How should combat be?

[Admin]

What examples of combat do we want to emulate? Movies/books/TV etc all present different realities for pacing, duration, injury levels etc

What are we shooting for? What kind of fights are ideal? We should make a list of good examples so we can see what elements they have.

[Shark]

This is a good idea, sorry it took me a while to respond!

Okay:
some stuff that I've stated a lot in the past:
I think combat should be more about critical thinking and tactics, rather than random chance, though obviously character skill and opponent skill, is a large, if not the largest factor.

I'd like combat to be as natural, not the most realistic, but natural in that it makes sense for the situation you are in, if you were actually in the situation. Meaning, no Triple Dragon Fang Attack, with 3 sentences of description of what the heck that means. No tank/healer/striker overt concepts, which is a dnd basic functionality that then bled over to videogames and was simplified and made more abstract, and then put back into dnd in 4th edition. We all know this, but this forum doesn't know it yet. The whole healer concept sort of breaks the reality (in our world) of combat, at least healing as it is now. Certainly combat medics, and doing basic specific things to stop bleeding, or relieve pain, should be an aspect, but magical healing, I'm thinking should at least, for now be removed. I think magical healing could be used as a great scape goat for between adventure/rest period healing, if we simply make it take too long to be an option in combat, we could use it as a way to not have to deal with frustrating and uninteresting permanent, or long lasting damage mechanics. Whatever healing is, is important, as we'll be balancing the game much differently if healing exists.

Some lists:
Conan.
The first Law Trilogy, which I'm assuming you will read at some point, especially that you're soon to be unemployeeeed.
Old Boy
Any clint eastwood western, though without guns, at least at first.
Eastern Promises
A history of violence
Face-off!
Any bruce lee movie, any movie that accurately or at least semi accurately portrays combat, regardless of the sort of world they are in, meaning the way combat affects the human being, regardless of the human being's own powers and abilities to not get hit.

I think there should be some basic humanness, a certain basic human fleshiness and break-ability when you do manage to take actual damage. This will ground people in a basic realistic understanding of their character and what it can and cannot withstand, which will create a more realistic combat response, as unlike in most rp games, the character's will be less inclined to "take one for the team" and take a hit. This helps introduce concepts like running away (crazy!) which virtually never happens in dnd, at least not for pcs, and a "low level" character being able to kill a "more powerful" character, by catching them unawares with a particularly well planned and devious attack or scheme.

For supernatural stuff, I liked Preacher's supernatural stuff a lot and the way the supernatural works in the Illuminatus! Trilogy as well as Lovecraft, obviously, and the first law trilogy, and the glass books of the dream eaters, which you haven't read yet, but will hopefully experience soon. I think we have a chance here to make a new and interesting magic. Also, the Evil Dead, obviously. I like the idea of most magic being terrible and powerful and generally dangerous to use, magic being largely an evil that one must combat. Not saying I don't like the idea of safer magic also, or magic from different sources, so long as it's cool and interesting and weird.


I'd like to be able to employ real life fighting strategy and tactics with various weapons and weapon styles. I think we should research different fighting styles, take the main and most different and interesting ones, and then subject them to whatever game engine we design. Both real fighting styles, and other cool fighting styles that might be made up, like drunken master style. Also, all magic will be something that we can't really base on reality. But that is for another thread (that's what this sort of thing is called, right?).

[alex]

The whole healer concept sort of breaks the reality (in our world) of combat, at least healing as it is now. Certainly combat medics, and doing basic specific things to stop bleeding, or relieve pain, should be an aspect, but magical healing, I'm thinking should at least, for now be removed. I think magical healing could be used as a great scape goat for between adventure/rest period healing, if we simply make it take too long to be an option in combat, we could use it as a way to not have to deal with frustrating and uninteresting permanent, or long lasting damage mechanics

I agree that healing in combat should be minimal. I think it should exist to some extent, perhaps it only makes your region condition better but not your pain bucket (so you get stabbed in the arms and can't use em well, but you get healed and they work, but you are still the same amount on your way to getting knocked out). Perhaps something "restoration" magic does more if deal with status debuffs and shit, rather than raw healing.

We watched the princess bride on MV last weekend, it has some gems in it. We should plan to revisit everything we can from this thread with the game in mind:

Fezzik (andre the giant) says to Westley that he's "been used to fighting crowds, and you use different moves when fighting large numbers of people" There's no reason that mages and crap should be the "AoE" class. Even for standard melee fighters, there are different moves that'll hit more people, and different defensive things to do when dealing with a lot of little attackers.

When Inigo (the spanish sword guy) and Westly are fighting, they employ various "styles" against each other to try to gain advantage. They use terrain as well as feats of athelticism. Westley gets the "upperhand" against Inigo and is able to easily disarm him.

When Inigo is fighting the six fingered man, he is a better fighter but the six fingered man retreats and catchs him by surprise with a knife throw. This injures inigo, who is then barely able to parry his killing blows (gets hit in the arm instead of chest). He then rallys and defeats the six fingered man with a surge of vengence.

[Shark]

The princess bride, nice call. Certainly, the idea of different styles, etc, is what I'm talkin about. As for healing, I think I did mention that I thought there should be minimal healing/damage mitigation available, such as tying off a wound or a quick stitch, or even just holding an artery closed. I think that the other damage mitigation/reduction and avoidance that characters have, along with special abilities, etc, will cover the rest, I just mean as a basic rule, whatever healing is available in combat, we should make it as basic and "realistic" as possible.

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