Hey all, this is my first post.

Short Intro of Me: Hey, my name's Nathan, since people seem to like being on a first name basis here. I've been playing (and mostly GMing) RPGs for over 10 years, but I'll admit that my experience is limited to only three RPing groups and about a half-dozen games/systems. My first introduction to pen-and-paper/table-top RPing was the Star Wars d20 RPG. For as long as I've been playing RPGs I've been toying around with designing them (along with various card and board games), but I've never really brought an RPG into a state where I'd consider it "finished". My mind tends to wander, so I'm usually working on multiple games at once. I find that this actually helps with my creative process because as I develop new mechanics for one game they give me a clearer understanding of, and new ideas for, my other projects. I just discovered the Forge about a week ago and love what I've seen. Rather than bombard you fine people with my  numerous ideas, I'll just ask your opinion on one.

My Idea: I'm working on an RPG that attempts to simulate the kind of low-fantasy, martial arts action of movies such as "Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon", "Hero", "House of Flying Daggers", "Final Fantasy 7: Advent Children", etc. (admittedly, FF7:AC is a bit different from those others but it shares some similarities)

For those who may not be familiar with those titles, some of the key elements I'm looking for are these:
1. Otherwise ordinary, or non-magical, heroes defy the laws of physics. They run up walls, skip across water, and even fly as they do battle.
2. Master fighters are so good that lesser fighters can’t even land a blow on them, and other masters can only land a blow on them rarely.
3. In conjunction with point #2, when someone does land a blow with a "lethal" weapon (sword, as opposed to fist) it is almost always a killing blow.
4. The exception to point #3 is when it is appropriately dramatic for the wounded hero to get back up and continue fighting.

Taking these points, and a few others, into consideration, I've decided that so far I think this kind of gaming experience could be served well enough by the d20 system with only a few modifications.

This is how I am planing on addressing each point so far:
1. Easy enough through the use of Feats, "Spells", etc. Doesn't really need any special mechanics.
2. I believe this could be achieved by simply adjusting how a character's Defense (AC) is calculated so that it ends up being about 150%-200% normal.
3. Characters will still have some form of Hit Points, but these will only come into play when hit by a "non-lethal" weapon such as a club or a fist. When Hit Points are reduced to 0 a character simply falls unconscious. When hit by a "lethal" weapon, on the other hand, characters will be automatically reduced to an "unconscious and dying" status. Unless they receive immediate medical aid they will be dead in a short period of time.
4. Since characters being able to survive a hit from a "lethal" weapon only happens when "dramatically appropriate", rather than being the norm, this will be accomplished by spending an Effort Point. Effort Points will be special points that characters have and use to accomplish dramatic feats, such as special attacks and maneuvers, etc. The number of Effort Points a character has will most likely be based on their level. This will not be a large number, and during the course of a battle some may be expended on other things. NPC "mob" characters will likely have no Effort Points so that heroes can quickly dispatch large numbers of inferior warriors. When a character takes a hit from a "lethal" weapon they may spend an Effort Point to treat it as a hit from a "non-lethal" weapon.

Now...

Does any of that make sense? Do I need to clarify further? Any thoughts, suggestions, or ideas?

Thanks in advance for your feedback.

Hi Nathan, welcome to the forge!

Have you considered the rules referencing/fun content ratio, with fighting inferior warriors? If the result is fairly predictable, refering to the rules over and over will be alot of work for a predictable result (even if it's simple rules).

In movies, the hero doesn't fight inferior warriors because that's a required part of a movie. It's the authors way of illustrating the hero's importance via how much ass they can kick! The important part is to illustrate how bad ass the hero is (note, while you might get more inferior warrior fights latter in a movie, typically this is because the hero's power has scaled up).

In a table top format, this could be a big reveal on the players part, unknown to any other player or GM. The player perhaps generates a number based on his character and a randomised boost. He calculates how much ass he could kick, then narrates those fights very, very rapidly (just like the movies do it - the less meaningful the fight, the faster it occurs)

Just some ideas about fun over time ratios. What are you actually working on - I'm just going to seem obtrusive with my ideas unless you ask me for help with something.

I am going to be more obtrusive and say that I think you should try to create your own system from scratch instead.

It seems you have a pretty good idea about what theme you want. Try to also focus on what kind of gameplay you want happening at the table.

You might also think about how you could create mechanics that deal with the moral and social issues that the movies you listed deal with, for instance CTHD is a movie about honor, ambition, freedom and love (in my interpretation).

Have you read the articles in the articles section - you will find it in the upper right corner of the page. If not doing so is a good idea - start with system does matter by ron edwards then maybe the different gns articles and the fantasy heartbreaker.

Thank you both for your quick responses!

Callan wrote:
Have you considered the rules referencing/fun content ratio, with fighting inferior warriors? If the result is fairly predictable, refering to the rules over and over will be alot of work for a predictable result (even if it's simple rules).

In movies, the hero doesn't fight inferior warriors because that's a required part of a movie. It's the authors way of illustrating the hero's importance via how much ass they can kick! The important part is to illustrate how bad ass the hero is (note, while you might get more inferior warrior fights latter in a movie, typically this is because the hero's power has scaled up).

BigElvis wrote:
I am going to be more obtrusive and say that I think you should try to create your own system from scratch instead.

BigElvis wrote:
You might also think about how you could create mechanics that deal with the moral and social issues that the movies you listed deal with, for instance CTHD is a movie about honor, ambition, freedom and love (in my interpretation).

BigElvis wrote: Have you read the articles in the articles section - you will find it in the upper right corner of the page. If not doing so is a good idea - start with system does matter by ron edwards then maybe the different gns articles and the fantasy heartbreaker.

Callan wrote: What are you actually working on - I'm just going to seem obtrusive with my ideas unless you ask me for help with something.

Hi, I think what you're doing is a really neat idea, and absolutely possible with the d20 system.  Don't worry too much about getting deep into theory, since I think with a good understanding of d20 and a strong idea of the play experience you want, you should have all the tools you need.

Now I'd like to talk about some specific points:

Dramatically raising AC:  This, in my opinion, isn't such a good idea.  The "whiff" factor (the degree to which combat consists of rolling and missing) is already pretty high in d20, and making it higher isn't going to make the game more fun, just more frustrating.  Also, high defences cap out pretty quickly when you need a 20 to hit.  I think it might be better to go with some kind of "defence point" system, where being attacked drains your defence points every round.  This could be as simple as changing how you describe hit points,  so losing hit points is described as near misses and heroic jumping, or blows with fists and feet, rather than with weapons, rather than actual damage)  When someone finally does drop below zero HP, you can describe actual physical damage, a telling blow with a weapon. 

Killing truely awesome numbers of dudes:  You want to have those fights where you're wading through hordes of enemies, but rolling to hit and injure every one takes hours.  No fun.  One thing you might consider is using the rules for "swarms" from D&D, and just changing the scale.  Rather than a 10' by 10' swarm of spiders, it's a 10 yard by 10 yard swarm of warriors.  In fights of this scale, just multiply the movement of the heroes by the increase in the scale of the fight.  So, rather than fighting on a 5 foot grid where a swarm takes up four squares, you're fighting on a 5 yard (or 10 yard) grid, and the horde of enemy soldiers takes up four squares.  The cool thing about this is you really get a sense of your hero charging around amongst big groups of enemies.  It also means you can have fights against other combat masters, amongst their guards, without using different rules for each. 

Effort Points:  Here's where you have a big chance to do some really interesting things.  How characters gain effort points, and what they can be spent to achieve, will have a huge effect on your game.  Look out though, because I've found that in actual play, players often end up not using these things except for when they're really unavoidable.  You might check out "Raising the Stakes", a D&D hack by Ryan Stoughton, that does some interesting things with stake setting and character death.  It could be what you're after.

Thanks Simon C. for all the insights!

Simon wrote:
The "whiff" factor (the degree to which combat consists of rolling and missing) is already pretty high in d20, and making it higher isn't going to make the game more fun, just more frustrating. Also, high defences cap out pretty quickly when you need a 20 to hit.

Simon wrote:
I think it might be better to go with some kind of "defence point" system, where being attacked drains your defence points every round.  This could be as simple as changing how you describe hit points,  so losing hit points is described as near misses and heroic jumping, or blows with fists and feet, rather than with weapons, rather than actual damage)  When someone finally does drop below zero HP, you can describe actual physical damage, a telling blow with a weapon.

Simon wrote:
One thing you might consider is using the rules for "swarms" from D&D, and just changing the scale.

Hi,

I think your instinct is right that just remaming a few things in combat won't go far enough.  I think that one cool thing to do would be to use "rolled AC", i.e. rather than AC being 10 plus Dex plus Armour, it's d20 plus Dex plus Armour.  This will give more of a "defending myself" feel, I think.  It makes combat more random though, which is bad at low levels, and good at high levels.  Were you thinking of using the normal level advancement system?  Just starting the characters off at higher levels might be a good idea, in addition to other effect.  Another option is to lower the level of the whole world.  "E6" does this, bascially meaning that after sixth level, you only gain feats, and no new levels.  It has the effect of making the PCs much greater forces in the world, much sooner in the game, since all the NPCs have the same restriction.

In terms of "special powers", I think triggering when you make a successful block is a good idea.  Special moves which cause you to forego normal attacks almost never get used, or else they get used every round.  A special attack that's triggered by, say, a natural 20 on a defence roll, or your opponent rolling a one on theirs, tends to be more exciting to use.  Probably a good idea is to come u with a limited set of circumstances in which these thing are triggered, and then have a range of options for players to choose from, based on which powers they've chosen.  For example, the normal critical hit system could be changed so that now, when you score a critical hit, you can choose to disarm them if you've got the disarm feat, trip them if you've got the trip feat, and so on.

If you want to stick closely to the D&D system, why don't you *change* the meaning of HP?

Like, HP is how long you can fight and how many "grasshoppers" you can take on at once. Here's my example with a character that has 100 hp.

Round 1, 100 hp, 17 foes attack
Round 2, 83 hp, 11 foes attack (the character spun a tableleg around and took out 6)
Round 3, 72 hp, 5 foes attack (the character jumped up, kicked two in the heads, than grabbed 1 of the guys and used his sword to stab 3 of the other guys, than broke that guys arm)
Round 4, 68 hp, 0 foes left. 

Minions don't actually have to make any sort of attack roll or anything, and HP is a sheer measurement of how long a guy can keep going for before passing out from exhaustion.  Of course, this make AC relatively pointless against minions, but you could use Damage Reduction "armor" rules instead, against minions, and than use AC as a "dodge" only against more powerful foes. Likewise, you could use "damage" as a measurement of how many minions you can take out a turn. Foes would have an HP rating as a "swarm" and one dies at every X hp. For example the foes have 3 HP each and there are 17 of them (51 hp total),

Round 1, 17 foes, 12+2d6 = 19. 19/3 = 6, remainder 1. 6 diie
Round 2, 11 foes, 12+2d6 = 17. 17+1(from last round)/3 = 6. 6 die
Round 3, 5 foes, 12 + 2d6 = 16. 16/3 = 5. 5 die. All of the minions are dead.

Of course, there are much, much, more elegant solutions, but limiting yourself to d20 is like trying to build a boat out of only a shipwreck. 

Also, what is your final goal? Designing the game, or playing it? Because if it's the latter, there are a few games out there already for this sort of wu-xia kung-fu antics. Feng Shui is probably the best known, and after googling on 'martial arts rpg' I found two D20 supplements ('Blood and Fists' and 'Martial Arts Mayhem'), a GURPS supplement called 'GURPS Martial Arts', a stand-alone game called 'Dragon Fist', ... If you just want to play, you'll get a game going faster by just buying one of these.

Of course, if you really want to design your own, these would still be excellent inspirations. As you can probably tell by now, your major challenge will be combat. A long, drawn-out combat with swords clashing and very little damage being done is cool to watch. It's also boring as hell if you're playing it out and all you actually do is roll dice and narrate.

Wow, thanks again for the input! Like I mentioned in my first post, I've been toying around with designing games for the last 10+ years, but I've yet to meet anyone face-to-face who had the same kind of interest for it that I could bounce ideas off of. I'm glad I found the Forge.

Simon wrote:
I think that one cool thing to do would be to use "rolled AC".

Simon wrote:
Were you thinking of using the normal level advancement system?  Just starting the characters off at higher levels might be a good idea, in addition to other effect.  Another option is to lower the level of the whole world. "E6" does this, bascially meaning that after sixth level, you only gain feats, and no new levels.

Simon wrote:
In terms of "special powers", I think triggering when you make a successful block is a good idea.  Special moves which cause you to forego normal attacks almost never get used, or else they get used every round.  A special attack that's triggered by, say, a natural 20 on a defence roll, or your opponent rolling a one on theirs, tends to be more exciting to use.  Probably a good idea is to come u with a limited set of circumstances in which these thing are triggered, and then have a range of options for players to choose from, based on which powers they've chosen.  For example, the normal critical hit system could be changed so that now, when you score a critical hit, you can choose to disarm them if you've got the disarm feat, trip them if you've got the trip feat, and so on.

David wrote:
HP is how long you can fight and how many "grasshoppers" you can take on at once. ..... Minions don't actually have to make any sort of attack roll or anything, and HP is a sheer measurement of how long a guy can keep going for before passing out from exhaustion.  Of course, this make AC relatively pointless against minions, but you could use Damage Reduction "armor" rules instead, against minions, and than use AC as a "dodge" only against more powerful foes. Likewise, you could use "damage" as a measurement of how many minions you can take out a turn. Foes would have an HP rating as a "swarm" and one dies at every X hp. For example the foes have 3 HP each and there are 17 of them (51 hp total),

David wrote:
limiting yourself to d20 is like trying to build a boat out of only a shipwreck.

Falc wrote:
Also, what is your final goal? Designing the game, or playing it?

Falc wrote:
As you can probably tell by now, your major challenge will be combat. A long, drawn-out combat with swords clashing and very little damage being done is cool to watch. It's also boring as hell if you're playing it out and all you actually do is roll dice and narrate.

Yeah, don't be shy of using d20.  There's a lot of d20 hate around, and there are a number of reasons why it's not fashionable on this forum, but for what you're doing, d20 is absolutely the right tool for the job. 

Regarding rolled AC, I think your objections make sense.  I'm not so familiar with Star Wars Saga, but I understand it's got lots of good innovations.  One of the main strengths of using d20 is that you've got a vast pool of sources to draw on for rules variations.  I think tapping into that is a great idea.

The reason I suggest lowering the overall level, rather than raising it, probably has to do with my personal tastes in roleplaying.  I've found D&D changes quite significantly after sixth level, and I prefer the gameplay of the lower levels.  I'm also not a fan of the complexities of higher level play.  For what you're doing, and for your own tastes, raising the overall power level makes as much sense. 

There is a good argument though for narrowing the range of power levels.  I think there's a tendancy for d20 play to limit the power of the player characters to influence the world.  If you're a first level farm boy (or even a fifth level farm boy) the amount of influence you can have over a world where all the major players are 20th level and beyond is pretty minor.  Even small towns are likely to have their own forces that can match or beat your own power.  If, on the other hand, you're a fifth level farm boy, and the major players in the world are only 10th level or so, it's a much shorter climb until your character is a major player.  For me at least, that's where the really fun parts of play are, especially for the kind of epic fantasy you're after.  I've been in too many fantasy games where all the interesting stuff the GM has planned isn't supposed to happen until months of gaming have gone by.  Get to the good stuff right away.  The characters in Crouching Tiger, or Hero aren't saving some village from bandits, they're stealing the most powerful sword in the world, and assasinating the emeror of the greatest empire ever known.  Narrowing the gap between the most powerful entities in the world and the PCs allows you to get to that kind of play more quickly.

Simon wrote:
There is a good argument though for narrowing the range of power levels.

Core Mechanic 2d10.  This is an interesting call.  I would say that for high level play, this might be a mistake.  I've founf high level D&D to be really hard to balance.  Something slightly too easy will be a pushover for the PCs, but something slightly too hard will wipe them out.  Decreasing the randomness seems like it would only add to that problem.  However, I'm not super experienced in this area, so I don't really know.  I suspect playtesting this would anwer a lot of questions.  What are your motivations for this change?

Ability Scores:  Making them just modifiers seems pretty resonable.  As for altering the scores themselves, I think that it's a really good opportunity to focus what your game's about.  However, I don't know that you've worked that to its full potential here.  "Intelligence" seems to be a bit flavourless, and I'm not sure what a dedicated Perception stat gives.  What are kung-fu movies about?  I suggest you look at that, and build your stats around that.  "Guile" is cool, since deception plays a big part in movies like Crouching Tiger, and Hero.  I one "Agility" Stat enough?  What about having something like "Grace" and "Speed" They could apply to Parry and Dodge respectively.  Think about the defining features of the characters you see in those movies, and make stats to reflect that.

Defense: Does Agility add to this?  It should.  It's good thinking to have level add to this.  It means that as they go up levels, and the base attack bonuses of their opponents go up, it'll even out hopefully.

Classes:  I like classes! Um, my feeling is that players do too.  They're also fun to design.  But if you don't like them, don't keep them.  Be aware though that they perform an important role in D&D, making sure that every character has something unique to contribute to the party.  Your game might work differently, but look out for situations where one character is simply better than another.  That's no fun to play.

Just to throw one more idea into the mix... you might also want to take a look at the combat system in Burning Wheel - I find it too complex for my tastes, but it generates a lot of that complexity with fairly few rules, and is designed to capture a similar sort of "getting hit with a sword even once kills normal people" vibe.  I doubt it'd be easy (or prudent) to just translate it into d20, but it might be an interesting alternate combat system to look at for ideas.

- Daniel

Simon wrote:
Core Mechanic 2d10.  This is an interesting call.  I would say that for high level play, this might be a mistake. ..... I suspect playtesting this would anwer a lot of questions.  What are your motivations for this change?

Simon wrote:
As for altering the scores themselves, I think that it's a really good opportunity to focus what your game's about.  However, I don't know that you've worked that to its full potential here.  "Intelligence" seems to be a bit flavourless, and I'm not sure what a dedicated Perception stat gives. ..... "Guile" is cool, since deception plays a big part in movies like Crouching Tiger, and Hero.  I one "Agility" Stat enough?  What about having something like "Grace" and "Speed" They could apply to Parry and Dodge respectively.

Simon wrote:
Defense: Does Agility add to this?  It should.

Simon wrote:
Classes:  I like classes! Um, my feeling is that players do too.  They're also fun to design.  But if you don't like them, don't keep them.  Be aware though that they perform an important role in D&D, making sure that every character has something unique to contribute to the party.  Your game might work differently, but look out for situations where one character is simply better than another.  That's no fun to play.

dikaiosunh wrote:
you might also want to take a look at the combat system in Burning Wheel

I think one problem you'll find for point 2 (making heroes hard to hit via large defensive bonuses) is combats with a whole lot of dice rolling and few hits.  While in a movie these flurry of blows are exciting, in d20 they tend to be, well, boring.

Part of the issue is that in d20 when you miss neither you nor the opponent is affected.  In movies, although that blow might not have hit, it may have moved the defender back, pushed him off balance, set him up for a follow up strike, or left the attacker exposed for a counter-strike.  And it looks cool.

I don't know of any small modification to d20 that solves this.  One possibility would be to abstract the concept of hit/miss a bit, so that both unarmed hits and 'misses' that negatively affected the defender's position were accounted for similarly.  In your system, it would seem that 'hit points' would be the relevant measure.  But damage to them should be more temporary, so that if you turned the tables on your opponent you'd get some/most of the hit points back.  Then when an opponent's hp were exhausted, any blow could be considered lethal.  In order to do this, you might have to reduce the amount of hps compared to a standard d20 system, make some 'flow of battle' mechanic that restores hps or sloshes them between combatants, and not increase the defense as you suggested.

In general, i think it's hard to make the standard d20 combat mechanic very cinematic.  Making a single hit by a lethal weapon lethal is a good start, but just making the defense of heroes very high will just make it a crap-shoot as to who gets that lucky hit in first.  Revamping it to give more tactical choice is a good thing to do, and something i've been working on for a while...

james

So after posting i noticed the 6+ posts right after that had already said what i posted.  Whoops.  Here are some hopefully more contemporary responses:

Stats:  One possible guide to stats is to take various exemplary heroes in your genre, and think about what intrinsic property makes them so cool.  Simon's (?) suggestion of using both Agility and Speed is good on this account -- the wuxia films often have the very nimble swordsman and the one who's extremely swift.  Guile is also good for this purpose.  I would suggest that Intelligence (being raw mental power) might not pass this test -- but the wise master, or wise swordsman that can see into his opponent's strategy/etc does feature prominently.  Strength i've rarely seen portrayed as the major trait of a hero (although often of an adversary), but it's an easy one of use anyway.  Perception, tho important, is rarely a defining quality -- it might be better as a skill.

Catalyst wrote:

Simon wrote:
Classes:  I like classes! Um, my feeling is that players do too.  They're also fun to design.  But if you don't like them, don't keep them.  Be aware though that they perform an important role in D&D, making sure that every character has something unique to contribute to the party.  Your game might work differently, but look out for situations where one character is simply better than another.  That's no fun to play.

I think classes are good for some settings. The problem with classes is differentiating the range of character abilities along lines that make sense for establishing various "classes". In my setting martial arts means a philosophy as well as a fighting style. So even those who carry out political, religious, or scholarly duties, rather then being fighters, will still have a basic knowledge of martial arts. So I can't have a class such as "martial artist", because that's everyone, to one degree or another.
So what's next? Divide classes by style of fighting or types of weapons used? Right now I have a system that sets out 10 different styles/schools of martial arts, with each style consisting of 10 different moves/bonuses called maneuvers. The system is pretty free-form in how you choose what maneuvers your character learns, allowing a single character to choose maneuvers from across all 10 styles/schools, but providing perks to those who specialize in just one. Additionally, I want the usefulness of various maneuvers to not be limited by what sort of weapon your character chooses to wield.
I guess classes could simply be divided by occupation, but like I pointed out, it seems that there might not be enough variation there. For instance, where do you draw the line between an influential general and a political adviser who also happens to be particularly devoted to the martial arts? What about a samurai with a strong faith and a monk who is an accomplished fighter? It almost seems like it would be better to have feats like "Royal Favor" or "Faith", or even a stat to measure such things by degrees, rather than to have classes such as "Nobleman" or "Monk".

jag wrote:
Perhaps you could consider classes more abstractly.  Instead of classes being devoted paths for a character, they could just represent spheres of study.  Ie, you could have several martial arts "classes" corresponding to your styles, perhaps one representing "dirty" fighting (poison, blowguns, ambushing, etc), one representing inner strength and determination and training like walking over coals, one representing uses of qi/ki to physically manifest force, one for medicine and herbs, one for acrobatics and the crazy jumps/flying, etc.  Then each character would have several 'levels' of various classes, representing their mix of skills.  So everyone would have a few levels in some marial arts classes, but from their they may be the wise doctor, sneaky assassin, or just do more martial arts to be the badass fighter.  That way they are less restrictive, and more descriptive of what the character knows.  ("I have studied shaolin long fist for 7 years under the great master Whoever, triple-staff under Whoever Jr, then medicine and the inner arts under Otherperson, then...")

Just as a suggestion: Living Room Games was going to produce a D20 version of Street Fighter (you know, the video game) and they addressed a lot of the same issues that your dealing with here. Though all the details were vague, I know they were going to use some kind of gauge for defense that lowered the more you got attacked as well as using a piece-meal class system where your fighting style would be one part of your class, your background another and your body type yet another and the combination of various factors would determine how you changed over various levels. I'm not sure if this design updates are still available on their sight, but you might want to check it out.

I think there have been some good suggestions about classes.  They're a fun part of the game, so I think if there's a way to integrate them into your design, it's a good idea.  I take your point that since the whole game is about fighting, having a "fighting" class seems a bit redundant.  But really, the same is true of D&D.  A lot of care has been taken to give each class a role in a fight.  Perhaps you can take this approach as well?  Here are some ideas for unique abilities that could be used in a fight:

General:  They're not usually the protagonist, but a lot of Wu-xia movies feature generals of vast armies.  Why not make this a class?  They could have a per day ability (or per encounter, or whatever) to summon "swarms" of soldiers.  The soldiers just come running over the horizon, ready for a fight.  This is how it seems to work in the movies, anyhow. 

Ninja Assassin:  These guys are a staple of the genre, jumping out at the last minute to dish out the damage.  Sneak Attacks and flanking pretty much cover the rules needed for this class.

Sword Princess:  In this game, the "tank" is not the character who is armoured up and built like a rhino, it's the young girl with windswept hair and twin machetes.  The Sword Princess knows that, no matter what, you just can't touch her.

In fact, the more I think about it, the more I think that D&D classes map pretty well onto some useful combat roles.  "Scholar Monks" could have abilities that buff their allies like a Cleric, "Sword Princesses" could soak up damage, and become whirlwinds of destruction like a Barbarian.  Don't make the analogues too close though. 

I think spells would be really fun in the "big scale" combats against masses of soldiers as well.  "Burning Hands" feels much cooler when it's sheets of flames that cover a football field, rather than a bathroom sized area.

Thanks for the replies people!

jag wrote:
One possible guide to stats is to take various exemplary heroes in your genre, and think about what intrinsic property makes them so cool.  Simon's (?) suggestion of using both Agility and Speed is good on this account -- the wuxia films often have the very nimble swordsman and the one who's extremely swift.  Guile is also good for this purpose.  I would suggest that Intelligence (being raw mental power) might not pass this test -- but the wise master, or wise swordsman that can see into his opponent's strategy/etc does feature prominently.  Strength i've rarely seen portrayed as the major trait of a hero (although often of an adversary), but it's an easy one of use anyway.  Perception, tho important, is rarely a defining quality -- it might be better as a skill.

Hmm, that's an interesting idea.

I think if you take a look at some d20 supplements, you'll probably find a myriad of different ways of doing this, if you want to port directly.  D20 Modern's Class Feature Trees (or whatever they're called) would be one approach to this, where each school of fighting has a "tree" of abilities, so as you buy into a school, you get more and more options about what abilities to get, and you get access to more powerful abilities.  This would be a good way to ensure that all schools are open to everyone, while rewarding characters who are devoted to a small number of schools.  That's a good way to ensure niche protection.

"Iron Heroes" gets rave reviews for class abilities that are really exciting to use in play, and lead to cinematic "stunt" combats.  They'd be cool to look at for sources of inspiration, but I think maybe they're not so close to what you're looking for, because each type of ability uses a different type of token.  Extensive mixing and matching of different abilities could leave you with a confusing myriad of different tokens.

That said, you could do some really neat things with tokens.  You've said that you're thinking about having "action points" or the like.  What about using these points more extensively, to power special abilities?  You could have a generic type of token, which regenerates regularly, but that's kinda boring.  Here's what I'd do if this were my game (which it's not, and you should feel free to ignore me).

Have five kinds of token, each tied to an element from the chinese elemental system (or invent your own for your setting).  These tokens are used to power special abilities.  Different types of ability require different elements to power them.  Some require a pure element, but maybe others require a combination of elements.  Each element also has a single use that's not tied to an ability.  Maybe Water lets you re-roll a d20, Wood restores hit points, Fire adds +2 to any roll, Air lets you, I don't know... ...maybe increases your defence by a lot for one round?  That sounds too specific though.  Anyway, divide up what "Action Points" would do among the elements.  Now, to restore points.  Each of the chinese elements is tied to certain types of emotion and behaviour.  I'm not sure of exactly the best way to do this, but here's something stolen from Fate: the GM can "bribe" the players with points of particular elements to act in accordance with that emotion.  For example, Fire is associated with anger.  In a tense scene, the GM can hold out one or more fire tokens to one or any player, and say "I think you're angry enough to throw a punch"  If the character throws a punch (it's the player's choice), they'll get the tokens. 

That might be giving the GM more control over the characters than you're comfortable with, but I like the way it makes specialists in a particular type of element more inclined to act in accordance with that element, since they need those tokens.  It kind of relies on the GM to keep offering bribes though.  You might want a way for players to claim tokens for other reasons too.

I might suggest the name "Insight" instead of "Perception", as it feels to me to encompass more of the mental aspects you're incorporating.  But it also deëmphasizes the, well, perception aspects, so maybe it's not what you want.

It's not a bad idea to worry about classes slightly later.  However, a lot of d20 is based implicitly on classes -- you can ditch them and rewrite that structure, but it might be an easier way to go to modify it to fit your needs.  You could view classes as just glorified feat-trees, rather than profession labels, and allow people to choose levels in a class independent of what they call themselves.  Thus, although most ninja will have many levels in the "Quick and accurate fighting style" class, so might the Taiqi boxer or a variety of other characters -- and ninja will also have some levels in "Poison and Stealth" class, where the Taiqi boxer wouldn't have such levels.

Or you could consider the Rolemaster version of classes, which basically just say how efficiently you can buy various skills.  Thus most characters can purchase most skills, but ninja would advance most rapidly in stealth, while bushi would advance most rapidly in sword-play.

Anyway, as you said, deal with this later, and ignore my advice when the time comes.

Though in the specific films you mentioned it's not an important factor, sit down and process about 30 or so grindhouse Kung fu masterpieces and you'll hear the same things over and over:

"I studied under Lo Pei, my style is invincible!"
"Now that I have killed my master, none shall secret the secret of Lotus Style!"
"Don't you see?! We're from the same school of martial arts!"

If you're looking for a flavorful class reinvention, I think the aforementioned division into the Chinese elements is a bit too Legend of the Five Rings. I heart L5R real swell, but it's not something you'd need to clone for your tone. Focusing on which monastaries and masters they studied under, and perhaps focusing on that instead or in addition to something more base like Ninja and Samurai. Those classes have been done so many times that you'll lose the distinct feel you're wanting at that point.

Curious, did you look at how d20 Oriental Adventures handled martial arts? There was also a rather innovative approach to d20 martial arts in the Sleeping Imperium setting, where it was a skill and every rank taught you a new move in addition to making skill checks for various maneuvers.

I think you may be thinking too hard about hit points. Just make unarmed attack and "non-lethal" weapons deal less damage and make swords etc. deal a LOT of damage. Use the standard d20 definition of hp where it largely represents your ability to "roll with the punches" and absorb damage. You still drop when you hit 0. Its just an easier level of abstraction.

Agile Riposte could be a feat you would want to expand on.

There are rules in the DMG II for a d20 mob template for humanoids.

jag wrote:
I might suggest the name "Insight" instead of "Perception", as it feels to me to encompass more of the mental aspects you're incorporating.

jag wrote:
Anyway, as you said, deal with this later, and ignore my advice when the time comes.

Jillianaire wrote:
I think the aforementioned division into the Chinese elements is a bit too Legend of the Five Rings. I heart L5R real swell, but it's not something you'd need to clone for your tone.

Jillianaire wrote:
Focusing on which monastaries and masters they studied under, and perhaps focusing on that instead or in addition to something more base like Ninja and Samurai.

Castlin wrote:
Curious, did you look at how d20 Oriental Adventures handled martial arts? There was also a rather innovative approach to d20 martial arts in the Sleeping Imperium setting, where it was a skill and every rank taught you a new move in addition to making skill checks for various maneuvers.

There are rules in the DMG II for a d20 mob template for humanoids.

This might be a little late to pipe in. Just a little flavor note on fighting styles... since I've done  a little bit of historical research on those.

0) names are the key

In general, style names fall ino one of several categories.
- Family - e.g. Hung family fist, Yang family spear
- Animal imitation - Preying Mantis, Eagle Claw
- An ideal or philosophical term - Six harmony spear, Cotton fist, Heart intent fist
- A simple desctiption - Tumbling boxing, Eighteen elbows
- and the oddball style name - Eighteen saints boxing, South gate boxing, Wudan mountain sword

1) where are they going?

An often heard expression is "many paths, only one mountaintop". Do you want martial arts styles to diverge from a common template, or converge to a common goal?

2) where did they come from?

Certain areas, families or institutions can be famous for certain fighting styles. e.g. "northern legs, southern arms" and so on. 

3) what special skills do they encompass?

For example historical martial arts had skills with fanciful names such as "Pulling out a mountain", "Cinnabar palms" and "Light body". These would add to flavor.

4) special folklore in the art?

Did the founder witness the fight between a crane and a snake? Or was the founder a sickly boy who was prevented from hanging himself by a wandering wise man and taught matrial arts? Are two styles' practicioners automatically mortal enemies?

5) what is their role in society?

Many times in history skilled fighters were considered to be the lowest of the low. Is practicing martial arts a crime in some regions? Are there public schools? Perhaps the public schools are run by charlatans.

of course all of this is just food for thought and not clear answers. But if you like I can post a list of historical names for skills and arts.

Edgar wrote:
This might be a little late to pipe in. Just a little flavor note on fighting styles... since I've done  a little bit of historical research on those.

Edgar wrote:
0) names are the key

Edgar wrote:
1) where are they going?

Edgar wrote:
2) where did they come from?

Edgar wrote:
3) what special skills do they encompass?

Edgar wrote:
4) special folklore in the art?

Edgar wrote:
5) what is their role in society?

Edgar wrote:
But if you like I can post a list of historical names for skills and arts.