Combat

 

 

 

The Lorien role playing System combat rules provide a quick and effective method of resolving live combat with a minimum of interruption to the flow of the game.

The combat system is generally self-policing. This is to say that it is the players themselves who are primarily responsible for taking their hits and for taking the reasonable care not to hurt one another. Head hits are generally discouraged, and all blows must be pulled to reduce the force of impact. If you are unsure of your combat skills check with your faction command or Games Control, or ask experienced players in your group. There are always people willing to help you learn to fight properly.

Combat is about role playing as much as it is about winning each fight. You can have a great deal more fun, with a well role-played combat than with a more mechanical one. If you take a hit through your armour, role-play taking the pain, or stagger back a bit to show that you are taking damage. Your opponent will remember your well role-played combat and will talk about it later.

Safe Combat
It should be noted that Grappling of any kind is forbidden in the LT system This includes weapons , shields and other people. Anyone found doing so, will be removed from combat by any referees and warned. if the player persists then they may be removed from the event.

Any player found by a referee to be acting in a dangerous manner whilst in combat will be warned not to repeat their actions. If they do not heed this advice, they will be withdrawn from combat and their name will be taken. Players who persistently behave dangerously in combat may be asked to leave the event.

Children & Combat
Any child under the age of five, who is playing a character at an event, does not inflict normal damage when striking with their weapons. If a child of this age strikes you, you may consider it to be a bruising blow struck by a toy weapon, unless you wish to play along. Please be aware that young children do attend the events and will join in fights, or just attack passers by. Please humour them or ignore them as you wish. Under no circumstances can young children kill players.

No child under the age of fourteen will be allowed to take part in large-scale skirmishes or mass battles (this is a safety issue). All parents or guardians accompanying children under the age of sixteen must go to the security point before 8 p.m. on the evening before a battle and obtain a battle permit. The child must accompany their parent or guardian to security. The parent or guardian must also take the field with their child at the battle.

Body Locations.
With the exception of some total body or special creatures, all characters have six body locations. These are the head, torso, left arm, right arm, left leg and right leg. Each body location has a single hit. The number of hits a location has can be increased through skills, magic, items and special powers, provided that these increases conform to the rule of double (see above).

Every time your character is hit on a body location you should deduct one hit from the armour on that location (provided that you are wearing a phys-rep for your armour and have the skill enabling you to use it). If you are struck on an unarmoured location, or on a location covered by armour with a current armour value of zero, you should deduct one hit from the location struck. If your character is hit on a body location by an arrow, a bolt or a quarrel fired from a bow you should deduct one hit from the location struck whether or not that location is armoured. If a body location is reduced to zero hits it is rendered unusable. In the interests of safety we recommend you avoid hitting an opponent on the head if at all possible.

Common sense should also dictate that other delicate areas of the male and female anatomy should be avoided.

The following list describes what happens to your character once a body location is rendered unusable. These effects should be role-played. When an injury requires you to drop to your knees or to the ground, you should do so as safely as possible.

Leg Location
You must drop to your knees or fall down immediately. You can get back up again but you cannot use the damaged leg. If both leg locations become unusable you should drop to the ground (not just to your knees). You cannot use your legs at all but can drag yourself around with your arms and call for help.

Arm Location
You must drop anything held in the hand immediately. You may not use the arm for anything. In special circumstances where dropped items might get trampled you do not have to drop the item, but you cannot use it with the useless arm.

Head or Torso Location
Your character goes unconscious and you must drop (safely) to the ground.

Parries
Weapons can be used to parry blows from other weapons only. If a weapon is used to deliver a special attack, such as a sword enchanted to inflict fatal damage, you can use any weapon or shield in an attempt to parry it. If a blow from a weapon delivering a special attack is parried, the special attack will not affect you.

Death & Dying

A character is referred to as dying when their head or torso location falls to -1 for any reason. Once the head or torso location has fallen to -1, your character will die after ten minutes if the wound receives no treatment. This ten minutes is called the grace period, and represents the time it takes for a person's pattern to depart their body after suffering any attack that leaves them dying.

Bandaging the wound on the head or torso that has sent a character into their grace period does not restore hits in any way, unless the bandages are applied by a character with the physician skill. Once the affected location (or both locations if the head and torso are at -1) has been restored to zero hits or better, the character will no longer be in their grace period. Locations at zero are unusable but stable and do not deteriorate.

If a limb location is reduced to -1, it will begin to bleed. If this bleeding is not checked (by bandaging or healing the wound), blood loss will cause the wounded character to fall unconscious after ten minutes and they will enter their grace period as above. Once the damaged location is restored to zero hits or better, the character will no longer be in their grace period.

The ritual of peace does not prevent bleeding, or the effects of locations being reduced to -1. If you suffer damage that will reduce a location to -1 through the ritual of peace then you will suffer all of the effects described here and your character will be at risk of death.

There are two cases in which the grace period is shorter than ten minutes. Firstly, for some fast, lethal poisons the grace period is one minute. Only healing or an alchemical antidote can be used to cure a character of poison. Secondly, a character can sometimes suffer so much damage in a short period of time that their pattern is forced to leave their body immediately. When all of a character's body locations have been reduced to -1, the character will die immediately. There is no grace period when this occurs; the character will expire as soon as their final body location reaches -1. There are no circumstances in which a body location can be reduced below -1.

Page 1
Next Page
Page 1 2 3
 
 
Campaign Setting
Character Creation
Spells and effects
Magic and Rituals
Rank and Experience
Combat
 
  Calls & effects  
Logistics
OSPs    
               
 

The Lorien Trust
2 Jubilee Park
Woodville
Derbyshire, DE11 7NZ
Phone: (+44) 01283-220 737
or you can email us
Enquiries@Lorientrust.com