Rules

Combat and Conflict Resolution
Combat is handled as simply as possible in Synergy, while also maintaining a sense of drama and danger. Players should feel free to describe what they are doing, how they are attacking; how well you describe this and how inspired your tactics are may even influence the rolls somewhat.

We begin the combat round by rolling initiative: everyone involved in the combat rolls a d20 and adds their Will score. The highest number goes first, and further turns are taken in descending order. A player may decide to defer his turn to a later spot on the initiative list, but this is risky – once initiative is set, it will not change until the combat is over.

The first player in line decides he will attack a target. He rolls a d20, and adds his Agility to the score; his result must meet or exceed his opponent's Agility plus ten in order for the hit to land. The defending player makes no roll at this time.

So we'll call the first player Jim, and his target John. Jim has a 4 agility, and John has a 5 Agility. In order to hit John, Jim must roll a d20 and add 4 (his agility), and the result must equal or exceed 15 (10+John's Agility). Jim rolls a 12, giving him a total of 16; his attack is successful.

To determine how much damage Jim has done, we take the weapon rating of his weapon (a one-handed sword, rating 4) and multiply it by Strength (3, for a total of 12). Jim deals twelve damage to John. John then subtracts any armor from the damage he just took (say he's wearing armor rated 3). John reduces his Hit Points by nine, and the combat continues.

Some skills exist that will complicate matters. Normally, a player may attack and defend within a turn. However, in order to take advantage of your defensive action, you must have a defensive skill (such as Parry or Evasion). These skills let you take defensive actions that may nullify attacks against you.

Back to Jim and John.

Pretty miffed about getting clocked for nine points of damage, John decides he's going to reshape Jim's face to a more pleasing configuration. He rolls a d20 and adds 5, against the target number 14 (Jim's Agility+ten). He scores a total of 17.

But wait! Jim has Parry! The Parry skill lets you make an attack roll against an incoming attack – if you score the same number or higher than the incoming attack, that attack is negated. So Jim goes for it, rolling a d20 and adding his Agility against the target number of 17 (the incoming attack roll). He scores a total of 18! He manages to deflect the attack with his weapon, certainly not improving John's day any.

Normally, a player gets one attack, and one defense; however, every combat skill you take (offensive or defensive) allows you an additional action of its kind, though you may never have more actions within a turn than your Agility rating.

The Shield Expertise skill lets you use and benefit from a shield; not only does the shield add from 1 to 3 to the difficulty to hit you (raising your opponent's target number by 1, 2, or 3), it also allows you to use the Shield Bash maneuver, a simple attack that does no damage, but has a chance to stun your opponent. A Shield Bash is rolled as a simple attack, with the shield rating serving as the damage modifier. The victim of such an attack must roll an Endurance check against 10+the damage that would have been done by the attack; if he fails, he loses his next action. This may also be attempted while unarmed if you have the Unarmed Combat skill. You may attempt to stun with an normal weapon, but in that case, you may not add the weapon's Damage Rating to the damage total. (you're trying NOT to kill them).

If you are armed with a whip or have the Unarmed Combat skill and are fighting barehanded, you may attempt to entangle your opponent; you make an attack roll as normal, but disregard damage for this attack. Instead, your opponent also rolls Agility; if you score higher, he loses his next action, and if he scores higher, the entangle attempt fails. If you elect to hold the entanglement, your victim may roll a Strength check every round to break free (against 10+your strength). Note that any attack attempted while holding an entanglement not only grants your opponent another chance to break free, but also reduces your Agility bonus by half. This is only possible while fighting unarmed.

Intimidation
Staring someone down is difficult, and you'd better have a will of iron if you want to try. Intimidating someone comes down to a simple Will roll, where both the intimidater and the victim roll a d20 and add their Will scores to their results.

You might wonder why John has such a problem with Jim's face; truth is, Jim tried to stare John down. They each rolled a d20. Jim has a will of 3, and John has a will of 2. Jim's roll was a 7, so his result was 10; John rolled a 5, so his result was 7. John lost the staredown, and now, he's trying to restore some face by wrecking Jim's.

Most conflicts will be resolved with simple opposed rolls like this, with varying stats used to modify the rolls depending on the nature of the contest. Below are examples of other kinds of contests.

Pursuit
Someone is running from you, and you want to catch them. This is an extended test; it'll take more than one roll to resolve this contest. Each round, both the pursued and the pursuer roll a d20 and add their Endurance. The target difficulty starts at 10, and rises by 1 every time a roll is required. As long as both parties score over this difficulty, the pursuit continues; both can still run. If the pursued scores higher than his pursuer, he pulls away; if the pursuer scores higher, they catch up a little. Either party may choose to make an additional roll at any time to try and close or lengthen the distance between them; they must meet or exceed the last roll made by the other player.

If either player fails to score the target difficulty a number of times equal to their Endurace, they cannot run any longer. Any time they fail, they lose ground ( the pursuer lags behind, or the pursued loses distance). A character with Athletics does not need to test every round; instead, they test after a number of rounds equal to their Endurance, meaning they can run for substantially longer periods than those without the skill. The difficulty only rises when a roll is made.

Eslena is running down a bandit that has assaulted her. She possesses the Athletics skill; the bandit does not. Her Endurance is 5, so Eslena only needs to test every five rounds. The poor bandit is not so lucky, and must test every round.

The first test, Eslena does not need to roll, but the bandit does. He rolls a d20 for an 11, and adds his 2 Endurance, for a total of 13. As the first target number is ten, he makes it handily, and can keep going. Eslena then elects to try and close the distance, and rolls against that target number (13). She rolls a 9, and adds her 5 Endurance, resulting in 14 – she gains some on the bandit.

The second test, agains, Eslena does not need to roll, but the bandit does. This time, the difficulty is 11, and his roll is 5. Even with his Endurance, that's only 7 – he is winded, and Eslena easily gains on him again. One more failure, and the bandit will collapse, exhausted.

This system can be adapted for nearly any sort of extended contest; games might substitute Will for Endurance, or an armwrestling contest use Strength.

Tracking
You have to follow someone's trail.

This time, instead of facing another roller, your difficulty is determined by the GM ahead of time. (They may elect not to tell you!) You roll a simple test, d20 plus your Will, and as long as you meet or beat the difficulty, you continue to follow the trail. Fail, and you must stop and look for the trail again. Fail twice in a row, and you have lost the trail entirely. How many rolls you must make successfully will also be determined by the GM.

Again, this can be adapted for many different tasks.

Bouncing Back
Any time a character's hit points are reduced to zero, he or she may make a Will roll to stay in the game. The difficulty of this roll is a flat 13. If successful, a character does not die, but remains incapacitated until some form of help is given. Humans gain +2 to this roll – they're more resilient, as they don't have the magic slowly eating their humanity or a draconic essence twined around their life-force. If the roll fails – well, that's the end, thank you for playing.

Healing
You get hurt, you get better. Barring magic, Enhancements, or other special abilities, all characters restore up to their Endurance score in hit points after a full night's sleep. Interruption will lower this amount; if you are forced to stay awake or on the move, you only restore 1 hit point. If a character is poisoned or afflicted by a disease, they may not heal naturally at all until these afflictions are removed.

Poisons
There are a few toxic substances in Karimas; a character who is poisoned takes damage equal to the poison's Rating minus their Endurance. Each poison will also have a Duration listed, stating how long the poison stays active in your system. Even if your Endurance is higher than the poison's Rating, you may not heal while poisoned except by magic or other means. A character with Academics: Alchemy, Academics: Healing, or Academics: Herbalism can identify most poisons.

Diseases
Unlike poisons, diseases lower your character's attributes, making them far more dangerous. Diseases will have an attribute, a number, and a duration listed; the number is how much it reduces that attribute by over the length of the duration; the attribute is not reduced all at once, but slowly over time. A second duration states how long the disease actually lasts. Diseases are also dangerous in that they can be spread; a character rolls his Endurance against 10+the disease's Rating to resist infection. A character with Academics: Healing can identify most diseases.