While you may choose not to include very much — if any! — combat in a Ryuutama session or campaign, there’s no denying that combat is a central part of the Zelda franchise. Your average citizen may never have used a weapon in their life, but it’s unlikely that anyone who sets off an adventure will get very far without at least a little defensive strategy on their side.
In order to better represent the action-filled combat of The Legend of Zelda, here are some alternate rules and options for a slightly more dynamic battlefield and combat movement. This system assumes your campaign is also using the alternate Health and Damage rules from Zeldatama as well, though could be adapted for use with the base rules.
Many, many thanks to the folks on the Kotodama Heavy Industries Discord for helping me brainstorm and providing suggestions and feedback!
The Flow of Combat
Use the flow of combat (pg.116) with the following adjustments:
- Decide on the number of 3×3 tiles your battlefield will contain
- Decide on at least 1 object or terrain feature per number of tiles
- Determine Initiative
- Starting with the lowest player initiative, place one object per player. The GM may place any remaining objects
- Starting with the lowest player initiative, players will place their characters. The GM will place one enemy in between each character placement, with any remaining enemies placed after the final character
- The PC or monster with the highest initiative acts and moves, or moves and acts, followed by the next highest, etc.
- After everyone has gone, the round is over, and step 6 repeats until combat is concluded
Use the rules on page 116 for Conditions for the Start and End of Battle, and Initiative.
As it becomes apparent hostilities have erupted, everyone scrambles to get to an advantageous place. Starting with the lowest initiative, place one of the objects your group decided upon somewhere within the battlefield. Then, in the same order, place your character somewhere on the battlefield.
The GM will place enemies in between each player placement (if there are more enemies then party members, the remainder are placed at the end), and any remaining objects after all players have placed an object.
In the case of an initiative tie, play rock, paper, scissors (or determine your own flavor of tie breaker), with the winner deciding whether to go first or second for placement. As always, characters with tied initiative will act at the same time during actual combat rounds.
Surprise Attacks
In lieu of “The group that was surprised all start in their Front Area” (pg.121), use “The group that was surprised all place before everyone else, and must be within four squares of each other.”
Other Rules
Unless otherwise replaced below or in the Health and Damage rules, retain all core combat actions and rules.
Setting up the Battlefield
Use this information and the information about range below in lieu of the The Battlefield section on page 117 and the Setting up Objects section on page 118.
In this modified version of Ryuutama combat, the Battlefield is a dynamically-sized field composed of multiple 3×3 tiles. A good rule of thumb is that your battlefield should contain at least four 3×3 tiles and no more than 12 tiles.
Take into account the number of allies and enemies, and the area you are in when deciding — and of course, the size of your playing space!
If the GM has not pre-determined the size and shape of the Battlefield, work together to determine one that makes sense for where you are traveling. For instance, a narrow ravine may only be two squares across and long, while a wide-open field would be more likely to be square.
You can use objects to make more narrow battlefields as well — for instance, if you’re fighting in an alleyway, some of your objects may be the walls of the adjacent buildings, and occupy space on the battlefield, making conditions fairly cramped!
One square of the 3×3 area is abstracted to roughly the amount of space an average sized person will occupy. The provided races would not exceed this dimension, but some enemies may occupy a different area size, particularly very large or long enemies!
Melee
Melee covers close combat: anyone within 2 squares is considered within melee with each other. Short range weapons can be used to attack at melee range.
Some weapons, such as polearms, may allow the wielder to attack outside of melee range, and very short ones, such as daggers and unarmed strike, may only allow the wielder to attack within one square.
However, a character is considered “in melee” with any enemy within 2 squares, regardless of the range of their weapon.
Ranged Combat
Anyone or anything more than 2 squares apart is considered at a ranged distance from each other: spells and projectile weapons (with the ‘Ranged’ range can be used across the entire battlefield, but beware of objects that may be considered obstacles!
If a character can be reasonably assumed to see into a square (such as, from a height or with a completely unblocked view) is is within line of sight. If a square is obscured, such as by foliage or fog, take a -1 penalty to accuracy checks when attempting to fire into or past it.
Solid objects block projectiles, including projectile spells, whether you can see through them or not. Some area of effect spells can be cast through solid objects, assuming the caster can see the other side (such as through glass). People hiding behind a solid object cannot be targeted by line of sight… but if the object isn’t very tall, beware bombs and other thrown objects!
Objects
As in the normal Ryuutama rules, objects are determined together before the fight. However, if an object takes up physical space, it will be placed on the battlefield during initiative placement. You may use anything to represent these objects — specially created terrain objects, items you have around the house, printed tokens, notes on a dry-erase map– even just appropriately sized pieces of paper. Large objects CAN be placed on multiple tiles at once.
Although the number, size, and nature of objects should always suit the situation, bear in mind that too many very large or impassable objects may make your fight harder than it needs to be! If your ranged fighters can’t get line of sight or your melee fighters can’t cross over obstacles to get within melee range, the encounter may prove more challenging than needed! But don’t forget — monsters can use objects too!
To use an object, you must describe how you use it, and work with the GM to determine if that conveys a bonus, and what kind. For example, if you hide behind a wall, an enemy may take a penalty of -1 or -2 to try and hit you. Or, if you successfully shoot an explosive barrel with an arrow, it will explode and damage the surrounding area!
Objects may or may not be used up in this fashion — a wall is not going to disappear when someone hides behind it, but that explosive barrel isn’t going to explode twice! If an object is reasonably used up in this way, remove it from the battlefield (you may also just replace it with the fallout — a wall that has been bombed leaves debris, of course!).
Inventory items are not considered objects, but can be used in combat!
Terrain Features
Combat may of course take place in a variety of terrain types, but in combat, terrain may be more granular. Terrain features are specific types of “objects”. For instance, in Grassland terrain, you may find small ponds, mud pools, river banks, or if the weather is cold enough, deep snow, etc.
Most squares will contain normal terrain: open or lightly populated spaces that take a normal amount of effort to move through. These squares offer no movement penalty.
When moving through a square that is composed of difficult terrain, every square you move through counts for two. Whether terrain is considered difficult is situational: for instance, a Hylian may find waist deep water difficult, but a Zora would be just fine. Work with your GM.
Link begins his turn on the middle square of a 3×3 patch of grass, and may move up to 4 squares with his DEX of d8. However, the next 3×3 tile over contains a thick, muddy swamp. He moves one square over on grass, and has 3 movement left. He steps onto the mud, which reduces the amount of movement he has left to 1. He could move back onto the adjacent grass, but cannot move further into the mud.
Movement
In addition to your main action during Combat, you may move up to [DEX:max]/2 squares in any direction–straight or diagonal. You may move freely through allies but may not move through enemies or obstacles. You may either move before or after taking an action, but cannot split up your movement into multiple phases.
Moving Past Enemies
If you pass within 1 square of an enemy that is not otherwise engaged in melee, they may make a melee attack against you. If successful, this halts your movement.
Elevation and Climbing
You may climb certain objects, such as ladders, trees, or cliff faces, but doing so uses your action. Standing on top of or walking over an object that is half your height or less does not require a check or use an action, but counts as difficult terrain. A good rule of thumb: up or down is climbing, but over is simply moving.
Make a climbing check [DEX + STR] with a target number determined by the GM based on the climbing surface and weather. On a critical success, you can still attack with a ranged weapon or cast a low level spell after climbing up. On a critical fumble, you fall and take 1 heart of damage. Once you are on top of a tall object, you may gain a +1 to accuracy on ranged weapons and spells, at the GM’s discretion.