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Tactics

Structure

Tactics is the study of warfare at every scale: the immediate engagement, the campaign or expedition, and the broader conflict.

Tactics pairs with different attributes depending on the task: Perception for spotting hazards or reading an enemy; Intelligence for evaluating a situation, planning a campaign, or Poliorcetics. Battlefield Sense uses the attribute of the trial it replaces. DCs are set by the GM.

Tactics Mastery DC: Tactics mastery level + Perception tier.

You may declare a formation at the start of the combat round. Formations share the declaration slot with melee guards: you declare one guard or one formation per round, not both. If you declare neither, you are in a Mutable guard. At each mastery level from Skilled through Grand Master, you choose one formation, which also grants its paired ability permanently.

Battlefield Sense

When you would make an attribute trial to resist a condition, you may instead make a Tactics mastery trial against the same DC. The sources you can apply this to expand as your mastery grows:

Terrain (Untrained): You may substitute for conditions originating from the physical environment — Prone from Unstable terrain, damage from Hazardous terrain, and similar environmental effects.

Creatures (Skilled): You may also substitute for conditions originating from martial sources — weapon attacks, physical creature abilities, and combat maneuvers. This does not apply to spells.

Threats (Master): You may also substitute for conditions originating from magic and traps. At this level, your tactical awareness encompasses all battlefield threats regardless of source.

Screening

At Expert mastery, you gain the ability to screen allies from ranged threats by physically interposing yourself between an enemy and an ally. Screening is not a formation — it does not use the declaration slot and can be maintained alongside a guard or formation.

When you or an ally moves into a position where you are directly between a specific enemy and a specific ally (a straight line from enemy to ally passes through your position), you may declare that you are screening that ally from that enemy and whether you are providing Cover or Concealment. You must specify the ally, the enemy and the condition (Conceal or Cover).

You may only screen one ally from one enemy at a time.

  • Cover: If the enemy's Aiming Trial to hit the screened ally fails, the attack targets you instead.
  • Concealment: If the enemy's Perception trial against your Tactics Mastery DC to hit the screened ally fails, the attack targets you instead.

Screening ends when any of the three creatures (you, the ally, or the enemy) move such that you are no longer in the line between the enemy and the ally, or when you choose to end it.

At Expert mastery, you choose either Cover or Concealment screening. At Grand Master mastery, you gain the other.

Mastery Progression

Untrained: Tactics + Battlefield Sense (Terrain)

  • Tactics: The study of strategy relating to individual and large-scale battles as well as organizing logistical aspects of long-term engagements. You can identify enemy strengths and weaknesses, assess potential hazards or benefits on the battlefield, and evaluate tactical situations.

  • Battlefield Sense (Terrain): You gain the ability to substitute Tactics mastery trials for attribute trials when resisting terrain-originated conditions.

Basic: Poliorcetics + Tactical Anticipation

  • Poliorcetics: The craft of siege warfare: how walls, gates, and doors fail, and how to keep them standing, from field fortifications to siege engines.
  • Breaking: Roll an Intelligence + Tactics trial against a structure's hardness value to find its weak spot. Your attacks against that structure then ignore its resistance. A material's immunities still apply.
  • Bracing: Roll against the hardness value you are aiming for to raise a structure one step, such as Solid to Hard against DC 11. Bracing follows Working Time.

  • You may gain a Bonus from the materials or tools at hand, such as barrels stacked against a door or a pry bar worked into a seam.

  • Tactical Anticipation: When you defend against a Counterattack or a Reprisal Attack, your defense roll has Dominance.

Skilled: Formation (choose one) + Battlefield Sense (Creatures)

  • Battlefield Sense (Creatures): Your mastery trial substitution expands to include conditions originating from martial sources.

Choose one of the following formations. Unchosen formations become available at Expert, Master, and Grand Master.

Fylking (Ordered Retreat)

Before or after you make a melee attack, or after you take a defense reaction, you may swap positions with a willing ally within 5 feet. The attack or defense roll has Impotence. This movement is subject to Reprisal Attacks.

Disengage: You can spend 2 AP to move up to your movement speed without provoking Reprisal Attacks.

Svinfylking (Boar's Snout)

When you declare this formation, choose one adjacent ally. You act on your chosen ally's phase instead of your own. You may spend AP to attack whenever your chosen ally spends AP to attack. When you and your chosen ally both attack the same target, your attack has Superiority. Attacks against you have Superiority.

Tactical Awareness: Your flanking bonus is +4 instead of +2.

Skjaldborg (Shield Wall)

While you are adjacent to at least 2 other allies, you and your adjacent allies gain +2 to cutting, crushing, cleaving, piercing, and puncturing resistances. Your attacks have Inferiority. If you are no longer adjacent to at least two allies, you and your allies lose the benefit of this formation.

Formation Fighting: At the start of each round, declare one adjacent ally. That ally cannot be flanked while adjacent to you.

Vígvöllr (Battle Ground)

You fight on ground you chose, exploiting every irregularity in the environment to deny your enemies free movement — uneven footing, scattered debris, loose stones, slick patches. Enemies within your melee range treat the ground as Rugged terrain. Your attacks have Impotence.

Ground Control: You add your Tactics mastery die to Reprisal Attack rolls when not using a maneuver.

Expert: Formation + Screening (choose one) Choose one of the remaining formations you have not yet selected. Choose either Cover or Concealment screening.

Master: Formation + Battlefield Sense (Threats) Choose one of the remaining formations you have not yet selected. - Battlefield Sense (Threats): Your mastery trial substitution expands to include conditions originating from magic and traps.

Grand Master: Formation + Screening You gain the remaining formation. You gain the remaining screening type (Cover or Concealment).