“I Attack the Goblin.” D&D Combat Can Be Much Better Than This

By JimmiWazEre

Opinionated tabletop gaming chap with a Yellow belt in Wado Ryu Karate. Lol.

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TL;DR:

D&D martial classes get stuck saying "I attack" while spellcasters get flashy options. The fix isn't a house rule, it's narration. Steal moves from a real martial art (or fake it with a simple formula) and every swing becomes a scene instead of a dice roll.

Introduction

A legitimate criticism often leveled at D&D is that the magic users get all these interesting attacks with an array of spells, whereas martial classes just attack.

The counter of course, is that there’s nothing stopping you from narrating a martial attack however you like. But is that fair? Do most people know how to describe the different moves a master swordsman or martial artist would make?

I Do Karate

I’m currently a player in a Curse of Strahd campaign, and for the first time ever - I’m playing a Monk. Almost immediately, I was faced with the aforementioned problem. But then I realised that not only do I know a whole bunch of kicks, throws, counters, blocks, and combinations thereof. I can sort of act them out a bit at the table for the lols.

That means when it's my turn and I want to perform a flurry of blows with two bonus action attacks, I get to spin a yarn: my right fist arcs across the goblin's temple in a hammer blow, then that same hand grips his stunned shoulder and hauls him in towards a gut punch from my left, before I plant my right foot on his knee and flip-kick him in the chin, settling back into position like some kind of superhero landing.

Sure, that last kick isn't any karate I actually know, but once you get confident making these rich descriptions it's hard not to let your imagination run away with itself. And just like that, "I make a flurry of blows attack and two bonus attacks" turns into an active contribution to the narrative of the battle being collectively spun at the table.

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You Don’t Need A Blackbelt!

You don't need a style or a belt to do this. Every attack description is really four ingredients:

1. The body part doing the work (elbow, knuckles, shin, shoulder)

2. The verb or direction it moves in (snaps, arcs, drives, sweeps)

3. The target (temple, ribs, back of the knee)

4. The effect (staggers, folds, drops, sends stumbling)

Mix and match those four and you'll never say "I hit it with my sword" again. "My pommel drives up under his jaw, snapping his head back" is just ingredient soup, and you don't need ten years of dojo time to cook it.

Here’s Some Basic Karate Terminology If You Want To Try Narrating It At The Table

| Oizuki | A punch driving from your waist, twisting at the end, and connecting with your opponent's stomach. |
| Gyakuzuki | Like Oizuki, but performed with your off-hand. |
| Mawashi Tetsui | An arcing hammer strike to the temple with the side of the fist. |
| Tate Shion Nukite | A lunging straight handed strike to the ribs with the hand open and palm down. |
| Mae Geri | A snapping forwards front kick (think the “This is SPARTAAA!” kick from 300) |
| Mawashi Geri | A Roundhouse kick |
| Sokuto Geri | A side kick |
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Conclusion

Whether you borrow my terminology, raid a martial art you actually know, or just build sentences out of the four ingredients above, the point's the same: the gap between martial classes and spell casters isn't in the rules, it's in the retelling, my dude! A flurry of blows is only ever as boring as the three words you use to describe it.

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