Combat encounters are frequent in The Magitech Chronicles, and all characters begin play with a set of defenses to represent their various strengths and weaknesses.
A character uses their highest applicable defense in a given situation, unless otherwise stated by a perk. An attack with fewer successes than your applicable defense misses. An attack that meets or exceeds your defense results in a hit, and allows the attacker to calculate damage.
In the weapon and spells section it will list a damage type, which corresponds to these defenses.
Each defense begins play at 1, and a character gets 3 points to distribute among them. No defense can be higher than its limiting attribute.
Innate Defenses
There are three different types of innate defense. Innate defenses are applied before an attack hits. Active defenses are applied after an attack hits, and are discussed below.
Brace
Limiting Attribute: Fortitude
Brace represents your ability to shrug off attacks. If you can’t dodge a punch, laughing it off is the next best thing. Brace is most often used against melee weapons, and characters with a low brace are advised to stay far from the front line of combat.
Dodge
Limiting Attribute: Agility
The best defense is simply not getting hit in the first place. Dodge represents your ability to get out of the way, and is used primarily against ranged attacks or some spells.
Skepticism
Limiting Attribute: Will
Skepticism represents your ability to resist magical influences. No one likes having their mind taken over, and the cynics among us have the best defenses. Any mage wishing to affect you with a spell must meet or exceed your skepticism in successes.
Active Defenses
If someone’s attack roll exceeds your relevant defense, then you are given a chance to apply either armor or resistance. Both are explained below. Any remaining damage is subtracted from your hit points. Bad things happen when those go below zero.
Armor
Certain races (like Wyrms) possess armor. Characters may also gain armor from various pieces of equipment, magic, or Catalyzations. Armor reduces kinetic and energy attacks, so five points of armor will cancel five points of damage from any of those sources.
Some magic can be stopped by physical armor if it manifests as either a kinetic or energy attack. Otherwise, the spell goes against the relevant resistance score.
Resistance
Resistance functions as armor, but against specific aspects of magic. If a character is hit by a fire spell, for example, then either fire resistance or magic resistance will provide armor against that spell. If that same character is hit by a void spell their magic resistance will apply, but not the fire resistance.
Blanket magic resistance is both more powerful and more rare than resistance to specific aspects.
Hit Points
A character’s base hit points are used to soak up any damage that gets past their defenses. When their hit points reach zero they are disabled, and if they suffer additional damage greater than their fortitude, then they die.
Hit points are calculated as follows:
(Fortitude * 5) + Archetype bonus
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