Welcome back, Adventurers!

Day three of posting a highlight of one section of the book every day a week!

Today is...

Combat is a core component of Crowns 2e. It's fun getting treasure, but part of that fun comes from having awesome, tactical combat! Grids optional (I've never used one for Crowns 2e outside of testing personally).

The measure of "am I dead yet" in Crowns 2e is called Resolve. How much you start with is determined by your starting attributes. Characters with lower starting attributes (measured by their sum) get higher starting Resolve to make up for it, and vice versa.

Damage reduces your resolve. Get reduced to 0 and you need to make a death check (roll a d20 trying to get equal to or less than your maximum resolve). If you pass, you suffer shock (more on that later), remain at 0 resolve, and get giving an additional action on your next turn as the adrenaline runs through your veins!

If you fail, you are slain outright, and all your allies that witness it gain d4 Peril because it's so bloody and horrific. Common stuff.

How much damage you suffer from an attack is not rolled for separately, instead, you find the POWER of the attack, and compare it to this little chart to see how hard you were hit:

As you can see, this keeps damage is normally pretty low (0-2 is the average, anything above is usually considered big hit). The reason for this as a mechanic is to make it so monsters and players have really low HP pools, while still enabling a system where modifiers that can add up to make big swings feel powerful! Achieving this without making everything die in one hit was hard, but we got there in the end!

Critical hits add in additional effects depending on the level of damage being dealt, they are: Shock, Broken, and Severed.

Shock is the most common critical effect, and can even be dealt by some monsters as part of their abilities. It is essentially a more effective version of the Stagger stunt (more on that later). It greatly effects you and your allies decision making for the rest of the fight.

Broken is exactly what it sounds like, you broke a bone. I didn't write down the specific for what happens if you break an arm or leg because it saved space and I feel is obvious (you can't use it until you get better). Broken ribs being conditions means they take up space in your inventory, effectively reducing how much you can carry. Broken noses stop you from being able to smell, ruined eyes and ears don't heal. That's permenant.

Severed means you got something cut off or your guts cut open. If you were critically hit and it ended up having 21+ power in the attack, you're cooked my friend. Scary stuff!

Peril is overwhelming fear. Think of it like a second health bar, that is slowly ticking up instead of down. As your character reaches different "Peril Thresholds" they fall deeper and deeper into Fear and Panic until eventually hitting the point of Resignation, which is essentially death by Peril. Check it out:

A Seeker enters a state of Fear when they have Peril equal to their maximum resolve. This is the first level of Peril, and it essentially means that their character went from being able to handle the stuff in front of them, to beginning the spiral. All it does is speed up their descent, and acts as a point for decision making: "I have Resolve, but I'm afraid, and I'd rather not be down here and start to Panic, we should leave."

The reason for this whole system was find a way to express the horrors you're witnessing while adventuring while also minimizing the control that is taken away from the player. These don't force your characters to flee, or act crazy, they just make things a little harder and are another thing to tactically consider while adventuring.

A Seeker starts to Panic when they have Peril equal to double their maximum resolve. They can no longer critically succeed on rolls, essentially meaning they are severely limited compared to their comrades on how good their successes are.

The reason for this mechanic was to put a cap on the "but if I roll this perfect we can still make it!" which was driving some players to make decisions they ultimately regretted. Once panic has set in, adventure at your own risk, because only good decisions will save you, not good luck.

Resignation is "death by Peril" and it sets in when you have Peril equal to quadruple (4x) your maximum resolve. You're character is done with adventuring, it's time to retire. Early on, you may have a few character leave the game this way because it's ultimately based on their resolve, which may be low to start with. But as their experiences grow, it takes a lot more to end up breaking them.

This mechanic was based on my time so far in the US military. Early on, people are weeded out by what they can and can't handle, and some people who thought they were built for adventure learn that they're not. But the people who make it, and stay for a while, it's going to take a lot to break them.

Alright, it's time to swing our swords! First, roll a SEN check for initiative. You'll do this every round, and if you critically succeed you get to take two actions!

Now we want to swing our longsword. That's a COR check. Our COR is 10, we roll a... 7. That's a hit!

The power of our attack is equal to the roll (assuming we hit). That means that's a 7 power attack, and (comparing it to the chart from earlier) would deal 2 damage!

But the enemy has a chance to defend. We're using a longsword to attack (this is considered a great weapon), and all they have is a dagger to defend with. You're two options are to parry or dodge:

If the enemy parried, they'd only reduce my attack by their dagger's crit die of d4, so they instead dodge, reducing my attack by my own crit die of d12. They roll and get a... 4. That reduces my attack power down to a 3. That's still one damage!

But this enemy also has Chain armor. There are three kinds of armors in Crowns 2e: Padded, Chain, and Plate.

So, the enemy has chain armor and my attack has a d12 damage die, so it further reduces the incoming damage by one, bringing it down to 0 damage. Dang!

Well, I still hit, so something still happens: at 0 damage I get to inflict my weapon's STUNT for free. Every type of weapon has a stunt it inflicts when this happens. You can also just spend an action, instead of attacking, to inflict any stunt you want on an opponent you can reach with a weapon. There are six stunts:

My longsword's stunt is STAGGER. So, the enemy is Staggered.

As a recap of everything that happened inside of one attack in combat:

Only two rolls were made and you can already see how this epic engagement played out:
"You half-sword your longsword in an attempt to pierce the enemy's armor. Seeing this, they panic and try to dodge out of they way. You make contact, and while it doesn't pierce their armor, it does cause them to go off-balance and become staggered. They cannot dodge or parry the next attack made against them."

There are also other quick systems you can apply to make the combat more intense without sacrificing the speed of play! Such as rules for:

I recommend you give it a full read-through when you can. All of the combat and damage rules fit on a single sheet of 8.5" by 11" front and back, so it may even be a good handout to give your players (it was designed that way on purpose)!

To be continued...

You can playtest the game on our Discord with me and our awesome community! We don't bite!

Let's get to $10,000!
Reese Surles, Ward Against Evil