Nuclear Beasts

Melee Ranges

There are four ranges involved in melee combat.

• Tight: due to cramped conditions or having an opponent right there in your face, you don't have room to take a full swing or make a full thrust. This range favors small, one-handed weapons like daggers.
  
• Restricted: you have more room to manuever, but you whenever you make a full swing you still have to worry about hitting some sort of barrier close nearby (such as a wall or tree). Most indoor combat is considered Restricted at best.
  
• Open: there's plenty of room to swing a big weapon and no annoying trees or walls for it to get stuck in. This range favors big weapons like two-handed swords.
  
• Extended: as per Open, above, but your opponents start out a long ways off, where only the longest weapons could actually reach them. This range, of course, favors extremely long weapons like polearms. Smaller weapons probably won't be able to attack at all.

For example, a dagger's ranges might be +2, +0, X and X. That indicates that it's +2 in close combat or really tight conditions... +0 if the fighting area is only restricted... and it simply can't make an attack at all beyond that.

On the other hand, a halberd or pike might be -5, -3, +0, +1. So it can attack at any range, but if an opponent gets in close it's pretty useless.

A combat where you can see your foes coming is going to start at Extended unless you're indoors or in a tight tunnel.

Combat works with opposed combat skill tests. Whoever wins will get one or more success levels. You can spend a success level to shift the range one increment in or out vs a particular foe (provided that you can actually move there) OR you can hit them and do damage (if your weapon can attack at your current range).

Fend: fend is a special maneuver where you mostly try to make your opponent keep his distance. You're at -2 to hit so long as they don't try to move closer to you, but +2 to hit if they do. Note that initiative doesn't affect this; if you go first, they have to decide before you swing whether or not they're trying to close that round.

I'm not sure I'll be using initiative as such, anyway... it may be better to just use opposed rolls and say that it doesn't really matter who swung first.

Posted by Kiz at July 21, 2005 09:04 AM