If you’re walking in on the middle of the Advanced Fantasy Dungeons series, there’s an index here.

I realise some people hate the idea of combat without location. But I hate the idea of grids and stuff. And most of the solutions I’ve seen seem overly complex. Here’s my take:

If you do not consider positioning on the battlefield important, consider this optional rule, and allow the GM to apply their discretion.

There are three ranks, equivalent to the three weapon ranges: Melee, Reach, and Ranged.

Each combat has one or more battlefields based on interesting and interactive landmarks or objectives involved. These areas each contain their own three ranks.

Melee weapons can only attack people in the melee rank from the melee rank.

Reach weapons can only attack people in melee rank from the reach rank.

Ranged weapons can attack from the ranged rank into any rank or other areas, but are likely to hit allies if firing into the melee rank.

Movement takes a character between adjacent ranks, or from ranged rank into an adjacent battlefield.

Areas of effect always affect an entire battlefield.

The idea is to minimise the presence of location to something that could be done on a scrap of paper without miniatures. Unless there are scores of enemies, you don’t even have to track who’s where. For a complex combat with five battlefields (seems excessive), you could manage with a three row, five column table on a notepad.

This has been a part of the Advanced Fantasy Dungeon Series! Let me know your thoughts on combat positioning, if there are questions left unanswered, whether I’ve overlooked anything glaring, or anything of the sort!

Idle Cartulary

22nd May 2022