Measure and Reach

A fight is not fought at one distance. A spearman and a knifeman both know exactly where they want to be standing, and most of the fight is the argument about it.

Every melee opens at measure — the distance at which a long weapon threatens and a short one does not. A fighter with the shorter weapon may accept that and swing anyway, at a penalty, or spend an action forcing their way inside the reach, where the long weapon becomes a burden and the short one comes into its own.

At Measure

This is where fights begin, and where they stay unless somebody does something about it.

• The Weapon Length table from Combat Actions applies as written: −2 for the shorter weapon, −4 unarmed.
• A Braced weapon strikes here, as the enemy comes on.
• Long weapons are unhindered. This is what they are for.

Getting Inside

Close is your action for the Round. You do not attack; you spend the Round working past the point of your enemy's weapon.

Roll d20 + Weapon Skill against 8 + the opponent's Weapon Skill. Equal or greater succeeds, as with any attack.

No Strength, no Agility, no Armour Rating, no shield. This is footwork and timing against footwork and timing, and nothing else. Between two fighters of equal skill it is a coin-flip, as it should be.

On a success you are inside the reach of that opponent.

Inside the Reach

While two fighters are inside one another's reach:

• The Weapon Length table does not apply between them. Neither takes the shorter-weapon penalty. A dagger is as good as a sword here.
• If one weapon is two or more length grades longer than the other, the longer weapon deals only d3 damage and gains nothing whatever from its length. There is no room to use it. Its wielder is reduced to shoving with the haft and hoping.

This is the whole reason to close, and it is decisive rather than incremental — worth losing a Round over.

Getting Back Out

Re-opening the measure is also your action for the Round, and it is contested by the same roll — d20 + Weapon Skill against 8 + the opponent's Weapon Skill. The man inside your guard is working just as hard to stay there as you are to be rid of him.

This is why a spearman cannot simply step back and stab every Round. Once someone is inside your reach, getting them back out costs you as much as it cost them to arrive.

Reach is Pairwise

Measure is tracked between two fighters, never for the battlefield as a whole.

A pikeman with a cutpurse inside his reach is still at measure with everyone else. He is in real trouble with the cutpurse — d3 and no length — and can still set his pike against the thug charging in from the flank. Each is a separate argument about distance, and each is resolved on its own terms.

In practice a character tracks one opponent at most, so this stays manageable at the table. Note it on the character sheet, or put the two figures touching.