From: rorice@nickel.ucs.indiana.edu (rosalyn rice) This section of my ongoing series on combat rules includes rules for critical misses, subduing damage, attackers on different levels, differences in scale, melee combat, and unusual circumstances in melee combat Part 5 - Special Situations SPECIAL SITUATIONS CRITICAL MISSES - The opposite of a "critical hit" is a "critical miss." You suffer a critical miss when you roll very badly on your attack roll. a roll of 17 or 18 is always a critical miss. A roll that exceeds your basic skill by 10 or more is also a critical miss. Example: You have a 6 in Sword skill (a default) A roll of 16 or more is a critical miss. When you roll a critical miss, you should immediately refer to the table below and roll 3d6. Apply the results immediately. Note that some results require you to roll again to "confirm" the results of some particularly unlikely fumble. CRITICAL MISSES ON DEFENSE ROLLS - A defense roll of 17 or 18 fails disasterously. DODGE - If you tried to dodge, roll vs. DX. If you fail the roll you lose your footing and fall prone or supine (whichever is worse). Otherwise you fall on your butt (sitting position) or are off-balance, whichever is better for you. If you are off-balance, you may not attack or and all the penalties to active defense rolls are doubled this turn. BLOCK - If you tried to block, you lose your grip on your shield and must take turn to re-ready it before you can block again (its PD still counts). Bucklers and small hand-held shields are dropped instead. PARRY - If you tried to parry go to the critical miss table. VERIFYING CRITICAL MISSES - Some weapons might be so reliable that a critical miss is virtually impossible. In this case, roll again against basic weapon skill. On a failure the Critical Miss actually happens, on a success, the possible Critical was just a normal miss. AVOIDING CRITICAL MISSES WITH HIGH SKILL - Characters with skill over 15 can attempt to "control" Critical Misses. If they can roll under basic weapons skill - 13 they somehow turn a Critical Miss into a normal miss. CRITICAL HITS ON DEFENSE ROLLS - If you roll a 3 or 4 on any defense roll, you automatically win the contest of skills and you don't suffer a skill penalty to subsequent defenses in the same turn for that defense. CRITICAL MISS TABLE 3-4 Your weapon breaks. Exception: Certain weapons are resistant to breakage. These include maces, flails, mauls, metal bars, and other solid "crushing" weapons, and fine or very fine weapons. If you have a weapon like that, roll again. A second "broken weapon" result verifies the critical hit. Otherwise, you drop the weapon. 5 You manage to hit yourself. (Roll randomly for location ignoring torso hits). Exception: if this was a thrusting or ranged attack roll again to verify this critical hit. If you get a second "hit self" result apply that result instead. 6 You manage to hit yourself in the arm or leg, as above, for 1/2 damage. 7 You lose your balance. See Off-Balance for details. 8 The weapon turns in your hand. Spend one turn to ready it. If you want to use it while it is "unready" it will hit with the flat (crushing damage only). 9-11 You drop your weapon. A cheap or Very Cheap weapon breaks. 12 The weapon turns in your hand. Spend one turn to ready it. If you want to use it while it is "unready" it will hit with the flat (crushing damage only). 13 You lose your balance. See Off-Balance for details. 14 The weapon flies from your hand. Roll 1d6 for direction and number of hexes distance. If the weapon was a two-handed weapon halve the distance. If the weapon was a thrusting or missile weapon it drops at your feet. 15 You Sprain something. See Sprains. 16 You lose your balance and fall. If you were using a ranged weapon you are Off-Balance. 17-18 Your weapon breaks. Exception: Certain weapons are resistant to breakage. These include maces, flails, mauls, metal bars, and other solid "crushing" weapons, and fine or very fine weapons. If you have a weapon like that, roll again. A second "broken weapon" result verifies the critical hit. Otherwise, you drop the weapon. UNARMED FIGHTERS - Any "weapon breaks", "weapon drops" or weapon turns in hand result should be ignored. Instead you take 1d6-4 damage to the hand or foot you were striking with and must roll vs. HT to avoid Sprain. MISSILE WEAPON USERS - A missile weapon will not fly from your hand. It just drops at your feet. If you are using a bow and arrow, roll to see which you drop, the bow or the arrow. SUBDUING A FOE - At times you will want to subdue an enemy without killing him. Knockout gas, magic, and similar tricks are the best way to take prisoners - most weapons are too lethal. But if you need to take prisoners and you only have ordinary weapons you still have several options: DISARMING - You can do this by striking at a foe's weapon to knock it out of his hand or to break it and then calling on him to surrender. Of course, he may not surrender even then. PULLING YOUR PUNCHES - You do not have to strike with full strength. You can always choose to use less strength when striking with your hands or with hand weapons to do fewer dice of damage. You can specify the number of dice of damage, but you still have to roll the die to see how much damage you did. TURNING YOUR BLADE - You can strike with the flat of a sword or axe. The weapon does the same basic damage but does Crushing damage. POLE-ARMS AND AXES - A flatted axe or pole-arm is unweildly. It is at an extra -1 penalty to ready. Most pole-arms also have spikes on the tip, so they can't be used to thrust for crushing damage. If you want to, you can turn the weapon around and use the butt end, assuming you don't have a butt-spike on the end. SWORDS - A flatted sword or blade can only be used to swing for crushing damage unless the tip is blunted. FENCING WEAPONS - Fencing weapons that are designed to impale can be used to swing, but do Swing-5 damage for a foil and Swing-4 damage for a rapier with a maximum of 1 point of damage for a foil and 2 points for a rapier. They might also break. It is easier to punch with the bell (+1 to punch damage). SWORD PARRIES - A flatted blade is more vulnerable to being broken when you parry. It takes 1 point less damage to break a blade when it is flatted and the weapon might break if it parries something double its weight. A cheap weapon or very cheap weapon must roll to see if it breaks after ANY parry while flatted. SMALL BLADES - Small cutting or impaling weapons like knive won't do damage if you strike with the flat. Use the pommel instead. PINNING - If you can engage a foe in close combat and pin him, you can tie him up. This takes about a minute, once you've caught your man, and requires ropes. MORALE FAILURE - All but the most fanatic fighter will give up if they believe that the only alternative is death. The details of this are up to the GM. A petty crook will probably give up if you have the drop on him, especially if he has been suprised, wounded, or demoralized, an SS commandant might not. If there is any question about whether a foe will surrender, roll a quick contest of Intimidation skills or a Morale Check. CRITICAL HITS - If you did a critical hit while trying to subdue a foe, roll vs. base weapon skill. If you make your roll, the critical hit does normal damage, but double or triple Stun instead of double or triple damage. The other critical effects are similarly reduced. If you missed your roll, you do normal critical damage and might kill your foe. DIRTY TRICKS - Creative players will constantly be inventing new combat tricks. The best solution is to let "tricks" work once or twice against a given opponent or group of opponents and then assume that the word has gotten around and that future opponents will be on their guard. Remember that elaborate tricks can fail elaborately...and word gets around. IQ AND DIRTY TRICKS - Often, the GM rill find it appropriate to require an IQ roll when a clever trick is attempted. Depending on circumstances, the GM may: 1) Require the trickster to roll vs. IQ to come up with the trick, or to pull it off properly; 2) Make the foe (or the leader of a force) roll vs. IQ to see through the trick; 3) Require a contest of skills or IQ to see which one outsmarts the other; 4) Let the trick work like any other attack and let the foe defend against it normally. No hard and fast rule can be given. HEIGHT DIFFERENCE IN COMBAT - If you and your foe are at different levels, the vertical distance affects you chances to hit and defend. This rule is for Hand weapons and unarmed attacks. For ranged weapons see Firing Upward and Downward. These distances assume that bare hands, or weapons with one-yard reach are being used. If a fighter has a weapon with a 2-hex or better reach he attacks as if his foe were three feet closer, but a foe with a one-yard reach would get no advantage when striking back. FEET OF VERTICAL DIFFERENCE EFFECT 1' No Effect. 2 Higher: -2 to hit feet and legs, +1 to hit head. Lower: +2 to hit feet and legs, -2 to hit head. 3' Higher: -2 to hit feet and legs, +1 to hit head. +1 to parry and dodge. Lower: +2 to hit feet and legs, -2 to hit head. -1 to block and dodge. 4 Higher: Can't hit feet and legs, +1 to hit head. +2 to parry and dodge. Lower: +2 to hit feet and legs, -2 to hit head. -2 to block and dodge. 5' Higher: Can't hit feet and legs, +1 to hit head. +3 to parry and dodge. Lower: +2 to hit feet and legs, can't hit head. -3 to block and dodge. 6'+ Combat is impossible unless the fighters adopt some odd position (like the upper fighter lying prone and striking over the edge). Distances are set by common sense and mutual agreement (beforehand if possible). Examples: Ordinary stairs: 8 inches per step (call it 1 foot). Seat of a Chair: less than 2 feet. Table: less than 3 feet. Bar or Shop Counter: about 4 feet. Car Hood: 3 feet. Wagon Bed: 3 feet. Car Roof: 4 feet. Wagon Seat: 4 feet. ATTACKING LARGE OPPONENTS - To target a specific part of a giant-sized opponent, add the hit location modifier, the height modifier and possibly any size modifier to get the total modifier to hit with a hand weapon. You are at -2 to attack any target on a large opponent more than 2 feet above your head and -4 to attack any target on your opponent more than 3 feet above your head. (Halve this penalty for thrusting attacks). If you are attacking with a ranged weapon, ignore the height modifier, but use the Attacking Upwards rule, and be sure to include height difference when figuring the range to the target. For example, if you are attacking a 20' high giant, you would be at -4 to attack the leg, +2 for height difference, and +3 for the giant's size for a net modifier of +1 to hit the leg. If you were attacking with a bow, aiming at the giant's head, you would get -2 for range, -5 for targeting the head and +3 for size for a net modifier of -4. DIFFERENT SCALE OPPONENTS - If a very small creature attacks a very large creature, the normal damage system breaks down. Everything has a Scale. Normally, characters won't encounter any living creature that is more than 2 Scales from them up or down. If the characters get shrunk to microscopic size or regularly take on dragons the size of houses, then the following rules will be useful. COMMON SCALES CLASS 0 - Insects, electronic parts, objects massing a few ounces. CLASS 1 - Tiny animals, objects massing under 2.5 pounds CLASS 2 - Small animals, objects massing under 25 pounds, very small races such as fairies or leprechauns. CLASS 3 - Large animals, humans, objects massing under 250 pounds. CLASS 4 - Very large animals, huge races such as ogres, light vehicles, small planes, boats, objects massing under 1.25 tons. CLASS 5 - Massive animals, gigantic races such as dragons or giants, heavy vehicles, tanks, small ships, medium planes, trains, small spaceships, objects massing under 12.5 tons. CLASS 6 - Large ships, large spaceships, large planes, buildings, Elder Gods, anything massing under 125 tons. etc. Within each class there might be variations of -75% or +100% of the listed mass, so a Scale 3 human would could be between 60 and 500 lbs. In some cases there will be overlap between heavy members of one scale and light members of the next scale. Multiply the ST, HP and Damage done by a larger creature by 2 for every difference in scale. Smaller creatures that attack larger creatures have their damage halved for each level of scale difference, but keep their own HP and ST. When large scale creatures fight each other, scale has no effect. If anything of 3+ scales larger than another creature strikes at a smaller creature and hits, the smaller creature can assumed to be killed. Don't bother rolling the dice for damage. ATTACKS FROM ABOVE - When someone or something attacks from above, role a Contest of Skills (Stealth vs. Vision) to see if the suprise works. A potential victim who has specifically stated that he is watching trees, high windows, etc. would get a +2 to his Vision in this contest; others get -2. SLIPPING AND FALLING - Bad terrain, Critical Misses and Critical Failures might require the character to roll vs. DX to see if he slips. If he slips he is off-balance, roll vs. DX to see if the character falls. If he fails the second roll, he falls. OFF-BALANCE - If the character is off-balance, he is at -2 to all active defenses, and is at -4 to all attacks. He can't retreat, disengage, all-out-attack, or move until next turn. FALLING - If the character falls, has an equal chance of falling on his butt (sitting position), on his face (prone) or his back (prostrate). If the character rolled a critical failure for either of his DX rolls, he hurt himself for 1d6-4 damage, 1d6-3 if he was on a hard or sharp surface. A character who falls is at -4 to all active defenses and -6 to all attacks in addition to any penalties for position. In addition they are under the same restrictions as for Off-Balance. Acrobatics rolls will allow the character to land in the position he wishes to land in and to avoid damage. DISTRACTIONS AND ANNOYANCES - Various small things might interfere with skill in tournament or aimed shots in ranged combat. In real combat or a fire fight you are too busy fighting to notice. This penalty will be -1 to -4 depending on the severity of the distraction; anything from -1 to aiming a shot while sitting on an ant's nest, to -10 for being completely on fire. In some cases, the GM might allow a successful Will check to negate the penalty. In other cases, the GM might require a successful Will check to continue with the action, rather than doing something else. A Will check is DEFINATELY required to continue to aim your shot while you are on fire. INCONVENIENT CLOTHING - Long, flowing garments or confining clothing will give a penalty to any physical skill. Such clothing will interfere with Fast-Draw and Acrobatics skill, weapon skill and possibly Move score. The first time that a fast, strenuous physical motion is made in tight garments, they are likely to rip out at the seams causing embarrassment, but removing any penalty. (Of course, things like corsets won't rip). A character who tries to move at more than 1/2 move in a long robe or a dress with a train a train must check to see if they fall. A character in high heels or chopines who is wearing pattens must discard these items before they can move above half normal Move, or attempt karate kicks. (If you really want to do kicks in high heels, you do it at -2). It takes 2 or more seconds to tie back, hitch up, or rearrange loose clothing so you can fight or run. Tight clothing must be loosened or taken off, depending on the garment. It is up to the GM to assign the penalty to skills and Move, how long it will take to prepare to fight and what the effects of trying to fight in unsuitable garb will be.