Emirikol the city and Fencing Styles

[subplotkudzu]

I would have been better served not naming the damn city something that uses a key that sticks on my keyboard. 20 seconds to type one E....



Anyway, spent some time yesterday going through all my old Dungeon Adventures modules to find things I always wanted to use but haven't yet. This netted a nice array of intrigue/mystery based city adventures, a few water based ones for the port and a real dearth of dungeons, because 2E was all about getting out of the dungeon. Looks like I'm building the tombs myself. I a fit of high octane lazy, I decided that Emirikol the city is called 'The Chaotic' because it's actually 5 or 6 smaller nobleman's townships that all grew together to take advantage of the port. This means 5 or 6 different architectural styles encased in 5 or 6 different walled areas, with one big wall around the outside.

Why is this decision lazy? So I don't have to go in and change the names of the non-generic towns in the adventure notes - all of these 'cities' are just parts of the big, main city. How sloth leads to creativity!

To keep from having to do too much development of areas in the empire outside of Emirikol, I'll probably name the fencing styles after each of these sections, to further emphasize their distinct feel. ladegard has offered to help with the fencing styles, but just looking at the PHB I know there are some obvious ones.

A STR based style built off of Power Attack and Sunder, where practitioners use longswords or gt exotic weapon proficiency with bastard sword to switch between one and two handed strikes.

An INT based style built off of Expertise, all about avoiding being hit as you disarm and trip your opponent.

A CON based style for wizards and sorcerers built around the Concentration skill, Combat Casting and Still Spell (no somatic component means no chance of spell failure in armor...).

A DEX based style built off of Dodge, Improved Initiative and the Tumbling skill, all about moving in and out of range to attack.

A CHA based style built around the new Improved Feint feat, with a high Bluff score. This one needs more options added to it.

While it would be spiffy to add a WIS based style, nothing comes to mind, and I don't want to force anything to make the world model game mechanics.

Plus, there are the obvious Two Weapon and Weapon and Shield styles (especially with some new Shield feats cribbed from various sources). I'd like to give a few more skills combat effects, only accessible with 5+ ranks and maybe formal training, just to broaden out the options and flavor some. This is the sort of thing I'll need Ladegard's help on, because I don't know real fencing for diddly.

Comments

[whswhs.livejournal.com]

I would think that Wisdom would be the basis for avoiding being hit (you perceive your opponent's intentions) and that Intelligence would be reflected in use of complex sequences of moves and sophisticated tactics. Is there a way to model that sort of thing in the rules?

[netcurmudgeon.livejournal.com]

Re: cut-tags ... this is a pretty text-oriented crowd. No one seems to get miffed at lots of text, and cuts seem to get used for concealing spoilers, NSFW content, or honkin' big graphics.

[mneme]

I think grouping styles by class/class ability, rather than stat, is likely to be more interesting/fruitful. Also, one wonders if you'd get a legg up on the "swashbuckling" style you want if you gave people a level or two of Swashbuckler for free - people would be encouraged to wear less or no armor (given a decent Int), automatically be proficient in rapier, have enough hit points to go toe to toe even if they were mages, et cetera.

Dividing up styles based on game effect:

Rogue style, classic: High Dex, Weapon Finesse, Improved Bluff, rapier, maxed out ranks in Bluff, 5 ranks in Tumble . Approach: fight defensively, bluff every round, get your Sneak Attack on. Probably every once in a while, throw a surprise dagger from your off hand.

Rogue Style, extra crunchy: swap high dex for high str, try to get proficient in longsword or something two handed. Probably Improved Initiative to get an early Sneak Attack. Maybe swap out bluff for more tumble, in that case, your combat approach is to deal with your first opponent as brutally as possible, then flank another one.

Fighter Style, classic: high str, two handed sword, power attack, cleave, you know the drill.

Fighter Style, extra slicy: weapon finesse, rapier, dagger, two weapon fighting, moderate str. Cut your opponents to ribons with your mastery of both your weapons and high defense -- plus the occasional thrown dagger. In outright warfare, the bow (or pistol) comes out.

Wizard, classic swashbuckler: high str and con, buff spells. buff yourself, hold a touch attack, and go in swinging, reserving quickened spells for use in combat. At high levels, Quicken Spell is your best freind, and polymorph is...just special.

Wizard, extra crispy: That being, of course, what you hope your foes will be once you're done. Disdaining hand to hand combat, you prefer to get your familiar companion (well buffed), your allies, or summoned creatures to do your fighing for you while you prepare to turn them into char. You probably want to get "point blank shot" and "precisie shot", and may want to get the four feats needed for "spontaneous quicken" for extra firepower and to make sure you have something to cast as a last ditch in melee. For Swashbuckling repartee, you really want to get into a duel with other spellcasters, while you laugh at the efforts of swordsmen to close with you.

Also, worth looking into are tailor-made swashbuckling classes and prestige classes -- like Daggerspell Mage, Swashbuckler, et c.