Combat

Combat in medieval times is brutal, gritty, and unforgiving. Yet it is a crucial and unavoidable part of the world. The following rules make even the most trivial combat into a life or death situation.

## Gritty Injuries

Damage in standard 5E D&D normally leaves no lingering effects. The following rules introduce the potential for long-term injuries. A creature gains a gritty injury under the following circumstances:

* When it takes a critical hit.
* When it rolls a natural 1 on a saving throw of a damaging effect (such as a volley of arrows).
* When it rolls a natural 1 on a death saving throw.

When one of these conditions is fulfilled a creature will then roll on the appropriate Gritty Injury table, determined by the damage type of the critical hit, in conjunction with the location table. A d10 is used when rolling on a Gritty Injury table. Whenever a creature receives a critical hit, that creature gains Stress equal to the number rolled on the d10.

### Physical State

The creature receives a modifier to their d10 Gritty Injury roll from their Physical State before any damage from the attack is dealt.

Gritty Injury Modifier Table

### Location

When rolling for Gritty Injury, roll 1d6 and consult the table below, then consult the appropriate Gritty Injury table for the damage type of the injury.

Injury Location Table
 2
 3
 4
 5
 6

If a creature is attacking an unconscious, paralyzed, or otherwise helpless creature, it may select the body part location it wishes to damage, rather than rolling randomly on the location table.

### Inhuman Anatomy

If a creature does not have the requisite anatomy to match the location table, or it doesn't make sense for a certain location to be targeted, then it is up to GM adjudication to either modify the table or choose the location of the injury themselves.

## Additional Combat Conditions

The following conditions supplement those found in the Player’s Handbook.

### Winded

A creature suffering from the Winded condition gains the following penalties:

* Attack rolls against the creature have advantage, and the creature’s Attack rolls have disadvantage.
* The creature looses their Reaction for that round.

### Staggered

A creature suffering from the Staggered condition gains the following penalties:

* The creature has disadvantage on Strength and Dexterity checks and saving throws.
* The creature’s movement speed is halved.
* The creature does not add its Dexterity modifier to its AC unless it’s a negative value.
* The creature does not add its Ability Modifier to weapon attacks and damage rolls unless it’s a negative value.

## Attacks of Opportunity

In a fight, everyone is constantly watching for enemies to drop their guard. You can rarely move heedlessly past your foes or divert your attention elsewhere without putting yourself in danger; doing so provokes an opportunity attack. A creature provokes opportunity attacks from creatures within attacking reach in the following circumstances:

* When the creature intentionally moves out of a hostile creature’s reach.
* When the creature stands up from prone.

To make an opportunity attack, a creature uses their reaction to make one melee attack against the provoking creature. The attack interrupts the provoking creature’s turn, occurring right before the creature leaves attack reach, stands from prone or makes their attack. A creature can avoid provoking an opportunity attack by taking the following precautions:

* Using the *Disengage Action* if they wish to move out of a creature's reach.
* By spending their *full movement* to stand up from prone

A creature does not provoke an opportunity attack when someone or something moves them without that creature using their movement, action, or reaction. For example, a creature does not provoke an opportunity attack if an explosion hurls them out of a foe’s reach or if gravity causes them to fall past an enemy.

## Grappling

The following rules supplement the preexisting Grappling rules. When one creature is grappling another, the grappling creature has advantage on attack rolls against the grappled creature.

Additionally, a creature can use their Action to try to pin a creature they are grappling should they have two hands free. To do so, they make another grapple check. Should they succeed, the grappler and the grappled creatures are both Restrained until the grapple ends.

## Flanking

When a creature and at least one of its allies are adjacent to an enemy and on opposite sides or corners of the enemy's space, they are considered to be flanking that enemy as long as neither of them are being flanked themselves.

### Facing

At the start of their turn when a creature is being flanked, it chooses one of the creatures flanking it to face. After the flanked creature makes this choice, the flanker *it is not facing* gains advantage on all melee attack rolls it makes against the flanked creature, while the flanker the flanked creature *chose to face* does not.

### Give Ground

When a creature first begins to flank a target, the target can use its reaction to Give Ground. When it chooses to do so, the target makes a Wisdom (Perception) check contested by the flanking creature's Strength (Athletics) or Dexterity (Acrobatics) check. On a success, the target sees the creature coming and can move 5ft away from it. In addition, the creature cannot flank the target until the start of its next turn. On a failure, the creature can flank the target as normal.