Capsule Reviews #6: Codex Martialis

I was directed to this by friend of the blog C. Kinch some while back. The tag across the front cover is "Hard core, fast-paced, historical combat. New options that won't bog down your game." The core concept, as writted across the Players Guide is "HEMA-inspired d20 combat. Magic as Medieval scholars actually believed. Everything you need for a fast, bloody and immersive historical game" which sets out their stall nicely. Since this has been sitting glaring at me from my slush folder for a full year now, we are going to press on and do capsule reviews of the core set to get something done.

Three books in the core set:
Codex Martialis Core Rules (2021 Edition) - 97 pages
Codex Integrum Players Guide - 182 pages
The Reiver's Lament - 141 pages

The set as a whole includes expansions for armour & missiles, medieval weapons, a Baltic setting, spells & talismen.

So what do you actually get in these?

Codex Martialis Core Rules (2021 Edition) - 97 pages of Core Combat Rules and Additional Rules in the service of "tactical options without the need for magic or miniatures". The core concept behind it all is making combat more of an active contest by introducing the 'martial pool' mechanic. You start with a number of d20s each round equalto your Prowess - equivalent to Proficiency bonus in D&D 5e or Base Attack Bonus from 3.5e - roughly two for starting characters, rising with your level. You can then use these d20's as you please - attack multiple times, attack once powerfully, attack once and save some for active defense, etc. The core intention is to be involved in the combat off your turn, not just being a passive lump to be struck until your turn comes around again.

From here the rules give pretty fine-grained modifications to speed, armour-piercing, defense. There are a number of defense moves which give you something to do off-turn. Missile fire gets some detailed rules depending on circumstances of you taking the shot. These are the core of the rules in ~10 pages and then the rest of the book is advanced and optional rules, all to add more tactical complexity and options to your combats. Included are mounted combat rules, rules for animals and serious injuries. All this in the name of dialling down the magic and putting importance back onto the right application of the right choice of steel in the right situation.

Codex Integrum Player’s Guide 2022 Edition - 182 pages of Character Creation, Adventuring and Magic - to guide bringing the combat rules to table and how to play in a historical setting. We open with two new concepts, ehren and temperment. Ehren being social standing and honour, similar to WHFRP. Temperment introduces the four Galenic humours as a background-equivalent, gaining chips to be used in game when you play into them. Classes have five primary types and then ten more secondary ones a player can advance into. All told we have 57 pages of this character creation system, 82 pages of adventuring - including adversaries, henchfolk and gear - 13 pages of magic, 10 of those the spell list and 6 pages of GM advice in the appendix. Obviously huge amounts of thought has gone into this and there are a lot of mechanics here to run medieval society with its honour and station and social structures.

Cover by Jean Chandler

The Reiver's Lament - 141 pages of an adventure set in the Scottish Borderlands. I liked this, because essentially it is a sand-box even though it is not mentioned in such a way. We get some guidance on running it a 3 page summary of the adventure as a whole then some travel rules and all the components of the adventure as encounters to be seeded wherever the players go to. Locations, major NPCs, key incidents for the adventure and random encounters all get their own section letting you piece together the whole thing to match whichever way your players go.

Through all of these you get well chosen public domain art, with a good chunk of that from medieval arms manuals and so quite gruesome in places. Excellently chosen for the subject matter, not for the squeamish.