x-in-6 Fighter Maneuvers for OSE

This one does what it says on the tin.

Damage and a maneuver? In this economy?! Well, yes. Inspired by the d6 thief skills in Carcass Crawler #1 by Necrotic Gnome, the house rules used in the 3d6 Down the Line Actual Play, and of course Mighty Deed of Arms from Dungeon Crawl Classics. I used it when I ran Old School Essentials earlier this year. Here's what it looks like.

Prowess
If a Fighter succeeds at an attack, in addition to dealing damage they can attempt one maneuver. The maneuver has to make sense; you couldn’t, for example, trip a flying opponent or a Gelatinous Cube.  
Push: Push the opponent 5 feet.
Trip: Knock the opponent prone.
Disarm: Strip the opponent of their weapon.
Intimidate: Force a morale check, as long as the opponent has not already passed two of them.
Ensnare: Prevent the opponent’s movement next turn.
Taunt: The opponent gets -2 to attacking anyone but the Fighter.

Each maneuver starts at a 1-in-6 chance. At 1st level, a Fighter has 6 expertise points to allocate.Every odd-numbered level thereafter, a Fighter gains 3 points to allocate.

 

Now, you may be asking yourself why. For many, the OSE (or B/X) Fighter is perfect as-is. If that's the case for you and your table, that's wonderful. However, mine is not convinced by the, "but they get magic swords!" argument. Especially when you consider the Fighting-Men in OD&D got all that and a bag of chips*. Besides, I love house-ruling and hacking the games I play with my friends. We have specific tastes, myself most of all, and our enjoyment takes precedent over a dogmatic adherence to the written word.

Others may be asking why as in, "why not just use Mighty Deed of Arms from DCC?" Some of my players struggle to come up with things when given something so open-ended. The structure of having six maneuvers to choose from emboldened their creativity. And the others pushed the boundaries of those limits, as they always do in any similar situation.

In other words, it worked for us. If you think it'd work for you and yours, try it out and let me know how it goes.

*Literally always being better at fighting than the other two classes, including multiple attacks much sooner if you used Chainmail.