Combat and Injury

Melee and Ranged Combat

As the framing of ‘scenes’ suggests, the goal of any fight in this game is for it to look impressive and cinematic. The weapons of the 41st millennium are brutal and weighty, and we want to show this. To this end, we want players to react to every blow in a fight, in an overt and dramatic fashion.

Dramatic Melee

In order to deal Endurance damage, melee blows should be large, obviously telegraphed, and accompanied by a war cry or a damage call – like a computer game character using a ‘special attack’. Quick and rapid attacks do stagger and stun a character, and should be reacted to, but they leave superficial bruises and cuts rather than causing mechanical injury. Even when making rapid attacks, you should not strike someone any faster than once per second, and you should not ‘drumroll’ (rapidly strike the same area repeatedly).

Melee Combat

Special calls in Melee can be used once every three seconds, unless they have rules that state otherwise.

All melee weapons must be LARP safe. This means they follow our prop construction guidelines for LARP-safe weaponry and have been tested by a member of the Game Team prior to time in.

All blows in Melee must be pulled. For anyone not used to LARP combat, pulling a blow is the act of slowing the weapon before it strikes the target, so that it hits with a minimal tap. Sometimes people will misjudge this – it happens – but you should always be trying your best to pull every blow, and slow down or back off from a fight if you begin to find it difficult.

Blows to the head are discouraged, as we believe they are less safe than other elements of combat. You should avoid them – but if they occur by accident, treat blows to the head as if they are striking the body (including the effect of any armour worn).

The use of hands and grappling in melee is specifically restricted to controlled situations where both parties have exchanged enthusiastic consent immediately prior to engaging in this roleplay. This should never occur in a situation where there is a mass combat occurring around the individuals, nor in an enclosed space where there is a danger of their physical roleplay leading to injury to themselves or accidentally striking those who have not consented to participate.

Ranged Combat

Special calls from ranged weapons or other powers can be used once every five seconds, unless they have rules that state otherwise.

All pistol-sized weapons have a range of five metres; larger weapons (carried in two hands) and powers have as long a range as can be heard clearly, unless stated otherwise in their rules.

Ranged calls should be prefixed with the name or an identifying description of the target – so "Ben, Rend!" or "Blue Hat, Blam!" This isn't required in melee – the blow hits whoever it hits. At night, torches are not viable targets – don’t call “Red lamp, Blam!” etc – but when you’re the one with the torch, do take care not to point it directly at your opponents to avoid dazzling them.

All ranged weapons with a damage call other than Blam require ammunition to function properly. If the character runs out of Ammunition, they cannot use any ranged calls from their wargear (unless a trait says otherwise).

Weapons which call Blam are sufficiently robust and Ammunition or power for them is so ubiquitously available that it will functionally never run out; this call is always available with any weapon which uses it.

Firing a couple of shots for roleplay purposes (for example executions, sabotage or warning shots) does not consume Ammunition. As a rule of thumb, if you could do it with a knife, it won’t consume a reload to use a gun for style instead.

Characters can Take Cover against ranged weapons. To count as Cover, something must be a solid object that cannot be seen through, which covers most of your body. It does not need to be subjectively ‘hard enough to stop bullets’; soft items can still prevent you being hit, simply by meaning the enemy can’t quite be sure where to aim.

Boarding Shields – large enough to mostly cover you – can be used by characters with Aegis Training to grant Cover. Rules for their use can be found in the Traits section.

Cover protects you from the first two ranged attacks made against you from the other side of it, after which you must move to a new piece of cover to ‘refresh’ this protection. Characters with Traits such as Aegis Training, Vigilator and Adept Mortis must take five long steps instead.

The call Burn ignores cover, and you must leave cover when you retreat from it.

The call Dakka is completely negated by cover; ignoring it does not count towards the two attacks your cover will defend you from.

No thrown weapons besides Grenades can be used at DUD. This ensures that if people see a thrown physrep, they know that it is a grenade and are more able to react appropriately.

Special Calls

Special calls have a limited number of uses, governed by the Trait which granted them or by a resource such as Ammunition.

In addition to simply signalling damage, special calls are used to signal Status Effects. These are mechanical and roleplaying effects which must be acted upon if a character is targeted by them. Only characters with Traits that specifically allow them to resist a special call are able to avoid taking the action directed; they should still roleplay signalling their resistance in some way, so that the person making the call knows it was heard.

If the target does not notice or react to a special call, or calls No Effect, it does not expend that use of the call. Uses are only expended when the call achieves an effect.

Special calls are optional – you do not have to call Shock with every blow of a shockmaul. Melee weapons default to dealing uncalled damage as normal via a dramatic blow, or no mechanical damage with quicker attacks.

You can find out more about Calls in the Calls section