Anime feel.....

RisnDevil

First Post
After watching some intense action anime, I got to thinking "How would/could I transfer this level of intense combat into gameplay?"

.....

ok, I'm stumped.....


So I come to these boards for help. I want to create a rules set for having anime/cinema inspired combat.

I want Ninja Scroll. I want King of Hell. I want Rorouni Kenshin....

I want swords knocked out of people's hand to imbed themselves in trees and other structers. I want blocked/powerful attacks that send people sliding backwards. I want jumping that is surrealistic. And I want all of this PRE-EPIC and SEEMLESS and EASY to integrate. I don't know if it can be done, but I think if anyone can do it, the people at these boards can. So please, any help would be nice.

Thanks in advance.
 

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XeviatTranion

First Post
First off, you're talking Epic power in D&D's power scale. You might want to check out the game BESM, they have a free SRD and it's d20.

Second, read the Expanded Psionics Handbook. I love anime as much as the next guy who dresses up for Anime Expo LA (held in Anahiem actually), and the Psionics Handbook inspired many things in my games. It has more of a Wuxai feel than a direct anime feel, but you could extend the rules out a bit.

Third, I recommend taking a look at the PHB feat list, and seeing where you can extend things. Here are some examples of some feats I made for my game that really expand higher levels (not even talking about epic here):

Greater Trip: You can determine where in your reach a tripped foe lands; the foe takes damage equal to your unarmed damage upon a successful trip (basically you throw them instead of tripping them).

Greater Disarm: After a successful disarm, make a melee attack roll with the weapon you used to disarm your opponent against any opponent you threaten; if successful, that opponent is struck by the disarmed weapon and takes normal damage (basically, you disarm one opponent and fling the disarmed weapon into someone else).

Greater Bull Rush: You no longer must enter a foes space to perform an bull rush; upon a successful bull rush, instead of following your opponent, you may choose to push the opponent back any distance between five feet and the maximum distance allowed by the difference between your strength checks without following, and they take 1d6 damage per 10 points you beat their strength check by when they collide with the floor or a solid object (basically you push the opponent and send them flying).

Greater Overrun: You may now overrun any number of opponents, as long as you still retain movement; each additional opponent applies a -2 penalty on your strength check to overrun. You may choose to overrun as part of a charge, targetting a target with other creatures in the way, overrunning every target between you and the subject of your charge; if you successfully overrun each target, you may complete your charge as normal (basically you can now charge past multiple opponents, knocking them down as you barrel past for one target).

Greater Sunder: When you successfully damage a wielded weapon or shield, you deal damage to the creature equal to the damage you dealt to the weapon or shield (after hardness is applied). If you succeed in destroying a weapon or shield with a sunder, you gain an additional attack with the weapon used to sunder at the same attack bonus against the wielder of the weapon you sundered (basically, you hit someone's weapon or shield so hard that the force of the impact damages them a little, and if you break their weapon your strike just continues through).

Greater Grapple: When you deal successful damage with a light melee weapon or an unarmed attack, you may choose to innitiate an immediate grapple check against the target. If successful, you do not deal automatic unarmed damage to them, because you already damaged them. If you started the grapple with a light weapon, you may use that weapon in the grapple at no penalty. You may choose to perform the grapple at a -20 penalty; if successful, you are not treated as grappled, but your foe is (you can now grab with your strikes, or use small weapons to grab foes).

I also made supreme versions of each feat above which helps aleviate the advantage larger creatures have vs. these tactics. Note: some of those feats were inspired or taken from other sources.
 

RisnDevil

First Post
I know it would be hard to do this pre-Epic, though I think it is possible, and that your feat suggestions are on the right track. I own BESM d20, and although cool, am not totally satisfied as, although it messes with all the major anime genres, I don't feel it handles combat the way I want. I am wondering if maybe just using liberal descriptions might be the way to go..... But how would I/you reward creativity in description? If Fong, a fourth level Monk with Dodge, Mobility, and Improved Trip, does a cart-wheel while holding a staff, spins it in the air, proceeds to spin it around his feet, to make a five-foot step and trip his opponent with the staff still between his legs, should he get anything for orgionality/creativity? Or should I require a PLETHORA of skill checks and possibly saves for it to be successful, making such moves so difficult to pull off reliably that they are not used often. I just don't know.....

I am thinking to do this properly, I will have to rebuild the classes, skills, feats, and combat from the ground up, but I find myself asking, SHOULD it really take THAT MUCH? I think it could be really worth it, but not sure if it is a task I CAN undertake now, or even in the near future.....

Please feel free to give me more ideas, or comment on my current line of thought. I appreciatte it.

Thanks in advance.
 

DanMcS

Explorer
RisnDevil said:
I want swords knocked out of people's hand to imbed themselves in trees and other structers.
That's just description. When an attacker successfully disarms someone, say the sword flies out of their hand and sticks in the wall. You don't need a rule for that.

I want blocked/powerful attacks that send people sliding backwards.
Note everyone's touch AC and regular AC. If an attack beats their touch AC but not their regular AC, it was "blocked"- that is, it hit them. Roll damage like you would if you had hit.

If a defender is hit, or blocks an attack that would have hit, he must make a fort save with DC = the damage rolled. If he fails, he moves back a number of feat equal to the amount he failed by. Do it in 5' increments for ease on the grid.

I want jumping that is surrealistic.

D&D jumping is surreal. A mid to high-level monk can make running long jumps of 50 to 60 feet without trying too hard.

A simple way to add more kooky jumping would be to reduce the DC of jumps. Say, high jump DC is 2 per foot instead of 4. Or even 1. This doubles if it's a standing jump, as normal. Then have it double damage or add a d6 or something for every 10' the character jumps (high or long) during his attack. That will encourage it.
 

DanMcS

Explorer
RisnDevil said:
I am wondering if maybe just using liberal descriptions might be the way to go..... But how would I/you reward creativity in description? If Fong, a fourth level Monk with Dodge, Mobility, and Improved Trip, does a cart-wheel while holding a staff, spins it in the air, proceeds to spin it around his feet, to make a five-foot step and trip his opponent with the staff still between his legs, should he get anything for orgionality/creativity? Or should I require a PLETHORA of skill checks and possibly saves for it to be successful, making such moves so difficult to pull off reliably that they are not used often. I just don't know.....

Duh. If you want to encourage it, give a bonus to his roll, or maybe award him an action point that he can use now or save for later. If you want to discourage it, require a lot of skill checks. But that would be stupid, because you just said you want to reward creativity.

Look, if you make it so that narrating cool descriptions makes it more likely that the PC will succeed, then your players will do it. If you make it so that a cool description makes it more likely to fail, they won't, they'll just say "I 5' step and trip him". So reward it.
 

Stormborn

Explorer
Have you tried looking at Iron Heros for Combat maneuvers and stunts? Adding magic to IH would be seriously overpowered, but thats most anime, right?

And while I am not personally familiar with it, have you looked at Exalted? I believe it intends to be Anime Fantasy.
 

Ken Hood's SKills-n-Feats Martial Arts and Psionics systems.... More Wuxia style that Anime..

It has manuevers, like IH's stunts, that include many of the things you mention. Well integrated with the normal DnD ruleset, altho a build with the rules will easy best one without them.. makes it longer to build NPC combatants.

Great system, but I think his web site is down and not sure if the files are still available on the net.
 

Imret

First Post
To a degree, it depends on how much you want to adhere to the rules as written.

If you're hoping to adhere to the combat rules as written, then I think "bonuses for description" is going to be your best bet. A few skill checks to make sure the maneuver works - sometimes the jump is short, or a wet cobblestone throws off his cartwheel, or... - but make them lower DC than they should be. If the rolls succeed, give them attack and damage bonuses based on style and truth to concept.

If you're willing to switch to combat that relies on narration and 'style' in place of the "complete" mechanics offered by 3.x, I (or someone else) could jury-rig a cheap and easy xd20 mechanic to cover it when I get back to the home computer. For my inspiration on this thought, look for the Dungeonpunk blog out there.

EDIT:
Primitive Screwhead said:
Ken Hood's SKills-n-Feats Martial Arts and Psionics systems.... More Wuxia style that Anime..
Great system, but I think his web site is down and not sure if the files are still available on the net.

I have these .pdfs, if someone wants them.
 
Last edited:

Nyeshet

First Post
A combination of Iron Heros, Expanded Psionics, BESM, and Action Points would get you most of what you want. I would either entirely replace the magic system with psionics or I would replace it with something like EoM (either Revised or Mythic Earth). Those tend to have weaker magic over all with more versatility in how it works / looks. I think someone on the EN Publishing board (on a Mythic Earth thread) is actually working on an adjustment of the EoM,ME system to better fit it into Iron Heroes.

Combine this with Action Points that allow one to emulate a feat, etc, and BESM's tendency to offer boni to skills every other level (so that they do not apply against the max skill rank cap), and I think you will be close to what you wish to build.
 


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