D&D 5E How Can We Add Details to 5E Combat?

[ren1999]

I've been looking at other RPG systems for inspiration.
The Riddle of Steel
High Adventure
Flashing Blades
Rolemaster

Has anyone seen The Three Musketeers 2011? I'd like to see some of that detailed fighting in the next edition of D&D.

How can we add something like this to 5th edition as optional rules, yet stay true to the existing combat system?

The player announces that the character will swing his rapier at the goblin's feet.

The goblin chooses some kind of parry or dodge defense according to his reactions, his weapon skill, his experience. The goblin chooses poorly and as a result gets a leg hacked off.

 

[RangerWickett]

I don't think D&DN will have anything like this, because the push is to get faster combat. Adding these sorts of details into the game mechanics slows combat down. And because real combat is very complex and hard to model, I think simple rules combined with "encourage the players and GM to narrate creatively" is the way to go.

Still, I wouldn't mind some sort of "wound system" so combat ends with a specific injury, instead of "he's out of HP, so he falls over."

 

[slobster]

I prefer most of that sort of thing to happen at the narrative, as opposed to the mechanical, level. I love it when one of my players gets that detailed when he describes what "I melee attack" means in-game. But I don't want my game to have the level of simulation you seem to suggest, with multiple defined attack actions interacting with multiple defined defense options every time my fighter wants to hack apart a goblin.

I think a good middle ground is a free-form maneuver system, which allows a player to describe a maneuver and his desired goal, presents a single, simple mechanic resolve all such maneuvers, and leaves the GM to adjudicate results based on a clean set of rules-lite guidelines. The player should also have the option to simply attack, of course.

That sort of thing doesn't have much precedence in D&D, though (FATE does it well. Don't hit me, I'm a fanboy ). It would be cool to see as a module, but I sincerely doubt it gets any attention at all for core.