For Part 1, click here.

Nappa’s Current HP:

During the first turn of the combat Tien lobbed two energy attacks at Nappa. While he was able to hit with both attacks, the damage hardly phased Nappa. Now it’s turn 2, Nappa can take 2 Lesser Actions or 1 Greater Action.

He has a series of choices:

• Lesser Action: Move to get into Melee Range
• Lesser Action: Engage in Physical Combat

 

• Lesser Action: Perform an Energy Attack
• Lesser Action: Move to get into Melee Range

 

• Lesser Action: Perform an Energy Attack
• Lesser Action: Perform an Energy Attack

 

While this list may not seem very diverse, these are the basic Actions available to the characters. Nappa has a lot of passive and conditional Abilities which we will see during this action. More specialized Characters (Goku, Piccolo, etc., and custom ones) could use this time to use a Greater Action while using an Ability like Multi-Form, Spirited Attack, Teleport Attack–or even some moves which require you to Power Up first such as the Kamehameha wave, Special Beam Cannon, among others.

For his turn, Nappa is going to move closer to Tien and then engage him in Physical Combat.

Movement

For every Rank in Agility, a character can move up to 5 feet in any linear direction. For Nappa’s Agility of 2, he can move 10 feet–the exact gap between the characters.

If you are using miniatures or any kind of grid while roleplaying, each space should be considered 5×5 squares, unless you’re using hexagons, then 5 feet from corner to corner. This makes it so that only character can be in any given space at a time, and for every Rank in Agility a character can move one of these spaces.

Physical Combat

This is when this engine really shines, in my opinion, apart from performing some of the iconic special abilities on the table top, the Physical Combat system with Combo Points and Finishers really brings these battles to life. While it is a little confusing at first, in practice, I hope you find the system fun and rewarding.

After the above movement action, Nappa is now going to try to engage Tien in Physical Combat. Before the Fighting dice start flying, Tien does have the chance to try to escape the altercation by making an Agility (with bonus dice from Acrobatics) test against a Fighting (bonus dice from H2H or Weapon) test from Nappa. If Tien attempts to escape and fails, then Nappa will be granted an additional Fighting test dice during the combat. Tien opts not to try to escape, but to take on the big man hand-to-hand.

It is also worth noting here that more than 2 characters can be involved in a Physical Combat. Perhaps I’ll show this as an example at a later time.

How This Works

Per the rule book, each character involved in the combat makes a number of Fighting tests equal to the attacking character’s (Nappa’s) H2H or Weapon Specialty, whichever is the attacker is using.

From here, the characters are trying to gain Combo Points by having higher rolls than each other or by having such a high roll that the difference between rolls surpasses the Physical Combat Defense of the other character. The purpose of Combo Points is to show the thematic elements of a typical Dragon Ball fight. Unlike other table top RPGs with one attacker and one defender, I want to show the true glory of the fights we all grew up watching and continue to enjoy. While Nappa is considered the attacking character here, if the dice don’t go his way, Tien could end up doing more damage in this exchange than Nappa. Let’s take a peak at the relevant stats for these characters:

Nappa	Stats	Tien
4	Fighting	3
1	H2H	1
10	Physical Damage	6
4D + 3B*	Total Fight Dice	3D + 1B 4D w/ MAM*
12	Physical Combat Defense	8 9 w/ MAM*
7	Tough Rating	3
-*Warrior Instincts I and II: in physical combat, you win ties, and you may convert your level in Strength into additional bonus dice for Fighting tests. –Physical Attack Combo I: after accumulating at least 1 Combo Point in a Physical Combat, and if you earned more Combo Points than the opponent in the exchange, uppercut your opponent into the air for 1d6+(2*Strength) damage.	Relevant Abilities	-*Martial Arts Master I: You may spend 2*Fighting EP per test to convert a Bonus Dice to a Test Dice and add Block to your Physical Combat Defense. –Hard Knocks Finisher I: If you earned as many Combo Points as your H2H level or higher, then for every Combo Point earned, deal an extra Agility-1 damage.

We’ll say that Tien is going to spend the EP to have Martial Arts Master I activated, gaining him 1 additional point of defense and converting his bonus dice into a test dice. With the attacking character, Nappa, only having 1 level of H2H, each character will roll one Fighting test and then determine damage.

I’ll use a dice generator for the following numbers:

With Nappa’s low H2H, the exchange was over quickly. He landed a solid blow and was able to use his finisher. Nappa has shown himself to be the superior fighter to this Tenshinhan. The constest would be over in a matter of turns. After this first exchange, here’s what Tien’s HP would look like:

It’s important to remember as well that if Nappa’s Fighting roll is ever so high against Tien that the difference between the rolls is greater than Tien’s Physical Combat Defense, then Nappa would be awarded an additional Combo Point.

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What would happen when this Nappa had to square up against the contemporary Goku from this era of Z? Fight out in part 3!

-Tommy