2 - The Art of Pulp Combat (or "Ow! Ma, he hit me!")

"Think of it. On the surface there is hunger and fear. Men still exercise unjust laws. They fight, tear one another to pieces." – Captain Nemo, 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea

Imagine reading a sci-fi book without the shoot-out with aliens…Kinda Boring, eh? In a good action/adventure story, there has to be situations in which the character engages in fisticuffs with the baddie. This is where combat comes into play. The Pulp System tries to make combat a simple, quick process. The basic rules don’t contain mishaps, critical hits, hit locations, or any of the rest of the stuff that sounds cool but ends some making combat like a visit to the dentist with an impacted molar. Of course, due to the Pulp RPG System’s sense of self-confidence, it takes no offense to rules being added for the GM’s convenience.

The Combat Round

Most of Role-playing is a loose process, more like a story told by the GM than a board game, with strict do’s and don’ts. Combat, however, has to obey certain structures so that the game can run smoothly and fairly. Combat begins by the GM declaring it so. Who goes first and second and third, etc? The order of turns in combat is decided by the following formula:

Each participant (including NPCs) multiply their meat score by their brawl score and divide the result by 2 (i.e.: Meat*Brawl / 2) to get their turn precedence.

The participant with the highest result goes first, second highest goes second, and so on and so forth on down the line. This is to model that a person skilled in combat may not be physically quicker than someone else, and vice versa. There is a slot on the Pulp EgoSheet to record this value.

Because in reality, the time in one’s turn of combat would be equal to about 2 seconds, it is implausible that someone could finish a complex action, like repairing a damaged computer system or blacksmithing a new long sword.

Allowable actions in one turn during the Combat round include the following:

• Attack target
• Move one item from inventory to wearing, wielding, equipped slot and vice versa
• Use magic / psionic skill
• Use any skill that seems to take a few seconds to accomplish
• Use item in equipped slot
• Start a Multi-round action*

*Some actions can be started and finished in different combat rounds. These largely depend on the GM’s judgement. For instance, a astro-mechanic could try to get that lightdrive engine repaired while his friends hold the vicious, quadropedal Slogarian soldier drones at bay, but it may take him a few turns to accomplish the task. If an action is declared multi-round and requires a success roll, this roll is done on the ending turn of the multi-round action.

Attacking
During their turn, the Ego can attack a target. They do this by declaring their attack and rolling against their to-hit value.

The to-hit value is assessed by taking the applicable attribute (brawl for close combat weapons or eye for ranged/thrown weapons) and adding or subtracting from it as applicable to the weapon they are wielding (see items for more information).

If the player rolls a d100 under or equal to their to-hit value, they will hit the target.

The Dodge Roll
The target gets an opportunity to dodge the will-be successful hit by rolling a dodge. If the target rolls under the d100 result for the attacker’s to-hit, they dodge, and no damage is assessed to the target. Note: this is not the attacker’s actual to-hit value, but what they rolled on the d100.

"Makin’ Me Some Blood Puddin’!" (Damage and Healing)

Damage is inevitable in combat. Is an action movie believable when the hero simply kicks the bejeezus out of the baddie without a few cuts and scratches? Think Captain Kirk versus a PonFared Spock.

If the attacker hits, they roll for damage. The amount of damage is found by consulting the weapon wielded. If it is a close combat weapon, the damage is the Hand Damage of the ego (see Chapter 1) plus the damage of the weapon. If the weapon is self-powered, the damage is the damage of the weapon itself (This is also referenced in Chapter 3). The Damage is lowered by the target’s armor value (if any), and what damage remains is subtracted from the target’s guts score.
What happens when the guts score reaches zero? The ego enters a state of unconsciousness. An unconscious ego cannot take a turn in combat until their guts score is one or greater. They cannot do anything but lie there. An ego hit while in an unconscious state does not get a dodge roll, but the damage done is lowered by any armor they happen to be wearing.

If an ego’s guts score reaches a negative amount equal to half their max guts score, they are dead. For instance, if Joe Ego has a 50 guts score, and his guts reaches –25, he’s a stiff. Roll up another ego, cause unless you plan on waiting until the ego is resurrected (if that can even happen in the gameworld!), you ain’t gonna be able to do anything. You’re dead…kicked the bucket…getting very smelly.

What happens when the Mojo score reaches zero? The ego enters a comatose state. The comatose state acts the same way as the unconscious state.

If an ego’s Mojo score reaches a negative amount equal to half their max Mojo score, they are officially nutsoid. A nutsoid ego babbles, drools, and generally can be very annoying. This is a permanent state that halves the smarts and cool of the ego. Once nutsoid, the ego’s max Mojo score is one quarter of the previous max. The player can keep playing the ego at the penalties incurred.

Optional - Neuroses (for when an ego becomes nutsoid)
D10 roll	New Neurosis
01	Nail Biter Ego bites his nails incessantly...to bloody stumps.
02	Tourettes The Ego has uncontrollable spurts of cursing (-5 to cool)
03	The Fears For no reason, the Ego will curl up in to a ball, weeping and shaking.
04	Narcolepsy Ego passes out for no reason, on a regular basis. No matter what they are doing at the moment.
05	Fetish The Ego has an affinity for something, like leather, aluminum foil, whatever and will wear it on their body, as much as they can fit, as long as they can.
06	Multiple Personalities The Ego has mulitple personalities.
07	Self-mortification The Ego loves to cut and scar themselves. Whenever the Ego is unsupervised, roll against Smarts. On failure, -2 cool, -1 Max Guts.
08	Sadist The Ego loves to inflict pain on others, even friends. Note: this does not make a good traveling companion!
09	Germophobe Ego must be clean...boiling hot water clean...all the time.
00	Delusional Ego believes they are someone they are not, or believes that some supernatural force is either blessing them or hunting them down.

When below zero guts, the ego heals guts back at the rate of 1 point every round if not disturbed (i.e.: hit, jostled, thrown off a cliff, finger stuck in a light socket…you get the picture). If above zero, the ego heals guts back at the rate of 1 every 10 rounds, because the body is being stressed and does not devote energy to healing unless it absolutely has to. Healing does not apply if the ego is dead. Outside of combat, guts heal if the player declares they are resting for the equivalent of an eight-hour period. Of course, a successful first aid or medical ability performed on the injured ego by another may restore more than one guts (see chapter 1 – abilities for more information).

When below zero Mojo, the ego heals Mojo back at the rate of 1 point every 2 rounds if not disturbed (I won’t give examples again…). Again, if above zero, the rate is 1 point every 10 rounds. The ego must have special intervention if they have reached a nutsoid state to heal any Mojo back. This could come in a fantasy style game as a spell or potion and in a sci-fi style game in the form of brain trauma healing machine or somesuch. Once they have such intervention, Mojo will heal back to its new max score (1/4 of the previous max). Outside of combat, if the player declares they are resting for an eight-hour period, they regain their Mojo score.

An Example Combat Turn

To Stay with our Dune example, we will take an excerpt from the fight scene between Paul Atreides and Feyd near the end of the book.

It is Paul’s turn. His player declares an attack and rolls a to-hit against Paul’s brawl score (he is wielding a Crysknife, which does not modify the ego’s brawl score). Paul’s brawl score is 65. The player rolls 52 on a d100. Since the roll is under Paul’s brawl score, he will hit with the Crysknife.

Feyd gets a dodge roll. If his player can roll under Paul’s 52, Feyd dodges the blow. The player rolls a 34. Feyd dodges and Paul does not strike with the knife.

It is now Feyd’s turn. His player declares an attack and rolls a to-hit against Feyd’s brawl score (Feyd is wielding a Harknonnen knife, which increases user’s to-hit by +5). Feyd’s brawl score is 70 and if we add the to-hit bonus from the weapon, his functional brawl score is 75. That’s right. Feyd’s a bad*ss. The player rolls a 45 on a d100. Since the roll is under Feyd’s functional brawl score with the Harknonnen knife, he will hit Paul unless he can dodge.
Paul’s player rolls for dodge. He rolls a 62, which is a failure since it is not under or equal to the 45 that Feyd’s player rolled on his to-hit. Feyd Hits Paul.

Feyd’s player rolls for damage. Feyd’s meat score is 45, which puts his hand damage at D10-3. The Harknonnen knife has a +4 damage value. So, Feyd’s player rolls a 5 on a d10 and subtracts 3, arriving at 2 for damage. Adding the +4 for the knife puts his damage at 6.

Paul has no armor on him, but if he did, we would subtract the protection value of the armor from Feyd’s damage. However, since he doesn’t have any armor, we just reduce Paul’s guts value (40) by the amount of damage. So, 40-6=34; Paul’s new guts value.

This would continue on until combat was ended. See how easy Pulp combat is?