Hi folks,

Just wondering if anyone had come up with interesting house rules for dealing with weapon on weapon combat - think Wesley versus Inigo Montoya in the Princess Bride or any number of Jedi-Sith lightsaber duels. I don't feel that the Blocking rule set has the right feel for the encounter. Thoughts?

Shielding and Evasion could work well. Evasion is where they try to set up their attack and shielding is the "blocking" with the sword.

shielding never was cinamatic enough for me. one automatically blocked/shielded and then it was down to material strength. evades were cool and i always let players split there mutiple attacks into evade, strike but the evade was good against 1 attack. or if the pc got 3 attacks he could choose 2 attacks and an evade or 3 evades and hope for a yellow and red results to get a better advantage with aplus 1 or 2 CS to hit next round.

ive refed afew pretty good hand to hand martial arts fights and weapon fights in the game. slows the pace down because 1 player has to write their actions on apiece of paper every round.

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Captain Knucklehead
Hi folks,

Just wondering if anyone had come up with interesting house rules for dealing with weapon on weapon combat - think Wesley versus Inigo Montoya in the Princess Bride or any number of Jedi-Sith lightsaber duels. I don't feel that the Blocking rule set has the right feel for the encounter. Thoughts?

Personally, I like the blocking rule. I find it to be just as effective as body armor when used strategically. On someone like Thor or Hercules, blocking can be more effective then their own natural body armor versus purely physical attacks. I find if a person has the right talents and power stunts combined with a decent Fighting score one can do some rather amazing things under the core rules with weapons. Also, intuition and any initiative bonuses never hurt anyone.

I think if I wanted to feature Jedi power battles, I would probably start by creating the various Jedi fighting styles and defining the benefits of each style and the slightly different lightsabres would also have to be defined. Each style should probably be considered a talent and cost multiple talent slots to reflect the difficulty of mastering the light saber weapons. These various styles may even require that a hero have certain talents to even learn them, for example, Weapon Master, Weapon Specialist, Swords or Powered Weapons. You know I remember there was an excellent fan video series on YouTube discussing the number and various styles of the Jedi. I will add that link if I can find the series.




Jedi styles, start thou here noob

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G.A.W.
shielding never was cinamatic enough for me. one automatically blocked/shielded and then it was down to material strength. evades were cool and i always let players split there mutiple attacks into evade, strike but the evade was good against 1 attack. or if the pc got 3 attacks he could choose 2 attacks and an evade or 3 evades and hope for a yellow and red results to get a better advantage with aplus 1 or 2 CS to hit next round.

ive refed afew pretty good hand to hand martial arts fights and weapon fights in the game. slows the pace down because 1 player has to write their actions on apiece of paper every round.

Blocking has always been a contentious topic in my play group because of the inevitable discussion of skill versus strength. In the Advanced book, it refers to blocking as a meeting of force with force, which it certainly is, though someone will always cite Bruce Lee as being able to block any number of potential attacks because of his skills (despite this being a pretty short-sighted view of what actually happens when blocking a strike, but that's a discussion for another time). Fighting skills alone shouldn't be enough to block a strike, which is why the base rule works reasonably well, but I've never been happy with how it would work if, for example, you find yourself dueling with swords against members of the Hand.

Perhaps some sort of intensity feat versus the attacker's Fighting with some sort of modifiers if the attacker's Strength is more than 2 CS higher than the defender? Just brainstorming here. I had hoped this sort of scenario would have come up in someone else's group.

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Necromancer

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Captain Knucklehead
Hi folks,

Just wondering if anyone had come up with interesting house rules for dealing with weapon on weapon combat - think Wesley versus Inigo Montoya in the Princess Bride or any number of Jedi-Sith lightsaber duels. I don't feel that the Blocking rule set has the right feel for the encounter. Thoughts?

Personally, I like the blocking rule. I find it to be just as effective as body armor when used strategically. On someone like Thor or Hercules, blocking can be more effective then their own natural body armor versus purely physical attacks. I find if a person has the right talents and power stunts combined with a decent Fighting score one can do some rather amazing things under the core rules with weapons. Also, intuition and any initiative bonuses never hurt anyone.

I think if I wanted to feature Jedi power battles, I would probably start by creating the various Jedi fighting styles and defining the benefits of each style and the slightly different lightsabres would also have to be defined. Each style should probably be considered a talent and cost multiple talent slots to reflect the difficulty of mastering the light saber weapons. These various styles may even require that a hero have certain talents to even learn them, for example, Weapon Master, Weapon Specialist, Swords or Powered Weapons. You know I remember there was an excellent fan video series on YouTube discussing the number and various styles of the Jedi. I will add that link if I can find the series.




Jedi styles, start thou here noob

The Blocking rule certainly has its merits under particular circumstances, but I don't find it suitable for sword play scenarios. While there are scenarios where blocking a sword requires strength, there are also others that are far more skill intensive, in the case of parrying, binding the blade, disarming, etc. I was just hoping someone else had encountered this sort of scenario before.

I've seen several of the lightsaber style videos before. They're quite good.

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Captain Knucklehead

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G.A.W.
shielding never was cinamatic enough for me. one automatically blocked/shielded and then it was down to material strength. evades were cool and i always let players split there mutiple attacks into evade, strike but the evade was good against 1 attack. or if the pc got 3 attacks he could choose 2 attacks and an evade or 3 evades and hope for a yellow and red results to get a better advantage with aplus 1 or 2 CS to hit next round.

ive refed afew pretty good hand to hand martial arts fights and weapon fights in the game. slows the pace down because 1 player has to write their actions on apiece of paper every round.

Blocking has always been a contentious topic in my play group because of the inevitable discussion of skill versus strength. In the Advanced book, it refers to blocking as a meeting of force with force, which it certainly is, though someone will always cite Bruce Lee as being able to block any number of potential attacks because of his skills (despite this being a pretty short-sighted view of what actually happens when blocking a strike, but that's a discussion for another time). Fighting skills alone shouldn't be enough to block a strike, which is why the base rule works reasonably well, but I've never been happy with how it would work if, for example, you find yourself dueling with swords against members of the Hand.

Perhaps some sort of intensity feat versus the attacker's Fighting with some sort of modifiers if the attacker's Strength is more than 2 CS higher than the defender? Just brainstorming here. I had hoped this sort of scenario would have come up in someone else's group.

I would like to point out some things to consider. You do know Bruce Lee's style of Gung Fu kicks combined with American Boxing is a power based style? Bruce Lee's real strength came from being one of the earliest promoters of weightlifting and exercising to mold the body and make it more powerful. There were quite a few fighter's back during Mr. Lee's time that were just as skilled as he was in fighting, maybe even more so. Many of them did not meet up to Mr. Lee's level of physical conditioning. Bruce Lee is typically seen to have used power vs power to block attacks and his "skill" to avoid attacks which he did in preference of blocking. Seems inline with the rules to myself.

I think the idea behind the current rules mechanics for blocking were designed that way for purpose. Strength vs Strength, after all, someone like the Black Knight is not going to parry a sword blow from someone like Skaar. He may absorb some of the damage on a block, but still yet it is going to hurt something awful. AS IT SHOULD. Clearly, against such an opponent the Black Knight would be better served to try to evade. I suppose a person could design a parry ability based around the Fighting feat, but it would only have relevance for combatants of a similar power level and similar equipment level, other wise what would be the point? Maybe a parry based on the Fighting Feat where the actual defender gets to use the Material Strength of his equipment to block the damage instead of his Strength ability. I can't really see the benefit, considering the rules already allow for things like this.

*P.S. Being in a battle against the Hand may be more than any one hero could handle. Sometimes, instead of relying on rules and statistics to fight and overcome all comers, a hero just may have to retreat on occasion or employ a strategy or well thought out plan.

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Necromancer

I would like to point out some things to consider. You do know Bruce Lee's style of Gung Fu kicks combined with American Boxing is a power based style? Bruce Lee's real strength came from being one of the earliest promoters of weightlifting and exercising to mold the body and make it more powerful. There were quite a few fighter's back during Mr. Lee's time that were just as skilled as he was in fighting, maybe even more so. Many of them did not meet up to Mr. Lee's level of physical conditioning. Bruce Lee is typically seen to have used power vs power to block attacks and his "skill" to avoid attacks which he did in preference of blocking. Seems inline with the rules to myself.

I think the idea behind the current rules mechanics for blocking were designed that way for purpose. Strength vs Strength, after all, someone like the Black Knight is not going to parry a sword blow from someone like Skaar. He may absorb some of the damage on a block, but still yet it is going to hurt something awful. AS IT SHOULD. Clearly, against such an opponent the Black Knight would be better served to try to evade. I suppose a person could design a parry ability based around the Fighting feat, but it would only have relevance for combatants of a similar power level and similar equipment level, other wise what would be the point? Maybe a parry based on the Fighting Feat where the actual defender gets to use the Material Strength of his equipment to block the damage instead of his Strength ability. I can't really see the benefit, considering the rules already allow for things like this.

*P.S. Being in a battle against the Hand may be more than any one hero could handle. Sometimes, instead of relying on rules and statistics to fight and overcome all comers, a hero just may have to retreat on occasion or employ a strategy or well thought out plan.

I'm familiar enough with martial arts to know that blocks are strength versus strength (I've left plenty of sparring sessions with considerable bruises on my forearms from stupidly trying to block kicks). I'm totally on board with that. However, pop culture holds Lee up to be the ultimate martial artist, which is why I used him as an example of the typical "technique over strength" argument that's overused. When it comes to just generic fisticuffs, I've used Fighting feats to determine the number of column shifts when blocking, but then applied those modifiers to the defender's Strength to determine how much protection the defender receives.

I agree wholeheartedly that the Black Knight wouldn't be able to block Skaar's attack due to the strength differential. No amount of good technique is going to save him under those circumstances. However, when I return to a Princess Bride sort of scenario, with skilled swordsmen using comparable weapons and without a superhuman strength differential, the blocking rules fall short for me. That's all I'm saying. In my current game, the heroes are lower tier, street level characters, so this sort of thing does come up.

What's wrong with using the Evasion rules in melee / swordplay. Chance of fail / autohit... check. Chance of buffeting / parrying an attack for no damage... check. Chance of doing that and improving one's chances of successful counter attacks.... check.

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Captain Knucklehead

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Necromancer

I would like to point out some things to consider. You do know Bruce Lee's style of Gung Fu kicks combined with American Boxing is a power based style? Bruce Lee's real strength came from being one of the earliest promoters of weightlifting and exercising to mold the body and make it more powerful. There were quite a few fighter's back during Mr. Lee's time that were just as skilled as he was in fighting, maybe even more so. Many of them did not meet up to Mr. Lee's level of physical conditioning. Bruce Lee is typically seen to have used power vs power to block attacks and his "skill" to avoid attacks which he did in preference of blocking. Seems inline with the rules to myself.

I think the idea behind the current rules mechanics for blocking were designed that way for purpose. Strength vs Strength, after all, someone like the Black Knight is not going to parry a sword blow from someone like Skaar. He may absorb some of the damage on a block, but still yet it is going to hurt something awful. AS IT SHOULD. Clearly, against such an opponent the Black Knight would be better served to try to evade. I suppose a person could design a parry ability based around the Fighting feat, but it would only have relevance for combatants of a similar power level and similar equipment level, other wise what would be the point? Maybe a parry based on the Fighting Feat where the actual defender gets to use the Material Strength of his equipment to block the damage instead of his Strength ability. I can't really see the benefit, considering the rules already allow for things like this.

*P.S. Being in a battle against the Hand may be more than any one hero could handle. Sometimes, instead of relying on rules and statistics to fight and overcome all comers, a hero just may have to retreat on occasion or employ a strategy or well thought out plan.

I'm familiar enough with martial arts to know that blocks are strength versus strength (I've left plenty of sparring sessions with considerable bruises on my forearms from stupidly trying to block kicks). I'm totally on board with that. However, pop culture holds Lee up to be the ultimate martial artist, which is why I used him as an example of the typical "technique over strength" argument that's overused. When it comes to just generic fisticuffs, I've used Fighting feats to determine the number of column shifts when blocking, but then applied those modifiers to the defender's Strength to determine how much protection the defender receives.

I agree wholeheartedly that the Black Knight wouldn't be able to block Skaar's attack due to the strength differential. No amount of good technique is going to save him under those circumstances. However, when I return to a Princess Bride sort of scenario, with skilled swordsmen using comparable weapons and without a superhuman strength differential, the blocking rules fall short for me. That's all I'm saying. In my current game, the heroes are lower tier, street level characters, so this sort of thing does come up.

Eh, I don't get what you are suggesting at all. I thought "technique over strength" would be to evade. Especially if you are not going to use strength to block. What else is there really? as far as defensive actions go. As for changing the mechanics of the rules, maybe that would work out for you. I like for it to be simple myself, I think that's the beauty of MSH.

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Necromancer

Eh, I don't get what you are suggesting at all. I thought "technique over strength" would be to evade. Especially if you are not going to use strength to block. What else is there really? as far as defensive actions go. As for changing the mechanics of the rules, maybe that would work out for you. I like for it to be simple myself, I think that's the beauty of MSH.

I guess I need to clarify again then. I compete in sport fencing and I can assure you that the defenses used in my particular weapon (the épée) could never be confused with Evasion. We have parrying techniques, binding techniques, counter-parries, disengages, etc. Strength is in no way a factor here because of how leverage is used (speed and reflexes are king here). Strength versus Strength would be applicable when broad, sweeping attacks are made. Evasion would apply to avoiding attacks such as those. I'd been asking about something that captures sword play in a more elegant way.

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Dead Sidekick
What's wrong with using the Evasion rules in melee / swordplay. Chance of fail / autohit... check. Chance of buffeting / parrying an attack for no damage... check. Chance of doing that and improving one's chances of successful counter attacks.... check.

Perhaps I'm getting too caught up in the name. Evasion, to me, indicates avoiding. I picture Muhammad Ali using his rope-a-dope style, bobbing and weaving his way against opponents, not sword play.

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Captain Knucklehead

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Dead Sidekick
What's wrong with using the Evasion rules in melee / swordplay. Chance of fail / autohit... check. Chance of buffeting / parrying an attack for no damage... check. Chance of doing that and improving one's chances of successful counter attacks.... check.

Perhaps I'm getting too caught up in the name. Evasion, to me, indicates avoiding. I picture Muhammad Ali using his rope-a-dope style, bobbing and weaving his way against opponents, not sword play.

I would consider a parry attempt an evade because it is a Fighting-based effort and you "avoid" the incoming attack by either stopping it with your weapon or using your weapon to redirect the opponent's attack causing it to miss you. I allow for some creative freedom in describing martial arts evasions as a skilled parry of an attack or simply avoiding the attack altogether. The key is how it is accomplished... if you're stopping the attack with brute force (bracing for the strike and trying to weaken the effect), then it's a Strength-based block. If you're using skill and leverage to "attack" the incoming attack with the intent to deflect it, then you are evading in a different way. Function wise in game mechanics, it makes no difference in deflecting said attack with skill or trying to avoid it altogether... if you succeed then the incoming attack fails to hit; so the difference is purely flavor when describing the combat.

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Captain Knucklehead

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Necromancer

Eh, I don't get what you are suggesting at all. I thought "technique over strength" would be to evade. Especially if you are not going to use strength to block. What else is there really? as far as defensive actions go. As for changing the mechanics of the rules, maybe that would work out for you. I like for it to be simple myself, I think that's the beauty of MSH.

I guess I need to clarify again then. I compete in sport fencing and I can assure you that the defenses used in my particular weapon (the épée) could never be confused with Evasion. We have parrying techniques, binding techniques, counter-parries, disengages, etc. Strength is in no way a factor here because of how leverage is used (speed and reflexes are king here). Strength versus Strength would be applicable when broad, sweeping attacks are made. Evasion would apply to avoiding attacks such as those. I'd been asking about something that captures sword play in a more elegant way.

Evasion or deflection would all work the same under the evade rule. I don't think it is the rule that is bothering you so much as the description in the book.

Evading is the closest thing to fencing in the game. If you get autohit, your opponent successfully feinted you or counterattacked you when you were wide open. If you evade, then you successfully parried (blade or distance parry, either way). A +CS to your next attack indicates that you've gained the upper hand tactically for the moment.