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Combat

When the party of adventurers comes into contact with enemies, the order of events is as follows:

1. The Referee determines if one side or the other is entitled to a free attack or move as a result of surprise—this is either a judgment or a die roll of some kind, depending on the circumstances.
2. Declare Spells.
3. Determine Initiative (d6, highest result is the winner). One roll is made for each side, not for each individual.
4. Party with Initiative acts first (casting spells, attacking, etc.), and results take effect.
5. Party that lost initiative acts; results take effect.
6. Anyone who “held” initiative acts, and results take effect (both sides simultaneously).
7. The round is complete; roll initiative for the next round if the battle has not been resolved.

Surprise

The Referee determines if one side gets a free initiative phase before the first initiative roll. This is either through common sense (adventurers or monsters are not alert), or it can be a range of probability (e.g., a particular ambush has only a 50% chance of succeeding when the victims are alert and watchful).

Declare Spells

Any player whose character is going to cast a spell must say so before the initiative roll. Spell casting begins at the beginning of the round. Thus, if the enemies win the initiative roll and damage the spell caster, the spell’s casting may be disturbed.

Declare Initiative

At the beginning of a combat round, each side rolls initiative on a d6. The winning side acts first: moving, attacking, and casting spells. The other side takes damage and casualties, and then gets its turn.

Initiative rolls may result in a tie. When this happens, both sides are considered to be acting simultaneously unless the Referee decides to allow another die roll to break the tie. When both sides are acting simultaneously, it is possible for two combatants to kill each other in the same round!

First Initiative Phase

Winners of the initiative roll take their actions, including moving, attacking, and anything else such as climbing onto tables, swinging from ropes, pushing boulders off cliffs, etc. Characters can move and attack in the same round.

The Attack Roll

The most important rule to understand about combat is the attack roll.

To attack with a weapon, the player rolls a d20 and adds any bonuses to the result. These “to-hit” bonuses may include a strength bonus (for attacks with hand held weapons), a dexterity bonus (for attacks with missile weapons), and any bonuses for magic weapons. The player then subtracts any “to-hit” penalties they might have from their roll.

The attack roll is then compared to a table to see if the attack hits. If the attack roll is equal to or higher than the number on the table, the attack hits. If you are using the Ascending AC system, rather than refer to these tables, there is a quick formula presented at the end of this chapter that you can use (See Ascending AC Combat, Page 22). Your Referee will determine whether or not your game will use Descending AC or Ascending AC.

If an attack hits, it inflicts damage (a number of hit points). The damage is subtracted from the defender’s hit point total (See Damage and Death, Page 22).

Clerical Attack Rolls

Fighting-man Attack Rolls¹

¹This attack table is also used by Dwarven Warriors, and by Elves who are in their Fighting-man “mode”

Magic-user Attack Rolls¹

¹This attack table is also used by Elves who are in their Magic-user “mode”

Specific Situations

The following are a compilation of guidelines and instructions for handling certain, specific situations that might arise during combat.

Backstabbing and Flanking

The Referee will probably assign a bonus to hit for any attacks made from behind (perhaps +2), or assign a smaller bonus (perhaps +1) to all attackers who manage to place themselves on opposite sides of a single defender. This isn’t an official rule either way, but it’s common to find gaming groups using one method or the other.

Critical Hits and Fumbles

There is no official system for handling critical hits or fumbles, but many Referee’s have rules that state that a “natural” roll of 20 is an automatic hit or that it inflicts double damage, and/or that a natural roll of 1 is an automatic miss and may result in the attacker dropping their weapon or suffering some other kind of problem. A strained muscle might give a -1 penalty to damage rolls for the rest of a combat, or a helmet knocked awry might cover a character’s eyes until a round is taken to fix it. This is up to the Referee.

House Rules

Many gaming groups decide upon (and sometimes write down for reference) a specific “house rule.” This is sometimes done to ensure consistent rulings on the results of commonly employed tactics, but it shouldn’t override the Referee’s ability to decide that a particular situation is unusual enough to require a different bonus, penalty, or ruling. One example of a house rule is the decision about how to handle backstabbing/flanking, or fleeing opponents.

Invisible Opponents

Attacks against an invisible opponent have a -4 penalty. Powerful magical monsters, or those with more than 11 hit dice, will usually be able to see invisible creatures normally.

Melee Attacks

A melee attack is an attack with hand-held weapons such as a sword, spear, or dagger. Attacks in general are described above (See The Attack Roll, Page 16). In addition to all other bonuses, a character’s strength bonuses to hit and on damage (See Strength, Page 1) are added to melee attacks. It’s only possible to make a melee attack when the two combatants are within 10 feet of each other. Two combatants within ten feet of each other are considered to be “in combat.”

Missile Attacks

Missile attacks are attacks with ranged weapons such as a crossbow, sling, or thrown axe. A character’s dexterity bonus for missile attacks is added to the to-hit roll when the character is using missile weapons. When using missiles to attack into a melee, it usually isn’t possible to choose which opponent (or friend) will receive the attack.

Movement within Melee

A defender effectively blocks an area about three feet to either side, and enemies cannot move through this area. Alternatively, the Referee might allow such movement but grant a free attack to the defender(s) who cover these areas.

Negotiation and Diplomacy

Some combats can be averted with a few well-chosen words (including lies). If the party is out matched, or the monsters don’t seem to be carrying much in the way of loot, the party might elect to brazen their way through, in an attempt to avoid combat—or at least delay it until conditions get more favorable. Striking bargains, persuading monsters or non-player characters to do things, and getting out of trouble by using your wits are an important part of the game. Don’t replace them with die rolls. Using dice to determine a monster’s initial reaction before negotiations start is fine, but use player skill (or lack thereof) to decide how far the players can improve a monster’s initial reaction. This isn’t a matter of “my character ought to be really persuasive”—this is one of the places where the player’s skill, not the character’s, is tested.

Retreating

It is up to the Referee to decide if there will be any special rules for retreating away from a melee combat. Most Referees allow the enemy a free attack if the character (or monster) moves away by more than its “combat” movement of base movement rate in feet.

Spacing

Because most movement and combat increments are divisible by three, it is easiest to assume that a character “occupies” an area about three feet across for purposes of marching and fighting.

Spears and Polearms

Spears and polearms in the second rank of a battle formation can attack by reaching through the first rank of Fighting-men.

Spells

Spell casting begins at the beginning of the round. It is possible to cast a spell while within melee range of an opponent (10 ft), but if the spell caster suffers damage while casting a spell, the spell is lost. Unless the spell description states otherwise, the spell takes effect in the caster’s initiative phase.

Subdual Damage

A weapon may be used to beat down, rather than kill, an opponent. When the player desires, damage inflicted can be composed of half “real” damage and half “subdual” damage that does not kill, and such points are recovered at a rate of 1 hp per hour. If the opponent’s hit points, including the subdual damage, fall to zero, the opponent is knocked unconscious rather than killed (unless the real damage actually reduces real hit points to zero, in which case the opponent is accidentally killed).

Not all monsters may be subdued. Generally only humanoids and special creatures such as dragons will be subject to such attacks.

Terrain Features

Characters and monsters will hide behind things, stand on things, lie prone, fight from higher ground, shoot arrows from within concealing mists or tree branches, and take every possible advantage of the combat terrain. The Referee will assign bonuses and penalties for terrain features. Most such bonuses will only be a +/-1 or 2, depending on the degree of cover or the benefit of higher ground. Trying to hit someone through an arrow slit in a castle wall might have a penalty of -3. Remember, however, that the penalty to hit an invisible opponent is only -4, so a +/- 4 is about the outside limit for terrain adjustments on the to-hit roll.

Two-weapon Fighting

Using two weapons, one in each hand, does not grant an additional attack roll; you gain +1 to hit on your attack roll. The off-hand weapon must be a dagger, and the damage is the average of the two weapons used.

Unarmed Combat

Brawling attacks, such as those conducted with fist, foot or dagger pommel, will normally inflict 1d2 points of damage, plus the attacker’s Strength bonus to damage (if any). If the damage from the attack inflicts more than half of the defender’s remaining hit points, the defender is stunned. Anyone who is already stunned will be knocked unconscious by the next successful attack for 1d4 rounds.

Example: A fist deals 3 hit points of damage, and the defender has 4 hit points. The defender is stunned and suffers the penalties for being stunned. If the blow had only inflicted 2 points of damage (exactly half), the defender would not be stunned. If the stunned character is hit a second time, he will be knocked unconscious.

If unarmed combat is an important part of the Referee’s game, he is encouraged to create more complicated rules to reflect unarmed combat.

Attempts to wrestle an opponent to the ground and pin him down, or attempts to smash into an opponent and push him backward, will be determined by the Referee’s common sense (dragons aren’t easily wrestled to the ground, unlike goblins). A good rule of thumb is to require a successful attack roll.