Defensive fighting/light armor fighting question

[Lurker]

After watching a good Samurai movie last Saturday, Ive had a question on armor. The scene was a room full of young samurai training with their bokken and all in no armor. In walks the daimyo (a samurai not a monk), and all the young samurai attack. Without drawing his bokken he is able to avoid the blows, disarm some of the samurai, and a few he disarmed and then completed a follow on attack. Of course it was just in training so after it was over no one was actually hurt, but it did demonstrate a high amount of skill on the daimyos part. How can that be represented in C&C?

My initial thought is to make the BTH bonus applicable to AC if fighting defensively, especially in no or light armor. That doesnt cover the disarming and follow on attacks. So to me that implies that the BTH bonus can be split between attack and defense as the player sees fit. I would allow this for all fighters and sub fighters (arguably a samurai is a knight with a different looking sword and lighter armor) and possibly clerics.

The C&C bard could also get this as he has a fairly high BTH bonus, but if I allow that then why not everyone? At the most Id say rogues, assassins, and bards could only do half of their BTH bonus. Even that might be too much. Plus Id say they only can do normal combat, or apply their their BTH bonus to their defense, no splitting the bonus between attack and defense. That would leave their attack roll as a natural what you see is what you get roll, or roll plus str bonus.

What do you all think, is it a good idea, to simple, or needlessly complicating the game for to little benefit?
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[Treebore]

If you go with a low AC game, IE nothing better than leather, I think subtracting the BtH from each participant would go a long way towards enabling such a game. IE if your playing a 5th level fighter and are fighting 3rd level fighters your BtH would be +2 (5-3=2) and they would be -2 (3-5=-2) to their BtH. Combine that with some low AC armor and I think you'll see a lot of the "effect" your looking for.

If that doesn't work well enough maybe add some Monk AC bonus progression.
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[gideon_thorne]

Here's a simple method. If a character wants to fight purely defensively, they can take half their level and add it to their AC. Fighters add +1 on top of that.
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Peter Bradley

[serleran]

There are already combat maneuvers built into the game -- dodge and evade. Rather than introduce some new subset, simply modify the current -- allow use of these abilities only while donning light or no armor.
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[Treebore]

serleran wrote:
There are already combat maneuvers built into the game -- dodge and evade. Rather than introduce some new subset, simply modify the current -- allow use of these abilities only while donning light or no armor.

True, but the problem still remains statistical probability. So even if you have an AC of 20 you can still expect to get hit 1 every 20 times someone tries to hit you.

So if your sticking to light Armor AC's, say nothing higher than AC 4 then your only looking at a top AC of around 20, depending on DEX and if magical armor is going to exist.

So your going to want to modify BtH on top of everything else, and the way I suggested will help a "Master" keep from ever being hit by his apprentices.

Especially if the Master is actually a high level, and all his apprentices are 0 or first level.
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[serleran]

The real question is whether you want player characters able to do the same things that, obviously powerful, NPCs are able to do, and if so, to what degree? A simple stunt-like system to perform cinematic actions could be implemented, rather than overhauling the combat system (which is what this would involve.)
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[paladin2019]

Do hp represent the same thing in C&C that they do in D&D? If so, this scene sounds like the daimyo was "hit" and "took damage" several times. He just had enough "skill" to avoid a crippling or incapacitating wound from his samurai.

[DangerDwarf]

Bingo.

Exertion and fatigue play a big part of HP too.

[icanhashealingpotion]

Taking a cue from the Stormbringer game, a character that's actively dodging/parrying instead of attacking, can roll to dodge, adding in all their appropriate bonuses.

They give up an attack, but get d20+6 (assuming they have DEX prime) + level (if fighter or rogue) to dodge, and that becomes their AC for the round.

Assuming they have no/little armor that would make them agile enough.

[nikkigurlie89]

Taking from the Swashbuckling Adventures books (or the 3.0 Feats book) you could give the character an unarmored defense proficiency. If you wanted someone to be able to do what it sounds like the daimyo did, he may just be that good.

[Treebore]

You talking about the 3.0E "Feats" book done by AEG?
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[serleran]

Or, you could assume the NPC has a deflect blows type class ability, maybe called "I am Your Master" which functions exactly like the monk deflect missile ability only better -- it allows actual attacks to be deflected.

That said, there are numerous ways to represent what happened -- the easiest is to not use a rule at all... especially if it just concerns narrative NPC action: it just happens as you say it happens, leaving the players to gape and awe at how wonderfully badass the guy is. You don't have to have a rule to do whatever you want -- in fact, not having the rule is better.
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