Focus

Focus is a mechanic that allows a creature to react to events outside of its normal awareness and turn order, while limiting its awareness of its surroundings.

Overview
Focus is influenced by most actions, in or out of combat, and more often than not only one thing may be focused on at a time. If for any amount of time a focus is unable to be sensed, the creature loses focus. Focus is implemented mainly in stealth and investigation related situations, and to determine if a creature can react to an action. Any sort of successful investigation on a creature will reveal what its focus is, if any, unless that creature has the attuned trait.

Reaction
See Also: Actions.

Once per round, a creature may expend 1 EP to react to any action taken by, or that directly affects, their focus. This reaction can take up to a maximum of a second worth of activity, it cannot shift the focus of the reacting creature, and cannot be taken if the creature isn't capable of taking action for whatever reason. During its turn, a creature can choose to 'hold' any free second(s) that it has left to allow it to take one additional reaction until its next turn for each second that is held. Additional reactions have the same rules as a standard reaction. Only one reaction may be taken per action.

Combat Reactions
If a creature that you are focused on attacks you, you may attempt to react to that creature to either avoid the damage, or even reverse the situation in your favor. The check is dependent on if the attack scales with +Mind or -Mind and the reaction used:

Chosen Focus
A creature's focus is largely determined by the creature itself, wherein any action that a creature takes will divert its attention to whatever it is acting towards. During a creature's turn, this can be used to the creature's advantage by taking actions towards something, and then performing another action or movement towards something else to finish its turn focused on the desired target. Additionally, a creature may take one second to consciously change its focus, and movement towards something can optionally be used to change focus towards that thing. If the target of the Focus is difficult to focus on for whatever reason, the creature may be required to make a +Mind check to successfully focus on that thing, at risk of failing the action and having no focus.

Aware
A creature may use one second to become aware. While aware, a creature has no focus, but may attempt to focus on anything that changes in their environment by making a +Mind check against the passive -Body of whatever changed, with appropriate advantage/disadvantage based how difficult the object is to track. On success, the creature becomes focused on that target. On failure, the creature becomes unaware, and loses focus until its situation changes. Any event that grants the creature focus removes this effect.

Distractions
Distractions fall into two categories: willing and unwilling.

Willing
A willing distraction is when a creature willingly changes its focus due to an intrusive action from another creature. This can be through conceding what would otherwise be an unwilling distraction, having a reasoned conversation with another character, or by turning its attention to something that just directly affected the creature itself. For example, if a creature is attacked, it may divert its attention to the attacker in order to react to any further actions taken by the attacker, but not in response to an ally being attacked unless that ally cries out.

Unwilling
An unwilling distraction is when a creature's focus is drawn towards something else through actions outside of the creature's control. If a distraction is enacted on a creature, that creature must make a +mind check against the source's +spirit check (if the source is unable to make a check, it takes 2) or the creature will focus on the source and be moved back one place in turn order. Even if the creature takes this as a willing distraction, it will still take the penalty to its turn order.

Loud Events
Certain things, such as explosions or cries of pain, may be classified as a "Loud Event" to any number of creatures around it. After a Loud Event has resolved, affected creatures will either be prompted to treat the event as an unwilling distraction or a temporary state of awareness, where they may choose to try and shift their focus to the source as if they were aware at the time or they can maintain their original focus.

Out of Combat
Focus can be used out of combat in stealth and investigation related checks. If a creature is focused on something, it will be very difficult for anything to happen to that thing without the creature noticing, however it will likely overlook non-intrusive events around it. This can be utilized to draw attention away from something else, or to simply bring a creature out of the aware state. Additionally, a creature must focus on something to investigate it or interact with it meaningfully, so if something can't be focused on for whatever reason then it can't be investigated.