TarionzCousin
Second Most Angelic Devil Ever
Spellbound Kingdoms has some elaborate combat rules that might work.
It was nominated for an Ennie in 2012 for Best Rules.
It was nominated for an Ennie in 2012 for Best Rules.
Best fencing rules?
GMMichael
Guide of Modos
How this looks in Modos RPG, rounds from example are in parenthesis:
| Turn | Action | Allar | Broman | Notes |
| B | 1 (1) | Move | Close to front row | |
| B | 2 (1) | Move | Attack | Allar goes defensive, takes 1 dmg |
| B | 3 (2) | Attack | Attack | Half damage attacks from back row |
| A | 4 (2) | Move | Close distance | |
| Round 2 | ||||
| B | 5 (3) | Move | Attack | Broman combines 3 attacks |
| B | 6 (3) | Attack | Allar in back row, 1/2 dmg | |
| B | 7 (3) | Attack | Allar in back row, 1/2 dmg | |
| A | 8 (4) | Move | Offensive/front row | |
| A | 9 (4) | Attack | Allar chooses disarm instead of dmg | |
| Round 3 | ||||
| B | 10 (5) | Parry | Attack | Unarmed grab instead of dmg |
| B | 11 (6) | Draw | Attack | Draws knife |
| B | 12 (7) | Attack | Attack | Neither side defends |
| Round 4 | ||||
| B | 13 (8) | Move | Attack | Shove resisted by movement action |
| B | 14 (8) | Attack | Unstrap | |
| B | 15 (9) | Attack | Parry | Parry as defensive action |
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 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.
Dungeoneer
First Post
Normal d20 combat has very few 'dimensions': HP, defenses, attack bonuses. If you want to model something specific like the parries and thrusts of a sword fight then you need a new dimension. Maybe more than one. Position is the most obvious one to add.
Here's a real simple system to model a back-and-forth duel, off the top of my head:
- Two combatants start in the middle of the field, which is abstracted as a simple 2D line.
- For this system the combatants should be using roughly equivalent melee weapons.
- Three moves in either direction is a wall. Being up against a wall is bad.
- Attacks are rolled as normal. On a successful attack, in addition to doing damage, a combatant advances one move and their opponent retreats one move.
- Combatants may choose to forego an attack to 'dodge'.
- When a combatant chooses to dodge and their opponent chooses to attack, they do not move back one if they are hit. If their opponent misses, they swap places with them.
- If both combatants choose to dodge, nobody moves and both have their HP reduced by a small increment.
- When a combatant is pushed back against a wall, combat is over and they are at the mercy of their opponent. They lose.
This is a pretty boring system, but I think we could elaborate on it pretty easily. Perhaps we could add more actions, like 'feint' and 'parry'. They might have rock-paper-scissors style interactions. Momentum is another dimension we might want our duel to model. But I think the important thing here is that we've added a new 'win' condition beyond 'drop your opponent to 0 HP'. In turn that introduces some decisions for the players to make.
I'm sure some other folks could add to this or improve it.
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cimbrog
Explorer
If you don't mind hunting down some (probably super cheap now) Highlander TCG cards I have rules for using them with the old Storyteller system. It doesn't have different stances built in but if you included some of the special cards from TCG you could come close.
ExploderWizard
Hero
Get GURPS and GURPS Martial Arts. Even if you don't use the system as written there are a whole lot of great ideas and a good treatment of martial arts, both real and cinematic.
The system features active defenses, the ability to evaluate your opponent and use the data to actual effect, style familiarities, specific fencing maneuvers which can be studied and trained, etc.
The system features active defenses, the ability to evaluate your opponent and use the data to actual effect, style familiarities, specific fencing maneuvers which can be studied and trained, etc.
doghead
thotd
Lace and Steel by The Australian Games Group had a really elegant fencing system using cards. There were both number and special cards. Each combatant drew a hand, the size of which was based on their skill. From their hand they lay down a defence along the three lines of attack (high, middle and low), as well as made attacks and special moves (feints, ripostes, etc). The same cards were also used for social repartee which was a really nice touch.
Unfortunately, the game isn't in production anymore and is pretty hard to find. Someone should really pick this one up ...
thotd
Pseudonym0
First Post
Hey Folks 
I've actually been thinking about this myself lately, and I'm keep running into the conclusion that there are so many variables you're probably best to pick a couple small features of more intricate combat and run with those. I may be wrong, but your narrative bit there suggests to me you're thinking along some of the same lines I am: there are both light and heavy Weapon and Armor using warriors, with very different styles and without any being distinctly superior.
(NOTE: Using some D&D terms here just for the sake of brevity, the proposed system would actually take a bit to shoe-horn into D&D mechanics)
(NOTE 2: long-winded and a little complicated looking, but most of the complexity would be built into semi-permanent stats on a character sheet, and a lot less would go into actual combat rounds)
So e.g. have 4 archetypes (with trainable skill levels) :Fencer (light weapon/light armour, high attack rate, Dex based), Marauder (heavy Wp/light Arm, medium attack rate, Str/Dex), Legionaire (light Wp/Heavy Arm, medium attack rate, Str/Dex), and Dragoon (Heavy/Heavy, low rate, Str)
Then each skill/style comes with basic modifiers for, say, 4 actions: Heavy Strike, Fast Strike, dodge/parry, and block/reversal.
-Heavy Strike -easier to block or parry, good block penetration, higher damage
-Fast Strike -harder to block or parry, poor block penetration, low damage
-dodge/parry - no damage on success, full on strike on failure, on extreme success, results in a parry, ensuring their next attack precedes the opponents and gets a bonus success modifier
-block/reversal - damage reduction on success, strength related, on extreme success same result as for parry listed above
everyone gets 4 playing cards (Ace,K,Q,J, lets say), representative of these actions, at the start of action, both parties select their cards for 1 defense and 1 attack, everyone reveals their cards at the same time, if anyone wants to change a card at that point they can but take a penalty to their initiative roll and a penalty to the success roll for the swapped card(s). (insert opposed attack vs defense success rolls here). Move on to the next actions with new cards (maybe a new initiative as well).
If one party has additional attacks, they are allowed to play them out, the opponent is allowed to swap out defense cards as normal but doesn't get an attack until their next scheduled one, although this can be superceded at any time with a successful parry or reversal.
On a successful attack, damage is rolled, reduced by the defenders armor rating (normal AC really wouldn't work in this system) and then probably applied to some sort of wound track (normal HP probably wouldn't work well either), maybe applied as a modifier on a "Nasty Things Weapon Type X Can Do To A Human Body" Table, if you really want sudden-death style combat.
Add in a couple tweaks for fighting multiple opponents, disarms, called shots, etc. and I think it might actually be servicable. I won't go into the maths just now because I think this is long enough for my first post. Thoughts anyone?
I've actually been thinking about this myself lately, and I'm keep running into the conclusion that there are so many variables you're probably best to pick a couple small features of more intricate combat and run with those. I may be wrong, but your narrative bit there suggests to me you're thinking along some of the same lines I am: there are both light and heavy Weapon and Armor using warriors, with very different styles and without any being distinctly superior.
(NOTE: Using some D&D terms here just for the sake of brevity, the proposed system would actually take a bit to shoe-horn into D&D mechanics)
(NOTE 2: long-winded and a little complicated looking, but most of the complexity would be built into semi-permanent stats on a character sheet, and a lot less would go into actual combat rounds)
So e.g. have 4 archetypes (with trainable skill levels) :Fencer (light weapon/light armour, high attack rate, Dex based), Marauder (heavy Wp/light Arm, medium attack rate, Str/Dex), Legionaire (light Wp/Heavy Arm, medium attack rate, Str/Dex), and Dragoon (Heavy/Heavy, low rate, Str)
Then each skill/style comes with basic modifiers for, say, 4 actions: Heavy Strike, Fast Strike, dodge/parry, and block/reversal.
-Heavy Strike -easier to block or parry, good block penetration, higher damage
-Fast Strike -harder to block or parry, poor block penetration, low damage
-dodge/parry - no damage on success, full on strike on failure, on extreme success, results in a parry, ensuring their next attack precedes the opponents and gets a bonus success modifier
-block/reversal - damage reduction on success, strength related, on extreme success same result as for parry listed above
everyone gets 4 playing cards (Ace,K,Q,J, lets say), representative of these actions, at the start of action, both parties select their cards for 1 defense and 1 attack, everyone reveals their cards at the same time, if anyone wants to change a card at that point they can but take a penalty to their initiative roll and a penalty to the success roll for the swapped card(s). (insert opposed attack vs defense success rolls here). Move on to the next actions with new cards (maybe a new initiative as well).
If one party has additional attacks, they are allowed to play them out, the opponent is allowed to swap out defense cards as normal but doesn't get an attack until their next scheduled one, although this can be superceded at any time with a successful parry or reversal.
On a successful attack, damage is rolled, reduced by the defenders armor rating (normal AC really wouldn't work in this system) and then probably applied to some sort of wound track (normal HP probably wouldn't work well either), maybe applied as a modifier on a "Nasty Things Weapon Type X Can Do To A Human Body" Table, if you really want sudden-death style combat.
Add in a couple tweaks for fighting multiple opponents, disarms, called shots, etc. and I think it might actually be servicable. I won't go into the maths just now because I think this is long enough for my first post. Thoughts anyone?
howandwhy99
Adventurer
Taking turns to create the fiction you just shared is one type of game. I'm assuming you want more competition among the players where each is attempting to beat the other's character in battle.
Plenty of games including D&D through the years have included published rules or house rules to cover almost everything you wrote about. There were some things I had questions about though:
- What is the result of straining from blocking an all out attack? Fatigue?
- Broman has the advantage on armor and weaponry. Their prices should be more, but they are quick to be destroyed, so... maybe not.
- Crippling an arm stops sword use, but not unstrapping a shield?
- Debilitating Broman's sword arm completely cannot lead to incapacitating him further? How is that?
- Round 10 assessments. Does studying an opponent gain information usually withheld when within a melee?
- Round 11 has simultaneous initiative, perhaps this is a result of assessing each other?
- Wild swings and over-extending can be handled with stance rules from dueling. So previous actions and consequences result in limited actions in following rounds.
- "He puts everything he can into a heavy hack at Allar's leg." Is this suggesting energy is exertion/expendable? Usually combat attacks assume best attempts.
- Is armor deflecting, damage buffering, damaged by attack, some/all?
- Balancing as a whole round action is significant. What are the benefits for doing this? What about combat requiring more balancing than usual?
- A missed called shot still hitting elsewhere makes called shots better than they usually are. Normally games are designed for balance to avoid obviously better tactics in most cases.
- Turn-based actions,
- Movement, facing, stance altering possible actions (wild swing, over-extension), picking up an item,
- Attacking and Defending actions, "aggressive attack", feign, disarm, called location attacks with differing difficulty in hitting, assassination /killing blows
- Armor, locations for armor/shields, armor damage, active blocking with locational armor,
- Weapon types with attack types, sheathing/unsheathing, reach with close-quarter fighting (grabbing, holding, pushing, breaking a hold, body attacks /"kneeing")
- Damage accumulates, damage by location (kidneys), damage effects like disabling, ongoing damage/blood loss, unconsciousness, death, and "non-serous" damage". Pain effects including staggering /reeling
TBeholder
Explorer
So, anything new in this area?
I took a look at the Spellbound Kingdoms primer. The graph system is clever, simple in use and looks nice.
However, for most part it's not tied to the things that normally are tied to the styles -
1. Weapons: plain "can be used with X,Y, Z" lists could do it, but there are border cases.
2. Armor and mobility
3. Weapons vs. armor and styles, as they were developed to counter something particular.
Then again, mostly it's the result of using a dice-stepping core. Obviously, the graphs can be used with others, even *D&D with adjustments to hit and to damage assigned instead of dice values.
"AD&D2.5": Player's Option Combat & Tactics has duelling rules of rock-paper-scissor nature - Attack[12] X Defense[6] X movement ([Low, Middle, High] X [Forward, Back, Left, Right, Stationary]; each of 15 moves has its own list of allowed attacks; guessing both right gives +2 to hit, guessing wrong -2 per step, so "stationary middle" is no worse than -2).
For completeness, there's En Garde! by Cindi Rice (AD&D2 extension for Savage Coast, not En Garde by Reiner Knizia mentioned in this thread), originally published in Dragon.
I took a look at the Spellbound Kingdoms primer. The graph system is clever, simple in use and looks nice.
However, for most part it's not tied to the things that normally are tied to the styles -
1. Weapons: plain "can be used with X,Y, Z" lists could do it, but there are border cases.
2. Armor and mobility
3. Weapons vs. armor and styles, as they were developed to counter something particular.
Then again, mostly it's the result of using a dice-stepping core. Obviously, the graphs can be used with others, even *D&D with adjustments to hit and to damage assigned instead of dice values.
"AD&D2.5": Player's Option Combat & Tactics has duelling rules of rock-paper-scissor nature - Attack[12] X Defense[6] X movement ([Low, Middle, High] X [Forward, Back, Left, Right, Stationary]; each of 15 moves has its own list of allowed attacks; guessing both right gives +2 to hit, guessing wrong -2 per step, so "stationary middle" is no worse than -2).
For completeness, there's En Garde! by Cindi Rice (AD&D2 extension for Savage Coast, not En Garde by Reiner Knizia mentioned in this thread), originally published in Dragon.
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