Fight (both editions work the same in this regard) has two dice systems... Combat and Non-Combat/Narrative.
Narrative is simple - Roll 1d10 + Skill rank + modifiers and try to equal or exceed Target Number. Pretty traditional.
Combat is much more... 'Technical' is the word I'll use. At first it seems like it's quite complicated but the writer has gone way out of his way in 2e to really explain the exact sequence of how to play out Fights in this game. After a while, however, these steps just blend into a seemless whole and combats can become quick.
Just like a real fighting game, this rpg has a learning curve to it.
Combat Assumptions in Fight - Fight Tournament Rules assume you're playing on a Grid, either a straight line of squares ala Street Fighter and Mortal Kombat, or a Grid that's either 5 x 5 or 7 x 7 that has an Arena with Walls and/or Knock Offs, ala Soul Calibur. So any references to Ranges and Moving means you're moving your Fighter on the Grid, and each square on the Grid is the distance of Range between the two Fighter.
And yes, you can have some Arena's have Environmental Hazards if you wish. Makes things more interesting.
The basic sequence of the Core Combat System, hereby I'll call the Tournament Rules, goes as follows:
1. Start of Turn
Here you can spend Fighting Spirit and roll Initiative and Control. Each Fighter has a base die for both Initiative and Control, based on if the fighter has any modifiers from his or her Speed Quality.
-- Shine Holly would roll a 1d10 for Initiative and 1d6 for Control.
-- Initiative is reaction.
-- Control is what determines how powerful of a Move you can pull off in the combat round. You can only pull off a Special Move if the Special Move's Level is equal to or less the Control result.
-- Fighting Spirit is a mechanic that allows the player to boost various things in a combat round, limited to the fighters Power Level per expenditure. Shine Holly is PL 1 and has 10 Fighting Spirit.
-- Fight uses all the regular polyhedral dice in its combat system. Any time you see a reference to either increase/stepping up or decrease/stepping down a die, it means going up or down the die steps buy that amount. Increasing a 1d4 means going up to a 1d6. Decreasing a 1d10 means going down to a 1d8, for examples.
2. In Order of Initiative... On Your Turn you can:
The Basics -
Move and/or Attack
Hold Initiative
Stand Up from Knockdown
Recover from being Stunned
Total Defense (forfeit action to increase all Defense totals by +1 for the Turn)
Moving -
A Fighter can Move from 0 to 3 Ranges in a combat turn. Moving costs 1 FS extra if the Fighter suffered a Hit Stun in the Turn. There is also a lot of Keywords this game uses which I won't go into here, but suffice to say that how much you Move can limit what kind of actions you can do in the turn.
There are also a few nuances and options players have in a fight that I won't fully detail here as that is part of the learning curve of the game (much like fighting games).
On the Grid, the Ranges of Distance between fighters represents the following:
Range 0 is Grappling Range
Range 1 is Melee Punch and Kick Range
Range 2+ is outside Melee Range.
3. When Attacking
Fighter must have the Control to use an Offensive move.
If using a Combo, the Fighter must define the full Combo.
Attacker calculates Accuracy bonus and can declare if fighting with Full Offense or not. Full Offense can leave you open for retaliation later if you should fail to hit.
Defender chooses Defense, Evasion, or Tactics combat skill. Can declare Full Defense.
-- Defender calculates Defense Total and adds FS (Fighting Spirit) to Defense Total.
Attacker can spend FS on Accuracy
Attacker Rolls to Hit.
-- Attacker Rolls 1d6 + all applicable Accuracy modifiers to hit. You'll note that all of her Special Moves above have her base Accuracy already calculated in it. If the Accuracy Attack roll is equal to or exceeds the Defender's Defense Total, the attack hits.
4a. If Attack Hits
Roll damage for Move/Combo.
-- Damage is subtracted from the Fighter's Life Bar.
Determine if Defender suffers Hit Stun (unless Knocked Down, Stunned, or already suffered Hit Stun this turn).
-- This can happen only once per turn per Defender. Hit Stun reduces the Defender's Control for the Turn. If hit, the Defender's Control is either reduced by 4 or half (round down), whichever results in a lower result. This can cause the Defender's Control to be reduced to 0. If this happens, the fighter loses his action for the turn (if he has not acted yet).
Defender knocked back 1 Range.
If applicable, Defender is Knocked Down.
-- Only if the Attacker is using a Move that has the Knock Down Element.
On-Hit and Always Aftereffects activate.
If Defender is Knocked Down, Attacker can Move 1 Range.
Rolled damage is compared to Defenders Stun Threshold.
-- Fighter's Stun Threshold is equal to Power Level +4.
-- If the Fighter takes Life Bar damage Greater Than his Stun Threshold in a Single Turn (from any number of attacks), the Fighter is Stunned. This is where you say a prayer and realize you're borked.
-- Special Moves without the Stun keyword do NOT add its damage when calculating whether the total damage in a turn exceeds the Stun Threshold.
When Stunned
-- First, kiss your ass goodbye.
-- Fighter loses his next two actions. Must use next action to Recover, as well as his action on the following turn. If already acted in current turn, must uses next two turns of actions to Recover.
-- Can't spend FS to his Defense Total.
-- Can't use Evasion or Tactics skill to avoid attacks.
-- Defense Skill is halved (rounded down).
-- Can still be attacked, but if the Stunned character gets attacked and hit then he immediately Recovers from being Stunned after being hit once and is immune to being Stunned again until after he Recovers.
-- Initiative die decreased by one step in the following round after he Recovers.
-- It's possible that both Fighters can be Stunned in a Simultaneous Initiative situation.
-- Realize that it sucks being Stunned, much like in the video game.
4b. When an Attack Misses
On-Miss Aftereffects activate.
An Evading Defender can choose to Move 2 Ranges or gain a +2 Accuracy on his next attack.
Depending on Range, the Defender's Control, and the Defense used, a Defensive Response may be used. (Defensive Response is a Special Move Element)
If no Defensive Response is used, Always Aftereffects activate for the move that missed.
5. After Move/Combo has been Resolved
Passing or After Mobile Moves: If the fighter hasn't been hit by a Defensive Response, Reaction Attack, or an opponent Holding Initiative, the Fighter may Move.
Calculate Glory if appropriate. You gain Glory primarily in Combats, and Glory is the Experience Points system of the game.
6. After everyone has Acted
If applicable, everyone earns Super Energy.
Roll Time Roll. Either 1d6 for Duels, or 1d8 for Multiple Fighters. Fighters can spend FS on this roll to increase or decrease the Time Roll.
Describe the visuals of the combat round.
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The combat chapter goes into extensive detail and uses many examples to explain all of the above. Some of the above sequence steps have sub-steps further extrapolated in this chapter. This game also has other kinds of Moves, like Utility Moves and Reaction Attacks, and has the following Non-Attack Actions: Refocus, Power Up, and Await Opening.
Then you can add in Environmental Hazards if you wish to simulate having more interesting Arenas. Arena's can have Walls and Ring-Outs as well. Being stuck in a Corner sucks just as much as it does in fighting games. Just saying.
And you can do Team Combat, including Tag Tournaments and if you just want a chaotic mish-mash of awesome, do a total Free-For All.
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Thug Thrashing Combat -
This combat is similar to the above but it's aimed at when your Fighter is fighting against a weak-ass group mob of wannabes that attack you en masse.
Basically, the Thugs are a group of individuals that attack as a single group and in the combat system the Thug groups count as a single Fighter. The game provides a Thug Building system.
Some tweaks to the above combat system is that Fighters can gain bonus actions per combat turn if the character has ranks in the Thug Thrashing Skill. For every rank the Fighter gets one extra action per turn. Shine Holly would then get 2 actions per turn when fighting Thugs.
This game does a really neat job making the Player Character's feel like badasses when fighting against groups of Thugs.
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Dramatic Combat
The other combat sub-system in Fight 2e.
This combat system changes the emulation of what we see in fighting games in favor of dramatic actions more in line with action we see in manga and anime. It can be used as a replacement of the Tournament System or for fights in which the excitement of the cinematic story demands a higher level of description (for the drama of course).
In a nutshell, it replaces some of the Tournament Rules sequence with a system of Actions that Fighters can use by spending Action Points. Each Action Point then allows the Fighter to do different things in a combat turn.
This system puts more emphasis on Basic Moves than Special Moves, so Control isn't rolled. Initiative is based on Speed and if the Fighter has a Control bonus, it modifies Initiative in this combat system. Combo's are also not used in this system.
There are other tweaks to how the different Defensive Skills work and many of the Tournament Rules options are different.
It's basically a different combat system and not intended to be intermixed with the Tournament Rules but Dramatic Combat doesn't make any sense unless you learn the Tournament Rules. It's assumed you have already learned the T Rules.
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I think this game is fantastic, especially from a design point. The designer obviously loves this genre and made a game that really emulates it. Even the fucking learning curve of fighting games. Definitely a game where the better a player learns the game the more they will roll over newbs who think they can play the game and don't understand the nuances of the game.
Fight 2e is THE Fighting Game rpg for fighting game fans. And that Moves list book is a lifesaver. Making Special Moves can take a while at first, considering that this game has over 100 Move Elements and Liabilities to pick from when building Special Moves.