Having Fun with Combat

[Sacrieur]

Because seriously people, I see, FAR too often people who are melee fighters, even acrobatic ones with mobility awesomeness charge + attack -> full attack until dead.

It makes combat boring and repetitive. How many of you guys actually do fun stuff with combat? Like tripping, feinting, grappling, tying shoes together, etc...

Example: I ran at an enemy, did a flip over them, landed behind them, and then attacked them. Ever try to knock someone prone and then jump and attack down with a sweet downward stab finishing blow? I have. I was having so much fun with it I didn't even care if I was hitting or not-- it was fun.

What about you beloved playgrounders?

[holywhippet]

Well, I recall one battle where the party fighter got seperated from the group by the BBEG (well, mid level BBEG) in solo combat. He was a spiked chain specialist and he made some comment like "That's a nice sword, I might just take it from you". He then tried a disarm attempt, failed, the enemy attacked and dropped him to negative HPs.

Now this enemy was basically a follower of some dark god and had been murdering people and carving a symbol into their chest. So he stood over the downed fighter, pulled off his chest armour and began making a craft: evil symbol check.

Thankfully the rest of the party had finished off the other enemy (some kind of monster thing, no idea what it was other than roughly humanoid) and rather than head of for celebratory drinks we noticed our fighter was missing and came looking for him.

[NichG]

Tome of battle stuff tends to be more strategic and varied than a standard full attacker. It's good at power levels where the full attack option isn't that more attractive damage-wise than stuff you can do as a ToB character, but if you're playing with 8-natural-attack druid meleers and things like that then even the ToB stuff can lose its attractiveness.

If the DM is on board with stunting that can help too, but they have to have a good understanding of the mechanics and probability so they can make the stunt worth the increased chance of failure and situational nature. On the other hand, if the DM miscalculates that it can be really disappointing (e.g. I was in a game where a player made a number of special combo moves but he never managed to actually pull them off successfully since rather than getting four chances to hit, he had to succeed on two successive die rolls and could only try once per combo setup).

I sort of like 7th Sea combat styles for this actually. There's a lot of subtlety in some of the options you get there, and they can make for an actual interesting duel between fighters. For example, one of the Vodacce schools lets you make interrupting counter-attacks but you need to reserve action dice to do so - if the other guy figures out you're reserving action dice to counter, he might try a feint of some sort to get you to waste them on interrupts, and then strike when you're out. Or he might just circle until next round and hope to end up with a few action dice that came before yours, and force you to pay the 2-for-1 to pull your counter trick using future actions.

[McSmack]

I usually handle this kind of stuff 'in the fluff' as it were. Melee combat isn't just 'you hit' 'you miss'. I try to give actiony details about what happens.

The paladin's roll was 1 below the enemy's AC so his blow carves a deep gash in the enemy's armor right over his heart.
The rogue rolled a 2 on his attack so the enemy slams his shield into the rogue's wrist nearly disarming him!

I've also found one thing I really like for this is Paizo's critical strike and critical fumble card decks. Instead of normal crits/fumbles you pick a card, each card has various effects. Makes things really interesting.

I run in Eberron and I loves me some action points. So I try to give them out as temporary rewards for players who try to make combat more exciting and discriptive. I haven't had a lot of players make trip/disarm builds, which is kind of sad because they're so much fun.

[Curious]

Currently, I am playing a Dawnflower Dervish Fighter archetype wielding a scimitar. I have the two-weapon fighting feats, and use my fist as the off-hand weapon (this is re-fluffing, I'm actually using armor spikes). My usual tactic is to dash through the enemy lines like a whirlwind, using my off-hand attacks for trip attempts while cutting them up with my scimitar. It is awesome. At one point I knocked an enemy down, sliced his head off with an AoO, and then leaped over his falling corpse to take out two more enemies, all in my first turn. I have never had so much fun with a fighter. :smallsmile:

[Telasi]

I frequently take the Spring Attack/Bounding Assault/Rapid Blitz chain and max out my Tumble to make my fighter types more interesting to play. I also find a few Rogue levels is a wonderful way to add some versatility to a Fighter, both in and out of battle. Sure, you drop a point or two of BAB, but it's interesting and probably worthwhile, from my perspective (considering the benefits are a buffed Reflex save, a couple dice of Sneak Attack, Evasion, etc...).

Disarming and Karmic Strike + Combat Reflexes is a decent tactic against humanoids, though not quite as good against monsters.

Tome of Battle is an interesting way to get some variety in combat, too, if your DM is ok with it. Still prefer fighters, myself, but a handful of maneuvers and a stance or two never hurt anyone (except the enemy, of course).

[Lateral]

Personally, I like Tome of Battle in my melee. Also, tripping. The last two PCs I've played were both spiked-chain-tripping Warblades (one was 1st level, the other is a 9th level bardblade with a one-level dip into crusader for Thicket of Blades and a few goodies.)

Or Psychic Warriors. Or sneaky whisper gnome factotums. (Factota? It's not 'factoti', that would be 'factotus'.)