We played Agon for the first time a few nights ago. It was a total blast. Some questions did arise, of course and although most have been answered by this forum, I do have one that's gnawing at me.

At one point we found ourselves in deadly combat with some rock men, guarding a brazier we had to light. We all pulled weapons to fight, but one of us wanted to use his bare hands. We decided that he would use the non-combat battle rules for wrestling, with Might and Grace as his right hand and left hand weapons.

I'm curious, how do you deal with combat battles where some combatants are unarmed? What should optimal range be for bare hands? 0? Where should it go in the action order? I guess before swords, to follow the established pattern.

Thanks,

Eric Hansen

Hi Eric,

Sounds like you handled it well. That's what we did when it cropped up in our game originally. It's a good solution if you have a player that is really invested in a wrestler type and will have more fun playing that way.

The lack of hand-to-hand combat rules is intentional, though. To the Greeks who wrote the epics on which Agon is based, fighting on the battlefield without a weapon was complete madness. Even mighty Achilles doesn't do it. You always, always arm yourself for a fight. Men wrestled away from the battlefield and Heracles wrestled some beasts in legend, but that's about it. Combat was the domain of weapons.

So, for players who to want play that way, I'd let an unarmed hero participate in a battle, but they don't get any "weapons" at all. At least at first. A creative hero can make rolls for Advantage dice, and then assign the extra dice as one-shot weapons like "joint-lock" or "face stomp." This will disadvantage the unarmed hero a lot, though, so only take this route if you want to emphasize the need for weapons on the battlefield -- or if you have challenges planned that involve separating the heroes from their equipment to make things tougher for them.

Thanks, John

I love the idea of advantage dice as wrestling moves!

Eric Hansen