Melee Distances - Starter Set – Book 2 – page 36

[Trotsky]

Hi everyone – going to be running Pendragon for my first ever time on Friday and have a question about melee distance. It all generally makes sense but I am a little confused about closing and opening ranges. 

Do you only declare the distance when initially engaging – the rules ‘imply’ it happens at the start of each combat round?

‘A character wishing to move to a closer distance must first win their opposed Combat Action, at which point they close during Step Five: Combat Movement.’

I am presuming that range could also be extended in the same manner, or do they need to Dodge/Evade or spend a turn on moving?

Thank you

Edited July 9, 2023 by Trotsky

[Morien]

The way I'd GM it is that the two declare their preferred ranges at the start of the turn. If they start closer and one wants to open the range, that one has to win the opposed Combat Action. And same if they start farther apart and one wishes to close in.

If I am reading this correctly, if you are using a sword and face a dagger, you want to keep to Normal, but if facing a Long weapon (like a spear), you want to close to Close Quarters and render that spear useless.

To be honest, this is likely a level of granularity that I am not going to implement in my games. Getting a bit too nitty-gritty for me to track. 🙂

Edited July 9, 2023 by Morien

[Mugen]

I think it would be better to put all rules questions about the Starter Set in a single thread, in order to help any Chaosium staff member to answer those.