A Simple OSR Combat Maneuver System

I'm a big fan of combat maneuvers for spicing up combat.  I'm not a big fan of making them class abilities that only some characters can do, or only some characters can do effectively, as with the 5E battlemaster fighter, or the massive feat trees of Pathfinder.

When you ask OSR players what the best combat maneuver system is, the top answer seems to be the mighty feat of arms from DCC.  It's a cool feature, but a) it's a class feature that only fighters get, and b) it uses a single resolution system that treats all combat maneuvers as both equally difficult and mechanically identical.  I don't love that; disarming the BBEG should be harder than disarming a bandit.

I like the whole "rulings, not rules" spirit of the OSR, but I find that too often people overlook the middle ground between rules and rulings: guidelines.  So, here is a guideline-based combat maneuver system that I'll probably use for every OSR and D&D-derived game I ever run.

The idea is simple: any combat maneuver you can think of can be performed by any character, and they all get resolved via one of five methods.

1– Attack Roll

If a combat maneuver resembles an attack, or essentially is an attack, resolve it as an attack roll.  However, the DC is either the target's AC/defense, or the most relevant ability score, or their number of hit dice if they're a monster that doesn't have ability scores– whichever is higher.

If you're attacking something a lot smaller than the target, like trying to chop off their hand or knock their magic crown off their head, apply an additional called shot penalty– I'll cover that in my next post.  On the other hand, attack bonuses apply to these kinds of maneuvers, so fighters in most systems will be extra good at them.

Examples: Disarm attacks would fall into this category.  Disarming someone of a sword would be against AC, DEX or HD, whichever is higher, at a -2 called shot penalty– again, I'll explain called shots in the next post.

Bashing someone with your shield to shove them back would be against AC, STR or HD, with a size penalty for shoving something a whole size category bigger than you like an ogre.

2– Contested Roll

If both you and the target would be actively opposing each other, you both roll a relevant skill or ability score check, and the highest roll wins.

Example: Most grappling checks would fall into this category, including attempts to wrest a held object away from someone.  Generally they'd be a strength roll, though the target could arguably go with dexterity to avoid being grabbed in the first place; if grabbed, they'd have to use strength for subsequent rolls.

3– Target Makes a Save

With this resolution method, the person doing the combat maneuver doesn't have to roll anything, but their target has to make a save.  This is most appropriate if the combat maneuver takes very little skill by the person doing it, and it's more so a question of the target dodging or resisting it.

Examples: you throw blinding powder into the face of the guy in front of you.  That's not hard for you to do; the question is whether he reacts fast enough to close his eyes or turn away in time.  So a DEX save or save vs breath weapon for the target.

Using a telepathy power "off-label" to befuddle enemies by spamming them with psychic communications could maybe fall into this category too; wisdom save or save vs magic.

4- Unopposed Roll

Some combat maneuvers will have you interacting with the environment rather than directly interacting with the enemy.  In this case, it's just a simple ability score or skill check.

Examples: If you want to shove a door closed to block the enemies from coming through it, that's a strength check.  If you want to wirelessly hack the lights in the room to turn them off, that's an intelligence check or hacking skill check or whatever.

5- Combination of Two Methods

Some combat maneuvers will be a bit more complex, and require combining two separate methods, one after the other.  This makes the odds of success lower.  Depending on what's being attempted, that might make perfect sense, or you might want to assign a lower DC to each to make up for having two rolls.

Examples: If you want to swing from a rope into an enemy and kick them in the chest, that's a dexterity check to swing on target, then an unarmed attack roll to hit the enemy.  This is a really risky maneuver so no bonuses to anything, although if you critically succeed on the dexterity check you could get advantage on the attack roll.

If you want to tip over a bookshelf onto the enemies on the other side of it, that's a strength check to do so, and then they make a DEX save or save vs breath weapon or devices to avoid getting crushed.  The strength check will depend on how heavy the bookshelf is; the saves may or may not get penalties, depending on how hard it seems like it should be to dodge.

Since these resolution methods aren't class-based, they give everyone in the party something to do in combat provided they're clever about finding ways to use their character's skills or strongest ability scores.

If you do decide to use this you could maybe give the martial classes bonuses to combat maneuvers; I'm going to do something like that for my post-apocalyptic game.  Just don't overdo it to the points where only the fighters are good at this, since the point is to reward smart players rather than strong characters.

If you do use this, let me know in the comments how it worked.

Welcome to Cyborgs and Sorcerers!

So, I've finally done it.  After thinking about it for like a year, I've finally started my own OSR blog.  I'm going to take this opportunity to briefly introduce myself and list off a few of the things I'm working on.

My name is John, and I'm sort of a professional blogger, in a different industry.  Maybe I'll share more about that in the future.  I live in Los Angeles.

I started my role-playing career with Shadowrun of all things.  I loved it at the time but now, like most people who are familiar with Shadowrun, I love the concept but can't tolerate the mechanics.  Especially the 6th edition that just came out– dear lord.

I'll probably never play Shadowrun again, but it has definitely informed my play style for other games.  It's also informed my interest in settings– I really like stuff that blends sci-fi and fantasy, hence the name of this blog. 

I finally got around to trying D&D– specifically, both 5E and Pathfinder– a few years ago.  I enjoyed them, but after learning about the OSR I realized that that was the play style I was already gravitating towards in the other games I was playing, and immediately fell in love with the idea.

So far I've only played OSR games over Discord, but that's about to change.  This month I'm starting up my first campaign– a slightly modified version of Esoteric Enterprises.

I've also been germinating a lot of ideas over the past year– here's what I've done at least some work on so far:

1.  My near-future cyberpunk hack of Esoteric Enterprises.  The rules are only slightly modified actually; it's more the setting that's changed a bit.  The game will take place in San Francisco in 2032, so as cyberpunk goes it's closer to Strange Days than Shadowrun.  This is just about done, and will be my first GMing experience other than a single session of Blades in the Dark two years ago.

2.  A post-apocalyptic sword and sorcery game.  Imagine a sword and sorcery type world a la Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser, which advances to a 22nd century level of technology, then there's an apocalypse and the survivors go all Mad Max.  That's the basic idea.  I'll probably run this sometime next year once the EE campaign is over.  This game uses a new rule system I came up with, still loosely based on B/X D&D.  I'll share some of the individual rules and content I've come up with for it here as time goes on.

3.  A new magic system.  Well, two.  One is a quick but weak spellcasting system that uses a verb-noun structure a la Ars Magicka, except it's both Vancian and free-form.  Hard to explain, but I'll share it sometime.  The other is a system for powerful ritual spells, closely based on the one in Silent Legions.

4.  A bunch of hacks and add-ons for the aforementioned rule system– vehicle and chase rules, cyberpunk rules, transhuman rules, Rogue Trader style starship rules, domain level play, etc.  I hope to get to run all of these some day.

5.  A ruleset for running an SCP Foundation game.  This one I might never actually do– rules are easy enough to make, but I'm not sure how to design missions in that sort of setting.  I'll probably publish some of the stuff I came up with here though.

6.  A ton of random tables, mission generators, and the like.  So far I'm mostly designing them for the EE campaign, so I'll share them when I can do so without spoiling anything for my group.

7.  A bunch of monsters, magic items and stuff, which I'll share when I can without spoiling anything for my group.

There's probably other stuff I'm forgetting, but that's what you can expect from me over the next few months, at least.

By the way, that Esoteric Enterprises cyberpunk campaign is open table and I'm looking for more players, so if you're in the Los Angeles area and interested, hit me up.

-John