CAVERNS & CHAMELEONS!

Part 5: Bloodletting

Caverns & Chameleons Copyright © 1980, 1983, 1997 Mark Rose & Chris Adams. All rights reserved.

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Combat Squabble

Combat squabble takes place when the attacker (termed by some "attacker") swings at the victim (termed by some "victim") with whatever is available. Procedure: First, the attacker speaks aloud a number from 1 to 100. Next, the victim speaks aloud a different number using the same scale. Whoever has spoken the higher number wins. To make it more interesting, when combat squabble takes place, the players become equipped with real swords, arrows, etc. to show how their characters moved in the cavern. Loser is handed his head.

 

Poisoned Weapons

These are weapons that have been poisoned. If struck by one, a character must amputate part of body hit. If he is hit in the stomach, he might have a little problem.

 

Fire

To utilize fire as a weapon, a party must hire one of the sub-class Raving Pyromaniac. He must be supplied with any number of oil flasks, which he will spread amongst the ground, and light it via psychotic inferno power. It is advisable to eliminate the Raving Pyromaniac after he has accomplished his task, for if kept in the party on a long trek, he may decide to set fire to one of the dwarven partymembers, with dire consequences.

 

Holy Seltzer Water

Holy seltzer water comes in pre-measured units called bottles. These bottles are very expensive, but can usually be found at seltzer mines, on the bodies of Holy Joes, or at church bazaars. As fire does not affect the unliving, seltzer water causes any of these foul, putrid creatures to disintegrate into moldy piles of dead whatever-they-were-before-they-became-unliving tissue. Contrary to popular belief, other creatures are affected by holy seltzer water, as it causes them to be wet (at least) with an 85% chance of becoming annoyed.

 

Missile Fire

No projectiles of any kind may be used on a quasi-sexual communist vegetarian, if there are any in the party, as it will affect their karma. Although missiles cannot be fired in the caverns, (they would bring down the roof, wouldn't they?) a break in the cavern may be found, and the missile artillery team may then be employed.

Missile Range Table

 ICBM          13"

 Trident         17"

 TOW          78"

 SAM          50'

 Paper Airplane  20,000 miles

 

Cover

Military term: "Strategic Camouflage"; Popular term: "Cowardice".

A character is covered only if he has taken out a life insurance policy with any major company-in the past six weeks, or if premiums are fully paid. A character cannot be insured for more than 25 cents, considering his/her extremely high liability.

 

Who Gets The First Blow?

When a situation arises that a squabble round is conducted in a highly sexual manner, there is always the confrontation of who gets the first blow. When a case such as this arises, the first blow is generally considered to go to the character with the lowest impotency/frigidity score, unless that character has a shyness score over 15. A shyness score of 18 must be coaxed vigorously to accept the first blow.

No, I Meant: Who Gets The First Hit?

Acid is a very prevalent commodity in the universe of C&C. It can be obtained from a character of the AC&C class, Dealers (sub-designation Drug.) When two addicts meet and wish to participate in squabble, one must roll the specially-prepared Controlled Substance Die, and...

Alright Wiseguys, Who Gets Their Skull Cracked First?

When two characters come in contact with each other, the first thing they want to know is: how much money does my opponent have?; and the second is: Is my opponent larger or smaller than myself? When encounters of this sort occur, players will need to know who gets their skull cracked first, or whose spleen is made into pancakes (take your choice).

The person with the best clumsiness rating always attacks first, due to him/her accidentally stumbling into the opponent with weapon raised.

After a few hundred futile and ineffective die rolls to determine initiative, surprise and color of opponent's underwear, players may decide to lose, withdraw, surrender or perish (q.v.).

Note that if a player approaches another being from behind, the player always gets to attack first. This is known as cowardice (q.v.).

 

The Parry

The most widely accepted ways to parry a strike in squabble combat are: 1.) run away, 2.) deflect the strike with your head, or 3.) strike your own body before your opponent can!

 

Squabble Resolution: Lose, Withdraw, Surrender, or Perish!

Squabble round always ends in a player's character either losing, withdrawing, surrendering, or perishing. This allows for a fascinating combination of possible resolutions as: 4 characters out of 5 withdraw, the 5th perishes; 3 surrender, 2 withdraw; or 4 perish, 1 loses.

 

Combat Squabble Examples

After reading the rules for combat squabble, some of you more dim-witted readers might have a little trouble understanding. So, we attempt to help your slow minds by presenting these examples:

First Example: "Donald the Dolt" runs straight into a wall, turns, falls through a secret door, and is there confronted by 426 applejacks, all in their unsoggy state. In accordance with the new FDA applejack code, they attack one at a time. The first applejack nears Donald, who throws a rock at it. Donald's clumsiness is 18, the applejack's is 3. When the rock was thrown, Donald rolled a 17, but the stone merely glanced off the applejack's cinnamon-toasty armor. The applejack slices him in half with a butter knife, and tramples him.

Second Example: "Weird Wally the Wild Wizard" leads his party of nine into a darkened room. Flicking on the light switch, Wally sees a score of lusciously curved succubi with nary a loincloth to hide themselves. Rolling an 18 on his erection dice, Wally charges for the queen, the largest of all by far. She appears to graciously accept his drooling self, but at the last moment pummels him with a huge rubber mallet she had hidden in her cleavage, Wally scoring no hits. The other succubi try to take a nap. Wally, still desperate, tries to pin "Voluptua the Priestess and Then Some" of his own party to the floor. Meanwhile, "Tex of the Twelve Inches" leads the rest of the men forward to wrest the succubi's treasure. Tex takes on the queen, who immediately surrenders. The others draw off two or three succubi each, and everyone soon scores, except for Wally. Voluptua knees him in the groin, and Wally crawls away with but 1 life point remaining, hoping to find a magic cold shower somewhere to regenerate.

Third Example: "Malicious Mary" and "Magic Marlo" have just entered a second level room. They are instantly killed.

Comment: The last example explains clearly the procedure of battle and should be referred to by anyone who does not understand.

 

Saving Throws

This rule will be brought into play when a character has been attacked. He gets a saving throw to try and escape the attacker's wrath. The only problem with the saving throw is that the roll must be at least one point above the highest possible die number. For instance: "You must roll a seven on one six-sided die."

 

Nasties' Saving Throws

Nasties receive saving throws just like the irresponsible characters. But there is one small difference. Whereas the characters have every possibility of being blown to smithereens, nasties are always saved, and are replenished with extra life points.

 

[Part 6: Nasties]

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