Best fencing rules?

[Lylandra]

I've never been keen on systems which just have random "dragon" or "tiger" or "wooden chair" styles which may as well just be numbers or letters which just add a bonus or penalty here and there. And paper/scissor/stone type styles are too random (and are still just words which may as well be letters).

I don't know the solution, though. Maybe just a crapload of maneuvers you can learn, and if your opponent knows the counter, he can use it. Or something.

I always thought the 4th edition fighter stances (or maybe even the new Path of War martial maneuvers/stances) are a good point to start when trying to duel. The "bloodied" rule made it clear that anything above 1/2 HP was simply wearing off the opponent, so "to the first blood" is easily possible. It is quite mechanistic and not perfect though. You'd still need a gazillion of feats or levels to make this "maneuver & counter" stuff (i.e. "I charge with Lion's charge" vs. "I use Hold the line") work properly, at least when trying to stick to the rules.

In my opinion, you can duel quite well with martial-oriented classes like the Swashbuckler or the PoW flock and a good bit of creativity and imagination. Striking with your foot at someone's leg can be a feint that denies the opponent some action or bonus. Knowing wich maneuver to parry (& maybe riposte) is key to your survival.

 

[pemerton]

So, anything new in this area?

It's not new, but no one seems to have mentioned Burning Wheel yet. It has a pretty intricate melee combat system that combines weapon length, positioning, armed and unarmed attacks/locks/parries etc, plus morale rules that affect PCs as well as NPCs.

The interactions are a mixture of opposed checks and rock/paper/scissors.

 

[Blue]

My mind immediately popped up The Riddle of Steel and I'm not sure why, since it was more of a Conan-type RPG. Though it had a realistic yet quick combat system that's worth investigating in general when thinking about designing combat systems.

 

[chaochou]

Another way of looking at duelling would be to check out the Battlecon line of boardgames.

There's a number of them: Battlecon: Fate of Indines, Battlecon: Devastation of Indines and Battlecon: World of Indines are the ones I have and know best.

They take the 'en garde' idea of a 1d board just showing range and each fighter plays a pair of cards - a 'style' and a 'strike' - the pairing of these cards produce basic effects of your initiative (priority), the range of your attack and your damage. But each card will also give you various amounts of block or soak (to defend against attacks - any damage stuns you for the rest of the round), movement patterns, special abilities.

After each round cards go through a 2 round recycle. So you always know what cards your opponent has in their hand. It's a case of trying to do the less obvious - to be at a range they don't expect, or to throw enough block up to be able to counterattack, etc.

They are designed to recreate the experience of stuff like Tekken and Street Fighter on a board, and they are utterly brilliant. No rpg I've seen in 35 years has come close in combining the ease of play, speed of play and sophistication of Battlecon.

 

[aramis erak]

My mind immediately popped up The Riddle of Steel and I'm not sure why, since it was more of a Conan-type RPG. Though it had a realistic yet quick combat system that's worth investigating in general when thinking about designing combat systems.

TROS probably comes to mind because it was endorsed by ARMA (Association for Renaissance Martial Arts) ...

Burning Wheel is the best Cut & Thrust simulator I've played... at least for duels.
Melees, BW is a problem because it's really optimized for one-on-one.

For melees, either BRP (as Chaosium/AH RQ3) or WFRP 1E are good mixes of minis-level wargame with RP level characters, and fencing is reasonably doable in both as a skirmish level game effect.

For duels, however, there is a game better than all the above, but it's seldom used as a Table-top RPG: En Garde (GDW, later SFCP, now Margam Evans). The dueling is awesome...

Melee/The Fantasy Trip is too quick, lacking the natural pauses and paces, and resolving a 30 second duel as a 5 second one.
GURPS, due to the same designer, coupled with the same approach to combat, suffers the same problem.

At the timescales given, RPG combat systems really don't handle fencing well except by abstractions.

 

[Blue]

Another way of looking at duelling would be to check out the Battlecon line of boardgames.
...
They take the 'en garde' idea of a 1d board just showing range and each fighter plays a pair of cards - a 'style' and a 'strike' - the pairing of these cards produce basic effects of your initiative (priority), the range of your attack and your damage. But each card will also give you various amounts of block or soak (to defend against attacks - any damage stuns you for the rest of the round), movement patterns, special abilities.

After each round cards go through a 2 round recycle. So you always know what cards your opponent has in their hand. It's a case of trying to do the less obvious - to be at a range they don't expect, or to throw enough block up to be able to counterattack, etc.

They are designed to recreate the experience of stuff like Tekken and Street Fighter on a board, and they are utterly brilliant. No rpg I've seen in 35 years has come close in combining the ease of play, speed of play and sophistication of Battlecon.

That sounds like a lot of fun as a minigame. I wonder if it could be moved to a smaller grid battlemap (say 1/4" grid but keep the same 1"=5 ft) to allow more granular movement, and then the whole thing expanded to a multi-person melee.

 

[steenan]

What sorts of novel fencing or dueling systems have you played? In particular, I'm interested in systems that offer one or more of the following:

a) characters change stances or techniques mid-fight to try to get an upper hand

b) it's possible to defeat an enemy simply by getting the upper hand; for example, maybe you never actually land a blow until the end of the fight, and every 'success' up to that point is simply getting your foe more off-balance so you can deliver a single killing strike

c) there's more nuance than "hit" or "miss," and more reactions between the two duelists than "I make an attack roll" and "I make a parry roll."

And ideally it wouldn't take more than a few minutes to resolve a duel. Any ideas?

Among systems I have some experience with, the following seem to handle fencing in the most satisfying way:

- Exalted 3e. Initiative is not only a measure who goes first, but also a measure of general advantage in combat; you gain it through successful fighting maneuvers (so called "withering attacks"), lose it to opponent's actions and may cash in to perform a wounding attack ("decisive attack"). You can also perform several different "gambits", like disarming an opponent. And, on top of that, you have various charms (innate supernatural powers) and martial art styles with their own tricks.

- Burning Wheel. It uses an ingenious combat system where everybody writes down actions for given round (typically 3, but it depends on character's stats) that are then revealed and resolved. That makes maneuvers such as changing range very important. It also emphasizes the difference between playing things safe, pushing to gain an advantage and going all-in (which may leave you in a very bad position if you incorrectly predicted what your opponent will do). This seems very close to my real-life fencing experience.

- Fate Core. While it is not tactical in the D&D sense, the combination of damage system (stress vs consequences), concession and the create advantage action which allows stacking various tactical advantages and then performing a devastating attack. I've seen combats resolved without any hits, because one side got so much advantage that the other decided to concede instead of taking the attack that would follow.

 

[RangerWickett]

Blast from the past.

After two years of working on this and brainstorming, I still haven't devised or discovered a system that hits all the right notes.

I shall redouble my efforts!

 

[TBeholder]

The Knights of Twilight. Another approach. Uses dice pools.
The text is obviously translated with some imperfections.