Classic Traveller - Combat
TOC
We start on 33 of the traveller book, the majority of the charts themselves are on pages 46-49. Combat in CT is 15 seconds per round, and simultaneous, with a flat 8+ to succeed. The roll is modified for distance, terrain, armor, etc.
Insofar as the particulars of the encounter, the referee is expected to know: Who or What? How Many? Why? How? When? and Where?
Person(s) or other things?
Why is combat starting? Failed negotiations? A vor-panther jumping the guy in the back of the line?
What is the environment like? Available cover? Weather? Lighting?
With that in mind, here’s the following flow outline on p.34:
In a number of cases, say, negotiations with the local mob reps at the teamsters office break down, the surprise will be who gets to draw weapons first - acting before the other side is aware the fight is even on. In many cases, surprise is “are both sides aware of each other?”. In CT that is a contested d6, where a side wins by rolling three better than the other. I find the modifiers on p. 45, which are related to party numbers, tactical skill, the presence of vehicles or advanced sensors such as in Battle Dress, incomplete, insofar as we’ve played at least one session where the party deliberately inserted away from a known location and took the effort to sneak in, under cover, unobserved.
In short, stealth/sneaking up is one of those things that will have to be adjudicated to a degree outside of the existing rules. Tactics applies to some degree, especially if there are patrols (as may be in the example above), but is not a universal fit.
On the other hand, how surprise is handled in terms of firing first is well handled.
Rules are included for determining the basic range of the encounter, as well as breaking off, and whether NPCs will break off.
Movement
Encounters can be played out on a grid or hexmap, but range bands are approximately 25 meters excepting the two closest bands for close and short range (the only ranges applicable to melee weapons), and for simplicity, the rules are explicitly built for “theater of the mind” where you advance or retreat by range bands - one for normal movement, two if running. Getting at least 20 range bands (500 meters) away entitles you to escape - though this may have to be adjudicated differently for vehicle combat.
Before each round, the characters declare if they are evading (may not parry, block, shoot, or attack), closing the range, opening the range, or “standing” (staying in place).
One thing to note- outside of surprise or “Special Considerations” such as Drawing (p.43) - all combat within a round is simultaneous. There is no initiative order, which could be massively important on a map (and is also missing in the Azhanti High Lightning supplement as well) when someone is trying to duck through a passage before someone else rounds a corner and sees them - so this system appears much better suited to theater of the mind. That means that even though you hit and disabled your target, he still gets his shot for the round, and may very well take you out.
The to-hit throw is modified by: whether the character has the strength or dexterity needed to wield the melee weapon or firearm effectively (or even an advantageous one), darkness, cover, range, whether a weapon is being “quick-drawn”, auto fire, and the type of armor worn by the target. Expertise with the weapon counts for accuracy and parrying (as applicable). The GM may apply other relevant factors.
Wounding is interesting. Few weapons are likely, on average, to do enough damage to kill a character outright, most of them do enough damage (2D6 or more) to have a good chance to knock a character out outright.
Generally, damage is applied in dice groups across the three physical attributes which also act as a hit point pool of sorts. If a weapon does 2D of damage, each die is allocated by the wounded player to one of the three physical characteristics. If one goes down to zero, the character is unconscious. If two go to zero, he is seriously wounded, and well, if all go to zero - well, time to roll a new character.
The first wound is special though. All of the damage is applied to one characteristic. That makes most weapons (almost all are at least 2D6, many, if not most, 3D6 or more) fairly likely to knock a character out on the first hit.
In Traveller, not getting hit is paramount. Even if you aren’t in vacuum or a corrosive atmosphere.
It’s worth noting that, outside of specific checks vs Strength, etc., there is no blanket combat bonus for strength or dexterity - every weapon has its minimum values which are required or you get a penalty, and a value over which you get a bonus.
You can shoot until your ammo runs out, but melee attacks are limited by endurance. Not per round, but for the combat. If your endurance is five, you get five blows or strikes in active combat before you are forced to used weakened blows, or rest. Surprise blows don’t count against this.
It is also in the combat section where weight and encumbrance are set - p.37 of the Traveller Book. A character can carry his strength in kilograms with no effect, twice that with a penalty of 1 to the characters effective STR, DEX, and END. Three times that - military load - at a reduction of two. Local gravity affects the possible load.
A character with a strength of 9 can carry 9 Kg (20lbs) with no ill effect. 40 Lbs at slight effect, and 60 Lbs with a large penalty.
It’s a reasonably clear-cut limit, but IRL, the recommended load for soldiers with little impact is around 50 lbs, or approximately 1/3 body weight, so not too much higher than the 2x load. That said, soldiers typically carry around twice that - which does have a significant impact on marching speeds and endurance, and is much more than the “military” 2x load.
Morale
There is a brief paragraph for morale. It’s unclear if it applies to the PCs as well as to the NPCs. I’m in favor of “no.” - the players can determine how much skin in the game their characters have.
Other Modifiers
P38 has some notes on non-standard weapons (how to account for better or worse quality, build, variations). After the weapons descriptions are notes on how to handle auto fire, shotguns (which laughably can hit multiple targets as an expected result), thrown weapons, reloading, and coup de grace.
Weapons Descriptions
Pages 38 through 43 is where Traveller lays out all the basic weapons types - daggers, cutlasses, polearms, clubs, various pistols, rifles, laser weapons, etc. , as well as accessories (telescopic sights) and armor. No fusion guns - that’s in Mercenary.
I can’t speak to the original LBBs, but the Traveller book includes some nice illustrations of the weapon types.
Conclusion
All in all - it’s a solid ruleset but does come a bit short for minis play where initiative over the course of a 15 second round can become important.
While you’re at it:
If you like good books, the guys at Pilum Press have a discord server. Drop in, and if you haven’t yet, pick up a copy of everything they have at their website.
If you’re more into games, check out the Autarch Discord server as well. There you will find discussions on ACKs, Ascendant, and a number of other non-Autarch RPGs and games like Traveller and D&D.