Unusual Attacks

Play

Moss is in the middle of a duel against a rival Knight that’s been tormenting him.

Moss: Right. So instead of swinging my cudgel I’ll draw my dagger and try to stab him right through the eye.

Ref: Erm… hang on.

Ref flicks through the combat rules, thinking about how best to make a ruling

Ref: Okay, so what are you actually trying to achieve with this? Like kill him in a single stab? Blind him permanently? Temporarily?

Moss: Hmm, I want to make sure even if I can’t kill him I’ll leave him without an eye.

Ref: Right. I mean as far as killing him goes, you’re already trying to do that with a normal Attack. You could do a Smite if you really want to try to take him out, but if it’s more about leaving a lasting mark we could… hang on…

Ref looks through the rules a bit more

Ref: Yeah how about we do it as a Smite but instead of the extra Damage you’ll leave a mark. Probably only makes sense if you actually Wound him too, so you’ll need to take him down to 0 GD. I don’t think you could do this to any old opponent, but here there’s clearly hatred between the two of you.

Moss: Yeah that sounds fair.

Moss rolls his Attack and successfully Wounds his enemy. He fails the Save to avoid becoming Fatigued.

Ref: So sure enough, you thrust your dagger at his eye and… urgh, you get the idea! He clutches his face, screaming, but he’s still standing. You breathe heavily, feeling the adrenaline running through your body.

Thoughts

Even with Feats, Gambits, and Scars, players will sometimes want to cause a specific effect with their Attack. Here Ref falls back on the standard Action Procedure. It’s easy to get bogged down in the specifics of what the character is doing, but here it’s useful to know what the player is actually trying to achieve.

Ref could have absolutely ruled this as an attempt to perform a Gambit, but I understand that this eye-gouging attack might feel beyond the scope of that rule. I think ruling it as a Gambit with a Clarity Save to dodge the stab would work just fine, encouraging the player to Smite to improve their chances of getting a Strong Gambit.

It’s good that Ref clarifies that with a normal attack the character is already assumed to be trying to cause maximum harm to their target, and going beyond that is usually covered with a Smite. Taking this as a starting point, they change the Feat to apply extra long-term harm instead of simply improving the normal Damage of the Attack.

Importantly, the details of the ruling are explained to Moss before he confirms he wants to go through with it. A player might then decide it’s no longer worth it. At this point the Referee can suggest an alternative, or the player might decide to go ahead with a normal Attack or Feat.

I also appreciate that Ref made it clear that this is a bespoke ruling for the current combat, leveraged by the established hatred between the combatants. If Moss tried something similar in another situation the ruling could be different.

There’s clearly a bit of discomfort from Ref in having to describe the eye-gouge. In a game with this much opportunity for combat, and a system for Scars, there’s always going to be a bit of gore, but it’s perfectly acceptable to draw a veil over the grisly details if the group isn’t fully comfortable with them, as Ref does here. This is something that becomes easier to judge through experience playing with the same group.