Badass Tricks, Maneuvers, and Stunts


What might seem like a no-brainer to one GM may be a revelation to another... or idiotic drivel.  Depends on the GM.

This idea was born from a discussion I had with another gamer on EnWorld.  I'm sure you're familiar with this song and dance, it goes a little something like this...

"AD&D is boring, especially if you're playing a fighter because all you can do is attack (swing your sword or whatever).  While in a game like 3.5 you've got a ton of options."

"Balderdash!  In AD&D, you're not restricted to any specific maneuver.  You have the freedom to make it up as you go, roleplaying the action alongside the DM.  If you want to do a flying kick or somersault slash at the Orc's ankle, there's nothing to stop you."

To which the original guy responds, "You might do it that way, but most DMs don't.  With them, it's by the book, etc, etc."

For the last couple years (it's difficult to remember exactly what I allowed or was ok with back in High School or even games 5 years ago), I've tried to encourage players to describe their attack before rolling whilst keeping an open mind about the possible outcome.  Of course, with the right (or wrong) player, this can get out of hand.  If a majority of DMs did this, abuse would rear its ugly head.  Where's the potential downside of attempting a trick move or fancy stunt?

I've come up with this...

1.  Player states he wants to attack the foe before him.

2.  GM asks (especially if this is the first session or two you're introducing the concept - if you've been this awhile, then it's up to the player to state how he wants to differentiate his attack), "How do you want to attack him?  What, specifically, are you doing?"

3.  "I try slicing off the wizard's hand - the one holding that wand."  (could be thrusting his sword into a Troll's eye, whatever).

4.  (GM assesses the difficulty on a range of 1, 2, or 3.  The more difficult the maneuver, the higher the number - to a max of 3.  Let's say the stated action is a 2).  "Alright, that's going to be fairly challenging.  Roll your standard attack.  If you hit, you accomplish what you had in mind.  If you miss, then you failed to connect with your target or it just didn't have any appreciable effect.  However, if your attack roll comes up a natural 1 or 2, then it's a disaster, epic fail.  Your foe gets a free attack or the next guy to hit you does max damage or your weapon gets knocked out of your hand... something like that."

5.  "Fair enough."  The player rolls an 18, which is above his target's AC.

6.  "Awesome!  The wizard's decrepit hand is lopped off by your flashing blade.  He screams in anguish and won't be able to use his wand until after he picks it back up."

7.  Hi-fives all around.  The GM turns to Larry, "What does your cleric want to do on his turn?"


So, there you have it.  Any character can try anything (within certain limits) but there's a drawback for rolling terrible.  If it's a move that would be customary for the particular character (based on class, level, and so forth), then the difficulty and potential downfall is only a 1.  If it's really specific (as in targeting a small area) or kind of tricky but definitely not impossible, then it might be a 2.  If it borders on astounding but still within the realm of believability, give it a 3 - roll either a 1, 2, or 3 on the to-hit d20 roll and it's bad news for attacker.

Please, feel free to critique this.  Rip it apart, find a better way of doing it, add something on, take something else away, whatever.  This idea came to me while driving in my car this morning.  It hasn't been playtested or anything.  Just thought it was pretty cool.


VS

p.s.  This was copied/pasted from my blog:  http://vengersatanis.blogspot.com/2014/06/badass-tricks-maneuvers-and-stunts.html

The thing with trying to cut off a body part or whatever, is that hit points don't represent physical damage, at least not in characters with levels.

The other thing is that it gets abused. When I played as a kid back in the 70s, we tried having something like this, but everyone would just swing for the head trying to cut it off.  

Which has large repercussions, because now instead of your 50 hit point monster dying in 3-4 rounds, it now might die in 1 round. And then, why aren't monsters/NPCs doing the same thing to the PCs? Once they start to, PCs start losing limbs and necks. So after the novelty wore off, we threw the rule back out and went back to regular D&D.

D&D works well (IMHO) because it has an arbitrary abstract wound system. You don't really have to worry about dying in one blow (at least past 2nd level). Sure, maybe you don't one shot opponents, but that's a plus in my book as well. (This is why so many computer and video games use hit points.)

Beyond that, AD&D did have some maneuvers. It had charge and that thing where fighters got multiple attacks against 0 hit dice opponents.

And then BECMI D&D introduced maneuvers such as smash, parry, and disarm (though I think those last two might be in AD&D someplace)

I've been playing with a system, loosely inspired by Victory Games' 007 RPG car chase rules, where combat is all description + bids, with one final decisive roll at the end. Goes something like this:

Opponent 1 describes their attack and makes a bid between 1 - 5 the location setting the bid (1 for the body, 2 for limbs, 3 for head, 5 for a more specific/smaller location (called shot to the eye, etc.) or a special maneuver (jump kick, feint, etc). Opponent 2 describes how they counter, parry, deflect, or otherwise avoid the attack, and counters with their own bid.  At any time either opponent can choose not to counter and instead make the attacker roll, with the difficulty set by the combined bids.

In playtesting I've found this has had several effects I like:

A) players tend to start with conservative attacks to the body since they know until the Difficulty reaches a certain point, they aren't going to be rolling.
B) the more skilled a fighter a character is the more likely they'll make higher bids, while the less skilled try to keep the Difficulty lower.
C) the tension builds as the Difficulty increases until it reaches a breaking point, like each round of combat is in essence a game of "chicken"

and D) the descriptions of the attacks become more elaborate the more comfortable a player becomes with the system.

This is about how people's brains work.

Some people, like myself, prefer a gm to be flexible and creative, and want roleplay maneuvers to be present. This is potentially a huge challenge for a gm, especially a novice.

Other people just are not comfortable with the abstract nature of a gm making these maneuver judgement calls. There can be many reasons, but all that matters is it bothers them.



What I find hard to grasp, is why its ok for a gm to decide how many ninjas gank you, and when; such as; when you are asleep or at 1 hp after a previous battle.

But, its somehow a terrible crime for the gm to decide that turning over a table may provide cover.

I want the gm to do both of the above; allow me to do maneuvers outside the box, and decide how many ninja's gank me.

depends on how you want to run it, though called shots for body parts might need vetoing on BBEGs etc.

We did describe the manoeuvre with wrestling using AD&D 2Es Fighter's handbook and some handwavium. Worked well and moved the game away from a bunch of contested rolls to engagement with the task in-game.

going by all the AD&D rules this is very problematic, intelligent monsters will attempt to hit an unarmored head (ac10) on a roll of 1 on a d6. If you then add the Weapon vs amour modifier for AC10 ... If you imaging a D&D combat round is a minute long and involves a number of moves and passes and the like then calling out specific attacks makes zero sense and actually contradicts their own blow to the head rule.

However, if you take the core idea of D&D combat a d20 roll against an opponents AC modified for stuff then you can do absolutely everything and I wouldn't, couldn't play in any other way. I would go as far to say that open flexible combat model that allows you to role play through combat is one of D&D's strengths (course you need to fix HPs and a few other things )

The way way is just to do it, show not say.

The goblin moves toward you brandishing a curved short sword.
"Ere mate you ain't supposed to be ere (all goblins are cockneys by default)"
He swings (roll to hit) but rather than a blow you feel the lantern in your hand smash and the cavern is plunged into darkness.
"Heeheh , good job I cans sees in the dark innit."

etc

We are such nerds that I when I got o see my mate Rob in Canada we will re-live old fights of the past move by move, worse still his mates out there know all the fights as well as he has regaled them with the stories of Quinn and Hansel and Gretel a million times.

I suggest you guys try Amber or a diceless variant. With the need to roll removed entirely along with rounds, damage and the concept to hit things become very interesting.

cf. DCC's "Mighty deeds" rule.

Quote from: Stainless;760655cf. DCC's "Mighty deeds" rule.

You beat me to it.

And the thing I didn't like about the op method was the increased chance of disaster for missing a called shot. I think an increasing chance of missing is enough to stave off too many called shots.

And if the players want to swing for the head, it's a believable strategy if not very effective. My favorite baseball team thinks the only way to win is to swing for the fences.

As for having monsters always going for the head... well they often do. Ever watch a pride of lions bring down a gazelle? They always go for the back of the neck.

Overall I go for anything that gets the players to try creative combat roll play. The opponents do the same. And sometimes you get that magic where they feed off each other (in the inspirational sense).

Thanks for all the feedback, guys!  Good suggestions.

I went back and added a "no decapitation" clause to the blog post.  It's like "no disintegration", but for cutting the heads of people.

The description + bid thing sounds interesting.

It's been too long since cracking my DCC RPG book.  I'll re-read Mighty Deeds and see if it gets me closer.

Yeah, it needs something else in order to be as usable as I'd like.  Will keep working on it...

VS

After due consideration, I've added a to-hit penalty equal to the difficulty, which also determines crit fail potential.

So, a difficulty of 1 results in a -1 to hit and a botch if a natural 1 is rolled, a difficulty of 2 means -2 to hit and disaster if a natural 1 or 2 is rolled, and for a 3, it's -3 and bad things if a natural 1, 2, or 3 happen.

Hopefully, this is enough drawback to make players think twice about automatically going for some kind of called shot or cleave-maul-spinal ripper maneuver without penalizing characters so much that they never take advantage of it.

Updated blog post:  http://vengersatanis.blogspot.com/2014/06/badass-tricks-maneuvers-and-stunts.html

Thanks again for all the helpful feedback,

VS