In combat, characters can take action to defend themselves from an incoming attack.
A character’s Defense sets the difficulty of the attacker’s roll. A character’s starting Defense against an incoming attack is always 1. When a character is attacked, she may take a defensive action using Stamina (no Skill is added). The difficulty of a defensive action is 0 unless otherwise noted. Each hit garnered from a defensive action can be used to purchase Defense Tricks. After she sets her Defense, the attacker rolls for their attack action.

A player does not have to roll for Defense unless an attack is declared against her character. Once she is attacked once in a round, the Defense Tricks she purchased persist until the end of that round, meaning she may set her Defense on the first attack and keep it for future attacks if she wishes. If she is attacked again in the round, she may choose to give up her action to reset her Defense by rolling again, but she must keep the new result. Penalties that apply to Defense can never bring a character’s Defense below 1.

A character may want to spend her action in the round to take a full Defense. To do this, roll the
character’s (Defense pool × 2). Each hit increases the difficulty required to inflict Injury, or may be split among other Defense Tricks (including any Defense Tricks granted by Tropes). This is a simple action and may not be part of a mixed action.

Defense

Characters can move behind cover as part of their reflexive move action, but cannot do this as part of a mixed action. Cover acts as a type of expendable armor and is rated as light, heavy, or full.
Light cover

protects a significant portion of the character’s body, such as a marble railing or a turned over table. Light cover can absorb 4 damage before being destroyed.
Heavy cover

protects almost all of the character, leaving only the smallest parts exposed, such as crouching behind a piece of slate or acting through a slit between a thick door. Heavy cover can absorb 10 damage before being destroyed.
Full cover

blocks line of sight completely to a target. It functions the same as heavy cover, but the character behind it cannot be targeted by ranged attacks.

Movement

Normally, characters can move around unimpeded during a scene, unless props, set dressing, and other performers obstruct them. In action-adventure scenarios, maneuvering to get just the right angle to make an attack becomes an important strategy.

Usually, we abstract movement using range bands, or opposed Athletics + either Might or Dexterity actions between characters. For the purposes of combat, movement and speed follow those abstractions.

Certain special abilities may increase how far a character can move on their turn. The following are basic ways a character can move during an action sequence:

Move

Characters can move between Close and Short or Short and Medium as a reflexive action. A character can run as a simple action to move between Close and Medium range.

Drop/Stand

A character can choose to drop prone or stand from prone as a reflexive action instead of moving. If a character would need to rise from prone while in Close range with a hostile enemy, she must do so as part of a mixed action using Athletics + Dexterity for the action with 0 difficulty.

Rush

A character may move as part of a mixed action to move into range and attack an enemy using Athletics + Might for the action. The character may move from Medium to Close range as part of the rush action. The difficulty to rush an opponent is 1 unless the opponent has purchased a Trick that makes it more difficult to rush them as part of their Defense action. This cannot be used if the character starts at Short or Close range.