Advanced Combat System for D&D (work in progress) [Archive] - Wizards Community

Advanced Combat System for D&D (work in progress) [Archive] - Wizards Community

Post/Author/DateTime Post
SephDragoon
10-17-06, 10:37 AM I am still working on this. But after bringing in a friend of mine to play D&D, he had a complaint that I think was valid, and something I hadn't thought about. D&D's combat system when simplified, comes down to just one thing... Roll a d20, you hit or you don't. There are TONS of movement rules, AoO rules, and special attacks like disarm. But those aren't necessarily combat rules, but special rules. I think I noticed the flaw most when my brother had to go do something right after his turn. He was attacked while he was away, and he complained that he wasn't even there. But then, the entire arguement ended when our DM said, "What could you have done anyways?" That single statement illustrates my point perfectly. He couldn't have done a single thing to change the outcome while on the defensive.

So, I have come up with a few things, and I was hoping I could get some input. So here it is so far:
------------------------------------------------------------
D&D Combat System
This system is used for more fighting game oriented systems. It is meant to give the player a greater level of control over melee combat in particularly.

Defensive Roll:
You make a defensive roll anytime you are being attacked by a weapon or touch attack. Anytime the enemy needs to make an attack roll to beat your AC, you make a defensive roll. To make a defensive roll, take your AC (without the +10 base that you normally get. A 10 base is the assumption of an average roll) and roll a d20. Add them together and that becomes your AC for that attack. Other special bonuses may be added to this roll that are not part of your AC. Critical hits and critical misses work as described below. Rolling a 1 is an automatic failure to defending the attack, and a 20 is a Guard Impact (described below).

Parry Action:
The parry action is a melee attack that is used defensively instead of offensively. Anytime you are given an attack, such as part of a full round attack, or during an attack of opportunity. When you make a parry action, you put the attack bonus of that melee attack into reserve (any negatives from two weapon fighting, flurry of blows, multiple attacks from that round, etc count against the attack bonus you gain to your defense). Then on any attack made against you between then and the following round you may apply the bonus you stored away from your parry action to the defensive roll against that single attack. You may only have one parry action stored away in a single round. You cannot use a parry action with a weapon that cannot be used to make a melee attack. Light weapons gain a -2 to parry, and a two handed weapon gains a +2 to parry. A parry action from an attack of opportunity may only be used against the action that provoked the attack of opportunity, such as an archer firing during close combat, or a wizard casting a touch spell. You may choose to take a parry action on an attack of opportunity against a spell even if you do not know whether the spell is a touch attack or not, but if it turns out to not be, then the parry action is lost. You cannot parry any attacks when you are flatfooted, though you may store them away when flatfooted in some way.

Guard Impacting:
On a defensive roll, if the defensive roll is a 20, it is considered a critical hit, or in this case, a guard impact. You must confirm such a defensive roll just as an attack roll’s critical. You must threaten the attacker with some kind of weapon to guard impact. Guard Impacting is the act of catching your opponent off guard through the use of great defense. Such as on a normal defensive roll, you dodge out of the way, or knock the weapon away with your shield. You can also guard impact on a roll other than a 20 if the defensive roll had a parry action applied to it. In this case, the critical range is that of your weapon. So a short sword could guard impact on a 19-20, though it still requires a confirmation roll. In the case of an attacker rolling a 20 to hit, and the defender rolling a 20 to defense, the critical successes cancel out, and you check the attack roll against the defensive roll as normal.
When an enemy is guard impacted, they are flat-footed until their next round. They are also unable to take any more actions on the current turn they were guard impacted on.

Throw Action:
After a successful grapple check, the attacker may choose to throw the enemy instead of continuing the grapple. The attacker gets one standard action to do whatever they wish, leaving the defender considered flatfooted. After which, the attacker may throw the defender in any direction they wish up to a certain amount. To determine how far, roll a strength check and divide the check in half. You may throw the enemy up to that far away in feet. This ends the grapple entirely.

Feats

Improved Parry
You may store multiple parry actions at once.
Prerequisites: Int 13, Combat Expertise
Benefit: You may store an additional number of parry actions equal to your dexterity bonus. This is in addition to your basic 1 parry action.
Normal: You may only make 1 parry action per round.

Ranged Parry
You can parry another ranged weapon.
Prerequisites: Int 13, Dex 13, Combat Expertise, Improved Parry
Benefit: Against another ranged weapon or ranged touch attack, you may use a ranged weapon or ranged touch attack to make an attack against the ranged attack to parry it, though this requires you to throw the weapon, or release a projectile, as if making an attack.
Normal: You cannot use a ranged weapon or touch attack to make a parry action.
kyeudo
10-17-06, 01:27 PM Fairly interesting. The Defensive Roll was already a varient in the DMG, but parry and guard impact are promising options. Your throw discription isn't very good, though, and I've already seen throwing rules in the Rules of the Game article on grappling. Keep up the good work and you might have a polished product there.

By the way, what happens if you score a guard impact against someone who rolled a critical hit?
SephDragoon
10-17-06, 02:08 PM hm... Depends on who got higher... If the attacker got higher, it is a critical hit, no guard impact. If the defender got higher, or they met the attacker's (remember, defender gets priority on ties), then it is a guard impact. If both get natural 20's, they cancel each other out and you take higher. (though they still both crit and fall into the guard break vs critical hit)
Berzerker_prime
10-17-06, 07:18 PM (remember, defender gets priority on ties)

Really? Last time my group checked on this, it turned out to be a meet or beat situation, as in the attacker has to either meet or beat the defender's AC to hit them. They only miss if they roll lower.

I'd like to double check this, but I don't have my books close at hand at the moment. Can you give me a page number?

I do like the parrying option, though. It would be interesting to have a "Parry on the Move" sort of feat, too. Something that allows for parrying an AoO incurred from moving into and out of an enemy's threat range.

Sweet water to you!

Berz.
SephDragoon
10-17-06, 09:51 PM Owe... perhaps our group needs to question more >_<. We've been playing it goes to the defender, like in saving throws >_<.
a_psh
10-18-06, 12:14 AM When an enemy is guard impacted, they are flat-footed until their next round. They are also unable to take any more actions on the current turn they were guard impacted on.High-level fighters (with multiple attacks) are quite likely to find themselves flat-footed and losing some of their attacks, aren't they?

...

It rather sounds like your whole system is just based on Soul Calibur. While Soul Calibur is certainly more complex than D&D combat in a lot of ways, it's not really any more logical or realistic. I'm a bit skeptical of duplicating the actual effect of a SC Guard Impact in D&D because I think the round scale is just too coarse for it: you have enough time for one hit, not a ten-hit combo, when you Impact an enemy in Soul Calibur. It's kind of a poor imitation of a counter, which is really about reversing an opponent's blow into an immediate attack, not leaving him standing there like an idiot for six seconds.

But, hey, it's D&D, so that's not exactly the priority anyway. Mostly the thing to worry about is that increasing the variance in anything tends to disadvatange the PCs, since most encounters are supposed to give them a slight numerical advantage (so anything that's closer to average is more of a sure thing for the PCs). It also seems like this system slightly disadvantages meleers since casters don't have to make attack rolls at all (but now have a chance of stunning their attackers for a round) and archers can't suffer an Impact.
SephDragoon
10-18-06, 04:37 PM Well for an archer, you already have attacks of opportunity for firing short range, and they can't use the parry maneuver. This actually benefits the meleers more than anyone. First off, this means that a meleer could move 30ft (20ft for heavy or small creature), and use their standard action as a parry maneuver. The archer fires at him, and the parry maneuver is used against the first arrow, the one most likely to hit because of attack bonus. And now for wizards, they have plenty of touch attack and ranged touch attack spells that could be effected by this. Melee touch's can be guard impacted. And wizards aren't going to be able to make that much use of parry actions due to low BAB, and few attacks per round.

You have to remember, if you think it hurts any one group, it also helps them. And it wasn't meant for an advantage or disadvantage. It is just a different system.

Yes, it is very much based off of soul calibur, for the throwing and guard impacting. But if you can think up another way of doing it, be my guest. I did say it was a work in progress.
a_psh
10-18-06, 09:51 PM It's not the parry action, it's the AC roll itself. Casters and archers still score an Impact against their opponents on a 20.

Yes, it is very much based off of soul calibur, for the throwing and guard impacting. But if you can think up another way of doing it, be my guest. I did say it was a work in progress.Honestly, if you want a complex or realistic simulation of sword-fighting, don't play D&D.

D&D is about as nice to non-casters as Ars Magica (the system with "magic" in its friggin' name), both in terms of balance and in terms of options.

Still, the Guard Impact and Parry are a fair simulation of Soul Calibur. The throwing... I don't think it'll come up in the same way that throwing happens in SC, since there isn't really a "standing there just blocking you" state in D&D (which is what throwing is designed to counter).
SephDragoon
10-19-06, 02:33 AM Err... I overlooked that when writing it up... it was meant to be that you had to threaten the enemy with a weapon the guard impact >_<.

That wasn't the intent, so thank you for bringing that up.

Post/Author/DateTime	Post
SephDragoon 10-17-06, 10:37 AM	I am still working on this. But after bringing in a friend of mine to play D&D, he had a complaint that I think was valid, and something I hadn't thought about. D&D's combat system when simplified, comes down to just one thing... Roll a d20, you hit or you don't. There are TONS of movement rules, AoO rules, and special attacks like disarm. But those aren't necessarily combat rules, but special rules. I think I noticed the flaw most when my brother had to go do something right after his turn. He was attacked while he was away, and he complained that he wasn't even there. But then, the entire arguement ended when our DM said, "What could you have done anyways?" That single statement illustrates my point perfectly. He couldn't have done a single thing to change the outcome while on the defensive. So, I have come up with a few things, and I was hoping I could get some input. So here it is so far: ------------------------------------------------------------ D&D Combat System This system is used for more fighting game oriented systems. It is meant to give the player a greater level of control over melee combat in particularly. Defensive Roll: You make a defensive roll anytime you are being attacked by a weapon or touch attack. Anytime the enemy needs to make an attack roll to beat your AC, you make a defensive roll. To make a defensive roll, take your AC (without the +10 base that you normally get. A 10 base is the assumption of an average roll) and roll a d20. Add them together and that becomes your AC for that attack. Other special bonuses may be added to this roll that are not part of your AC. Critical hits and critical misses work as described below. Rolling a 1 is an automatic failure to defending the attack, and a 20 is a Guard Impact (described below). Parry Action: The parry action is a melee attack that is used defensively instead of offensively. Anytime you are given an attack, such as part of a full round attack, or during an attack of opportunity. When you make a parry action, you put the attack bonus of that melee attack into reserve (any negatives from two weapon fighting, flurry of blows, multiple attacks from that round, etc count against the attack bonus you gain to your defense). Then on any attack made against you between then and the following round you may apply the bonus you stored away from your parry action to the defensive roll against that single attack. You may only have one parry action stored away in a single round. You cannot use a parry action with a weapon that cannot be used to make a melee attack. Light weapons gain a -2 to parry, and a two handed weapon gains a +2 to parry. A parry action from an attack of opportunity may only be used against the action that provoked the attack of opportunity, such as an archer firing during close combat, or a wizard casting a touch spell. You may choose to take a parry action on an attack of opportunity against a spell even if you do not know whether the spell is a touch attack or not, but if it turns out to not be, then the parry action is lost. You cannot parry any attacks when you are flatfooted, though you may store them away when flatfooted in some way. Guard Impacting: On a defensive roll, if the defensive roll is a 20, it is considered a critical hit, or in this case, a guard impact. You must confirm such a defensive roll just as an attack roll’s critical. You must threaten the attacker with some kind of weapon to guard impact. Guard Impacting is the act of catching your opponent off guard through the use of great defense. Such as on a normal defensive roll, you dodge out of the way, or knock the weapon away with your shield. You can also guard impact on a roll other than a 20 if the defensive roll had a parry action applied to it. In this case, the critical range is that of your weapon. So a short sword could guard impact on a 19-20, though it still requires a confirmation roll. In the case of an attacker rolling a 20 to hit, and the defender rolling a 20 to defense, the critical successes cancel out, and you check the attack roll against the defensive roll as normal. When an enemy is guard impacted, they are flat-footed until their next round. They are also unable to take any more actions on the current turn they were guard impacted on. Throw Action: After a successful grapple check, the attacker may choose to throw the enemy instead of continuing the grapple. The attacker gets one standard action to do whatever they wish, leaving the defender considered flatfooted. After which, the attacker may throw the defender in any direction they wish up to a certain amount. To determine how far, roll a strength check and divide the check in half. You may throw the enemy up to that far away in feet. This ends the grapple entirely. Feats Improved Parry You may store multiple parry actions at once. Prerequisites: Int 13, Combat Expertise Benefit: You may store an additional number of parry actions equal to your dexterity bonus. This is in addition to your basic 1 parry action. Normal: You may only make 1 parry action per round. Ranged Parry You can parry another ranged weapon. Prerequisites: Int 13, Dex 13, Combat Expertise, Improved Parry Benefit: Against another ranged weapon or ranged touch attack, you may use a ranged weapon or ranged touch attack to make an attack against the ranged attack to parry it, though this requires you to throw the weapon, or release a projectile, as if making an attack. Normal: You cannot use a ranged weapon or touch attack to make a parry action.
kyeudo 10-17-06, 01:27 PM	Fairly interesting. The Defensive Roll was already a varient in the DMG, but parry and guard impact are promising options. Your throw discription isn't very good, though, and I've already seen throwing rules in the Rules of the Game article on grappling. Keep up the good work and you might have a polished product there. By the way, what happens if you score a guard impact against someone who rolled a critical hit?
SephDragoon 10-17-06, 02:08 PM	hm... Depends on who got higher... If the attacker got higher, it is a critical hit, no guard impact. If the defender got higher, or they met the attacker's (remember, defender gets priority on ties), then it is a guard impact. If both get natural 20's, they cancel each other out and you take higher. (though they still both crit and fall into the guard break vs critical hit)
Berzerker_prime 10-17-06, 07:18 PM	(remember, defender gets priority on ties) Really? Last time my group checked on this, it turned out to be a meet or beat situation, as in the attacker has to either meet or beat the defender's AC to hit them. They only miss if they roll lower. I'd like to double check this, but I don't have my books close at hand at the moment. Can you give me a page number? I do like the parrying option, though. It would be interesting to have a "Parry on the Move" sort of feat, too. Something that allows for parrying an AoO incurred from moving into and out of an enemy's threat range. Sweet water to you! Berz.
SephDragoon 10-17-06, 09:51 PM	Owe... perhaps our group needs to question more >_<. We've been playing it goes to the defender, like in saving throws >_<.
a_psh 10-18-06, 12:14 AM	When an enemy is guard impacted, they are flat-footed until their next round. They are also unable to take any more actions on the current turn they were guard impacted on.High-level fighters (with multiple attacks) are quite likely to find themselves flat-footed and losing some of their attacks, aren't they? ... It rather sounds like your whole system is just based on Soul Calibur. While Soul Calibur is certainly more complex than D&D combat in a lot of ways, it's not really any more logical or realistic. I'm a bit skeptical of duplicating the actual effect of a SC Guard Impact in D&D because I think the round scale is just too coarse for it: you have enough time for one hit, not a ten-hit combo, when you Impact an enemy in Soul Calibur. It's kind of a poor imitation of a counter, which is really about reversing an opponent's blow into an immediate attack, not leaving him standing there like an idiot for six seconds. But, hey, it's D&D, so that's not exactly the priority anyway. Mostly the thing to worry about is that increasing the variance in anything tends to disadvatange the PCs, since most encounters are supposed to give them a slight numerical advantage (so anything that's closer to average is more of a sure thing for the PCs). It also seems like this system slightly disadvantages meleers since casters don't have to make attack rolls at all (but now have a chance of stunning their attackers for a round) and archers can't suffer an Impact.
SephDragoon 10-18-06, 04:37 PM	Well for an archer, you already have attacks of opportunity for firing short range, and they can't use the parry maneuver. This actually benefits the meleers more than anyone. First off, this means that a meleer could move 30ft (20ft for heavy or small creature), and use their standard action as a parry maneuver. The archer fires at him, and the parry maneuver is used against the first arrow, the one most likely to hit because of attack bonus. And now for wizards, they have plenty of touch attack and ranged touch attack spells that could be effected by this. Melee touch's can be guard impacted. And wizards aren't going to be able to make that much use of parry actions due to low BAB, and few attacks per round. You have to remember, if you think it hurts any one group, it also helps them. And it wasn't meant for an advantage or disadvantage. It is just a different system. Yes, it is very much based off of soul calibur, for the throwing and guard impacting. But if you can think up another way of doing it, be my guest. I did say it was a work in progress.
a_psh 10-18-06, 09:51 PM	It's not the parry action, it's the AC roll itself. Casters and archers still score an Impact against their opponents on a 20. Yes, it is very much based off of soul calibur, for the throwing and guard impacting. But if you can think up another way of doing it, be my guest. I did say it was a work in progress.Honestly, if you want a complex or realistic simulation of sword-fighting, don't play D&D. D&D is about as nice to non-casters as Ars Magica (the system with "magic" in its friggin' name), both in terms of balance and in terms of options. Still, the Guard Impact and Parry are a fair simulation of Soul Calibur. The throwing... I don't think it'll come up in the same way that throwing happens in SC, since there isn't really a "standing there just blocking you" state in D&D (which is what throwing is designed to counter).
SephDragoon 10-19-06, 02:33 AM	Err... I overlooked that when writing it up... it was meant to be that you had to threaten the enemy with a weapon the guard impact >_<. That wasn't the intent, so thank you for bringing that up.