Tricks

Tricks

Heroes often attempt fancy maneuvers or clever tricks to distract their foes and set them up for deadly follow-up attacks. This might include throwing sand in an opponent’s eyes, ducking between a tall foe’s legs to stab him in the back, and so on. Tricks do not include weapon feints—those are already “assumed” in a character’s Fighting and Parry scores.

To perform the trick, the player must first describe exactly what his character is doing. Next he makes an opposed Agility or Smarts roll against his foe. The GM must determine which is more appropriate based on the player’s description of the maneuver. If the character is successful, his opponent is distracted and suffers –2 to his Parry until his next action. With a raise, the enemy is distracted and Shaken as well. These penalties do not stack. Tricking a foe twice has no additional effect.

Example: Jack is backed into a corner by a very large and dangerous thug. Our hero pulls the oldest trick in the book. He says “Hi Genny!” and pretends to smile at someone behind his less-than-brilliant foe. He and the thug both make Smarts rolls, and Jack wins with a raise. The thug swirls about, expecting an attack from behind, and is momentarily Shaken. The unfortunate goon also suffers –2 to his Parry until his next action, giving Jack time for a quick rabbit punch that just might put the big fellow down.

There’s much more to combat than just stabbing someone, especially in a swashbuckling game like this. We make it extremely simple to simulate all manner of swashbuckling moves with one simple mechanic—tricks. Here’s some examples of typical swashbuckling tricks. Unless otherwise stated, these are agility tricks.

• Appel: a sudden stamp of the foot to distract your opponent.
• Backflip: using an obstacle, such as barrels, a cart,or even a wall, to help you flip over an opponent.
• Balesta: a sudden hop forward, either as the prelude to an attack or to catch an opponent off guard.
• Beat: slapping an opponent’s blade out of the way to leave his body exposed.
• Bind: encircling an opponent’s blade with your own. Designed to prevent him from moving his blade while you slide yours forward along his.
• Blind: this can be achieved by throwing sand or grog in a foe’s face. Slashing his forehead so he bleeds into his eyes works as well (as a trick this does no damage and therefore doesn’t require a called shot to the head).
• Corps a corps: French for “body to body”. This usually involves giving your opponent a shove to unbalance him.
• Flash (Smarts): a lady can distract a foe by flashing her cleavage or thigh. Only tends to work on men.
• Flick: a sudden movement of the blade designed to distract a foe.
• Pulling the rug: yanking a rug out from under a foe’s feet.
• Who’s that? (Smarts): the oldest trick in the book,but it still works.
• Z: Carving your initial into a foe’s clothing or cutting off his buttons.

This is not a complete list. A player's can come up with a trick on their own. They must describe it and the GM will determine what attribute to use and any bonus for Flare.