Melee combat refers to attacks made while characters are adjacent to each other on the grid. While a firearm is always superior in a fight between two normal people, an Exigency character of sufficient strength and skill can be lethal in close combat.
Depending on the weapon used, certain types of attack are more or less efficient. A knife is best suited to single action attacks, whereas a sledgehammer is best suited to double action attacks. When attacking, a character's Melee value always serves as a damage bonus.
In most instances, a relevant attribute serves as an additional damage bonus when making a double attack: for blades, Focus, for bludgeons, Strength, and for exotic weapons Agility. The three Martial aspects allow characters to substitute different attributes as a damage modifier, and Melee weapons selected as part of the Equipment Specialisation archetype can use any attribute.
The maximum damage that a character can deal with a single hit in Melee combat is limited by their STR + Melee; up to 10 points of damage for each point. This hard limit applies even if the character is using an aspect such as Martial Agility or Martial Focus but it doesn't apply to critical hits.
Weapons
For most characters, Melee combat occurs with the use of weapons. Some examples are listed below:
| Weapon | Damage type | Single action | Double action |
| Basic knife (minor item) | Bladed | 1d6 RP2 | 1d6+FOC RP4 |
| Basic hammer (minor item) | Bludgeoning | 1d6 AP1 | 1d8+STR AP3 |
| Spiked knuckles (minor item) | Bludgeoning | Unarmed+2 +RP1 | Unarmed+2+STR +RP2 |
| Two-handed sword (advanced item) | Bladed | 1d12 RP3 | 2d8+Melee|FOC RP8 |
| High-quality sledgehammer (advanced item) | Bludgeoning | 1d8+Melee|STR RP3 | 1d20+STR AP6 |
| Wrist blades (advanced item) | Bladed | Unarmed+4 +RP3 | Unarmed+5+FOC +RP6 |
Unarmed combat
Unarmed combat is defined as any Melee attack made while the character is empty handed; whether they're using their fists, feet, or some other appendage. Some weapons use a character's unarmed damage as a base (such as iron knuckles, gauntlets, or wrist blades) but they won't have any impact on aspects or abilities that call upon the character to use an unarmed attack.
The damage values for single action attacks made while unarmed are listed below. Unarmed single action attacks bypass Resistance equal to their Melee, whereas double attacks bypass an amount of Resistance equal to the user's Melee BC. Double action attacks include the character's Strength as a further damage bonus and deal damage as if the character's BC was one category higher (i.e., a character who dealt 1d8 damage with a single action attack would dead 1d10 damage with a double action attack). As always, both attack types use the character's Melee as a damage bonus.
When a character makes a Melee attack while holding a Ranged weapon, they deal damage equal to their Unarmed damage but one category lower (unless they have the Equipment Specialisation archetype or the Fighter aspect).
| Melee BC | Unarmed damage |
| <1 | 1d2 |
| 1-2 | 1d4 |
| 3-4 | 1d6 |
| 5-6 | 1d8 |
| 7-8 | 1d10 |
| 9-10 | 1d12 |
| 11+ | 1d20 |
For example, if a character is wearing spiked knuckles (+2 damage) and has STR 4 and Melee 3, their Melee base competency would be 5 and they'd deal 1d8+5 damage with each strike (1d8 + Melee + spiked knuckles). However, were they to use the Snap Kick aspect to make a special attack, the attack power would only be 1d8+3 as the item modifier would not apply.
