The Basics

So you want to be a Larper, then you will need to know some rules. Let’s start with the basics.

First you will need to choose your Race and Occupation. There are a few to choose from, for information on the various Races and Occupations see the character creation forum. For our example here we have chosen a Human warrior called Cedric.

Before Cedric buys any skills or amour his starting statistics will be:

1 hit point per location, 6 life points and 1 floating hit point

We will talk about life points later on so for now let’s look at hit points and floating hit points

HIT POINTS

These represent the amount of damage a location can take before it is damaged beyond use. The locations we use are head, chest, back, arms, and legs.

THE FLOATING HIT POINT

This represents a small cut anywhere on the body so the first hit you receive will be taken off the floating hit before your location hit points

If a limb is reduced to zero hit points then that limb is unusable. If this is an arm any object held in that hand must be dropped. If it is a leg then you can not put any weight on the leg and must drag it around. If the chest, back or head is reduced to zero then the player is rendered unconscious and must fall to the floor.

If a location is taken to – 1 or below then the location starts to bleed. Every 60 seconds the location will lose a hit point i.e. go to -2. If the location does not receive treatment then one of the following will happen: If the location is a limb and it reaches -5 the limb has “died” and the damage will then continue on to the chest again 1 point every 60 seconds to represent blood loss. If the location is the head, chest or back and it reaches -5 then the player is dead.

A dead limb or player can not be healed. So be careful out there.

Example:

Cedric has got himself into a fight; he gets hit in the left arm for 3 points of damage. Since our hero does not have any armour, his floating hit takes 1 point of damage, the rest are then taken by the location. His left arm is reduced to -1 hit points (1 – 2 = -1). At this point his arm is bleeding badly and he needs to find medical attention, luckily there is a church just around the corner.

So you see it is possible for a location to be dropped below 0 in one go.

Now Cedric is not going to fight again with out some Armour so he buys a full set of leather armour.

Leather Armour gives 1 Armour point per location it is worn on.

So Cedric’s statistics will now be

1 hit point per location, 1 Armour point per location, 1 Floating hit and 6 life points

Armour points are used first when calculating damage; let’s use the same example as before.

Cedric has got himself into a fight; he gets hit in the left arm for 3 points of damage.
His Armour takes 1 point of damage, his floating hit takes 1 point of damage and his left arm takes one point of damage. His left arm is reduced to 0 hit points
At this point he is unable to use his left arm however it is not bleeding and is not at risk of falling off.

So that is how damage is received. To sum up when you are working out if you are still standing or not you just need to follow this basic guide line. Armour – Floating hit – Location.

LIFE POINTS

Let us now look at life points, these represent your general health and well being. Different races start with differing amounts, but as we all ready know Cedric has 6 life points.

Life points can be lost through various ways which we will not list fully. As you lose life points and believe us you will, it is easier to think of it as the varying stages of becoming ill. So with that in mind let’s look at an example.

A scoundrel has put a basic poison in Cedric’s drink causing him to lose life points, the first two life points lost do not really effect him, he just feels a little under the weather – a bad cold perhaps. The third life point lost starts to affect him he feels tired and is having trouble concentrating – perhaps he has caught the flu. The fourth life point is really hitting him, he is now very tired and can barley walk, he feels weak and can hardly lift his weapon – something is very wrong with him, he should see a cleric. The fifth life point lost, he can not walk and is forced to crawl, his weapon seam’s to weight a ton and he is not sure if he can use it to defend himself or not. The sixth life point lost and poor Cedric has passed out.


Here are the standard rules for life point losses

3 Life Points Left

You cause 1 less point of damage with all physical attacks.
All ranked skills lose 1 level.
You can no longer sprint.
Spell casters lose access to their highest spell level/s.

2 Life Points Left

You cause 2 less points of damage with all physical attacks.
All ranked skills lose 3 levels.
You may only walk.
You lose any Dexterity Training/Mastery you have.
Spell casters lose access to their 3 highest spell level/s.

1 Life Point Left

You cause 3 less points of damage with all physical attacks.
All ranked skills lose 5 ranks.
You may only crawl.
Spell casters lose access to their 5 highest spell level/s and all spells cast cost double the normal power point cost.

0 Life Points = Unconscious.
- 1 Life Points = Death.

HEALING

So we have talked about how your character can be hurt, it is only fair that we tell you how you can be healed.

Healing can be done by one of three ways, by a Cleric or Templar, by potions or by a player that knows how to bind wounds.

A Cleric or Templar can pray to their god for healing this can range from 1 hit point to a full recovery. This will depend on the spell cast. If you wish to find out more about healing spells have a look at the Character Creation – Spells board on this forum.

Potions can also be used; these of course must be carried whilst you are out and about. There are different potions and can heal between 1 and 5 hit pints. If you are unconscious you must rely on a player giving you the correct potion and not making you drink venom – it has happened.

Bind wounds is a skill that most character classes can take. This gives you the ability to use bandages. There are two types of bandage to use. The first you can buy from your local church, theses have been specially treated and will heal 1 hit point on the location and also stop bleeding. The other is a strip of cloth torn from your own clothing, this will only stop you bleeding.

Life points life point can be recovered by either Sprit potions, A cleric or Templar you has the correct spells or via a darker method, which we shall not speak of here.

COMBAT

Please remember that you are actually hitting the other players and there are some rules to follow if you wish to participate in any combat.

1. We only use LARP safe weaponry; this is a fiberglass core with a foam surround. Rubber Latex is then used to decorate.

2. No stabbing – unless you own a stab safe weapon. The reason for this is the fiberglass core can punch through the foam and into your opponent.

3. Pull your blows – no one wants to go home injured so please pull your blows.

4. No head shots – Please do not aim for peoples head unless you do no more than gently tap them. Of course accidents do happen but we try to keep blows to the head to a minimum.

For any new comer it is usual to have them participate in a mock fight just to gauge the person’s ability to follow the combat rules.

Now for the fun bit, how you cause damage to your opponent. All characters start with the default ability to cause 1 point of damage for every hit with a weapon. This can be increased by skills which you can buy with your skill points. For example buying strength training will give you + 1 damage with all physical attacks. Not all classes have the same skills so take a look at the character creation board to see what your chosen class can take.

When you attack a player and have managed to score a hit you shout out your damage for example a standard first time out player will call “single” when a hit is made.

There are other calls that you may here during combat other than “Single, Double” Etc. There are to many to list here but an example could be “Single – Strike Down” this call indicates that the target takes 1 point of damage and a Strike down, which knocks the target off his / her feet. In summery your damage is shouted out as a number along with any other effect your character can cause.

Spell Casting

Those pesky mages can cause all sorts of trouble and if you are unlucky enough to run into a high level one even kill you with one spell.

There are many different types of spells all the way from the protection of Holy to the control of the Undead via Necromancy.

We will not go into to much detail about the individual spells and their effects here, (if you want to learn more you will need to visit the character creation board and look up the individual spell listings.) however we will discuss the way mages cast spells and how to defend yourself against them.

How Spells are cast

Spells use power points to cast; each mage has a set amount depending on his or her level. We use a very simple rule for the amount of power points it takes to cast each spell; which is, the level of the spell is the cost of power points to cast. For example Choke is a level 4 sorcery spell so it will cost 4 power points.

When a mage casts a spell he or she will need to vocalise it and point at the intended target.

The standard vocalisation is “By my power, then the spell name” so to cast Choke it will be “By my Power - Choke” of course if you are playing a druid you will use “by the power of nature – xxxxxx” or a priest / templar will use the name of their chosen God for example “By the power of Torass – xxxx”.

If you miss cast a spell, for example “By my power – coke” you will pass out for 1 minuet. You can of course be woken up by being slapped, prodded etc.

Spell Damage

The amount of damage you take for a spell depends on the spell cast; however it is worth noting that a spell will automatically strike the chest unless it is stated otherwise in the spell vocals

Direct or Area of effect

There are two types of spells direct or area of effect. As you can no doubt guess it is exactly as it states, direct does a direct effect to the target whilst area of effect (AOE) will affect everyone with in a set area.

Defending yourself

It is not easy to defend yourself from a magical attack. The most effective way is to stop the spell caster from speaking; this usually involves a pointy object, a quick charge and a lot of blood. However this tactic is not always available or you do not have anyone stupid enough to charge a casting mage. So what to do, well there is one sure fire way to defend yourself and that is with “Defies”

Defies are used to defy the spell being cast at you. Not all classes or races have access to these - warriors especially have difficulty with spell casting classes. There is however ways of getting defies either via a potion or a spell.

If you have the ability to defy a spell then all you need to do is call out “Defy” with in 10 seconds of the spell being cast. If you are defying an AOE spell then only you will be spared the effect.

There are of course some spell casters that are powerful enough to use an undefyable spell, so if you hear “By my undefyable power – xxxxxx” there is nothing you can do but shut your eyes and wait for the pain.

Over Burning

An over burn is when a spell caster uses more power points than he / she has. This is a bad thing and you will suffer the consequences.


So you now know the basics. It might sound confusing now but after a few sessions you will get the hang of it and if there is anything you don’t understand please feel free to ask either in the Q+A section of this forum or during a session.