Basic Fudge: Combat
Combat takes place in rounds where attacks and defense occur simultaneously. Characters involved determine their appropriate combat trait, roll a modifier, and determine the relative degree of success. The greater the degree of success, the greater the amount of ass kicked.
Each round, first determine who is attacking whom and how. Each character then uses the appropriate trait to determine their performance for the round.
The performance must meet the minimum difficulty for the attack to hit. The minimum difficulty represents the difficulty to hit an unresisting, unaware, or surprised target. If the attacker fails to perform at the minimum difficulty level their attack automatically misses.
The minimum difficulty to hit someone is determined by the range of the attack.
| Range | Minimum Difficulty |
|---|---|
| Melee/Point Blank | Poor |
|
Close |
Mediocre |
| Medium | Fair |
| Long | Good |
| Extreme | Great |
The outcome of the round is then determined by measuring the degree of success between the combatant’s performances. Your degree of success is the number of levels by which your combat skill performance exceeds the result of your opponent’s combat skill performance.
The following chart suggests effects of a combat round between two humanoid characters. The Narrator and players of Basic Fudge should remember to trust their own judgement in such matters, however.
|
Degrees
|
Level |
Effect
|
|---|---|---|
| 0 (tie) | Terrible | The attack lands with no effect. |
| 1 | Poor | The character receives a trivial wound. No game effect until the fourth Scratch, when the character becomes Hurt. |
| 2 | Mediocre | |
| 3 | Fair | The character is stunned or wounded significantly: -1 to all traits which would logically be affected. If stunned, this penalty is for the next combat round; if wounded, the injury stays until healed. A character can only be Hurt or Stunned once; a second Hurt yields a Very Hurt result. |
| 4 | Good | The character is seriously hurt, possibly stumbling: -2 to all traits which would logically be affected. If stunned, the penalty lasts for two rounds. A second result of this severity Incapacitates the character. |
| 5 | Great | The character is so badly wounded or stunned as to be incapable of any actions, except possibly dragging himself a few feet every now and then or gasping out an important message. |
| 6+ | Superb | The character is not only unconscious, he’ll die in less than an hour - maybe a *lot* less - without medical help. No one recovers from Near Death on their own unless they are very lucky. |
To record these wounds, every character should have a chart like this on their character sheet:
| 1,2 | 3,4 | 5,6 | 7,8 | 9+ | |
| Wounds: | Scratch | Hurt | Very Hurt | Incapac. | Nr. Death |
| O O O | O | O | O | O |
When a character takes a wound, mark off the box below the appropriate level. If the wound is a Scratch or a Stun, put an S in the box; these go away after the combat is finished. If all the boxes are filled for that level, go to the next most severe level and use that one.
Complications
Ah, were it all that easy. Various factors can affect the difficulty level or your attack roll, like the following:
- Surprise. If one opponent surprises the other, both roll their Luck to see if the surprised person can act. If the attacker wins, he gets a free shot at the surprised attackee.
- Aiming. A character who spends an entire uninterrupted round aiming lowers the minimum difficulty by one level.
- Unarmed. Fighting barehanded against armed foes sucks. If you are unarmed in a melee with an opponent with a melee weapon, you suffer a -1 penalty to your combat test.
- Disarmed. You may try to disarm your opponent instead of injuring them. Disarming your opponent requires a relative degree of success of 3 or more. If you drop your weapon you can spend a round to pick it up while your opponent gets a free shot at you. You can try to dodge by rolling your Coordination, but if you get hit your weapon stays on the ground.
- Multiple Opponents. Whenever two or more people gang up on someone in a melee, the outnumbered someone takes a -1 penalty to his combat skill test for every opponent after the first. Everyone rolls as normal; any opponent who rolls higher scores a hit, but the outnumbered person can only hit one opponent no matter how high they roll. This penalty applies if the character is in a melee with other characters, but would not apply to ranged attacks.
- Multiple Attacks. Usually a character only attacks one target per round. If a character chooses to divide their attention they can engage multiple opponents for the usual penalty of -1 to each action for every action beyond the first. This is cumulative with the Multiple Opponents penalty if it applies.
- Defensive Stance. You can forgo your attack and spend the round concentrating on defense. You get a +1 to your fighting skill but do no damage. If you have something that you can block with, like a chair or weapon, the bonus is +2.
- Dodging. Roll your Coordination or Luck instead of your combat skill to forgo your attack and dodge. Beating your opponent means you don’t get hit. You don’t suffer penalties for dodging multiple opponents, so this can be an effective tactic when outnumbered. You suffer a -2 penalty when dodging arrows, bullets and energy beams. Partial cover reduces this penalty to -1 and total cover negates it.
- Critical Hits. To hit a specific spot requires the character win the entire combat round - no opponent may have a higher score - and then the character must win a second test, this time at -2, against the opponent’s original score. If this second test fails, you miss entirely.
- Stun Damage. A character may elect to stun their opponent instead of injuring them. Stun damage is figured the same way as normal damage, except that the opponent is not permanently harmed. The damage wears off after the combat is concluded.
- Equipment. If a character is injured by a firearm or large melee weapon, use the next most severe result on the chart. An energy weapon usually has a variable setting and may shift the result from one to four places on the chart but is often also capable of stunning the opponent. If the character is wearing armor, use the next least severe result.
The Narrator may take into account other tactical factors and assign bonuses or penalties accordingly. A +/-1 represents a minor advantage or disadvantage, +/-2 a major one, and +/-3 an overwhelming one.
Healing
Scratches heal after a battle, as do Stuns of any severity.
Healing more severe wounds requires the use of a medical skill and time. A Good result on a medical skill heals all wounds one level (Hurt to healed, Very Hurt to Hurt, etc.). (Scratches do not count as a level for healing purposes. That is, a Hurt wound that is healed one level is fully healed.) A Great result heals all wounds two levels, and a Superb result heals three levels.
Healing takes time: the success of the roll merely insures the wounds will heal, given enough rest. How long this takes depends on the medical resources available and is up to the Narrator.
