How to Fight

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Fights in Void Drifters happen in airlocks, on docking platforms, in station corridors packed with conduit and crew, aboard ships while the hull is taking fire, and on hostile planetary surfaces. Personal weapons run from sidearms and blades to carbines and boarding shotguns.

This chapter is the book's combat reference. It covers how to take a turn, how to attack, how damage, Critical Injuries and recovery work, the combat conditions, gravity in a fight, and what each crew station does when the ship itself is in combat. Dice, checks and Story Points are in Chapter Thirteen. Weapon and armor profiles, weapon qualities and damage Types are in Chapter Nine. The complete ship combat rules are in the Vehicles Manual, Chapter Fourteen (Crew Stations and Actions) and Chapter Fifteen (Ship Combat and Chases).

When Combat Starts

The GM calls for structured play when the order of actions matters. Combat is the most common trigger. Before anyone acts, everyone rolls Initiative.

Initiative

When you are on watch, prepared, or had warning:

Savvy + Perception

When you are surprised, ambushed, or a friendly situation turns hostile in an instant:

Willpower + Readiness

The GM tells you which applies. Roll the check and count net Successes. Results are ranked into player slots and GM slots. On a player slot, the players choose which of their characters acts. On a GM slot, the GM chooses which adversary acts. A tie between a player slot and a GM slot goes to the player slot. Ties within one side are ordered however that side chooses.

The slot order stays fixed for the whole encounter unless a specific ability changes it. Each round, either side may choose a different eligible character for its own slot.

Surprise

Surprise changes which Initiative check you roll. It does not normally give the other side a free round or remove your first turn. If you are completely unaware and have no plausible chance to react, the GM may also add Bane Dice, start you out of position, or deny you prepared equipment.

Your Turn

On your turn, you may take:

• One Action: a significant activity that requires a check or meaningful effort
• Up to two Maneuvers: minor activities that support or set up your Action

The first Maneuver is free. A second Maneuver costs either your Action or 2 Strain. You cannot take more than two Maneuvers in a turn.

Quick Actions (a short phrase to an ally, dropping a held item, pressing a simple control) cost nothing and may happen at any point during your turn. A Quick Action cannot replace anything that needs a check or more than a moment of attention. The GM decides what qualifies.

Common Actions

Common Maneuvers

Leaving Engaged is an ordinary Move: one Maneuver takes you from Engaged to Short. There is no separate disengage action.

Range and Position

Void Drifters uses abstract range bands. You track how close you are to other characters, not exact distances.

Moving between Engaged, Short, and Medium costs one Maneuver per band. Moving between Medium and Long, or Long and Extreme, costs two Maneuvers per band. Terrain and conditions may change these costs.

Cover

Light cover (cargo containers, furniture, a doorframe): +1 Ranged Defense. Heavy cover (structural pillars, vehicle chassis, interior bulkheads): +2 Ranged Defense.

Cover applies only while it is between you and the attacker and you stay behind it. Moving out of cover ends the benefit. The GM may reduce or remove cover if you are flanked, expose yourself, or the cover is destroyed. Cover does not protect against melee attacks unless the fiction clearly supports it.

Attacking

Building the Attack Pool

Choose the combat skill that applies: Unarmed (Might), Melee (Might), or Ranged (Agility). Ship and vehicle weapons use Gunnery (Agility). Build your positive pool from the characteristic and skill as described in Chapter Thirteen. Unarmed attacks deal damage equal to your Might, Crit 5, Range Engaged.

Attack Difficulty

A weapon's Range lists the bands where it can attack. Attacking beyond that range is not normally possible; if the GM allows it, add at least 1 Bane Die per band beyond the listed range. The GM also adds Bane Dice for poor visibility, a moving target, awkward footing, firing into a crowd, or similar conditions.

Defense

Melee Defense and Ranged Defense start at 0 and increase through armor, cover, and talents. When someone attacks you:

• Add 1 Bane Die to the attack for each point of the relevant Defense.
• Cover adds to your Ranged Defense.
• Defense has no hard cap, but default gear keeps Defense and Deflecting together at no more than 3 Bane Dice on one attack; cover adds on top (Chapter Nine, How to Read a Gear Entry).
• Armor with Deflecting X (type) adds X Bane Dice to attacks of that damage Type (Chapter Nine).

Rolling the Attack

Roll the assembled pool and resolve it as a standard check (Chapter Thirteen):

• At least 1 net Success: the attack hits.
• No net Successes: the attack misses.
• Each net Success beyond the first: +1 damage.
• Boons: spend them from the Combat Boon Spends table below.
• Breakthrough: may be spent to inflict a Critical Injury, or on another exceptional effect the GM approves.
• Banes and Calamities: the GM applies them. Typical results: the weapon jams or misfires, you stumble out of position, the noise draws attention, or a shot goes somewhere it should not.

Damage and Wounds

A hit deals the weapon's Damage plus 1 for each net Success beyond the first. Subtract the target's Resistance:

Wounds suffered = Damage − Resistance (minimum 0)

Your Resistance is half your Might, rounded up, plus your armor's Resistance bonus (Chapter Three; armor is capped at +3 in Chapter Nine). Pierce X ignores X points of Resistance. If a hit leaves 0 Wounds after Resistance, it connects but causes no meaningful injury.

Effects that inflict Strain directly do not subtract Resistance unless the effect says so. A weapon with Stun Damage deals Strain instead of Wounds.

Weapon Qualities and Damage Types

Weapon qualities (Pierce, Blast, Disorient, Knockdown, Stun, Overheat, and the rest) and damage Types are defined in Chapter Nine. Active qualities cost 2 Boons to trigger after a hit unless the quality says otherwise. This chapter does not restate them.

Combat Boon Spends

A condition inflicted with Boons lasts until the end of the target's next turn unless the effect says otherwise.

Critical Injuries

A Critical Injury is triggered when:

• A character suffers a hit while already incapacitated (by Wounds or by Strain)
• An attacker spends a Breakthrough on the attack to inflict one
• An attack generates net Boons equal to or greater than the weapon's Crit rating, and those Boons are spent to inflict one

To resolve: roll d100 and add +10 for each Critical Injury the target already has. If one attack inflicts more than one Critical Injury, resolve them in order: the second adds a further +10, the third a further +20, and so on.

Each Critical Injury keeps adding +10 to later Critical Injury rolls until that injury is removed through medical care.

The Void Drifters Critical Injury table is in the GM Guide (Core Rules Reference). Its bands are Minor 01 to 30, Moderate 31 to 60, Severe 61 to 85, Deadly 86 to 100, and Mortal 101 and higher. Until your table has the GM Guide, use the default Critical Injury table in the Exodus NDS Core Rules, Chapter Twelve.

Wounds, Strain, and Incapacitation

Your Wound Points (10 + Might), Strain Points (10 + Willpower) and Resistance are worked out in Chapter Three. Wounds and Strain count upward from 0 as you suffer them.

Wounds are physical injury. When your Wounds equal or exceed your Wound Points, you are incapacitated: unconscious, helpless, or otherwise out of the fight until your Wounds fall below your Wound Points.

Strain is exertion, stress, and shock. You suffer it from some weapons and effects, from Banes, and by choice (2 Strain for a second Maneuver). When your Strain equals or exceeds your Strain Points, you are also incapacitated.

Adversaries. Minions and Elites have no Strain Points. Strain they would suffer becomes Wounds, 1 for 1 (Exodus NDS Core Rules, Chapter Ten).

A hit on an incapacitated character triggers a Critical Injury automatically.

Ending an Encounter and Recovery

Structured play ends when the conflict is resolved: the enemies are defeated or have fled, the crew has escaped or surrendered, or the situation no longer needs turn-by-turn tracking.

Recovering from Incapacitation

A character incapacitated by Wounds is out of the encounter. When the encounter ends, the character stabilizes unless a Critical Injury entry or another effect says otherwise. Wounds alone do not kill a character.

A character incapacitated by Strain does not clear all Strain with a full rest. After a full rest, reduce that character's Strain to half their Strain Points, rounded down.

Strain Recovery

• End of any structured encounter: recover Strain equal to your Willpower.
• Full rest: recover all Strain, unless you were incapacitated by Strain (see above).
• Catch Breath Maneuver (once per encounter): recover 1 Strain.
• Spend 1 Boon with no stronger use: recover 1 Strain.

Wound Recovery

• Full rest: recover Wounds equal to your Might.
• Medical care: the caregiver makes a Medicine check. Each net Success removes 1 additional Wound. 2 Boons may remove 1 more Wound, save supplies, or shorten recovery time.

Field Treatment

During structured play, you may spend your Action to give urgent medical aid to an Engaged character. Make a Medicine check; the injury, condition, or GM sets the difficulty, and battlefield care defaults to Average. Field treatment can end Bleeding, stop an immediate worsening effect, keep a character alive until proper care is available, or satisfy a Critical Injury entry that calls for medical aid. It does not remove the Critical Injury itself. Improvised tools, unsafe surroundings, or rushed work add Bane Dice.

Treating Critical Injuries

A Critical Injury stays until a caregiver removes it with a Medicine check, with appropriate time and tools.

On a success, the Critical Injury is removed and stops adding +10 to later rolls. On a failure it remains, and Banes or a Calamity may consume supplies, worsen the injury, or lengthen recovery.

Conditions

Conditions do not stack unless stated. Applying the same condition again extends its duration instead of increasing its effect. A condition with no stated duration lasts until the end of the affected character's next turn.

Gravity and Environment

Gravity. Gravity bands and their full effects are in Chapter Ten. In a fight:

• Microgravity: melee, unarmed, and other actions that need a stable stance add 2 Bane Dice unless you are anchored (mag boots on a ferrous surface, or a secure handhold). Deliberate movement needs a push-off and costs 1 extra Maneuver. A Calamity on a physical action leaves you drifting until you make an Average Athletics check or an ally reaches you.
• Low gravity: Athletics and Unarmed checks that need control add 1 Bane Die, and so do melee attacks that need planted power. Movement is normal.
• Elevated, High, and Extreme gravity: physical checks add Bane Dice and movement slows, as the Chapter Ten table shows.
• Ranged attacks take no gravity penalty in any band. Thrown weapons travel one range band farther in microgravity and two range bands shorter in High and Extreme gravity.

Species and equipment change these effects (Chapter Ten).

Vacuum and hostile atmosphere. A character in a damaged suit may need Fortitude checks to stay functional as the encounter goes on. The GM sets the difficulty and timing by severity.

Crowded spaces. Ship corridors, freeport markets, and cramped docking bays may add Bane Dice to ranged attacks to avoid bystanders. The GM may rule that a band cannot be reached, or that reaching it needs a Reflexes check.

Your Crew in a Ship Fight

When your ship is in combat, the crew works from stations. The six stations, what each one controls, and which careers fit them are described in Chapter Eleven. This section gives the procedure a player needs at the table. The complete rules, including chases, ramming, carried craft, and unmanned-station penalties, are in the Vehicles Manual, Chapters Fourteen and Fifteen.

How a Ship Round Works

1. Set the scene. The GM sets the range band between the ships and notes facing where weapon arcs matter.
2. Declare stations. Each crew member declares a station, or none. You act only at your declared station. Switching stations costs your action for that round.
3. Initiative. Each ship makes one Initiative check, rolled by the crew member at the Helm: Savvy + Perception if the crew had warning, Willpower + Readiness if surprised. Ships take player and GM slots in order of net Successes, as characters do (Initiative, above).
4. The ship's turn. On your ship's turn, each crew member at a station takes one Action and one Maneuver at that station, as in personal combat: a second Maneuver costs your Action or 2 Strain. A captain gives orders as Maneuvers (Captain, below). All of the ship's choices are declared together; the GM resolves movement first, then attacks, then every other action.
5. Damage. Apply Hull Damage, System Damage, and Heat from the round.
6. Heat Dissipation. At the end of the round, each ship removes Heat equal to its Heat Dissipation.

A character who is not at a station acts on their own Initiative slot with the personal combat rules in this chapter: fighting boarders, treating the wounded, or getting to a station.

Ship Range and Attack Difficulty

Ship combat adds an Extra Long band between Long and Extreme.

A weapon fires only at the bands its range lists, and every band between two listed bands. A weapon fires only into the arcs its mount covers. A fixed weapon adds the ship's Handling to the Gunnery check: Boon Dice if positive, Bane Dice if negative. The target's Deflection adds Bane Dice for the facing you attack from, and its screens and ECM add their own against the weapons they name.

A ship's Speed sets how far one Advance or Break Maneuver moves it: 1 band at Speed 1 to 4, 2 bands at Speed 5 or 6, 3 bands at Speed 7 or more.

The Boon Limit. An attack gains at most 2 Boon Dice in total from station actions, the captain's orders, components, a directive AI, weapon and hull tags, and allies. Talents add their dice in full and do not count toward the limit, and dice rolled on the attack are never limited.

Ship Damage

A ship weapon's hit deals its listed damage plus 1 for each net Success beyond the first, the same as a personal attack. Then:

1. If the target has an active deflection screen that names the weapon's type (usually Beam and Plasma), subtract the screen's Damage Reduction.
2. Subtract the target's Armor, less the weapon's Pierce. Weapons with Armor Bypass ignore Armor and screens.
3. The rest is Hull Damage. System Damage from the weapon applies in full, except that Armor reduces System Damage from an Ion weapon by half its value, rounded down.

Spending Boons equal to the weapon's Crit, or a Breakthrough, on a hit that dealt at least 1 Hull Damage or System Damage inflicts a Critical Hit: roll d100 on the ship Critical Hit table in the Vehicles Manual, Chapter Fifteen. A hit on a ship that is out of control inflicts one automatically.

When Hull Damage reaches Hull Points, the ship is destroyed: it breaks up at the end of the next round, which is the crew's one round to abandon ship. When System Damage reaches System Points, the ship is out of control: it drifts, its weapons, screens, and drive are offline, and it can be boarded or taken as a prize. Hull Points, System Points, Heat, and Power are explained in Chapter Eleven.

Station Actions at a Glance

Each action costs your Action for the round unless the table marks it as a Maneuver or a reaction. The Vehicles Manual gives the full Boon and Bane options for each.

Captain. The captain's role sits outside the stations. A character acting as captain may use Direct Focus as a Maneuver without leaving their station, once a round: name one crew member, who adds 1 Boon Die to their next check this round. On an attack it counts toward the Boon Limit.

Directive AI. A ship's AI Core can assist a station check through a matching Directive Package and a free Active Channel. AI tiers, packages, and the assistance rule are in Chapter Ten.

Unmanned stations. An empty station takes no actions. Some functions continue on automation at a penalty, as the Vehicles Manual, Chapter Fourteen, describes.

Boarding Actions

When a hostile crew breaches your ship, or your crew breaches theirs, personal combat begins inside the vessel. Boarding fights use the same Initiative order as the ship fight. Ship actions happen on the ship's slot; characters fighting in the corridors act on their own slots. A character who leaves a station to fight leaves that station unmanned.

Range inside a ship is usually Engaged or Short, and Medium only in long corridors or open cargo bays. Cover is everywhere: bulkheads, equipment racks, hatchways. When the ship takes a Critical Hit during a boarding fight, the GM may apply it to the section where the fight is happening: a bulkhead seals, gravity fails, or a breach opens the corridor to vacuum.

Worked Example: The Docking Bay Fight

The crew of the Ember Drift has just made a handoff in a docking bay on Calder's World. Two bounty agents, working a power's criminal warrant on the contact off the relay bounty boards, are waiting at the bay exit. The contact bolts. The agents draw.

The cast:

• Senna Vael, an Ossen pilot (Chapter Fifteen). Might 2, Agility 4, Savvy 2, Willpower 2. Perception 2, Readiness 0, Ranged 0 (untrained). Wound Points 12. Flight suit (+1), so Resistance 2. Standard sidearm: Damage 6, Range Medium, Crit 3.
• Davan Kel, a human engineer, built in Chapter Three (his Chapter Fifteen sheet adds Perception 1 and Stress Engineer, which this fight does not use). Might 2, Intellect 4, Willpower 2. Craft 2, Electronics 2, Readiness 0, no combat skills. Wound Points 12, Strain Points 12. No armor, so Resistance 1. Engineer profession kit, no weapon.
• Agent A and Agent B, unnamed Elite adversaries. Agility 3, Ranged 2, Resistance 2, Wound Points 12, no Strain Points. Standard sidearms (Damage 6, Crit 3, Medium). Both start at Short range from Senna and Davan.

Initiative. The agents were waiting, so they roll Savvy + Perception. Senna's player says Senna was watching the crowd at the exit; the GM agrees, so Senna rolls Savvy + Perception too: 2 Mastery Dice. Davan was mid-conversation with the contact and is caught out, so he rolls Willpower + Readiness: 2 Ability Dice.

Results: Senna 2 net Successes, Agent A 1, Davan 1, Agent B 0. Davan's 1 ties Agent A's 1, and a tie between a player slot and a GM slot goes to the player slot. The slot order is player, player, GM, GM. The players put Senna in the first slot and Davan in the second; the GM puts Agent A in the first GM slot. The order is Senna, Davan, Agent A, Agent B.

Round 1

Senna (player slot). Senna's Maneuver is Take Cover behind a cargo loader: light cover, Ranged Defense 1. Her Action is a shot at Agent A. Untrained, she rolls Agility 4 with no upgrades: 4 Ability Dice. Short range is Easy: 1 Trial Die. Agent A has no Defense.

The dice show 3 Successes and 1 Boon on the Ability Dice and 1 Failure on the Trial Die. Net: 2 Successes, 1 Boon. The first Success hits; the second adds 1 damage. Damage 6 + 1 = 7, minus Agent A's Resistance 2: Agent A suffers 5 Wounds (5 of 12). Senna's player spends the Boon to set up an ally: her fire keeps Agent A's head down while Davan works, so Davan adds 1 Boon Die to his next check.

Davan (player slot). Davan has no weapon and no combat skill, so he does not trade shots. His Maneuver moves him to the manual control box of the bay's emergency shutter, inside his current band. His Action is an Average Craft check to short the drive and drop the shutter halfway, making a barrier he can crouch behind. Intellect 4 and Craft 2: 2 Mastery Dice and 2 Ability Dice, plus Senna's Boon Die, against 2 Trial Dice. His engineer profession kit means no Bane Dice for tools.

Net result: 1 Success, 1 Bane. The shutter drops and gives heavy cover (Ranged Defense 2) to anyone behind it. The GM applies the Bane: the short trips the bay's alarm, and station security is now on its way.

Agent A (GM slot). Agent A fires at Senna: Easy, plus 1 Bane Die for her light cover. Agility 3 and Ranged 2 give 2 Mastery Dice and 1 Ability Die. Net result: 1 Success, 1 Bane. Damage 6 minus Senna's Resistance 2: Senna suffers 4 Wounds (4 of 12). The Bane goes against Agent A, and the GM uses it as a minor setback: Agent A suffers 1 Strain lunging for the shot. Elites have no Strain Points, so that becomes 1 Wound (6 of 12).

Agent B (GM slot). Davan is behind the shutter, so Agent B goes around it. One Maneuver moves Agent B from Short to Engaged with Davan; from that side the shutter gives Davan no cover. Agent B's Action is a shot at Engaged range: Easy plus 1 Bane Die. Net result: 1 Success. Damage 6 minus Davan's Resistance 1: Davan suffers 5 Wounds (5 of 12).

Round 2

Senna. Still behind the loader, Senna fires at Agent A again with the same pool. Net result: 1 Success, 2 Boons. Damage 6 minus 2: Agent A suffers 4 more Wounds (10 of 12; 2 more and Agent A is incapacitated). Senna's player spends both Boons to inflict Disoriented. The spend sets no duration, so it lasts until the end of Agent A's next turn.

Davan. Davan is Engaged with an armed agent and has nothing to fight with. His first Maneuver is a Move from Engaged to Short, back around the shutter. He wants a second Maneuver and still needs his Action, so he suffers 2 Strain (2 of 12) for it and uses it to Take Cover behind the shutter: heavy cover against Agent B again. His Action is an Average Electronics check on the bay's comm panel to reach station security, a legitimate use of the panel that needs no hacking talent. Intellect 4 and Electronics 2: 2 Mastery Dice and 2 Ability Dice. Net result: 2 Successes. Security answers; the GM rules that officers reach the bay at the end of round 3.

Agent A. Disoriented, Agent A fires at Senna: Easy, plus 1 Bane Die for her cover and 1 Bane Die for Disoriented. Net result: 1 Success and no Boons. Senna suffers 4 Wounds (8 of 12; 4 more and she is incapacitated). Agent A's Disoriented ends after this turn.

Agent B. Agent B fires at Davan at Short: Easy, plus 2 Bane Dice for the shutter's heavy cover. Net result: 0 Successes. The shot rings off the shutter.

Where it stands. Senna has suffered 8 of 12 Wounds. Davan has suffered 5 of 12 Wounds and 2 Strain. Agent A has suffered 10 of 12 Wounds. Station security arrives in a round. The agents can break off now, or stay and explain themselves to the officers. If the fight ends here, Davan recovers Strain equal to his Willpower (2), which clears his Strain; Senna and Davan recover Wounds with rest or medical care.

Worked Example: One Ship Round

The Ember Drift, a Model 20 light freighter (Speed 3, Handling +0, Armor 1, Deflection 0 / 0, Hull Points 18, Heat Dissipation 2, Heat Threshold 10), is caught leaving Harrowspan by a bounty crew in a CM-440 armored cutter (Speed 4, Handling +0, Armor 3, Deflection 0 / 0, Hull Points 22, Heat Dissipation 2). The ships start at Medium range with the cutter in the Ember Drift's forward arc. The Ember Drift carries one forward-fixed autocannon (Damage 4, Range Short to Medium, Crit 4, Pierce 1, 1 Heat per shot). The cutter carries a railgun battery (Damage 5, Range Medium to Long, Crit 3, Pierce 1, 1 Heat per shot). The Ember Drift has Basic Automation, so no directive AI assists anyone this fight. The Vehicles Manual, Chapter Fifteen, runs the same round and carries the fight on into a chase.

Stations. The crew are the Chapter Fifteen pregens. Senna Vael (Agility 4, Pilot 2) takes the Helm. Yessica Morn, a Zosa gunner (Agility 4, Gunnery 2, Fire Control), takes Gunnery. Davan Kel (Intellect 4, Craft 2, ship-rated engineer's kit) takes Engineering. Rhi, a Hazren medic with no Electronics training (Intellect 4), takes Sensors and Comms. Corin Ash takes no station and acts as captain.

Initiative. The crew saw the cutter coming, so Senna, at the Helm, rolls Savvy + Perception for the Ember Drift: 2 Mastery Dice. She gets 2 net Successes. The cutter's pilot gets 1. The Ember Drift takes the first slot.

The Ember Drift's Turn

Every crew member's Action and Maneuver are declared together, then resolved.

• Captain (Corin). Direct Focus on Yessica, as his Maneuver: she adds 1 Boon Die to her next check this round.
• Helm (Senna). Evasive Maneuver: an Average Pilot check. Agility 4 and Pilot 2 give 2 Mastery Dice and 2 Ability Dice against 2 Trial Dice; Handling +0 adds nothing. Her Evasive Instinct talent applies only once the ship is targeted, so she saves it. Net result: 2 Successes, 1 Boon. Attacks against the Ember Drift add 1 Bane Die until the start of its next turn, and the Ember Drift's own attacks this round add 1 Bane Die. Senna spends the Boon to change facing as well, keeping the cutter in the forward arc so the fixed autocannon can fire.
• Sensors and Comms (Rhi). Target Lock: an Average Electronics check. Untrained, Rhi rolls Intellect 4 as 4 Ability Dice. Net result: 1 Success. The lock holds, so Yessica adds 1 Boon Die to her next Gunnery check against the cutter this round.
• Engineering (Davan). Boost Power, boosting weapons: an Average Craft check with 2 Mastery Dice and 2 Ability Dice (Intellect 4, Craft 2), plus 1 Boon Die from his ship-rated engineer's kit. Net result: 1 Success. One attack this round deals +2 damage, and the crew cannot boost weapons again this encounter. Davan draws the power from cargo handling, which nobody needs this round. The boosted weapon adds 2 Heat on top of its own.
• Gunnery (Yessica). Aimed Fire with the autocannon at Medium range: Average. Agility 4 and Gunnery 2 give 2 Mastery Dice and 2 Ability Dice. She adds 3 Boon Dice: Direct Focus and Target Lock (2, the Boon Limit), plus 1 from her Fire Control talent on her first Gunnery check of the encounter, which the limit does not count. She rolls against 2 Trial Dice and 1 Bane Die (the ship's own evasion). The cutter has Deflection 0, and Handling +0 adds nothing. Net result: 2 Successes, 2 Boons.

Resolving the shot. The first Success hits. Damage is 4, plus 1 for the second Success, plus 2 from the boost: 7. The cutter's Armor 3, less the autocannon's Pierce 1, is 2. Yessica spends both Boons so the hit bypasses 1 more point of Armor, leaving 1. The cutter takes 6 Hull Damage (6 of 22). The autocannon adds 1 Heat; with the boost, the Ember Drift is at 3 Heat.

The Cutter's Turn

The cutter's pilot takes Hold Position as a Maneuver to stay at Medium, because the railgun battery cannot fire at Short. The cutter's gunner fires the railgun at the Ember Drift: Average, plus 1 Bane Die from Senna's Evasive Maneuver. The GM rolls: 1 net Success, 2 Banes. One Success is a hit with no extra damage: 5. The Ember Drift's Armor 1, less Pierce 1, is 0. The Ember Drift takes 5 Hull Damage (5 of 18). Two Banes are not enough to jam a ship weapon (that takes 3), so the GM spends them to make the cutter's next attack add 1 Bane Die. The railgun adds 1 Heat to the cutter.

End of the Round

Each ship dissipates Heat. The Ember Drift drops from 3 Heat to 1, well under its Heat Threshold of 10; the cutter drops from 1 to 0. Going into round 2, the Ember Drift has taken 5 of 18 Hull Damage and the cutter 6 of 22, and the cutter's next shot carries an extra Bane Die. The cutter is faster, so Senna's best way out is to Break to Long range as her Maneuver and Disengage as her Action in the same turn.