Combat Actions

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Username17
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Combat Actions

Post by Username17 »

http://www.scshop.com/~ritaxis/ff/comba ... r][br]This is actually a major simplification of the rules for Bull Rushing, Charging, Overrunning, and Tripping.

Does anyone see these as being somehow unbalanced or unclear? I've made it such that each of these actions takes at most as many rolls to adjudicate as the original rules and I've taken so many typos out of the SRD version that I hope this version is at this point much clearer - but of course there is always room for improvement.

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Count Arioch the 28th
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Re: Combat Actions

Post by Count Arioch the 28th »

Why do you allow a jump check to help while bull rushing? I can see using balance to increase the score of the defender, but why should jump increase for the attacker? I've bull rushed people in real life, and I don't see how jump could help.
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Re: Combat Actions

Post by Username17 »

Two reasons:

1> Symmetry (otherwise at high levels Bull Rushes would always fail).

2> In Final Fantasy d20, Jump is also the skill that lets you do sudden stuff - such as moving without provoking an attack of opportunity (Tumble is gone in this set-up). Jump is therefore a primarily offensive, strength-based skill.

There's no particular reason it had to be that way - but remember that in this set-up, Jump is the primary skill of the Dragoon (AKA: Lancer). Dragoons are obviously very good at Bull Rushing people, so rather than giving out some kind of special Bull Rush modifier for them in particular, I've simply chosen to have the skill itself benefit the action - and then given a bonus to the skill to the people who should be best at Bull Rushing (Dragoons and Monks).

BTW:

http://www.scshop.com/~ritaxis/ff/commo ... br][br]The beginnings of the combat modifiers section. I figure most of that crap I can just copy from the SRD - the only really innovative thingy is the Two Weapon Fighting rules.

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Re: Combat Actions

Post by Count Arioch the 28th »

Oh, okay. gotcha.
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Re: Combat Actions

Post by Joy_Division »

They don't seem to be simpler to understand (not big deal they're not complicated), but they do seem simpler to apply in combat. I like less rolling that's always a plus.

Since all your combat classes get balance there's no problem with the bullrushing thing.

It could be more immediately clear that a tripping character adds his base attack bonus. I almost missed that. Then again I'm good at that. As a more general question, you do feel that a BAB +str vs skill roll is ok in general? Or is this more specific to trip?
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Re: Combat Actions

Post by Username17 »

Here's the deal on BAB + Stat Mod vs. Skill Roll:

Both characters add their stat modifier, so that is, on the face of it, "fair".

BAB is something that everyone has. The minimum value is 1/2 character level and the maximum value is character level. Skill Ranks are something that some people have and some don't - the minimum value is zero and the maximum value is character level +3.

So with different character matchups, it is entirely possible that the defender has no chance at all of winning - while the attacker will almost always have a chance of success (with both characters maxxed out, the defender is up by 3 on an opposed roll, with both characters minned, the attacker is up by 10 at 20th level).

With such a notable potential disparity going on (especially the potential for auto-success on the part of the attacker) it would seem horribly unfair if this could result in characters actually being removed from combat (slept, held, killed, whatever). OTOH, having the victim being merely inconvenienced (ie.: knocked prone) - it's not a huge problem if the attacker automatically wins.

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