At Field Rules

AT Fields

AT Fields are a special mechanic accessed by certain units- those with 'active' AT Fields. The most common example are Evangelions and Angels, but as time passes they become steadily more common amongst the population itself due to the propagation of Ayanamis, Phantoms and Iron Guard.

All AT-enabled characters possess the AT Field trait and the Synch Ratio (SR) characteristic. This represents their general AT Field strength, but with Eva pilots it represents the intensity and depth of connection with their Evangelion. Outside of special circumstances, pilots cannot use their SR to use AT Fields outside of the Evangelion.

Use of an AT Field hinges mostly on your SR Bonus (SRB). SRB determines the strength of your AT Field's powers and patterns.

Using AT Abilities

All AT Abilities are divided into two broad types: Patterns and Powers.

  • Patterns are passive effects that represent your active AT Field's 'resting state', the default form your AT Field energy sits in when it isn't being used in a more direct way. They require actions (usually a Half Action) to activate or swap to, but once on they are always on and are otherwise are freely maintained and provide powerful bonuses based off your SR Bonus. They also almost always provide some Deflection. You may only have one Pattern active at a time. You must have a Pattern in use before you can use Powers.
  • Powers are effects that represent you directing your AT Field into a more active form. They require actions to activate. Some can be maintained, requiring you spend an action each round to maintain the effect, whilst others are one-use that occur and are resolved immediately. Powers have Action keywords such as Attack, Concentration that are governed by the normal rules on action limits. Powers all have an effectiveness based off your SR Bonus. Powers may only be used if you have a Pattern spread.

If you have not spread your AT Field, then you must first activate a Pattern, which is done by using the Action outlined on the Pattern itself. The same action is used to swap from one Pattern to another.

To use an AT Power, you must first have a Pattern active (doesn't matter which). Every power has an effect, the strength of which depends on your SR Bonus. For example, a power that harms enemies might deal SRB damage to them. Furthermore, every power has a 'SRB threshold'; you must have this much SRB to activate its base effect (if your Half Strength amount is below this threshold, then you cannot use it at Half Strength!). When you activate a Power, you must first decide whether to activate it at Half strength or Full strength.

Half Strength activates the Power using half of your total SRB. If you have an SRB of 10, and you activate the power, you follow its instructions as though you had an SRB of 5. (If the instructions ask you to further divide that, keep going- ie a power that does SRB/2 damage will deal 2 damage (5/2, rounded down)).

Full Strength activates the Power using your total SRB. However, it has the following side effects:

  • You lose all benefits of your Pattern until the start of your next turn. This includes Deflection. If the power is a Maintain action, then you lose all benefits until the start of the turn after you stop maintaining it. You may only maintain a single Full Strength power at once.
  • You may only use Full Strength once per round.
  • The Power takes twice as long to activate than normal; if a power lists Half Action, it now takes a Full Action, and so on. If this makes the Power an extended action (eg, 2 Full actions), then you lose the benefits of your Pattern at the start of using the power, not the end.
    • Reaction Powers take a Half Turn from your next turn instead.
    • Free Actions are now Half Actions.
    • Powers marked 'One Campaign Turn' are unaffected.
  • If you're an Evangelion pilot and you have an SR over the safe limit, you take Ego Damage equal to the amount of SRB over the safe limit.

-- Back to Top --

Special AT Field Mechanics

Below is a list of special AT Field terms and mechanics and how they work.

Attack types. Several AT Powers deal damage to enemies and use the following keywords to determine how the attack is performed. All of these are subject to the same modifiers as a normal melee or ranged attack as appropriate.

  • Bolt. The user nominates a single target within range and Line of Sight, then makes the listed test. On a success, the target is struck by a single hit. The target may dodge this as normal. May be called.
  • Barrage. The user nominates a single target within range and Line of Sight, then makes the listed test. On a success, the user generates a single hit, plus another hit per 2 DoS, up to a total equal to their WPB. One hit must be allocated to the target, but the other hits may be allocated to different targets within 2km of the target, so long as the other targets were not any harder to hit than the first one. The targets may dodge these as though it were a burst/flurry, negating one hit per DoS.
  • Blitz. The user nominates a single target within range and Line of Sight, then makes the listed test. On a success, the user generates a single hit, plus another hit per 1 DoS, up to a total equal to their WPB. One hit must be allocated to the target, but the other hits may be allocated to different targets within 2km of the target, so long as the other targets were not any harder to hit than the first one. The targets may dodge these as though it were a burst/flurry, negating one hit per DoS.
  • Wave. This attack acts as though it has the Spray quality, automatically hitting everything in range within a 30 degree cone. The target may dodge this as normal.
  • Blast. This attack acts as though it has the Blast quality. The user nominates a single location within range and Line of Sight, then makes the listed test. On a success, then everything within the radius of the power is struck by the attack. The target may dodge this as though they were dodging a Blast attack.
  • Line. This attack acts as though it has the Line quality. The user nominates a single location within range and Line of Sight, then makes the listed test. On a success, the power hits everything between the user and the location, unless negated or blocked (eg deflected, parried or sacrificed against). The target may dodge this as normal. May be called.
  • Opposed. This power is an Opposed test against a target. The user nominates a target (or more, if the power allows) and makes the listed test. The target then opposes with the 'Opposed Test' listed. If you win, you apply the effects to the target. Opposed tests may not be Parried or Dodged, but they may be Deflected.

AT Penetration. All AT Powers have the "AT Penetration" Quality, which means that they ignore 15% of Deflection per point of Effective SRB.

Full Strength Bonuses. Some Powers are augmented in certain ways when used at Full Strength. The details are on the power's card. Note that these augmentations are optional and do not need to be used.

Maintained Powers. Some powers are maintained, meaning that their effects apply for as long as the user maintains the power (unless this is interrupted somehow). If the power has the 'maintain x' phrase in its Action line, then that means it may be maintained. Each turn, the user must spend that action type maintaining the power. maintain duration is nor increased by using Full Strength.

  • Characters may maintain multiple Powers at the same time. Any character attempting to maintain more than one power at once must spend the longest action from all maintained powers to maintain them (eg, if the character is maintaining 2 maintain Halfs, they spend 1 Half Action to maintain both; they do not spend both Halfs. Similarly if they are maintaining 1 Half and 1 Full, they spend 1 Full).
  • However, maintaining multiple Powers can be very taxing. A character may maintain a number of AT Powers equal to their WPB/2 without problem, but if they exceed this amount, they must test Willpower at the start of each turn or take a rank of fatigue and suffer Synch Disruption. They take a -10 penalty to the test for every Power in excess of their WPB/2. Even beyond this, they have an absolute limit of WPB on the number of powers maintained.
    • Powers with the 'Simple' Keyword do not count toward this total. Patterns don't either.
  • The user must stay within range of the target(s) to continue maintaining, unless specified otherwise.

E-Scale and P-Scale. This chart is written for E-Scale, so it uses km. P-Scale characters use the same rules and the same ranges, but use dm instead of km.

  • The exception is if a Power has the 'Heightened' Keyword, which means that it uses the E-Scale range even in P-Scale, ie. P-Scale characters still use this power measured in km.

Division. Many powers divide by 2 or 4. In this case, they always use your effective SRB as the base (ie. For a Half Strength, they use half your SRB; for a Full Strength they use all your SRB), and always round down unless otherwise specified.

-- Back to Top --

Relevant Links

AT Powers

Unless otherwise stated, the content of this page is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 License