Martial Pool - a New combat mechanic?

[Galloglaich]

Very neat system! My group's a little skeptical, but there was some interest. And it would indeed work very nicely with a good Matrix system (or Iron Heroes). Also considering adding it to the WH40k d20 system I'm working on.

I'm a little unclear about one thing, though: If you allocate a die to active defense, does that set your defense until your next turn to d20 (or best of multiple d20s) plus defense rating, or just against one attack (and then multiple d20s allocated allow you to block multiple attacks or take the best against a single attack)?

In our system, when you allocate a die to active defense it basically works for that one attack. You get the value of your die roll (or the best of multiple die rolls) plus your defense rating.

Each active defense roll defends you against a single attack within the round, once you have used up your pool or (elect to stop using dice from it) you have to rely on passive defense, which is all your defense bonsues plus 8.


However you could alternately rule that a given active defense roll applied to all attacks from a particular opponent within a given round. So say if you were fighting larry, moe and curly, if larry made two attacks, you could roll one die as active defense against all of his attacks, and still have the rest of your pool for dealing with moe and curly.

That might make a good martial feat perhaps for dealing with multiple combattants.... hmm... mind if I borrow that?

G.

 

[Galloglaich]

We made a new forum for the codex. There is nothing on it yet.

But of course I'm going to continue to answer anything posted here needless to say.

http://www.codexmartialis.com/

G.

 

[Achan hiArusa]

I will say, that I am leery of using Armor as DR, but since you give rules for bypassing armor using a hit penalty, that actually something I might want to use.

Now, IRL after being attacked by a dog while wearing a heavy coat, I would say subdual conversion is probably the most realistic, but its also a bookkeeping nightmare in a game.

 

[Galloglaich]

just like the picture in the codex in the "when animals attack" section

 

[Achan hiArusa]

He had been abandoned by his owners and he confronted me on my way to work (at the time I walked to work). I stopped and faced him and started to walk backwards and he lunged. In D&D terms I absolutely have +0 BAB and no weapon proficiencies. I managed to block him of all things. He went for basically my heart and met my left elbow and then tried to go for the same area on the right and met with my right elbow (I have no idea how I managed that), he pulled back and then looked at me puzzled, at that point I picked up a nearby piece of bamboo and chased him and he didn't bother me the next day. He was probably a good bit of rottweiler. When I got to work and stopped shaking like a leaf I took off my coat and saw broken skin and bruises but less than I would have gotten from tripping and falling. If it hadn't been winter I would have been in short sleeves and I would probably had mauled elbows. Then I called animal control.

 

[Galloglaich]

He had been abandoned by his owners and he confronted me on my way to work (at the time I walked to work). I stopped and faced him and started to walk backwards and he lunged. In D&D terms I absolutely have +0 BAB and no weapon proficiencies. I managed to block him of all things. He went for basically my heart and met my left elbow and then tried to go for the same area on the right and met with my right elbow (I have no idea how I managed that), he pulled back and then looked at me puzzled, at that point I picked up a nearby piece of bamboo and chased him and he didn't bother me the next day. He was probably a good bit of rottweiler. When I got to work and stopped shaking like a leaf I took off my coat and saw broken skin and bruises but less than I would have gotten from tripping and falling. If it hadn't been winter I would have been in short sleeves and I would probably had mauled elbows. Then I called animal control.

Thats a tough situation, and it sounds like you handled it extremely well. You may just have a point or two of BaB you didn't even know about.

I experienced a lot of violence growing up in New Orleans and I've seen many people go through "fight or flight" situations. It's interesting how different people will react under the gun - a lot of times it's the opposite person you expect who rises to the occasion. One of the things I really liked about the movie The Mist which came out a year or two ago, was how it explored this kind of thing with the different characters.

I've often thought it would be really interesting to put a morale system of some sort in an RPG. It's been done in many tactical war games like the old squad leader (which is the basis for about ten different WW II computer games) - morale checks can sometimes lead to random effects like a unit actually going berzerk or fanatic, or 'promoting' to a better unit under fire- whereas many will just break under pressure. Everybody I ever talked to hates the idea of morale in an rpg though Can't take away a players free will...

But I always thought it would really bring drama to your gunslinger type situations, if you catch my drift.


G.

 

[Achan hiArusa]

Maybe I do. Apparently I have fallen down a story of stairs with severe injuries (a twisted arm) when I was 20 and then survived an attack from a dog, so it seems I have more than 4 hit points and apparently less than 6 since I went to disabled, so about 5, unless I gained some levels in the past uhh...years.

I do miss morale checks from 2nd Edition and earlier. You made a morale check for the group when the first creature fell and a morale check when half the group of creatures fell (if it were a single creature then it would be first hit and then at half hit points). They took that out of 3e, most of time we just substituted a will save for that. Otherwise morale was always up to the players unless they were playing Ravenloft.

 

[Galloglaich]

Maybe I do. Apparently I have fallen down a story of stairs with severe injuries (a twisted arm) when I was 20 and then survived an attack from a dog, so it seems I have more than 4 hit points and apparently less than 6 since I went to disabled, so about 5, unless I gained some levels in the past uhh...years.

I do miss morale checks from 2nd Edition and earlier. You made a morale check for the group when the first creature fell and a morale check when half the group of creatures fell (if it were a single creature then it would be first hit and then at half hit points). They took that out of 3e, most of time we just substituted a will save for that. Otherwise morale was always up to the players unless they were playing Ravenloft.

Yeah it would at least be cool to re-introduce that for monsters. It's kind of silly for them to just hold their ground and fight to the death no matter what.

I think the Squad Leader tables had an interesting dynamic which could be very interesting for an RPG.

Basically you have to roll morale, in this case your baddies would roll. In squad leader you rolled 2d6, and you had to roll below a certain number or your squad, tank, or individual leader or hero would 'break' and basically either refuse to fight or run away.

in Dnd you could do something like, every time a monster or group of monsters suffered a casualty, you could have them roll morale. Base would be something like say, 15, minus CR of monster in question. So an Orc would need a 14. If they roll above that number, they keep fighting, if they roll below, they disengage. Of course above a certain CR they probably wouldn't have morale issues, I don't know I don't ever play real high level.

Now in SL, there was a special rule where if you rolled a 2, you could consult the "heat of battle" table. The results could be unpredictable but often lent drama to the fight.

http://c4.ac-images.myspacecdn.com/images02/57/l_2108df72a06a4cbb9ac6eeb171200aaf.jpg
Through dashell hammet like detective work i found the very table.

So I'm thinking, you cause a casualty in a group of monsters, they roll morale, if they get a natural 20, you could consult a table similar to the above, with the possible result that a monster could go fanatic (which meant battle hardening which is something like instantly levelling up like the effects of a heroism potion) could go berzerk and attack anything in sight, or surrender, depending on how they rolled.

It could add some unwanted book-keeping but it could also be interesting and make fights less predictable.

G.

 

[Achan hiArusa]

I had a similar idea with Battletech, instead of using the mandatory Forced Withdrawal rule, I thought I could use a morale rating based on the experience of the unit (Green, Regular, Veteran, Elite) based on Dirtside when one of the Forced Withdrawal conditions came up. I had a player protest to high heaven and declared open fire on any unit that retreated.

Maybe by incorporating a Will Save with CR might give you some variation along with any descriptive text about their basic cowardice or bravery. It would just be tempting to bring in Morale from any legacy creatures from 2E.

Also, my friend was wondering how you accomodate Swift, Free, and Immediate actions with the martial pool.

 

[Galloglaich]

I had a similar idea with Battletech, instead of using the mandatory Forced Withdrawal rule, I thought I could use a morale rating based on the experience of the unit (Green, Regular, Veteran, Elite) based on Dirtside when one of the Forced Withdrawal conditions came up. I had a player protest to high heaven and declared open fire on any unit that retreated.

Maybe by incorporating a Will Save with CR might give you some variation along with any descriptive text about their basic cowardice or bravery. It would just be tempting to bring in Morale from any legacy creatures from 2E.

Also, my friend was wondering how you accomodate Swift, Free, and Immediate actions with the martial pool.

The general rule of thumb we have used for actions has been that any action which can draw an attack of opportunity requires spending an MP. So many Free actions would cost no MP. For move-equivalent actions I may charge two MP, depending what they are doing or how far they are moving (i.e. at the DMs discretion).

I don't use swift actions or immediate actions but from the definition I would say those would cost one MP.

G.