It looks like I might get to play (well, run) a Sorcerer game fairly soon. The players voted for a wuxia style S&S fantasy... all scheming eunuchs, waring clans, secret societies, and lots of flying people with Kung Fu.

Can anyone (Ron especialy) give me some good advice on running wuxia style combat? How to interpret the mechanics to best reflect the style of my source material?

Also I was considering altering the scores used for combat dice... I was thinking you can use Stamina to attack, Will to defend in combat... hard form vs soft form styles. I don't want everyone to be running around as Satmina 8 monsters becuase it is the best combat stat.

So... how to best run fast paced martial arts battles...


I have a good handle on my source material (Humanity is defined as Honor, with all the potential conflicts that implies when one's duty to lord or family conflicts with duty to friends or allies).

Demonics will be fairly typical. Necromancy will work just about as described (with Hopping Vampires for all!) and plenty of great mythical monsters to call up.

I was thinking of a certain kind of demon which exists as a msytical martial arts style... they demand such sacrifice and focus to learn, many warriors sacrifice their Humanity persuing them... (esentialy parasites).

There will be fairly ranked Celestial orders and the Yama Kings will rull below... one style of sorcery is VERY legalistic, and involves dealing with demonic lords to acquire the services of their demonic vassals. In this case, the demon's NEED is actualy what its lord demands as payment for its continued services... its DESIRE is its own, however.

Another form of sorcery calls upon nature spirits, natural forces- for good or ill- and ancestor spirits. More a form of 'folk sorcery' or hedge magic.


Relationship maps will be complex, including ties of honor, debt, gratitude, loyalty, and duty in addition to strictly emotional or familial connections.

Reread the mechanics of Sorcerer rolls last night (plannin a S&Sword minisup), and it uses a comparison of die pools, right? So you can have the victor of the roll "win" (as in, get the upper hand at the end), but then do the following:

The Loser puts a die out, that is his "attack", the Victor puts one of his dice. If it's lower, the Loser has the upperhand. Otherwise, the Victor does. Keep doing this until the Victor ends this round of fighting with the Victory Die (which you know there are no dice higher).

In other words, if Chan rolls a 3,3,7,8 and Wang rolls a 2,5,5, we know Chan is the victor, but then the "bidding" starts:

Wang puts a 5 down: "My hair flies out from my head and wraps around Chan's neck!"
Chan puts a 3 (lower than 5), ceding: "I struggling and twist, but fall to the ground."
Wang puts a 5 (higher than 3), winning more: "Chan is thrown into the burning coals!"
Chan puts his 8 down (higher than 5, and ending the combat): "Ow! The pain physically throws Chan out towards Wang and he pummels her with his Thousand Shadow Fist!"

I'd thought about a variant like that earlier where the dice were rolled in secret and put out one at a time so the ultimate winner is not known. Would make it possible for both sides to wind up with successes, and depending on the order they were played, the player who would have "lost" may actually have won more successes.

The only issue I hadn't resolved was the direct tie in of number of successes to damage.

I have played with such a "roll and push" arangement several times... I could never get it quite satisfactory (and Tim Denee does it so much better with his Final Stand project).

I was considering a system where by winning a round of combat either grants you an extra die (allowing you to sieze some advantage) or causes your foe to loose a die (inflicting some punishment). The fight doesn't end until someone rolls a Total Victory. I have no idea how this would play out though.

Well well,

It seems as if my fantasy-action martial arts system for Sorcerer (which requires no extra dice-rolling) will reach an audience. Yet more meat for the planned third supplement. For now, all I'll say is that the main influence is Swashbuckler.

And yes, it has to do with gender and relationship issues.

Best,
Ron