Combat Breakdown

Cards and Crusades has three action types in the midst of combat. These are the suit actions, ranked actions, and inventory movement. At the beginning of each round, the combatants draw three cards. Every round each combatant gets the opportunity to use two actions based on whatever cards they have drawn.

The suit action is the most common action in combat and can be divided into two types, hand action and inherent action. Hand actions are based on whatever equipment your character is currently using and assigned to the suits spades and clubs. So, in combat, if I am using a sword (spades) and shield (clubs) and I draw a four of spades I can use the card to attack with my sword. Inherent actions are chosen at character creation and represent trained, inherited, or learned traits that cannot be removed from a character. These may include simple spells, battle techniques, and magical traits gained from ancestry. for example, a character might know how to cast a bolt of fire (hearts) and hide (diamonds). So, on his turn, if he draws hearts and diamonds, he can shoot flame then duck out of view.

Ranked actions are more powerful abilities and are learned over the course of an adventure. These actions are assigned to a rank associated with a deck of playing cards (2-10, jack, queen, king, and ace). For example, a cleric might learn to shoot a bolt of energy that ignores the effects of armor. This is assigned to a rank then whenever the cleric draws that rank, he may cast the bolt.

Inventory actions allow you to change equipment (club and spades) during combat. For example, if a group is fighting an ice monster it may be wise to pull out a flask of oil.