the zero-shift attack for a final stress total.

The rating of a weapon is essentially based on how nasty it is under the circumstances—the degree to which is it likely to help get a character dead. Deciding nastiness is kind of a subjective measure, but the default guideline of escalating size or power isn’t a bad one. That would give us something like this:
 Armor essentially works the same way as weapons—the rating is based on what it’s ideally supposed to be protecting the wearer from. Resist the temptation to bog down the game with creating extensive examples of armor types; the better approach is to color it appropriately to the weapon ratings. So, Armor:2 is intended to protect *completely* against most pistols—it’s probably a reinforced Kevlar vest or something. That said, armor does tend to lag behind weaponry in terms of availability. Many bulletproof vests are only Armor:1—a heavy pistol round can still crack a rib if it hits you. Armor:4 is not really something you find on a personal scale, except maybe in a magical or supernatural context.