Hi, no problem. I will try to help by giving you my understanding of the rules at least! Also, I actually suggest that if you are a newer GM ... give yourself a break and just use enough of the rules to make the game fun. You can learn the rules over time, you are not meant to be a master of the rules on your first session. The players will enjoy it more (they just want to have fun) and you can relax more if you say "we're just going to use simplified rules for combat for now, until we learn the rules a bit better" then just ignore a lot of these special cases. See page 149 for The Golden Rule : If a rule negatively impacts fun for your group, change it or ignore it. With that being said, below are my responses to your questions. " i had the party attacked by goblins on a road to a city. there were 5 one of them had perception check and hid off the road the others who were ahead went down the road at any rate. the hidden Pc had the suppressed* condition for a while from my understanding, so he wanted to use Bs on a pistol to hit a goblin " I assume you mean Surprised condition here, as that's the only thing that makes sense to me, so I'll cover that briefly. 1a) Surprise: the Goblins should all be surprised, not the hidden PC(s). The r ules for surprise are covered on pages 156 & 157. The Surprised condition is covered on page 169. Basically, the ambusher(s) make Stealth checks and as long as they don't mess up, and the ones they are trying to ambush are not being alert, they will gain surprise which causes their targets (in this case, the Goblins) to gain the Surprised Condition. The Surprised Condition lasts for each Goblin until that Goblin is hit for the first time, or at the end of that round (when every Goblin would no longer be surprised). The main effect of being Surprised is that you cannot do anything and melee attacks against you gain a +20 bonus to hit. " when the Pc is engaged with combat i know they cant disengage until both parties have not at attacked i think for at least a turn or one of them is in the prone condition. but the goblins and the pc characters both could dodge correct. the Pc's for sure they had dodge in the CS but it went to like 7 turns of dodging each others attacks. is that normal is there something the Pc's coulda done differently. " This looks like you are asking about Disengaging. I'm unsure why you are talking about the Prone condition. 1b) Disengaging : The rules for disengaging are covered on page 165. You have two options to disengage: 1st option) If you have more Advantage than your opponents, you can reduce that Advantage down to zero and automatically disengage/withdraw without penalty. 2nd option) If you have the same or less Advantage than your opponents, you can attempt to Dodge. Use your action to make an opposed Dodge/Melee test. If you win, you gain +1 Advantage and can effectively withdraw as per the 1st option, above. If you fail, each opponent gains +1 Advantage instead and if you withdraw then each opponent gets a free attack on you. It sounds like in your combat you had both the PCs and Goblins dodging. If a PC wins a Dodge check, they can immediately withdraw safely. So I assume they were either failing all their Dodge checks or perhaps you did not realise they could then withdraw? Additionally, a PC or Goblin can simply run away and decide to take a bunch of free attacks against them ... maybe not the best idea but it is stil there as an option if you really need to run away. " they did a roll for a hit each time it was there turn, a non movement action like a battlecry or charm or taunt or whatever. but the fight dragged along time. to which my players are like surely this isnt the rules...." This sounds to me like you are saying the Goblins survived too long, are at least much longer than you expected, which appears to be all about Injury and Death. I think this also touches upon Resilience, so I'll cover that as well. 1c) Injury and Death : The rules for Injury and Death start on page 172. The key thing to use here is the option on page 173 "Sudden Death". The suggestion is that you do not use criticals etc for small/regular monsters i.e. Goblins and Bandits etc, and just save that for boss fights or really big monsters. This is certainly what I do and I strongly encourage you to use this as well. That means that simply when an NPC has taken more damage than they have Wounds, they are dead. It will save you a huge amount of time. 1d) Fate and Resilience : The rules for Fate, Fortune, Resilience and Resolve start on page 170. Primarily focusing on the combat dragging on for a long time, a PC could choose to spend a permanent point of Resilience to gain I Will Not Fail! , which means that in an opposed test (combat attacks are opposed tests) you can simply say "I win by 1 SL". This may not be ideal as obviously you only get a certain amount of Resilience, but I thought it was worth mentioning and is certainly something your PCs could consider using in a boss fight, for example. In terms of the Goblins being wounded, and taking a long time to die: why not make your monsters behave more like living beings who wish to survive? You can give each Goblin a Leadership test once they are initially injured. If that Goblin fails the Leadership test, it runs away. If more than half the Goblins run away, all the remaining Goblins automatically run away. This would make your fights much more interesting as its not just as case of waiting for all the monsters to die, which can take a while and be quite boring. Also, you could add an extra condition: Injured. If a monster has taken damage equal to 50% or more of its wounds it now counts as an Easy (+40) Difficulty target as it move much more slowly. These are just a few suggestions on how you can easily make combat faster and more interesting for everyone. "also when a player or npc gets hit we roll to see if it hits first, then see if the opponent can dodge or block (what things cant be dodged or block or do i just put a more challenging modifier.) right. then if they fail we roll a d100 to see where he got hit and subtract the dmg from the weapon to how much wound points the Pc or npc has. so for example the goblins had gotten hit for 8 dmg now they have a 3 wound points, i think they are still fighting, so we continue but i have the goblins roll more challenging because they have a wound... " Right, so here I think you are doing something wrong. We are talking about combat rolls and a combat roll is always an Opposed Test, so let's talk about Tests. 1e) Tests : The rules for Tests begin on page 149. There are different types of tests: Difficulty) Tests can have a Difficulty assigned, see page 153. For example, if a PC is climbing a tree, you might say it was an Average (+20) Difficulty. This means the PC adds +20 to their Climb skill when making the roll. Simple Tests) A Simple Test is a yes/no question, which you don't want to spend a lot of time on. Roll 1d100 vs the Skill or Attribute and the GM can add a modifier for Difficulty . If you roll above your target number, you fail, otherwise you succeed. A 96-00 always fails. A 01-05 always succeeds. Dramatic Tests) A Dramatic Test can succeed or fail by varying Success Levels (SL) and is a good way to measure how well you succeed or fail at a task. A 96-00 gives -1 SL or the SL you rolled, whichever is lower. A 01-05 gives +1 SL or the SL you rolled, whichever is higher. Opposed Tests) Opposed Tests are a special type of Dramatic Test, and are used in combat and other places. The default Opposed Test is assumed to be of Challenging Difficulty (+0). Extended Tests) This is another type of Dramatic Test, that can take place over a period of time. Unless the accumulated SL reach 0 or less, you keep rolling and adding up the SL until the target number of required SL is hit and the task is completed. As per page 158, a melee attack roll is an Opposed Test. That means that both the attacker and the defender roll, compare their SLs, and the winner gains +1 Advantage. A ranged attack roll is a Ranged Test, which is not opposed, unless you are in close range or the defender has a large enough shield in which case it would again be an Opposed Test. As per page 161, Combat Difficulty, there are lots of modifiers that can come into play if your PCs play smart. For example, 3 PCs could gang up on the same Goblin which would mean their attack rolls were made at Easy (+40) Difficulty instead. Attacking an Engaged opponent in the side or rear grants an Average (+20) Difficulty attack. " . and one of my Pc's is a witch we all kinda dont know how to play the character to be fair. for example i do not think they start with any magic.. but they do start with a dagger and dolls and pins. i think as the game goes by she can learn petty magic onwards" Learning Spells : If the Witch selected the Petty Magic talent as part of their starting character creation (see page 36, Career Skills and Talent, last sentence: You may also choose a single talent to learn ), they will have Petty spells as well. The Petty Magic talent is listed on page 142. Specifically, a Witch with this talent gains a number of Petty spells equal to their Willpower bonus. So if their Willpower is 38, they would know 3 Petty spells. Petty spells are listed starting on page 240. A PC with the Petty Magic talent can spend additional XP to gain extra spells, as listed on the chart in the Petty talent rules. So this PC, with a Willpower of 38 and 3 Petty spells, could spend 50XP to gain a 4th Petty spell, then an extra 100XP to gain their 5th Petty spell. Character Creation : I could be wrong, but I wanted to put a note here about character creation because I sense perhaps you did not go through it properly. Please take the time to read the character creation rules in detail as there is plenty of opportunity to advance skills etc depending on the choices a Player makes. "so we dont know how to roll for miscast, reloading, magic when he gets that. " Starting from page 234 the rules explain how to cast spells and what can go wrong etc. Casting Spells : To cast a spell, you make a Language (Magick) Test. This is usually a Simple Test. You then compare your SL vs the CN of the spell you were trying to cast. If you get at least the same SL as the CN of the spell, it succeeds. If you get more, you might do extra stuff. If you get less, the spell fails. If you roll a 96-00 you have Fumbled and suffer a Miscast: roll 1d100 and consult the Minor Miscast Table. If you roll 01-05 you have Critically cast your spell, but there will be a cost involved. See rules on page 234. I do hope that helps. My initial suggestion is, I believe, the most useful one: use The Golden Rule to start off with some basic rules and slowly learn the rules as you play.
