Call of Cthulhu 7e Combat cheat sheet
Turn order, actions, and reminders. At-the-table reference for Call of Cthulhu 7th Edition.
Call of Cthulhu 7e combat: d100 roll-under your skill, opposed by the defender. Combat is fast, lethal, and best avoided.
Initiative
- Order
- DEX order, highest first
- Surprised
- Skip round 1 entirely
- No dice roll for initiative: pure DEX ranking.
- Ties broken by highest DEX, then highest INT.
Action economy
- 1 action per round: Attack, Dodge, Fighting Maneuver, Flee, Cast Spell, First Aid, or other.
- Moving a reasonable distance is free (no separate move action).
- You may attempt one attack and one dodge per round, or one attack and one fighting-back response.
Attack roll
- Melee
- Fighting (Brawl) or Fighting (specific weapon) vs defender's choice
- Ranged
- Firearms (Handgun/Rifle/Shotgun) vs difficulty set by range and conditions
- Regular success
- Roll ≤ skill value
- Hard success
- Roll ≤ half skill value
- Extreme success
- Roll ≤ one-fifth skill value
- Opposed rolls: both sides roll; higher success level wins (Extreme beats Hard beats Regular).
- Ties: go to the attacker when the defender fights back, but to the defender when they dodge.
- 01 is always a success. 100 is always a fumble.
Fighting back vs dodge
- Fighting back: you can deal damage on success, but only against the attacker who targeted you.
- Dodge: works against any attack this round (melee or ranged at point-blank), but you cannot counterattack.
- Choose once per round when you are attacked.
Damage
- Damage bonus
- Derived from STR + SIZ (ranges from -2 to +1d6+)
- Impaling weapons
- Extreme success = max weapon damage + roll weapon damage again
- Called shot
- Penalty die; target specific body part
- Weapon damage is rolled (e.g., 1d6 for a .32 revolver, 1d8+2 for a .45).
- Add damage bonus for melee and thrown weapons.
- Firearms ignore the damage bonus (use base damage only).
Armor
- Subtract armor value from damage (e.g., leather jacket 1, bulletproof vest 8).
- Most investigators have no armor. Most Mythos creatures have natural armor.
- Armor does not degrade (no ablation system).
Major wound
- Threshold
- Single source deals ≥ half maximum HP in one hit
- Effect
- CON roll or fall unconscious; permanent scar
- A major wound can happen from a single powerful hit, even if HP is still above 0.
- Failing the CON roll: unconscious for 1d10 hours or until First Aid succeeds.
Dying and First Aid
- 0 HP
- Unconscious
- 0 HP with a Major Wound
- Dying: CON roll at the end of each round; failure means death
- First Aid
- Regular success stabilizes a dying investigator; restores 1 HP
- Medicine
- If First Aid fails, Medicine can still save them
- A single hit dealing damage at or above your maximum HP kills outright, no save.
- First Aid must be attempted within 1 hour of injury for the full heal.
- Natural healing: 1 HP per day of rest, as long as there's no Major Wound.
Sanity in combat
- Seeing someone die
- 0/1d6+1 SAN
- Killing a human
- 1/1d6 SAN
- Encountering the unnatural
- Varies (see creature entry)
- SAN format: pass/fail. Roll ≤ current SAN to pass; lose the first number. Fail: lose the second.
- Losing 5+ SAN from one source triggers an INT roll: success means temporary insanity (the horror is understood); failure means the memory is repressed, with no insanity.
Bonus and penalty dice
- Bonus die: roll an extra tens die, keep the lower (better) result.
- Penalty die: roll an extra tens die, keep the higher (worse) result.
- Common sources: range (close = bonus, long = penalty), outnumbering, darkness, aiming.
Common mistakes
- Fighting back vs Dodge is chosen when attacked, not at the start of your turn.
- Impaling damage (Extreme success) only applies to impaling weapons (knives, bullets), not blunt weapons.
- Fumble on 100 always fumbles, even if skill is 99%.
- Damage bonus applies to melee/thrown only, never to firearms.
- Major wound triggers on a single hit, not cumulative damage in a round.
- Sanity loss happens whether or not combat is won.