The Keeper should always ask the player that question and encourage them to describe their investigator’s actions rather than use game terminology. “I’m rolling to hit,” is not something an investigator would ever say or do. Endeavor to paint a picture with your descriptions of combat and encourage your players to do likewise. When the player has described their investigator’s action, the Keeper should then tell the player which skill to roll dice against.
Player: “I’m going to punch the guard, then run for the open door.”
Keeper: “The guard is going to try to grab you. Roll your Brawling skill.”
Keeper: “The monstrous humanoid is running straight at you—what are you doing?” Player: “I raise my shotgun and blast the thing.”
Keeper: “OK, give me a skill roll for Shotgun.” Keeper: “Scott’s investigator is acting crazy—he’s heading out of the tent into the freezing cold without his coat or mittens. He’ll freeze to death out there!” Player: “I’m going to grab him and wrestle him to the ground.” Keeper: “Let’s have an opposed Brawling roll.”
Notice how the request for a dice roll develops out of what the players say. In the first example the goal is to get past the guard, and the punch is simply a method of achieving the goal; damage may be inflicted as a consequence, but the Keeper uses the dice to judge whether the maneuver is accomplished.
In the second example, the player’s goal is clearly to inflict maximum damage, so the dice will be used to determine if the monster is hit, and to gauge the amount of damage inflicted. In the third example the player is trying to restrain a fellow investigator without inflicting harm. Again the dice will be used to gauge the success of the maneuver.
The dice are then rolled, usually by the Keeper and the player simultaneously, and the results used to determine what maneuvers are achieved and how much damage is inflicted.
How you describe the outcome of the dice roll is important to your story, but of no importance to the game mechanics. One Fighting roll which inflicts 6 hit points of damage may represent a few good punches, a knee to the groin, a series of kicks or a head-butt—your description of the outcome should elaborate upon your stated intention, suiting the relative success achieved.
Try to use this format each round: allow each character’s actions in the story to suggest what rolls are required, resolve the dice rolls, incorporate the outcome of the rolls back into the story, then move onto the next character. Don’t just repeatedly roll dice without any story.
It is confusing for everyone when multiple players act and speak at once, so to maintain order, combat is structured into rounds, with each player taking one turn in each round.
A combat round is a deliberately elastic unit of time in which everyone wishing to act and capable of doing so has a chance to complete at least one action. An investigator’s equality of opportunity is much more important than the notion that a combat round must represent a precise amount of real-world time. When every investigator and other Keeper-controlled characters have had an opportunity to act, that combat round is over and the next round can begin.
The question of who gets the first opportunity to attack can be an important issue in a fight. Determine the order of attack by ranking the combatants' DEX from highest to lowest. In the case of a draw, the side with the higher combat skill goes first.
On their turn in DEX order (highest to lowest) each character may use their action: