Ideas for things happening during a fight

Ones that have important mechanical effect:

• armor failure - some single piece of armor (usually one of: a lame on the gauntlets; an elbow cop or knee cop, or one of the adjacent lames; a shoulder pauldron)
• Lose a quillon off the hilt [makes parry harder]
• "Eww what's on my shoe???" [dex penalty and stealth penalty. Probably contents of entrails. Probably.]
• Blood in the eyes - a shallow cut in the forehead or scalp. [Perception penalty]
• weapon grab results in drag of hilt across palm. [no effect if gloved, save that glove may be damaged; hand use penalty from abraded and bleeding palm if not]
• Blunt Trauma - that hit did some deep damage. -1 to use that limb for 1d6+1 days or until magically healed. On the head, it's called a concussion...
• Pommel breaks off; affects balance. [to hit penalty - minor]
• nipped the tip: shortened the weapon by 1d6 inches
• Loosened the wrap: the wrapping of the handle came loose. [penalty to hit until a round taken to remove it]

Non-mechanical

• Garment Failure: some non-armor element is ripped.
• Minor nick in blade edge. Takes a bit of time at the grinder to fix. If not fixed, may break easier.
• grip mired in goo. What goo? that varies.
• Strap cut past the buckle. [makes it hard to put back on]
• Rivet sheared... be fine until unstrapped, when the remainder falls out.
• Paint removed - that blow didn't tell, but did scrape the paint off the shield or armor. Repaint to protect from weather.
• Armor Bite: that blow drove two pieces of armor together, with you between them. Nasty bleeding sore, that you probably notice when the adrenaline wears off. A chance for infection, not really that much damage.
• Be seeing that one next week! Armor did great... but the bruise is huge. And takes several hours to develop. Brag about why your leg's red, black and blue from thigh to ankle next week. (Seen that happen, IRL, too. A roommate had a bruise from shooting a .45-70 rifle that looked like paint poured from his shoulder. Still visible in 2 weeks. He sold the rifle that day.)

Richards said:

Guh! Who farted?

Johnathan (That's not the answer to the question above, by the way.)

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Nope. The answer to that is Zoltan. At least for our group. Epic farts every now and then...so epic we stop play and escape the immediate area ASAP (before our eyes water too much and we can't see), even if that means running out into the backyard, in winter, at -40 degrees, with no shoes on, or jacket. And no, you won't "freeze instantly" at -40C (which is also -40F; -52C is about -62F...coldest I've been in)...it's cold, sure, but nothing to panic about unless you were just in a car accident or bleeding out in a snowbank after being mauled by a bear (actually, in that last case, it's probably a good thing).

^_^

Paul L. Ming

An overwhelming 3rd force (enemies, elements, falling buildings, crashing tax collectors wagon etc) makes the prior combat less pressing. The former enemies either wait it out - perhaps close enough to talk/taunt - or must ally to escape, profit or defend.

In the aftermath they might call a grateful truce or just have at it again.

ChaosGenerators said:

I now have image of a shapeshifter pretending to be a cute animal and hanging around party until they can make off with some loot at good opportunity

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"I told you not to trust the cute little weasel!"

- Somebody spills their beer on the floor; that spot becomes slippery. Anybody moving through it must check vs falling down.
- "No blasters! No blasters!" and the barkeep draws a big impressive blaster
- The bouncers / security show up and wade into the barroom brawl
- The police get their monthly quota of tickets by hanging out at this nightclub and rounding up whoever gets into a fight. Punching a policeman is a really bad idea.
- Knock over a table or chair and use it as Cover. (The chair is also an improvised weapon)
- One NPC is secretly a former Lion Tamer, and the chair is a legit weapon (plus a shield) in his hands.
- Some blooming idiot sets the building on fire. It may spread quickly or slowly. The biggest idiot sets the doorway on fire.
- The staff sleeps upstairs, over the tavern. The rooms have 'murder holes' in the floors and the staff have instructions to dump Sleep Powder (acts like the spell) if the noise gets too rowdy.
- NPC Wizard's familiar freaks out during the fight and bolts across the room. The Wizard follows, trying to catch it.
- Very high-powered Wizard casts Banishment on whoever he thinks started the fight. Then he calls the bouncers over to discuss the situation.
- If the fight spills out the window and into the street, somebody almost gets run over by traffic.

I've updated the Something Happens! During the Fight with ideas from this thread