Clone Project: Miscellaneous Combat and Adventure Notes

There were a couple items in the naval combat section that could be generalized to combat in other situations. We can actually take the rules for miscellaneous actions on a ship and use them to define how much manpower and time are necessary to complete any task:

• Simple tasks: 1 person
  
• Minor group tasks: 3 people
• Major group tasks: 10 people
  
• Moving objects: 1 round
• Making a large change: 3 rounds
• Making a critical change: 5 rounds

From this, we can improvise things like "3 humans can smash open a door in 3 rounds". Which means that 9 humans could do it in 1 round, assuming they can all act on the door without getting in each other's way, such as by heaving a large log; this is close to the 10 men/1 round figure given for breaking down a door on a ship. Cutting through rope takes one swordsman 3 rounds (simple task, large change,) which again matches the original rules. Hacking through a wooden bridge would take 3 humans 3 rounds. Rigging rope to cross a pit (Tyrolean traverse/zip line) takes 3 people 3 turns.

In melee, if a character is unable to command hirelings, the hirelings will either loot, continue towards the last objective (but make morale rolls,) or retreat while defending themselves. Hirelings that break morale but can't retreat are forced off their position, falling to a lower surface (or falling overboard, for ship battles. If backed into a corner, they surrender.

The LBBs give another falling damage mechanic in Vol. III, page 30: figures forced to fall roll a d6; on any roll higher than 6 - the number of levels fallen, the victim takes damage equal to 1 die per 10-foot level fallen, 1 die per two levels if landing on water or another yielding surface. We can merge this with the rule for falling into a pit by accident this way:

If a character falls from a height of at least 10 feet, make an Avoid Danger roll, or an Avoid Accident roll if the fall was due to an unexpected drop rather than being forced to fall by an opponent. Add +1 difficulty for every extra 10 feet of distance. Failure means taking 1d6 damage per 10 feet, or per 20 feet if falling on a yielding surface like water. Falls of 60 feet or more always do damage, no situation roll allowed.

Because PCs and some monsters don't make morale rolls, it might be reasonable to whip up a quick ruling on forcing back an opponent: instead of doing damage on a successful attack, an attacker has the option to treat the damage die rolled as Change Situation roll; if <= 2, the opponent is forced back one pace. Player characters who are forced back have the option to take the damage rolled instead. Adjust the difficulty of the roll for a difference in size or strength.

We can also use Change Situation as a base target number for other kind of tricks or special combat maneuvers: tripping opponents, temporarily blinding them with sand, etc. For each of these, the player still has to make a d20 attack roll, followed by a d6 damage roll, but the damage roll is instead used to determine if the trick was effective.

Drowning is also a situation roll: Avoid Danger, +2 difficulty in a storm or whirlpool, +3 if unable to swim, +4 if wearing metal armor; victims in plate armor automatically drown, as do those unable to remove their armor. Unarmored characters who know how to swim don't drown in normal conditions unless forced to fall into water, in which case they gulp water if they fail an Avoid Danger roll, but have a chance to recover with an Avoid Accident roll.