OK, new maneuver help

[aaronharmon]

I want to create a new stance, called a Drawing Stance.
How it works in the real world:
You present an opening in your defense. Maybe you hold your shield too low, or your sword it off-point, whatever. Normally this would be a mistake, but you are doing this to "draw" a certain attack, so that you may counter it very strongly.
Basically you are trying to make your opponent over-commit on his attack.
How can you model this with the dice mechanic?

I suppose you could fight a few round without using your entire dice pool, and then when your opponent thinks he has you sized up, WHAM! but I do not think that is what I am looking for.

[toli]

I would just use the Counter move.

[aaronharmon]

The point of the stance is to encourage someone to over-extend so that you can do a big counter, yes I think that is what I said in the original post. Thanks for clearing that up for me.

[toli]

That said, I think it would be handy to have some dice mechanic for chosing to defend or leave open certain body parts (or strike zones).  

As it stands, it seems to me that the attacker has a bit of an advantage.  He can choose to attack unarmored body parts, while the defender cannot chose to defend unarmored body parts.  He just defends.  A defender who can guess where he is going to be attacked, should get some advantage.  In most games, I don't think this really matters because the mechanics are really just statistical resolution of combat (I have a 50% chance of hitting...).  In TROS, however, with much more emphasis placed on the strategy and tactics of one on one combat, it makes sense to add one more potentially important detail.

Thus a knight who is full armored but lost his helm should be able to declare extra defence for his head.  If the attacker went for his head, the knight might get 2 extra CP for a parry.  If the attacker went for any other area, the attacker would get 2 extra CP for attack....or something like that.

[Mike Holmes]

Actually this is what I use the neutral stance for. It's saying to the opponent that I've dropped some dice so now would be a good time to attack. I love the neutral stance as a dare to attack. In fact, what I'd allow is for the player to take it a bit farther. They could even turn their back, walk away, and the like. Basically I'd allow them to drop out as many dice as they liked to represent something like this in order to get someone to attack.

You've seen this in the movies. Character turns away, perhaps with a taunt, and the other character lunges in. The other character also attacks, gets intitiative, whipping around, and kills his opponent in a single blow.

Of course, only use this against foes you know you can hanldle... or your character is toast. :-)

Mike

[nsruf]

If you are feeling really sure of yourself, I'd use the surprise rules. From the table on p. 75:

"TN 5 - purposefully standing with no stance (perhaps to invite an attacker...)"

So you need to make a Reflex check to be able to act at all on the first exchange (but TN 5 is very easy). And even then, you can only defend, indicating to your attacker that it is "safe" to strike with full force. The Counter with everything you have...

[toli]

If you are feeling really sure of yourself, I'd use the surprise rules. From the table on p. 75:

"TN 5 - purposefully standing with no stance (perhaps to invite an attacker...)"

Oh good idea.  I'd forgotten about that one...

[Tash]

For the "defenders should be able to decalre extra dice" thing, I think this is covered by the optional -1 dice to repeated attacks to the same location rule.

So if the helmless knight's opponent continuously goes for his head, each attack looses 1 dice because the knight has a pretty good idea where its going.

[toli]

For the "defenders should be able to decalre extra dice" thing, I think this is covered by the optional -1 dice to repeated attacks to the same location rule.

So if the helmless knight's opponent continuously goes for his head, each attack looses 1 dice because the knight has a pretty good idea where its going.

Sure to some extent it is.  I agree.  But even during the first exchange of a combat, a fighter should be able to preferentially defend a location.  If I were in full plate but had no helmet, I'd be mostly concerned with defending attacks to my head.  Similarly, if I were wearing only a breastplate, I might ignore thrusting attacks by a swordsman to my chest because it was so well defended.  I'd be more concerned about protection my sword arm...and all that.  

Either way, it's easy enough to just give a CP bonus (or penalty) to a defender who guesses the attack of his opponent...

[Valamir]

The easiest way to handle "Defend a location" is to just set aside X number of dice from the combat pool and assign a zone to them.  

If that zone gets attacked the defender can use those dice to defend plus 1 extra bonus die per die used.  If an adjacent zone is attacked the defender can use those dice to defend without a bonus (basically straight up with no effect)*.  If any other zone is attacked they can't be used, nor can they be used to attack.


*alternatively to make the defense zone bigger adjacent zones might get 1 extra bonus per 2 dice used and then zones 2 away are straight up.

[nsruf]

Either way, it's easy enough to just give a CP bonus (or penalty) to a defender who guesses the attack of his opponent...

The Body Language skill does that in an abstract manner already.

[Tash]

Val:  I like that rule a lot.  I think I'll run it by my group as a new house rule.

[toli]

Either way, it's easy enough to just give a CP bonus (or penalty) to a defender who guesses the attack of his opponent...

The Body Language skill does that in an abstract manner already.

That's true.  But it is abstract.  I guess the way to look at it is to allow the defender to 'defend' known weak spots, not guess his opponents attack.