Manuever Mods...

[Bankuei]

Ok, so here's some modified and new manuevers... most have been simplified or are not very different from the book.

Bash/Bind/Check/Toss/Weapon Hooking/Expulsion

Gamewise, all these things are basically either distracting or screwing with your opponent's body mechanics in order to gain advantage in combat.  You either push their weapon out of the way, check it against their body, or distract their perception, etc.  Basically they stay mostly the same, except that each success results in 2 cp loss from the defender.  If the defender wins, they get initiative.  Easy enough, right?  

Grapple Offensive
Use ATN of hands(5).  Watch out for reach penalties.

Grapple Defensive
2 CP activation cost, use DTN of weapon or hand, whichever is higher, reach is considered Hand distance(even when using the handle/butt of the weapon, its close range).  This manuever is assumed to be a parry/grapple action.  Failure means you get hit at full power(your successes do not reduce the attacker's successes).

Flanking
Must be at short or hand range.  Make a contested terrain roll.  If you succeed, then the opponent cannot hit you with a weapon wielded on the right or left hand(your choice).  This is basically running up on the side of your opponent and sticking them so that they have to reach around their own body to try to hit you.  This manuever can be done while doing any other manuever, but has a 2 cp cost.

Counter option-
In addition to normal counters, you can opt to attack whatever limb just struck out at you, thrust/slash/bash, your choice, instead of rolling the counter table.

Shock attacks-
Works only on unarmored areas.  These attacks are designed to create momentary pain/shock to set up an opponent for a finish.  Activation cost is 1 cp, and for each additional cp spent you can increase the shock damage by 1.

Any comments?
Chris

[Aaron]

You could change them and add the new ones but I dont think it necessary.  I think 2CP loss per extra successes is a bit too much.  I believe defensive grappling was something used quite often so maybe your summary is a bit difficult.  I've found as long as you subtract hte dice lost from the defender at the beginning of the next phase, and I know that is not how the combat sim does it, you have this nice trade off when you use it in the second phase of lowering your opponents refreshed dice without usually being able to go silly when you do use these sort of maneuvers and risk your opponet clobbering you.
Flanking would be really hard to do.  If someone was paying attention to what you were doing it would alot easier for them to simply pivot to face you than for you to try and run around them.
Your counter option is ok but what your probably describing is an effasive attack with a swing to the arms or stealing the initiative and hitting them on the arms.  A kind of aggresive parry.
Aaron
What kind of things did you have in mind for shock attacks?  I can't really picture them.

Aaron

[arxhon]

I think i prefer things the way they are, personally.

Shock attacks sound like some kind of bashing/swinging attack to me. Those are already covered.

[Jake Norwood]

I like the counter option. I'm going to use that one in my own games. Just thought I'd share.

Jake

[Bankuei]

Hi folks, thanks for the input.

I'll address some of the logic behind my motives here:

I think 2CP loss per extra successes is a bit too much.

I believe that someone previously brought up the fact that spending CP in order to take the chance that you might reduce the foe's CP is unsound mechanically, as in spending 10 CP will generally drop your foe's CP by 5, without their defense.  It makes little sense for the foe to defend at all.  In real life sparring, these manuevers are rather effective, and get used for a reason. The 2 cp loss gives folks a reason to defend.

I believe defensive grappling was something used quite often so maybe your summary is a bit difficult.

Which is true.  The rules don't really explain how defensive grappling works(against strikes?  only against other grapples?), but in this, it counts as a parry and as grappling.  There's a lot of benefits to breaking your opponent's sword arm, but if you screw up...well, you're not doing too well.

Flanking would be really hard to do. If someone was paying attention to what you were doing it would alot easier for them to simply pivot to face you than for you to try and run around them.

Flanking in the sense of calvary or warfare tactics, yes.  In the range I'm speaking of, flanking is about taking one or two steps that simply puts you on the side of your opponent. Yes, they will turn around, but that's one moment you don't have to worry about one side with a weapon.  Think of it the same way you juke people in basketball.  In sparring, all it takes is a quick fake out, a sidestep, and someone's knife is in your ribs or under your armpit, and you feel stupid.  I know I have.

Your counter option is ok but what your probably describing is an effasive attack with a swing to the arms or stealing the initiative and hitting them on the arms. A kind of aggresive parry.

Aggressive parry is correct.  That is what most counters are, in fact.  Either attacking what attacks you, or putting it out of the way and sticking what is open.  The chart works fine for the second case, but its equally common to strike at hands, wrists, and elbows.  

Shock attacks sound like some kind of bashing/swinging attack to me. Those are already covered

Shock attacks are done primarily with hands, elbows, wristbones, and butts of knives or short weapons.  In the case of use of knife edges, shock attacks are several choppy attacks, designed to maximize shock in a short amount of time.  In terms of real life usage, they tend to cause your arm to be stunned for a second, which allows someone to run through you quickly.  At its best, you literally lose all feeling below your elbow.

All of the mods were considered in regards to my martial training and sparring.  All I did was consider an exchange as "that moment it takes to win or lose the fight" and consider the techniques in regards to their usage and people getting their ass kicked(mostly mine :P).  Most of our techniques are based around offensive parries, defensive grappling(breaking elbows, etc.), and shock attacks, with flanking.  My style deals primarily with knives and short weapons, hence the reason flanking isn't effective at long ranges.  We like to jam people up, and stick'em while they're distracted.

Chris

[Aaron]

I believe that someone previously brought up the fact that spending CP in order to take the chance that you might reduce the foe's CP is unsound mechanically, as in spending 10 CP will generally drop your foe's CP by 5, without their defense.  It makes little sense for the foe to defend at all.  In real life sparring, these manuevers are rather effective, and get used for a reason. The 2 cp loss gives folks a reason to defend.

Do you mean I loose a dice to have a 4 a in 10 chance of not loosing a dice. I mentioned that at one stage when talking about the combat sim. Its pretty silly I know. You are of course correct that these moves were effective that was why they were, and still are, used in combat.  Making it a 2 dice loss for each success is probably the only way to go if your going to make the loss immediate.  I'm suggesting however that you don't make the loss immediate but at the beginning of the next phase.  There is a big difference.
I'll give you an ecample.
Lets say I have 15 CP and my opponent, bob,  has 10.  having initiative and being the 1st phase i call a 10 dice toss.  Now that has the potential to cost bob 20! dice.  Are we talking distraction or outright blinding him here!  So he dodges with say 7 dice and probably looses a couple allowing me to finish him off the next phase. No problem but not alot of thinking or tactics has to go into it..
Now if you make the loss the next pahse and I try the same thing bob is just going to whack me before he looses any dice.  So we have to be a bit cleverer.  In the first phase I attack with 8 getting him to use 8 on defense.  I've got 5 and he has 2. Now I think that 2 dice probably isn't going to be enough for bob to do anything particulary scary, hes an average guy, so I use my remaing 5 dice to toss now.  He uses his 2 to defend and I probably get one or two more successes.  Now we go to refresh and I get all my 15 and bob gets his 10 less my previous margin.  See how the toss leads to a significant advantage for me but I had to pick my spot and my opponent?  If bob were a giant I wouldnt have risked a toss cause even with only 2 dice he could kill me.  I really like the maneuvers and the mechanics(except stop short but thats a different story) they help lead to tactical advantage.  I'd really encourage you to try it

Which is true.  The rules don't really explain how defensive grappling works(against strikes?  only against other grapples?), but in this, it counts as a parry and as grappling.  There's a lot of benefits to breaking your opponent's sword arm, but if you screw up...well, you're not doing too well..

We use defensive grapple like this..As well as the activation cost the defender has to pay the weapon length penalty if there is one.  He then uses the DTN of the weapon used in measuring the range penalty for his defense.  he he doenst manage to beat his opponets margin of success we treat it just like any other defense that hasnt worked.  He's not just standing still giving someone a free shot he simply hasn't moved enough or has slowed/deflected the attacking limb enough etc..One thing we certainly don't do is add the defenders extra successes to "putting someone down hard" this has been discussed previoulsy in another thread

Flanking in the sense of calvary or warfare tactics, yes.  In the range I'm speaking of, flanking is about taking one or two steps that simply puts you on the side of your opponent. Yes, they will turn around, but that's one moment you don't have to worry about one side with a weapon.  Think of it the same way you juke people in basketball.  In sparring, all it takes is a quick fake out, a sidestep, and someone's knife is in your ribs or under your armpit, and you feel stupid.  I know I have.

You could write a maneuver for this but as Jake has said before everything you would want to do in a TROS fight is pretty much already there.  Could you get what your looking for with a stop short one phase then an attack?  Most of the maneuvering for better position is covered in how many CP you want to commit to the attack.  It was when I was thinking about how we could put in traverse steps, compass steps etc that I realised its covered by how many CP you put in the attack.  The bit were you dont let them attack back because your not on the weapon side.  That could be a bit of a mind field. It's going to depend so much on what type of weapon your opponent is using.

Aggressive parry is correct.  That is what most counters are, in fact.  Either attacking what attacks you, or putting it out of the way and sticking what is open.  The chart works fine for the second case, but its equally common to strike at hands, wrists, and elbows.  

One of my players and I had a big discussion following you comments on this one. My only reservation, and this is purly down to opinion, is that using Jake's deffiniton of a counter" receiving an opponent's attack, then using it against him" isnt really what your looking to do.  Attacking the arm is more along the lines of intercepting and preventing the attack, but thats just IMO. Having said that Jake said he likes it so I'm proabably barking completely up the wrong tree.  LOL.  We ended up agreeing that a strike to the arms could be a counter but instead of giving the option between hitting the arms and rolling on the list we would add it to the list.Speaking of the counter list I had another thought on this one recently and came up with three lists that the defender could choose from.  One is primarily in close techniques, One was for slashing and the third thrust.  I was finding that one of my players hardly ever used the counter maneuver because he had a cut and thrust sword but there were only 2 thrusts on the chart.  It also allowed adding kicks and second weapon strikes.  Just a thought

Shock attacks are done primarily with hands, elbows, wristbones, and butts of knives or short weapons.  In the case of use of knife edges, shock attacks are several choppy attacks, designed to maximize shock in a short amount of time.  In terms of real life usage, they tend to cause your arm to be stunned for a second, which allows someone to run through you quickly.  At its best, you literally lose all feeling below your elbow.

Sounds pretty nasty.  Is it perhaps a style thing?  I'm just having a bit of a guess here but it sounds like its could be pretty style specific adn not that common.

All of the mods were considered in regards to my martial training and sparring.  All I did was consider an exchange as "that moment it takes to win or lose the fight" and consider the techniques in regards to their usage and people getting their ass kicked(mostly mine :P).  Most of our techniques are based around offensive parries, defensive grappling(breaking elbows, etc.), and shock attacks, with flanking.  My style deals primarily with knives and short weapons, hence the reason flanking isn't effective at long ranges.  We like to jam people up, and stick'em while they're distracted.

what style? Sounds a bit like Escrima but you didnt mention the sticks.

Aaron

[Bankuei]

Now I think that 2 dice probably isn't going to be enough for bob to do anything particulary scary, hes an average guy, so I use my remaing 5 dice to toss now. He uses his 2 to defend and I probably get one or two more successes.

Of course, what happens if Bob doesn't defend?  Let's say he know's you'll get like 2-4 successes on him for the next round, so he blows his two on an attack...Even 1 success, with a decent weapon, to an unarmored(or at least, less armored) area, can put you off.  So let's say he loses between 2- 4 cp on the next round, he's still got initiative, and if he hit you for any shock damage, he'll throw in his finish up.  I'm not saying that my mod is the best, but for the moment I'll try it out and see what strategies come of it.

You could write a maneuver for this but as Jake has said before everything you would want to do in a TROS fight is pretty much already there. Could you get what your looking for with a stop short one phase then an attack?

While I do see off timing playing a part of this, it primarily is dealing with folks either using 2 weapons or else one guy with a shorter weapon, or none at all.  Basically, it's one way to negate 2 weapons coming at you, which is, pretty much expected in knife fighting.  Since it costs the initiator 2 extra cp, its not something you'd do all the time, unless you see a value in it.

We ended up agreeing that a strike to the arms could be a counter but instead of giving the option between hitting the arms and rolling on the list we would add it to the list.Speaking of the counter list I had another thought on this one recently and came up with three lists that the defender could choose from.

The only reason I considered it worth noting is that it is one of the more common, and easier forms of countering, and it makes sense to disable your opponent's weapon arm.  Plus instead of coming up with extra lists, or making things significantly more complicated, it just seemed like a simple, elegant answer.

Shock attacks are pretty rare.  Some styles use them in very limited uses, most often as a quick jab of fingertips to eyes(Wing Chun), or else in other limited ways(twisting the blade, piston-action stabbing to the same area to turn it into hamburger, etc.).  The style I'm studying is an Indonesian style of silat which focuses on knife fighting.  Escrima uses some shock attacks with the butt handle of the knife, stick, machete or bolo.  

While it may be style specific, TROS is about fighting for your life.  If it works for fighting, it would make sense that someone, somewhere is using it.  One particular nasty version of it involves faking high and stomping with all of your body weight on your foe's foot, shattering the bones.  

Chris

[Aaron]

All fair points.
I think your example just goes towards helping prove my point!  Tossing and bind and strike are risky if not timed correctly.  I just dont like the idea of it being so cut and dired.  I think if I was playing the 2 cp loss I would probably always lead with a toss in the 1st phase with 3/4 of my CP.  Maybe it's just me..
The reason I though of the extra counter charts was to try and encourage one of my players, who uses a pointy weapon, to use counter a bit more often.  There are only two counter moves that involve thrusting. :) It wasn't in an attempt to try and make the game more complicated.
You could do your maneuver idea a bit like outmaneuvering multiple opponents perhaps?  Basically make a maneuver test to outmaneuver one of their weapons?  however you do it a prob could come form say a guy armed with a sword and dagger.  You keep stopping him from using one of his weapons, the sword presumably, so he drops his dagger so he has only one weapon and can attack you with his sword.Hmmmm
The shock attacks sound pretty cool though.  maybe something like halve the pain ut double or one and a half times the shock from an attack?  I dont know.  Just don't forget that most people in TROS will be wearing some kind of armour.  Would this tactic work so well through chainmail?
Aaron

[Brian Leybourne]

All this discussion about a maneuver to get around an opponents weapon when there's already auch a maneuver in the game.

It's called Duck and Weave. Substitute "opponent can't use his shield" for "opponent can't use his weapon" and it's done.

See how easy that was? :-)

Brian.

[Bankuei]

Also some good points Aaron:

I think if I was playing the 2 cp loss I would probably always lead with a toss in the 1st phase with 3/4 of my CP. Maybe it's just me..

Granted...I'll play with it and see what comes up.

....You keep stopping him from using one of his weapons, the sword presumably, so he drops his dagger so he has only one weapon and can attack you with his sword.Hmmmm

Actually the manuever is really a quick stopgap kinda deal.  It gives you a chance to trap one side and stick'em quick without having to deal with the other weapon.

The shock attacks sound pretty cool though. maybe something like halve the pain ut double or one and a half times the shock from an attack? I dont know. Just don't forget that most people in TROS will be wearing some kind of armour. Would this tactic work so well through chainmail?

Well, as I've said, when it works, you lose all feeling from your arm.  Although I've heard some people damn well near pass out, so as a setup strike it works damn well.  

As far as it working with chainmail: Not really.  Just like the variation in weapons, armor, tactics, and technology, its all based around the stuff you have to deal with and fight.  In 90-120 degree(farenheit) weather, in a humid jungle, with little metal available, not too many people wear chainmail.  It's a specialized tactic that works very well at what its supposed to do.  Just like half swording.

All this discussion about a maneuver to get around an opponents weapon when there's already auch a maneuver in the game.

(grabs book...look, look)Makes sense.  Only one point, I suppose instead of "...allowing the dodger a clean shot that may only be parried or dodged", it becomes "dodge only", correct?(unless this guy's got two weapons of course).

Thanks for the clarification Brian, will do.

Chris

[Brian Leybourne]

All this discussion about a maneuver to get around an opponents weapon when there's already auch a maneuver in the game.

(grabs book...look, look)Makes sense.  Only one point, I suppose instead of "...allowing the dodger a clean shot that may only be parried or dodged", it becomes "dodge only", correct?(unless this guy's got two weapons of course).

Thanks for the clarification Brian, will do.

The correct answer being, of course, whatever you think works in your game. :-)

Having said that, it certainly makes sense to me that Duck & Weave is used to move to the side of an opponent. If you move to his weapon side, he can't use his shield next exchange (just as it is in the book). If you move to the other side, he can't use his weapon but could use his shield, that certainly seems to make perfect sense to me, and avoids having to make complicated house rules :-)

If he has 2 weapons, you choose which one he can't use for attacking or parrying, as you said.

Brian.