Combat occurs in Arenas, and is described in a sequence of rounds. Each round consists of seven potential Actions, which are resolved in a set order within about ten seconds. Sixty rounds make one “turn.” The DM announces the actions of the NPCs, then the players say what their characters will do. Combat should be fast, cinematic, and awesome.
Arenas
An arena is a place you might fight in that’s different from the places around it. Characters can move around and maneuver within their arena without taking actions to do it. A move action transfers a character from one arena to another adjacent arena.

In play, this usually looks like a bunch of ovals, squares, L-shapes, and triangles that touch each other, ideally with some scribbled in scenery or an explanation to understand what is in each arena.

Having a variety of arenas means players can move their characters to places where they get an advantage from their weapon type, and variety helps combat be more cinematic and dynamic than standing toe to toe and gradually chewing through each other’s hit points.

Tight. Narrow corridors, stairs, balconies, alleys, tunnels, most internal rooms; light weapons +2 to attack.
Hazardous. Rooftops, slick rocks, ledges, rope bridges, swamps, big rooms with low furniture; reach weapons +2 to attack.
Open. Courtyards, open water, gladiatorial arenas, fields; ranged weapons +2 to attack target here.
An Open arena tends to be 12 feet high and about six yards on a side. On a cliff face, in the water, or with aerial combat, that’s a helpful guideline. Some monsters have an arena on their back and head!
Dense. Shops with fragile shelving, crowded bar-rooms, thick forest, ship deck, crowd, hayloft; heavy and very heavy weapons +2 to attack (with collateral damage).
Neutral. Anything else.

If you want to do something cool, suggest arena possibilities next to the arenas the DM notes. Example: a character in a marketplace is faced with a dense street and tight alleyways as the guards close in. Her player asks if she can treat the awnings of the shops as a hazardous arena to get up to the rooftops, which are open. The DM may draw it in!

Arenas can change mid-fight. If you are in a hayloft and the barn catches fire, you may go from a dense arena to a hazardous arena. If you’re in a crowd and they scatter, the arena goes from dense to neutral, then maybe a round later to open. Boundaries of arenas can change as the fighting space changes.

The size of arenas varies dramatically. If you’re in a house, arenas will be very small; if you are riding horses out on the plains, they’ll be very big.

There are some circumstances that come up often, so here are some typical arrangements.
Roads. Roads tend to be about one arena wide and as many as 10 or 15 arenas long for the purposes of the encounter. They are open unless there is traffic, then they can be any arena type.
Walls. If you can go over it or fight along its top, the wall is hazardous. If the walls hem you in, the arena is tight. If the walls mean you can’t go that way, the wall is impassible (and not an arena). If the wall seems flimsy, you can try to break it; if you do, the DM will tell you whether the rubble-strewn hole area is dense, tight, or hazardous!
Weather. Uncleared rain, mud, snow, or ice often will render terrain hazardous, as any personal injury attorney will attest.
Woods. Thickets of brush and saplings likely are dense, close stands of mature trees or trees with low branches tend to be tight, and an old growth forest with open understory may be neutral.
Initiative
Initiative is only needed when multiple characters want to act in the same phase of the combat round. Every party rolls 1d10+Awareness, highest roll goes first, and on through descending order. Those who are tied go simultaneously or dice it off again, DM choice.

The DM always declares NPC tactics before the PCs decide what they will do. This may be a description of the NPC plan, or just announcing what part of the round they’ll use (shoot, move, attack, etc.). The DM can pay Awesomes to affected PCs in order to change NPCs’ apparent tactics.
For example, a DM may tell players an NPC will defend or protect, but not say which, or who may be defended. Or the DM can share that information. It depends on how clearly the DM thinks the NPC is telegraphing the action.
If this inconveniences players to the point where they complain, the DM may put Awesome Points in the bowl to pay for secrecy. It is helpful to put 1-6 down the side of the dry erase board and mark in when everyone will act. Start by putting in the NPCs, then put in the PCs.
Sequence of Actions
Defend or Protect. Both can counter-attack those that successfully hit you in melee combat.
Counter Attacking Minions. When a group of minions attack, they roll once to attack so the defender can roll only once to counter-attack—not once for each minion in the group.
Defend: Foes are -2 to hit you. (-4 with a shield.)
Protect: Attacks in this round that target a chosen friend in your arena attack you instead.
Shoot or Throw. Use a ranged weapon to attack someone in your arena or an adjacent arena. With a ranged weapon, there is an option within the Shoot action to Aim (shot hits during the Attack action) for better range.
Bows or slings can shoot out to [2 x Brawn] arenas when aimed, with short bows or slings having a max range of 4 arenas, long bows 8 arenas. Crossbows can shoot to 6 arenas when aimed.
Focus or Impede. Actions that take longer to manage.
Focus: Announce what you are starting to do for a focus action; if unharmed until the end of the turn, it happens.
Impede. Test your Brawn, Cunning, or Daring against someone else’s Brawn, Cunning, or Daring (each party chooses which attribute they’ll use) in order to prevent them Moving, Attacking, or Pushing anyone other than you.
Move. From the arena you are in to an adjacent arena (or one arena further, if you spend 1 Awesome).
If someone Impeded you, attack them; if you inflict a wound, you can move normally but cannot spend an Awesome to move further.
Attack, Assist, or Aimed Shot. Attack anyone in your present arena, except that if you were Impeded, you only can attack that opponent.
Attack. Roll to hit, using any applicable abilities or weapon bonuses.
Assist. Add 1d10 to the dice rolled by an ally in the same arena; the ally keeps the top 2 rolls, so you are contributing as though you were a minion. You cannot use abilities or weapon bonuses to help.
Aimed shots strike their targets on successful attack rolls.
To shift your action to attack independently or to protect your ally from another attack, spend 1 Awesome Point.
Push. Move one or more opponents to an adjacent arena. Use your Brawn, Cunning, or Daring, against their Brawn, Cunning, or Daring. Each target after the first reduces your roll by 1. Those you beat are hurled into your target arena and cannot Move on their next turn.
Focused Actions. Focused actions go off if the focuser remains unwounded. A successfully impeded target is Cornered and cannot move next round unless they successfully.
Face Dice
One of the dice for an attack roll is the “face die” and if it comes up a 10 and the character also hits, then the attack does an extra 1d3 damage that is added to the normal damage. (This may not be a hit to the face, it could be any kind of critical hit, but “Face Die” is funny.) For unarmed attacks, the only die is a Face Die. This may be the only opportunity for a small character to inflict a disabling wound on larger opponents.

Some abilities adjust the rules for attack rolls. Most notable is the Fighter’s Weapon of Choice ability.
Parrying Weapons
A parrying weapon must be a light or medium weapon, or a shield, and can be used only with a light, hand, or heavy weapon in the other hand (“main weapon”). When using a parrying weapon, you roll -1d10 on your attack roll with the main weapon (i.e., roll 1d10 to hit with a light or heavy weapon and 2d10 with a medium weapon). However, in each round you may choose one time for the parrying weapon to grant +2 to the attack roll or to (on a successful hit) mark your target’s lowest unmarked wound, or to impose your Daring as a penalty against a chosen foe’s attack roll.
Damage, Wounds, Healing, and Recovery
Each character has a number of wounds. Each die that is rolled for damage indicates a single wound to be marked. For example, if a character rolls a “4” on 1d5, their target marks off wound #4. If the rolled wound is higher than any of a character’s wounds (e.g. if the character has wounds 1-4, and the rolled wound is a “5”) then the character’s highest wound is marked.

If a wound already has been marked, then the next lower wound is marked; if the next lower wound already has been marked, then the next higher wound is marked.

When either of a character’s two highest wounds has been marked, they must test Daring or Commitment in order to continue combat.

When a character’s two highest wounds have been marked, they are incapacitated and must test Commitment against the total number of wounds marked off. A failure indicates the character is bleeding out, and must mark one additional wound each round until they benefit from a successful use of a Healing ability (discussed below).

When all of a character’s wounds are marked, they die. There is no resurrection in the Magic Realm.

For natural recovery, a character rolls 1d5 each day, and recovers the rolled wound (e.g. a character with wounds 1, 3, 4, and 6, rolling 3, recovers wound #3). A daily roll that does not match any marked wound can be re-rolled a number of times not exceeding the character’s Commitment.