What about punching while holding a weapon? Specifically, when an opponent attempts some super power strike and you just bash him in the nose, disrupting the whole maneuver.
Don't move or I'll shoot! AKA One false move and the elf gets it.
Think of all the movies where one character holds a blade to another chacter's throat, or where one group is held at gun/arrow point.
Dramatic dialogue & intense pressure ensues.
Good one!
Too many times has the lone player told me "nah, I'm at full health; I'll take my chance against the 12 crossbowmen. 42 points of damage? That's alright, I still have enough to escape by jumping out the 10th floor's window..."
*sigh*
Strain!
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Strain!Don't move or I'll shoot! AKA One false move and the elf gets it.
Think of all the movies where one character holds a blade to another chacter's throat, or where one group is held at gun/arrow point.
Dramatic dialogue & intense pressure ensues.
Good one!
Too many times has the lone player told me "nah, I'm at full health; I'll take my chance against the 12 crossbowmen. 42 points of damage? That's alright, I still have enough to escape by jumping out the 10th floor's window..."
*sigh*
oh yeah!
strain/wounds is IMO the perfect platform to launch many houserules/variants/alterations AND an excellent narrative tool to treat most of these subjects before they even become an issue.
Nevertheless, it never fails to disappoint me when players nonchalantly waltz out of an "I've got you now!" situation by mere benefits of hit points. Similarly, my players are usually upset (with reasons!) when my villains escape their otherwise well-conceived trap just because the villain has enough hp to soak the attacks and run. With years, I have learn to dramatize the situation (while keeping the same result) both for player escapes and NPC escapes, but it remains a straining DMing exercise (no pun intended).
I'm not sure if it's the PCs' nature to always deny defeat or the DM's expectations to recreate Hollywood-style situations that is to blame, but these (potentially cool) opportunities for roleplay are usually lost.
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What about punching while holding a weapon? Specifically, when an opponent attempts some super power strike and you just bash him in the nose, disrupting the whole maneuver.
Can't we do this already?
Maybe make more full found casting spell like abilities or spells to pull it off more.Maybe throw in a feat to make it worthwhile to not use the sword?
What about punching while holding a weapon? Specifically, when an opponent attempts some super power strike and you just bash him in the nose, disrupting the whole maneuver.
This is one of those things that I love about Burning Wheel.
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RPG Superstar 2010 Top 16
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On the topic of fighting while injured.
My home campaign uses the Warriors and Warlocks rules from Green Ronin. (Fantasy rules for Mutants and Masterminds, which is itself a superhero version of the OGL Dungeons & Dragons.) If you've never played it, consider it a rules-light version of the OGL.
I wanted injuries to cause increasingly serious problems but I wanted it to be easy to track and I didn't want it to get in the way of the basic combat mechanic. (Roll to hit vs. AC. If the target his hit, it rolls a "Toughness saving throw" with DC = damage total.)
(The game system tracks the number of successful attacks that have bruised the target, but doesn't track "hit points". So, here's the modified rule, as it would play out in Pathfinder.)
1) An attack roll of '1' threatens a critical fumble.
2) The confirmation roll is a percentile check. A player needs to roll above the amount of lethal hit point damage the character has taken.
3) Use the Paizo Critical Fumbles deck to determine the results.
So:
You attack an orc with a spear, having already taken 16 hit points of damage out of 51. You roll a natural '1', which threatens a fumble. You roll percentile dice, and the result is '14', which is less than or equal to 16. So, you draw a card from the fumble deck, and it reads: "I Meant to do That: Move 10 feet in a random direction, provoking attacks of opportunity as normal."
Here's why I like it.
1) A character can fight at full health forever and never fumble. It's not the fighting that's dangerous, it's fighting-while-injured. (And you don't stand a worse chance of hurting yourself for attacking somebody in plate armor than spiked leather armor, the way you would if the confirmation roll were based on the armor class of your opponent.)
2) It makes healing during combat more significant.
3) Most importantly, when the Bad Guy attacks, and fumbles, and kills himself with his own battleaxe, the battle doesn't feel anti-climactic. It's not that the PCs just watched as the villain clumsily killed himself. Rather, it's still their victory, because they had done enough damage to him so that he couldn't make his safety roll.
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Never heard of the fumble confirmation roll depending on AC (that was only for crit hits AFAIK). The confirmation roll for fumbles has always been rolling on a fumble chart or you fumble if the confirmation roll is 5 or less. Never heard of different.
I prefer slower healing so healing during combat being more important is not good for the grittier style of play.
Personally, killing yourself with a weapon that you have trained with should be harder then only a single fumble. I use a crit system that you keep rolling for as long as you roll crits. The number of crits determines how bad it is.
The confirmation roll for fumbles has always been rolling on a fumble chart or you fumble if the confirmation roll is 5 or less.
First time I hear of that
What about punching while holding a weapon? Specifically, when an opponent attempts some super power strike and you just bash him in the nose, disrupting the whole maneuver.Can't we do this already?
Maybe make more full found casting spell like abilities or spells to pull it off more.
Maybe throw in a feat to make it worthwhile to not use the sword?
I would allow punching with a sword in hand; in fact I'd probably just rule it as doing non-lethal damage with a normally lethal weapon (standard -4 penalty).
The big issue with this is that it's going to be pretty rare for any creature, PC, NPC, or monster, to use a disruptable ability such as a spell or spell-like ability and actually provoke. They're going to cast defensively or move away, and they're pretty rarely going to try casting anything that they aren't comfortable in their ability to cast defensively. That's because most creatures with these things are intelligent enough to fight without taking the additional risk (or the players are conservative enough, even if their sorcerer is an idiot).
Plus of course this specific application only applies to spells and SLAs; it doesn't apply to, say, a warrior winding up for a huge swing with his axe, or a dragon rearing back to breathe. Making more actions provoke would probably address this, but it would require a lot of redesign (and make attacks of opportunity more valuable). But I can see a situation where, say, Power Attack became a standard action that provoked attacks of opportunity and could be disrupted.
Or, to fit with this design better, perhaps there would be a distinct type of action that interrupts, while doing low damage, and is more available than a normal attack. i.e. the punch in the nose takes up an attack of opportunity, but what we currently think of as an AoO would become an immediate action.
I wouldn't go that far; too much extra complexity, and generally, unless you're toying with your foe or trying not to kill them, punching them in the nose when you could stab them in the throat is ill-advised.
The punch-in-the-face trope also pertains to the kick in the belly that stops the charging opponent or any other "less-than-lethal" attack when a weapon attack is available. For instance, at approximately 0:30 in this video. I just personally really like the punch-in-the-face take. (I looked but couldn't find a good video for it)
As far as existing rules go, yes- you can punch a caster in the face to disrupt his spell if he's not casting defensively already does already work. I'm talking about an attack that serves the same overall purpose as a jab does in boxing- to disrupt/ shake up/ say "hi" to an opponent that for whatever reason is best done with a bare fist or a foot instead of a weapon. I only bring it up because it happens in fight scenes all the time but isn't present in PFRPG rules unless as part of the abstract mechanic of combat. That is, it is happening, there just aren't rules for it because the effect is insignificant.
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What about punching while holding a weapon? Specifically, when an opponent attempts some super power strike and you just bash him in the nose, disrupting the whole maneuver.
This is why there should be concentration for everyone.
Picking locks, searching, and all knowledge skills require concentration if something disruptive is going on.
What about punching while holding a weapon? Specifically, when an opponent attempts some super power strike and you just bash him in the nose, disrupting the whole maneuver.This is why there should be concentration for everyone.
Picking locks, searching, and all knowledge skills require concentration if something disruptive is going on.
I miss the Constitution-based Concentration skill check. I also think there should be more Constitution-based skills, like Endurance (change it from a feat to a skill), and Labor (digging, carrying, washing, chopping firewood, picking fruit, plowing, shoveling, etc.; basically most unskilled labor, ironically enough).
Any character can dress their wounds or those of another creature able to heal naturally. Dressing wounds restores 1d8 hp plus the Wisdom modifier (if positive) of the character doing the dressing. It takes ten minutes to dress one creature’s wounds. A character can restore a number of hp points per day via wound dressing equal to their Heal Skill modifier times two.
I came up with this rule in order to support low magic play. I wanted to give PCs an option besides carrying the mandatory wand of cure light wounds. I wanted something like the healing surge in 4e, but I just do not like the sound of "healing surge". I have run into conceptual problems with the last line, namely: why would the maximum healing be dependent on the healer? I tried replacing that line with various versions tacking maximum healing to the healee, but then it looks too much like "Treat Deadly Wounds" under the Heal skill.
However, with all that said, a wand is still a better choice.
Catching one’s breath is a full round action that restores 1 temporary hit point per hit die of a creature plus their Constitution modifier (if positive) not to exceed the total amount of damage they have taken. Temporary hit points gained from breath catching last ten minutes. Breath catching can only be performed on oneself, and only once every ten minutes.
I like this rule. It is a version of "second wind" from 4e. Again, wands are better, but this is cheaper.
(and even vs. deadly monsters). Arguably covered by hit points or combat expertise, this is a good example of something that doesn't feel "present" in the rules, even though it kind of is. You see Parrying rules crop up a lot, it just seems like a fun mechanic to use your weapon defensively.
There's the obscure dueling parry rule from GMG. Just apply it in general melee too.
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+1 to Atarlost. I'd even go so far to say that Evasion required an open space nearby or suffer a penalty for staying in the same square
Here's one for you:
: A war veteran can actually call upon his knowledge to aid in battle rather than just swing and bark orders.
I know that there's a few Prestige classes that do this, but I also recall having a character back in 3.5 that had 8 ranks in tactics that had no beneficial use whatsoever aside flavor.
Concentration, for everything. You take the current chance of success, and you subtract the distraction. Instead of spell level, use half the DC. Standard procedure of rounding down, 1 minimum. It's important to use something that reflects difficulty, but doesn't create new confusing rules mush.