“Discharge of firearms is authorised and inadvisable.”
There are 6 weapons and you cannot cross sides with them — a survivor may not use claws, and a zombie may not pick up a pistol.
| Weapon | To hit | Damage | Noise | Needs |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Punch | 30% | 2 | 1 | nothing |
| Fire Axe | 40% | 3 | 2 | Fire axe |
| Pistol | 55% | 5 | 8 | Pistol + Pistol clip (6 shots) |
| Shotgun | 50% | 8 | 14 | Shotgun + Shotgun shells (6) |
| Claws · undead | 40% | 3 | 1 | nothing |
| Bite · undead | 30% | 4 | 1 | nothing |
Hit chance is a flat percentage rolled once. Skills add to it — a weapon's training skill is +15, its advanced version another +10 — and a handful of traits and passives nudge it further. Zombies get +10 at night. Survivors get nothing at night.
Damage is fixed. Ammunition is spent, and noise is charged, whether you hit or miss.
- Pistol×1
- Pistol clip (6 shots)×12
Noise is the real price
Every action adds noise to the district's attention score, and attention is what the dead drift towards — it decays by half every six hours, and until it does, it is a sign over your building. A shotgun is fourteen points of it. An axe is two. A punch is one.
This is why "shoot your way to a quiet life" is not a strategy the game permits. It is also why the axe is not a poor man's pistol; it is a different tool with a different cost.
Fighting is not the only thing that makes noise. Everything you do in the district is charged against it:
| Doing this | Noise |
|---|---|
| Burning the corpse pile | 9 |
| Knocking to be let in | 6 |
| Smashing a door | 5 |
| Tearing at a barricade | 4 |
| Installing a generator | 3 |
| Building a barricade | 2 |
| Repairing a door | 2 |
| Refuelling a generator | 2 |
| Entering a building | 1 |
| Searching a room | 1 |
Some acts skip attention entirely and summon nearby ferals directly by position: knocking, a feeding groan, a death rattle, and the arrival of the convoy or a supply crate.
Experience
You earn XP equal to the damage you deal on every hit, plus 10 for the kill. Healing pays 5, reviving 10, searching 2, and a level of barricade 1. There are no levels to gain — XP is spent directly on skills.
Healing and infection
Healing is first-aid kits and nothing else: 10 HP, 15 with First Aid, a little more with Field Medic. A kit always cures infection.
Infection comes only from a bite. While infected you lose 1 HP for every AP-spending action you take, and it kills you at zero. It does not tick on its own — it bills you for playing.
- Every attack costs 1 AP and one roll. Damage is fixed; there are no criticals.
- A shotgun is the loudest thing in Fenwick — fourteen times a punch.
- Noise decides where the dead drift. Quiet is a defensive stat.
- Only a bite infects, and only a first-aid kit cures it.