Rules of Warfare

Congratulations!

You are about to face another human in the face of battle. Only until you taste the blood of your enemies will you know victory; doesn’t it taste sweet?

To start, we must introduce the basics of combat. *You can hit stuff!* I know this can be a lot to take in, but don’t worry! Soon you will be just as good as a moderately proficient casual player!

To strike your opponent, you must simply pick a weapon, pick a person, and choose where you wish to strike them. You can even throw in a little *pizzazz* to spice up your attack! E.g. I saunter towards my enemy, *Insert fellow here!*, and aim for his chest. I charge my pike through his heart!

Wonderful! You did a thing! Now we must decide whether that thing actually happens. To do this, roll a 20 sided dice; if it is above a 9 (10-20) you succeed, but below a 9 (fail/miss) spells bad news for you, my friend. As long as you don’t roll a 1,2, or 3, you’re probably okay! *What? You did roll a 1,2, and/or 3?* My oh my, you have just hit yourself! A critical failure! We will get  into what each of these numbers do to your damage later.

Assuming you have succeeded in your roll (10-20) or you have rolled a critical failure (1-3), we can now move into the hitty stuff. Roll four, 8 sided die and add them together. The sum of these numbers is your *damage initiative*. This will not always be your damage dealt; in most cases, it isn’t. To get the final damage, we must move into *damage modifiers*!

The final damage dealt to your opponent is calculated by two factors: where you intend to hit, and how successful your attack is. The former will be covered in the next paragraph; as for the success factor, the degree by which you are proficient in attacking your opponent has already been rolled! Your previous success roll is used to calculate your *efficiency damage modifie*r. If you have rolled a 20 (go you!), you do *full* damage to your opponent (i.e. the damage initiative is your attack damage). A roll of 15-19 deals *65%* of your damage initiative roll, a roll of 10-14 deals *50%* of your damage initiative, a roll of 4-9 is a *miss*, and a roll of 1-3 deals *30%* of your damage initiative onto yourself!

Now for where your hit connects. If you take aim for the torso, there is no negative penalty to your *success modifier* and you deal moderate (an unchanged damage initiative) damage. If you aim for either the legs or arms of your opponent, there is a -3 success modifier (i.e. subtract 3 from your success roll and calculate accordingly) and you deal *50%* of your post-damage modifier damage. Furthermore, on a successful arm/leg attack, it applies a -1 success modifier onto your enemy until it is healed! The final hit zone on the body is the head (this includes throat). To take aim at the head results in a -7 success modifier, but deals *250%* of your final damage! It is certainly a risk versus reward gamble.

That’s about it! Once you have applied all of your modifiers in the correct order, you are able to make a hit! (or not). Be sure to round up or down accordingly; no decimals are allowed!

For example:

*I slash the man across from me with my serrated knife in the arm!*

13.5 \* .5(arm attack)

Final damage is 7(rounded up from 6.75) and a -3 success modifier is applied to

opponent.