ap-combat - SKILL.md Agent Skill

name: ap-combat description: This skill should be used when the GM needs to handle Apocrypha combat situations, including resolving attacks against adversaries, dealing stress to adversaries, tracking adversary stress and defeat, spending Fear in combat, activating adversary Fear abilities, managing encounter state, or running player-rolls-everything combat encounters. version: 1.0.0

Apocrypha Combat Management Skill

Use this skill to run Apocrypha combat encounters. Apocrypha uses player-rolls-everything: the player always rolls, there are no adversary turns, and there is no initiative. Adversary actions come through failure consequences and GM Fear spending.

Authoritative Source: For complete rules, use the ap-rules skill.

Player-Rolls-Everything

The player always rolls. There are three combat situations:

Player Acts Against an Adversary

Player declares their action and which keyword applies
GM sets difficulty (or uses the adversary's tier difficulty)
Player rolls 2d12 + keyword modifier vs difficulty
On success: adversary takes stress. On failure: adversary responds.

Player Acts While an Adversary Is Present

When the player isn't targeting the adversary directly (picking a lock while a dragon watches), the adversary acts through failure consequences. "You fail to pick the lock, and the dragon closes the distance." The GM may also spend Fear to inflict stress as part of failure narration.

Adversary Forces a Reaction

When an adversary surprises the player or forces a reaction, the player still rolls. The GM narrates the threat, the player declares their response, and the roll determines the outcome. No situation bypasses the player's roll.

Dealing Stress to Adversaries

When a player succeeds on an action against an adversary:

Outcome	Stress Dealt
Success with Hope	2 stress
Success with Fear	1 stress

The GM chooses which adversary keyword takes stress based on the fiction. Stressed adversary keywords lose effectiveness: a bandit with "Pack Tactics (+2)" at 1 stress fights at effective +1.

Adversary Defeat

When an adversary's total accumulated stress meets or exceeds its stress threshold, it is defeated. The fiction determines what defeat looks like: death, surrender, retreat, or incapacitation.

Stress Tracking by Tier

Minor adversaries: Aggregate stress pool. Single counter toward threshold.
Standard and major adversaries: Per-keyword tracking. Stress allocated to specific keywords, each degrades independently, total across all keywords counts toward threshold.

Dealing Stress to Players

Player keywords take stress through two channels:

Fear Spending (Proactive)

The GM spends Fear tokens to stress player keywords at any time, not just during combat:

Action	Cost
Inflict light stress on a keyword	1 Fear
Inflict deep stress on a keyword	2 Fear
Activate adversary Fear ability	Cost per ability

Failure Consequences (Reactive)

When a player fails a roll, the GM may narrate stress on a keyword as part of the failure. This does not cost Fear. The roll itself is the cost.

Choosing Targets

The GM chooses which keyword to stress based on narrative sense:

Combat stress targets action-oriented keywords
Social failure targets identity and relationship keywords
The choice follows the fiction, not mechanical optimization

Fear in Combat

Fear is the GM's combat fuel. Spend it actively.

Fear Spending Options

Action	Cost	Example
Light stress on keyword	1 Fear	"The blow rattles your sword arm"
Deep stress on keyword	2 Fear	"The dragon's flames wash over you, and your fire falters"
Complication	1 Fear	"The bridge starts to crumble beneath you"
Adversary Fear ability	Varies	"The dragon unleashes its Breath of Ruin"
Scene interrupt	3 Fear	"Reinforcements crash through the door"

When to Spend Fear

After accumulating 6+ Fear, actively look for spending opportunities
At dramatic turning points in the encounter
When the fiction supports an adversary's special capability
When the players seem too comfortable

Fear above 6 that isn't being spent is a missed narrative beat.

Running an Encounter

Setup

Establish the scene: positions, threats, environment
Note current Hope (on character sheet) and Fear (in adventure.md frontmatter)
Write adversary blocks into world.md for significant adversaries (see ap-adversaries skill)
Set up encounter tracking using references/encounter-template.md

Flow

Player declares action and relevant keyword
GM declares difficulty and stakes
Player rolls (if the trigger is a trap or environment effect, the player rolls their reaction to it)
Resolve outcome: tokens, stress, narrative
If failure, narrate the adversary's response
If Fear available, consider spending on complications or abilities
Update stress counters and Fear pool
Repeat

Ending Combat

Combat ends when:

All adversaries are defeated (stress >= threshold)
The player achieves their objective
The player retreats or surrenders
The situation changes fundamentally (critical result, narrative shift)

After Combat

Update adversary stress in world.md (for surviving adversaries)
Update keyword stress on character sheet
Update Fear in adventure.md frontmatter
Note consequences and story developments

Dice Tool Examples

Attack roll (keyword +2, adversary difficulty 14):

{ "groups": [{ "n": 1, "d": 12, "label": "hope" }, { "n": 1, "d": 12, "label": "fear" }], "modifier": 2, "threshold": 14 }

Defensive reaction (keyword +1, difficulty 17):

{ "groups": [{ "n": 1, "d": 12, "label": "hope" }, { "n": 1, "d": 12, "label": "fear" }], "modifier": 1, "threshold": 17 }

Stress Conditions Reference

See references/conditions.md for stress conditions and their effects.

Encounter Tracking

See references/encounter-template.md for a template to track encounter state.