I have a "court intrigue" episode coming up in my regular 5E game and I kind of want to develop a quick and dirty "social combat" system for it. My thinking is that if I have such a system in place it will be less likely that only one or two players (and my group is 8 or 9 on any given night) will dominate the conversation.
Basic ideas I have in mind that I could use some help expanding and implementing:
There are three stats: Social Defense is Wisdom based, Social Attack is Charisma based and Social Hit points are a total of all 3 mental attributes.
The court will be full of NPCs (obviously) either alone or in small groups, and these take the place of the monster/enemy. Each will have their social stats, as well as specific Vulnerabilities, Resitances and even Immunities to certain kinds of Social attacks (see below). They themselves will possess one or two kinds of attacks. Most importantly, each will have a secret or a capitulation that is acquired by the PCs when the lose all of their Social Hit Points.
PCs are equipped with Social Vulnerabilities, Resistances and Immunities as well based on class, as well access to specific attack types and special maneuvers based on class, race, feats, etc... because I am doing this for my regular players and I know the characters pretty well, I should be able to assign these in a way that makes sense. Note that if a PC is reduced to 0 Social HP then they are effectively out of the courtly game and must either retreat or capitulate something of their own.
The "enemy" are entirely reactive so while there will be an initiative roll to determine order, it only matters for the PCs. On a PC's turn they can choose a member of the court to engage in social combat and commence with witty barbs and veiled threats, or whatever. Not that "opportunity attacks" will remain in play: if you don't take an action to extricate yourself from your current conversation, you open yourself up to a backhanded compliment or whatever.
My first blush set of attack types are based on stats: Intimidation (Str), Distraction (Dex), Tenacity (Con), Reason (Intelligence), Appeal (Wisdom) and Guile (Cha). Roll a d20, add the stat bonus and if you are proficient in an interaction skill you may make the roll with your proficiency bonus if you can convince me it applies. All Social Attacks do the same damage (I am leaning toward 2d6 to keep the "combat" short since Social HP will hover around 30 or 40)plus the stat mod. As stated, characters will have resistances, vulnerabilities and immunities based on personality traits, class abilities and such.
Special abilities and attacks would include things like:
Witty Riposte: When you take damage from a social attack immediately make a counter attack using Guile. If you succeed, the damage from the attack is halved and the attacker takes as much damage. You may use this ability once per and only until you fail any Guile attack.
Righteous Anger: If an NPC attacks you targeting your Bond, you gain advantage on your next attack against that NPC.
Lure: Grant an opponent Advantage on an attack against you. Regardless if their attack succeeds, gain advantage on your next attack against them. If you took damage from their attack, your next attack, if successful, is a critical hit.
Deflect Blame: After taking damage from a social attack, immediately make an attack roll of the same kind against an Ally. If successful that ally takes the damage from the attack instead of you. You may use this ability once per ally only.
What do you think? Any ideas on how to run this smoothly? Ideas foir special abilities. The party consists of a paladin, 2 warlocks, a sorcerer, a couple fighters, a druid, a wizard and a cleric.
Thanks!
