Wuxia in D&D?
- Thread starter sniffles
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Another possible source for inspiration is the new Iron Heroes book. Wuxia characters are all about thier baddassitude, not thier plethora of magic items. That is how a Iron Heroes character is. You can introduce magic items, but they are real special like the sword in Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. Coupled with something like a psionics system for ki energy would make a pretty cool setting.
I just got the book, but from what I have been reading and hearing on various threads is that the fights tend to flow and encourage more movement and special stunts as opposed to being more static stand and swing fights.
It also has rules for doing skill stunts for various bonuses and special attacks. They are fairly free form and left up to the DM if a certain stunt would be allowed, but they do say for a +x bonus to hit you need a DCy skill check, choose the skill that fits what the character is doing. For example, Wan Pau is facing an assassin who had previously drugged his tea. Wan Pau is suffering terrible penalties on all his actions so he attempts a Concentration check to ignore the penalty from the drug. The DC is something like 15 + 2*penalty modifier you want to ignore for one round. This takes a move action, but Wan Pau wants to make a full attack to take out his enemy so he opts to take the fast skill challenge and perform the skill as a free action by taking a -5 on his check. So drawing on his mind trained through years of meditation he focuses through the drugs and attacks the assassin. Possessing great insight into sensing an opponent's fighting style, Wan Pau decides to measure up his opponent and makes a Sense Motive check (or a Knowlege Fighting Schools if the DM wants to allow this) opposed by the assassin's Bluff check or BAB+combat stat modifier + 1d20. He has a high Sense Motive so he chooses to take a -5 on his Sense Motive roll to get an addition +1 for a (+2 total) to his attacks and defense against this opponent if he makes the check. If he fails he drew a wrong conclusion and will suffer a -1 penalty as he incorrectly anticipates his opponents moves. Recognizing his opponents fighting stlye he uses his knowledge to give him the edge he needs to fight his opponent. Also he can then flaunt his knowledge that the assassin is weak and his school of fighting even weaker because they must use such enderhanded means to fight.
Wow, that got long fast. Anyway the skill stunt at least would be great to import into a wuxia style game, or just about any game really. On the montecook.com site there is the description of the skill stunt system and some examples of things that can be done.
I just got the book, but from what I have been reading and hearing on various threads is that the fights tend to flow and encourage more movement and special stunts as opposed to being more static stand and swing fights.
It also has rules for doing skill stunts for various bonuses and special attacks. They are fairly free form and left up to the DM if a certain stunt would be allowed, but they do say for a +x bonus to hit you need a DCy skill check, choose the skill that fits what the character is doing. For example, Wan Pau is facing an assassin who had previously drugged his tea. Wan Pau is suffering terrible penalties on all his actions so he attempts a Concentration check to ignore the penalty from the drug. The DC is something like 15 + 2*penalty modifier you want to ignore for one round. This takes a move action, but Wan Pau wants to make a full attack to take out his enemy so he opts to take the fast skill challenge and perform the skill as a free action by taking a -5 on his check. So drawing on his mind trained through years of meditation he focuses through the drugs and attacks the assassin. Possessing great insight into sensing an opponent's fighting style, Wan Pau decides to measure up his opponent and makes a Sense Motive check (or a Knowlege Fighting Schools if the DM wants to allow this) opposed by the assassin's Bluff check or BAB+combat stat modifier + 1d20. He has a high Sense Motive so he chooses to take a -5 on his Sense Motive roll to get an addition +1 for a (+2 total) to his attacks and defense against this opponent if he makes the check. If he fails he drew a wrong conclusion and will suffer a -1 penalty as he incorrectly anticipates his opponents moves. Recognizing his opponents fighting stlye he uses his knowledge to give him the edge he needs to fight his opponent. Also he can then flaunt his knowledge that the assassin is weak and his school of fighting even weaker because they must use such enderhanded means to fight.
Wow, that got long fast. Anyway the skill stunt at least would be great to import into a wuxia style game, or just about any game really. On the montecook.com site there is the description of the skill stunt system and some examples of things that can be done.
barsoomcore
Unattainable Ideal
The Burning Shaolin stuff is lots of fun. Really, wuxia gaming is more about attitude than rules. What the characters DO in The Bride With White Hair isn't much different than what characters do in a typical D&D game -- but the STYLE with which they do it is different.
You need your players thinking of doing cool stuff, not just with their powers and their gear and whatnot, but with the space around them. You need to give them spaces full of cool stuff to spark their imagination, and bad guys who operate like wuxia bad guys.
Lots of posing, lots of dramatic announcements, lots of mooks, lots of fun.
Read my Wild Stewardess Action Story Hour for an example of a wuxia-style game done with pretty much completely standard D&D rules (except for Barsoom magic). The characters are fighters, psions and stuff. There's one with monk levels but otherwise not so much.
We have a blast. You just need to accept wuxia physics (your weight decreases as you accelerate, for example, which allows you to run along thin branches), provide wuxia attitude (bad guys need to glower and declaim portentously), and make possible plenty of wuxia cool (allow characters to fire arrows through gaps in floorboards, for example, or describe misses as being entirely due to the PC's spectacular agility).
You need your players thinking of doing cool stuff, not just with their powers and their gear and whatnot, but with the space around them. You need to give them spaces full of cool stuff to spark their imagination, and bad guys who operate like wuxia bad guys.
Lots of posing, lots of dramatic announcements, lots of mooks, lots of fun.
Read my Wild Stewardess Action Story Hour for an example of a wuxia-style game done with pretty much completely standard D&D rules (except for Barsoom magic). The characters are fighters, psions and stuff. There's one with monk levels but otherwise not so much.
We have a blast. You just need to accept wuxia physics (your weight decreases as you accelerate, for example, which allows you to run along thin branches), provide wuxia attitude (bad guys need to glower and declaim portentously), and make possible plenty of wuxia cool (allow characters to fire arrows through gaps in floorboards, for example, or describe misses as being entirely due to the PC's spectacular agility).
DungeonmasterCal
First Post
I couldn't agree more with Barsoomcore. Rules mechanics only take a person so far. After that, it's up to the GM and the players to add color to the canvas. I really like the stunt system in Mike Mearls' "Book of Iron Might", and really enjoy the action scenes those rules can inspire. But without good descriptive dialogue, they're just more numbers to crunch.
The Shaman
First Post
RangerWickett said:
I'm so going to find a reason to use that line in a game.
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