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Have a look at this here Slice-Rat squaring off with Abnegation and the other rooftop ravagers.
They're AWARE of us, and so, they've taken a Fighting Stance. That activates their guard. If you compare to the Rats over by the park that Butcher spotted, you can see their names and some of their stats, but they don't have a guard number. That's because they're not ready for a fight just yet. If you can get the drop on your foes, taking them first-punch is miles easier.
Those looking to throw down generally have 4 states:
UNAWARE - they're just lounging about. These guys need to spend 3 AP to take a fighting stance and get their head in the game - and they don't really defend.
SUSPICIOUS - Their guard is up, but they don't know where you are or quite what's going on. Their guard is usually half its value, they won't defend against back attacks, and they won't respond because they still need to spend 3 AP to take a fighting stance.
AWARE - they're ready for a fight and their Guard is up and they know they're in a fight.
MOTIVATED - That's if they're aware of us, and there's a leader nearby to inspire them. MOTIVATED foes are . . . So much worse in every imaginable way. Preferably, don't engage with them at all, if you can avoid. They're apt to be all kinds of tricky.
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Well, what else do we Understand from seeing this rat with their feet planted to fight us?
We see their GUARD - it's in white by.
We see their HEALTH - it's the red circles
We see their GRIT - it's the purple squares.
Guard is what you need to deplete to beat them proper. When attacked, people roll their guard to defend - if successful, the attack does 1 damage. So you can figure out right quick that getting into a 4 on 1 fight is rough, even if you're skilled.
Their Health is 2 here - they take about 2 wounds before they turn into mewling messes on the floor. Remember that every multiple of health is 1 wound, so you'll need to do 2 damage to inflict 1 wound on this Slicerat. That might not seem so much, but if their guard is up and every successful guard sets damage to 1... You can see how if they're keeping their guard up, they're a hard nut to crack.
You might take a moment to glean that you will be too !
GRIT is sort of like wounds, but for all the other stuff than direct death avoidance. If you grapple someone, they take penalties if you get way more than their grit, if you shove them, you get better effect, if you push them around.
Finally, these rats appear to be DODGING. That's the little arrow. It looks like everyone FAILED THEIR UNDERSTAND CHECKS and so we don't know what precise level these Slicerats are dodging at, but at least you know they're about to try some footwork if you don't trip them up somehow.
You don't *ALWAYS* know *EVERYTHING* but Understanding does help rather a lot.
