Looking for House Rules on Attack and Defense rolls { was: Combat House rules }

[Keiko]

Has anyone done any combat house rules for Attack and Defense rolls so they function as a contest? The better the attack roll the better the defense roll has to be?

[whswhs]

Originally Posted by Keiko

Has anyone done any combat house rules for Attack and Defense rolls so they function as a contest? The better the attack roll the better the defense roll has to be?

No, that seems like too radical a departure.

Bill Stoddard

[sir_pudding]

There have been a few threads on this, and it was an optional rule "Only the Best Shall Win" in 3e. I think it's a really bad idea, as it encourages characters to not take penalties if they can at all avoid it; this then eliminates most interesting combat Maneuvers and Options leading to combatants just standing toe to toe and taking bland Attacks at either Torso or Random hit location. Lame.

[DouglasCole]

Originally Posted by Keiko

Has anyone done any combat house rules for Attack and Defense rolls so they function as a contest? The better the attack roll the better the defense roll has to be?

There is a way to do this in RAW called "Feint and Attack."

There's effectively another way to do this called Deceptive Attack.

This probably comes off as snarky, but it's not meant that way. Both of those effectively say "I'm so good that I'm going to actively penalize your defense," which effectively is saying the better the attack roll, the more you have to make your defense by.

Deceptive Attack works great in play. Some love Feint, some are meh, some hate it.

[sir_pudding]

Originally Posted by DouglasCole

Deceptive Attack works great in play. Some love Feint, some are meh, some hate it.

I think that people who hate it don't realize that you can stack it with Riposte, Deceptive Attack, and Counterattack; if you absolutely, positively must reduce their active defenses accept no substitute.

[Anthony]

Originally Posted by sir_pudding

There have been a few threads on this, and it was an optional rule "Only the Best Shall Win" in 3e. I think it's a really bad idea, as it encourages characters to not take penalties if they can at all avoid it.

Eh, not substantially more so than deceptive attack and rapid strike.

[Keiko]

Originally Posted by sir_pudding

There have been a few threads on this, and it was an optional rule "Only the Best Shall Win" in 3e.

Do you recall how it worked?

[Anaraxes]

Our group adopted a house rule like this back in 1e days.

We started out with a -1 to defense for every 2 points of MoS of the attack. That proved to be a bit deadly, so we changed to -1 per 3. That worked okay.

Then we decided it was a bit too powerful to automatically scale to the maximum on very good attack rolls, so we made it something the attacker had to declare. Attackers had to pick the defense penalty (trickiness of their attack) in advance of the roll, so lucky low rolls didn't become completely devesating. -1 per -3 points of attack kept people from taking it much at that point (on a 75 or 100 point budget, we didn't have lots of skill 20s and 25s running around), so we went back to -1 per -2 to attack. At that point, we settled in happily and kept the rule for a while. I almost sent it in to Roleplayer, but about that point a very similar rule got published there.

You'll recognize this as the Deceptive Attack mechanic in 4e. Lots of groups seem to converge on that mechanism. I'd just stick with it.

[Anthony]

Originally Posted by Keiko

Do you recall how it worked?

Basically a retroactive deceptive attack -- you reduce defense by half your margin of success on the attack.

[Keiko]

Originally Posted by Anthony

Basically a retroactive deceptive attack -- you reduce defense by half your margin of success on the attack.

Thank you. That sounds very workable.