Martial Arts: Cinematic Combat

Cinematic Combat

Faster Combat

You can run extremely detailed fights using Martial Arts and the Basic Set, but most gamers find quicker combats more fun! Below are tips on how to speed up battle. They’re advice, not rules – the GM should use only the suggestions that suit his gaming group.

• Limit options. Let the players choose only those options that suit the kind of game you're running: realistic or cinematic, emphasizing unarmed martial arts or weapon styles, etc. Politely but firmly forbid the rest.
• Encourage options that lower defenses. Deceptive Attacks, feints, Ripostes, and Stop Hits add complexity...but reduced defenses increase the odds that a blow will land and end the fight. This keeps battles from taking forever because nobody ever fails a defense roll.
• Make a "cheat sheet." List modifiers and page numbers for all the optional rules you intend to use. An index card is ideal for this – and doubles as a handy bookmark for a page of frequently used rules.
• Work out everything in advance. Somewhere on the character sheet of each PC or important NPC, note such things as allowed movement, modified skill, and damage with attacks; jumping distance; slam damage at full Move; and crippling thresholds (damage over HP/2 and HP/3).
• Require speedy decisions. Tell each player to have his actions ready when his turn comes. If he doesn't, he must take some "default" action agreed upon in advance: All-Out Defense, Do Nothing, repeat his previous action, etc. "My PC is a kung fu master! He'd know what to do!" doesn't hold water. A second is still a second, even for a kung fu master. There's plenty of time to weigh options while others are taking their turns.
• Encourage "trademark moves." Have each player work out a few "standard operating procedures" in the form of an entire turn's worth of actions calculated in advance; e.g., "Committed Attack (Strong) and Rapid Strike: thrust to the vitals at skill 13, then a Deceptive swing to the torso for -2 defenses at skill 12." These are good "default" actions for the player who can't make up his mind!
• Hold players responsible for remembering options. If you let the players use a specialized rule, make it their job to remember its details and location. If they can’t remember the rule, their characters decide not to use the tactic.
• Have major wounds end fights. An NPC should flee or surrender if he takes a major wound (or crippling wound), unless he has a serious mental problem like Berserk. Don't keep going until everyone on one side is unconscious or dead. It takes forever and isn't especially realistic or cinematic.

What Is...A Rapid Strike?

A Rapid Strike is normally two distinct attacks – one after the other – but it doesn't have to be. It might instead be a single motion that connects more than once: a punch with an elbow behind it, a sword cut calculated to hit two legs at once, a knee to the groin that ends with a stamp to the foot, and so on. Since the two blows don't hit the same location at the same time, this is just a "“special effect." The target may defend normally against each attack, and has his full DR against both.

Other Rapid Strikes consist of a blow with a vicious follow-up. The target still gets normal defenses and DR against this. For instance, a knife thrust followed by a cut could represent stabbing and then tearing. The victim might twist so that the knife slides out (dodge), use his shield to shove you away (block), or restrain your wrist (parry). His armor DR would affect the second attack – despite the knife being inside his armor – because you have to rip through him and his armor. Similar logic applies to a stamp-and-grind with the heel, chop-and-draw with a sword, a grapple that nabs one arm and pulls it across the body to trap the other, and so on.

The GM should permit anything that applies on a per-attack basis – poison or magical flame on a blade, Innate Attack with Aura, and so on – to work once per attack, not just once per Rapid Strike. Simply assume that the target is exposed for longer or over a greater proportion of his body.

Because such interpretations have no game effects, you may take dramatic license when describing a Rapid Strike. This is good roleplaying!

Other Multiple Actions

The Multiple Attacks rules apply only to the All-Out Attack, Attack, Committed Attack, Defensive Attack, and Move and Attack maneuvers. A fighter can "trade" attacks for feints, but he can't sacrifice attacks to perform tasks covered by other maneuvers. He cannot make multiple posture changes with Change Posture (but see Acrobatic Stand), hastily Ready an unready weapon (but he can draw several weapons; see Multiple Fast-Draw), count his turn as more than one second of Concentrate, or Aim or Evaluate on a turn when he attacks. Exception: Individuals with Altered Time Rate can do all of these things by taking suitable maneuvers on their turn!

Mind Games

An important part of martial-arts mythology, especially in cinematic settings, is that "martial artist" is as much a mindset as it is a skill set. These optional rules address this philosophy.

The Contest of Wills

In martial-arts films and samurai legends, entire battles are fought in the mind. The warriors lock eyes, and then one suddenly breaks eye contact and walks away, beaten...or charges, knowing that he’s doomed.

To initiate a Contest of Wills, the challenger must Concentrate and lock eyes with his opponent. If his foe accepts the challenge, he must take a Concentrate maneuver as well. If he rejects it, he must make a Will roll to avoid being drawn in anyway. Success means he can take his turn normally and cannot be challenged again this combat.

Once the Contest begins, roll a Regular Contest of Will each turn. Either fighter may substitute Intimidation or Mental Strength for Will, if better.

Modifiers: Fearlessness; +5 each for Indomitable and Unfazeable; the better fighter gets +1 per three levels by which his best combat skill exceeds his opponent's. Reputation can go either way. For instance, -2 for being a ruthless killer would give +2, but +2 for being merciful might give -2. In some settings, Status and other reaction modifiers apply.

Roll once per turn until somebody wins. Find the winner's margin of victory as if this were a Quick Contest and make a reaction roll for the loser, applying the margin as a bonus. Use the "potential combat situation” results on the Reaction Table. If this drives the loser to attack, he has the winner's margin of victory as a penalty to his attack rolls!

This rule is for PCs and major NPCs. See Fear and Martial Artists for a way to demoralize thugs.

Concentration and the Martial Arts

Losing your cool can mean losing the fight! If a martial artist fails his self-control roll for a mental disadvantage that would distract him (GM's opinion), he fights at -2 to DX. This includes submitting to Bad Temper in any fight, Lecherousness when facing a sexy foe, etc., but not things like Berserk and Bloodlust.

Fear and Martial Artists

Fear can be a killer, too. A failed Fright Check is likely to stun the victim and make him easy prey. The GM may require Fright Checks from combatants who suffer dismemberment or lose an eye to an Eye-Pluck, a nose or an ear to Pressure Secrets, or any body part to a bite (see Teeth). While most Fright Checks in combat are at +5 for the heat of battle, those for gruesome injuries are not!

Heroic PCs can use Intimidation on minor NPCs. The GM may want to quantify the +1 to +4 for displays of strength as +1 per five of their number the NPCs know the heroes have defeated, to a maximum of +4. This doesn’t have to be in the same fight! It affects soldiers who hear tales from buddies who survived the last battle, thugs who see the heroes emerge unscathed from a room guarded by a dozen of their comrades, etc. Reputation is another important modifier; see The Contest of Wills. Enough bonuses make even default skill (Will-5) effective!

Faking It

To convincingly fake martial-arts skill based on what you’ve seen in demos and movies, make a DX-based Performance roll. Success means your audience believes you! This lets you attempt Intimidation using the rules for specious intimidation. Critical success means you pass yourself off as a master, which may have minor social benefits.

To portray the martial arts on stage or screen, roll against Stage Combat. This defaults to Combat Art/Sport skills at -2, and to combat skills and Performance at -3. For scenes involving multiple performers, roll against the lowest of the worst performer's skill and the choreographer's Fight Choreography skill.

Such tricks provide no combat benefits and are unlikely to fool real martial artists! Against a trained fighter, treat these rolls as Quick Contests. He gets an IQ-based roll against his best combat, Combat Art, or Combat Sport skill. You must win to convince him you're the real thing.

Fiction usually depicts combat dramatically, as either a heroic contest or a violent ballet. Often the bias is subtle, with the storyteller extending the benefit of the doubt to barely possible feats but otherwise hewing to reality. This is typical of the gossip of real-world martial artists when they relate tales of how their style pushes the limits! At the other end of the spectrum are epics that pit the superhuman techniques and unlikely weapons of the heroes against those of the villains, with little regard for physical laws.

Termed "cinematic" because it's most familiar to us from the movies, this dramatic approach isn't unique to the silver screen. This is the world of heroes from earliest myth and legend, battling armies, monsters, and gods; swashbucklers from romantic novels, dueling all comers to certain victory; comic-book ninja and commandos, using sheer skill to make up for small numbers; and masked wrestlers on television, taking hard hits from the top rope and still walking away from the bout.

In campaigns in this vein, the GM should consider using most or all of the optional rules in this chapter that aren't strictly unrealistic but that are possibly optimistic. These fall into two main categories:

• Rules that speed up actions or make extra actions possible (or easier), such as Quick Sheathing, Multiple Fast-Draw, Quick-Shooting Bows, Rapid Fire with Thrown Weapons, Rapid Strike with Thrown Weapons, Multiple Blocks and Parrying with Two-Handed Weapons.
• Rules that make fighters more mobile – especially if they involve acrobatics! These include Acrobatic Stand, Feints Using Non-Combat Skills, Acrobatic Movement, Acrobatic Attack, Flying Attack, and Retreat Options.

None of these options is absolutely cinematic. Used conservatively, they might even be realistic. Nevertheless, a campaign that features a large proportion of these rules will feel cinematic, while one that omits most of them won't – regardless of the GM's intent!

Some optional rules offer additional detail that doesn't suit a fast-and-loose cinematic game, the worst offenders being Postures, Hit Locations, and Techniques, Fast-Draw from Odd Positions, A Matter of Inches, Close Combat and Body Morphology, More Actions After a Grapple, and Fencing Parries. Harsh Realism for Unarmed Fighters and Limiting Dodges are meant for realistic characters, and would ruin the fun of cinematic warriors. Finally, Untrained Fighters doesn't suit PCs (even untrained ones) in a cinematic campaign – although it's a good option for "cannon fodder" NPCs!

Below are additional rules that can help build a cinematic feel. Except for Multiple Attacks, which appears here because it refers to several superhuman advantages, most of these are strictly cinematic. Use them in a realistic campaign at your peril!

Multiple Attacks

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