In Star Wars, jedi and sith (or sometimes jedi and jedi or sith and sith) will lock lightsabers, pushing with all their might to win the "saber lock". In Gears of War 2 you can get into a chainsaw duel with your lancers and furiously smash the B button as the teeth of your chainsaw bayonet rattle violently off the teeth of your opponent's chainsaw bayonet. In Emperor-knows how many fantasy and medieval-themed books, graphic novels, and films, heroes will cross swords and try to force their way through such a lock.

How would you deal with such a thing? I was thinking that since chain- and power-weapons (although I admit it would be strange to try it with a chainaxe) were the best weapons to use in such a situation as compared to two chainswords screaming at each other as they are locked by their combatants, a regular sword-lock just isn't as interesting. This was the idea I had:

1. You strike your opponent with your chainsword (0 degrees of success)
2. Your opponent parries your strike with his own chainsword (1 degree of success)
3. This normally doesn't matter, but as your opponent had more degrees of success than you, he can opt to put you both into a chainsword lock!
4. You both act as if you are grappling for the purposes of avoiding being hit by other combatants etc. The only action you can take is trying to break the lock or a psychic power (needs looking into, I'm not familiar with many psychic powers but burning someone's brain out with eyebeams while locked in a chainsword duel with them would be pretty cool)
5. To try to break the lock, both combatants make opposed WS tests. The winner adds one point to his "duel score" and one extra point for every degree of success over his opponent.
6. The first combatant whose "dule score" reaches 3, wins. They damage their opponent as if they had just struck them as normal. This does not count as their reaction this round.

I haven't even begun testing this. It's just an idea. The duel score might be way too low, but I was thinking that if both combatants keep drawing or failing that it could go on forever. Perhaps taking a Withdraw action could also break the duel, but your opponent gets a free attack as a Reaction anyway? Also, perhaps the WS test should be replaced with a Strength test. Or add your SB to your Duel Score and make the target score much higher like 8 or 10.

The same could also apply to power weapons because having two, loud, crackling weapons surrounded by energy fields would be awesome. Force-blade combat would be even better, although I'm sure you'd have to make Channelling tests or apply your WP instead of Strength or something.

Thoughts?

If your looking for a real world situation....

You would not do it.

I fought with swords for the last few years, in 13th century fencing styles (where your using large heavier blades then modern fencing foils, epee fencing would be closer) when the blades lock, you don't push, you twist, moving the tip arround your oponents sword (while probably moving yourself arround it as well for preference, like moving around a column) and cut him with the end 6 inches of blade, with a Chain Sword this would be even easier and much more deadly after all the blade will actually pull itself forwards!

However, if your talking "Movie Fighting" that would be SO COOL! :-)

I always wonder about dueling with Chain Swords, afterall, if the teeth lock for even a moment, all fecking hell would brea loose as the blade tries to jump out of your hand, it would be a ***** to fight with, and thats ignoring the weight balance!

Gears of War does fill the mind with visions of chainsword battles. I'd previously thought it'd crop up as "chainsword attacks, parry failed, chainsword battle added as dramatic fluff," but I might squirrel away those rules for a special occasion. I know one of my players will want a chain axe at some point.

John Do''h said:

This is why I said chainswords and power swords rather than regular swords. As you say, infinitely cooler. Also, you'd get an awesome sound effect of high-pitching screaming metal-on-metal! Besides, 40k is governed by The Rule of Cool anyway.

Also, chainswords are supposed to have multiple chains of teeth going in both directions, probably at different speeds; buzz, buzz, buzz. So when two chainswords connected - teeth would be catching and biting and glancing and bouncing all over the shop. You'd have to push and pull all the time to keep the chainblade from shooting around, dragging itself any-which-way; hence the lock and duel thing. You wouldn't be trying to move your sword around your opponents because it'd be catching on his chainsword's teeth all the time. You just have to keep pushing until one of you gets pushed back so much that their chainsword goes wild and you land a telling blow. Ouch.

At least, that's the way I see it.

John Do''h said:

Col. Commisar Ibram Gaunt would like a word with you.

While the ideas of a chainsword lock does sound cool, those mechanics will make it uncool.

First of all, it's a lot of dice rolling for something that should take a very short time. Ever seen a sabre lock last more than a few seconds? One opposed test should suffice. Say that this opposed test needs to succeed with two DoS of margin in favour of one or the other combatant to result in something else then both pulling away unharmed. And also allow the attacking party initiate a lock if his attack is parried but by less DoS than he got.

Secondly, it's not all in the skill, I'd prefer strenght to be the deciding factor, that way a weak but skilled fighter would want to defeat his foe with skill while the strong but unskilled fighter would go for the brute strenght approach a lock would provide. Or let the player choose which characteristic to make the test against. That way it's more than a cool approach, it can sometimes even be more or less useful than a normal attack.

Your method looks sound. The reason I wanted to post this here was so I could find a better way of dealing with chainsword/power sword locks.

I just didn't want the lock to be over and done with in a single round. I suppose getting two degrees of success over your opponent would make sense. It'd be tricky, tense, but quick. I'd want the locks to last for long enough for the appropriate threats and mid-combat banter, but short that they didn't stop two combatants from participating in anything else for the next week.

Well, you can say quite a lot in ~five seconds, it's not unrealistic to imagine about 2.5-3 words a second when speaking in shorter bursts. Fifteen words per round of sabre lock, that's a minor speech.

For example, Yoda vs. Dooku, "Fought well you have my old padawan" and "This is just the beginning" is exactly five seconds sabre lock when combined.

*edit* Upon further consideration I've deicded I favour the "choose characteristic" approach and actually quite like the idea a lot. I'll probably introduce my suggested ruleset on trial in the next game. It'll probably favour strong opponents somewhat and force the skilled fighters to go into more tactics such as feints and the like to avoid being beaten with pure strength, as it should be.

Graspar said:

Now that I think about it, yoda wouldn't win against anyone if it was purely strength based would he? Well, let's not dive into the physics of the Star Wars universe.

Anyway, if physically powerful characters beat weaker opponents more often in this sort of lock, I should think that, like you say, fients and such will become more common. Which is a good thing because combat shouldn't just be whoever rolls highest wins when it can be whoever thinks faster on his toes wins . Weaker characters will take the aim action more often and attempt things like fients and manouvres.

Headhanger said:

Well, there's that force bit and i'd bet both of them lean towards using more skill than brute strenght in a fight.

Vader... now there's a brute force fighter if I ever saw one in star wars.

That happened in one of the Horus Heresy books. IIRC, it destroyed both swords, or at least the chains of teeth came apart.

Letrii said:

You could have somebody's eye out with that thing!