Combat
The world of the Emptying is brutal. Combat can occur at any time, and it does not have its own phase of play. You can make an attack or be attacked at any time.
Combat Glossary
You will see common language and icons through all iterations of combat in Empty Earth. Below are a few key words and concepts.
All Player Characters, Allies, and Enemies have 6 statistics that are referenced in combat: Attack dice, Damage (damic), Physical Defense (defic), Essential Defense (edefic), Damage Resistance (dric), and Vitality (vitic). Attack dice also include a range indicator of Melee (meleeic) or Ranged (rangenic).
These statistics can be found in the stat block on Enemy and Ally cards. For Player Characters, Vitality is found on the Vitality track on the Character Sheet, offensive statistics are found on the Weapon card, and defensive statistics are found on the Armor card.
Attack Dice: These are the dice you roll when you make an attack. Presented in a [number of dice]D[number of sides] format. For example, "3D6" would indicate that you should roll three six-sided dice. An Attack can be either Physical (indicated by meleeic or rangenic icons) or Essential (indicated by meleeessic or rangeeic). Attack dice are rolled against the corresponding Defense value (Physical or Essential), and are considered successful when they exceed that value. Remember, defenders win ties.
​
Range Indicators: Melee (meleeic) indicates that you must be adjacent to a target to attack it. You are considered adjacent to all figures in the same Zone as you. Ranged Attacks (rangenic) always include a Range value; this indicates that you can attack a target up to a number of Zones away equal to the Range value, provided that you have Line of Sight. (Remember, Line of Sight means you can draw a straight line between two aimic icons on the map without crossing any black or green lines).
-
Ranged Attacks take a -1 penalty if there are any hostile figures in the Zone you are making the Attack from.
​
Damage (damic): In the context of an Attack roll, as on a Weapon or in a stat block, Damage indicates the amount of damage done per successful die in the roll, or "damage per hit." Once an attacker totals the damage from an Attack, they subtract any Shields (shieldtok) the defender has, followed by their Damage Resistance (dric) value. After subtracting shieldtok and dric from Damage, reduce the target's Vitality by any remaining positive amount of Damage.
-
Some Damage boxes include Piercing (pierceic) Damage. Piercing Damage ignores dric and shieldtok. If a Damage box includes both normal and Piercing Damage, it will be written as "X+Y(pierceic)." This indicates that each successful die deals X regular Damage, subject to shieldtok and dric, and Y Damage that ignores those factors.
​
Physical Defense (defic) and Essential Defense (edefic): These represent the sum of your evasiveness and durability--the likelihood that any given Attack is going to impact you at all. They are static values that a Physical or Essential Attack roll must exceed to be successful. For instance, if you Attack a target with a defic of 4, you must roll a 5 or higher to land a consequential hit. Depending on the Armor a Player Character is wearing, Physical Defense is often based on the Tactics Attribute, and Essential Defense is based on Intuition.
​
Damage Resistance (dric): If you're hardy enough, you can shrug off even a square blow. Damage Resistance represents this capacity. After an Attacker totals their Damage, you subtract Damage Resistance from the result.
-
For game effects that take place "on hit," an Attack that deals 0 damage is still considered a "hit" if any die in the roll exceeds the Defense value it's targeting. Game effects that take place "on damage" must deal at least 1 Damage to take effect.
-
Some game effects allow players to gain Shields (shieldtok). These serve as temporary Damage Resistance that are subtracted from damage and reduced before Damage Resistance is applied. Shields reset to 0 at the start of your turn.
​
Vitality (vitic): Vitality represents your wellbeing and endurance. When you are dealt Damage, you reduce your Vitality by the amount of Damage dealt. If your Vitality reaches 0, you draw an Injury card, then regain 1D6 Vitality. If you reach 0 Vitality while you have an Injury, you cannot move or act until another player spends 3 black Action cubes to revive you with another 1D6 Vitality. If all Player Characters in a Stage take an Injury, they must immediately end that Stage and enact any Stage-end effects.
Steps of Combat
At the most basic level, combat consists of an attacker comparing rolls on Attack dice against an opponent’s static Defense (defic) or Essential Defense (edefic). Player Characters, Allies, and Enemies can all be attackers or defenders.
Attack dice represent a combatant’s chance of landing a significant hit. When an attacker is in range to use an Attack and decides to do so, it occurs in the following steps:
​
-
The attacker declares its attack against the defender. Before the attacker rolls its Attack dice, the defender can decide if they want to Dodge or Center or use any Abilities with the immactic (immediate Action) quality.
-
The attacker commits any modifiers. These include spending cuberedic to activate Weapon Features or cubeblueic to Aim (aimic). Unless a Weapon or Ability specifies otherwise, cuberedic must be spent on Weapon Features before an attacker rolls.
-
The attacker rolls its Attack dice. Typically, an Attack consists of 1-3 dice with four, six, eight, ten, or twelve sides. For instance, in an Attack reading “3D4,” an attacker would roll three four-sided dice. If the defender is Dodging (against a Physical Attack) or Centering (against an Essential Attack), they roll their Dodge/Center dice simultaneously with the attacker's roll.
-
The attacker and defender both apply any post-roll effects. Usually, these include Reroll and Focus effects. Rerolled dice values are considered "unmodified" for game effects, but Focus values are not. That is, if you roll a 1, then use a Reroll and roll a 4, the unmodified value of the roll is 4. But if you roll a 1 and Focus [3] to achieve a result of 4, the unmodified value of the roll is still 1.
-
The attacker and defender apply any additional modifiers. Attack lines with a “+X” or “-X” apply plus or minus X to each die in the roll, every time. The Aim mechanic, written “aimic [X],” likewise adds X to the results of all dice. Defenders may have similar modifiers to their Dodge and Center dice.
-
Defenders apply their Dodge or Center values (discussed below) to further negatively modify Attack dice as they choose.
-
The attacker compares the modified result of each Attack Die to the defender’s defic (for physical attacks) or edefic (for Essential Attacks). Each Attack Die whose modified value exceeds the targeted defensive statistic is considered a hit; each hit adds the Damage value (damic) listed in the Attack. Note: for inflicting Conditions and retaliatory damage, an attack that ultimately deals 0 damage can still have attack dice that count as hits.
-
After the attacker calculates the total Damage value of the attack, the defender applies any damage-reducers, beginning with Shield tokens (shieldtok) and followed by Damage Reduction (dric). After damage-reducers are subtracted from the Attack Damage, any remaining positive regular Damage and all Piercing (pierceic) Damage is subtracted from the defender’s Vitality as Final Damage.
-
If the attack deals 0 Final Damage, either because no hits land or damage is fully reduced, the defender can Counter, discussed later.
Dodging and Centering
No matter how durable you are, it's best if Attacks don't hit you at all. That's where Dodging (dodgeic) and Centering (centeric) come in.