zilch / agony

Initiative

At the start of combat, determine the order of initiative. This is in order of speed, which is your Spades (or 1/2 Spades if Slowed). (For more randomness, +1d6 to this for each character. Or roll a single +1d6 for all PCs and another +1d6 for all monsters.)

Stances

Dominoes: Remove any blank-end dominoes before the start of the game. If you prefer, you can roll two d6s instead to simulate a domino. Or you can roll 1d8 + 1d4, treating the d8 as the "greater end" and the d4 as the "lesser end" regardless of the actual rolled values.

At the start of each round, each active character should announce their Stance for that round. Certain Conditions may limit your choice of stance. Draw a domino without looking at it and place it face-down so as to represent your Stance for that round.

In a surprise round, only those characters aware that combat has started get to draw a domino and act. The others are inactive and Defenseless.

Turn your domino face-up at the start of your turn. You may turn it over earlier only if you need to see the domino's pips to make a ♣ or ♠-based save or defense.

Combat Actions

After Stances have been selected, proceed in initiative order through characters until each active character has had a Turn. This completes the round.

1 Turn = 1 Full Action and as many Free Actions as makes sense. 1 Full Action may be converted to 1 Standard Action + 1 Minor action. 1 Standard Action may be converted to 1 Minor action.

Full Actions

Two-Weapon Fighting (2WF): If you are a Fighter or Rogue, you may fight with two light weapons or one heavy & one tiny weapon. You may divide your offensive pips as you see fit (min: 1 pip) between two Attacks this turn, making one Attack with each one-handed weapon. You may see the results of your first attack before targeting the second, and you may take a step between the two attacks.

Although usually used for melee combat, these rules can also be applied to equivalent ranged attacks. For example, a fighter could use them to throw a dagger and swing a sword, or even to fire a shortbow twice in a turn. As a Heavy weapon, a longbow would be too large to fire twice. Slings and crossbows take too long to reload regardless of size.

Ready: Only possible with a Cautious stance. You may make one Standard Action at a later time, after your current turn but before your next turn. If you specify the conditions you are watching for, you may attack just before that event, even if this is during another creature's turn. Otherwise, you may chose to act after any event. (Readying can be particularly useful in preparing a riposte melee attack on flying or invisible creatures for when they attack you. While you cannot anticipate an invisible attack, you can attack immediately after it while you still know the location of your foe.)

Retrieve: Find and pull an item from your pack. Requires a free hand.

Standard Actions

Attack: Use a physical weapon (including unarmed strike) to attempt to damage a single target. Compare your (Clubs + offensive domino pips) to your target's (Spades + defensive domino pips). If you equal or exceed your target's defense, you hit.

When you hit, you deal damage based on your weapon. In addition, for every 5 points that your attack exceeds your target's defense, deal +1 dmg. This base damage may then be modified if you are of a different Size than your target.

Charge: If in a Reckless stance and not Slowed, you may Charge as a Standard Action, moving up to your speed and also making a single attack at the end of the move.

Special Attack: Announce that you are making a Special Attack before resolving the attack. If you hit, you deal no damage. Instead, you roll a relevant contest. This is usually a Clubs roll on your part, with either Clubs or Spades for the defender, depending on how they are defending. If you win, you inflict a special effect on the defender.

Examples special attacks include: Bullrush (force your opponent back a number of squares equal to 1 + the number of points you won by); Disarm (opponent drops a held weapon/item), Grapple (you are now Grappling your opponent); Trip (your is opponent falls Prone or is pulled from a mount).

Certain modifiers may apply to the contest. For example, it may be hard to Trip a quadraped or impossible to trip a giant snake. Also, some creatures have abilities that let them automatically succeed at certain special attack contests.

Cast: This is essentially an Attack made with magic. See Magic for more.

Defend: Focus on protecting yourself, thereby gaining the advantage of your Guarded stance.

Use: Use a held item. For example, drink a potion, pour an oil, etc.

Minor Actions

Move: You may normally move a number of squares equal to your Spades. You may also usually swim or climb at about 1/4 that rate. If you take the Reckless stance, your may move up to 1.5x your normal Move rate (running) or up to 2x if in a straight line (sprinting).

Manipulate: Pick up an object, open a door, sheathe a weapon or store a held item in a handy body slot, guide a mount or vehicle, etc.

Shift Stance: Change your stance by one degree, such as from Bold to Reckless or from Bold to Cautious. You are still subject to any restrictions on your stance at the time of the shift, such as keeping a defensive stance if Threatened. You may not shift from a Guarded stance until after you've taken the required Defend action this turn (which means shifting from Guarded is generally useless since you would have no actions left after the Shift).

Stand: Stand up from Prone.

Free Actions

Various brief actions that take very little time or can be easily combined with other actions. Examples: Dive prone, drop an item, change grip on a weapon, draw a handy item, call out a sentence or two, move a step/square (once per turn and only if you have not otherwise Moved this turn).

Distances

Zilch measures distance in Squares. A Square can be 1 yard, 1 meter, 5 feet, or whatever. You can also use hexes instead, or just inches on the table-top. Zilch has the following distance categories:

• Adjacent: In a neighboring square, close enough to make a melee attack. (<= 1 square)
• Very Close: Reachable in one Move, even if Slowed. (< ~3 squares).
• Close: Reachable in one Move. Can affect with ranged attacks without penalty. (< ~7 squares)
• Medium: Reachable in two Moves or a short sprint. Ranged attacks suffer a -2 penalty. (< ~15 squares)
• Long: Too far away to reach in one Turn or to reach with thrown weapons; projectile ranged attacks suffer a -5 penalty. (< ~30 squares)
• Far: Within view, but too far to far way to affect (including with most spells).

Playing without a grid: Specific distances are occassionally mentioned in these rules for those that like precision in their gaming. However, Zilch assumes a dungeon environment. In the average dungeon, everything is usually Close--except perhaps in very large caverns or outside. This makes it easy to play without a battle map. Rather than tracking squares moved, simply estimate the general distance between two characters. If there is some question of whether a character has enough movement available--such as when a circuitous route is needed or the destination is on the edge of the range category--test Spades to resolve the issue. (Similarly, a Diamonds test can be used to adjudicate the boundaries of magical ranges or areas of effect.

Combat Modifiers

• Cover: If fighting from behind a corner, tree, or similar cover, you gain +2 defensive pips. If only peering around such cover, gain +5. Total cover means you cannot be seen or attacked. If your ranged target is engaged in melee combat with an ally, your ally will act as cover (+2) for the target. Similarly, two grappling characters provide cover to each other from attacks outside the grapple. Missing your target by only the cover pips or less means you hit the cover instead.
• Distance: As covered under Distances, ranged attacks suffer -2 or -5 at Medium and Long distances, respectively.
• Misc: The GM may always apply extra modifiers for various unusual situations that may arise that are not otherwise covered satisfactorily by the rules.
• Occluded: If your target is concealed by shadow, mist, foliage, etc, you are at -2 to hit (since you can see a only vague outline or part of your foe). If the target is Invisible (such as in total darkness), you must correctly guess the square/location (direction and general distance). Even if you guess correctly, your attack is still at -5.
• Size: Size categories are:

  Size	Long Dimension	Examples	Dmg Mod
  Tiny	~1' (less than 1.5')	breadbox or smaller	1/4x
  Small	~3' (1.5 to 4')	child, dog, sheep, chair	1/2x
  Medium	~6' (4 to 8')	human, donkey, door	1x
  Large	~12' (8' to 16')	single story, large horse, car	2x
  Huge	~24' (16' to 32')	trolley, bus	4x
  Tremendous	~60' (32' or more)	small apartment building	8x

  Creatures of non-Medium size should multiply their HP total by their dmg modifier (rounding normally). For example, a Small creature with 7♥ would have a max of 4 HPs (since 7 * 1/2 = 3.5, which rounds up to 4).

  Any damage dealt by a creature is also multiplied by the given dmg modifier for its size category. Apply this modifier to the total damage--after including any energy damage from a weapon or extra damage from pips or abilities--but before reducing due to armor. Round normally (meaning 0.5+ rounds up). Try to keep approximately the same proportion of different damage types in the result. For example, a Small creature wielding a flaming greatsword would deal (4 + 1) * 1/2 = 5/2 = 3 dmg. 2 points of this would by physical dmg and 1 point would be fire dmg.

  Attacking a larger or smaller creature may occasionally provide a modifier to attack, but not always. Attacking a smaller creature is not always harder. For example, it seems that stomping on a cockroach is probably about as difficult punching a wary stallion, despite the vast size difference. (Stabbing a cockroach with a dagger may be a different issue, though.) Generally, in melee, both combatants are dipping and dodging. Larger creatures do make bigger targets, but, especially in melee, you are still limited to only those vulnerable spots you can actually reach in order to successfully deal damage. Except for obvious or extreme cases, modifiers due to relative size differences can generally be ignored.

• Terrain: If the terrain is simply Poor (uneven, shifting, or narrow footing), you are Slowed. If the terrain is actually Treacherous, you are also Hampered. You may choose to make a Spades (Acrobatics) check to attempt to reduce these penalties by one degree. (CS: ignore all terrain penalties; CF: fall prone.)

Conditions

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