Is there an OGL/d20 Combat book that...

[Nagual]

On the subject of combat purpose. I use a simple template (RADR) to note general tactics employed by a group of enemy NPCs:

Recon
Assault
Defence
Retreat

Helps me organize typical responses outside those specific to their current goal.

 

[Nagual]

Oops, left one out -- Ambush -- makes RADAR

 

[Eldritch_Lord]

Response to Arkhandus, spoilered for off-topic-ness.

[sblock]

I said it's closer to those genres/games for the most part; not that it IS mostly like that stuff. You don't see Conan exhaling cones of fire and standing there to take a sword to the face because he's "just that tough." But you would see someone from Dragonball Z, Naruto, or other anime/manga series doing stuff like that, or video-game characters having such abilities even if they're primarily warrior-types. Yet a martial adept with the right maneuver or stance could do just these sorts of things.

Perhaps you missed the other half of my post where I described how you COULD use the ToB to make a more sword-n-sorcery style warrior? Also, mind you, my comments weren't meant at all in a negative tone; I love using hte Tome of Battle and I like it's over-the-top style.

I saw that part of your post, and am simply contesting the assertion that ToB is "anime" in general, and that one has to work to make a S&S-style warrior; my point was that ToB is plenty mundane by default unless you choose maneuvers from one of the three explicitly supernatural disciplines available only to the explicitly supernatural classes.

Any fighter can stand there to take a sword to the face because he's "just that tough"--it's called "having lots of hit points." In fact, if you solely interpret HP as physical injury (as those who think Devoted Spirit healing is supernatural do) Conan is in fact standing there taking swords to the face. Besides, an Iron Heart/Tiger Claw warblade practically is Conan; as many on the intertubes have said, Iron Heart Surge would be a lot clearer if you replaced the entirety of the flavor and mechanics text with "BY CROM!"

But honestly, a LOT of the maneuvers and stances and prestige classes are undeniably mystical. Even Iron Heart has a scant few examples, like Lightning Throw. Stone Dragon has plenty, from Stone Bones to Mountain Hammer to Earthstrike Quake to Colossus Strike, and the couple of variants of each of those at different levels. Setting Sun has stuff like Comet Throw, Ghostly Defense, Ballista Throw, and Tornado Throw (though most of that disicpline is reasonably mundane; even though some of these maneuvers are extraordinary, no real person could throw another person 20 or 40 feet and through a crowd of people to horribly bludgeon all of them).

Lightning Throw = Xena's chakram. Suspension-of-disbelief-stretching, sure, but not mystical.

Stone Bones = No more mystical than the barbarian's DR.

Mountain Hammer = Hit the weak spot for massive damage.

Comet Throw = I know Judo.
Ballista Throw = I know lots of Judo.
Tornado Throw = I'm really really good at Judo.
The world record for judo throws is 51 in 1 minute, which puts those maneuvers to shame; I couldn't find a distance record, but I'm guessing it would also be a lot less "mundane" than one would expect.

Ghostly Defense = I can trick you into missing me and hitting someone else.

Devoted Spirit is ALMOST ENTIRELY divinely-powered maneuvers, ranging frmo Crusader's Strike to Foehammer to Divine Surge to Radiant Charge to Immortal Fortitude and so on and so forth. Diamond Mind is a mix of extraordinary techniques and a few that just can't be natural even if the book doesn't label them supernatural; stuff like Action Before Thought, Mind Over Body, Quicksilver Motion, and Time Stands Still (depending on the weapon; one can easily imagine a master martial artist making a half-dozen or more unarmed strikes to dagger-strikes in a few seconds, but a greatsword-wielder? A warhammer-wielder? A halberdier?). Shadow Hand and Desert Wind are, obviously, almost purely supernatural disciplines.

All of the Devoted Spirit healing maneuvers aren't necessarily magical:

Hit points mean two things in the game world: the ability to take physical punishment and keep going, and the ability to turn a serious blow into a less serious one.

Ignoring fatigue, improving morale, avoiding attacks through better positioning...all of these and more are perfectly valid mundane explanations for the healing.

Foehammer = I hit things really hard.

The three Diamond Mind save-replacing maneuvers simply take your saves and give them higher numbers, not at all an extraordinary effect, through your concentration and will. Mind Over Body is no more supernatural than the placebo effect is.

If Time Stands Still is supernatural, so is a full attack action. Show me a real-life warrior who can attack someone four times in the span of six seconds with a ten-foot pike, or four times in the span of three seconds with a longbow, and then we'll talk about Time Stands Still.

As for prestige classes? Bloodclaw Master is all about shapeshifting and better two-weapon fighting with light weapons. Bloodstorm Blades somehow nonmagically make all their weapons gain the Returning magic weapon quality so they're all like boomerangs, while gaining ridiculous ricochet attacks and other abilities that blatantly out to be supernatural. Deepstone Sentinels manipulate elemental earth directly to form pillars of stone and ride around on them, smashing foes and doing other earth-elemental tricks. Eternal Blades gain a supernatural spiritual guide and acquire various benefits from that spirit. Jade Phoenix Mages are reincarnated mages with a mix of arcane spells and supernatural stances/maneuvers. Ruby Knight Vindicators blend divine spellcasting and special abilities to channel divine energy into martial maneuvers with continued development of their martial maneuvers/stances. Shadow Sun Ninjas manipulate light and dark, positive and negative energy, all the time and continue to learn more martial stances/maneuvers.

The Bloodclaw Master is about as magical as a barbarian's rage; you can take a class that lets you change your shape a bit by channeling your feral nature, or you can take a feat that makes you immune to fire while in rage and take class that makes you immune to death by HP damage while in rage. How is one more magical than the other?

JPM and RKV don't count, as they're spellcasting PrCs. Bloodstorm Blade, Shadow Sun Ninja, and Deepstone Sentinel I already said were supernatural. Eternal Blade gives you the same benefits as you'd gain from any old and wise mortal adviser.

Bloodstorm Blades are only non-magical in a game-rule sense because the designers somehow though that none of their class features ought to be supernatural despite how much they break the laws of nature/physics.

Definition of (Ex):

Extraordinary abilities are nonmagical, though they may break the laws of physics. They are not something that just anyone can do or even learn to do without extensive training.

All that said, you can still play a nonmagical, or fairly "traditional" warrior type with Tome of Battle if you choose the right feats, maneuvers, stances, and classes. And it can be great fun. It's just not what MOST of the book is oriented towards. Most of it's clearly dedicated to more superheroic, epic fantasy hero stuff like mythological heroes would be capable of, Hercules et al, not mere mortals in a gritty/semi-realistic setting.

My entire point is that "most" of the book is no different than "normal" D&D. The vast majority of maneuvers are no more "out there" than anything people could already do--heck, there's a feat in PHB2 that already lets monks nonmagically create and throw nonmagical fire thanks to ki, and people complain about Desert Wind?--and most of them are much more mundane than people think when skimming the book. Hercules can easily be represented as a 7th-level martial character with exceptionally high stats. If you look past the fancy names to see what everything actually does, and compare it to what existing things in D&D can do, you'll see that it's not mostly supernatural or mostly wuxia at all.

I'm not trying to attack you with a point-by-point rebuttal or anything, and I realize you're not one of those rapid "OMG! ToB is teh evulz!" types. I just feel that you're letting its associations with anime characters and its video-game-ness, whatever that is, to influence your judgment on the matter.[/sblock]

tl;dr: It's not nearly as supernatural or "anime" as it's made out to be, if you consider it overly mystical than the fighter and barbarian are mystical too, and Conan is an Iron Heart warblade.

 

[Water Bob]

On the subject of combat purpose. I use a simple template (RADR) to note general tactics employed by a group of enemy NPCs:

Recon
Assault
Defence
Retreat

Helps me organize typical responses outside those specific to their current goal.

Oops, left one out -- Ambush -- makes RADAR

Can you elaborate on how you employ this? I'm interested.

 

[Arkhandus]

Just to clarify/reinforce my earlier points; and I still support the use of Tome of Battle for fun warriors in D&D with an interesting variety of moves; and never said it was "anime." Monks are more "anime" than anything else in D&D, anyhow, short of Ninjas and Samurai. Well, and some Psychic Warriors using the right powers and feats.
[sblock=Eldritch Lord]

I saw that part of your post, and am simply contesting the assertion that ToB is "anime" in general, and that one has to work to make a S&S-style warrior; my point was that ToB is plenty mundane by default unless you choose maneuvers from one of the three explicitly supernatural disciplines available only to the explicitly supernatural classes.

Again, I DID NOT say it is "anime in general", I said that most of it is closer to that genre than it is to gritty sword-n-sorcery. I even gave examples to back up my response. I also did not say it was a lot more work to make a classic sword-n-sorcery type of warrior, I just said that there are a lot less options for that kind of semi-realism as opposed to the more fantastical/supernatural/"anime or wuxia" sorts of stuff in ToB. And I pointed out that many maneuvers in every discipline are mystical to some degree. And swordsages are only explicitly supernatural at mid- to upper-levels when they get Sense Magic, which is fairly minor anyway.

Any fighter can stand there to take a sword to the face because he's "just that tough"--it's called "having lots of hit points." In fact, if you solely interpret HP as physical injury (as those who think Devoted Spirit healing is supernatural do) Conan is in fact standing there taking swords to the face. Besides, an Iron Heart/Tiger Claw warblade practically is Conan; as many on the intertubes have said, Iron Heart Surge would be a lot clearer if you replaced the entirety of the flavor and mechanics text with "BY CROM!"

Technically, if a Fighter stood there and did nothing, the sword to the face could be done as a coup de grace for potential insta-kill. Unless paralyzed or otherwise helpless, they're assumed to be doing at least a little bit of dodging or otherwise reacting at the moment of impact. Also, the Stone Dragon discipline description EXPLICITLY calls out the fact that it draws upon the external power of earth and stone, requiring the character to be in contact with the ground when using those maneuvers. While they may not necessarily be supernatural in game-terms, they're still mystical in nature even if the designers chose not to give them the supernatural type. It's like a monk's ki-abilities that aren't all supernatural or spell-like; the ones that aren't particularly flashy or blatantly magical just aren't labeled supernatural.

And I never disputed that Conan would probably be a Warblade with lots of Iron Heart maneuvers and stuff. I explicitly called him out as an example of what ToB could be used to emulate.

Lightning Throw = Xena's chakram. Suspension-of-disbelief-stretching, sure, but not mystical.

Stone Bones = No more mystical than the barbarian's DR.

Mountain Hammer = Hit the weak spot for massive damage.

Comet Throw = I know Judo.
Ballista Throw = I know lots of Judo.
Tornado Throw = I'm really really good at Judo.
The world record for judo throws is 51 in 1 minute, which puts those maneuvers to shame; I couldn't find a distance record, but I'm guessing it would also be a lot less "mundane" than one would expect.

Ghostly Defense = I can trick you into missing me and hitting someone else.

Lightning Throw sends the weapon in a straight line and then has it zip right back to your hand afterward. There's no bouncing around to ricochet in a clever way, nor a boomerang effect; it's a straight line. More than just stretching disbelief.

Stone Bones is inherantly more mystical than the barbarian's DR by its very definition and that of its discipline. It's not just building up a natural toughness/resistance to injury like a martial artist does through rigorous and brutal training; it's a very brief transformation of the warrior's flesh into a stone-like hardness, while Adamantine Bones instead mimics the hardness of adamantine for a few seconds. And it applies even if you get knocked unconscious or paralyzed afterward in the same round; any further attacks against you (like a coup de grace) would still have to contend with that DR until the end of the round.

Also, do you seriously think an adamantine golem (Epic Level Handbook) has a weakpoint that you can exploit through Mountain Hammer? No, of course not! No matter how much you jab at it with a butterknife, you aren't going to hurt it, even if you have the strength of Hercules or Thor. You have to mystically suppress its innate hardness at the point of impact, or mystically increase the hardness of your butterknife at the moment of impact, in order to do anything more than just crumple your butterknife into a piece of scrap. You need to draw on the durability and density of elemental earth in order to overcome that stuff. Etc.

The low-level Setting Sun throws are believable enough or at least close enough for S&S or low-fantasy. It's the high-level ones that are ridiculous for anything short of mystical feats of martial prowess from ki/chi development like you'd see IN WUXIA AND ANIME. Which was my point about those maneuvers. Conan doesn't throw ogres 20 feet. Conan doesn't throw ogres 60 feet as high-speed projectiles crushing everyone in their path. He might throw a sword that far and cut everyone in the path (almost like Lightning Throw but without the instant-return), but not people. Or ogres. Or iron golems, of all things.

Tornado Throw could throw 6 or more people in as many seconds, while simultaneously jogging/dashing 60 feet or so. That's faster than the Judo record you mentioned, and while still close enough for low-fantasy, I think the dashing and 10+ feet of throwing distance pushes it a bit too far for a completely non-mystical explanation. And with the bonus that Tornado Throw grants on each successive throwing attempt, you are likely to be throwing the last few opponents 20-30 feet each. And again, those foes could be iron golems or the like. Sure, such big and heavy critters' bonuses might reduce the throwing distance to 10 feet or possibly result in one or two failed throwing attempts, depending on other modifiers and the luck of the dice, but still.....it could still end up being 20-foot-plus throws with such critters.

I forgot that Ghostly Defense actually required an external source of concealment or displacement or the like, rather than literally producing its own fog or turning the user incorporeal. Brief mix-up in my head with the similar Shadow Hand counter One With Shadow, of the same level.

All of the Devoted Spirit healing maneuvers aren't necessarily magical:

Ignoring fatigue, improving morale, avoiding attacks through better positioning...all of these and more are perfectly valid mundane explanations for the healing.

Foehammer = I hit things really hard.

However, every hit you take that deals HP damage necessarily inflicts at least some physical injury. Wound-healing effects can remove the HP damage, and many attacks can inflict extras like poison, the Wounding magic weapon effect, or other such side-effects that necessarily require inflicting a physical injury, however minor. Sure, some portion of a healing effect may have more to do with numbing pain or restoring stamina, but it's undeniable that when you use Crusader's Strike to revive an unconscious ally, THAT'S MAGICAL HEALING. Especially when you're 10 feet away. Also, its description even says that divine energy surrounds your weapon when using that maneuver.

Furthermore, it only works if the foe has an opposing alignment and presents a clear threat to you or your allies at the time; it's all about drawing on the conflict between your alignments (which in D&D, is a force of nature/the universe itself, not merely different ways of thinking and reasoning) and divine power to heal and invigorate yourself or an ally when you succeed at smiting a foe of opposing alignment (Nerull says: "Good job whacking that infuriating goody two-shoes, have a cookie!" ). Foehammer and some other Devoted Spirit maneuvers/stances have the same restriction. Many other DS maneuvers/stances directly draw upon the fundamental forces of alignments.

The three Diamond Mind save-replacing maneuvers simply take your saves and give them higher numbers, not at all an extraordinary effect, through your concentration and will. Mind Over Body is no more supernatural than the placebo effect is.

A placebo or simply believing yourself to be invincible will not save you from guzzling a keg of Black Lotus Extract (or getting bitten in the carotid artery of your neck by a black mamba, rattlesnake, or king cobra). Or getting knocked into next week by an angry titan's maul when that titan's using the Awesome Blow feat. Or avoid pissing your pants and panicking in terror when a Colossal Great Wyrm Red Dragon suddenly lands in front of you and roars in your face just before he eats you.

If Time Stands Still is supernatural, so is a full attack action. Show me a real-life warrior who can attack someone four times in the span of six seconds with a ten-foot pike, or four times in the span of three seconds with a longbow, and then we'll talk about Time Stands Still.

A couple of attacks in 6 seconds with a pike or greatsword isn't outside the realm of sword-and-sorcery or low-fantasy, it's reasonably believable enough for a heroically strong dude. Since real-life archers can fire roughly an arrow a second, and records of Mongolian archers and others with advanced composite bow technology that's since been lost indicate that they could shoot even faster with their bows, I have no problem imagining a character with Manyshot or Rapid Shot. Sure it's not likely to be as accurate, but, D&D characters do suffer attack penalties when making multiple attacks in a round, generally.

I only said that Time Stands Still seems mystical in light of its use with heavy weaponry, not light weapons or unarmed strikes. A skilled martial artist can easily make several attacks per second with his or her bare hands and feet. Even I can, and I hardly have any martial arts training. I'm talking about 6-10 attacks per round with a greatsword or the like using Time Stands Still, almost 2 such strikes per second, which is what's definitely beyond the realm of the non-mystical.

The Bloodclaw Master is about as magical as a barbarian's rage; you can take a class that lets you change your shape a bit by channeling your feral nature, or you can take a feat that makes you immune to fire while in rage and take class that makes you immune to death by HP damage while in rage. How is one more magical than the other?

JPM and RKV don't count, as they're spellcasting PrCs. Bloodstorm Blade, Shadow Sun Ninja, and Deepstone Sentinel I already said were supernatural. Eternal Blade gives you the same benefits as you'd gain from any old and wise mortal adviser.

Errr, no, barbarians don't shapeshift while raging. Frenzied Berserker is just idiotic design and blatantly absurd in how far it stretches the idea of berserker rage. It shouldn't be used as an argument for more absurd breaking of the suspension of disbelief for "nonmagical" characters. Also, the Bloodclaw Master's "Shifting" class feature is specifically designated as Supernatural.

Your argument for the Eternal Blade being nonmagical conflicts with your argument for why the Swordsage is magical; each technically has one and only one Supernatural class feature. But the EB's is far more significant and intrinsic to the class. And you don't get a mortal teacher following you around that any mook could kill while the old geezer's focused on babysitting you and trying to tell/show you exactly how to do everything; you got a spirit following you around and 'haunting' your dreams and sometimes taking control of your body or lending you temporary knowledge of a maneuver (including Devoted Spirit maneuvers, which are largely divine in nature to some degree or another) or exactly how to fight a particular type of enemy (like a Favored Enemy bonus).

And besides, I was just refuting your point that was supposed to refute my point about much of the book being oriented towards a more mystical sort of warrior than a classic sword-and-sorcery fighter like Conan. Clearly, most of the classes in Tome of Battle are either magical or so heavily infused with blatant ki-powers that they ought to be called out as magical despite the designers technically designating most of their maneuvers or class as Extraordinary. And anyway, numerically speaking, 6 of the 8 prestige classes and 2 of the 3 base classes possess either designated Supernatural abilities or spellcasting or both.

My entire point is that "most" of the book is no different than "normal" D&D. The vast majority of maneuvers are no more "out there" than anything people could already do--heck, there's a feat in PHB2 that already lets monks nonmagically create and throw nonmagical fire thanks to ki, and people complain about Desert Wind?--and most of them are much more mundane than people think when skimming the book. Hercules can easily be represented as a 7th-level martial character with exceptionally high stats. If you look past the fancy names to see what everything actually does, and compare it to what existing things in D&D can do, you'll see that it's not mostly supernatural or mostly wuxia at all.

I'm not trying to attack you with a point-by-point rebuttal or anything, and I realize you're not one of those rapid "OMG! ToB is teh evulz!" types. I just feel that you're letting its associations with anime characters and its video-game-ness, whatever that is, to influence your judgment on the matter.

I know the PHB2 has some ki-powered feats and such. It is wierd that they're not supernatural, but oh well. The designers of that book had plenty of other problems anyway with their design work and balance with the classes and options in that book, not just the Feats chapter.

Normal D&D books clearly indicate supernatural abilities and don't include much that's EX but blatantly SU in description/function. Tome of Battle is different in that respect. Even though there are also several maneuvers and stances that are quite reasonable for a low-fantasy or sword-and-sorcery style campaign. However, it does not change the fact that a lot of the book lends itself more to anime-style or wuxia-style superhuman combat abilities. Just read the Behind the Curtain: Blending Genres section and the rest of the Introduction in the book.

AND I'M STILL NOT SAYING THAT IT CAN'T DO SWORD AND SORCERY STYLE WARRIORS. Just that it's not oriented as much towards them. I'm not arguing that the book is "anime." I never did. Just being honest that it's actually a lot more mystical or superhuman in a lot of its material than what normal D&D "mundane" classes could do; some people don't like that and don't like seeing warrior-types doing all that crazy stuff. The original poster deserves to be informed about the book's contents if he were to ever go and purchase it, before he might regret it if he's one of those people who hates anything smacking of "anime" or "video games" or other such unrealistic stuff. There are certainly plenty of them that flamed the book and those who liked it, back when the forums were still mostly focused on 3.x D&D.

And I already mentioned that ToB is more oriented towards mythical heroes and such rather than a gritty Conanesque character or the like. Also, it should be noted that anime and wuxia are inspired by eastern mythology and legends anyway, and that the concept of Chi/Ki probably originated (according to what little historical evidence is available from that far back) with some teachings of Greek Pankration and its concept of "pneuma." Pankration was Hercules' (Heracles') supposed fighting style and the national martial art of Greece since ancient times, revived/reconstructed in modern Greece from recovered artifacts inscribed with images or writings of ancient Greek martial arts moves. One of the original Olympic sports of ancient times.[/sblock]
And that's all I have to say on that topic.

 

[Nagual]

I'm using this to brainstorm basic tactics that a group of NPCs can utilize in order to make the best of their combined abilities.

Say you have a particular rival/enemy faction which you know the PCs will butt heads with.
You have determined the stats for these NPCs (the factions typical agents).
I use an NPC template for this (basically a "typical" NPC of a particular class, etc)
Heroforge is great for this because I can produce them (reasonably) quickly -- and I can modify/level up if required.
D&D 3.5 and Variants Files

Some low-level grunts
Some "sergeants" (just below the PC party's current level)
A few "captains" (level slightly higher than PCs) and special agents (assassins, etc)

I then select a number of these (EL always greater than the party) and set about considering how these guys would work together to achieve common objectives. If there's a large enough group of them -- split them up into squads/units -- squad A , squad B, etc (these could be single individuals if working with smaller groups and/or lower levels). Then it's easier to plan out how they would feasibly respond to specific situations.

A -- grunts
B -- grunts + sergeant
C -- some sergeants
D -- Captain, sergeant and grunts

RECON: send squad A out to patrol perimeter, squad B follows quietly behind. Squad C patrols outside perimeter (always slow and stealthy). Squad D guards "camp". If AB detects enemy one of the squad will return to inform D. If C encounters enemy -- will attempt to lead them to AB or D.
AMBUSH: If enemy observed undetected (i.e the squad has not been seen). AB attack rear push PCs towards D. C strike at undefended flank.
DEFENSE: AB assumes defensive line, D spreads out to watch for breakthroughs, C performs rear or flanking guard.
ASSAULT: AB frontal assault -- engage and hold enemy. C perform flanking attack -- squeeze em! D steps in the finish them off...
RETREAT: AB attempts to hold/delay enemy. CD retreat, C engages any enemy which gets past AB.

The information use produce should/is going to vary according to the size of the group and their purpose. I'll perhaps post another example in the future, the campaign only just started -- we have only played 5 half-day sessions. Essentially, where possible and appropriate -- group your enemy NPCs and spend a little time considering how they will work together to achieve their objective. I hope this helps...

 

[Water Bob]

I've got an idea. And, it's simple.

In order to encourage movement in combat, why not give a defense bonus to those who are "lite on their feet".

A combatant would not have to give up a Full Attack, since the move we're talking about is a 5' steep. If the character takes his 5's step during the combat (he attacks and moves 5', or moves 5' and attacks), then he get a +2 to defense.

Maybe that's too much, since the Total Defense and Fighting Defensivley are available. Maybe it should just be a +1? Or, maybe it doesn't stack with Total Defense or Fighting Defensively?

I'm leanign towards a +1 to defense. That way, you get nothing if you don't move, +2 defense if you Fight Defensively, and +4 defence if you go for Total Defense--it doubles each time.

And, you could limit to to single, one-on-one combat, too (because when fighting two or more enemies, you'll keep moving to keep them from flanking, anyway).

I kinda like that.

Thoughts?

 

[Herremann the Wise]

Hello Water Bob,

Some ideas:

- A moving target is harder to hit with a ranged weapon.
- Ranged weapons should be more deadly than they are in 3.x. Cover and position should mean something.
- In melee, Combatant A who is threatening Combatant B should be harder for Combatant A to hit, than Combatant C who is weaponless and thus not threatening Combatant A. It is difficult to ignore the greater difficulty in hitting a skillful combatant when they are wielding a sword as against when they are not wielding that sword. (This is not only in terms of blocking/parrying but purely because you don't want to perform an attack that opens up your own defenses).
- An addendum to that is that you can ignore that they are wielding that sword, and thus they will be easier to hit but you are going to give away an attack of opportunity in the process and if it hits, then your attack possibly gets penalized.
- As a combatant's skill in melee increases, movement should not limit the number of attacks they may perform. If they can attack 3 times in a round of combat, they should not be forced into lumping them all together.
- Movement should become part of a particular attack. Imagine if you could move/"shift" 5 foot every time you made a successful attack?
- With all this regular and normal capacity for movement, the ability to prevent movement becomes much more important and can possibly be decisive.
- More skillful combatants can threaten a greater area (by performing a 5' step as part of the attack of opportunity).
- I think a key to all of this is getting rid of the current action structure and replacing it with a single standard action that is backed up by a number of "reactions". As your combat skill increases, the greater number of reactions you are allowed.
- Initiative should be more important than it is and experience (level) should be an important factor in this as well as dexterity. A d20 worth of variance in determining initiative would have to go. Perhaps some attacks will reduce a character's initiative. You can have more gradual forms of "stunning" where a character's initiative is reduced (and thus their capacity for reactions is also reduced).

Just some thoughts to throw into the mix [I've tinkered with a set of game rules that features the above].

Best Regards
Herremann the Wise

 

[Water Bob]

Another thing I'd like to see implemented, besides a reason to move around the battlefield, is a reason to use unarmed attacks while in melee.

I'm not talking about ever combat round. But, from time to time, when an opportune moment shows up, it would be neat to have some sort of un-armed Attack of Opportunity available, where a back-hand slap of the guantlet or a headbutt gets into the fight.

Too often, in D&D and other games, we have rules for these types of attacks but never use them. Why go for an elbow to your foe's chest when you can slice 'em with your longsword? So, unless you have a monk or some other bare-handed specialized class--or, unless you're weaponless for whatever reason--we never seem to get these types of attacks into the game.

The question is: How to do it?

You can't expect a player to give up a more powerful attack in favor of something like this. Your unarmed attacks have to be "gravy". Extras. To where the players says, "Why not use it? It can't hurt."

A special Attack of Opportunity that allows only unarmed attacks is one way to do it. Or, you can trigger a combat maneuver with specific requirements that will allow these types of attacks every so often.

The question is: What are the triggers? What conditions need to exist where the unarmed attack is allowed?

With unarmed attacks, you've got:

Punch
Backhand
Elbow
Kick
Knee
Headbutt

And some of those can be varied due to equipment: brass knuckels for a punch. A spike on the elbow. Stuff like that.

How to implement this and keep it fair?

 

[Dandu]

Meh, improved trip requires a melee touch attack if you're not using a tripping weapon, which covers that area for me.