Hexicon has at its heart a unique and sophisticated combat system which provides gamers with a detailed and rewarding fantasy melee.

Unlike most roleplaying games, action in Hexicon does not proceed on a round-by-round basis but rather unravels naturally on a real-time basis. Every action (attacking, moving etc) takes a certain amount of time (measured in counts or tenths of a second) and the GM shifts focus during combat accordingly. While this system initially seems challenging the result is smooth, realistic and natural.

The combat system (melee and missile) is detailed and comprehensive with combat being resolved in a blow-by-blow fashion rather than in a more abstract sense (importantly, if this level of detail is not required then Hexicon can be streamlined and players can simply opt to not use whole swathes of the combat system as they see fit!)

Essentially combat follows the following process (assuming a one-on-one fight):

1) Initiative rolls take place to see who strikes first.

2) The Character with the initiative makes a strike (a d100 roll plus the Character's strike plus with a given weapon)

3)The defender makes a roll to parry the strike (d100 plus a Character's parry plus with a given weapon).

4) The results are compared, if the strike is higher than the parry the blow has struck and vice versa.

5) If successful the attacker can pick from a number of Hit Locations based on how successful the strike was, i.e. a big difference between Strike and Parry results in the Neck and Head locations being available).

6) Damage is calculated.

7) Combat continues as appropriate.

The above is an example of melee combat in Hexicon at its bare minimum; a whole host of optional modifiers (e.g. relative weapon modifiers), rules (e.g. free strikes) and steps (e.g. weapon breaks) are available to players requiring an extra level of detail.

The combat system also contains rules modelling initiative, fast-draws, armour-damage, knock-backs, fumbles, criticals, unarmed combat (including all manner of unarmed techniques from head-butts to foot-sweeps), mounted combat, flying combat, bleeding, broken bones, specialist weapon styles and many other melee and missile features!

If detail and realism are required and enjoyed then they are there in bucketfuls including tables detailing modifiers for different combinations of attacking vs. parrying weapons, hit-locations based on a combatants fighting style, detailed injury tables, free-strike tables and much more. As mentioned, these can all be stripped out and ignored if not required.

The Hexicon combat system allows players to gain a real sense of their (and other Characters) fighting styles with real differences being apparent in a melee when fighting different weapon combinations, combatant speeds (due to armour & equipment) and overall fighting style.