SkyrimTAG:Combat

Combat is essential to your adventures, and your survival.

Combat is at the heart of Skyrim - The Adventure Game. No matter whether you are an archer, a barbarian, or a wizard, chances are you'll end up having to fight your way out of sticky situations more often than not. Combat is turn based, and follows the defined combat sequence.

Combat Sequence

All battles start with an Ambush and Sneak phase, as you try to sneak up on the enemies. Once this phase is resolved, you will take turns to fight. First, all players can switch their equipped items for a cost of 1 Stamina, and can use any potions they wish. Next, you'll decide who will act on this Combat Round. There is no fixed order you need to go in, this is a strategic decision that can drastically turn the tide of the battle. In a Combat Round, you first roll the enemy die, but don't resolve the roll straight away. Following that, you roll again for your Follower if you have one, and resolve their roll immediately. Finally, depending on what equipment you have available, you can make your decision on what action you want to take, between an offensive action, a defensive action, or a special action. For an offensive action, you first resolve the enemy action. Afterwards, you pay your action's cost in Stamina or Magicka, and roll your Skill Test. If your Skill Test is successful, you apply the action's damage to the enemy, otherwise nothing happens. For a defensive or special action, the enemy's action is resolved last, with defensive actions offering the opportunity to cancel hostile damage.

Once you have finished your Combat Round, turn your Character card sideways. Once all players have completed their Combat Round, your Character cards return to their original orientation, and the next series of Combat Rounds begins.

Ambush and Sneak

Sneaking up on your enemies can be a very powerful strategy, sometimes ending combats before they even start. Sneaking works like any regular Skill Test, with the difficulty indicated on the enemy's card. You roll 3 Skill Test dice, plus one additional die for every Sneak you have in your equipped items or skills. You cannot Push when attempting to sneak. If you pass the Skill Test, you can select one attack from any of your available combat actions to perform. The Sneak action counts as the first round in combat, so the player using Sneak is the first player acting during the combat.

If you are looking for a more challenging experience, you can roll for Sneaking without adding the first three dice.

There are two exceptions to Sneak:

• Players wearing heavy armor cannot sneak.
• Sneak cannot be used to perform combat actions from spells.

The only exception to this rule is the Illusion spell Muffle. This spell allows you to spend some Magicka to increase your Sneak.

Some enemies have the Ambush trait. This represents their ability to sneak up on you. The only way to stop an ambush is by sneaking. If you fail or do not attempt to sneak, you will be ambushed. When ambushed, you will suffer the effect of the enemy's Red Skull action, without having the opportunity to defend yourself. In combat situations with more than one player, the player attempting to sneak suffers the attack. If no player attempts to sneak, you may choose which player starts combat and takes the hit. After the Ambush and Sneak phase is resolved, the next player starts their Combat Round by rolling the enemy die.

Traps

In your adventures, you may stumble upon rooms filled with deadly traps. When you face a Trap , you fight it in the same way you would any other enemy. The main difference is that instead of sneaking, the you can choose to attempt to disarm the trap by rolling a Lockpicking Skill Test. If you fail to disarm the trap, it immediately activates, dealing the Red Skull effect to whoever attempted to dactivate it. Once this is resolved, the next player will try to disarm the Trap by fighting it normally. Like sneaking, you cannot spend Stamina or Magicka to Push for disarming.

Enemy Actions

Enemies will attack the player who is acting each round. This means that in multiplayer scenarios, each player will be attacked each time it's their time to act. Each enemy card has a list of actions. You roll the enemy die to determine which action the enemy will take. If the result of the roll matches any of the icons on the enemy behaviors, the enemy will take that action. If the icon you roll does not match an action, or you land on the blank face, the enemy does nothing. Enemies have 3 types of actions:

• Attack: The most common action. An attack generally affects your Health, though some may have an impact on your Stamina or Magicka. Some attacks can affect all players involved in the battle, noted by the All Players icon. These are particularly devastating, as only the active player may choose to take a defensive action.
• Heal: Some enemies have the ability to heal their wounds. This is always represented as a shield of a specific color, meaning the enemy will only heal that track. No track can be healed beyond its starting value. Some attacks, like the Vampire's Drain, both attack you and heal the enemy at the same time.
• Spawn: Some enemies have the ability to summon creatures to assist them. When this happens, you draw an additional enemy (ignoring Trap cards) and place it before the summoner in the fight.

When a battle gets particularly tough, you always have an ace up your sleeve: the Final Blow. This is shown by the Final Blow token at the beginning of your Health track. When you receive any amount of damage that would otherwise kill you, the damage stops at your Final Blow token. This buffer allows you another opportunity to save yourself, but any damage received when you're on your Final Blow will critically injure you and remove you from the battle. Some spells and magical items can grant you additional Final Blows, which will be placed next to your base Final Blow token. Each of these Final Blows works the same way as the original one, being reduced one by one.

When you become critically injured in combat, you are removed from the battle. Additionally, you must draw an Encounter card and resolve it. Then, you distribute as many Threat tokens as the number of players between any cards or Strongholds. This means that becoming critically injured in combat could result in failing Quests or degrading Strongholds to Rioting.

Follower Actions

Followers can give you the edge in tough battles.

During your adventures, you can recruit Followers that will assist you in battle. You can have as many Followers as you want, but only one may be active at a time. You can choose to change your active Follower at the beginning of a Game Turn, but not during combat. Followers act the same way as enemies, although do not have armor tracks. Followers cannot be killed in battle, although some have specific attacks that will kill them.

Some Followers have actions that affect you in different ways. This effect only applies to the player that the Follower belongs to, unless otherwise specified. Effects that affect Stamina, Magicka, or Health restore your attributes, unless otherwise specified. Whenever the All Players icon appears, the action affects all players instead of the enemy.

Player Actions

Each player can only take one action per Combat Round. These actions are shown on your weapons, spells, and other equipment, and generally have an associated skill, Stamina or Magicka cost, a difficulty, and an effect. The effect determines what kind of action you are taking. To take an action, you first pay the cost. If you don't have enough Stamina or Magicka to take the action, you can pay any missing points with Health instead. After paying the cost, roll a Skill Test for the action's related skill. If you fail the Skill Test, you can choose to Push. This will typically cost 1 Stamina, except for spells which cost 1 Magicka instead. If you don't have any Stamina or Magicka remaining, you can use your Health to push.

Unlike regular Skill Tests, you are limited in the number of times that you can Push in combat. This limit is shown on your Character Board, above your attributes. At the beginning of the game, you can only Push up to 2 times per Combat Round, but as you level up you can eventually make up to 4 Pushes. Remember that this is not determined by your maximum attribute, but by the amount you currently have. For example, if you have a maximum Stamina of 10 but only have 8 available, you can only Push 3 times.

Offensive Actions

The most straightforward actions are offensive actions. These are attacks that will deal damage to the enemy, and are resolved at the end of the Combat Round, after the enemy's attack.

There are 3 types of armor: Heavy Armor protects against hard, slow, and highly destructive blows. Light Armor protects against fast blows. Magical Armor protects against arcane attacks. All damage is expressed in the same terms: Heavy Attacks , Light Attacks , and Magical Attacks .

Enemies don't have Health, and instead have different types of armor. When they receive damage, their armor is chipped away, making further attacks easier. Your attack is subtracted by the amount of the matching armor the enemy currently has. For example, if you deal 5 Light Attack damage and the enemy has 3 Light Armor, you will deal 2 damage, reducing the enemy's Light Armor to 1. If an attack reduces the enemy's armor to zero, the excess damage is lost. Your attacks will always do a minimum of 1 damage, even if the enemy's armor would otherwise nullify all of the damage. If your attack does not match any of the enemy's armor types, then they receive the full amount of damage to any armor of your choosing. Some attacks can deal more than one type of damage. In this case, you can choose which damage type to apply. When an enemy has no remaining armor of any kind, they are defeated.

When you take damage, your armor can provide protection. Your damage received is subtracted by the amount of armor of that type you have. For example, if you have 3 Heavy Armor and receive 5 Heavy Attack damage, you will take 2 damage to your Health. If the attack is completely nullified by your armor rating, your character will receive no damage to their Health but will be staggered, losing 1 Stamina. If you have no Stamina remaining, you will lose 1 Health instead. If you have no armor that matches the damage type received, you suffer the full damage of the attack. If an enemy's attack can deal more than one type of damage, the attack targets your weakest armor.

Some enemy attacks affect your Stamina or Magicka. These attacks are much more dangerous than regular attacks, as they can remove your offensive options by draining the resource required to perform them. Any damage to Stamina or Magicka cannot be blocked by armor. Any damage to Stamina can stack with the Stamina drained from being staggered. If you have no Magicka or Stamina remaining, the excess will be taken from your health. Successfully using a defensive action will stop all damage from happening.

Defensive Actions

If you are concerned about the enemy's attack, it may be wise to take a defensive action. When you take a defensive action and succeed on the Skill Test, the enemy action is countered and has no effect on you. This will be your only action in this Combat Round, and also consumes Stamina or Magicka, so defensive actions should only be taken when necessary.

When an enemy's attack affects all players, only the player that is currently acting may use a defensive action on themself. For the other players, they cannot avoid the attack.

Special Actions

Special actions are powerful strategic actions that don't feature a damage icon and include an additional effect. These can quickly change the tide of battle by bringing in reinforcements or healing.

Some Conjuration spells give you the ability to summon creatures to assist you in combat. Summoning does not require a Skill Test and will always succeed. When summoning, draw a Dungeon card from the type shown on the spell. This will become an active Follower for the rest of the Game Turn. If you draw a Trap, place it in the discard pile and draw a new card. If the deck is empty, reshuffle the discard pile into the deck as if it were the end of a Game Turn. If you already have an active Follower, the summoned creature will act as a second Follower, allowing you to roll once for each at the beginning of a Combat Round.

When rolling attack actions for a summoned creature, ignore any All Players, Stamina, and Magicka icons, as well as any healing actions. Summoned creatures will stay with you until the end of the Game Turn, so if you summon a creature in the first battle of a Dungeon, this creature will be able to assist you for the rest of the battles. At the beginning of every Combat Round, you will have to pay 1 Magicka to keep the summoned creature. If you choose not to pay, or cannot afford the cost in Magicka or Health without dying, the summoned creature is discarded as if it were a defeated enemy.

Restoration and Illusion spells often give you the ability to heal a character's Health, Stamina, and/or Magicka. To heal, roll the action's Skill Test and, if successful, regenerate the resource by the amount specified by the spell. You cannot heal above your attribute's maximum value. Healing spells are always resolved before resolving an enemy attack.

Another way of restoring your Stamina or Magicka is by resting. Every player can take their round to rest during combat. Doing so heals 2 Stamina and Magicka, but will leave you exposed to enemy attacks.

Facing Multiple Enemies

Sometimes, you will face groups of enemies. These encounters are particularly dangerous, and can be challenging for even high level players. When facing multiple enemies, set the Encounter cards down side by side. The leftmost enemy is the one that's closest to the players and will be the one that takes most of the damage you deal. The enemy on the rightmost side is waiting for their moment to strike. If any enemy drawn is a Trap, this is resolved first, before proceeding to the battle.

If you want to sneak against multiple enemies, the enemy with the highest Sneak value is the difficulty applied. If the enemy with the highest Sneak value has the Ambush trait, you must defend against an Ambush from that specific enemy. Otherwise, even if any other enemy has the Ambush trait, the group will not Ambush.

When rolling for the enemy action, if the icon on the die doesn't match any of the icons on the first enemy's actions, check if it matches any icons on the next enemy to the right, and so on until all enemies have been checked. As a result, even the last enemy has a chance to attack if the rest of the enemies miss. This also means that the more enemies there are, the more likely they are to attack.

When you attack, you always attack the leftmost enemy. Once that enemy is defeated, their card is discarded, and the next enemy becomes the first enemy to be attacked. Damage is only applied to one enemy at a time, so excess damage is not carried over.

If an enemy summons a creature to assist them, the creature is placed to the left of the leftmost enemy, thus becoming the first enemy.

Ending Combat

When combat ends, if the combat is part of a series of Encounters (like in a Dungeon), all players recover all of their Stamina and Magicka, but not their Health. You can spend Plant Components to use potions between combats. If the combat is the last one in a series, all tracks are fully regenerated.

Many enemies you encounter will have rewards for defeating them. Each player receives the amount of Experience listed at the bottom of the card. There can also be up to 4 individual rewards. Each reward can only be chosen by 1 player. The player that deals the killing blow chooses one of the rewards, and then the other players can choose in a clockwise direction. Any remaining rewards are lost.

Alternatively, you can choose to escape combat. Doing so removes you from the battle, but at the cost of adding a Threat token to any card or Stronghold. If the combat was part of a Quest that the escaping player is holding, the Quest is failed.

Notes

• A Bow's Aim ability can only be used a limited number of times. This amount is noted on the card. The most common is "Aim x1".
• Your character's innate abilities, listed on your Character card can only be used once per Game Turn, not once per Combat Round.
• Encounter cards from the Numbered deck are returned to the Numbered deck when defeated. This means that the same enemy can be fought several times by different players.