8/13/2019 The Bloody Update

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Combat

MÉTIER (Met-Yay), Noun: 1. A Trade, Profession, or Occupation.

 2. A Person’s Strength or Special Ability. 

CHARACTER GENERATIONCOMBAT IN ORBIS.

CHARACTER GENERATIONOrbis Terrarum is a game about characters. The crazy,messed-up ideas of its writers; the heroically long-suffering play-testers whose exploits dot this weightytome; the fierce desires of Player and Non-PlayerCharacters that shape the setting -- and now (hopefully)you and your friends, as you create new characters andadd them to our shared and boisterous world.

 We think this section of the rules is important.

 Without characters, the game will never come to life.

BEFORE THE DICEOne of the most important parts of character generationis the very first - your concept. In Orbis we formalisesomewhat within the rules using Métier.

THE DICE SYSTEM BASICS At its heart OT is a percentile skill based system. So askill score directly equates the percentage chance youwill succeed at that skill. In addition to this our systemrates a character’s base statistics as a score that canbe used as a percentage chance of success.

STATS: We have 7 stats grouped into two blocks plus onecrossover.

Physical stats are: Strength(STR). Agility(AGL) andConstitution(CON).

Mental stats are Reasoning(RSN) Intuition(INT) and Willpower(WIL).

The final stat is Perception (PER) which is included inboth groups whenever that definition is required.

Stats are randomly generated by rolling a varying

number of D20 (depending on culture) and keeping thebest 3 or by assigning points within specific parameters.

There are then a few additional stat points to add, forexample if your physical or mental stats as a group areparticularly low, and all stats can be trained up to somedegree as your character advances.

Stats are used as the base skill chance for things that acharacter has no particular training.

They’re also used to give the values of some derivedcharacteristics like Damage adjustment (DA), Reactionmodifier (RM) and Wound Capacity (WC).

WOUND CAPACITY All humans (indeed all medium sized creatures) have abase WC of 15. This number can be altered by a fewpoints depending on several statistics and can be‘trained’ just like a skill or statistic for a small increase.

Generally this means that even the mightiest and mostexperienced warrior will be unlikely to have a WC ofmuch more than 30, so although tough no one everreaches the ‘enough health to ignore danger’ point. 

UPBRINGING, BACKGROUNDCULTURAL EFFECTS,

Character creation also includes the influence of familyand ‘growing up’. Optional tables allow for the possibilityof unforeseen complications or benefits through the PCsback-story, and the influence of the characters culture isfelt strongly through the Cultural talents and Skills thatcan be chosen.

Example Culture Talents:

DUMMONII TALENTS 

The forest-dwelling Dummonii are known for theircountless gods, their woodcraft; powerful bows andcurving ‘rarkscian’ knives, and for age old feudingwith their Pelosian neighbours.All My Many Gods There is always an appropriate

god to pray to. Once per 48hrs, by taking a fewminutes to pray and gather totems, you can gain a+10% bonus to a specific and predetermined taskyou are planning to attempt within the next 24 hrs.Keen Eyes +10 to PER. This stacks with any bonusto PER from Statistic Training.Born in Scaladoun  Add 1 Talent skill rank toLanguage: Pelosian and you can count Pelosia aswell as Dummoni as the locality of any local skills. Scalper Gain rank benefits for Awareness & Stealthskills at one rank earlier than normal (R2 and R5)and gain +2DA when fighting Pelosians.

8/13/2019 The Bloody Update

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Combat

COMBAT: THE BASICSJust like normal game play, combat in OT is effectively aduel style skill check with a lot of extra options andconsequences.

 At its heart an individual attacking another must make a

D100 roll against his skill score, minus the skill score ofhis opponent. If he rolls under he hits and will probablycause some damage.

There are obviously many other facets to combat and sowe will present a broad introduction to it here:

DESCRIPTION METIER.Combat in Orbis encourages both the OM and theplayers to enhance their actions with role-playdescription and consideration of relevant Metier.

So a character who’s Métier is “Vicious Pyraxian Street-

fighter” might get a bonus when knife fighting un-armoured and in close quarters with an enemy, or ifbeing especially ‘brutal’ given the circumstance(perhaps if he’s fighting to kill and maim in a tavernbrawl where most are using fists), equally a “Pacifist Uru

Lore-speaker” might discover his fighting skills

sometimes limited by his deeply held convictions.

COMBAT SKILLSIn OT there are three types of fighting style, Brawling(based on STR), Fencing (based on AGL) and Ranged(based on PER), and all weapon skills will default to or

derive from these and one of these will be chosen as afavourite style (gaining a bonus).

Specific weapon skills can be developed further byadding advancement points and training ranks toimprove the score. Ranks also have additional benefitssuch as reducing the possible range of fumbles andgranting a minimum level of success to any hit (thusaffecting damage done).

WEAPONS AND DAMAGEThe usual range of weapons is available in OT, from

swords great and small, to axes, bows and knives.

There are a few unique weapons like the DummoniiRarkscian (a hook like fighting dagger also used toassist climbing) and the Dromish Catcoom (a soft edgeddiscus used to stun or knock out opponents at range).

Period wise we’re somewhere between dark ages and v-early renaissance depending on which country you’re in.

The Pelosians for example have Stockbows (similar to awindlass spanned crossbow), segmented plate armour,alchemical bombs and even some mechanical warmachines, whereas the Hutzlunr have nothing more

advanced than bows, mail, swords and axes ...not thatthey need much more!

 Weapon damage is a related both to the size of theweapon and the way in which its wielder is fighting(called ‘stance’).

Small weapons and defensive stance produces lessdamage than larger or more aggressive stance does. As

outlined on this table:

The number after the slash on the table above is theadditional damage done for each level of success (LoS)that an attacker achieves, so a medium weapon used inneutral stance does D8/1 damage, the /1 indicating one

extra point per LoS.

Last point, armour reduces damage rather than makinga target somehow harder to hit.

WOUNDS INJURIES. WC represents general resistance to injury. In a way, it ishow many cuts and knocks a character can absorbbefore suffering real injuries and the chance of death.

Characters can go into negative WC, up to a limit equalto their normal maximum value. However, once they are

reduced to 0 or less WC any damage taken will alsocause a Specific Injury.

The severity of the injury is determined by comparingthe damage done by the blow to the characters max WC.

For example a blow causing damage less than 20% ofmax WC would require a roll on the Minor injury table,whereas a blow causing damage of more than the max WC in a single hit would require a roll on the Massiveinjury table instead!

Many of the injuries received from the more severe

blows may take many weeks to heal and even havepermanent effects.

FINAL NOTEObviously there are many other rules and detailsconcerning combat in the dangerous world of OrbisTerrarum, but such matters are best left to the rulebookitself.

Sufficient to say our intention always is to provide asimple to execute system with enough detail andnuances of option to allow those that enjoy such things

to utilise them without giving unfair advantage to thosethat prefer a more descriptive or simpler approach.

Defensive Neutral Aggressive

Small D4 / 0 D6 / 1 D8 / 1Medium D6 / 1 D8 / 1 D10 / 2

Large D8 / 1 D10 / 2 D12 / 2