Combat

Melee:         

SAFETY:

Melee combat in a boffer LARP can be stressful for some especially new players. Also it shouldn't be under stated that adrenaline is a hell of a drug. However this is a "Light combat Boffer LARP" which means it is a lightest touch system meaning any contact regardless of how light to a valid target area is a legal hit and must either be taken or defended against with an in game effect.

Terms:

Valid Target Area: For melee this means any area of the intended target that is not the head, groin, or hands. Hits to the hands head or groin are not valid melee hits and as such should not be taken or defended against. It is important to note that intentionally hiding all Valid Target Areas from an assailant or as its commonly referred to "Turtling" will open the "Turtler" to strikes to any exposed areas. In the event you feel that a combatant is intentionally targeting non Valid Target Areas you should bring it to the attention of a Player Rep.

Turtling: The act of intentionally hiding all Valid Target Areas behind commonly a large shield but also any other obstruction i.e. door, tree, or other player. If a player is Turtling they open them selves to legal hits to any exposed areas regardless of their "Validity" under normal circumstances.

Punch/slap blocking: This refers to an offense committed by the recipient of melee attacks. Punch/slap blocking is the intentional striking of incoming Melee boffer attacks with either an open or closed hand. As "hands are not valid targets", the logic behind this illegal type of block is that the recipient does not have to take the damage since the strike landed on an invalid target area. ALL damage from hits that were intentionally deflected by the recipient with their hands will count and refusal to count such hits by the recipient will be regarded as cheating.

Heavy Swing: This means swings that are harder than they need to be to be effective. If someone is Heavy Swinging during a combat this is generally rectified by simply either making eye contact or pointing towards them and saying "check your swings". In the event this is done and it continues to be an issue you may then choose to speak with a Player Rep. about it. Additionally Heavy Swings may only be called by the recipient of the swing as this is horribly subjective and may vary from person to person. There are several of us within this LARPing community that do occasionally like playing rough with each other. This behavior is either acceptable and you know whether it is or it isn't. If you have to stop and think about whether your buddy will be mad at you for to swinging too heavy its probably better that you don't.

Swing Through: This is when a combatant intentionally swings at a valid target area that has a held boffer blocking it in an attempt to knock the boffer out of the way thus landing a "valid" hit. This is not acceptable as even if the Swing Though is successful it is NOT a valid hit and thus will not be counted. This is intended to dissuade combatants from the temptation of utilizing a Heavy Swing to score a legal hit.

Held Weapon: Refers to any approved boffer weapon rep or shield that is being held by a character with skill in said weapon or shield and that is being held correctly per the rules. A small shield may be held with a single point of contact, whereas medium and large shields must have two points of contact (generally a handle and arm strap). There are no other ways to legally hold a medium or large shield. Two handed weapons must be held with both hands unless utilizing an in-game ability such as "One Hand Block". All held weapons that block an incoming melee swing count as having blocked the attack unless rule-specific circumstances such as a "Massive" attack or a spell delivered through a weapon strike. Boffer contact from equipment not properly held (such as a boffer weapon stored in a weapon ring or on a belt, or a shield slung across the back) does not block attacks, and any attack striking such equipment is considered a legal strike.

NOTE: This section talks about the force of swings but does not specifically discuss the speed of a swing nor the arc of a swing. These things are absolutely indicators of a Heavy Swing but do not necessarily dictate that if a swing is quick that it will be heavy or that if the swing of greater than 90 degrees would be heavy. There are several people within the community that have been doing this for a very long time and thus are completely capable at swinging quickly or over 90 degrees and the hit not landing heavy. The main thing is that I'm pretty sure that none of us are Bruce Lee and as such have sizable limitations when it comes to melee combat. I can't say this loud enough or often enough IT IS YOUR RESPONSIBILITY TO KNOW YOU PHYSICAL AND MENTAL LIMITATIONS and act and fight accordingly.

WEAPON CALLS:

Weapon calls look like this:

(Vector) (Number) (Effect) (Carrier/Flavor) (x-to-hit)

          Vector tells you how you can defend against a given attack - if you have a Resist Magic, for example, you can stop any attack that opens with "Magic".  Common Vectors include Magic, Poison, Natural, and Elemental.  That list isn't exhaustive; Arcane is not nearly as common in Anteris as the mainland but is still around.  Sonic occurs in a couple of places, usually Secord weaponry, and others exist that aren't cataloged.  It's important to note that every Vector has a corresponding resistance somewhere.

          If the Vector isn't included in the call, it defaults to Physical.  You may still hear Physical called for clarity, usually on non-damaging effects. "Three Normal" on a sword swing is pretty obviously Physical, but a brigand with a lasso might call Physical Bind - he could just call Bind but it'd be confusing and the point here is to reduce friction.

         Number is the amount of damage that strike inflicts if it's not defended.  It's optional, and calls without a number do not inflict direct damage. This can get a little tricky, though, because some effects cause damage despite the strike not doing so itself.  If, for example, you receive "Magic Slay", the strikes does no damage and instead inflicts the Slay effect.  Slay then causes its usual 100 points of damage.  

         Effect is just what it says - the result of an undefended strike.  Any effect can be delivered (outside of some odd corner cases) by any delivery method on any Vector.  "Sonic Stoneskin" is an odd call but legal. Effects are optional but every call should either an Effect or Number.  A call without either doesn't really do anything when it connects.

         Carrier/Flavor are mutually exclusive because this combination is perhaps responsible for more combat friction than any other single factor.  It should be possible for a fire elemental (for example) to swing "fire sever" - it makes intuitive sense and doesn't pose a balance problem.  It's just difficult to disambiguate the less-obvious cases - if a Zombie hits you with "3 Disease", is that a flavor like "fire" or a carrier like "paralysis" that inflicts Disease if it reaches body? Arguments over this point have plagued us for decades.  In the interest of minimizing this, then:

         Carriers cause their stated effect if the swing causes damage to a character's unaugmented body points.  Carriers that strike bonus body granted from spells, foods, attunement powers or any other source do not take effect.  

          Flavors are a kind of tag.  They have no inherent effect, but interact with other tags in various ways.  Most PC's will take "5 Fire" as five points of damage.  Some creatures are vulnerable to fire damage and will take ten points from that same swing.  Some are resistant to fire and will only take two points.  Some are outright immune and remain unaffected regardless of the weapon landing a legal blow.

         You can easily tell whether a given swing is a Carrier or a Flavor.  Carriers are effects, across the board.  Nothing in Anteris swings Disease as a flavor, for example, in deference to this rule.  If you're not sure, consider what effect you'd take if the attack succeeded - there are rules for Disease and you could look up what it did to you.  There's not a rule for what happens to you when fire hits you.  Fire is a flavor, disease is a carrier, and every monster in Anteris follows this rule strictly. There are zero cases overriding this.

         X-to-hit is the last bit of the call, and is usually silver or magic. There are some corner cases here - there's a beast living in the West Coast Woods that requires copper to hit, there are some shapeshifters that take gold to hit,  but those are rare unless you're specifically hunting for them.  Don't spring for a weapon that swings copper unless you know you have that need.  Silver or Magic will hit almost everything that has a to-hit requirement.

Lastly, have to be delivered - the usual ways in which an attack gets from point A to point B is either a weapon or a packet (or a dart, but remember that darts are affected by packet defenses). Resist Ranged is out there in places, Parry is a sort of Resist Melee. This is almost never called; it's pretty obvious in almost all cases. Voice-delivered also happens and it's just as obvious but usually signifed by "Voice" at the beginning of the call.

         If a character, PC or NPC, requires such a weapon, that type must be included in any call to affect that character.  Vector and flavor are not by themselves enough to break x-to-hit.  Specific characters may be affected by specific exceptions, holes in their defenses - consider a vampire that requires silver to hit but will take Fire damage from any source - but this is not reliable and should not be counted on. It doesn't hurt anything to call "fire silver" and hits silver-to-hit whether or the target is vulnerable to fire.

As noted above, vectors default to Physical.  Flavors do not. "Arcane Kill" is untyped and can only be defended with defenses to the vector or effect.  Untyped effects are powerful and rare; most Npc's will follow the more common vector/effect/flavor pattern and allow a third defense option.

         Strikes are all or nothing.  If a character can defend against any portion of a strike, the entire strike is canceled.  This is a playability concern, not a balance of power issue.  Working out which parts of which strikes affect which targets bogs down the game, and the mechanical symmetry we gain from it is not worth the slowdown and confusion.

         We've eliminated the concept of "ranged weapon attack" for defensive skills. It produced a number of undesirable interactions (anyone with a bow was vulnerable to every defensive skill in the game and still paid the same price as Fighters (only blocked by Parry) and Mages (only blocked by Dodge). We've made an effort to remove references to "ranged weapon attack" but undoubtedly we've missed some; those are are bugs, not features, and if your class has a skill described "Stops one melee or ranged weapon delivered attack", ignore the second bit and please let us know so we can correct the reference.

Guns:

Safety:

Guns are capped at 120fps muzzle velocity and there is zero latitude on this - your weapon is disqualified at 120.1. Honestly, we'd prefer to see more in the 100fps range and use the distance between 100 and 120 as a buffer. 120 is not an invitation to mod your springs until you shoot exactly 120 every time you pull the trigger. If you lack for a chronograph, there are no Nerf-brand blasters that exceed 120 out of the box. Dart Zone blasters do get to 120 and should be clocked before use. If you're getting your dart blasters from the usual toy store sources, they're probably fine. This rule is here for enthusiast blasters, the kind that require eye protection just in case and recommend some protection elsewhere, too - I have one in the garage that shoots at 260 unmodified and will absolutely leave bruises if it's too close to its target.

Guns have a minimum range limit and may not be fired at people any closer than polearm reach - we would prefer ten feet but estimating distance is challenging for some people and ‘melee range’ is a more realistic standard.  While within that range, gunmen may voice-deliver their darts, firing in some safe direction (straight up, into the ground, anywhere that’s not going to hit someone) - this is here to prevent turning a six-shot revolver into a Hollywood sixgun.  (Gunmen this close are restricted to damage.) Please make every effort to re-establish range; we are aware of how this rule interacts with shields and overriding that effectiveness is an undesired side effect, not the point.  Gun using classes are equipped with Initiative for this express purpose (although other uses are certainly fine, too).

After a bit of field time, we're experimentally allowing for low-speed pistols in close combat. Pistols that clock no higher than 70fps can be used inside the 10' engagement zone, where more powerful weapons are forbidden and forced to voice delivery instead. Low-speed pistols must be obviously marked so opponents know the projectiles aren't going to cause welts or bruises. For a frame of reference, Nerf Hammershots clock between 65 and 75 feet per second out of the box. With 1 gram dart weight, that ends up being less kinetic energy delivery than the average sword swing (for loose values of 'average'). Please be aware that fps varies with darts, so a weapon that clocks 70fps with full darts will break the cap using half-darts - test them with the ammunition you intend to use. This doesn't apply to rifles regardless of muzzle velocity, simply because the chances of inadvertently banging the rifle into the opponent are much, much higher with a longer, unwieldy weapon.

Performance

Darts are capped at 50 per minute.  How you arrive at that is mostly up to you.  Rate of fire is capped by your ability to call damage on a shot, which rules out the speed-fire electric/automatic dart blasters.  Within that tolerance, if you can dump 50 darts in 30 seconds and manage to clearly enunciate the damage calls, you’re free to do so.  If you’d prefer to sustain and take larger pauses between shots, that’s okay too, and the vagaries of combat will tend to suggest one approach over another. (Editor’s Note:  That cap isn’t fixed.  It’s a starting point.  It’s derived from a couple of other places, including darts/second on standard issue single-action springer blasters.  Also, we’re coming at it this way because attempting to tune for the desired result by influencing the underlying factors (rate of fire, capacity, etc) is both complicated and prone to unintended consequences.  It also means we have to be very careful about future gun mods and how they interact with the RoF and Capacity rules.  By lifting the underlying caps in favor of attacking the actual undesired effect, we can put out all kinds of cool stuff and still feel safe that we’re not going to have Arnold Schwarzenegger mowing down modules with a GAU-8/A Avenger.)

• Pistols:
  • Pistols are smaller blasters intended for one-handed shooting (although a disturbing number of them insist on two-handed priming actions). Semi-automatic fllywheel blasters are permitted - this is an accessibility issue to help people with smaller hands or weaker play on the same field with people who can work hammer action pistols very quickly and comfortably). Again, you cannot fire more often than you can legibly call damage, even where the blaster will permit significantly higher rates of fire - this is both a balance and playability concern. Aside from flywheel pistols, the more common hammer-action and assorted slide-action spring-powered blasters are generally fine where they do not exceed 120fps muzzle velocity.
• Rifles:
  • Rifles are by design two-handed weapons and treated as such for game purposes. We are well aware that you can, with a little practice, carry a lever-action rifle in each and prime them by rocking the rifle forward on the lever, and also aware that this produces no long-term desirable consequences. Accordingly, using a rifle involves both hands; you cannot use one with a Maimed arm, for example. Rifles are also not allowed flywheels, owing to the more forgiving nature of rifle configuration offering less advantage to strong thumbs or big hands.
  • Rifles are restricted to semi-automatic (or slower) priming mechanisms, and must be either string- or spring-powered.
• Ammo:
  • Ammo modifications are generally banned. There are a couple that don't pose safety problems (drawing on your darts with a UV marker so you can find them in the dark with blacklights, cutting down a thin-plastic drinking straw to stiffen up standard long-form darts, and that's all that come to mind) but most ammo mods are dangerous. 3d printed hard-plastic spinner tips are great for extra accuracy but hit way harder than conventional darts, so do darts soaked overnight and frozen until combat breaks out, so do FVJ darts in any iteration. Any ammo modification, regardless of how innocuous you may feel it to be, has to be brought up and approved before use and Staff has no sense of humor about this. (This specifically includes rolling your damn dart in weak glue and glitter so it'll shower its target in sticky, reflective confetti, Jim.)

Rules Interactions

Historically, larps have divided attacks into "weapon delivered", "packet delivered", or "voice delivered in some fashion". Fallen Empires was organized along the same starting principle. You may note that "bullet- or dart- delivered" is neither of those things. For game purposes, dart-delivered is syntactically equivalent to packet-delivered. Any effect that blocks a packet-delivered attack also blocks a dart delivered attack. If effects are born later on that specifically interact with darts or packets, they'll be explicit in their descriptions. Until then, to reduce cognitive load and save a flood of editing, remember that anything affecting packet attacks generically also affects dart attacks generically.

There's one special rules interaction with darts and shields: If you're using a shield, you can call 'blocked' to any voice-delivered gun attack that doesn't have "Pierce" in the verbal.

Cosmetics

It's a sad fact of life that off-the-shelf foamflingers tend to be pretty hard to look at. Nerf leaning so hard into Fortnite and Roblox has produced some truly ghastly artifacts. Fallen Empires blasters must read as products of whatever engineer/civilization/factory/whatever produced them, not like someone sprung 14.99 for another Hammershot. The orange plastic detracts from the overall environment of the game. We don't insist on Michaelangelo, just that some reasonable attempt at theming be obvious at melee range. It is entirely possible (ask Justin) to have a godawful color palette that still fits in the game universe; don't feel too constrained by this. Just something other than the stock orange/red/green plastic that comes out of the box.

Also: Barrel tips must be orange, owing to state laws in various places that require this on toys that could be mistaken for live weapons. For similar reasons, we advise against milspec paint jobs. You do not want to get pulled over on the way to site with a realistic sniper rifle stashed in your trunk.

One special note: Hanging out at Whattaburger and talking about the event over lunch or after the game is common. It's never great to talk about killing people when you're out in public and most veteran larpers have stories about trying to explain this to onlookers. It's much less great to talk about shooting people; the words 'gun' and 'shoot' attract attention from law enforcement. This is not a conversation you ever want to have to but you especially don't want to have it while you're dressed up as an elf. Nothing says 'mentally stable individual' like a guy with elf ears talking about dumping mags and clearing rooms.

TAKING DAMAGE:

Sitting across the table from calling damage is taking damage, that is the other side of combat. Taking damage is a reasonably straight forward proposition. We will first look at simple flavored physical damage as this will be the vast majority of damage swung in the game.

All characters will have a number of Body Points which vary from character to character based on a number of variables from species, class, level and powers. All characters will also have a number of armor points that again vary widely from character to character. The numbers will be added together for a total or "to drop" denoting how much damage a given character can take before they fall.

What Total (to drop) looks like:

(armor) (natural armor) (armor buff) (body buff) (base body)

To explain

Armor buff refers to beneficial spells such as Shielding.

Armor refers to your actual physical armor that you are required to have a Physical Representation for.

Natural armor refers to what some species get by virtue of what they are or may be temporarily granted by magic and generally unless stated otherwise does not stack with armor.

Body buff refers to beneficial spells such as endurance.

Base body refers to you normal maximum number of body points.

So given this explanation if you are in a combat with a character or creature swinging "five fire" with a boffer weapon, per the description above its physical damage that is block-able and has a flavor of "fire" for purposes of vulnerability or resistance. For simplicity we will avoid vulnerability and resistance in this example.

So lets figure a total to drop:

5 Body

Endurance (+10 temporary body)

30 points of armor

Shielding (+10 temporary armor)

for a total to drop of 55

So as you fight your opponent who is swinging "five fire" for every legal hit that they land on you you would subtract five from your total to drop starting with your temporary armor then your regular armor or natural armor followed by your temporary body and finally your base body. Now due to the arbitrary numbers i chose for this example you could take eleven legal hits until you drop. putting you at exactly 0 and putting you into unconscious.

This mean you should state "down" then you can either fall on the ground (not advisable in large group combats) kneel or squat down to denote that you are "down". Down means you are somehow incapacitated and out of the fight. In our example if you took exactly eleven hits and nothing more it would leave you unconscious. If you receive no additional damage or healing in ten minutes you will wake up with 1 body point and nothing else. While at zero body any amount of numerical healing will grant you that amount of body points up to your normal maximum and immediately restore you to consciousness.

In the event you ever take sufficient damage to put you at -1, you will stop taking damage. You cannot go lower than -1 regardless of the damage done to you. Again you will need to announce "down" and take a knee. You will also need to immediately begin counting as your character is "bleeding out". Your bleed out count is two minutes or a 120 count. While bleeding out you are unconscious and can take no in game action. While bleeding out you can receive any amount of numerical healing and your bleed out count will end and you will be restored to consciousness and have that amount of body points -1 up to your normal maximum.

In the event you do not receive any healing in your bleed out count or in the unlikely yet possible case that you receive a Killing Blow your character will go from whatever their state was before to "dead". You will again begin counting at this time as you have a four minute "Death Count" or a 240 count. (Unless some affect in is causing a modification of the Death Count.) While in this state you no longer count as a valid target for spells and effects save for one and that is a "Life" effect regardless of source. It could be a spell a potion or an ability, the source is irrelevant. This effect if applied to a "dead" character will restore them to life and consciousness with 1 body point.

In the event that you complete your "Death count" without receiving a Life effect your characters body will dissipate. Unless otherwise directed you will need to leave your in-game items where your character fell to include weapon reps and tags. Normally this is done by leaving weapons reps and a belt and belt pouch with your in game tags in it. You will need to take your character sheet with you and find a Marshall. To familiarize your self with the next steps read the section on death and dying.