Magic, Hacking, and Psychic Powers in Combat

     In the Identity System, magic (or the setting's equivalent) is meant to be as costly as everything else, especially in a fight. Every spell, upload, or psychic blast is a risk. Instead of writing out a long list of spells, hacking scripts, or psychic techniques, which goes against my intent for this system, I've instead elected to go for a customizable approach to them. Here's how it works:

    While casting, hacking, or focusing on your bizarre brain blasts, you have two broad options for a target: an enemy or the environment.

    When targeting an enemy: When you make your attack, roll the relevant Skill (typically Sharp for hacking and Strange for magic and psychic power). By default, an attack of this type deals 0-Harm, with no tags, at any range- but that can change. When you succeed a roll against an enemy, you can spend Stress and invoke Aspects to customize your attack by picking options from the critical hit list: 

-Hit 'em Where it Hurts: Add 1-Harm to your attack

-Keep Your Guard Up: Reduce Harm taken by 1 until your next turn

-Seize the Advantage: Add +1 to your next roll against this target

-Reveal a Weakness: Add +1 to another player's roll against this target

-Knock 'em Back: Force this target to change locations

-Cause Lasting Damage: Inflict a Condition

 On a critical hit, you can pick one of these options for free.

    When targeting the environment: When you manipulate the environment via supernatural power or technical expertise, it's very similar to an out-of-combat roll, with one notable difference: you still need to spend Stress to invoke Aspects to help your roll. 

    In both of these cases, whenever you roll against the same target multiple times, subtract 1 from your roll for every consecutive attempt against this target, regardless of success. Switching your target resets this debuff.

    This particular rule-set is only applicable in combat. When out of combat, regular rules apply. 

    These rules have been a sort of informal thing, but I figured I would write it down for the sake of quick reference. Next up, a look at the specific magic system of Itherande and an update on that setting! 

            -AA