I have nor repeated the rules for pathos, mania, folly, madness and berserk from Chapter 3.
Mind’s Eye
Before a combat of some type, a hero may decide to seek a vision at a glance, taking in whatever the field of battle, a fencing strip, a boxing ring, a battle array or a siege, and trust to his intuition. A 1d6 check against Esoteric grants a temporary increase in Pathos equal to the die difference. If those temporary pathos points prove crucial, that is necessary, for prevailing in the pathos roll, then they become permanent.
Rounds
Combat in Grunt is conducted in rounds, with some actions done in “you go, I go” fashion, and some simultaneous. The length of a round is abstract, and may represent seconds of dueling, minutes of battle or hours of hunting.
Mania
Once in every combat of any kind, any hero may apply a single Mania score to an action:
Discord to Pathos,
Fear to damage reduction, and
Rout to damage.
If any such action results in success: In Pathos Advantage, avoiding death or disability, or taking life and cheering War on his scalp-draped throne of discord, that mania score is increased by 1.
Once a hero has reached a mania of 6, it can be obvious that he will steadily gain that mania and also pathos. I do not propose a limit to adding discord to pathos. But a roll playing solution. By the time Alexander returned to Babylon he was over 30 in pathos and 18 in Discord. He would have to roll 20s or be killed to loose in a military action. The Chaldeans had him poisoned.
Pathos
Before a combat, the foes, and in case of a battle or team fight, the leaders, make a pathos check. Whichever has the highest die difference, being a roll on 1d20 lower than the pathos score, gains advantages equal to the difference in the lower die difference and the higher, for his side. This has been covered earlier with Achilles and Sarpedon.
If the losing pathos hero rolls over his pathos score, he gains 1 disadvantage. This score, his over roll, is not factored in the advantages of his foe, who simply takes his raw die difference, between his score and roll, as his number of advantages. This is probably a disaster.
Pathos advantages and disadvantages must all be used in the first round of combat. These represent the initial favor of Fate or Fortune, with War and his three servants taking the 2nd round and on.
Dueling
Including boxing, wrestling, MMA, stick-fighting, sword fighting, knife-fighting and gladiatorial combat, pistol dueling, are forms of ritual combat in which the foes agree to certain limits on their actions [like not leaping into the stands at the arena, but fighting it out, or ducking during a pistol duel] and are usually supervised, or, held to a strict code of honor.
Note: The damage done in unarmed combats are covered under equipment, as is defending.
Preceding a duel the following checks are made:
-Minds Eye
-Pathos
-Knit: 1d6 check for damage reduction
-Kit: 1d6 check for damage augmentation
-Wit: 1d6 check for advantage/disadvantage, meaning one might overthink the duel and gain a disadvantage. Wit disadvantages and advantages are additional to those in pathos and may result in rolls and counter roll cycles.
A dueling round is simultaneous.
The duelist’s each make an Overall Body Check, with no factoring of damage done until advantage and disadvantage rolls are all exhausted. Advantage and disadvantage re-rolls are NOT applied to damage results. Damage reduction and augmentation is covered in more detail under equipment.
Once the rolls have been made, a duelist who has missed his check and rolled higher than his Body takes a number of damage equal to the difference—oops, ran into that jab!
Then, the hero who has rolled under his Body inflicts Strength+Weapon+Knit, Minus the Armor and Agility of the other.
Dedicated Defense
At the start of a round, a player may announce that he is dedicating his weapon to defense. His knit will not be factored for damage, if he is successful. However, it may now be used for damage reduction if he is hit.
Nuances
Balk: If their natural die Roll is the same, they both inflict ZERO damage.
Time & Measure: If both make their body check, the hero with the lower natural roll, which may not have succeeded in the die difference, earns an advantage for the next round, if he survives this round.
Fury: If a hero rolls a 1, and the die difference is still against him, then he still strikes and is permitted to add his pathos & discord mania to the damage.
Fate: A hero who rolled higher but still one the die difference, suffers a disadvantage in the next round.
Once damage has been factored, if this is not a first blood duel, but a mortal affray, another round begins without additional Mind’s eye, Pathos, Knit, Kit or Wit checks.
Armor and Agility: are always subtracted from damage.
Exception, a hero who is wearing more armor points than he has strength points, reduces his Agility modifier by the number of points his armor exceeds his strength. As described above knit may be reserved for damage reduction rather than dedicated to damage.
Mercy: Damage may also be reduced by the hero striking his foe, at will, sometimes to disarm, or, perhaps to gain a surrender. The duelist has the option not to kill his foe, though it may not always be successful, as he may only reduce damage equal to his agility.
Disarming
A duelist may reduce his damage equal to the number of Agility points he has. This enables him to make an Overall Body check to disarm. If he fails, he has still reduced damage to his foe. If he rolls a 20, he gives his foe a chance to disarm him with a Body check. A roll of a 1 results in a disarm that gives the weapon to the disarming foe. Simple disarms knock the weapon away.
Disarming is done differently in brawling, which is the kind of combat one engages in in Battle. However, disarming in hunt and skirmish situations is the same as in dueling.
Dueling mechanics permit both parties to be slain or injured at the same time, but this is rare.
Any time both foes make their Body check and the die difference is the same, they both inflict wounds, making this a rare case of a possible mutual kill in a duel. Above are some other nuances that might result in both duelists inflicting damage at the same time.
Knockdown
Any time a foe is damaged, a hero with an unused advantage, may use it to make a Body check. A success results in a knockdown, which inflicts the downed fighter with a disadvantage. In modern boxing, it afflicts him with a lost point and the fight is restarted after a 10 count.
Hunting
Including skirmishing and manhunting, low intensity efforts to outwit, stalk, outmaneuver and ambush, have been covered under Mind.
Brawling
A brawl is, like a duel, simultaneous combat.
The difference is that you are in chaos or urgent straights and have no time for dancing.
Disadvantage rolls gained in Pathos must be used in the first round.
Use of advantage rolls is optional in a brawl, where they may be saved, or more accurately, “pushed.”
Both players make a body check, do not compare their results, and inflict damage based on the difference in their roll and their Body Ability, inflicting Strength+Weapon+Die Difference, rather than knit, minus Armor & Agility.
Brawling Defense
A defensive effort might be made by assigning the die difference to damage reduction, rather than just hitting the foe while he hits you. In military battles, this decision is often a top down affair, with soldiers told to hold before counter attacking. Berserkers, of course, are not permitted such a craven option.
Pushing
In a brawl, a hero with an advantage may use each advantage he has against a second foe, fighting multiple foes at a time.
Momentum
In a brawl, anytime a foe is disarmed, downed, disabled or Slain, the hero who did it gets an Advantage, permitting him to attempt to finish the foe where he lays with that earned Advantage, or attacking a second foe, and so on.
Disarming in Brawl
This governed by Strength, reducing damage by the strength score, and, if successful in striking the foe, makes a strength check to determine of he disarmed the enemy. A 1 gives the disarming hero his foe’s weapon. Other successes knock it away. A failure permits the enemy to try and disarm by making a strength check.
Bowling Over Foes
In a brawl, instead of disarming, a hero might try and knockdown a foe he has damaged [the stroke must have resulted in damage, not deflected by armor or evaded by agility] with a strength check. A 6 failure [or double 6] for heroes with 6 strength, sends the strong man down. Being downed, in a brawl, as in a duel, results in a disadvantage. A success knocks down the foe, who now has a disadvantage.
Battle is brawling, a more direct and less evasive kind of combat than dueling.
Battle
Minds Eye [above]
Pathos [above]
Discord
The side whose leader has gained the pathos advantage decides if his men are attacking or defending.
Rounds: attackers and defenders make Overall Body checks. The attacker inflicts damage Strength+Die Difference+Weapon+ and the defender nullifies damage with Armor+Agility+.
Defending in Battle
A battle, rather then simply a brawl, is a more formal set piece affair in which equipment plays a greater role. Essentially, a fighter acting as soldier, who makes his Kit check, may assign his weapon’s damage to his own damage reduction, along with the die difference used in the normal brawling defense. The damage value of the weapon in the equipment list is now assigned to damage reduction.
Shield Attack: Conversely, in battle, brawl or duel, a shield may be withheld from damage reduction and used for offense and dedicated to damage augmentation.
Fear
After a full round, in which the defenders were able to counter attack, the fallen are counted. If losses are equal, to within 10%, battle continues to another round.
The side who has suffered the most losses must make individual Gut checks. Those who fail these checks will not counter attack the next round, only defend, dedicating weapons and die difference to damage reduction.
Design Note: when a fighter who knows what he is doing, refuses to attack and dedicates himself to defense, it is really hard to get to him as he does not open up.
After any round in which half of the combatants on one side have failed Gut checks, the leader must make a Social check. If he fails, his men who have failed their Gut checks break and run. Those who had made their Gut checks, he may attempt to Rally. If they make an additional Gut check they gain the Calm skill, a Fear Mania point and a Pathos point, and will not break the rest of this action.
Sarge Bought It!
If a leader is killed, his men must make a Gut check or an additional Gut check. Any man who makes such a check, may rise to the occasion by attempting a Social check after his successful “I lost my leader” Gut check. If he fails, no one notices. If he succeeds he gains a Fear Mania and Pathos, and the Rally skill, and is a natural, leader anointed by WAR.
A good adventure for a single player would be making him a squad leader and attempting to rally his men as a rear guard for his fleeing main platoon.
Rout
Running away and pursuing are the name of this phase. Any unbroken individuals on the broken side, may stand and fight in a last stand with a Gut check. A leader who has not broken, can take the individual unbroken men of his party and direct them in a delaying action if he makes a Wit check.
Warriors on the winning side, if they are not commanded to stand or pursue, lets say in a chaotic battle without clear leadership, make a Gut check, or a Rout check if they prefer, to pursue broken foes or try and slaughter the rear guard. The die difference is retained as that man’s advantages against broken [not rear guard] foes. Failure to make this Rout check, means the character tends to the Rapine of fallen foes and/or care of his wounded fellows.
War Fog
When a team, squad, platoon, company or army has broken, in order for either side to organize cooperative actions, such as meeting a second force, marching to another place, gathering a broken army’s remnants into a new place, must require an Overall Spirit check on the part of the Leader, before he can order and conduct Rallying operations and maneuver, to include pursuing broken foes. In the Napoleonic Age, certain cavalry leaders, like Murat, were valued largely for this quality of hunting down fleeing foes in pitiless pursuit.
Rapine
Rampaging victors each gain a Pathos and rout Mania point, and may each then, make a Pathos or Rout Mania check on 1d20 to determine if they captured foes, camp followers, women and children, horses, however the GM defines the booty, equal to the die difference. Rolling higher means he looted only gear and goods.
Say, Geronimo, with his 18 pathos, rolls a 12, for a difference of 6 after hitting a wagon train. That could be six ugly mules, or perhaps a fine, blond, white, Texas Heiress good for ransom or breeding!
See equipment listing for female values.
Death’s Door
Hit Point
0 = Disabled, for a few moments, KO’d in boxing, choked in wrestling, unable to act unless a berserk maniac, see Berserker section
-1= Disabled, all day or night, with loss of 1 Strength, Endurance or Agility, walking wounded, able to stagger or limp, but not run or march.
-2 = Disabled all day and night, with loss of 2 body points at GM discretion
-3 = Disabled for 2 days and nights, with loss of 3 body points.
-4 = Dead, meet Eternity
Put those maiming points in brackets as some might heal below. Medical healing is dealt with under equipment, where the slave women and physicians are stowed.
Crippled Yore
Characters who are disabled to -1 and below recover like so:
Have long term body point losses for a year.
Every year that passes, they can make a check against existing Overall Body to heal 1 point, of their choice.
+1 per day, until conscious/able to move and able to act as walking wounded
When a wounded warrior gets to 1 HP, he may make an overall Body Check against his current, maimed total. If he makes it he regains the difference between his original Overall Body and his current the 2nd day. Then each day after he gains his current Strength back until at full.
Medical and faith healing are covered under equipment.
Surrender
A hero may reduce the damage he does with a hand weapon, not a missile weapon, at will, by a factor equal to his strength, instead of driving his enemy lower, in order to spare and gain the surrender of a foe. This may leave the foe able, above 0. Yet, the foe will know that he was “dead to rites” [not rights] and have a chance to insist on death or agree to surrender.
A foe at mercy then makes a pathos check. If he fails he surrenders. If he succeeds he demands death and refuses cooperation. If he insists on death, the withheld strength damage may now be applied.
The hero who receives such a surrender gains a pathos point from his captive, who loses a pathos point. If the captive has an equal Pathos to the captor, he gains 2 and the captive loses only 1. If the captive has a greater pathos than the captor, than that happy hero gains 4 pathos to the captive’s 1. Feudal Europe was in part governed by such mercy relationships gained in battle.
