Basic Combat Mechanics

Melee Range
Combatants can only engage in melee they begin the round within Melee Range. Melee Range means that you can attack your target after no more than 15’ of movement. Melee range is always symmetrical: if A is within melee range of B, then B is also within melee range of A.

Riposte
If your melee parry achieves 3 or more Victories (before any Second Roll), you inflict damage on the attacker as if you had achieved 2 fewer Victories in an attack. Your foe gets no Defense Roll against your riposte.

Flanking
Melee attackers on different sides of a target (>90º) gives the 2nd attack Hit and Damage Advantage.

Brawling and Martial-Arts
Bare hands make poor weapons, but they are always with you and don’t need to be concealed. Martial Arts makes bare hands more effective by adding to your Second Roll. Your Brawling Attack gets Second Roll dice equal to the lesser of Martial Arts also allows you to parry and riposte with bare hands using Nerves + Melee + Marital Arts (no brawling).
 * your Martial Arts dice plus your brawling dice, or
 * twice your Martial Arts dice.

Pushing-Through (Dual Target Attack)
To push through a line of opponents, choose two adjacent foes and roll your melee attack. If your roll is higher than both foe’s Defense Rolls you break through the line and may (depending on Second Rolls) inflict damage against both foes. You can also use the Pushing-Through mechanic to target two adjacent foes even those foes are not part of a line.

Exploits
Exploits are combat options such as tripping, pushing, disarming or grabbing hold of an enemy. Start with your normal attack roll, then consider whether a different Attribute, General Skill, and/or Narrow Skill would be more appropriate. If so, swap the normal ability with the more appropriate ability. Do the same for the target’s Defense Roll. In the case of a result (such as being pushed off a high cliff) which greatly exceeds typical combat damage the loser may be allowed a Second Roll to mitigate the result.

Weapon Breakage
Check for item breakage only if the Attack Roll's Magic Number is > 3 (to break your foe's armor) or < -3 (to break your own weapon). If that same Attack Roll beats the Threshold rating of the item, then the item is broken. {Comment} We will start by treating items as having an 10 dice Threshold if masterwork, 8 dice if ordinary, and 6 dice if crude