Cinematic Action Experiment

[Sir Elton]

I'm trying something out that should work. Conan the Roleplaying Game for the base rules, Advanced d20 Magic for the magic system, the Expanded Psionics Handbook, and the stunt rules from Iron Heroes. This is an attempt to capture the Fantasy Movie style you see in movies like Conan the Barbarian and The Beastmaster.

I desire to run games like this. So, this is my vision of a 4th Edition (well, without stepping on anyone's toes at ICE), a game that can allow a cinematic environment/feel. Any insights?

 

[Drawmack]

I think one of the major aspect of cinematic fantasy is just how fragile the characters truely are.

In d20 once an character hits about 12th level they are pretty hard to stop and y 20th level forget about it.

This about the scene from LotR where the Fellowship is in the abandoned dwarven mines and thousands of orcs come after them. You've got a high level ranger, an elvin assassin, a medium level wizard (the grey vs. the white), and a couple low level rouges and fighters (the hobbits). In a DnD game the wizard, ranger, and assassin would form a circle around the others and hack through the orcs with such ferocity that it would not even be a challange. It would be a long, tedius and boring battle. But in LotR those orcs present a very real danger to the entire fellowship and so they run.

So to create a truely cinematic feel to your games it would have to be difficult for higher level characters to get it, but it would have to be possible and the more low level enemies you throw at a character the greater the odds of them getting hit. Once a character does get hit, that character should be hurt.

 

[shilsen]

In d20 once an character hits about 12th level they are pretty hard to stop and y 20th level forget about it.

You should check some of the story hours on ENWorld, where PCs of 12th lvl and much higher are regularly challenged and stopped. The PCs in my campaign (see sig) just hit 12th lvl and are extremely buff, and even with a few circumstances that really work in their favor (only 1 or maybe 2 combats a day, so they're always fully loaded on resources, for one), they are very regularly hurt by supposedly weaker opposition.

This about the scene from LotR where the Fellowship is in the abandoned dwarven mines and thousands of orcs come after them. You've got a high level ranger, an elvin assassin, a medium level wizard (the grey vs. the white), and a couple low level rouges and fighters (the hobbits). In a DnD game the wizard, ranger, and assassin would form a circle around the others and hack through the orcs with such ferocity that it would not even be a challange. It would be a long, tedius and boring battle. But in LotR those orcs present a very real danger to the entire fellowship and so they run.

You know orcs (or, in the scene you mention, goblins) can have class levels in 3e, right? With just a few class levels per enemy, that would be a TPK.

So to create a truely cinematic feel to your games it would have to be difficult for higher level characters to get it, but it would have to be possible and the more low level enemies you throw at a character the greater the odds of them getting hit. Once a character does get hit, that character should be hurt.

Which you can do very easily with low level enemies focused on strength and damage. Take a raging orc Bbn4 with 20 Str, a masterwork greatsword, W. Focus and full PA. He's attacking at +9 to hit and doing 2d6+18 pts of damage. A few such hits and even a much higher level PC will be feeling it.