Combat Rules

Out in the
Black it is cold, dark and full of scary people; Alliance troopers, ‘Ornery
Feds, Ex-Independents, hard-bitten colonists, mercenaries, bounty hunters, and
people you’ve just plain pissed off.

Even if
you ain’t looking for trouble, it has a knack for finding you and yours, and
when that happens you need to know how to defend yourself. This chapter
describes how health & combat are simulated within the ‘Verse.

*When it comes to some folks lookin’ for trouble and breathin’*
ain’t too far apart.

being a bit unrealistic. The number of hit points you have is the maximum damage that you can take and
the damage calls represent the minimum
damage that must be taken. Feel free to drop to -4 from a Pistol shot to the
head at close range, and as with all things please apply a healthy dose of
common sense.

Naturally players should also consider being
creative with their injuries to allow players with medical skills to fully role-play
their character’s abilities. At some events, there may be casualty makeup effects
available to enhance this.

Another mechanism we use for cinematic effect
is luck points, (previously called
vitality, for those who have played before), which represent a shot missing.

### **Taking Damage**

The basic
mechanic is that when you take damage, you lose points.

Your ability to take damage is represented by

1.      Your luck points

2.      Any armour you are wearing

3.      Your hit points

A standard character has 3 luck points and 3-5 hit points (depending on background) but this can be increased or reduced by skills, merits etc.

### Luck points

Luck points represent a shot missing you, so you lose one luck point per shot aimed at you, whether that shot is a single, double or triple.

Any arrows, unarmed or melee attacks bypass luck points and take your hit points off directly, because in this case we don’t need to phys-rep the possibility of
missing, if someone misses, or you have a shield of some sort, it’s missed. If the arrow, hand tap or melee weapon touches you, it’s hit you.

## Hit points and death

The amount
of hit points you lose is the damage call, so a pistol doing *Single* damage removes one hit point, and
a rifle doing *Double* damage removes
two points. If you have armour, you lose points from this first.

As you
take damage to the body you should role-play being injured, so choose a
location to have been hit - a leg shot may cause you to limp; a shot to the arm
may cause you to drop anything you are holding; etc.

It is up
to how you role-play your pain tolerance but characters with a high Build will generally handle being in pain better than characters with a low Build. Certain skills such as *Moment of Clarity* or *Endure* can help in this regard as well.

Above 0, you may be battered and bruised but
you're otherwise good to go. You should still roleplay injuries and may seek
medical attention to heal faster if you want. Below this and you're in danger
of serious or even fatal injury.

At 0: you slow down and should act your more
extensive wounds out. If taken to this level by Strike/Stun damage, you are
knocked out or generally incapacitated and may take no further action for 1
minute (or until woken up by the Snap out of It! Virtuoso skill).

At -1 or below, you begin to bleed, losing a hit
point every 2 minutes. First Aid and Paramedic can pause this process. You need
someone who knows Medicine to stabilise and heal you.

At -4 you fall unconscious and begin your
death count of 5 minutes. Certain skills may let you stay conscious; if they
do, you may do nothing more than stagger and use one handed weapons
inaccurately (call Bang every second shot). First Aid and Paramedic may pause
your death count. You need a Surgeon to stabilise and heal you, and normal
skills do not pause your count during this process, representing a risk of
dying on the table.

Damage calls can take you all the way down to
-4, but can’t take you to -5, so the only ways of dying once you’re at -4 are
to bleed out, or to be executed with the execute call. This is to represent the
cinematic nature of the game world - important characters don’t generally die
from stray bullets, and death normally means something. It shouldn’t stop you
dying dramatically if you feel it’s appropriate, fits with the situation, or
tells an awesome story.

## Doing Damage

#### **Ranged**

\*If
you can't see it, you can't shoot it\* - if someone is in cover, or you don’t
have line of sight, you can’t shoot’ em.

To fire a weapon,
you point your phys-rep at your intended target and make the following call:

Target,
Level, Type.

Target: A
description, name or other method of identifying the intended target, e.g.
‘Captain Reynolds’, “Brown coat” or “guy with the huge great rocket-launcher
thing”

Level: The
amount of damage caused by the weapon, e.g. *Single*,
*Double*, *Triple*.

Type: Any
special properties of the shot, such as *Stun*
or *Global*. If you aren't doing any
kind of special damage, you leave this bit of the call out.

Let’s
take a look at an example…

*Someone has complained once too often about*
Skippy’s cooking and her usual level of bombastic verbal violence has gone
unheeded so she decides to be more serious. She draws a shotgun from under the
counter points it at the unlucky patron and makes the call:

*“Dude with yellow Hawaiian shirt, Double,*
Knockdown”

Here “*Dude with yellow Hawaiian shirt*” is the
Target and “*Double*” is the Level of
damage caused by the shotgun with “*Knockdown*”
as the Type.

It is best
to avoid using out-of-character names as descriptors unless you are sure none
of the characters or players share the same name. In addition, using common
descriptors (woman in hat, person behind tree) that could apply to several
targets is also best to avoid, but again, this is easier said than done in the
heat of combat! Firing at ‘muzzle flash’ should also be avoided – if you want
to roleplay just shooting wildly in the direction shots are coming from, just
use the ‘bang’ call.

You need
to leave a space of **THREE SECONDS** in
between each firearms call (to phys-rep things like aiming, recoil, and just to
make things less confusing in a fight). If someone has got over-excited and
forgotten this when shooting you (it happens!) then just take their calls every
three seconds.

You should
roleplay reloading your weapon after a reasonable number of shots - magazine
sizes are listed in the armoury section.

The calls
made when firing a ranged weapon represent the sound of gunfire. If you hear
the sound of people shouting damage calls, then you are assumed to have heard
the sound of gunfire.

Pistols
may be used in one hand but any larger weapons such as rifles or shotguns must
be wielded with two hands unless you have the Strong as an Ox merit.

Projectile
Combat **-** Bows
always do *Double* damage and ignore
Medium and Light Armour. You must physically hit the target before damage can
take effect. Since all bows do the same damage, you don't need to make a call.

Melee
Combat - All
one-handed melee weapons do a *single*
point of damage when they strike a target, so you don't need to call any
damage. You should role-play swinging slow, cinematic hits, and leave a space
of at least a second between each hit.

Two-handed
weapons do *double* damage when in
melee and require both hands to wield. You still need to use both hands for a
two-handed weapon if you have the strong as an ox merit.

#### **Swords**

A sword is
a melee weapon requiring grace and finesse. A character with the sword skill
can opt to call for *double* when
striking with a sword but may also call *disarm*
up to three times per day, using the sword to tap the upper arm carrying the
weapon.

#### **Unarmed Combat**

Unarmed combat is the most OOC potentially
dangerous of the combat styles because it involves physical contact between
players. To represent unarmed combat, you should **gently** tap someone on the upper arm with an open palm whilst making
the damage call. Care should be taken at all times. ====
*Grapple* should involve open palms resting on
upper arms. *Break* should involve gently pushing those hands away. *Disarm*,
like *Strike*, should be against the upper arm holding the weapon you wish
to take. Unless you
have the ‘Lethal Weapon’ Virtuoso Skill, all unarmed damage you do is stun
damage, and cannot take anyone down past 0 hit points

When using
the unarmed skill, you can make the following calls:

 Throw
 Grapple
 Break
 Disarm

#### **Cover**

Cover may
be used to prevent damage during ranged combat. If 50% of your body is behind
cover, such as a wall, tree or unfortunate stooge, then you are considered in
partial cover and only take every other firearm shot targeted at you. This does not apply to sniper fire or
those using the virtuoso skill ***Dead Shot***. It’s also meant to be an
approximation of how cover works, and should not be used to take the piss –
roleplay over rules!

If you are
wholly hunkered down behind cover that stands between you and your shooter you
take no damage.

#### **Explosives**

There are
three types of explosives available in the ‘Verse using differing levels of
complexity and use. You must have the ***thrown*** weapon skill to use any
grenade or thrown bomb.

 Grenade
 Chem-Plast

Explosive devices do *Boom* damage. This means that that they
normally affect anyone within 5 feet of the phys rep when it detonates.

#### **Special Calls**

You yell the call ‘Covering Fire’ five times with a two second gap between calls. During this time anyone in a 90-degree arc to the front must take cover, or lie flat on the floor and take no action unless they have a skill or merit that allows them to do otherwise
Players with Moment of Clarity or Endure can attempt to act but take Single damage per call, therefore up to 5 damage. This cannot soak on Luck.
Taking damage or moving interrupts this skill and means you must stop making the call. Your rifle needs to be reloaded after this call, which should be roleplayed for a reasonable amount of time.
 Heavy Fire
Taking damage or moving interrupts this skill and means you must stop making the call. Your heavy machine gun or similar needs to be reloaded after making this call, which should be roleplayed for a reasonable amount of time.
 Execute
 Bang

#### **Damage Types**

Because this call represents force of a blow, you take the knockdown effect even if you have armour on, but you don’t take it if it’s soaked on luck points (because the shot missed).
 Stun
 Boom
 EMP
 Paralyse
 Disarm