Demoralize, Feint, and Bon Mot in Combat

Several skill actions serve as effective combat debuffs, giving martial and social characters ways to use their 3 actions beyond just attacking.

Demoralize (1 action, Intimidation, auditory, concentrate, emotion): Shout threats or display terrifying force. Roll Intimidation vs target's Will DC. On success, the target becomes Frightened 1 (Frightened 2 on critical success). Frightened imposes a status penalty to all checks and DCs equal to its value, decreasing by 1 at the end of each of the target's turns. You cannot Demoralize the same target again for 10 minutes. Demoralize does not have the attack trait, so it does not increase your MAP.

Feint (1 action, Deception, mental): Fake out an adjacent opponent. Roll Deception vs target's Perception DC. On success, the target is off-guard to your melee attacks until the end of your next turn. On critical success, off-guard to all melee attacks, not just yours. On critical failure, you become off-guard to the target. Must be adjacent. Has no attack trait, so no MAP increase.

Bon Mot (1 action, Diplomacy, auditory, concentrate, emotion, linguistic): Deliver a witty quip. Roll Diplomacy vs target's Will DC. On success, the target takes a -2 status penalty to Perception and Will saves for 1 minute (or until they respond with a successful retort). On critical success, the penalty is -3. This is excellent setup for casters and Demoralizers.

Tactical Value: These three actions let any character contribute meaningful debuffs without making attack rolls, preserving their first Strike at full accuracy while softening the enemy for the whole party.