Aust Diamondew
First Post
Use Ken Hood's Revised Grim n Gritty system if you want realistic sword duels.
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What Rules for Duels Rule?
- Thread starter Chaldfont
- Start date
LostSoul
Adventurer
I think that you could accurately model a duel as long as the DM and the player were really into it. Both sides would have to give lots of description, and the DM would have to award many circumstance modifiers (to AC or Attack rolls). The DM would need a great deal of trust from the player to do this.
I think that might be a little too much. However, if you made it 1 point of AC for 2 points of attack (up to your BAB or 5, whichever is lower, just like Combat Expertise), it might work out. That is more of an expansion on Fighting Defensively than anything else. (I guess in that case that 5 or more ranks of Tumble would give you a flat +1 to AC no matter what.)
Chaldfont said:
I think that might be a little too much. However, if you made it 1 point of AC for 2 points of attack (up to your BAB or 5, whichever is lower, just like Combat Expertise), it might work out. That is more of an expansion on Fighting Defensively than anything else. (I guess in that case that 5 or more ranks of Tumble would give you a flat +1 to AC no matter what.)
Chaldfont
First Post
LostSoul said:
That's exactly what I'm going for. You have 30 minutes before your next game at the Con or you are waiting for your other buddies to show up for the game or during your lunch hour. Just the DM and the player, a well described setting, a cool NPC (or two cool PCs fighting each other). Well described moves get bonuses to attack or AC. Unique uses of skills might also grant cool effects (like Bluff does).
azmodean
First Post
You could use the normal mechanics but alter the description of combat. Consider this concept.
The opponents face off, adjusting their positions, feinting, parrying. Each opponent is worn down, each learns the movements of the other at a varying rate, until one solves the problem and can not only predict how his opponent will react, but be in position to take advantage of it, and the killing blow is landed.
You can describe HP as how difficult a creature's fighting style is to understand, but this only works for a duel since if there are many opponents, the actions of one opponent would not influence how well another opponent would gain in understanding.
So mechanically, each opponent still rolls attacks and deals "damage", but you make it clear that no actual combat is happening, they are merely feeling each other out. In other words, HP becomes a number of "intuition points" that must be accumulated before a killing blow can be landed.
This concept is NOT consistent with many rules in the d20 system of course, but I think it could work pretty well in the limited confines of a duel.
The opponents face off, adjusting their positions, feinting, parrying. Each opponent is worn down, each learns the movements of the other at a varying rate, until one solves the problem and can not only predict how his opponent will react, but be in position to take advantage of it, and the killing blow is landed.
You can describe HP as how difficult a creature's fighting style is to understand, but this only works for a duel since if there are many opponents, the actions of one opponent would not influence how well another opponent would gain in understanding.
So mechanically, each opponent still rolls attacks and deals "damage", but you make it clear that no actual combat is happening, they are merely feeling each other out. In other words, HP becomes a number of "intuition points" that must be accumulated before a killing blow can be landed.
This concept is NOT consistent with many rules in the d20 system of course, but I think it could work pretty well in the limited confines of a duel.
OurManMute
First Post
Chaldfont said:
I have been avidly reading the Iron Lore previews, and I must say that tokens sound like the way to do this. Of course we still have to find out exactly how these work for all different classes, but you might come up with a rule that lets people gain a tactical token for each round they fight defensively against one particular opponent, and let them spend X tokens for +Xd6 damage for one melee attack. Something like that would fit your description of two skilled swordsmen feeling eachother out.
Inconsequenti-AL
Breaks Games
If you wanted to, you could make a separate combat system for dueling.
If I was to do such a thing, I'd probably base it on Spycraft's car chase system.
In basic, their system has one driver as predator and one as prey. Each pick a maneuver every round - the maneuvers are compared against each other. Most maneuvers are strong against certain types and weak against others. This modifies the opposed Driving skill rolls... Degree of sucess indicates how things change for the next round... Some maneuvers result in further checks - ramming, chances of crashing, etc. In their system, the chase ends when the prey escapes or the predator corners them/forces them to crash.
I'd set it up with an attacker and a defender. For the first round, the winner of the initiative roll gets to pick which they want to start as. You'd choose your maneuvers, then compare them to get the modifiers to the opposed attack rolls. Depending on the results a blow might get landed, a maneuver performed or swap the attacker and defender over. Possibly sense motive, Bluff, Intimidate and possibly movement skills could be used with certain maneuvers.
Not sure how you'd divide up the attacker and defender moves... but I'm sure it can be done.
It would be more time consuming than regular combat and there'd be the issue of when to use it... but I think it'd be fun.
If I was to do such a thing, I'd probably base it on Spycraft's car chase system.
In basic, their system has one driver as predator and one as prey. Each pick a maneuver every round - the maneuvers are compared against each other. Most maneuvers are strong against certain types and weak against others. This modifies the opposed Driving skill rolls... Degree of sucess indicates how things change for the next round... Some maneuvers result in further checks - ramming, chances of crashing, etc. In their system, the chase ends when the prey escapes or the predator corners them/forces them to crash.
I'd set it up with an attacker and a defender. For the first round, the winner of the initiative roll gets to pick which they want to start as. You'd choose your maneuvers, then compare them to get the modifiers to the opposed attack rolls. Depending on the results a blow might get landed, a maneuver performed or swap the attacker and defender over. Possibly sense motive, Bluff, Intimidate and possibly movement skills could be used with certain maneuvers.
Not sure how you'd divide up the attacker and defender moves... but I'm sure it can be done.
It would be more time consuming than regular combat and there'd be the issue of when to use it... but I think it'd be fun.
I have two suggestions for d20 dueling.
The first is just a simple opposed check. Each duelist determines d20 + BAB + str mod (or dex or other relevant ability) + ranks is dueling skill. The highest score wins. Ties can be ties or let the highest modifier win. The skill ranks comes from a campaign in which a player badly wanted iajitsu mastery, I said they could have it for dueling, but it would not affect regular combat. You can use best 2 of 3 or some such for a longer duel or if the outcome of individual "falls" matters. You could use this without the BAB for any sort of one-on-one contest (chess, dueling banjos, etc.).
If you want a more D&D combat type duel, let each participant add their BAB to their armor class, and roll a parry each attack; i.e. add d20 instead of a flat 10 to the AC modifier. I believe the latter is an optional rule from somewhere for combat in general, but no one much uses it because the DM needs to roll a lot of dice that way, and it makes things much more random that usual.
The first is just a simple opposed check. Each duelist determines d20 + BAB + str mod (or dex or other relevant ability) + ranks is dueling skill. The highest score wins. Ties can be ties or let the highest modifier win. The skill ranks comes from a campaign in which a player badly wanted iajitsu mastery, I said they could have it for dueling, but it would not affect regular combat. You can use best 2 of 3 or some such for a longer duel or if the outcome of individual "falls" matters. You could use this without the BAB for any sort of one-on-one contest (chess, dueling banjos, etc.).
If you want a more D&D combat type duel, let each participant add their BAB to their armor class, and roll a parry each attack; i.e. add d20 instead of a flat 10 to the AC modifier. I believe the latter is an optional rule from somewhere for combat in general, but no one much uses it because the DM needs to roll a lot of dice that way, and it makes things much more random that usual.
