Special Combat Rules

ASCENDED EVIL

We all know it, those knights in full plate armour are hard to take down. They might have lost some "speed" but they gained so much defense they don't care, or do they?

When you are so slow that your adversary can choose where he aims and strikes, that give him the advantage to strike the joints of your armour, or stick his weapon in one of your vital organs.

This is a new combat rule I suggest: If anyone trying to strike anyone else has twice as much precision as the target has in speed (evasion), then the attacker causes a critical hit. The effect of the critical hit depends on the type of weapon you are using, and what you are trying to do.

You can always go for MAXIMUM damage, hitting the foe harder and in a critical spot (limb joints, the face, the groin, vitals). This effect causes your critical hit to do double damage.

But if you say so beforehand, depending on your weapon you have another choice.

Edged weapons, (daggers, swords, axes, arrows, claws, ...) can strike at a vulnerable spot with no armour, (the joint between pieces of armour and so). This critical hit ignores armour.

Polearms wielders (quarterstaff, spear, Halberd, ...) can choose to trip their opponent. This will cause damage and make the foe fall over, anything held will be automaticaly dropped unless the target was prepared to fall. Targets lying on the ground must halve their speed, precision and initiative scores untill they spend one turn recovering( stand up or get in a good fighting position). This is the perfect moment to strike them with a "mighty blow" (see skill).

Blunt weapons (maces, flails, staffs, barehanded, rocks,... ) can strike at the head or in the stomach to stun the foe. If you cause such a critical hit and cause damage the foe will be inconsious for as many turns as you caused damage, he will get no damage from that hit. He will automaticaly fall over and drop things held. If the foe gets inconcious for more than 10 turns, he will remain inconcious for the remainder of the whole battle (and enough time to tie him up or slit his throat afterwards).

Entangling weapons(net, lasso, whip) dont cause damage usually (whip can cause damage) but on a critical hit they can immoblize the target which will not be able to do anything while it frees itself. Dependant on the type of entagnling weapon it is more or less dificult to free itself.

Side note: And what if the target is too fast to be hit? If the target has a speed score twice as big as your precision score, the target can try to disarm you. To disarm you it needs as much total strenght as you have. You can of course try to disarm your adversaries too, when they attack you.

Some weapons are designed to disarm the foe, or break his weapon. These weapon can do that when they cause a critical hit or when you have twice more speed than the attacker has in precision and he attacks you.

Final note, if you ever have more than 4 times the speed of your opponent, you can cause double damage AND apply the effect of the critical hit of your weapon. OR you can cause tripple damage.

ASCENDED EVIL

Other rule to add: Surprise attack!

When the ennemy doesn't suspect you to attack, he can't dodge as well. Therefore your speed (evasion) is halved when you attack someone.

This is also when the thief can use his special ability: Sneak attack. (He must surprise the foe to do it.

How to attack by surprise? Easy, sneak up on him and strike him down, shoot him from under cover. Pretend to be his friend/ally and attack him in his back. Ambush him....

The advantage is that you will probably cause a critical hit with the first attack, severely injuring the foe before he can draw his weapon (or killing him outright).

ASCENDED EVIL

(¬_¬) eh, I have already written special combat rules but I have explained nowhere how to do a fight...

Combat:
1) General rules and explanation
2) The combat sequence
3) Mouvement
3) Points division
4) Combat styles & General tactics

General Rules and explanation.
- Description: Combat errupts when at least 1 player character gets in a fight with some other character. This fight hasn't to be bloody, it could even be a fight over who'd get the piece of meat on the table. Thing is, there is physical conflict.
- Combat statisticss: To decide who acts first, who can dodge, what damage is caused and how fast you can run, a few statistics are calculated by your character sheet.
- Attack: This score is different for each weapon, the result is how many damage you can cause to a target with no defense at all. This score is calculated by adding your strength to the attack modifier of your weapon. When you don't use any weapon and fight barehanded, your attack score is of course equal to your strength.
- Precision: This score is different for each weapon, the result is how likely you are to hit your target. Some weapons are unwieldy while others are easier to handle; this can result in positive and negative presision modifiers. This modifier is added to your dexterity to calculate the total precision of your weapon. When you don't use any weapon and fight barehanded, your precision score is of course equal to your dexterity.
- Defense: This score represents the amount of damage you can absorb in one hit without suffering any permanent wound. It is based on your constitution only when you don't wear any armour, and any piece of armour you wear adds to this score. This doesn't reflect any realism (how could a hit to the head be blocked by chain leggings?) but this simplifies the combat rules for the moment...
- Speed: This score has 2 uses on itself. This represents your ability to dodge any attack, as long as your speed score exceeds the presision of the attack (Yes, exceeds, when precision = speed, then a hit occurs). It also represents the distance you can run in a turn, but more about this later. The speed is basically your dexterity, but this is often reduced by heavy armour you wear that hampers your movement.
- Initiative: This score represents the order in wich action are taken in a turn. Highest initiative goes first, then second highest, then 3rd highest and so on... Initiative is calculated by adding your precision score and speed score together. Initiative differs therefore from weapon to weapon.
The combat sequence
- Start of turn
- Actions
- End of turn
- Start of turn
  In this phase each player and NPC decides how to allocate their points in their stats (Str, Dex, Con, Int, Wis, Cha) and what action they will take that turn. It can be done in any order, but the stats they divide will decide (after certain calculation) in what sequence they will act in the Actions Phase. If you want to keep an action secret, make sure only the GM gets to know about it.
- Actions
  In this phase, the players can't do much anymore. The GM calculates the combat stats and combat order depending on the actions/weapons/points division of the players.
  He then proceeds to describe how each action happens by calculating the result of the action if nescesary. (player X goes first, he attacks Y with his sling, shoots, (critical) hits, cause this much damage, ect...)
  If by some way the action of a player has to change due to circumstances (like his taget gets killed before he can act...) the player can intervene to change his actions.
- End of phase
  Once all the actions are caried out, some other events may happen (like the roof is crumbling) a ligthning storm strikes around you and stuff. These actions without initiative happen always at the end of the turn.
  Other things that happen at the end of a turn are specifik tests for courage (if the GM thinks the fight is turning a bad way, he could see if his troops of NPCs stay fighting, or force the players to raise their wisdom(courage) to a certain level to keep them courageous enough to stay in the fight...
Mouvement
As said before, a character can move around in a fight, this is usefull because it allows you to:
- move under cover of incoming fire
- run up to your nnemies to strike them down
- Get some distance between you and that greatsword wielding bastard
- Get out of your hiding place, to stealth strike anyone who comes close enough without noticing you.

As I count a turn as 10 seconds, players are allowed to move at half their speed (in yards) without penalty in a turn (as long as they are already standing).

If they want to move their complete speed (in yards) in one turn, they have a modifier of -2 to all the possible action do that turn. (this is thus a -2 to presicion, and any skill)

If a character wishes to sprint, run at full speed, he can move up to 2 times his full speed in one turn. But this demands concentrating on running and he can't do anything else than dodging attacks for the remainder of that turn.

Aditional tests on mouvement:
- Moving through difficult terrain (brushes, water, strong wind, ...) halves movement ranges.
- Moving in stairs counts as difficult terrain if you don't look at your feet (whil fighting for example)
Points division
Each turn of combat you can realocate your points division, this is very important because
a) your advesary won't know how you will react this turn
b) You can adapt your fighting style on that of your adversary to inflict maximum damage.

The GM should do the points division for all his NPC before asking the players to do theirs, so that he does not base their action on that of players.
Combat styles & General tactics
Depending on your class and choice of weapons, you'll probably develop a fighting style.

Fighters tend to boost dexterity and Con stitution in combat, this to help hitting target (with the weapons they are wilding, this usually causes some problems) and absorbing critical hits with their constitution (since they have low speed due to heavy armour).

Rangers tend to maximize dexterity and strength. Dexterity because it is hard to hit with ranged weapons, strength because ranged weapons aren't the most usefull. They tend to move a lot in combats to stay out of range of the ennemy.

Clerics tend to maximize Wisdom (to power up their spells) or dexterity (to get out of trouble fast).

Thieves tend to boost dexterity to cause double critical hits, (with their weak weapons they need it)

Sorcerors tend to boost Wisdom for magic damage or their intelligence to boost their MP regeneration (they regain 1/6th of their INT each turn). They often boost their dexterity too to get away quickly.

Academics are like thieves, they need dexterity to cause criticals or get out of harms way...

Look, over there!

Heh, nice to see this coming along.

God in the machine

Excellent work.

ASCENDED EVIL

other modifiers/rules for combat:

Using weapon in off hand: -2 to precision
Using two weapons at the same time: -2 precision (this usually means you use a weapon in your off hand, so you actually have -2 to your good hand and -2-2=-4 to your off hand)
Running charge: When you move more than 1/2 of your speed to get in contact with the ennemy you can charge. As said in the movement rules you lose -2 to precision because of the fact you moved, but the gained speed adds +2 to the damage dealt (this does not work on missile weapons)
Strike to stun: you must use a blunt weapon or you bare hands, when you decide to strike to stun you don't wound the target but stun it. When a target has reached 0 wounds by stunning attacks, it falls unconsious.
Fear: When fighting fear causing ennemies, you have bad modifiers applying your statistics (I usually say, -1 to all your stats) to stay courageous enough not to feel the fear you need a certain score in wisdom.
Rage/hate: When you fight an ennemy you hate, you fight relentlesly. This allows you to put more strength in your strikes but on the other hand you become reckless and lower your defenses. +2 attack / -2 precision.

ASCENDED EVIL

Incapacitaing hits...
Bleeding wounds...
Losing limbs...

There was nothing like that in Vale, untill now!

These wounds only happen when you are struck very violently. Thus these wounds only happens when you take a lot damage.

Incapacitating hits:
When you take too much damage at one place in one strike, the hit can leave more than a scar. When you take a hit that is stronger than 1/3rd of your total Base HP, the wound will have a negative effect on your stats. These effects will remain in play untill the wound is treated medically.
effect:
(these hit locations count for monsters too)
-head: -1 int, -1 wis and -1 cha.
-chest: -1 Con and -1 Str
-arm: -1 Dex, -1 Str, -1 precision
-Tail: -1 Dex and -2 initiative
-Wing: -1 Con and -1 speed
-Leg: -1 Con, -1 str and -1 speed
-Whole body hit (shockwave, explosion, electrical, ...) -1 Dex.

Bleeding wounds:
Whenever you take a strong wound, the damage will be so great a vein may have bursted or been cut. These wounds to not stop to bleed by themselves and need medical attention to stop bleeding. These wounds are very dangerous because you will keep losing HP due to the blood loss as time passes by.
Whenever you take a hit that is at least 1/2 of your Base Hp, the caused wound will be bleeding, unless the wound was caused by a "whole body hit" (shockwave, explosion, electrical, ...). Each bleeding wound causes you to lose 1 HP by the passing of each minute untill the wound is treated medically.

Losing limbs:
Whenever you take an incredibly strong hit, you may lose a limb in the process... This has very serious effects on your stats and on whatever you can do. Literally crippling your character.
You lose a limb whenever you are hit and lose more than 3/4th of your HP in that hit. Depending on the hit location, following effects apply (in addition to the Incapacitating hits modifiers)
(these hit locations count for monsters too)
-head: Dead (usually) but for certain races (example: undead) only -3 Dex, -1 int, -1 Wis, -2 Cha
-chest: Dead (usually) but for Pcs make this only -2 Str and -2 Con (no limb loss)
-arm: -1 Dex and -3 precision
-Tail: -1 Dex and -4 initiative
-Wing: -2 Con and -3 speed
-Leg: -2 Con and -3 speed
-Whole body hit (shockwave, explosion, electrical, ...) -1 Dex, -1 str, -1 Con. (no limb loss)
These effects remain in play untill you get a full limb replacement (by magic or technological means). Certain limb replecments don't undo fully the negative modifiers (example: peg leg)

Burn the heretic.

Dakeyras just got that oh so little bit happier

Look, over there!

Mwhahahahaha!

Any fighter-related character that I take is going to take points in SMB and Knowledge(Anatomy), just to get more chances to use these killer new rules ^_^

ASCENDED EVIL

Well, this is supposed to be followed by "aiming rules"

Where you can decide where you hit when attacking someone.

But not 2nite because I'm feeling sick and I'll just do the minimum I have to do and go to sleep...

Zed Zombie

When attacked in the back or caugh unaware, dodge/speed is halved, for you can not dodge in time. Defense aswell since you are more vulnerable.

Trying to parry/block attacks:
you can parry ONE attack for free if you see the opponent attacking you: to parry/block successfully, take
speed = speed + (defense of object *2) againsts attacking precision. This raises your chances of dodging, except you don't dodge, you block the attack.

What happens?
Damage caused is lowered by defense value of the blocking item *2 blocking means using it well).

Damage can still come through and will then damage the holding limb (hand/arm appendage holding the weapon or shield)

If the damage that comes through is greater than 2 times the value of the blocking item, the parrying item takes 1 damage. If the damage is greater then 3, you loose grip and drop the item. It takes 2 damage from the disarming blow.

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