Using Poisoned Weapons

Weapons may be poisoned using specific insinuative poisons (such as bikh) that are applied carefully to a weapon prior to combat. It requires 5 rounds to prepare a weapon with poison. Weapons must be bladed or tipped: swords, daggers, the ankus, spears, bladed polearms, javelins and so on.

With arrows, the amount of poison (and its deadliness) will be limited by the surface space of the point that is prepared. So with arrows, a poison strength of no more than vex is possible.

Once a weapon is coated, it is very easy for the wielder to error in its use and be poisoned by drawing the blade against themselves. This will happen any time that a 1 or a 2 has been rolled on the attack die, whereupon the user of the weapon must make save versus the poison. Assassins can used a coated weapon safely without needing to make save whatever the attack roll, as they have been trained to fight so as not to touch the blade.

See Attacking in Combat

Grenade Missiles

A grenade is an explosive object, typically thrown, the descriptive originating with the word 'pomegranate' and influenced by Spanish granada - the many-seeded fruit suggested the fragmenting of a broken vessel, filled with liquid or powder. Grenades can cause area effect damage due to shrapnel or due to the splash caused by flammable or acidic liquids. Unlike the spread caused by siege and ship's weapons, however, most grenade-like missiles affect an area of only 4 hexes:

As the grenade shatters in the targeted hex occupied by Albert [A], in darker green, it causes full damage. At the same time, the three hexes behind Albert, one of which is occupied by Bertram [B], suffer from splash damage only. Depending on the particular kind of grenade missile being used, full damage and splash damage will vary.

Certain magical grenade weapons, such as chromatic orb, will affect a radial circle around the targeted hex - this is because the effect does not obey the laws of momentum as would objects such as flasks of oil or thrown acid would.

Roll to Hit

Grenade weapons are not hurled at opponents but at the opponent's hex, either with the intention of breaking a vessel to scatter its contents or the shards of the vessel itself. Some grenade attacks involve scattering liquid into a hex. In all cases, if there is more than one creature in a given target hex or splash hex, both will be equally affected by the grenade missile.

Because of its form of attack, the thrower need only hit AC 10 when attacking. A failure to roll AC 10 will result in a miss, noting that even misses have the potential to hit and scatter the effects of the grenade missile.

When a miss occurs, the attacker must make a dexterity check; a successful check will indicate that the thrower has achieved a near miss; a fail to succeed at the dexterity check will indicate a bad miss.

Near misses indicate that the the grenade has deviated one hex from the target. A d6 is rolled, with a given surrounding hex designated as '1' and moving in a clockwise circle around the desired target. This becomes the target hex and the full damage and splash damage is then calculated.

Bad misses indicate that the grenade has deviated two hexes from the target. A d12 is rolled, with a given surrounding hex designated as '1' and moving in a clockwise circle around the desired target.

Note that with a miss, it is entirely possible for the target hex to be designated as a hex containing an ally; the targeted hex may even be determined to be in back of the thrower, or in the thrower's hex. This may be due to the user's hand being knocked during melee or otherwise losing balance; in any case, such circumstances should be treated as a fumble. Actual fumbles, where the thrower rolls a natural 1, will indicate that the grenade has definitely fallen into the combatant's own hex. Splash damage will then affect the three hexes in front of the thrower.

Forms

The most common forms of non-magical grenade weapon:

• lamp oil, contained in a flask of clay or glass, with a sufficient wick that can be lit before the grenade is tossed. The vessel is meant to shatter and cause fire damage. The flask must be full. Attacks with this weapon require a hard surface for the flask to be thrown against, so that it will break and shatter, typically a stone flooring, wall or ceiling. The flask must fail save against the surface it is thrown against. If the flask makes save, the flask will roll and the wick will be considered to have gone out; thereafter, half the oil in the flask will drain out harmlessly. Full damage for a lamp oil grenade will be 2-8, with 1-4 points of splash damage.
• holy water, which may be contained in a thrown glass vessel or held and flung at undead or other worldly opponents (evil in nature), in order to cause damage. Like lamp oil, the vessel must break against a surface. A 4 ounce vial is assumed. If holy water is thrown, it will cause splash damage to both the targeted hex and splash hexes. Full damage can only be achieved if the holy water is opened, the vessel held by the attacker and the liquid within is hurled against an opponent within a 1 hex distance, causing splash damage to others in the area of effect. Full damage for holy water is 3-8, with 2 points of splash damage.
• acid, which can be employed as a weapon similar to the manner of holy water, conforming to the rules described above. Acid will affect most creatures. Full damage for an acid grenade is 2-8, with 1-3 points of splash damage.
• glass objects, describing any highly breakable object that will release shards when breaking. These objects will cause full damage of 1-3 points to the targeted hex, with 1 point of splash damage.

See Attacking in Combat

Using Found Objects as Weapons

A description of any improvised object that a character grabs in the midst of a combat, with the intention of employing it as a weapon: pieces of glass or metal, stools, boxes, books, lamps, even tables or benches. In most cases, improvised weapons are used in situations where persons would normally not go armed - bar fights or ballrooms - or in situations where combatants cannot afford weapons, participating in lynch mobs or riots.

There are two varieties of found weapons.

The first sort includes objects that strongly resemble traditional weapons: a rake can be considered a token pole arm, a broken bottle is a sort of dagger, a tree limb is a club and so on. In each case, treat the found object as the weapon it resembles. The limitations on weapons of this sort will not be in the amount of damage done (as it will cause the damage of a low-order pole arm, dagger or club), but in the sustainability of the weapon, which will be difficult to grip and easy to fumble and break.

The second sort of found object are those whose intrinsic value as a weapon is found in their weight, not in their shape or use. This includes objects unlikely to break, such as heavy books, furniture, chests, bricks and stones.

As a guideline for determining the damage that can be done with any uncertain found object, use the following table:

Smallest effective object is 0.3 lbs, or 9 oz.  All weights in lbs.
indicate "up to" that weight.  2 lbs. would include 1.1 lbs., for example

The part of the table describing the distance that found objects can be thrown applies to both kinds of improvised weapon - those resembling traditional weapons and those that do not. As found objects, balance and streamlining are lacking, so these objects can be thrown effectively a shorter distance.

Fumbles

When rolling a d20 to hit with a found object, it is three times more likely for a fumble to occur: that is, on a die roll of 3 or less, a fumble occurs. As well, when a fumble occurs, it must be noted that some objects, such as bricks or stones, will not break; however, if the object can be broken, it will be broken. In some cases, this may not mean that the object will break clean through (as a tree limb two inches thick probably would not), but the object will become split or otherwise ineffective for use as a weapon (treat as -4 to hit with thereafter).

See Attacking in Combat

Necrotic Damage

Necrosis is a form of bodily injury that results in the total death of living tissue by enzyme digestion. Because the body is not merely injured or the flesh ruptured, but completely dead, necrosis cannot be counted as a 'poisoning' of the flesh, nor a 'disease' - therefore, necrosis cannot be saved against as a poison nor cured as a disease. Furthermore, as necrosis is not a wound, the flesh surrounding the damage cannot be bound together by spells such as cure light wounds, cure serious wounds or cure critical wounds. These spells will only serve to close the body over the necrosis, while leaving the dead tissue under the skin where it can continue to spread and kill the body.

However, an aid spell will restore lost hit points to necrosis (though one must be a believer in the cleric's religion) as will a heal spell. Both healing salves and boric serum will be effective against necrosis.

Rest of any kind will have no effect whatsoever on necrosis-damaged hit points, nor will binding wounds. In fact, necrosis will have the opposite effect as rest, causing the affected creature to lose 1 hit point per level per day as the necrosis spreads through the body. Any necrosis damaged tissue that is left will continue to destroy health flesh at the same rate. This will continue until all hit points lost to necrosis are restored or the character dies.

Violet fungi, green slime, yellow mold and numerous other creatures cause necrotic damage.

See Damage