Let's Read: Traveller, 1977 Edition, Characters & Combat, page 32

 And now, back to our Traveller read-through.

We continue the explanation of the different kinds of combat strikes with ‘special’ blows, which covers things like unconscious opponents; they don’t cost endurance, and they aren’t weakened. So, beating a dead horse is covered.

Being hurt in combat doesn’t affect your endurance for the purpose of how much fighting you can do before getting tired. And this is only for melee combat, not firearms. However, if you do get hurt, any fighting you do before getting healed falls under the ‘current’ endurance, not your normal endurance. So, don’t get hurt in a running battle if you can avoid it, or you won’t have anything left in the tank for the big guy at the end.

Now, we move on to expertise, aka skill use. Skills improve your attack ability, but in melee, they can also be used for defense, applied as a negative modifier to the opponent’s attack. Can they be used as both at the same time? The rules don’t say ‘no,’ so I see no reason to disallow it. If you use a gun as a beat-stick, you can get your gun skill as a defensive bonus! Sweet!

Next, we learn about untrained weapon usage, which really sucks. Seriously, -5 on a 2d6 roll? Just give up already and save yourself the embarrassment. In fact, since you need an 8 or better to hit, if you aren’t trained with a weapon, you can’t hit the broadside of a barn with it. And there’s no ‘automatic hit’ with a 12, either; good luck rolling a 13 on 2D. Fortunately, PCs are automatically given ½ skill level in all weapons, which means they get no modifiers, positive or negative, when using them. Well, that’s something, at least.

Now, we look at ‘Weight.’ Encumbrance goes back to the beginning of role-playing games, so it’s not surprising to see it—A LOAD EQUAL TO YOUR STRENGTH RATING IN KG?!?! That’s it?! My character’s got a strength of 4; I was able to carry more than that when I was on light duty after a work injury! I really hope everything in this game is miniaturized. Okay, stuff you wear doesn’t count, even armor. Odd. But at least you don’t have to count that stuff in your tiny load.

A weight load of twice your strength makes you encumbered, which reduces your effective physical characteristics by one point each. I know that kilos are more than two times as much as pounds, but still…4 kg is 9 pounds. That’s less than a sack of potatoes, people!

Well, this game is definitely not geared toward ‘superheroic’ play. Let’s see what else we find on the next page.