What Cool Things Should the Rules Let You Do?

[TheCrazyMuffinMan]

Cause ability drains via spells or severe, non-supernatural special attacks, or special injuries (like a concussion or a severe leg fracture)

 

[mmadsen]

How about magical duels -- where counter-spelling works?

 

[Szatany]

- scale the dragon and kill it in the eye

- deflect spells with my sword

- chase enemies in a way that doesn't resemble a game of chess

 

[mmadsen]

I forgot a staple of movie action: Our hero baits his attacker, then dodges, so that the attacker hits his friend, or lunges off the rooftop, or gets his weapon stuck in a wooden beam, or breaks his hand on a brick wall, etc.

 

[MarkB]

I forgot a staple of movie action: Our hero baits his attacker, then dodges, so that the attacker hits his friend, or lunges off the rooftop, or gets his weapon stuck in a wooden beam, or breaks his hand on a brick wall, etc.

Voluntarily lower the DEX portion of your AC as an immediate action, and add that value as a critical failure threshold to your opponent's attack roll.

 

[mmadsen]

IME, D&D tends to stifle that creativity (if your DM adheres strictly to the RAW), because you can only choose from a set list of cool things (in combat, anyway) like tripping someone, or bull rushing them. And, to make matters even worse, it's harder to do those cool things than it is to just attack with your regular attack.

I don't think it's a problem that D&D provides rules for some cools things, as those rules can serve as examples for how to do other cool things.

The problem, as you note, is that it makes cool things much harder than the fairly bland "attack and ablate his hit points," which isn't very dramatic until the very last hit, which takes him down.

 

[Man in the Funny Hat]

I want the rules to let Kevin Landwaster go to the top of Kevin's Watch and say:

"I'm going to destroy The Land and Lord Foul with it! ...#&*! - I missed!"

 

[mmadsen]

From Beowulf: I want to be able to tear a troll's arm off. I'd also like to be able to chop arms and legs off of zombies, etc.

 

[Warren Okuma]

I was reading an essay by Gerry Klug on how he created the classic James Bond RPG back in the day, and this tidbit explained why it was so good:

The methodology used to design the James Bond game was a variant of the way I used when I was a Lighting Designer in theatre and rock 'n' roll. I first immersed myself in the subject, reading all the James Bond books Ian Fleming wrote. I then reread them carefully, noting instances and occurrences I wanted to recreate in the game when Bond fans played it.​

If you were to create a list of evocative things fantasy heroes might try, what would go on that list?

Hmm.. what goes on the list? Nothing. You can almost get any flavor or effect you want... you just gotta know what game engine does what.

 

[mmadsen]

Hmm.. what goes on the list? Nothing. You can almost get any flavor or effect you want... you just gotta know what game engine does what.

The goal here is to list all the cool things from fantasy stories that we'd like to be able to emulate in the game -- so, at least in theory, we could design a game system well-suited to playing out all the exciting scenes from Tolkien's Lord of the Rings, Howard's Conan stories, King Arthur, Robin Hood, etc.