If you want to get medieval on yo’ game…

PART ONE: Character creation.

Character creation for UADA is pretty much the same for UA. Some of the free skills have a few changes from UA2.

STATS & SKILLS
All skills start off at 15% except Initiative, which starts off at half of Speed.

BODY
Battle – Battle is the trained version of Struggle. Battle indicates some sort of proficiency and training with weapons. Struggle is still used by peasants who are forbidden to carry weapons or train in combat.

Heartiness – This replaces and extends General Athletics. It has an important function with healing which is very important later on.

Ride – this is the Driving of the time. Deal with it.

MIND
Conceal – No change is required.

Shoddy Education – much like General Education, except that one needs 25% or better to be literate but also gets to be able to use Latin too.

Notice – No change is required but it is also used for mechanical missile weapon combat.

SOUL
Lying – No change is required.

Charm – No change is required.

SPEED
Dodge – No change is required.

Initiative – initiative remains the same with a few additional changes regarding combat and missile weapons. Initiative starts off at half of Speed. Default initiative (see below) is valued from the Speed stat.

PART TWO: Combat in the round.

Rounds
Rounds are counted up from one up. Every ten counts make up one round. The lowest initiative is fastest. Players can choose to roll initiative or keep their default initiative.

Rolling initiative
The Initiative check is rolled before combat. The character moves every fifth count afterwards – sometimes twice in a round.

Success – pick the lowest single number off the two dice.
Failed – pick the highest single number off the two dice.
Above Speed – initiative is the sum of both dice.

An initiative that exceeds ten only moves on the next round. An initiative of 13 only goes on third count of the second round.

Default initiative
Default initiative is the inverse of the Ten’s value of character’s Speed stat. A character with 30 Speed has a default initiative of 7.

Initiative Modifiers
Heavy weapons and armour also slow people down. Add up all the initiative modifiers from weapons and armour and add the final result to the characters’ round count. Initiative modifiers cannot be reduced lower than +0.

COMBAT & WEAPONS
To attack an opponent, you must roll your Battle skill.

Weapons are dealt in a slight variant of the standard UA combat rules. Weapons are divided into two classes, those that do Hand-to-hand or H2H damage and those that do Firearms or FA damage.

Missile and melee weapons also use both H2H and FA damage (see below).

All weapons do uncapped FA damage plus modifier on a successful matched pair.

COMBAT WEAPONS
·H2H damage is the sum of the Battle check’s two dice added together.

·FA damage is the number rolled. A damage cap is the maximum result a character can roll. Any higher number is lowered to the cap maximum. Modifiers can subsequently increase the damage above the cap.

·Melee weapons damage is capped by the user’s Body stat.

·Missile weapons damage has specified maximum damage ceilings.

WEAPON CLASS DAMAGE SYSTEM
One-handed weapons H2H damage plus modifiers
Two-handed weapons FA damage capped by the user’s Body stat plus modifiers.

Damage Modifiers Initiative Modifiers
Big +5 +1
Heavy +5 +2
Sharp +5 –
2Hands* +5 -1

*Includes two-handed weapons and one-handed weapons used two handed. Small weapons like daggers cannot be used two-handed. The initiative modifier only includes one-handed weapons used with two-handed.

Unlike modern day UA, medieval weapons were generally heavy as a standard but not all of them required two hands to weild correctly. Using two hands gave the weapon extra bite.

Weapon Damage Modifier
Dagger +5: sharp
Mace +10: big and heavy – can be used two-handed
Polearm +15: big, sharp and two-handed.
Broadsword +10: heavy and sharp – can be used two-handed
Hand-&-Half +20: big, heavy, sharp, and two-handed

MISSILE WEAPONS
Missile weapons require much more of a keen eye, timing and judgement that the hacking of melee weapons. Bows and crossbows roll Notice checks to shoot. Other missile weapons roll using Battle.

MISSILE CLASS DAMAGE SYSTEM SPECIAL EFFECT
Arrow* FA damage capped off at 40 Ignores Mail Defence

Quarrel FA damage capped off at 90 Ignores Mail and Leather Defence

Spear** H2H damage Big and sharp, +10 damage

Stone H2H damage Heavy, +5 damage

Thrown Dagger High pick Sharp, +5 damage

*Arrows from longbows are capped at 60 and include a +10 modifier from two-handed and sharp.

**Spears are missile weapons, polearms are two-handed weapons.

All missile weapons can be fired once every round with an accumulating +1 shift to initiative. Quarrels can only be fired every other round, as it requires one round, and a Body check, to winch and cock a crossbow.

DEFENSE & ARMOUR
A character can defend his person in two ways, standard defence and full defence.

STANDARD DEFENCE
Each unarmoured character has one basic Defence die, which is useless alone. Armour and shields are designed to take the force of a weapon blow, but not always. Armour and shields give accumulating defence dice. Defence Dice are rolled with a Dice Crash like car accidents in UA (see below).

Armour Initiative Modifier Defence Dice
None +0 1
Leather +1 1
Mail* +1 1
Shield +1 1
Tower Shield** +5 0

After a successful blow roll Defence Dice and rearrange the dice so two can exceed the attacker’s Battle roll, but below the defender’s Speed stat. An unsuccessful Defence Dice roll injures the character and damages his armour by reducing it by one die. A successful Defence check against a successful matched pair from an opponent also reduces the Defence Dice pool by one die.

*Mail has to be worn over leather armour so mail is actually worth two Defence Dice.
**Tower Shields are huge, slow and unwieldy, but give two Defence Dice against missiles not weapons.

FULL DEFENCE

Parry with a weapon or shield
Instead of attacking, you can roll your Battle skill and if it is under your opponent’s Battle skill, your weapon parries his blow. A shield may be used, but the character loses the Defence Die for that round. A character can parry twice in a round if he has two actions in a round.

Dodge
A character can avoid a blow if he is quick enough. He must opt to dodge instead of attack. Ill-equipped opponents are most likely to dodge incoming blows.

HEALING & WOUNDS

The character’s Wounds also indicate the current level of his Body stat. As a character is wounded his Body level drops.

When a character is hurt in battle and rests afterwards roll a Heartiness check. If it succeeds he heals the sum of the two dice.

If he fails but is under his Body stat, nothing happens except that he remains unhurt.

If he rolls above his Body stat, he gets infected and feverish and loses one extra die of his Wounds. He can try rolling in a week. Characters who are infected can only roll significant checks for their skills.

A character that has lost more than 10 Wounds never recovers properly. His next best Wound level is ten worse than what it was previously.

MAGIC
Magic is plugged directly into the divine order of the day. Magic is not as freeform as it is in the twenty-first century, but then there are no schools determining magic value systems – there is only one paradigm for the European magician. All Western magic is currently based upon some sort of divine blueprint, whether studying it like cabbalist rabbis, or monitoring it like magi, or trying to usurp it like demonic dabblers.

The creation of the universe by God is the current irrefutable law of physics; no one even thinks about questioning this at this time. No exceptions permitted.

Magic only uses rituals modified for the time period – but adept rituals can be used if appropriate. Rituals do not use charges but drain the sorcerer’s very spirit. Each ritual is a separate skill unto itself. Every ritual has a starting skill equal to the sum of two dice. The Soul stat is reduced by the same roll. This is regardless is the ritual is minor or significant in power.

Every time a ritual is attempted, roll the ritual’s skill. If the ritual is minor reduce the sorcerer’s Soul stat and every Soul-based skill by the sum of two dice. If the ritual is significant, the sorcerer’s Soul stat and all his Soul skills are reduced by two dice flip-flopped to the highest result.

If a sorcerer wishes to use a skill that has been reduced to zero or lower, he can try by rolling a Hail Mary.

If the sorcerer’s Soul is ever reduced to zero or below, he cannot roll any Soul or Soul-based skill checks; he exists in an exhausted fugue state until recovered.

The sorcerer does not die at low or zero Soul but he may become extreme susceptible to other magicians and spirits.

Sorcerers regain one point of Soul per day if they’re alive.

Rituals and spells
The Tilt rules are effective as minor curses and hedge magic. The familiar rules from Break Today are good for use as is.

Certain rituals, adept spells and artefacts can be easily converted (demon stration tape can become a magic circle against demons) and the Hand of Glory is simpler to recreate than in the modern days. Ghost Vintage can be the providence of Chaldean wizards trapping spirits in bottles. A GM and player may back-engineer magic from other game systems if they’re appropriate.