Supplement Four
Mongoose
I'm going to be roleplaying combat in my game with lots of descriptive color and the players describing exactly how they are swinging their weapons and such.
Player: Gripping my spear with both hands, I shove it in front of me, trying to skewer the Vanir.
Attack roll is made. Vanir blocks. Miss.
GM: As you step into him, he brings his mighty warsword down on the haft of your spear, swinging the thing with both of his hands. He knocks the tip away, recovers, then, with the blade at his shoulder, he powers a diagonal slice across your torso.
Player: I jump back a foot, attempting to dodge his blade.
Vanir attack roll is made. Player dodges. Miss.
And so on....
My point is to make the players live through the experience rather than just normal hit/damage d20 dicing.
We're going to use mask-shift miniatures and a grid map for battles. I don't have any minis, but I can use the flat counters I got in the Shadizar and Messantia boxed sets. And, I also use thumb tacks and a cork board with graph paper to represent characters sometime, depending on the scale I need.
I'm going to use the heck out of the Conan combat maneuvers. These things look like they can be a lot of fun and really add to the combat-roleplaying experience. Many of them involve movement on the board, but I want to encourage a bit more movement during a combat encounter.
In real life, fighters don't just stand face-to-face and pound each other. They move around--a lot--looking for weaknesses in their opponent's defense.
To encourage this type of movement on the battlefield, I'm thinking of using the Use The Battlefield combat maneuver as it is written, but also as described here. The maneuver seems to be open to interpretation anyway.
There will be lots of movement on the board when a PC is fighting more than one opponenent. It's those one-on-one encounters that need a poke to get moving.
Use of Use the Battlefield: If a character uses his five foot step to move to either side of his enemy, he receives a +2 attack circumstance bonus. But, if the attack is a miss, the defender gets an immediate AoO on the attacker.
This simulates the attacker, circling his enemy, looking for a weak spot, attacking his opponent on his weakest side--and the combat traps that are laid by a skilled defender.
In place of a skill check suggested in the maneuver description, the attacker must use his five foot step.
What do you guys think of that? Fair and balanced and in-line with the Use the Battlefield maneuver? With one-on-one fights, this will basically encourage constant movement of the combatants. With this, and the the other combat maneuvers, the battle should shift across the battlefield instead of remain in two squares with two opponents slugging it out.
Thoughts?
EDIT: I'm thinking this isn't a bad use of this combat maneuver at all. It's kind of the attacker's version of the Cat's Parry. With that manevuer, it's the defender's call to use it. The attacker gets +4 to hit, but if he misses, the defender gets a freebie AoO on him.
With the rule above, it's the attacker who initiates, but he only gets a +2 attack and has to use his five foot step in a specific way.
2nd EDIT: The +2 modifier can only be used on one attack--usually the first one. If THAT attack misses, the character draws an AoO. If, for some reason, the character wishes to use the modifier on the second attack, he may do so, but the modifier drops to +1 (and, if the second attack misses--not the first, in this case--then the attacker draws an AoO.).
3rd EDIT: Thinking even more on this, I don't like the bonus it gives to Finess Fighters. With the Cat's Parry, it's the defender who chooses to give the attacker a +4 bonus to hit. So, allowing he attacker to choose this isn't going to work.
Back to the drawing board.
Player: Gripping my spear with both hands, I shove it in front of me, trying to skewer the Vanir.
Attack roll is made. Vanir blocks. Miss.
GM: As you step into him, he brings his mighty warsword down on the haft of your spear, swinging the thing with both of his hands. He knocks the tip away, recovers, then, with the blade at his shoulder, he powers a diagonal slice across your torso.
Player: I jump back a foot, attempting to dodge his blade.
Vanir attack roll is made. Player dodges. Miss.
And so on....
My point is to make the players live through the experience rather than just normal hit/damage d20 dicing.
We're going to use mask-shift miniatures and a grid map for battles. I don't have any minis, but I can use the flat counters I got in the Shadizar and Messantia boxed sets. And, I also use thumb tacks and a cork board with graph paper to represent characters sometime, depending on the scale I need.
I'm going to use the heck out of the Conan combat maneuvers. These things look like they can be a lot of fun and really add to the combat-roleplaying experience. Many of them involve movement on the board, but I want to encourage a bit more movement during a combat encounter.
In real life, fighters don't just stand face-to-face and pound each other. They move around--a lot--looking for weaknesses in their opponent's defense.
To encourage this type of movement on the battlefield, I'm thinking of using the Use The Battlefield combat maneuver as it is written, but also as described here. The maneuver seems to be open to interpretation anyway.
There will be lots of movement on the board when a PC is fighting more than one opponenent. It's those one-on-one encounters that need a poke to get moving.
Use of Use the Battlefield: If a character uses his five foot step to move to either side of his enemy, he receives a +2 attack circumstance bonus. But, if the attack is a miss, the defender gets an immediate AoO on the attacker.
This simulates the attacker, circling his enemy, looking for a weak spot, attacking his opponent on his weakest side--and the combat traps that are laid by a skilled defender.
In place of a skill check suggested in the maneuver description, the attacker must use his five foot step.
What do you guys think of that? Fair and balanced and in-line with the Use the Battlefield maneuver? With one-on-one fights, this will basically encourage constant movement of the combatants. With this, and the the other combat maneuvers, the battle should shift across the battlefield instead of remain in two squares with two opponents slugging it out.
Thoughts?
EDIT: I'm thinking this isn't a bad use of this combat maneuver at all. It's kind of the attacker's version of the Cat's Parry. With that manevuer, it's the defender's call to use it. The attacker gets +4 to hit, but if he misses, the defender gets a freebie AoO on him.
With the rule above, it's the attacker who initiates, but he only gets a +2 attack and has to use his five foot step in a specific way.
2nd EDIT: The +2 modifier can only be used on one attack--usually the first one. If THAT attack misses, the character draws an AoO. If, for some reason, the character wishes to use the modifier on the second attack, he may do so, but the modifier drops to +1 (and, if the second attack misses--not the first, in this case--then the attacker draws an AoO.).
3rd EDIT: Thinking even more on this, I don't like the bonus it gives to Finess Fighters. With the Cat's Parry, it's the defender who chooses to give the attacker a +4 bonus to hit. So, allowing he attacker to choose this isn't going to work.
Back to the drawing board.
