House Rules - Combat

[todd]

(In progress...)

These are particularly provisional since I'm not sure how they'll work out in actual play but we'll see how they do to start and then work from there.

Hit Dice:
--------

I'm approaching hit dice as a currency that represents a creature's per round combat potential. It can be spent on attack or on various maneuvers (see below).

Each individual attack is adjudicated as d20 + AC vs 19. The odds of hitting an AC 5 target is 30%. You'll notice that level increases do not alter the basic math. A level 4 fighting man, a hero, still hits an AC 5 opponent at a 30% rate. However, because that hero has 4 HD, he can expend up to 4 of his dice to make additional throws to increase his odds of success. If that hero goes for an all-out assault, using all of his HD to attack that target, his odds of success jump to ~76%.

MANEUVERS:
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A maneuver is any non-attack action taken while in melee. It could be a short movement, an attempt to actively block an attack with a shield, a parry attempt, an evasion, etc. Any such action has a basic one hit die cost. A particularly complex action, at my discretion, might potentially cost extra HD to attempt. In general, each maneuver can only be used once in a single round.

 EXAMPLE:
 -------

 Brud the Brave is a level 4 fighting-man (4 HD). He's surrounded by 6 lightly armored
 (AC 7) brigands. Having won initiative, Brud can choose to all out attack his enemies
 or act more conservatively. He's wearing mail, with a shield, so he's fairly well
 armored (AC 4) but he's also wounded from a previous encounter. Ultimately, he decides
 to spend two of his hit dice to try to parry and block any incoming attacks and attack
 himself using the remaining two hit dice, concentrating that attack on a particularly
 burly bandit that Brud makes for the leader.


WEAPONS:
-------

All weapons do 1d6 damage. Taking inspiration from Chainmail's Man-to-Man table, among
other things, I will be using variable weapon speed and effectivess versus different
armor and weapon (initiative, parrying).

 WEAPON CLASSES:
 --------------

   LIGHT:
   -----
   
   Daggers, knives, hand axes, and similar.

   MEDIUM:
   ------
   
   Swords, axes, shortbows, crossbows, maces, flails, and similar.

   HEAVY:
   -----
   
   Two-handed weapons, great weapons, longbows, heavy crossbows, and similar.

   POLEARMS:
   --------

   Reach weapons, Spears, staffs, halberds, and similar.

 Weapon Speed (from first/fastest to last/slowest): Light > Medium > Heavy > Polearms

 Light weapons cannot parry heavy weapons or polearms. However, light weapons receive
 an extra hit die when used against those weapons.

 Polearms attack first during the first round of combat, provided the wielder is not
 surprised.

 During that first round of combat, a polarm-fighter can spend a hit die to attempt
 to keep his opponent at reach. If successful, the polearm-fighter may strike first
 versus that opponent the following round.

 Polearms can be gripped high. If held so, they give up reach but move up one class in
 their weapon speed.

 Exceptions:

 * Flails negate shield bonus to AC but cannot parry.
 * Light weapons roll their damage die twice and choose the lesser of the two values.
 * Heavy weapons roll their damage die twice and choose the higher of the two values.
 * Sneak attack negates penalties associated with light weapon damage.
 * Flails and maces roll damage as heavy weapons versus heavy armor.
 * Maces parry as light weapons.

 DUAL WIELDING:
 -------------

 2 light weapons or 1 light and medium weapon may be dual-wielded. Dual wielding does
 not allow a creature to attack more often than its hit dice provide. However, it does
 allow a creature to parry twice per round instead of once, provided it has the
 available hit dice to do so.
(In progress...)