Characters never fall down -OR- Uncinematic combat

[AlphaOmega]

:quickly jots down a couple of solid ideas in this thread:

While I love the d20 system its hard for it or any RPG system to represent combat in an organic manner. Too often its we'll stand next to each and trade blows or if we really want to get fancy I'll stand 1 range increment away and trade bullets/arrows or whatever.

Often I try to think of ways to liven up combat. There's not many things that encourage players to move around while fighting. In my experience, that prevents many cinematic combat situations. We DMs try to house rule what we can but someday I hope for more...

 

[takyris]

Hey, maddman,

Part of the cinematic aspect of my game is that I put 12th-level PCs against a room full of 2nd or 6th (Strong/Tough or Strong/Fast for each type) level ordinaries. In that fight, none of the PCs had to make those checks. Several NPCs, did, though.

My game may not be the best landmark, though -- my heroes were fighting in an enormous group combat in the middle of an old, closed-down dot-com building whose reflecting pool had been filled with pirhanas.

An important aspect of cinematic stuff is that you shouldn't be fighting people of your level until you're fighting the big end villain. In a cinematic game, you want to be able to do cool things to all the squibs, and then you actually have to fight the big bads at the end, and only do your cool stuff to them at the end -- at which point, since you're finishing them off, you can kinda do it however you like.

You're right, though, in that using all three means that a person stands a good chance of having to make three saves after being critically hit by a dude with a claymore. And having to make three simultaneous saves in a d20 game is almost never a good thing for the person making those saves.

Barsoomcore: Happy to be stolen from.

 

[Maniac]

http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?...rn/fb/20031217a

This article has some info on making D20 modern cinematic.

For what its worth, I believe knocking someone down would be a trip attack rather than a bull rush which simply pushes someone back.

I also recall a feat in Sword and Fist I think that allows a trip attack in combination with a damaging attack.

What I'd be interested in is some kind of tackle effect (bull rush + trip).

M.

 

[maddman75]

The feat would be knockdown. Any time you take 10 or more damage in a single melee blow, you stand a chance to be knocked down. Resolved as a trip. (But not a trip, for purposes of improved trip)

 

[smetzger]

The feat would be knockdown. Any time you take 10 or more damage in a single melee blow, you stand a chance to be knocked down. Resolved as a trip. (But not a trip, for purposes of improved trip)

Oh, I know about the feat

I just don't think the Hill Giant should need a feat to knock that pixie back.

 

[WayneLigon]

I usually just tell people stuff like 'You were just kicked in the face by a mule. You are now on your butt'. Or 'You just got critted by a club-weilding ogre. You are now prone in this square'. If there's a doubt about it, sometimes I'll say 'Make a Reflex check to avoid being thrown, or being pushed out of that square' etc.

 

[Shallown]

Me I would use the rules as is.

Make the guy that was hit make a balance check. I mean the Helicopter is not a stable platform and he has suddenly taken damage DC could be 10 + dmage dealt or be knocked prone.

Sometimes the rules need to be bent a little or at least interpreted in different ways. this makes it less arbitriary to me.

Just an Idea

Later

 

[Mallus]

I fully agree, but I don't know how to fix it.

.
Why not simply ignore a strict implementation of the rules every now and again? Don't do it too often, and make sure the players also have oppourtunities to perform similiar cinematic actions.

The rules as written only reward clever use of the rules. Its up to the DM to reward to reward clever action/interaction with the given scenario.

There doesn't have to be a hard and fast rule for everything. What happens is whatever the DM says happens, then its up to the players to respond.

 

[swrushing]

There are partially competing goals here.

The first goal is to add more flavor to the combat, provide MECHANICALLY more varying results, and so forth. basically, turn it into more than just hit point degredation.

At odds with this is the goal of keeping combat simple and quick.

If i want to appease the first goal, make it a BALANCE check (yes folks there is a skill that covers this to a degree) not a reflex save and if you want make the DC "the damage taken." Now in theory this adds a die roll check to every hit. Whether that is bad or not is up to you. Since the Gm can move on while the players makes the check, it might not be that bad timewise.

If you want to reduce the frequency, and thus the die rolls, you could make it conditional... only over X damage like say "when damage exceeds your dex score"... or maybe only on crits... or maybe only when flatfooted... or some combo.

If your game has action dice/lucky breaks etc, you could have the Gm spend one of his action dice to force a balance check whenever he feels appropriate.

But i definitely think it should be a balance check.

 

[takyris]

I mentioned Balance checks earlier, and yes, it is good to reward the players who put ranks into this skill. It is just as much of a combat skill as tumbling. Martial Artists don't have it just so that they can walk on tightropes...

As a GM, you can also make fights more cinematic by providing different environments, different arenas where things can happen, stairs with railings, poles in the middle of rooms, and so forth.

A recent experiment with my players: Was doing 5 1-on-1 combats in my fight-scene game, and so I said, "Okay, I'm not mapping all of these out. You're in a room like this..." And here I described (iirc) a room with platforms, gears, and a spiked floor; a waterfall with rocks going across the river, and opponents starting on opposite sides; a swampy area; an ancient Asian-flavor temple with altars and statues; and a place like the factory at the end of Terminator 2, with metal floors and hanging chains and molten metal sending up waves of heat. "...Okay, I'm not mapping all those. They're in your head. The environment is officially up for your interpretation and use."

Suddenly, players were coming up with ideas to swing on chains, bull-rush opponents into moving gears, and do a series of cartwheels across the river on convenient rocks. It was fun and cinematic and cool as heck, and more so because they got to think that stuff up. They didn't have to look at the map and see which cool options I'd made available for them.

Might be worth a shot.