Tag: #abilities

I’ve been looking at how to add a bit of variety to fighters and bits of interest to address the widespread criticism that fighters are boring. I’ve looked at a lot of products that add to the fighter’s arsenal, so to speak, yet none that really grab me. DCC’s Mighty Deeds, for one example that’s been recommended many times…just doesn’t thrill me.

I want stunts that force an actual decision on part of the player–a stunt to possibly shorten the melee or some consequence that may lengthen the fight or place the PC in even more danger. Neither choice should be obviously superior to the other or there’s no real decision to be made. That means no stunt that is merely an appendage on a regular attack roll or decided on after the roll; a stunt has to be declared in advance, similar to casting a spell. A stunt also has to involve greater danger for the PC–derring do requires actual daring.

After playing around with a few options, I’ve landed on one that looks really promising. It involves two phases to a stunt–a set up and an exploit. This fits in well with my melee system, because it’s a phased system and has three phases: an early phase, a general phase, and a late phase. The phases make handling monster attack sequences, multiple attacks by PCs, and other special circumstances easier to handle than just lumping everything together in the general phase. In the same fashion that a thug in the corner will throw one dagger early and a second dagger late, a stunting fighter will set up early and exploit late. Splitting a stunt into two parts works with the phasing structure.

What about difficulty? Instead of having to work out a bunch of penalties to apply for various stunts, there’s a built in penalty–each half the stunt requires an attack roll. The player has to roll successfully twice, which reduces the overall chance of success. If a PC has a 70% chance of success with each attack, then being successful with both rolls ends up with a 49% chance overall. That’s a coin flip, essentially.

I don’t want a stunt to simply inflict extra damage, as that’s rather boring and reduces the choice to a simple math problem. A stunt should accomplish something other than simple damage. Inflict a condition that slows the target or reduces its attack rate or decreases the damage it does. Force the foe to move in a particular direction where an ally can drop a boulder on it or push it over a cliff. Reduce its sensory capabilities, blinding or deafening it.

Then there’s the question of what happens on a failure? If the set up fails, what does that mean for the PC failing? Decreased defensive ability for attacks received during the general phase? Needs a recovery move of some sort to get back into the fight properly? What if the set up is good and the exploit fails? What are the consequences? I want there to be some significant risk taken on when stunting. Perhaps the stunting PC has make it through the general phase without being hit to launch the exploit; getting hit interrupts the stunt (like spells can get interrupted).

The melee system already involves a decision as to how aggressive or defensive a PC will be during the melee round. Stunting will have to be associated with a more aggressive approach, so perhaps the defensive penalty already associated with that will be enough. (I don’t see taking a risk with a stunt happening when fighting defensively.)

The bits and pieces of the stunting system are all there, I think. It’s just assembling the essential parts into a whole that can stand up with use that’s left to do.