Paces and other meta-mechanics
Combat can be divided into three "paces," frames in which you control how quickly you want the whole thing to go, sacrificing detail to aggregate speed of resolution:
- Scene-based Combat: It all comes down to a single roll for each participant. Good for dealing with mooks (though see, also, Mook Combat).
- Exchange-based Combat: A series of rolls or actions is encompassed in each roll. This is really the closest to D20 combat (though with less crunchy detail), and is the FATE default.
- Turn-based Combat: Tactical combat, fine-grained, each roll representing a single attack or defense.
Here's a good summary of the
Different Combat Types.
| I like having the flexibilty, both to have a dirty knock-down blow-by-blow combat, and to have a quick mow-em-down summary, as well as something in-between. I'm likely to lean most toward Exchange-based Combat, using The Combat Process. |
The basic rolls are as in a
Dynamic Challenge: two rolls are compared, and the victor's
Margin Of Success determines the outcome on the
Wounds Table.
The concept behind FATE Combat is less to simulate the
process with specific mechanics, than to determine what the
outcome is (per the
Golden Rule Of FATE). Combat technology is thus simplified, while still trying to have combats come out with realistic (or properly dramatic) results. This doesn't mean that battle cannot be handled tactically, but that juggling of lots of numbers and rules to optimize the combat rules is less necessary, allowing a more dramatic (but authentic) interpretation of the conflict.
[1]
Combat rules
FATE Mechanics
