Melee for Metalheads Part 2: How to Kick All the Ass

Continuing my presentation of melee house rules for the players who don't want to read long, rambling posts. I don't know if this is any better. 

Dude, remember those slavering monsters that want to eat your lungs? Well, you just walked up to within lung-eating range. But that also means they're within ass-kicking range, right? Now, how are you gonna do it?

How to Be a Badass in Melee

First, remember that all dice hate you, and you must never ever trust them. You don't want to play the odds, because you aren't here to amuse a crowd of spectators and attract advertising revenue. You are here to get the other guy dead and find some damn treasure. So you want to fight dirty.

Make up stunts and change the battlefield and take advantage of anything that makes a lick of sense. When you have a clear advantage, like jumping on the monster's head from on top of some demon idol or whatever, that's worth a good +2 AP bonus. When you are completely batshit with awesome, like being fucking invisible or something, that's worth +4 AP.

Gang up on the monsters. When and your buddy are both beating on the same monster, you get a +1 bonus to AP. When you and your buddy are on opposite sides of the monster, you get another +1 bonus for outflanking it.

Do other stuff besides just beat on it for damage. You can try to disarm, stun, knockdown, or push a monster, or you can even try to break through the enemy line if you are made of solid badass.  You'll still roll your attack like usual, but if you hit, the monster can submit to your dirty trick or can absorb damage instead - a win-win for you. If you get a natural 20, call it out! Then the monster doesn't get to choose, it has to be affected by whatever you were trying to do. But hey, you have to say what you're trying to do before you make your roll, so no whining if you get that beautiful 20 and failed to say you wanted to kick that thing down that deep dark pit you've been fighting next to.

Defend yourself. Instead of trying to hurt the other guy, just concentrate on staying alive. You don't make any attacks, but you get +2 AC instead.

But wait! I'm a totally awesome fighter!

Well why didn't you say so? You're even better at this!

If you defend, you get a whole 'nother +2 AC bonus that you use to defend one of your buddies. But one dude can only be defended by a single fighter - so like if Ash and Nylian both wanted to defend Bill, only one of them could. Make sense?

Charge! If you can run in a straight line for 40 feet, you get +2 AP and +1d6 damage. This is why crazy people fight naked and why rich people ride horses, but if you run on foot for two rounds without getting interrupted, you could make it work.

If you have a spear and monsters are charging at you or pouncing on you or something, you actually get a First Strike with +1d6 damage because spears are awesome!

If you are a real BAMF like Ash, you can try the Ash Smash (a.k.a. the Massive Attack for trip-hop fans). You take a -5 AP penalty, but if you still hurt the monster, you roll your 2 or 3 damage dice and instead of taking the best one, you add 'em all up!

A Word About Weapon Choice

If all weapons do 1d6 damage, shouldn't I be a cheapskate and just buy daggers?

No. Don't be stupid. If you are swinging a dagger and the other guy has like a claymore you are in bad shape. We represent this by giving you a -2 penalty to your AP, because you just don't get as many opportunities to slip past his guard when his guard is like the length of your entire body. Get your self a grown-up weapon!

On the other hand, if you're bold enough to leap past that six feet of pointy death and like wrap your legs around the guy and just keep stabbing at him until he stops twitching, the advantage is yours, because it's really hard to use a claymore or a spear or something to scrape a crazy bastard off your chest. So that's useful.

Also, different weapons are good for different things. Like, chopping and stabbing isn't the best way to go against things that are already dead. They don't really bleed and the meat you cut off is probably just slowing them down. For those guys, you want to whack 'em with something blunt, like a mace, until the bones are powder. Stuff like that.

Melee for Metalheads Part 1: Getting Close Enough to Kick Ass

Since some of my players have lousy eyeballs or poor attention spans or both, and they happen to play fighters, I'm re-writing my melee house rules just for them.

Dude, a fight broke out! All those slavering monsters want to eat your lungs or something. Go kick some ass!

Where am I?

Either you're "engaged in melee," meaning you're standing toe-to-toe with some other guy that wants to kill you - or some slavering monster that wants to eat your lungs or something - or else you're "not in melee," meaning you can mover around a lot more freely so you can decide who you want to go toe-to-toe with. Or maybe throw stuff or something, whatever.

But if you're not in melee and you want to be, you need to get moving.



How Far Can I Move?


If you just want to move around the battlefield and not do anything else, you can run up to your Exploring speed. That's useful when you're chasing or running away from the monsters. 


If you want to do something useful, like charge into melee or pull a flask out of your pack, you can only move your Encounter speed. That's way slower than running, but at least you can still attack.


If it's your ass that's getting kicked, you can try to leave melee, but the monsters might not let you off the hook. You can either withdraw, which means you back away but you're still ready for a fight, or you can retreat, which means you just want to get the hell out of here.

If you withdraw, you only move half your Encounter speed, but if a monster advances you get First Strike - you get to attack it on its own turn and maybe kill it and be all, "You shoulda just let me walk away."

If you retreat, you get to move your full Encounter speed, but if a monster advances you're boned - it gets +2 AP and ignores your shield. But hey, if the monsters don't advance on you, you're not in melee anymore, and you can run for your life or drink your potion or whatever you wanted to do.


And if the monsters chicken out and try to get out of the fight, you can let 'em go or you can advance on 'em at full Encounter speed, and try to cut 'em down while they flee your awesome wrath. Just pay attention to if they're withdrawing or retreating, so you know if they've still got some fight left in 'em.

Next time: how to kick all the ass. 

Combat Rules II: Melee

Edited because I realized something nifty I wanted to tweak. 


Movement

If not in melee, a character can move at at Encounter speed and still take actions (such as casting spells or pulling equipment out of a backpack, etc). This can be used to close into melee and attack. Alternately, a character can move at up to Exploring speed at a run, but can take no other actions.

A combatant in melee can maneuver around an enemy at Encounter speed, given sufficient room, while still attacking. Thus a party may attempt to 'wrap' around an enemy unit to outflank and even surround them. A combatant in melee may also choose to withdraw or retreat from combat in lieu of attacking. A withdraw action moves at 1/2 Encounter speed, and grants the combatant First Strike against an advancing enemy. A retreat action moves at full Encounter speed, but makes the combatant vulnerable against advancing enemies.

If a combatant chooses to advance against an enemy that is withdrawing, the enemy gets First Strike: it makes a melee roll against the advancing combatant as soon as contact is reestablished. Only if the combatant survives does he get to make his own attack against the enemy. In the case of advancing against an enemy that is retreating, the combatant gets +2 AP and ignores the enemy's shield (if any). If no combatant advances on a withdrawing or retreating enemy, the enemy is no longer in melee and can move as normal, including fleeing at a run.

Weapon Choice

I don't use variable damage or Weapon vs AC modifiers, but I do want weapon choice to matter. A few guidelines seem to be sufficient: Swords can be drawn and used in the same round. Blunt instruments are more effective against undead, where cutting and stabbing them generally does half damage.  Axes are normally bearded, and therefore are better at disarming and similar maneuvers. Spears and other long weapons can attack from the second rank. Bows are capable of indirect shots, arching over the line of skirmish to strike further enemy ranks. So on and so forth.

As a general rule, if a combatant is attempting to fight an enemy with superior weaponry (e.g. bringing a dagger to a sword fight), he is "outclassed" and suffers -2 AP. What constitutes "superior weaponry" may change contextually (e.g., once you've slipped past a pike's superior reach, it's the pikeman who is at a disadvantage).

Tactics, Stunts and Maneuvers

If two allies are attacking the same enemy, each enjoys a gang-up bonus of +1 AP. If the allies are on opposite sides of the enemy, they also enjoy a flanking bonus of a further +1 AP. Thus, if the party has completely surrounded a monster, each attacker enjoys a full +2 bonus.

Any combatant can declare a stunt in order to achieve some special result or advantage. Stunts are adjudicated by the referee. In general, if the stunt or tactic provides a clear advantage on par with outflanking an enemy, it's worth a +2 AP bonus. In rare cases, an overwhelming tactic may actually be worth as much as +4! However, stunts can be risky - a poor combat roll may leave the combatant at a disadvantage. The classic example is the fighter leaping off a balcony to attack foes below. This unexpected move could provide a substantial bonus, but an unfortunate roll - say a natural 4 or less - may leave the fighter sprawled at the feet of his enemies.

A combatant may also declare a special move, such as attempting to disarm, push, knockdown, stun, or break through an enemy line. The combat roll is made as usual, including the damage roll. If the AP roll indicates a wound, the enemy can choose either to accept the damage as rolled or to suffer the effects of the special move. On a natural 20, the enemy does not get the choice.

A combatant may fight defensively, foregoing all attacks to concentrate on defense, for a +2 AC bonus. A Fighter gains an extra +2 bonus which may be given to  an adjacent ally. Only a single fighter can defend a given character. 

A fighter armed with a spear or lance can charge the enemy if able to move 40 ft in a line and attack with +2 AP and +1d6 damage. This is most effective when mounted or unencumbered, but the movement can be split across two rounds if not interrupted (such as by being attacked in between).  

If the fighter is defending against a charging enemy and is armed with a spear or lance, he may "set the spear" to gain First Strike and +1d6 damage against the enemy. This counterattack can be attempted as long as the fighter is not surprised.

A PC with "best of 2d6" or "best of 3d6" damage can declare a massive attack. The attack suffers -5 AP, but if a wound is scored, the damage dealt is the total of all damage dice, not just the best. This maneuver is also known as the "Ash Smash," at least by Ash Slayum's allies.

Combat Rules I: the Basics

Philosophically, I regard combat as a complication in the exploration/treasure-hunting game that is D&D. Monster encounters are a risk that can totally derail an expedition, or use up valuable resources (spells, arrows, flasks, hit points, etc), not to mention eating up table-time (of particular importance with my Black Fog rules in play). The party is awarded XP for these encounters as a kind of consolation prize for the resources, or as a reward for good tactics & strategies that allow them to overcome the encounter at little or no cost.

The way that combat itself plays out has been fine-tuned over the years as I increase my understanding of what works for me and what my players enjoy. We have a thorough mix of Combat as Sport vs Combat as War perspectives, so I've tried to aim toward a middle-ground. My players like to meet monsters head-on, but they have also learned not to rely too much on luck or statistics to keep them on their feet.

The combat mechanics start from the Swords & Wizardry: Whitebox rules. Many of my alterations are inspired by the various editions of Basic D&D, from B/X through RC, with borrowings also from AD&D 1st edition and of course the OSR. A number of terms have been renamed either to guide interpretation of the mechanic, or to borrow terminology familiar to my players (so a number of terms have been borrowed from Warhammer 40,000 and Magic: the Gather, for example).

Mechanical Overview

The Partholon campaign uses ascending Armor Class. My calculations differ from those used by S&W, so that an unarmored character is AC 10, and the descending AC 0 is converted to AC 20. Similarly, my calculation of combat modifiers differ slightly, so that a level 1 PC starts with an attack bonus of +1. I do not use variable weapon damage, so all attacks deal d6 damage, and I don't normally use multiple attacks for monsters or for PCs. If a monster attacks twice in a round, that's a special ability.

A natural 20 always penetrates armor, a natural 1 always fails. I don't normally include critical hits or fumbles, but circumstances may call for similar outcomes - such as when a PC attempts some inspired stunt and the dice just hate him.

Time & Movement

A combat round is roughly 10 seconds of game time. A character or monster may move at Encounter speed and still take an action, or run at Explore speed without taking any other action. 

AP vs AC

Attack modifiers are termed AP, which stands for either Attack Power or Armor Penetration. AP is based off of class & level primarily. Dexterity modifies Ranged AP, and Strength modifies Melee AP only when a heavy weapon is being used.

If AP equals or exceeds AC, a wound is scored for 1d6 hp. A PC with HD 4 or better deals the best of 2d6, while a PC with HD 8 or better deals the best of 3d6 damage. A monster with HD 5 or better deals a full 2d6 damage, while a monster with HD 10 or better deals a full 3d6 damage. Monsters with these improved damage ratings may be able to split their attacks among multiple targets, rolling AP vs AC for each target and dealing a single d6 to each.

A damage result that is no more than the target's HD is very minor, suggesting the fatigue of fending off deadly strikes and the dull aches of repeated blows foiled by armor. Of course, this damage adds up, and an exhausted combatant may be unable to mount any meaningful defense. Being nickled and dimed to 0 hp is every bit as dangerous as being dropped by a few brutal hits.

In the course of a round, each combatant is understood to be making several physical attacks against an opponent, as well as parrying and evading incoming attacks. The combat roll abstracts the progress of the entire round to simplify the whole process. Rather than testing attack skill versus defensive skill, and then testing to see whether any damage penetrates armor, D&D checks first whether any damage is scored, and then interprets the damage roll to indicate the relative skill of attack and defensive routines in the process.

Incapacitation

When reduced to 0 hp, the PC is not automatically slain. He collapses unconscious and must roll a d6 to determine his status. On a 1 or 2, he is revived after combat ends, but suffers a hampering injury for 2d6 days. On a 4-6, his wounds are more serious and may prove fatal. A roll of 3 is treated as a 1-2 result if he was wearing a helmet, in which case the helm is ruined but his life is surely saved. Without the helm, a roll of 3 is treated as a 4-6 result.

In the case of serious wounds, the PC will not revive after combat ends. The following turn, if he is not revived by magic, he may roll a d6 again. On a 1, he recovers on his own. On a 6, he succumbs to his wounds and dies. On a 2-5, her remains unconscious and must roll again the following turn. In any case, when and if he recovers from this state, he suffers a hampering injury for 2d6 weeks.

If a PC is already injured and receives the same injury again, the effect is extended. If the existing injury has less than two weeks remaining to heal, a repeat of short-term injury is upgraded to long-term. If the existing injury is long-term, compounding the injury makes it permanent. Adding a long-term injury onto a short term injury is a special case: roll a Save with a Con modifier. On a failure, the injury is permanent. On a save, the injury's duration is extended to 3d6 weeks.

Hampering Injuries

Roll	Injury	Effect
1	Arm rendered useless*	Cannot put the afflicted arm to use.
2	Eye damaged*	-2 Ranged, or blinded if both eyes have become injured
3	Leg impaired*	Reduce speed by one level
4	Hideous scars	-1 to Reaction rolls, Command, and Leadership
5	Enfeebled (broken ribs or similar)	-2 AP, AC, & Carrying capacity, and run at x2 rather than x3
6	Skull-cracked	Must roll Int or Wis to cast spells and becomes Berserker**

*In the case of arm, eye, and leg injuries, roll even/odds to determine left/right.
**Berserker characters become irrationally violent during combat. Must roll Wisdom to resist plunging into melee when combat begins, and must similarly roll Wisdom to withdraw or retreat from melee. While in melee, the character gets +2 AP and -2 AC.

I like my players to have some investment in their characters, rather than treating PCs as pawns to play with and discard during the game. At the same time, I want to give players a strong incentive to play smart and retreat from a fight that is going badly. So far I find this injury system serves both goals well.