When an action round involves one character or NPC attacking an opponent, the defender may choose to expend an action point to defend or not.
When no action point n is spent, the opposing roll for the attack is considered a passive defense. In this instance, a straight stat roll is made. No skills, abilities or powers can be applied to the roll. Unless specifically stated in the description, no modifiers from traits or equipment are applied to this roll. Boost dice may, however, be used on a passive defense roll.
When an action point is used to defend against an attack, this is considered an active defense. A characters skill bonus is added to the roll along with any applicable attribute or equipment bonuses. This roll is considered a task resolution rather than a simple roll to provide a challenge number for an opponent’s action. When an active defense is used against an attack, a tried roll will go to the defender.
As with any other task, an active defense can gain advantage by expending additional actions beyond the initial expenditure and can be used only once without disadvantage penalties. There is no such penalty for passive defense no matter how many passive defense rolls a player makes during an action round.
Example of Defense as Action
GM: “Your templar is cornered. Three attackers close in and they are all attacking you. What do you do?”
Player: “I’ll swing my blade at the lead attacker and use my shield to actively defend against his strike.”
GM: “Okay. That’s two of your actions. Go ahead and roll your attack, then your active defense.” [Player and GM roll]
Player: “Ouch. I hit him, but he got me too. I’ll use another active defense on one of the other attackers.”
GM: “Sure. Thar will be your final two actions.” [GM and player roll]
Player: “Thant one missed! I only have no actions left. I’ll need to use a passive defense for the last attack.”