Combat in Goldensword is designed to simple and straightforward, but still exciting and dramatic.

You get to roll cool dice, but we have minimized the amount of adding you need to do.

Basically, it works like this:

• you have a weapon
• you have skill with that weapon
• your enemy has defenses (determined by his agility and armor)
• the GM tells you what you need to roll in order to HIT (based on your weapon skill vs his defense)
• you do a quick roll
• if you HIT
  • roll for damage (dice determined by your weapon)
  • enemy takes that much damage off his Hit Points

Your attack and defense stats are calculated as:

• Attack = Agility + Weapon Skill
• Defense = Agility + Armor + Helm + Shield

You may carry multiple weapons, but (normally) can only USE one at a time which you can choose to use at time of attack (must tell the GM before attacking). We don't bother with penalties for switching between weapons (what's the point? it's not FUN). Different weapons have different skill level, damage, range, etc

• combat example
• health and healing