The homebrew system I'm working on is focused on the idea of martial arts facing off against each other. To help further differentiate the styles of weapons characters may use, I've got a 'reach' mechanic.

Characters have a Mobility score (determined by a mix of their agility and the martial art they are using that turn). At the beginning of each turn they roll off comparing their mobility score to their opponents. The winner gets to determine which 'reach bracket' they are in. Reach 0 is fists and feet, reach 1 is sword and sabre, and reach 2 is spear and staff. For every step outside the prefered bracket of the weapon in question, the wielder suffers an attack penalty.

The idea is to provide stronger differentiation between weapon types. For example, a good staff and a good sword would do the same damage, mechanically, so the decision between the two is about the choice to do lethal or non lethal damage, and the choice of prefered reach bracket. Each bracket has its advantages.

Reach 0 is inherently available to everyone in the form of unarmed combat, so is likely to be fairly common. In addition, there is already one form of martial art in game that has sincere advantages in reach 0.

Reach 1 is a good middleground between the two, the sword will never be too far out of its comfort zone, but similarly if the sword is in its prefered distance no opponent is too far from their comfort zone, either.

Reach 2 is the opposite of reach 0, putting anyone who doesn't walk into the fight with a weapon at a strong disadvantage, but this has the cost that if they are more mobile than you, you may be the one disadvantaged.

So, does this sound too complex, or like a nice little flavourful touch?

I'm not sure that Reach 2 is always an advantage to long weapons after having seen short but defensive weapons fight against them. Reach can be an advantage. but a lot of it comes down to skill.

A staff can and does kill. A side strike across the temple with the length, a front shot at the trachea and other attacks are lethal.  I always look at games that try for ahem "realism" that don't realize martial weapons, even heavily defensive ones like Tonfas are capable of killing strikes, and swords were often used for non-lethal maneuvers. Admittedly, the non-lethal maneuvers of swords was part of a martial arts attack of some form, to put an opponent in a place so the strikes would be easily lethal.

I was somewhat amazed at watching some of the re-creations taken from old reconstituted manuals for combat. The style taught in these manuals that had pieces which survived from the Middle Ages or later in the west,  looked similarly to the combat maneuvers of the modern day version of Aikijitsu (however it is spelled.) Which is a heavily defensive art, now, but was designed to put an opponent in place  for a Samurai's lethal sword stroke.


Realism in games is often heavily biased by game writers vision and misunderstanding of how real weapons worked. Vikings used a form of staff for example, but that's not as glamorous as axes apparently.


Research your ass off..seriously.

Mazes & Minotaurs uses a similiar reach system.
Reach 0 = Dagger / Small Monster
Reach 1 = Sword / Medium Monster
Reach 2 = Spears / Large Monster

There is a +1/-1 modifier to attacks (on D20) depending on reach.  AKA, if Sword-dude attacks Dagger-dude, he gets +1 to attack and if Dagger-dude gets a chance, he gets a -1 to attack in return.

It works fine in play.   Check out M&M.  It's free.

As for designing a Martial Arts game, I highly suggest analyzing That Which Hath Cometh Before...my fav being Palladium's Ninjas & Superspies, but lots of people love Gurps Martial Arts rules.

Quote from: Silverlion;395281I'm not sure that Reach 2 is always an advantage to long weapons after having seen short but defensive weapons fight against them. Reach can be an advantage. but a lot of it comes down to skill.

A staff can and does kill. A side strike across the temple with the length, a front shot at the trachea and other attacks are lethal.  I always look at games that try for ahem "realism" that don't realize martial weapons, even heavily defensive ones like Tonfas are capable of killing strikes, and swords were often used for non-lethal maneuvers. Admittedly, the non-lethal maneuvers of swords was part of a martial arts attack of some form, to put an opponent in a place so the strikes would be easily lethal.

I should specify that reach isn't the only variable used to determine attack bonus', and that it has no impact on defensive values.

Also, reach isn't a representation of 'your legs are glued here' stance, it merely determines where the majority of the time in that turn would be spent. If you look at martial arts movies and television shows (the stylised ones, rather than a realistic representation) there is usually a very flowing and often acrobatic use of footwork that renders the exact distance a constantly changing variable.

Reach is still slave to skill, as a skillful character can change reach with greater ease, and is less likely to be heavily affected by being too far out of prefered reach.

And I am aware of the inherent deadly nature of all weapons (a broken rib impaling the lungs is just as sharp and pointy as a sword impaling the lungs), but this game is more based upon stylised representations of martial arts often used in movies. Hell, the statistics I use vary from 1 to 10, with 2 being an average person, and 5 being an olympic level athlete in their chosen field. It only gets more expensive to increase a chosen statistic when you get to about 7 and higher.