Incentivizing secondary attacks House Rule

[phayman53]

Originally Posted by DouglasCole

Found it. Christian's Serendipity Engine

Hmm, this is a good idea, but I am not sure I like the execution. A lot of the results seem to demand ending in odd positions or require really specific things. I think I would prefer something more general and abstract. Maybe something like this:

Probing Attack

The attacker may make an attack with the same penalties to damage as a defensive attack. If the attack roll is successful, whether or not the defender succeeds in an active defense, roll a quick contest of the attackers Per based weapon skill verses the defender's DX or DX based weapon or shield skill (whichever is better). If the attacker succeeds in the quick contest, the attacker's next attack penalizes the defender's active defenses by -2, but only if the attacker makes an attack according to the following margin of success table:

MoS of 1-2: attacker must attack with a different weapon/striker or the opposite end of the same weapon (a pommel strike following a blade attack, a butt strike following a spear thrust, etc.--must be significantly different part of the weapon, usually on the opposite end). Grapples are also appropriate follow-up attacks and may be armed grapples with the attacking weapon.

MoS of 3-4: attacker must attack with any different part of the weapon. So any options from MoS 1-2 is appropriate, but following a swing with a thrust (or vise versa) or the back side of a double-bitted weapon also works. Special optional rule: a back edge attack with a two-edged sword after a swing is also appropriate, but suffers the same damage penalty as a defensive attack (simulating the weaker nature of the swing with a back edge).

MoS of 5+ or critical success: any attack by the attacker following the probing attack reduces the defender's active defense by -2.