Going to the House of Flying Daggers with DnD

[Dr. Strangemonkey]

So,
Saw the House of Flying Daggers and while the movie had its flaws I was fascinated, totally failed my WS, and found myself leaving with this over-arching question:

How can I do that with my D20 game? And I mean from every angle:
-World creation: mad martial artists runing around with both insane PC style heroes and vast hordes of horrifyingly stunt competent mooks. I mean these guys weren't even Ninjas, that movie totally made me reconsider the deadly weight of words like deputies, outlaws, and imperial soldiers. Finally, an oppressive government where you can tottally understand why they're on top.
-Stunts: how do I get my PCs to feel free to make totally character appropriate mad stunts and have my NPCs react similarly?
-Abilities: I want my PCs to have mad listen checks, flying capabilities, spinning daggers that go from every angle, and the choice to draw weapons from their own flesh in order to stab at their opponents one last time.
-Social Madness: I want PCs to feel free to develop mad crazy character specific loyalties and work with it. For me, the coolest thing about WuXia is that social realities are far stronger and more important than physical realities and this was the first Wuxia movie to really take that into the world of outlaws and the lower class. Or at least the first I've seen. How do I put together a dynamic where can't die for emotional reasons even though they should for physical ones and make it stick like a dagger in a heart rather than slide like a train on tracks?

 

[Dr. Strangemonkey]

So, final question, what products should I go with on this?

I have two propositions of my own, but I want them evaluated:

4 Color to Fantasy: I've seen people on these boards argue that items make DnD characters a lot like Wuxia characters and I like it, but I want a way to take that capability out of the realm of items and tie it directly to power. Now, 4CTF used to do that for 3.0 with their rules for translating the money per level table into super power points. My idea is that you could develop martial arts styles with that mechanic. That way instead of directly going through feats you just get new powers with level and training.

But I never got a sense of how balanced 4CTF was for that on the one hand, and on the other I don't know what sort of changes 3.5 might force it to make.

Book of Iron Might: This is for the stunts. How awesome is its stunt system? Does it really encourage the players to stunt like crazy? Is it unbalancing? I like what I see online but I want to know from someone who has it whether or not its totally cool.

 

[Dr. Strangemonkey]

I'd also love to have good rules for running squads of people against individuals quickly and easily.

I have the Black Company Campaign Setting and I love its mass combat system, but I don't have a really good sense for how you have individuals fight companies. Also have access to the miniatures book, but I'm not too huge a fan of miniatures in their own right so I wasn't that enthused about the mass combat system in it.

Would the Ironmight mass combat system work well at doing squads vs. powerful individuals?

 

[Hammerhead]

This isn't really a D&D or d20 game, but WUSHU captures all of this perfectly. It's a PDF selling on RPG Now for a few bucks; unlike most games, which penalize you for stunts, the effect of your actions are determined by your stunts. It's a lot of fun.

 

[arwink]

Try and track down a copy of Burning Shoalin, where Robin Laws had a bunch of guidelines for converting Feng Shui style game-play into the d20 system.

Or just break down and run Feng Shui, which handles this kind of thing perfectly.

 

[Ankh-Morpork Guard]

As arwink said, go with Feng Shui. Its made for crazy wuxia type action.

 

[Dr. Strangemonkey]

Feng Shui!

I love Feng Shui! Had a copy of Burning Shaolin for ages, never around when I need group of mook rules, though.

But I want this to be d20. To my mind this should be something we can do while using the strengths of the d20 system, such as that my players know, it's complex enough to be endlessly fascinating, we're already playing it, I love it, and I want to be able to use the resources d20 actually has.

Anybody know anything about how well 4CTF works with 3.5?

The stunt systems in Iron Might? Any other good stunt systems?

Squad combat against individual characters in BCCS, Miniatures, Iron Might, or anywhere else?

 

[arwink]

But I want this to be d20. To my mind this should be something we can do while using the strengths of the d20 system, such as that my players know, it's complex enough to be endlessly fascinating, we're already playing it, I love it, and I want to be able to use the resources d20 actually has.

Squad combat against individual characters in BCCS, Miniatures, Iron Might, or anywhere else?

You might want to check out Cry Havoc from Malhavoc. From memory, it extrapolated the d20 combat system to include armies and skermish-sized forces, which could handle the individual verses group aspects of combat.

I don't see a stunt system as being all that difficult to implement in d20 either. All you need to do is extrapolate from the core mechanic - Achieving a stunt requires meeting a certain DC, failing to meet that DC by less than 4 is a failure, failing to meet the DC by 5 or more tends to have a negative affect. Keep in mind that five is the magic number, and you could probably institute a feng-shui style stunt system in normal combat. If the player wants to do something whacky on top of their ordinary attack, simply have them make the necessary skill check (Against a standard DC), then add give to the opponents AC/Defense in order to achieve the special effect they're trying to achieve (Frex - in my eberron game, someone wanted to pick up an opponent and throw them at someone else. I figured it would be doable, and required them to beat the opponents grapple check by 5 or more to do so). Anything that doesn't meet the +5DC bonus is resolved as a normal attack. IF they beat the new DC by 10 or more, just add another special effect to the stunt, or give them a +2 bonus to damage for the attack.

Add something like Eberron or D20 Modern's action point system to the mix, and people start thinking about doing things in a slightly more cinematic way. When coupled with the +5 system above, I usually rule that spending an action point on a stunt at a particularly opportune time or well described way is an automatic success.

 

[orangefruitbat]

More skills and feats

While I don't think DnD is the best game for wuxia action, you can do a lot to get in the mood.

*Climb, Jump and Tumble are all pretty much necessary for wuxia motion. I'd make each one a class skill. On top of that, I'd give every PC a +1 bonus/level for each of these skills and allow characters to ignore the level caps as well. I'd create some DCs for comon moves (look in Oriental Adventures and the Epic rules for a starting point).

*Most of the cool stuff in DnD is done with feats. I would replace the free feat/3 levels and change it to a free feat/level. That means almost 3x the feats for most characters, and 2x for fighters.

*I'd give characters some sort of class-based defense when not in armor, or some sort of parry roll (look in Unearthed Arcana for some ideas).

I'm not sure how these changes would change the balance of the game (would you still want to play a rogue? Is a fighter less interesting now?), but I think it could work.

 

[Dr. Strangemonkey]

While I don't think DnD is the best game for wuxia action, you can do a lot to get in the mood.

*Climb, Jump and Tumble are all pretty much necessary for wuxia motion. I'd make each one a class skill. On top of that, I'd give every PC a +1 bonus/level for each of these skills and allow characters to ignore the level caps as well. I'd create some DCs for comon moves (look in Oriental Adventures and the Epic rules for a starting point).

*Most of the cool stuff in DnD is done with feats. I would replace the free feat/3 levels and change it to a free feat/level. That means almost 3x the feats for most characters, and 2x for fighters.

*I'd give characters some sort of class-based defense when not in armor, or some sort of parry roll (look in Unearthed Arcana for some ideas).

I'm not sure how these changes would change the balance of the game (would you still want to play a rogue? Is a fighter less interesting now?), but I think it could work.

See, I think you can do almost all of this in the game by...

Look, as a 10th level character I have a huge amount of stuff and much of it will do exactly what is described above:
-slippers of spider climb
-boots of jumping
-belt of the monk

Without having to rebalance anything.

The only thing un-wuxia about it is that it comes from junk rather than internal spirit. So if I can get at the benefit without the junk I don't have to rebalance any other part of the system and it comes through awesome.

But it is a bit of trick.

Four Color to Fantasy worked great for this in 3.0, but it could use some more appropriate flavor than superheroes and it apparently does have some problems with 3.5.