Gavin Norman has been writing about rogues on his blog. There, he introduces such maneuvers as *Garrote* and *Black Jack*:
*Garrote*: Make an attack roll. If the attack succeeds, you have the garrote in place, causing 1d4 damage. Each subsequent round, the victim suffers 1d4 damage and must save versus paralysis or fall unconscious […]
*Black Jack*: Make an attack roll. If it succeeds, the victim suffers 1d4 damage and must save versus paralysis. Failure indicates that they’re knocked unconscious.
In a subsequent discussion on Google+ I said that I had a different way of thinking about combat maneuvers.
I always wonder: *What would Conan do?* In my game, if Conan is a level 10 fighter, then I have a hard time understanding how lowly thieves can put him down without bringing down his hit-points. Similarly, *nobody gets to push Conan around, trip him or disarm him, unless he’s out of hit-points.*
You could of course claim that this isn’t much different from a *hold person* spell. If Conan fails his save against *hold person*, he’s helpless and can be killed in a round. In which case the garrote is a bit like a *wand of hold person* with unlimited charges, right? It’s very powerful. Specially compared to the lousy backstabbing thieves usually get: double damage in old school games.
I think I mostly settled on my interpretation of hit-points because I decided that hit-points was about luck, endurance, will to live, experience, toughness and **when you’re at zero then you’re giving up**. You have no more will to live. The next hit will kill you, or make you roll on the Death and Dismemberment table. That is when you force your enemies to submit.
Thus, in my game, I tell people that they need to reduce people to zero hit-points and then they can do with them what they want. That is, unless their enemies are suicidal in which case they’ll rather take the hit than submit. Submission is therefore being disarmed and giving up, or tripping and falling on your back and giving up, or being pushed over the edge and falling to your death. A *maneuver* is not an alternative to a *hit* for the attacker – *submission to the maneuver* is the alternative to *death* for the victim.
#RPG #Old School
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In your game, if Conan was a level 10 fighter, he would do 1d6 damage and even a lowly thief would have nothing to fear 😉 tag(mimimi)
– Stefan 2015-09-17 15:44 UTC
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We’ll, he might wield Frostbrand, wear a girldle of giant strength, and have his weapon enchanted by his cleric friend, and so he’d have a +6 to attack and deal 2d6+6 every round to everybody in range (because Frostbrand is a 2H sword). So it’s not *that* bad. 🙂
– AlexSchroeder 2015-09-17 15:50 UTC
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You mean to say that his strength would in fact come from a couple of awesome magical items? Then truly, a thief would be his nemesis!
– Stefan 2015-09-17 20:02 UTC
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Picking up the discussion of maneuvers in the comments to 2019-08-15 Deep Carbon Observatory Day 1, but moving it here as it seems more on point… and also noting that I am commenting largely for selfish reasons: by putting it here I know where to find it again in the future, and I trust your blog will survive Reddit et al (feel the pressure!).
2019-08-15 Deep Carbon Observatory Day 1
Odd Skull recently wrote about Combat Maneuvers, The Easy Way:
Combat Maneuvers, The Easy Way
You declare whatever thing you want to do and make an attack roll against your opponent. If you get a hit, the opponent has the choice to either let the maneuver happen, or take the regular damage of the attack per normal rules.
AFAICT this is exactly the rule from *Blood & Bronze*, with different wording. The interesting observation that I wanted to preserve comes later in the article (emphases theirs):
Did you notice how I said [in a preceding paragraph] *it’s up to your opponent if they’re willing to pay HP to prevent it*? That’s a bit of a turnaround, isn’t it? A different framing. You don’t take damage instead of accepting the maneuver – you pay HP to prevent the maneuver. With this change of frame, one could even **see this as the core combat system**, instead of an exception, **assuming regular lethal attacks are just “killing my enemy” maneuvers**. You know, stuff like separating their head from the neck, poking some ventilation holes through their bodies or scratching their insides with a spear. The opponent then, of course, chooses to pay HP to prevent it. Until they reach 0 HP, of course.
– Björn Buckwalter 2022-01-04 08:11 UTC
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I like it! Thanks.
– Alex 2022-01-04 10:58 UTC
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Sorry for being repetitive (largely for the reasons mentioned in my comment above), but here is the same idea expressed for 5e in 2020-09:
the same idea expressed for 5e in 2020-09
HP is no longer “meat points”; it’s points that you spend in order to avoid getting hurt.
“The skeleton is about to chop off your arm with her shortsword!”“Clang! I block with my own sword!”“OK, it costs 1d6+2 HP to do that.”
You are getting exhausted as you are trying to stave off death.
You can describe all kinds of defensive stunts, rolls etc, as long as you are able to pay. They don’t cost actions, reactions or bonus actions, they just cost HP.
The nice twist is that, rather than the abstract “I pay HP to prevent it” of my previous comment, this framing encourages players to describe what they are actually doing to prevent the hit.
FYI the article elaborates a bit on how to deal with additional effects on top of HP loss, such as ghouls paralyzing, in the *‘Messy’ Attacks* section.
– Björn Buckwalter 2022-02-22 07:29 UTC
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I appreciate that a lot, Björn!
Alex, here's my take on thieves' backstab (for 5e and B/X)
– Sandra 2022-02-22 07:47 UTC
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Blood & Bronze guy is my pal (but I never read his game), I should ask him if he was inspired by my June 2019 version or if we came up with it independently.
– Sandra 2022-02-22 07:50 UTC
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The example you gave on Mastodon was very persuasive, Sandra. For my own notes: the player wants to aim a deadly shot at the dragon and takes aim, but since it still has 100 hp left, you say that the dragon can pay it off; the dragon is “a green fluttering chaos in the sky.” So the player keeps aiming, following the dragon, waiting for the perfect shot. And the dragon did in fact loose hp. It’s still a bit weird because all the names are now wrong: you roll “to hit” and “damage”. That makes me think we should find better words.
– Alex 2022-02-22 11:03 UTC