You must not grapple, trip or make bodily contact with another player while fighting, including grabbing their weapon or other physreps. However, prior to a small fight you and your opponent might agree to allow grappling or other techniques. You must personally have explicit permission from your opponent beforehand.

All weapons must be checked by the team before use.

You must avoid striking the groin, neck or head where there is an alternative target.
You must pull all of your blows so that they land with virtually no force.

By default, all characters start with six damage points, and a civilian fieldsuit with two shield points.

Damage points can be upgraded with the Conditioning range of skills, and military spec fieldsuits with four charges can be purchased as equipment.

You may strike another character with a larp-safe weapon.

You may only strike any given opponent once per second.

You do not need to call damage.

The required physrepping for integrated weapons or large claws is that it must be sufficiently obvious for other players in combat, and must prevent you from using the hand it covers for other purposes.

Ordinarily, a blow in melee combat will cause two points of damage.

If you are struck by a Zebulon with a handheld weapon, this will cause four points of damage.

If you are struck by a Many with a large natural claw, or a Distributed Process NOI with an integrated weapon arm, that is adequately physrepped this will cause four points of damage.

If when struck, you do not see who has struck you, the blow causes four points of damage.

If a blow, including one that you have not seen, lands fully on flexible armour, the damage is reduced by one.

If a blow, including one that you have not seen, lands fully on rigid armour, the damage is reduced by two.

If a blow strikes an unarmoured part of you, the full damage applies. Armour covers exactly and only where it covers, there are no ‘locations’. You may only wear armour that you carry the lammy for.

Field suits do not affect hand to hand combat.

Dodge If you have a skill that allows you to dodge a blow or a gunshot, you may ignore the damage from a weapon strike or ranged damage call from someone that you could see, if you immediately touch the ground with one knee and one hand. You must then perform the cooldown action appropriate to your level in the skill as described on the skills page, or within the limits of your programming.

Parry If you have a skill that allows you to parry a blow you may ignore the damage from a blow struck by someone you could see, if you immediately drop a hand to hand weapon that you are holding. You must then perform the cooldown action appropriate to your level in the skill as described on the skills page or within the limits of your programming.

Note on Accessibility

The above rules are intended to create a style of fighting in which movement is dynamic and cinematic, and the need for OOC combat calls is minimised. However, we recognise that this style adds an extra level of inaccessibility to an area of the game (ie, combat) that is already inherently inaccessible for some. Therefore, while the dynamic style described above is encouraged when possible, any combatant may also substitute the following actions at any time:

• To dodge, rather than touching the ground with one knee and one hand, at your discretion you may instead call “DODGE”.
• After dodging, if your appropriate cooldown action requires you to take five steps, at your discretion you may instead wait 3 seconds before being able to dodge again.
• To parry, rather than dropping a melee weapon, at your discretion you may instead call “PARRY”.
• After parrying, if your appropriate cooldown action requires you to regain your dropped weapon, at your discretion you may instead wait 3 seconds before making a melee attack or parrying again.

You may fire upon any target you can see and identify in your call, who is within range of the weapon.

Projectile weapons You may call ranged damage appropriate to the weapon used and your applicable skills once per three seconds. Pistols, infantry weapons, and machineguns have a range of 20 metres. Shotguns have a range of 5 metres.

Energy weapons You may call ranged damage appropriate to the weapon used and your applicable skills once per ten seconds. Particle pistols have a range of 20 metres. Tazers have a range of 5 metres.

Within the range of a weapon, you take any effect called against you unless you have shield points with which to block projectile weapon damage.

Shield points on field suits negate one entire call regardless of effect, unless it it tase or beam. Once your field suit has negated an attack, a shield point is lost.

Once you run out of shield points you take damage as normal.

Armour has no effect on ranged combat.

If you are in cover that protects more than 50% of your person from an attacker, and you are not returning fire, raising/aiming your weapon to return fire (or as if to return fire), or engaged in hand to hand combat, you may ignore the first two ranged damage calls made against you, you must take the third and subsequent calls. Moving to new cover resets this count.

You may have health reasons that mean you wish to avoid becoming involved in melee combat. If this is the case you may put two hands in the air to indicate that you do not wish any player to make physical contact with you. This is called being non‑contact and, while its use is uncommon at events, it is important that you understand the rules so that you can ensure the safety and well-being of other players.

If a fight starts near you then you can clasp your hands as high in the air as you can and keep them there, to indicate that you are non‑contact.

If you see any player indicate that they are non-contact then you must not hit them with a melee weapon or touch them. The player is still IC and you may roleplay with them normally but you may not hit or touch them while they are non‑contact, you can still shoot them. To attack them, you must not strike with a melee weapon, but instead stand at the extreme of your melee weapon's reach and call your default melee damage once per second. If you are attacked in this way and have armour, you may apply your armour's stopping power to two out of three calls out of three calls if it covers your legs and torso, and one out of three if it covers your torso.

It is up to the individual when or if they choose to go non-contact. There is no requirement at all to go non-contact at the start of a fight, or because a fight has happened near you. It is perfectly acceptable to move away from a melee while remaining in-character and mobile and only become non-contact if a character moves to attack you. It is also perfectly acceptable to engage in ranged combat and become non-contact if your opponent closes to melee range.

It is important to note that nobody can guarantee that you will not be hit while you have indicated that you are non-contact. A live-roleplaying melee is a deeply confusing experience and mistakes can happen. If you have health reasons that make it critical that you are not hit with a latex weapon then you may need to avoid combat entirely and you must decide whether the event is safe for you to attend at all.

_{Sections of this text from http://fallingdown.chaosdeathfish.com/}