Minimal Melee Combat Game Design by Timothy Swenson (This game is freeware and my be freely distributed.) 1.0 Introduction From Gladiorial contests to Medieval knights duking it out, man-to-man combat with swords and shields had been the primary form of combat for a thousand years. The advent of fantasy role playing games and the Society for Creative Anachronism (SCA) has made it popular in the gaming hobby. Minimal Melee Combat is a simple game designed to create a feeling for combat between to combatants armed with swords. It is not designed to be an accurate simulation and make no attempts at this. It is a quick and easy game of simple hack 'n slash. Put your armor on, pick up your sword and shield, and enter the fray. 2.0 Combatants Combatants are comprised of the following Attributes: DX: Dexterity, the ability of a combatant to hit an opponent. HITS: The amount of hits of damage a combatant can take. ARMOR: The amount of armor that a combatant has. Armor absorbs damage before it goes to HITS. Combatant Record Sheets: Each combatant is kept track of using a Combatant Record Sheet. At the beginning of the game, the Attributes of each combatant is entered on a Record Sheet. Since Attributes can change during the game, due to damage, ovals are used to track the current value of an Attribute. If a combatant has a DX of 3, fill in all but 3 ovals on the Record Sheet. Due this for each Attribute. 3.0 Combatant Design Combatants are created using Build Points (BPs). Players build their combatants by spending BPs on Attributes and weapons. Average combatants are 13 BPs with 17 BPs being the most a combatant can have. Attributes may have a value from 1 to 5. Each point of an Attribute cost 1 BP. Combatants also have weapons and/or a shield. The costs for each is listed below. The number of hits of damage that each weapon does is also listed. Combatants do not have to have any armor nor a shield. If buying a Two-Handed Sword, then a Shield may not be used. Weapons Sword 1 hit 2 BP Two Handed Sword 3 hits 4 BP Defense Shield 2 BP Armor absorbs 1 hit 1 BP Example Combatants DX: 4 DX: 5 HITS: 3 HITS: 2 ARMOR: 2 ARMOR: 2 Sword, Shield Two-Handed Sword 4.0 Turn Sequence Each turn is comprised of the following phases: Initiative Roll Player 1 Attacks Player 2 Attacks Before each turn, both players roll a die. The player with the highest die roll becomes Player 1. Ties are re-rolled. The game is played until one player has HITS of 0. 5.0 Setup Each player will need to design a combatant and enter its Attributes on the Combatant Record Sheet. Since there is no movement, no playing board is necessary. A number of 6 sided die and pen/pencils are also needed for play. 6.0 Combat During each players attack phase, each player will choose a Move and Aim for each hand. For the rest of these rules, a combination of Move and Aim will get generalized to just Move. Move Swing Thrust: Gives 1 extra hit of attack succeeds. Block: Is only used a hand holding a shield. Aim High Middle Low The sword is always in the right hand and the shield is in the left. For Two-Handed Swords on the right hand is used to choose a Move. Combat: Both players choose their moves in secret. When both players are done, compare the moves with the Combat Chart to see if the Attacker has hit the Defender. Any location without an X is considered a hit. Dashes are hits, but at -1 DX. The Attacking player then rolls 1 die. If the die roll is less than or equal to DX (with modifiers), then the hit was sucessfull. Damage: For each hit of damage, a die is rolled and compared with the Damage Chart. Hits against Armor/HITS are first marked off against Armor, until there is no armor left. Then the hits of damage are applied to HITS. The first hit against the left arm renders it useless for the rest of the game. If the combatant is using a shield, then it is considered gone. If the combatant is using a two handed sword, then all remaining attacks are made at -2 DX. Any additional damage rolled for the left arm is applied to Armor/HITS. Hits of damage are immediately marked off on the Defenders Combatant Record Chart. Damage Chart ------------- 1 - 5 Armor/HITS 6 Left Arm Combat Chart Attacker S S S T T T B B B H L M H L M H L M ------------------------- S H | X . X X . . X . . D S L | . X X . X . . X . e S M | X X X . . X . . X f T H | X . . X - - X . . e T L | . X . - X - . X . n T M | . . X - - X . . X d B H | X . . X . . e B L | . X . . X . r B M | . . X . . X Combatant Record Sheet Name: _________________ DX O O O O O HITS O O O O O ARMOR O O O O O Weapons:__________________ Left Right Turn 1 -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- Turn 2 -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- Turn 3 -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- Turn 4 -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- Turn 5 -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- Turn 6 __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __