LARP Combat System

Physical Combat System

Fighting someone with a weapon is called Combat. During your adventure, and sometimes between them as well, you will encounter situations which lead to Combat.

For Live Role-playing use, all weapons are standard, safe and durable weapons made of high-density foam around a fibreglass core covered with several layers of coloured latex or gaffa tape. Shields are well padded, especially around the rims, and do not have any sharp protrusions. Arrows and crossbow bolts have a large foam tip especially designed to absorb the impact when fired. Bows and Crossbows must have a poundage of 30kg or less when fully drawn. ALL weapons and shields used must be checked by a trained referee, the referee’s decision is final if a weapon is failed from the safety check and must not be taken on an adventure.,

The Three Laws of Physical Combat

• PULL YOUR BLOWS.

Careless use of even the safest of weapons could result in injury. Do not aim for the head. Live role-playing is supposed to be fun for everyone taking part. For reasons of safety, anyone guilty of breach of this rule will be reprimanded. A second offence will result in the removal of the offending weapon. A third offence will result in the offender being sent of site. Again, the referee’s decision is final.

• GRAPPLING OPPONENTS IS NOT ALLOWED.

Grappling could result in injuries and is simply not allowed. An offender is liable to the same punishment above, although removal if the offending weapon is translated as the person grappling.

• HOLDING THE WEAPON OR SHIELD OF AN OPPONENT IS NOT ALLOWED.

The natural reaction to having your weapon or shield grabbed is to lash out. To prevent this, offenders will receive a high amount of damage inflicted on them at the referee’s decision. Persistent offenders are subject to the same penalties as above.

Remember that no matter how strange or unusual a monster may look, there is still a living, breathing human underneath all the make-up, masks and costumes. Use your common sense and never do anything which could actually hurt or anger the person playing the monster and, no matter how badly you are provoked, don’t succumb to anger yourself.

Club Competency Requirements

In order to ensure safe weapon use, the club has created the following positions to regulate the use of certain types of weapons which are deemed more likely to cause or inflict real harm to players or monster crew. Using any these weapons requires the approval of the appropriate marshal, which can and will be revoked if the user is found to be unsafe, until such a time as the marshal deems them safe to use them again.

1. Claw Marshal

2. Bow Marshal

How your Characters Body Works

In reality, it would be extremely rare for a human body to be hit with a great sword and the person live to tell the tale and if this fact was reflected in the game system, there would be very few survivors at the end of an adventure and no one would live long enough to be a hero, For this reason, the body of your character is a complex organism which, in comparison to a puny “real life” person, is much more capable of withstanding damage.

Your character (most likely) was born on the Prime Material Plane and his body is made up of solid matter, skin, hair, bones, muscles, blood and so on. There are several things that distinguish him from objects such as rocks and wood, which is also solid matter, the main ones being that he can move and think. This is brought about because there is an Essence inside his body which allows him to live, breath, think and do all the other things living creatures do. It is the Essence that gives your character his amazing robustness. When relatively small amounts of damage are inflicted on your character, his Essence causes his blood to congeal very quickly and even anaesthetises the wounded area so that he hardly feels any pain. It is only when a large amount of damage is caused on his body that he begins to bleed or even fall unconscious from pain.

Your character’s Essence can be one of two different types, the most common being the Spirit and Life-force Essence. This is made up of a combination of Spirit and Life-force and is the Essence that is within Human, Gnome, Halfling and Uruk races, as well as virtually all animals and plants. The actual proportion of Spirit and Life-force within this type of Essence varies from race to race, but in general is about fifty percent Spirit and fifty percent Life-force. If your character is one of these types of races, he will be capable of using both Inherent and Focussed Magic, and is effected by both types of magic. The other type available to characters is the Pure Life-force Essence, which is completely composed of Life-force. Elves and Dwarves have this type of Essence, although some Elves and Dwarves, notably Wood Elves, Plains Elves and Hill Dwarves have Human ancestors and also have spirits. The Pure Life-force races cannot use Inherent Magic which has no effect on them, but Focused magic has an increased effect on them.

When a weapon is used against your character, it causes damage to both the location of his body hit and his Essence. If the same part of his body is stuck several times, his Essence cannot keep up with the damage inflicted and the location bleeds freely. Losing blood weakens, and can eventually kill, the Essence and therefore the character.

Damage

Damage Points

All damage is given a value in Damage Points, The lower the amount of damage inflicted, the lower the number of Damage Points. The amounts of damage weapons can inflict vary and, dependant on who is using them, even similar weapons can be made to inflict different amounts of damage. A weapon is capable of inflicting a certain number of damage points against an un-protected location of your character’s body, and this is called the weapons Gross Damage. There are two common types of damage:-

• Total Body Damage

  • • The damage inflicted on your characters Essence and affects your character in nearly all cases when your character is hit or has a damage-causing Spell cast at him.

• Locational Damage

  • • Inflicted when your character is hit on any one if the six body locations that make up his body, or when certain damage-causing spells are cast at him. The six body locations are the Head, Chest, Right Arm, Left Arm, Right Leg and Left Leg.

• Total Body Points (TBP)

  • • These are the number of points allocated to your character’s body as a whole. If you take Total Body damage, a number of Damage Points are deducted from your current TBP and if this falls to zero, your character falls unconscious. A negative TBP means your character is dead or dying.

• Location Points (LBP)

  • • These are allocated to each of your character's six body locations and reflect the amount of Damage the locations can take before becoming useless or even being severed. When one of your character's locations is hit or damaged by certain spells, a number of Damage Points are deducted from the current LP total for that location.

If any of your character's LP's are reduced to zero or less, the location becomes useless. If it is the Head or Chest locations, you fall unconscious.

A negative number of LP's means it is bleeding and will lose one TBP per minute thereafter unless the wound is bound, cauterised or cured to a positive LP total.

A negative amount of LP's greater than its starting total means the location is severed. Your character will fall unconscious for fifteen minutes or, if it is the Head or Chest locations, you will die.

Damage Calls

There are a number of different types of damage that any person can be on the receiving end of:

• Physical hits

  • • Physical blows from weapons or such things as an Ogres fists and can be reduced or negated by armour.

    • Physical Blows usually target a specific Location and damage both LBP and TBP simultaneously.

    • Physical Blows usually use the standard damage call, but may also have additional prefixes for special types, for example "TRIPLE" or "SILVER TRIPLE".

• Through hits (THRU)

  • • These are more dangerous as the damage can penetrate worn armour with ease, such as crossbow bolts or a ghouls claws. Although some rare types of armour can protect against this, it is easier to dodge and avoid being hit at all.

    • Through Hits usually target a specific Location and damage both LBP and TBP simultaneously.

    • Through Hits always have the suffix " -THRU" added to the damage call, for example "TRIPLE THRU"

• Magical hits

  • • These can only be stopped by the appropriate type of magical protection.

    • Magical hits are either Spiritual or Focussed (Elemental or Magic) in nature.

    • Magical hits always state a number before the word "HITS", for example "3 HITS".

The damage that you cause is dependant on the weapon you are using as well as special skills or spells that may improve this damage. The Table below lists the amount of damage caused with Physical and Through weapons along with the number of hits a monster deducts from its total once hit as well as the Damage call that the user must call when striking with the weapon. Magical hits are explained in the spell description later but basically, for each three damage points, or part therein that a spell causes, damages monsters by one hit. The damage call for spells is included in the spell vocal which must be called when the spell effects the target, similar to melee weapons.

Armour Class

A way of reducing the amount of damage your character takes from weapons is by wearing armour. The amount of protection armour provides is measured in points of Physical Armour Class (PAC). The higher the PAC on a location where a character is hit, the more protection from damage is given. Arrows fired from bows and certain monsters' weapons penetrate armour very efficiently. When hit by these weapons, your character's THAC is used instead, and is known as taking Through Damage.

Wearing armour cannot reduce the TBP damage below 1, this means that no matter how much armour he is wearing, he can't last forever in a fight. There are 4 types of Armour Class, which resist the 4 types of respective damage:

• PAC

  • • Physical Armour Class is gained by wearing Armour, and applies to Physical Damage caused by melee or thrown weapons or similar sources.

    • PAC is calculated individually for each location.

• THAC

  • • Through Armour Class is gained by use of the Dexterity Skill and some rare Armour types, it applies to Through Damage caused by exceptionally sharp weapons that ignore armour, such as arrows, bolts and some monsters.

    • Unlike PAC, THAC is usually calculated as a global AC, which covers all locations.

• FAC

  • • Focussed Armour Class protects against Focussed Damage such as that caused by Focussed Spells or Elemental Damage, and is usually gained through use of the Dragon Skin Spells or similar protections.

    • Unlike PAC, FAC is calculated as a global AC, which covers all locations.

• SAC

  • • Spiritual Armour Class protects against Spiritual Damage such as that caused by Inherent Spells, and is usually gained through use of the Bless Spells or similar protections.

    • Unlike PAC, SAC is calculated as a global AC, which covers all locations.

• Resistances

  • • Some damage does not fit into the simple format above, for example Poison Damage or Disease Damage, and are not protected against by the AC types listed above.

    • These types of Damage are usually resisted by the appropriate Resistance Skills, which can completely negate the relevant types of damage.

Calculating Damage

After every fight, the Referee will check with you to find what wounds were inflicted during the fight. Assuming there were some, they will calculate the damage as follows:

1. Subtract the relevant AC of the location hit from the Gross Damage. The result is called the Net Damage.

2. Subtract the Net Damage from (a) the LP's of the location hit, and (b) from your character's TBP.

3. Physical blows which are resisted by PAC or THAC always do at least 1 point of TBP damage even if the Net Damage is reduced to 0. This is referred to as "Bruising".

Obviously, you are not expected to keep track of your current TBP, LP and Power totals. That would involve you remembering 9 different numbers, which could be constantly changing as you go through an adventure. Instead your character's statistics are kept on a sheet called a Battleboard, which the Referee keeps with them and constantly updates during your adventure. They will tell you all you need to know about your current state, for example, "If you take another hit, fall over". 

Broken Bones

If a single blow from a weapon of at least a "Double" or higher causes damage and reduces a location to a negative total, the bones in the location are broken and it is rendered useless until the bones are splinted or special treatment is administered. If a limb is broken, the character can still move and react normally (providing a leg isn’t broken). Broken bones in the torso can be painful but will not have a major detrimental effect on a character apart from the inability to perform any strenuous actions such as running or fighting. A broken skull will cause unconsciousness and concussion unless help is administered.

Death and Dying

If at the end of an Encounter your character is at 0 or negative TBP then they may be dead or Dying, as below. This is determined after taking into account healing applied during Time In.

• 0 TBP

  • Character is Unconscious and Stable.

  • They will remain this way indefinitely until healed to TBP of 1 or higher.

• TBP below 0, but greater than negative starting TBP, for example a Body Zero character with TBP of -1 down to -29.

  • Character is Unconscious and Dying.

  • Dying Characters have a Grace Period of 1 Encounter, during which if they are healed up to TBP of 0 or higher they regain consciousness and are no longer dying. If they are still at negative TBP at the end of this Grace Period they Die.

  • During Immersive Events such as Tavern Nights (or the 2025 Foothold Event for example), this Grace Period is 10 minutes. This will be counted from the moment the Referee ascertains that you are Dying.

• TBP is negative and equal to or greater than starting TBP, for example a Body Zero character with TBP of -30 or less.

  • Character is Dead.