Conflict
When you are attacked, you can attempt to defend
Conflict in BlackThrone comes in two varieties: Martial
and Social. Martial conflict involves actual, physical
fighting, often with the intent to hurt or kill. Social
conflict, on the other hand, deals with arguments,
negotiations, intimidation, and persuasion.
Martial Conflict
Martial conflicts in turn have two varieties, although only
small changes differentiate them from each other. In
Melee Combat, two or more characters are engaged in
close-quarters fighting, usually with weapons, sometimes
unarmed, and sometimes with magic. In Ranged Combat,
the characters are shooting or launching projectiles at
each other across distances.
Melee Combat
Swinging a sword or axe at a target, poking them (or it)
with a spear, or attempting to wrestle them (or it) to the
ground all fall under melee combat. Obviously, your
character must be close enough to the intended target in
order to have a chance at hitting it, where close enough
is dictated by the range of the weapon being wielded.
Most melee weapons require characters to be within 5
feet of their target to make an attack, but weapons like
spears and polearms allow attacks to be made at a range
of 10 feet or less.
To make a melee attack on a target with a weapon,
assemble your to hit dice pool, equal to your Melee Attack
skill plus any one Knowledge skill determined by the
particular weapon you wish to use. This pool measures
your ability to hit your intended target with the weapon
you are using, hence the term.
If your target has some degree of fighting ability, your to
hit dice pool will be opposed by your target's defend dice
pool (See Defending Against an Attack). If you roll the
highest number after canceling-out all similar dice, you
hit your target and get to roll for damage.
Ranged Combat
Ranged combat includes throwing, launching, or shooting
something at a target that is beyond the range of melee
weapons.
Similar to melee combat, attacking a target with a ranged
weapon requires a to hit dice pool consisting of your
Ranged Attack skill plus one Knowledge skill relevant to
the weapon you are using.
Close attention must be paid to weapon ranges, which are
expressed as a fraction: The top number indicates the
weapon's effective range, while the bottom number
indicates its maximum range. Light blades like daggers or
throwing stars have a range of 15/30, which means that
throwing the dagger without disadvantage can only be
done within 15 feet from the target, while the dagger
cannot be thrown any further than 30 feet.
Defending Against an Attack
yourself one of three ways: Block, Parry, or Dodge.
Blocking an attack means placing an object between you
and your attacker's incoming weapon, while parrying
means doing the same thing, but with your currently-
wielded weapon. Dodging, of course, means getting out of
the incoming weapon's way.
Blocking can really only be done with a shield of some
sort, but is incredibly, sometimes even frustratingly
effective. To block an incoming attack, roll a dice pool
equal to your Block skill, then add a number of 6's equal
to your shield's defense rating. This is what makes shields
difficult to overcome with a to-hit roll.
Parrying is the only way to block an incoming weapon
without carrying a shield. This requires quite a bit of skill,
so to parry an opponent's weapon, roll a dice pool equal
to your Parry skill plus one Knowledge skill relevant to
the weapon you are using. It goes without saying that
while parrying is not as sure as blocking, it is most
certainly better than nothing.
Dodging is all about awareness and dexterity, and as such
can only be attempted if you are aware of the incoming
attacknot so easy to be when facing an ambush by
bandits with crossbows. Otherwise, your GM will ask for
a Dexterity save and not a Dodge roll.
If your GM rules that you may attempt to dodge an
incoming attack, roll your Dodge skill plus Reaction.
Obviously, if your attempt to defend yourself fails, your
opponent successfully hits you and rolls for damage.
Better hope that armor holds up.
Damage
BlackThorne does not make use of hitpoints in quite the
same manner as other RPGs do. In other systems, HP is
an indication of how much damage you can take, a kind of
armor that allows characters to maintain maximum
operating efficiency for as long as they have at least 1
hitpoint left. Furthermore, as characters increase in level,
so do their hitpoints, so that eventually they cannot be
bothered by low-level, low-power creatures, since these
monsters simply cannot damage them enough to make a
difference.
BlackThorne does no such thing: For one, all PCs have 6
hitpoints, and this does not increase with time, since they
are not a measure of your health or vitality, but rather
how many times you can shrug-off being wounded before
you are simply too much of a mess to keep going.
Hitpoints
On your character sheet under Hit Points are six little
tick boxes numbered from one to six.
 1 2 3 4 5 6
Every time an enemy makes a successful attack on a PC,
the attacker rolls their Wound stat versus the defender's
Grit stat. If the defender fails this contested roll, he or she
ticks-off the last unticked box to the left (starting at 1)--
that character has just sincurred a serious wound.
When the number of serious wounds a character has
equals their Grit stat, the next serious wound does two
things: First, every serious wound incurred imposes a -1
die on all the character's subsequent rolls. Second, every
serious wound incurred requires the character to test
their Morale stat in order to keep from losing their nerve
in the midst of the fight (see Tests of Morale).
A character can only sustain six serious wounds before
dropping unconscious from shock and blood loss. Getting
hit again while unconscious means instant death.
Armor is the main means of preventing serious wounds,
which it does by modifying your Grit pool (see Armor).
A single hitpoint tick box is reset (i.e., the pencil tick gets
erased) after a long rest.
Tests of Morale
Like hitpoints, a character's morale is represented by six
tick boxes. Every time Morale must be tested during a
fight, the player ticks off next box, which indicates how
many 6s the player must roll to succeed in the test.
Succeed, and the character stays in the fight. Fail, and the
character will try to flee.
A character who would rather flee from a fight can be
forced to stay by spending 1 XP.
Under most circumstances, all six tick boxes are reset
after a 6-hour rest.
Armor
Armor is the primary means of protecting yourself from
serious wounds. There are three kinds of armor, and each
kind works as follows:
Armor Examples Effect
Leather, Thick
Light Increase your Grit pool by 1.
Gambeson
Chainmail,
Medium Increase your Grit pool by 2.
Scalemail
Heavy Full Plate Increase your Grit pool by 4.
Notice that armor reduces an opponent's Wound pool;
this is because armor does not reduce your chances of
getting hit, but rather reduces your chances of getting
hurt.
A point of warning, though: There are weapons designed
to circumvent the protection armor offers. Arm yourself
accordingly.
Social Conflict
Social conflict is a different, albeit related, animal: Instead
of trying to wound an enemy until they are out of the
fight, the goal of any social conflict is to dismantle an
opponent's body of reasoning so as to influence their
decisions regarding something. Anytime you are trying to
convince, persuade, intimidate, debate, or manipulate
someone with words, this is Social Conflict.
Because Social Conflict is essentially a battle of wits and
words, it shares a few things in common with conflict of
the more martial sort. For example, the idea of attacking
vs. defending. The difference is how these are carried out
instead of using weapons, words and arguments are
the tools of the trade.
The mechanics for Social Conflicts make use of scripts
that is, pre-planned moves that players pit against NPCs
to determine wounds to their body of argument (BoA),
which is the analog for hitpoints.
A quick note before BoA and scripting are explained:
Scenarios involving Social Conflict can become somewhat
longer than many players are used to, so GMs and
Referees are advised to save these rules for truly
meaningful scenarios.
Body of Argument
Shamelessly borrowed from Luke Crane's Burning Wheel,
your Body of Argument represents the perceived integrity
of whatever it is you are arguing in favor forwhether or
not the people listening to you believe what you are
saying. This is an important distinction to make: Just
because people believe what you are saying does not
necessarily mean that what you are saying is actually
true. But since the goal of Social Conflict is to get people
to believe you so that they do something for you, then the
truth of a statement is not what is at stake here, but
rather its credibility.
Unlike hitpoints (which are always 6), BoA is always
equal to your CHARISMA attribute score, modified by half
of your rating (rounded up) in an applicable Social skill
(as agreed upon with the GM).
Scripting
When engaging in a Social Conflict, each of the
participants (usually a player vs an NPC) prepare three
moves in secret. Once all the moves have been
prepared, players reveal them simultaneously, one move
at a time, in sequence. When a move has been revealed, it
cannot be changed.
Moves are then pitted against one another according to
the table below. Where two moves intersect, a particular
versus test is required. The loser of this test loses a point
from their BoA. When a player's BoA is reduced to zero,
they lose the conflict and the game proceeds according to
the winner's intentions.