All About Arms & Armor

Weapons are all rated with a single number value, which is multiplied against the damage results on the action table (a number ranging from 1 to 5) if it hits target. This is based on the concept that a skilled combatant or assassin can kill with any weapon they are trained in, be it a bare fist, a knife, a gun, a sword or whatever. The knowledge of the weapon and the location struck can increase the deadliness of a simple weapon, and can make a sophisticated weapon devastating.

Most weapons are rated with a value between 1 and 10. Most non-missile weapons are in the 1 to 7 range, and nearly all the weapons above that are firearms or explosives of some sort. An Area effect Weapon or AEW(usually explosive) will potentially hit everyone in it’s targeted area, but you check to see if it has hit separately for each target in the area involved on the action table.

Auto-fire firearms are not common in Zamani, but may occur in other settings more frequently. Basically they are rated as any other ranged weapon, but have an RF rating. An RF of 1 means that when fired at a target, before the roll to hit, 1d10 is rolled to determined how many bullets are spent as part of the shot at the target. (An RF of 2 means 2d10 are rolled and added together for rounds fired). If the number is greater than the number of actual bullets remaining in the weapon, then it is reduced to that number instead. If the attack hits, then the number of bullets expended is added to the total wounds (before armor) inflicted by the attack (after the usual calculation of Weapon Damage * Table Result Value). Automatic weapons nearly always have a single shot option, to avoid the waste of too much ammunition. You can also ‘strafe fire’ with an automatic weapon, which turns the weapon into an area effect weapon (AEW) in a small arc forward of the shooter. In this case the RF does not add damage, but the number of bullets fired is the maximum targets that can be hit in the area of effect.

Armor, despite various real-world limitations and concepts, is done in an abstract manner. Basically it is assumed that no armor covers the entire body of a character, and that some strikes may hit exposed places, places where the armor is weaker or where it has joints or other connectors holding together that are vulnerable to attack. The action table thus has

So a basic armor type is chosen, rather than the details of the type and coverage involved. This has a set amount of protection, a numeric value, which is subtracted from the wounds of damage done by any attack that is not an ‘R’ result on the action table (‘R’ designates that armor does not apply) and the remainder affects the character.

If a character takes more wounds than they have wound points, then they are dead, plain and simple.