Need ideas for Maneuvers, And not just for melee combat either Options

[Austere Emancipa...]

More stuff for the medieval fantasy SR rule set... I've decided (already back in this thread) to use Maneuvers for all melee and ranged combat skills as well as some other skills that might be central for a character.

However, even after going through all D&D Feat lists I could get my hands on, I'm out of ideas. I've currently got 21 melee combat maneuvers (mostly taken from the CC Martial Arts Maneuvers), but only 5 ranged combat maneuvers and 7 riding/mounted combat maneuvers.

The following is the maneuvers-table from the master file. A lot of the effects won't make much sense to you, because of a number of changed rules, especially concerning melee combat, but it should be enough to give you an idea how they work.

Acquiring
A character can learn 1 maneuver per 2 full ranks in a skill for the price of 4 Karma. A second maneuver per 2 ranks
can be learned, but at the price of 8 Karma. Learning maneuvers requires intensive training and tutoring from a
dedicated teacher. A character can only learn maneuvers for one rank lower than he currently is at. Eg a char with
Aikido-4 but no Maneuvers can only learn 1 maneuver for 4 Karma and another for 8.

Using
Maneuvers are directly linked to the skill for which they were learned, and they cannot be used with other skills,
unless the bonus/penalty from the maneuver obviously applies to another skill test, such as Jousting.

Type
All maneuvers are Instant (no action, but can only be used once per InitPass where the char has actions), Permanent
(no action, the maneuver is always in effect), Free Action, Simple Action or Complex Action. Any Free, Simple or
Complex Action cannot combine 2 maneuvers, a maneuver and an option, or 2 options unless otherwise mentioned.

[Fahr]

ranged combat:
1)snap shot release arrow as FA if bow is readied,
2)pin item CA called shot to pin clothing to object behind target or hand to haft of wooden weapons/poles/railings, needs more rules
3)indirect fire fire at targets behind walls with lower penalty for blind fire (2x ranges minimum medium range (arcing arrow over the top))

Mounted cobat:
1) Mount as shield FA, with superior horsemanship rider can hide behind the bulk of his mount to avoid direct attacks (think of commanches in the old west)
2) trample FA (use mount as a weapon directly)

those are al i cna think of offhand...

[Siege]

Since you're copying the d20 feat system, you might incorporate non-combat "Feats" for non-com skills like Negotiations or Etiquette.

But you're looking at a relatively fixed number of maneuvers per skill, so unless you limited a character's overall maneuver level to be distributed among a multitude of skills.

-Siege

[Austere Emancipa...]

Added Snap Shot, Mount as Shield (needs a new name) and Trample right away. Pin will probably just stay as a Called Shot (and a difficult one at that), and I couldn't think of reasonable rules for Indirect Fire.

I'd like to think of this more as absorbing some things about the Feat system to the already existing Maneuver system of SR. Using maneuvers for Negotiations or Etiquette are certainly not out of the question, simply pending on good ideas for maneuvers.

[Siege]

Currently, players pick maneuvers based on individual skills. Unarmed: 3 maneuvers, Edged: 2 maneuvers and so on.

Instead, each player is allowed to spend maneuvers from a fixed amount and allowed to distribute them among appropriate skills.

Jack gets 3 maneuvers -- he picks up "Point Blank" maneuver for handguns, "Smooth Talker" maneuver for Negotiations and "Daredevil" for Bikes.

Characters get new maneuvers based on the amount of karma they acquire -- every 15 points of Good Karma equals another maneuver choice.

Idle thoughts.

-Siege

[Austere Emancipa...]

Hmm... I tried to think about how that would differ from how it works now, and I didn't come up with many differences. It would make maneuvers a more integral part of the game, for sure -- instead of having to pick them up as "extra stuff", they'd rack up automatically.

But since there'd still probably be limits to how many maneuvers a character can have on a skill, depending on skill rating, the results would be almost the same. People would just have more maneuvers in general, and slightly more Karma to be spent elsewhere.

It's possible I might go that route. I'm not quite sure yet if I want maneuvers to simply show further specialization and things you automatically pick up while training and using skills, or if I want simply having maneuvers showing some extra dedication to certain aspects of using a skill.

[Siege]

Consider -- how many maneuvers will you implement for Social skills?

If characters automatically get to pick maneuvers based on a skill, pretty soon all the players will have those maneuvers.

-Siege

[Fahr]

indirect fire:
ok, in archery there is a tournament type that is long range fire, targets at 400 and 500 yards, the best of the best can hit a man size target at that range every time, (skill 9-12) someone like me (skill3-4) can hit within 10 feet of the target 85% of the time.... that was where I thought of this from...
maybe just a range adjusment,
or a reduction in cover modifiers...
the second seems more likely, maybe give this levels, reduce cover mods by one for every level of the manuever, complex action to make it work... target must not have cover from above to be attacked with this manuever?

-Mike R.

This post has been edited by Fahr: Mar 8 2004, 11:06 PM

[Austere Emancipa...]

If I'm lucky I'll get up to 5. They won't get to automatically pick those, however. For someone with Etiquette of 6, it would cost 4+8+4+8+4 = 28 Karma to learn them all.

[Austere Emancipa...]

Currently the maximum range for a Strength 4 character with a Longbow (STR 4) is 180 meters, 225 meters with the Long Shot maneuver.

I could add an "Indirect Fire" combat option for bows (and possible other projectile weapons) that allows fire at 2x Extreme range or 200 meters over E, which ever is less, with Extreme range modifiers and the Scatter rules (1d6 meters, -2 per net success). The Improved Indirect Fire (or whatever) maneuver could double the scatter reduction (1d6, -4 per net success), or simply allow a direct hit at -1 success.

[Austere Emancipa...]

What does "Charlatan" really mean? M-W.Com defines it as a "Quack", and then defines "Quack" as a "Charlatan", and I'm sure I've seen it used to mean something else than "a pretender to medical skill".

So far 3 Social skill maneuvers: Charlatan (-1 Negotiation TNs when there is sufficient background knowledge of the target -- telling someone things they like to hear, tailor-made speaking), Quack (couldn't figure out rules yet -- allows faking knowledge of specialty issues) and Trustworthy (-1 Negotiation TNs when prying for secrets)

[TheScamp]

Dictionary.com on the word 'charlatan'....

[Austere Emancipa...]

Right. Better find a more suitable word for the maneuver named "Charlatan" above, then.

[Slamm-O]

instead of charlatan try confidence man

[Moonstone Spider]

Range specialization: Short, Medium, Long, Extreme
When using a ranged weapon at the specified range, decrease TN by half. This does not affect TNs for other ranges. No player may specialize in more than one range.

[Austere Emancipa...]

Good idea, but a pretty hefty bonus... For any range category other than Short it's no big deal: It's such a specialized situation that a -2 - -4 to TNs might not be that bad. But a flat -2 TN at Short range is pretty damn good, considering how often ranged combat happens at very short ranges.

Although... Currently, all my bows have a Short range of (Str) meters and crossbows have between 8 and 15. Still, I fear this might be a bit too good. For now, I'll integrate that as -1 TN at the specified range or -2 TN if specialized to Extreme.

[Fahr]

[krishcane]

For ranged-weapons (bows, throwing, etc.):

--Prone Fire (allows you to fire while prone or close to it, perhaps still with a modifier)

--Awkward-angle Fire (allows you to fire with less penalty while hanging upside down or sideways)

--Herding (allows you to drive someone in a specific direction with your arrows/knives/rocks/etc.)

--Gravity Tracking (allows you to hit a quick moving object without the moving-target penalty, IF the object's only movement influence is gravity -- in other words, an apple thrown through the air counts, but a bird flying doesn't because it can actively change direction and influence its mid-air movement)

For throwing knives only:

--Blunt-end Throw (allows you to throw the knife tumbling so that the handle hits instead of the blade, to do stun damage)

For edged weapons:

--Bludgeon (allows you to smack people with the broad or dull back-of-the-blade, to do stun damage)

For intimidation skill:

--Psych-out (allows you to inflict TN penalties on someone's active skills by sheer initimidation factor)

For etiquette skill:

--Push Buttons (allows you to inflict TN penalities on someone's active skills by saying things that will upset them, based on your assessment of who they are and what they care about)

For conjuring skill:

--Whispers of the Land (allows you to gain a little bit on information about the state of the domain and major activities in it, by speaking to a conjured nature spirit of the domain)

--K

[Austere Emancipa...]

Prone Fire, Herding, Psych-Out and Push Buttons added to the list. I think I remember already having some options to do Stun damage with otherwise Physical weapons, but if they aren't there, or aren't very effective, Blunt End and Bludgeon will also end up on the list. Good stuff, thank you.

Whispers of the Land looks really cool, but I think I'll allow a character to do that without any maneuvers. Overall, I think all the weird stuff you can already do with Magical skills, combined with Metamagics, means I won't have to bother with maneuvers for them.

[Fraust]

You might want to try and find a book called World of Darkness: Combat...it introduces some martial arts/fighting/shooting rules to the World of Darkness game similar to what the Cannon Companion intoduced to Shadowrun...I got my copy forever ago and haven't paid much attention to how World of Darkness is going now, so I don't know how rare or expensive the book might be...

[krishcane]

Here's some more I thought of today, just for fun...

Athletics:

Full-Lung Breathing -- a technique for breathing using only the top 25% of lung capacity, so that the lungs stay mostly full. Reduces target numbers for floating, but requires low-intesity activity (ie. not to be used with sprint-swimming).

Relaxed-Running -- a technique for relaxing the leg muscles during moderate-speed running or double-time marching, to assist with endurance. Reduces TNs for running-related fatigue tests.

Stealth:

Movement-timing -- a technique for timing necessarily noisy movements (ie. walking on dry leaves) with outside sounds, so as to take advantage of the auditory cover. Reduces stealth TNs when there is plenty of time for the movement, and there are predictable-time cover noises in the region.

Casual appearance -- Allows the user to implement stealth techniques more subtly, so that if discovered, the user can still attempt a social explanation for their presence. In other words, the user's body posture and movement style looks more or less normal, while still being quieter than normal, so that they don't look suspiciously sneaky while using stealth skill.

--K

[Drain Brain]

How about trick shots or intentional ricochets as maneuvers for ranged combat?

[Austere Emancipa...]

Did mass combat rules and watchman/soldier/mook NPC archetypes for a change (no, the mass combat rules won't work in modern SR :P), forgot about maneuvers for a while.

For many non-central skills, the maneuvers will be pretty useless, and thus I won't bother making rules for them. Thus Full-Lung Breathing, for example, might be added to the list as an example of what the PCs can come up with as maneuvers for their characters. Relaxed Running, Movement Timing and Casual Appearance will be added.

Ricochets could be a nice maneuver for modern ranged combat, but less useful in a medieval setting. I'm not sure about this, but I think arrows and bolts don't ricochet as readily as bullets do. If I end up integrating the principle to modern SR, a maneuver for ricocheting will certainly be added.

[Fahr]

arrows don't generally richochette. Bolts can, but they don't usually do it with enough force after the richochette to do any mentionable effect.

-Mike R.

[Moonstone Spider]

Hmm how about this:

All-out-assault:
Perform a normal melee attack. Your damage is inflicted and stages up as normal regardless of your opponent's successes. Your opponent's damage does the same.

Essentially a "Sheathe the Sword" moment, you jump onto the end of his sword in order to stab him with your own.

Another Thought. Perhaps Whirling is too good. Instead of making it automatically eliminate penalties for multiple opponents, split it into multiple feats.

Two-to-One
You may fight with two opponents at once with no TN penalty.
Three-to-One
You may fight with up to three opponents at once with no TN penalty. You may not purchase this feat unless you also know Two-to-One
And so on up to Five-to-One

Spider's Hands
Reduce TN by 2 for climbing tests.

Slashing Technique
Reduce the TN for a Melee attack by 1. Reduce the power of the attack by 2.

Bootlicker
Gain 2 extra die for a social skill test when your target has the advantage over you.

Self-Sustaining Spell
This feat may be purchased multiple times. For each level of self-sustaining spell, a sustained spell will sustain itself 1 combat turn. However a self-sustaining spell cannot be sustained by the player or a foci, when it's time's up, it goes.