Combat maneuvers

[vivsavage]

One of the most enjoyable things about DA is the combat stunt system. However, the way stunts work essentially preclude attempting things like disarming while you attack. In other words, you cannot plan a stunt; you just get lucky. I'm wondering if anyone has suggestions for adding a system for deliberately attempting maneuvers regardless of whether you roll doubles. Some examples, besides attempting to disarm, might include feinting, tripping, pushing, dirty trick, and so on.

[Arimmus]

Dirty Fighting is something learned at level 7 for rogues. Feinting an attack would be a Communications (Deception) roll, similar to the rogues Bluff ability. It could be adapted to all of classes but that all depends on what you want the ability to do. Pushing would be a strength might Attack roll, Probably best that if you pushed a target, you did no damage. Tripping an opponent would be some skill with a weapon, and probably deal little damage if none at all. The Age System is more for combat realism than spectacular combat (Ie D&D). Most game are heading in this direction as deal most damage, move on is the major case. That is my opinion at least.

[shonuff]

I'm implementing a stunt point bank. 5 SP at the start of each adventure, with a cap of 10. The SP in the bank are used as normal SP, but the bank is only filled (back to 5-- up or down) at the end of the adventure or GM discretion (good ideas, great roleplaying, etc.) The SP in the bank are used as normal SP, but the advantage is that they can be picked when they are used.

[Sidmen]

This comes up a LOT, and there are a ton of ways people offer up to handle it. Personally, I just give my players 3SP at the beginning of each combat encounter to spend as they will.

[Hellebore]

Why don't you have your players declare what they want to do that round and then see if they can do it? Like how attacks in general work.

Just as you can't know you'll hit and thus are saying 'i try to hit the enemy', you don't know you'll stunt either so should be saying 'I try to disarm the enemy'. Obviously it looks wierd when you only declare what you are doing AFTER you've rolled the dice, but that's true for any tests you make.

Basically what the stunts are doing mechanically is giving you a % chance of successfully doing special actions, just as the standard attack roll is giving you a % chance of successfully attacking. You could just as easily separate the stunts out of the attack roll. Roll to hit, if successful roll to perform stunts during your turn. The current rules simply roll them into a single roll.

So the next time you make an attack roll, treat the stunts like the attack itself, something you declare you are trying to do. You don't roll 3D6 and then say 'hey look at that, I guess I hit them with something - how about my two handed sword?' You declare your intent to hit them with the two handed sword before you roll and then wait to see if what you are trying to do actually works or not. So if you said 'I try to hit them with my two handed sword, putting extra force into the swing and try to disarm them' and you get 4 SPs, then you can do exactly what you said you wanted to.

If you don't roll the stunt points then you can't, but that's no different to declaring an attack and missing with it. You've effectively 'missed' with your stunt points.

Hellebore

[Neith]

The way I understand it, the combat in DARPG is meant to be a bit abstract. You rolling your dice doesn't equal your character swinging his weapon -- it's a 15 second mini battle in which you attempt to attack and hurt your opponent. During that time your character can parry, dodge, duck, and swing multiple times. The attack roll is meant to test whether or not a blow was landed during that time.

So the way we play is, you don't declare "I swing with my sword"....you declare "I'm using my sword during this attack" (because you must declare the weapon for attack rolls). After that, the test is done to see if a hit actually occurred. Then, if stunts are gained, we decide what we did and figure out damage. At the end of that, the full 15-second "turn" can then be narrated with all the flair and excitement of a movie-scene fight.

Don't get me wrong, you can play it how you want. This is just my interpretation of the rules.

[Arimmus]

I forgot that it was 15 seconds. Again unlike D&D combat rounds are longer. I once argued that 15 seconds was wayy too long to have just 2 actions but now that I have been around and played a bit, its more like the one test is an advanced test, to see how many blows you could deal to the target. You could say that for each test a player is really swinging 3-4 times, and the target is defending. make it feel like your in an action movie or something. One of my players always does weird stuff during combat, like backflips over targets, slamming them to the ground ( or trying to)

[Zapp]

Why don't you have your players declare what they want to do that round and then see if they can do it? Like how attacks in general work.

Well, that misses what I consider an important point in current game design.

Describing your action (in great detail) to modify your success chance (also often in great detail) was common back in previous decades of roleplaying. The simulationistic approach, if you will.

Nowadays, however, more games let the dice describe your action and leave up to you to rationalize how it happened.

This approach allows the game designer to control the mechanical game balance without the complexity (or loss of game speed) inherent to a modifiers-heavy rule set.

While Dragon Age is nowhere near games like Dragons & Dragons 4E or Warhammer FRP 3 in how far it takes this paradigm, its stunt system is decidedly "modern" in this sense.

Feel free to implement the above suggestion - just as long as you are aware of the above. In short; you're turning onto a path that leads away from what I consider core design principles of Dragon Age. Not that this is necessarily bad - especially as you know what you are doing; if you didn't before you read this post, you do now! )


Zapp

PS. Myself, I far prefer and recommend an approach along the lines of the "stunt point bank" suggestions given. It adds "action points" to the DA game in a way that keeps - and strengthens - its core game design.

[Loswaith]

Well I actually go for an aproach somewhere in between, on what Zapp mentions more modern and the simulationist styles.
I let my players describe what they are trying to achieve or a maneuver they want to attemp and rule modifiers or ability(focus) to the task. While having stunts handle ancillary occurances, things that can happen as the course of battle but arent activly worked towards being achieved.

The downside is this kind of approach is that it isnt one for novice GMs as it can become inconsistent, unless you have a fairly firm grasp of the effect certain modifiers will have to the outcome and able to emply that on the fly, so wouldn't be as suited for the beginner approach of DARPG, as a core factor. Though DARPG does lend itself to the approach quite well given the simple base mechanics, if you as a gm feel you can keep the flexability of no set tasks while keeping a releative consistent call on modifiers to the actions, the added complexity is well worth it.

The way I understand it, the combat in DARPG is meant to be a bit abstract. You rolling your dice doesn't equal your character swinging his weapon -- it's a 15 second mini battle in which you attempt to attack and hurt your opponent. During that time your character can parry, dodge, duck, and swing multiple times. The attack roll is meant to test whether or not a blow was landed during that time.
...

While this is the approach of most RPGs, 15 seconds is an especially long time when it comes to battle so thinking on it being a set time is not always a good approach. My group tends to ignore the actual time a round goes for as a macguffin, and looks at it more as a meaningful action, for combat that is usualy making an opening in an opponents defence (melee), or waiting for an opening to present itself (ranged) and making use of that window. Though in essence the actual flow is more visualised much as you have described.
While the approach doesnt work as well for unskilled opponents (such as animals or creatures that work more on instinct than training), in those cases it could be more about many less effective smaller blows and a series of injuries over the round that amounts to the damage roll.

[Hellebore]

Why don't you have your players declare what they want to do that round and then see if they can do it? Like how attacks in general work.

Well, that misses what I consider an important point in current game design.

Describing your action (in great detail) to modify your success chance (also often in great detail) was common back in previous decades of roleplaying. The simulationistic approach, if you will.

Nowadays, however, more games let the dice describe your action and leave up to you to rationalize how it happened.

In which cas there is absolutely nothing wrong with the way the rules currently work. I fail to see the problem. The OP specified this as a problem, hence my suggestion to help rationalise it.

While Dragon Age is nowhere near games like Dragons & Dragons 4E or Warhammer FRP 3 in how far it takes this paradigm, its stunt system is decidedly "modern" in this sense.

Feel free to implement the above suggestion - just as long as you are aware of the above. In short; you're turning onto a path that leads away from what I consider core design principles of Dragon Age. Not that this is necessarily bad - especially as you know what you are doing; if you didn't before you read this post, you do now! )


Zapp

PS. Myself, I far prefer and recommend an approach along the lines of the "stunt point bank" suggestions given. It adds "action points" to the DA game in a way that keeps - and strengthens - its core game design.

I would say that any kind of 'stunt bank' is actually going AGAINST the core game design, not supporting it. A stunt bank gives away for free what the core rules require you get through chance. It BYPASSES the core rules. Being a chance product they are equally likely for anyone.

Even the set 3 playtest doesn't mess with the chance of getting stunt points - it simply gives you an additional +1 at 20th level if you successfully roll them.

But the game is designed around everyone having a ~44% chance of being able to perform stunts, not a 100% chance of doing several and then a 44% of doing the rest.

The rationale I provided was a way for people to look at how stunts are performed and make sense of them, as was the concern of the OP. By treating stunts like Actions (I declare an Attack Action followed by a Disarm Stunt) you are not altering the mechanics in anyway, still following the way stunt rules actually work, but giving the player a better rationalisation for how their stunts are actually done.

if you roll stunts on your attack then you know that your INTENT to disarm the target succeeded, rather than the abstraction where you only knew you disarmed them after you already hit them. Same mechanics, different thought process. It should help the OP make sense of stunts in the context of his games.

You could even go so far as to say to players that every attack is automatically trying to perform any stunts, and the 44% chance determines whether you got in a good posiiton.

I don't see how that is moving away from the core mechanics - unlike a stunt bank it doesn't change them...

Hellebore

[Jekias]

Even the set 3 playtest doesn't mess with the chance of getting stunt points - it simply gives you an additional +1 at 20th level if you successfully roll them.

Don't forget the following as well (under the Classes Heading just before Gaining levels/experience)

Code: Select all

 In addition to the specific powers unique to each class, all Dragon Age characters gain the following benefit upon achieving level 11:
* You gain a +1 bonus when generating stunt points. if you roll a stunt and have a 6 on your Dragon Die, for example, you have 7 stunt points to spend.

Which means at level 20 you could potentially have 8 depending on choices made.

[Zapp]

Hellebore: the "core mechanic" in Dragon Age is "ability to perform stunts" - not "having a N percent chance of pulling off a stunt".

Allowing characters more control over when and where the stunts happen augments the stunt mechanic, it evokes that mechanic more often - it doesn't break it.

Besides, giving characters a few extra Stunt Points hardly bring up that chance from 44% to 100%. It just allows a character a very few times per day/session/combat decide for himself to "be lucky" and have a stunt. Spread out over the entire day I'd say the percentage chance is increased just a few percentage points (depending of course how many rolls you make between getting those SPs).

Adding combat modifiers is a completely different way of approaching "flexibility" in combat. Both approaches aim to break off the "you hit I hit" monotony. Both can work well, and there's no "right" or "better" way. My point is merely that that DA has already made its choice, and that I would advise careful consideration before I'd recommend adding in the other one.

I should probably add that the "stunt point bank" suggestion DOES add choice complexity. For newbie players it could lead to AP (analysis paralysis). Know your players before adding it!


Best regards,
Zapp

[Hellebore]

Hellebore: the "core mechanic" in Dragon Age is "ability to perform stunts" - not "having a N percent chance of pulling off a stunt".

The mechanic is the maths of the game, ergo a % chance at doing something is a mechanic. Stunts are a concept represented by a probability mechanic using dice.

You claimed what i suggested was moving away from this 'core mechanic' when it does nothing of the sort. It makes no changes to the 'ability to perform stunts' OR 'having a N percent chance of pulling off a stunt'.

Allowing characters more control over when and where the stunts happen augments the stunt mechanic, it evokes that mechanic more often - it doesn't break it.

It changes both the concept and the mechanic. The game isn't balanced around players being able to add an extra 1D6 damage to their attacks 3 times a session, the game is balanced around stunts being a 44% chance of success. Every time they modify stunts they only modify COSTS and AMOUNTS, never the chance of getting them.

You could use exactly the same argument to allow players to do triple their normal damage output a few times per session - damage is a game mechanic and all this 'damage bank' does is 'augment' this.

Or the ability to perform additional breather actions beyond the single allowed after an enounter - this would simply augment the healing mechanic, invoking it more often.

Or the ability to cast a spell for free - this would augment the spell mechanic, invoking it more often.

Adding combat modifiers is a completely different way of approaching "flexibility" in combat. Both approaches aim to break off the "you hit I hit" monotony. Both can work well, and there's no "right" or "better" way. My point is merely that that DA has already made its choice, and that I would advise careful consideration before I'd recommend adding in the other one.

I don't understand what you are saying. How does rearranging the order in which you 'declare' things modify combat in any way?

The suggestion i gave was simply to allow the player to visualise their actions in a more intuitive way, it has no effect on the mechanics of the game.

Giving people something for free when it is not normally given for free has an effect on the game. Your argument can apply to any single area of the game as justification for getting anything for free.

Hellebore

[Zapp]

I would say that any kind of 'stunt bank' is actually going AGAINST the core game design, not supporting it. A stunt bank gives away for free what the core rules require you get through chance. It BYPASSES the core rules. Being a chance product they are equally likely for anyone.

...

But the game is designed around everyone having a ~44% chance of being able to perform stunts, not a 100% chance of doing several and then a 44% of doing the rest.

The rationale I provided was a way for people to look at how stunts are performed and make sense of them, as was the concern of the OP. By treating stunts like Actions (I declare an Attack Action followed by a Disarm Stunt) you are not altering the mechanics in anyway, still following the way stunt rules actually work, but giving the player a better rationalisation for how their stunts are actually done.

...
I don't see how that is moving away from the core mechanics - unlike a stunt bank it doesn't change them...

Hellebore

Okay. Let me explain why I consider handing out "extra stunt points" add to the game's strengths while I consider recommending combat bonuses/penalties to dilute the game's strengths.

I consider the way you get to do stunts to be one of the game's top strength. Not specifically how you do them or what probability you have. That means that if you not only get random stunts (as usual) but, in a select few cases, you can yourself choose to perform a stunt, that moves more control to the hands of the player while still playing to the game's strength. In other words, the quality I like here is "not only do I get to make more stunts, but I get (limited) control over when they happen too". And you get to do it in a completely transparent manner, not having to introduce any other new rule.

(Here it is in order to say: good for experienced gamers. As a game designed for newbs, not adding this decision point to the game - and every single combat round - is probably a good design decision.)

Recommending that you do in Dragon Age what you have done in countless games before it, namely tweak your success rates depending on what exact maneuver you wish to perform, solves the same game design problem as stunts does. It is another approach to the same solution: namely to "spice up" combat, move away from the "you go I go" monotony of a straight hit points based game.

In this regard, I am not saying you cannot make bonuses/penalties work. After all, it works in 876 other fantasy games on the market. But it ignores the fact Green Ronin did not choose to go that path. It ignores the fact that stunt points are already there to be used for this express purpose. It ignores the fact that you are making Dragon Age more similar to other games, instead of building upon its unique strengths.

And it adds another dimension to a game who previously was (as I suspect) meticulously designed to avoid precisely that other dimension; both to make it stand apart as a game, and to off-load a lot of work off the GMs shoulders.



That is why I recommend people reading this thread to persist in coming up with game rule solutions that build upon the stunt point system of the game. Having a "bank" of stunt points does precisely that.

None of the above means any particular approach is wrong. I merely set out to write a post conveying information I don't think the average gamer thinks about. You might have already deduced it, Hellebore, but others might not. I just want people to be able to make informed decisions, and not just do it the traditional way just because "that has always worked" or somesuch.

I am in no way targeting you Hellebore. You just happened to be the first person (I read about) suggesting to add "the modifiers game" to Dragon Age. Your post just happened to be the one triggering mine.


Best regards,
Zapp

[Ghostdanser]

I've been considering the stunt bank idea for awhile now. I do like the randomness of the stunt system, however I also prefer to allow players a certain amount of control over fate. I think for me it comes down to trying to find a nice balance between stunts being too random and too common. If I decide not to implement a stunt bank the players are always at the whim of the dice...but if I give them too large a stunt bank then stunts become common occurence and they lose their impact.

I think I am going to try a leveled approach to a stunt bank. The players will be allowed to bank 1 stunt point for every two levels of experience. So a 1st and 2nd level can bank 1 stunt point, a 3rd and 4th level character can bank up to 2 points, 5th and 6th level can bank up to 3 stunt points...etc, with a cap of 6 points max in the players stunt bank. It allows the players at low level to have a bit of control, but not an overwheming amount, while allowing the players more control as their characters become more experienced.

I still may need to tweak the idea a bit...it may be that 1 point for three levels might work better, or perhaps a change in the cap size to something larger...but I am pretty happy with the basic idea of a leveled stunt bank. The idea will not be for everyone...but just wanted to throw out what I am working on. (Now if you don't like the idea of a leveled stunt bank you may want to change "throw out" in that last sentence to "throw up" if you feel it is more appropriate. Just sayin'...cause ya ain't goin' to offend me.)

[shonuff]

That's the issue I am having... what's the best amount of allowable in a bank to give more control without breaking the game (too much).

[Zapp]

That's the issue I am having... what's the best amount of allowable in a bank to give more control without breaking the game (too much).

First question:

How often do you intend this bank to get refilled?

("At the beginning of every encounter" and "At the start of a new adventure" ought to lead to wildly different numbers. Myself, I'll likely go with "At the beginning of each play session, regardless of how much in-game time has passed")

[shonuff]

What I am thinking is the start of each adventure (regardless of however many sessions) and may be re-filled mid-adventure as GM rewards (eg, good role-playing, clever ideas, etc).

[Zapp]

As I'm thinking 2-3 points is what you need to meaningfully change one single action (either buy a more expensive stunt than what the Dragon Die shows, or buy a stunt when you'd normally get none).

My personal opinion is that you'd want to be able to change about one action every encounter.

• For "At the start of each encounter" just a few points is probably enough. Half your level (like you suggest) doesn't feel wrong.
• For "At the start of each play session" you'd probably want a few more points. Equal to your level was my first thought, but I wonder if that isn't too stingy at low levels and too generous at high levels.
• For "At the start of each adventure (no refills)" you'd probably want 10 points in the bank, at least. This of course depends on the length and complexity of the scenario.

Based on this I'd say I'd be rather generous about those refills if I were you.

Myself, I'm thinking about keying this to an ability (ensuring low-level characters get at least 3 per session and that high-level characters still doesn't get more than perhaps 10).