Blocking allows a character to focus the attention of an enemy onto themselves, preventing them from moving freely around the battlefield and from easily attacking other characters, as well as making them exposed to being flanked.
A creature can only be blocked by a single other creature (referred to as their blocker) at a time, and attempting to block someone who is already blocked has no effect. A blocked creature gains the following effects:
- Self cannot willingly move out of its blocker’s blocking range (by default, this is melee range).
- Self cannot use [attack] actions that don’t include its blocker as one of the targets.
These effects are tied to the blocked status, and persist until the creature is blocked, ceasing immediately as soon as it loses the blocked status.
Each character can concurrently block up to as many creatures as their Block attribute. Starting to block a creature or continuing to do so does not require any action, however a character can only start blocking an enemy in a few specific ways.
- After hitting a melee attack (regardless of whether it deals any damage), any character who is not already blocking as many creatures as their Block can choose to start blocking the target of the attack.
- Certain skills allow the user to start blocking their targets.
- Certain traits or talents might grant additional ways to block targets.
At any time during their turn, a character can stop blocking one or more creatures they are blocking.