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Message: <blockquote data-quote="takyris" data-source="post: 831428" data-attributes="member: 5171">Hey, all,Something came up while I was railing in all the various martial arts threads.  I thought about ways to make fights more cinematic without changing any rules or adding new feats.  Basically, thinking of options I could make available to players by letting them know that I'd consider them possible.  For the most part, I'm thinking and talking about the acrobatic and not-always-realistic stuff that happens in fight scenes.I'm almost certainly not talking about any kind of individual attack.  If somebody wants to say that their character does that stupid cartwheel kick like Tom Cruise in Mission Impossible 2 (my apologies to anyone who has taken enough Capoeira to actually be able to do it well -- I insult Tom, not you), and said character has ranks in Tumbling and Martial Arts feats, I've got no beef with that.  It's an attack, same as any other.  No bonuses, no penalties.  If he rolls poorly, then I say that his hand slipped on the sand as he tried to cartwheel.  If he rolls well, then I say that he caught his attacker by surprise.  Ta-dah.I've found that Balance, Tumble, and Jump are all great ways to let people do something creative in order to get that +2 bonus that they tell us GMs to give out for "not in the book" ideas.  Negate an opponent's +2 cover bonus by dropping and doing a low kick to catch the back of his legs?  Balance check, DC 15 -- low kicks require balance.  Dive to the side of a hanging bridge in order to hang over the side and use it as cover against the dude with the pistol?  Jump check, DC15, with synergy bonuses from Climb as you grab the side and swing yourself under.For the game I'm planning, I think that these cinematic but "no new feats necessary" rulings will work well.  I did have a couple of questions to kick out, though.1) If a character has Improved Combat Throw, Combat Reflexes, and Agile Riposte, can he use both of them in the same round?  If A, our hero, is attacked by B, his dodge target, who misses him, A can take his Agile Riposte attack.  Then, if C attacks him and misses as well, and A has another AoO for this round from Combat Reflexes, can he use that as well?  Nothing in the books says he can't.   In fact, while Agile Riposte has a 1/round rule officially in there, Improved Combat Throw does not.  A person with Combat Reflexes and Improved Combat Throw and Improved Trip could conceivably throw multiple attackers and then get a free attack on each one should he succeed.  (Not terribly unbalanced, mind you, since that's a lot of feats to spend to get that ability, AND you have to succeed on each Trip attack, and risk being tripped yourself if you fail.)2) Dastardly Villain and Bold Hero each have Agile Riposte and have declared each other as their respective Dodge targets.  It's Bold Hero's turn.   He attacks Dastardly Villain and misses.  Dastardly Villain chooses to use his Agile Riposte ability and take an attack of opportunity on Bold Hero -- but Dastardly Villain's AoO misses.  Can Bold Hero now use HIS Agile Riposte ability to take an AoO on Dastardly Villain?  According to the rules as written, it's legal -- and I can see an in-game explanation of Dastardly Villain parrying Bold Hero's attack and stabbing viciously, only to have Bold Hero see the trick at the last moment, block it aside, and continue with his original attack.3) Is there anything in the rules that I've missed that would support using ranged weapons to attempt Disarm checks?  Given the number of times that Batman knocked the bad guy's gun out of his hand with a well-thrown Batarang, I'm inclined to agree that it's possible.  I don't see it, though, and I'm not sure how lenient or strict to be.  Should shooting a baseball bat knock it out of someone's hand -- or would you just cinematically portray that under the "strike an object rules"?  That is to say, it's completely permissable to fire a gun at the baseball bat someone is holding, and since the average bat has hardness 5 and 5 hit points, a large gun could easily turn that thing into splinters -- at which point you declare that he's been disarmed.  If it's hard to envision disarming a baseball bat with a gunshot or thrown boomerang, how about a handgun?Anyway, just trying to construct rulings in advance so that my players will know that their creativity will be rewarded -- but that, at the same time, I won't let them abuse loopholes.-Tacky</blockquote>

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