WodenKrait wrote:
A concept I've been toying with (but can't quite get working right) is to forget the old 'dumb luck' critical hit mechanic, or at least de-emphasise it, in favour of a kind of gambit system. To use this, an attacker may voluntarily gamble some of his Attack skill, reducing it for that round. If he still succeeds in the attack, he may convert what he gambled into boosted Armour Bypass, or Damage, or whatever. A very skilled fighter facing off against a peasant could therefore rapidly dispatch his lesser foe by risking big on each attack. A defender may choose to gamble Defence to boost Armour Bypass or reduce damage. To make this meaningful the players would have to describe this in real-world terms (e.g. "I'm going to stab straight at the jugular. I'll sacrifice five points of Attack and put them towards damage", or "I'll twist and take the blow on my heavy pauldrons. I'm giving up 3 points of Defence and putting it towards AF")
Dragon Warriors, in a few places, hints at a system of aimed attacks, where one can target a specific body part at a penalty to Attack (for example, see the description of the Winged Snake in the Bestiary) or by making a follow-up Reflexes test (for example, see the description of Golem in the Bestiary). Sadly, as is the case with a lot of these ad hoc rules throughout Dragon Warriors, there is not a consistent mechanic for resolving this kind of combat manoeuvre.
Given that Attack increases with training, and it's reasonable to expect accuracy in combat to increase with practice (rather than be based on an ability that remains relatively static throughout an adventurer's career, like Reflexes), I favour an approach whereby a combatant can deliberately handicap their Attack score to perform some enhanced attack (such as targeting a specific location). I would also extend this to aiming for unarmoured locations. For example, consider that leather armours probably cover little more than the body, thighs and upper arms, so maybe a -3 to hit to automatically bypass armour is appropriate. Chain, maybe -5 and Plate -7. I think I remember reading somewhere that to strike a ring on a sorcerer's finger is -8 Attack, but I'll be beggared if I can remember where I read that now...
I'd also allow a trade between Attack and Defence of 3 points from one, to give an advantage to the other to indicate whether the character is fighting aggressively or cautiously. I'd also be fine with professions with little combat training (like sorcerers and elementalists, for example) being unable to make these trades - they have one fighting style and are stuck with it!
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