Unknown Armies:Attacking
When it's your turn to take an action during a round of combat, you can choose to attack someone. Just tell the GM what combat skill you're going to use and who you're going to use it on. Then roll percentile dice. You want to roll equal to or less than your combat skill, and given that, you want as high a result as possible. If you succeed, you've just hurt or killed someone. Congratulations.
All skill checks in combat are major skill checks. If you can't stand heat, don't pick fights with burning men.
Drawing a Weapon
Note that to use a weapon of any sort, you need to have it in your hand ready to go. If you have to draw your weapon, it takes one round. Without a weapon readied you cannot use it in the first round of combat.
Attack Shifts
Attack shifts are shifts—bonuses or penalties—applied to your combat skill because of some situational factor. Note that you add them to your skill, not to your die roll. Once your shift is applied, roll against the adjusted skill.
GMs use shifts to model dramatic reality, not physical reality. Shifts should make combat more intense and more deadly, based on the nature of the situation. They usually range from -30 to +30 and are applied in increments of 10. Remember that your combat skills already assume a challenging, fast-paced fight.
Focus Shifts
If you really want to put the hurt on someone, you can ask for a focus shift. You have to declare this at the beginning of the round, not when it's your turn during the round. If the GM doesn't believe you can pull off a focus shift owing to circumstances—perhaps you're badly wounded, or drunk, or affected by magick that makes it hard to concentrate—you don't get to do it.
A focus shift means you concentrate on attacking a single target and pay less attention to the rest of the combat. You can choose a focus shift of +10, +20, or +30, and you apply it to your attack roll when it's your turn during that round—assuming you're still standing when your turn comes around. You can only take a focus shift on a combat skill.
It's clear to everyone else from the start of the round that you're focusing on your target. This is the moment in the movie when the two fighters eyes meet and the melee around them gets quiet even though the fighting continues unabated. As a result, however, anyone else who attacks you this round, including the target of your focus shift, gets the same shift applied to any attack against you. If you take a +30 focus shift, anyone who attacks you that round does so at +30.
This means that if you and your target both declare focus shifts against each other, you each get two shifts: one for your own focus shift, and one as a bonus against your opponent because he or she is taking a focus shift as well. Mutual focus shifts are cumulative to a maximum of +30. Should you declare a +10 shift against your target and your target declares a +10 shift against you, you'd each have +20: +10 from your own focus shift and +10 from your opponent's focus shift. But if you both declared at +20, you'd each have a +30 to hit the other, not +40.