Important fights in this campaign are modelled after the interests of each player, with the next big combat session being for the player who loves the ace attorney games. I would like to run the fight in a style reminiscent of this but have no clue how it would work- could i allow people to fudge their rolls but risk a penalty if they get caught lying?
If context helps at all, the fight will be with a champion of a chaotic god that made a deal with the bbeg purely to get the chance to fight the legendary (dragonborn fighter pc), so the fight will be non lethal-
(Note that I'm not familiar with Ace Attorney.) You could try making it a skill challenge rather than a traditional combat. If you're planning there to be actual court proceedings, a skill challenge would allow your players to make deception and persuasion checks, or maybe history or insight checks, to argue their case.
If you've never run a skill challenge before, it's basically a scenario where there is a (usually time-sensitive) clear-cut goal that the party has to achieve X number of successes before Y number of failures to get to the victory condition. A good skill challenge involves consequences for successes and failures during each round. Matt Colville has a good video on this, if you're interested.
When I run skill challenges, I will sometimes allow spells and combat actions to replace skill checks. (Say, for example, the party's trying to infiltrate a gala and the wizard decides to cast Suggestion to get past the guards. I might let that count as an auto-success for the round if the guard fails the save and the suggestion is reasonable.) The point of skill challenges is to allow flexibility and reward creativity in solving goal-specific encounters. Could be a decent fit for your needs.
I know nothing about Ace Attorney, but I am a litigator, so I know a thing or two about court proceedings. I am not entirely sure why you would want to do a court themed fight, as opposed to a court themed set of skill checks (as theologyofbagels discussed above). However, I will proceed on answering based on the assumption you are doing a combat encounter, as that is the assignment.
I think fudging rolls is a fairly bad idea - while I assume you are going for an "objection" theme, fudging rolls is not particularly hard to do without giving a tell, so you will really just end up with a lot of people trying to get away with it and never ending "objections." Best case, I foresee that devolving into a rather unfun set of gameplay loops... worst case, you break trumps and folks realize they might be able to get away with it in other situations as well.
If you want to do a different mechanism for objections, I would use two different phases to the encounter. The first would take influence from the discovery process--the process in litigation where each side exchanges information and documentation to prepare for trial. For this, you could put the players in an environment where they are able to research and learn about the spells their opponent is using. List all these spells they could find in advance and save them. Through searching books, records, etc. they can identify a set number of spells the boss has at their disposal. In the fight itself, if they correctly identify the boss is using a spell that was not in the room, then they can use a reaction to object, countering the spell if correct. If the spell is something that was disclosed (even if they did not find it), it deals double damage--having a penalty in addition to the reaction cost will encourage players to be more careful in objecting.
Another aspect you could add to the fight is a degree of advocacy. Perhaps the players need to convince the boss that their side of a dispute is correct. While the fight is going on, they also have to do various checks to state their case and convince the boss--while the boss is also trying to undermine their arguments through counterarguments. Speaking from experience, adding a dialogue like this can make for a fun, unique combat (I did this recently where they had to convince a reluctant sentient weapon to side with them to kill an otherwise unkillable enemy). The efficacy of this is going to really depend on (a) your skill at quickly responding to arguments, including ones you did not expect and (b) your players' skill to make such arguments. It worked in my group because that is what I do professionally, so I felt confident in my ability to play the sentient weapon, and because one of the players was an attorney, so they also had that ability (and helped the other players, who were not as strong on this skill). You know yourself and your group, so you should make a determination on whether this would be something that would work for you all.
I second/third that this would be better as a high-stakes Skill Challenge rather than combat. Ace Attorney games are known for over-the-top characters and intense, but usually silly, plots and plot twists. If I were you I'd bring out some classic tropes but really ham them up. (The sullen punk is actually a really good person, the seemingly well to do business man has a shady past in the Mafia, that sorta thing)
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I know what you're thinking: "In that flurry of blows, did he use all his ki points, or save one?" Well, are ya feeling lucky, punk?
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Important fights in this campaign are modelled after the interests of each player, with the next big combat session being for the player who loves the ace attorney games. I would like to run the fight in a style reminiscent of this but have no clue how it would work- could i allow people to fudge their rolls but risk a penalty if they get caught lying?
If context helps at all, the fight will be with a champion of a chaotic god that made a deal with the bbeg purely to get the chance to fight the legendary (dragonborn fighter pc), so the fight will be non lethal-
(Note that I'm not familiar with Ace Attorney.) You could try making it a skill challenge rather than a traditional combat. If you're planning there to be actual court proceedings, a skill challenge would allow your players to make deception and persuasion checks, or maybe history or insight checks, to argue their case.
If you've never run a skill challenge before, it's basically a scenario where there is a (usually time-sensitive) clear-cut goal that the party has to achieve X number of successes before Y number of failures to get to the victory condition. A good skill challenge involves consequences for successes and failures during each round. Matt Colville has a good video on this, if you're interested.
When I run skill challenges, I will sometimes allow spells and combat actions to replace skill checks. (Say, for example, the party's trying to infiltrate a gala and the wizard decides to cast Suggestion to get past the guards. I might let that count as an auto-success for the round if the guard fails the save and the suggestion is reasonable.) The point of skill challenges is to allow flexibility and reward creativity in solving goal-specific encounters. Could be a decent fit for your needs.
I know nothing about Ace Attorney, but I am a litigator, so I know a thing or two about court proceedings. I am not entirely sure why you would want to do a court themed fight, as opposed to a court themed set of skill checks (as theologyofbagels discussed above). However, I will proceed on answering based on the assumption you are doing a combat encounter, as that is the assignment.
I think fudging rolls is a fairly bad idea - while I assume you are going for an "objection" theme, fudging rolls is not particularly hard to do without giving a tell, so you will really just end up with a lot of people trying to get away with it and never ending "objections." Best case, I foresee that devolving into a rather unfun set of gameplay loops... worst case, you break trumps and folks realize they might be able to get away with it in other situations as well.
If you want to do a different mechanism for objections, I would use two different phases to the encounter. The first would take influence from the discovery process--the process in litigation where each side exchanges information and documentation to prepare for trial. For this, you could put the players in an environment where they are able to research and learn about the spells their opponent is using. List all these spells they could find in advance and save them. Through searching books, records, etc. they can identify a set number of spells the boss has at their disposal. In the fight itself, if they correctly identify the boss is using a spell that was not in the room, then they can use a reaction to object, countering the spell if correct. If the spell is something that was disclosed (even if they did not find it), it deals double damage--having a penalty in addition to the reaction cost will encourage players to be more careful in objecting.
Another aspect you could add to the fight is a degree of advocacy. Perhaps the players need to convince the boss that their side of a dispute is correct. While the fight is going on, they also have to do various checks to state their case and convince the boss--while the boss is also trying to undermine their arguments through counterarguments. Speaking from experience, adding a dialogue like this can make for a fun, unique combat (I did this recently where they had to convince a reluctant sentient weapon to side with them to kill an otherwise unkillable enemy). The efficacy of this is going to really depend on (a) your skill at quickly responding to arguments, including ones you did not expect and (b) your players' skill to make such arguments. It worked in my group because that is what I do professionally, so I felt confident in my ability to play the sentient weapon, and because one of the players was an attorney, so they also had that ability (and helped the other players, who were not as strong on this skill). You know yourself and your group, so you should make a determination on whether this would be something that would work for you all.
I'm here to second the suggested use of Skill Challenges!
That will give the table a simple mechanic to work with and open up their options on how each individual character will contribute.
I second/third that this would be better as a high-stakes Skill Challenge rather than combat. Ace Attorney games are known for over-the-top characters and intense, but usually silly, plots and plot twists. If I were you I'd bring out some classic tropes but really ham them up. (The sullen punk is actually a really good person, the seemingly well to do business man has a shady past in the Mafia, that sorta thing)
I know what you're thinking: "In that flurry of blows, did he use all his ki points, or save one?" Well, are ya feeling lucky, punk?