Combat & Global HITS

The cracked earth of the arena floor belched out a tirade of dust against the parched air bringing it more misery on a fiery afternoon as the heavy frame of Marbight Blackshield crashed into the floor. Blood rained from the sword that he held over his head in a victory salute to the assembled masses, caressing his face and reminding him of the afternoon’s work.

The words of Layanine Voss, poet and author, writing at one of the last Gladiatorial contests of “The Age of Blood”

The Basics

• Each character starts with 3 HITS
• Each blow they receive causes them to lose one of those
• There are a number of calls that may accompany a blow which have in game effects

Fighting

• Live Action Combat is a full weapon contact event
• It is not complicated but can be dangerous if you have not been through the procedures with the system safety refs. 
• Before you begin any event, no matter how experienced you are, you will spend as long as it takes with one of the safety refs going over how combat works and how to be safe in that environment to their satisfaction.
• Your weapons will also be checked for safety and tagged before the game and before any skits that you might go on.
• Full combat briefing will be given to you before any and all events however the following guidelines should be adhered to where possible:
  • Full blows from behind the body with appropriate weapons that end with the blow being pulled as it reaches the target resulting in a soft tap, enough that it can be felt, when it hits.
  • Sometimes it looks cool to go for a flurry of blows which is fine, but as a rough guideline you should only be taking 1 HIT per second no matter how many times one person is hitting you.
  • Do not stab with weapons that are not stab safe
  • The head is not a target in this game.
  • You will not grapple anyone at all and you will only hold or “restrain” someone physically with their express permission.
  • Arrows and Bolts might hit you. You should act as though you have been hit by a fast moving, heavy projectile. Bolts and arrows cannot be physically dodged.

Being Wounded

• When you have no HITS left you fall to the floor incapacitated
• Whilst incapacitated you can call for help and crawl slowly around.
• Whilst incapacitated you count to approximately 20 in seconds
• This is called your Incap Count.
• After the count ends you fall unconscious and start to die.

Dying

• Now you start counting again.
• This time though it is a Death Count.
• If you reach 30 seconds you have died.
• If you are healed back to positive HITS before you die you are ready to go again.
• However at the end of combat you now have to draw a Wound Card from your Omni Deck.

Being Healed

• There are two ways to be healed: Magically or Medically.
• If you are not dead you may be healed immediately by Magic or slowly via Chirurgery for 1 or more HITs.
• If you have pulled a Wound Card they are healed almost exclusively via Chirurgery although certain potions or powerful Magic can heal Wound Cards.

Rules of Cool

• Reacting to combat, rolling with the blows, film action fighting: This is what the game is looking for out in the field.
• If it feels cool and you feel like you are in a movie then it is probably right.
• You and the rest of the cast are the big damn heroes/anti heroes of said movie so you should have all the best scenes and best lines.
• So long as everyone sticks to the safety rules you will be fine. 

Rollovers

• An Event is staged in a number of Acts
• Each act contains a number of scenes whose duration is variable.
• During any scene in which a combat occurs a ref may call a rollover which is signified by a ref blowing a whistle 
• A rollover replenishes certain skills and ends the duration of certain effects.

Last updated byHolly Goodall