Attack
An attack is anything that you do to someone that they don't want you to do. Slashing a foe with a curved dagger is an attack, blasting a foe with a lightning spell is an attack, wrapping a foe in magnetically controlled metal cables is an attack, and controlling someone's mind is an attack. An attack always requires a roll to see if you hit or otherwise affect your target (if an ability is an attack and doesn't require a roll, it will tell you so).
An action that doesn't affect anyone but you or doesn't harm anything doesn't require an attack roll. For example, you can use a flying ability on yourself without a roll.
In the simplest kind of attack, such as if you're trying to stab an NPC bandit with a knife, you roll and compare your result to your foe's target number (usually set by their level). If your roll is equal to or greater than the target number, the attack hits. Just as with any kind of task, the GM might modify the difficulty based on the situation, and you can try to ease the task using skills, assets, or Effort.
A less straightforward attack might be a special ability that stuns a foe with a mental blast. However, it's handled the same way: you make a roll against the NPC's target number. Similarly, an attempt to tackle a foe and wrestle it to the ground is still just a roll against the foe's target number.
Attacks are sometimes categorized as "melee" attacks, meaning that you hurt or affect something within immediate reach, or "ranged" attacks, meaning that you hurt or affect something at a distance.
Melee attacks can be Might or Speed actions—you choose which one (and that determines whether you'd use Might Effort or Speed Effort to ease the attack). Physical ranged attacks (such as bows, thrown weapons, and blasts of fire from a mutation) are almost always Speed actions, but an attack from a special ability such as a lightning spell or a mind blast tend to be Intellect actions.
A special ability that requires touching a target (sometimes called a "touch attack") is a melee attack. If the attack misses, the power is not wasted, and you can try again each round as your action until you hit the target, use another ability, or take a different action that requires you to use your hands. These attempts in later rounds count as different actions, so you don't have to keep track of how much Effort you used on it last time or how you used Edge. For example, if in the first round you use Effort but your touch attack misses, in the next round you can try the touch attack again and decide whether or not you want to use Effort at all.
You are encouraged to describe every attack you make with flavor and flair. One attack roll might be a stab to your foe's left side. A miss might be your sword slamming into the wall. Combatants lunge, block, duck, spin, leap, and make all kinds of movements that should keep combat visually interesting and compelling.
Many things can modify the difficulty of a combat task, including cover and illumination. Examples of this are described later in this chapter.