Wuxia Boxing System?

I've been thinking about the Wuxia Action System used in Weapons of the Gods and Legends of the Wulin. Well, not the system itself-but the principle of "rolling to see how many opportunities you get this round".

(You could say Mythras/RQ6/MRQ2/Legend RPG is based on it, too).

Thing is, I find that it emulates better how things actually happen in a fight...based on my (admittedly limited) experience.

And I'd like to use it for a game based around a boxing story. You know, like Rocky, Hajime no Ippo, the Raging Bull, and the like.

How would I do it?

Everything has a TN from 2 to 8.

Roll anywhere from 3 to 6 dice. Any doubles add 1 (or 2) to the number rolled, tripples add three times this. The downside, of course, is that they take up your possible actions.

Declare your intentions before rolling, if you declare 3 or more, roll one die less. One of your actions is "impede the attack", raising the TN to be hit.

Now roll, and assign whatever you rolled to one of the actions. See what happened.

Hmm, I need to work more on it.

What does Exalted 3e combat system model? Why, real life, of course!

It has been brought to my attention that many people can't get over the conceptual hurdle of Exalted 3e's combat system having two kind of attacks. "Why", they say, "is this attack withering, and this one decisive? They're both, you know, slashes".
The answer is, because the enemy is not static. And the enemy wasn't equally prepared to meet both.

Let's start with basics, and I'm talking about real life here.
There are two major kinds of fights, ambushes (and suckerpunching, and stabbing someone while he's trying to get his sword out of a scabbard, and prison yard rushes where only one side has a shiv, and hunting herbivores that are running in the other direction, and IEDs, and carpet-bombing infantry), and duels (shieldwalls and "monkey dancing" included on equal rights here). These are symmetric and asymmetric combat, and I leave it to you to put any other situation into one of these two. Guideline: if your enemy can retaliate, it's not asymmetric combat...yet.

The thing about ambushes is that they make it safe. You just need to get into position. The trick is getting into this position with a weapon ready to strike. Then the enemy is hurt without getting to strike back. That's why they're "dishonourable": they avoid the hardest part of the duel - you getting around the threat that the enemy represents to your bodily integrity.
The thing about duels is that they're easy to win, but hard to survive. If you don't take away the enemy's options to attack, at least for a split second, he might do the same thing that happens in lots of punch-outs, where the participants are exchanging blows.
You don't want that to happen to you, ever, not if you're assuming weapons are going to be used. That's why duels were notorious for double-kills.

That's also why many combat systems, fencing included, are teaching you to attack when the enemy can't retaliate. To do that, you have to grasp or create such a moment, and be in position with a weapon ready to strike. Sounds familiar?
It should. The essence of surviving a duel is in turning it into an ambush for a split second, or however long it takes you to deliver the injury (with a sword, that's "for an instant", usually). That's the essence of fencing, and grappling, and a few other styles I can name.
It's not "charge and hope for the best". It's like fencing, where you get into a position where the enemy has at least one "window" open, and can't close it in time, then getting your stab through said "window"...you have to just manoeuvre him into opening.
Or for a possibly more familiar example, it's like Gracie Ju-Jutsu: get positional advantage, then apply submission, or just pound away. But you need the positional advantage first, and then it's an ambush until and unless he dislodges you. But you're likely to get at least one attempt for a submission.

Back to Exalted 3e
The above model is what the Exalted 3e system models, in my view. Of if it's not meant to (although I suspect it is), it emulates it so well, that it almost doesn't matter.
Now, if your enemy is an extra: there is no need for withering attacks, just take care of him at once. No, that's not realistic, but since when are "extras" rules realistic?
First, a withering attack puts your enemy on the defensive and gives you first strike next round. Keep in mind: "attack" here is anything that gives you advantage. It might be a defence.
Then, you use the openings you just created, and deliver your best shot.
You better hope that's enough. If it's not, and he isn't well and truly on the defensive, he might use you moment of weakness.
That's something that Withering attacks, Initiative crash and Decisive attacks are modelling very well (coupled with Crash attacks as "attacking in single time).
And there's nothing "meta" about the way it goes (other than the fact that "withering attacks" would be better named as "creating advantage"... But really, they couldn't use "create advantage", or the Fate guys would laugh so hard Internet would stop watching pr0n for a second and turn to see what's going on.
And as we all know, Internet stopping to watch pr0n would have nothing short of disastrous results!)

Is that just me that sees it this way? Well, no. I happened to exchange personal messages with at least one other martial artist that sees Exalted 3e the same way. His nickname and other details would remain undisclosed, but that's less important.
The thing is, when you show Exalted 3e's combat system to people trained a certain way, they often react the same way: "Hey, nice!"
When you show it to people without such training, it's often "I can't visualize it". Some of them tend to "get it" after a demonstration.
Thus, I decided to mention how I'm seeing Exalted 3e. I know that was a problem in my group...until we made a demonstration for those that didn't "get it" immediately.

Hope that helps you, too. If not, hope this post at least made you think - about martial arts, or about Exalted 3e, or about both!

-A

Cool toys for OSR fighters

The current thread on the Big Purple is giving me ideas. It's about whether OSR fighters should have "cool manoeuvres" or not. (And frankly, I think they should, or the wizards and clerics should be brought down a couple notches as well. Fighters are inherently cooler than other classes, but it should be made clear even to fighter-haters, too!)





AFAICT, the two main objections to the fighters having such manoeuvres is a) we don't want to describe each swing, and b) we want more down-to-earth fights. I agree with the latter, FWIW. But let me address how it could be done.
So, I admit I don't get it why people would equate "more powerful/interesting fighters" with "more detail how a swing happens"? 4e proves it ain't so IME. At least, I often can't imagine the specific actions from the movements on the grid.
And it's even arguable whether a 4e fighter is more powerful than a OD&D Fighting (wo)man. I mean, just how often does a 4e Fighter kill 4 kobolds in one attack, minions or not? The 0e Fighting man can do that. So it's about having more interesting options baked in the system (that is, on top of everything else you could and should be doing!)
But fine, let's get down-to-earth. You know what rule would make OSR/TSR-era D&D more down-to-earth while also reducing complexity?
"When the fighter attacks a non-fighter of the same or lower level, he rolls for damage". Possibly add "....rolls the d20, but applies it as damage".
There, you have it. A 1st level Fighting (Wo)Man is a Veteran. IME, when a veteran fights some young buck and sees an opportunity, meaning "his/her turn in initiative came", the other guy is in for a world of hurt. Seen that happening, it wasn't pretty. And no, when a fencing expert feints, you'd better start praying for your soul.
Yes, that makes them the masters of the battlefield. Just like Clerics are masters of the religious matters and healing, and just like Wizards are the only ones that can cast spells... no contradiction here. Keep in mind, they can still fight back, they just need to pass his AC. There's no option for the fighter to cast a spell, not even with a roll, so it's still not equal, just less unequal. And of course, everyone rolls against a higher-level enemy, so it doesn't mean anyone overshadowing the rest in "boss battles" (assuming you've got boss battles).
-A Fighter always rolls for damage one die type higher. He or she can kill you with a knife as fast as a normal human can hurt you with a shord sword. That also means the warrior is never unarmed (rangers and paladins don't get that increase, but get the benefit of not being unarmed). The warrior can choose whether to deal subdual or normal damage, too.
(To anyone that objects, think of a warrior that can shatter bones with punches and break joints as a simple move. No, Monks aren't the only ones that get to be good unarmed fighters - just look how many wrestling matches Hercules had, how many of them ended in death, and what happened to the local though who tried to fight with Odysseus. Or, to put it in another way: beginning of the 20th century, one Japanese Judo sensei sees an European Fechtbuch. His reaction: "Wait, Europeans practiced ju-justsu in 17th century?"
Knowing that, I have a special message for anyone who tells me only Monks should have unarmed options. Said message translates from Bulgarian as "fuck off").

But fine, that's more powerful, but not really all that interesting. Let me see what else I can think of.
-Adapting the system of Stunts from Dragon Age and effects from the Bo9S and 4e.
Hey, pay attention to THIS sword!
Inflict a penalty of (your level) to the attacks of anyone in hand-to-hand range with you, who tries to attack anyone else.
A sword is hanging above our heads.
Double your damage dice before rolling (2 effects).
Fortuna rules it all.
Make your damage rolls explode, Savage Worlds-style. Self-explanatory.
Trip, and you fall.
 The enemy rolls an opposed attack roll against your roll, or is down.
Your blade, it's mine, your soul, like ice...
The enemy rolls an opposed check against your attack roll or is disarmed.
Get lost, fucker!
 Push/Shove. The enemy rolls Fortitude or Reflex/Save vs Death or Wands. Failing it, he/she is pushed back.
"Aren't you Isabel's husband? Just don't hit me with the horns!"
That's simply a taunt (yes, you can try taunting without an effect, but it's your action for the round with most GMs I know...). The enemy rolls a Will-based save with a penalty of your level. A failure means the enemy gets a penalty of (half your level, roudn up) to attacking anyone else. A second successful Taunt on the same enemy gives them half that (round up again) to AC, as they're sacrificing their defence. A third Taunt leads to them having your Charisma as penalty to their to-hit rolls, because anger blinds them and makes them predictable. Further using Taunt has no effect.
Note: The Charisma penalty is always negative to the enemy, even if you have a -1 on Charisma. Equally, even if you have a +0, the penalty is still -1.
On top of that, taunts aren't penalised for being used on the same enemy (see below). You are, however, penalised for using them on more than one enemy in a single fight.
Warning: Doesn't work on non-sapient creatures. Opponent gets a +3 to their roll if you don't share a language, or +5 if you don't share the same culture. If you're different to the point where your cultures have different meanings for common gestures, and you don't share the language, this is impossible to do. The GM might warn you if (s)he thinks it reasonable for you to have spotted that.
Cleave in 'twain!
Deal maximum damage on one of your dice, and roll another. That means that if you attack with a 2d6 two-handed sword, you deal 2d6+6 damage. If you hit with a two-handed axe, deal 1d12+12 damage (or if you're playing OD&D, deal 1d6+6 damage). This effect costs as much as 3 normal effects,
Traps hidden inside traps...
Feint: until his next action, the enemy has Your Intelligence modifier as penalty to either his AC or his to-hit roll. You must choose which one now.
Can you fight what you can't see?
Blind: until his next action, the enemy has a -4 to attack you. On his action, he can make a Fort/Save Vs. Death save to end the effect, or close their eyes and attack blindly. Doesn't work on constructs and other creatures lacking eyes. Opens an enemy to backstabbing/sneak attacks. You need two Manoeuvres to activate this!
Bind: this requires the enemy is armed with a weapon. Until his next action, they've got your Strength modifier as penalty to hit (see Taunt), and your Strength modifier as penalty against attacks from other characters. If they have another weapon that can be used up close, like a knife or rock, they can avoid the penalty to hit, but not the AC one.
The drawback is, the same AC penalty applies to you as well. he one that binded can choose to releast the Bind. Otherwise, the only way out is for the enemy to win a Str/Dex opposed check with you (each of you picks which one to use).
Stun: if you're using a bashing weapon, it's automatic. Otherwise, the enemy can choose to roll an opposed to-hit roll against your roll. If the stun succeeds, until enemy succeeds a Fort Save/Save vs Death, their attacks and defences suffer a -4 penalty. This costs two effects.
And here it's coming again...: roll to hit again, against the same enemy or another you can reach in this round (even with a missile weapon if you have one ready). This costs 2 effects, or 3 if you want to change weapons on the fly.
It's all in the feet.
You can move one hex on the battlemap. If you activate this at the cost of 3 effects, you pass behind the enemy's back and can backstab. On his turn, he needs to win an opposed Dex check in order to turn around without giving you an opening for attacking immediately.
...and so on. I'm pretty sure I can make up others.

How do you get effects? Roll a d6 along with the d20, on a 5, pick one effect. On a 6, pick two. You can elect to "save" an effect and deal it later when you roll another effect.
On 7th, 13th and 20th level, you add one more die to roll. Yes, teoretically, you could roll 8 effects. In practice, that only happens 1:1296 times.
Whenever you repeat a manoeuvre, however, that enemy gets a +1 damage against you, and you have a -1 on your saves against their spells until the end of the current combat. It pays to be unpredictable.
Keep in mind, you can deal effects even if you failed to hit. You can't add damage to an attack that didn't deal damage, but that doesn't prevent you from taking down an enemy.
-As above, but you pay for stunts with Elan points instead. You get 1 point for dropping an enemy, i.e. dealing the decisive strike, or after an attack if you take voluntarily a -5 penalty on your roll to hit and a -3 on your AC and damage until the end of the round. The two are cumulative, so you can take the penalty, drop an enemy nevertheless, and get 2 Elan points instead of 1 at the end of the round.
To add 1 effect on an attack, pay 1 point. To add 2 effects, pay 3 points. To add 3 effects, pay 10 points. Your points are lost whenever you have a rest. However, you need to hit successfully.
-Adapting the On Mighty Thews system - get effects depending on your roll to hit. For each 2 points you beat the necessary number, you get 1 effect to invoke.

As you can see, nothing here looks like magic powers, which is one of the objections to the 4e powers (including one of mine - I know all of that is possible, but some powers seem too dependent on the enemy to be able to invoke rgwm with any reliability in a fight. Hence, they seem magical - to me. That's however NOT due to the system, but to me having a different idea from the designers what fights look like, including epic fights).