You may have noticed that I hack combat systems a lot. This all stems from a year-long battle against Bloody Vs. Fight is beautiful and amazing, but it’s a nightmare to run with multiple combatants (or with multiple simultaneous fights). And I love range and cover too, but there often isn’t the space for it, or not everyone has ranged weapons. Bloody versus is handy for quick resolutions, but in my experience it can’t handle a large numbers of combatants without giving hilariously dissonant results because everyone who helps is tied to the failure conditions which are frequently very serious wounds.
So, here we are, the Clash manoeuvre. Quick resolution, following the RnC format, with directed attacks and sensical injuries.
In the earlier version I tried adding a new maneuver which would perform the function of a ‘melee clash’—something like a Bloody Vs. in the middle of a RnC—but I’ve since realised that the new method will work better: simplifying the range-interactions and allowing melee “shots” to be taken at Optimal range. Remember that distances in RnC are always relative so this all still makes perfect sense!
So this is a re-framed and simplified version of the usual Range and Cover rules. It makes two major changes from the original set: first it groups the weapons into five tiers (not unlike weapon lengths) which simplifies how they interact at different ranges, and secondly it allows for melee weapons make attacks at optimal and extreme ranges without needing to dive into a full Fight or Bloody Versus.
(And these two changes are pretty much independent so you could take them together or apart if you prefer the original relative ranges system or don’t care about adding melee to RnC).
Personally, I’m quite excited about this! But alas it seems that not many people even use RnC enough in the first place to feel this is worthwhile. Still, I figured I better post this update for those who care.