I had a stray idea for a rough, gritty rule for cascading defenses.
Instead of resetting the penalty for multiple defenses on your turn, do not reset it unless:
- you spend a full second without using any defenses
or, optionally
- you spend a turn doing Evaluate
This is a simple, but very nasty rule. Being outnumbered and unable to take a breather - to step back and just reset - means your defenses will eventually be whittled down. Good ways to trigger the first is to use Move and clear the battle area, a classic swashbuckler move. Allowing Evaluate means you can stay in the fray, but not launch any offense, and it helps make Evaluate do something.
Why not reset when you do All-Out Defense? I think it just rewards taking a second being even more defense, which someone pressed is going to just do fairly often.
This would be a pain to deal with in a large fray, but it's probably a good way to make multiple foes - even weak ones - nasty in a realistic game with more detailed combat and/or smaller numbers of combatants. It also should have the emergent behavior of making outnumbered fighters either moving very defensively to try to limit their exposure, or very aggressively to take out a foe to cut down the odds. Right now, that's not always worth doing - the first might be useful, but with high defenses you can just ride out the attacks. The second is just standard behavior, but usually folks get a lot more tactical about which foe they choose to try to take out. Suddenly this would make "take out someone, anyone, even briefly so I can reset or even up" very attractive.
I haven't playtested this but it might be fun to try it out sometime.
Very cool idea. Instead of using Evaluate, I'd probably add Reset Penalties as a third All-Out Defense option.
ReplyDeleteThat could work, too. I split it off so I wouldn't need to worry about questions about how this works with any other AOD variation or optional rule. Pretty much nothing uses Evaluate, so . . .
DeleteSpeaking of Evaluate, one thing I'm considering testing is requiring an Evaluate or Aim before being able to select a hit location on any attack, otherwise location would be rolled randomly. I can see making an exception in the case of a Combination or Targeted Attack technique, or something similar - and it's always good to make a Technique more than just a bonus to Skill Level so there's a potential reason to pick up more than 3 per Skill. But it definitely needs testing, and probably would mainly be appropriate for the sort of game that might bother to use things like the Untrained Fighters rule on Martial Arts p. 113.
ReplyDeleteI've toyed with a similar idea, except I know from fighting that you can often routinely target certain areas without needing a second to do it - head, face, arms, legs. Probably unskilled fighters should need to swing randomly, or can't target certain locations. That leads me to an idea . . . let me expand on it in a full post.
DeleteYeah, that's a thing that left me wondering if it would work at all. And I didn't mention it, but of course it wouldn't work at all with grappling. If I think of anything more to say, I'll move to your next post.
DeleteMy experiences with sport fighting both one on one and melee make me think you are on to something here. Most RPGs don't penalize you for fighting all out without pause, while in practice I think this drastically downgrades the quality of your attacks, defenses, and situational awareness.
ReplyDeleteThat's helpful feedback. I think it would nicely make numbers matter in a game, too - even solitary high-skill heroes will be worried about getting mobbed, and high skill fighters vs. high skill fighters will either feature more pauses, or be a short, nasty fight. Both have some verisimilitude.
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