House Rule Advice: Combat Maneuvers on 'tied' results

[RangerDan]

This idea was prompted by the thread on the Enhance Parry Maneuver below.
The point was brought up that many Defensive CMs like Enhance Parry only really come into play on a Critical Parry because you must beat your opponent's success level by one step.

This got me thinking, what would happen if every opposed set of rolls in combat resulted in a CM for one of the participants. At the moment if combatants "tie" their rolls (for example succesful attack, succesful parry) no CMs are awarded. The dice are already on the table however, and it would be trivial to determine who "won" the roll based on the normal opposed roll rules (basically, the higher roll). What would happen if this combatant was then awarded a CM?

My gut tells me that you would see more usage of the CMs that don't see much daylight, like Bypass Parry, Enhance Parry and others. Impale and Choose Location would still have a place when the advantage was more absolute (ie succesful attack vs. failed parry).

Anybody ever experiment with this?

 

[DrBargle]

My intuition would be that, unless you limited CMs resulting from 'winning a tie' to Enhance and Bypass Parry (and maybe one or two others), fights would be even more brutal - unsatisfyingly so, I'd guess.

 

[Deleriad]

When playtesting RQII I tried it out and didn't like it. Fairly long story as to why combat doesn't have "tie-breakers" on opposed rolls.

Main problems are: massive slow down of game because every roll ends up having to choose a CM. Also it means every roll means having to consult dice to see who did better. Another slowing down issues.

if you did want it in the game it might be best if it is done as heroic abilities tied to combat styles.

E.g. You Shall Not Pass combat style. Has access to Heroic ability allowing the use of Enhance Parry on a "won" parry.

Actually, I've long wondered whether the spirit magic CMs should really only be usuable on a won roll rather than *any* success. Currently it's possible to get two nomads fighting each other one of whom has a redirect blow spirit and the other one a choose location spirit. The universe would end before we could figure out where a successful hit went.

 

[RangerDan]

When playtesting RQII I tried it out and didn't like it. Fairly long story as to why combat doesn't have "tie-breakers" on opposed rolls.

Main problems are: massive slow down of game because every roll ends up having to choose a CM. Also it means every roll means having to consult dice to see who did better. Another slowing down issues.

if you did want it in the game it might be best if it is done as heroic abilities tied to combat styles.

E.g. You Shall Not Pass combat style. Has access to Heroic ability allowing the use of Enhance Parry on a "won" parry.

OK, thanks for the feedback. I may test/introduce it into play as you say, with a "monkish" NPC I can conveniently kill off if the rule become too troublesome

Currently it's possible to get two nomads fighting each other one of whom has a redirect blow spirit and the other one a choose location spirit. The universe would end before we could figure out where a successful hit went.

Whichever roll can be divided by zero wins :twisted:

 

[kurgan84]

I tried and I use this method for 1 year and it works well for me !
The advantage is that it's always happening something for every action, player's try many different CM like Trip, Bash, disarm ..(and not only Choose loc).
It's more cinematic and i don't find, in the overall, that slow down the game because Combat is shorter in number of rounds. (but my players don't waste many time choosing their CM)

 

[taxboy]

Along these lines, our group agreed that choose location had to be a critical success cm and then ,all of a sudden, all the other cm s starting coming out.

Though impale seems favorite at moment.

We also are trialling the hero games hit location spread. 3d6 seems to give a more realistic bell curve.

 

[Lemnoc]

We also are trialling the hero games hit location spread. 3d6 seems to give a more realistic bell curve.

Interesting. It doesn't occur to me that this would be an outcome made more realistic by a bell curve. I mean, isn't one part of the body just as likely to receive a wound in combat as any other?

Interesting, too, that your players only began exploring other CM entrees after one was more or less removed from the menu. I'll have to think more about that.

 

[taxboy]

We also are trialling the hero games hit location spread. 3d6 seems to give a more realistic bell curve.

Interesting. It doesn't occur to me that this would be an outcome made more realistic by a bell curve. I mean, isn't one part of the body just as likely to receive a wound in combat as any other?

Interesting, too, that your players only began exploring other CM entrees after one was more or less removed from the menu. I'll have to think more about that.

Yes and no, the good thing about HERo is has preset ranges if your weapon cannot reach high, low etc. It also gives probability to being hit in the torso and shoulders / thighs with little chance of random head shot.

The CM mod really was because everyone would simply choose head for hit location...

 

[Titus]

We also are trialling the hero games hit location spread. 3d6 seems to give a more realistic bell curve.

Interesting. It doesn't occur to me that this would be an outcome made more realistic by a bell curve. I mean, isn't one part of the body just as likely to receive a wound in combat as any other?

Early editions of Runequest used two hit location tables for humanoids. The ranged hit location table looked a lot like the current version. The melee hit location table increased the chances to hit the limbs and reduced the chance to hit the torso. I believe the reasoning was that in melee, combatants protected their vitals which made the limbs more likely targets. I also seem to recall reading that it was based on archaeological evidence from some ancient or medieval battle site, but I don't remember where I saw that.