Martial Arts

[Mordacc]

Actually when i said Ki was a thing in the real world i meant our world earth as in here and now (but i also meant in my campaign world).  Just go to the library and look inot any martial arts books or books specifically on Ki and there is your independant proof.  

As far as Ki as a priority, i see how that might be tough, and i dont think it is a good idea to have it be like sorcery because it isnt at all.  I think that the ideas of maneuvers that temporarily boost your toughness (for Combat Ki for example) are good ideas.  There will also have to be alterations to the damage tables a bit since 8 pounds on certain parts of your neck will kill you (basically many martial arts teach you to locate weak points in your enemies and expliot them with little or no force).

[tauman]

Actually when i said Ki was a thing in the real world i meant our world earth as in here and now (but i also meant in my campaign world).  Just go to the library and look inot any martial arts books or books specifically on Ki and there is your independant proof.  

As far as Ki as a priority, i see how that might be tough, and i dont think it is a good idea to have it be like sorcery because it isnt at all.  I think that the ideas of maneuvers that temporarily boost your toughness (for Combat Ki for example) are good ideas.  There will also have to be alterations to the damage tables a bit since 8 pounds on certain parts of your neck will kill you (basically many martial arts teach you to locate weak points in your enemies and expliot them with little or no force).

Hmmm... I can find books proclaiming that the earth is flat, astrology is real, dowsing works, I can go on and on, but none of them are "proof." I have yet to see any objective book that shows proof (or even evidence strong enough to convince me to suspend judgement) that Ki is "real." Granted, I think it can help a student's visualization and understanding when explaing some of the abstract concepts of martial arts, but whenever a "master" tries to show some sort of mystic power or such using Ki, it's always some sort of parlour illusion (sometimes including self-delusion on the part of the "master").

The combat tables certainly do not need to be changed, unless the premise is that western martial artists and sword-fighters were untrained ruffians who used little or no skill in their martial endevours however, the evidence (and there is a LOT of it) would point to the contrary. Western practitioners certainly learned to exploit an opponent's weakness. Really, I don't see any evidence of the "secret knowledge" of Eastern Martial Arts that seems to be promoted. More to the point, none of the eastern martial masters I know claim that there are any "secrets" other than the knowledge and skill obtained through many years of practice of the art. The fantastic abilities often demonstrated during martial art tournament "half-time" shows are really just tricks--I know many of them, as my martial arts friends have told me how they do them (and how easy they are once you know the tricks). As an interesting aside, a perusal of western martial history will show that some western masters used the same techniques of self promotion (i.e. claiming knowledge of secret moves, etc.) as their eastern counterparts--but apparently they were all lost with the introduction of gunpowder :). Truly, the only secret knowledge is that obtained through practice and dedication. This in no way dispels any of my wonder at the skill level of some martial artists (eastern and western), but it is more an appreciation of the dedication and perseverance required to reach that level.

Now as for TROS, if one wanted to include supernatural Ki powers, I could see adding it as another SA trait. I seem to remember that the old RPG Bushido had some pretty good ideas on this based on accumulated Karma, Honor, etc. Sadly, Bushido is out of print...

-Steve

[Michael Tree]

Actually when i said Ki was a thing in the real world i meant our world earth as in here and now (but i also meant in my campaign world).) Just go to the library and look inot any martial arts books or books specifically on Ki and there is your independant proof.  

Ah, my mistake.  I thought your comment was a reminder of the "lets assume that in my world I'm right" agreement, to get the thread back on topic.

As for proof, books by people who created the theory behind it can hardly be considered to be independent proof.  It would be like referring to books by astrologers for independent proof that astrology can truly predict the future.

That said, whether certain martial arts techniques work through channeling ki energy, or through mental concentration and verified physiological processes is rather irrelevant.

[Mordacc]

Yes, as for arguing about whether Ki exists in the real world, thats one that wont end for a long time.  But, back to the original question, lets just assume that in my world Ki does exist.

[Bankuei]

Actually when i said Ki was a thing in the real world i meant our world earth as in here and now (but i also meant in my campaign world). Just go to the library and look inot any martial arts books or books specifically on Ki and there is your independant proof.

Mordacc, let's also not fan the flames shall we?  I think we all agree that some people do believe that Ki exists, and some people do not.  Let's drop the real world stuff.  Again, as I've said before, unless everyone wants to get together and personally verify what works and doesn't, all we have is a words vs. words thing on the net at this point.

Let's go with the basic concept that (as far as TROS is concerned), Ki exists, Ki can be trained/improved, and that it can be channeled for productive purposes.  If we're going to use what Ki is commonly attributed towards in real life, its used in the following purposes:

•Enhanced abilities(strength, endurance, toughness, health, etc.)
•Healing(stopping bloodloss, reducing/preventing shock, etc.)
•Sensing(opponent's intentions, "6th sense", etc.)
•Damage/disruptions(Stun/shock, more serious stuff, etc.)

This would be the primary uses of Ki, which makes it less flexible than magic, but depending on your "realism" level with it, you could claim anywhere from mild benefits("Look, surgery with just acupuncture, no anesthetic!") to anime levels of power("Super-Saiyan-Kamehamaha!").  It would be important to determine what levels are the limits within your campaign, what levels are the limits for humans(compared to, say, a unicorn or a dragon), and what the average human has.

One idea you might want to consider, is to consider Ki as a Proficiency unto itself, and the 4 categories listed above as individual skills.  You could then use the Ki pool and successes translate into extra dice for whatever kind of rolls would be associated with that sort of thing for, say the next 10 minutes game time or so.  

For example, if my warrior knows he's going to go into battle, perhaps he focuses his ki on resisting pain, shock and bloodloss.  So, he's got a Ki proficiency of 4 and a skill of Ki Healing at 8, and gets two successes.  For the next 10 minutes game time, he can take 2 off the amount of shock he receives,  or pain penalties per round(not cumulative).   Later, he gets cut, for a level 2 wound on the forearm, normally BL 5, shock 5, and pain 7-WP.  So for the first round, he takes 2 less shock than normal, and every round thereafter, he can either reduce the pain by 2(making it 5-WP for all intents and purposes) or else choose to use his power to give him 2 extra dice for BL rolls.

I think this works well, because just like learning to fight with any weapon, technically anyone could do it, although few will take the time to do so.  The KI pool could be improved as any proficiency, likewise with the individual skills. It also would use proficiencies, which is something the magic system does as well. Since it would be a proficiency, it would also link in nicely with the usual connection to healers/martial artists that you historically get.

This doesn't require an extra "priority" classification be made, and allows folks to create a wide range of character types, from the Ki healer to the weird guy who can sense everything(Wolverine-"I smell he's lying..."), and doesn't require jumping into the magic system in any fashion, or the character with the nasty Ki stun/pain/organ exploding sort of stuff as well.

In this way, Ki has potential to be used by everyone and anyone(China's Tai Chi, Chi Gung, and the Falun Gung come to mind), and that it is useful, but not the world altering be-all end-all that magic is.  Useful enough to learn and use, but not necessarily the most useful thing in all situations.

Chris

Edited for spelling and minor additional points.

[Thalaxis]

Edit: I think that mechanically speaking you are talking LARGE ASS combat pools for those masters, if you have a combat pool of 30 something in unarmed then TROS handles that well, and you are talking about a 65 year old MASTER. As for taking shotsin the jimmy, I suppose a major gift of "the special skill" would work....

My first thought was a few new schools (hand/foot manouvers would not be the same as comparable weapon manouvers; you'd not just stick your arm out to block an incoming sword, for example, and you would hit using your hand differently from with a sword), and a few new "weapons" to represent each martial art.

You could do a LOT of pretty realistic martial arts with just that little... it wouldn't take a significant number of new rules (if any), either.

[Thalaxis]

And frankly, yes, there are some eastern martial arts that are similar to western styles but pit a judo master against a greek wrestler or some other western fighter and i guarentee you jodu wins out.[/i]

And I guarantee you that it does not: the person that wins is going to be the one with the best combination of skill, speed, strength, and resolve. Judo in no way guarantees that... and neither does any other martial art, though in my experience Tae Kwon Do comes close to guaranteeing the opposite ;)

[Thalaxis]

By the way, the Ninjutsu hand-to-hand techniques are called NINpo, not Nimpo.   At least, that's what Shidoshi Shephen K. Hayes, the first American to learn Togakure-Ryu Ninjutsu says.

'N' and 'm' are represented by the same Hiragana or Katakana, so it is most likely nothing more than a difference in Romanizatin.

[Thalaxis]

Hmmm... I can find books proclaiming that the earth is flat, astrology is real, dowsing works, I can go on and on, but none of them are "proof." I have yet to see any objective book that shows proof (or even evidence strong enough to convince me to suspend judgement) that Ki is "real." Granted, I think it can help a student's visualization and understanding when explaing some of the abstract concepts of martial arts, but whenever a "master" tries to show some sort of mystic power or such using Ki, it's always some sort of parlour illusion (sometimes including self-delusion on the part of the "master").

Actually, it IS real... but the idea that Ki is some sort of mystical power is the error. What it really amounts to is focus, balance, relaxation... a combination of physical elements, and is really a term rooted in Zen and Buddhist  philosophy more than anything else.

Miyamoto Musashi's concept of the Void is the same thing; the Void is a way of meditating and focusing one's mind on the task at hand... again very real, but also nothing mystical or even mysterious.

The reason that this tends to comes across as a "secret" to the untrained is that the teachers of old didn't want outsiders to understand what they were doing. If you take a close look at how Aikido works, they talk a lot about Ki (it is after all the "way of Aiki"), but the techniques are based on the physics of human bodies -- which is why they work. Part of it has psychological, though; some of them work through deceiving the opponent.

Either way, Ki IS real... but it's a skill that anyone willing to take the time and put in the effort can learn.

(And no, I don't for a minute believe the tripe about a person taking a full-on blow to the throat and not even flinching... the skill of Ki allows you to use your body, not alter it.)

[GreatWolf]

My first thought was a few new schools (hand/foot manouvers would not be the same as comparable weapon manouvers; you'd not just stick your arm out to block an incoming sword, for example, and you would hit using your hand differently from with a sword)

Warning:  I'm going to start off by nitpicking, but there's actual rules application coming.

I studied aikijutsu for a while, which was the battlefield fighting of the samurai.  Not long enough to be any good, mind you, but enough to get the basic concepts.  In this style, you *do* block against swords with your arm(1), and strikes are intended to be performed very similarly to swordwork.  (Most aiki "blocks" are actually forms of expulsion, BTW.)  Part of the point of the art was to be able to switch between sword fighting and unarmed fighting without changing mental gears too much, which is useful if you are in the middle of a battle and your katana gets knocked out of your hand.

Does this mean that aiki practitioners are superheroes somehow?  Please.  My sensei would have laughed at that.  (He once noted that someone with a beer bottle could ambush a martial artist and win, if the attacker achieved surprise.)

What it *does* mean, though, is that no new maneuvers really need to be invented.  The disadvantage of fighting an armed man is already factored into weapon length penalties and the limb damage used when blocking a weapon with your arm.  So I'd just suggest constructing proficiencies for different schools using the maneuvers already in place.  I don't think that there needs to be as much variation as you are suggesting.

Seth Ben-Ezra
Great Wolf

(1)  To be clear, this is *not* supposed to be against the blade itself, although some techniques are designed to minimize damage from a blade (blocking with the bony ridge of the forearm, for instance) in case you do get hit.  As my sensei noted, if you're in a fight with someone with a blade, it's not a matter of if you will get cut; it's a matter of when.

[Thalaxis]

What it *does* mean, though, is that no new maneuvers really need to be invented.  The disadvantage of fighting an armed man is already factored into weapon length penalties and the limb damage used when blocking a weapon with your arm.  So I'd just suggest constructing proficiencies for different schools using the maneuvers already in place.  I don't think that there needs to be as much variation as you are suggesting.

Given that I wasn't trying to suggest all that much variation, that says quite a bit about how well the system was designed in the first place.

Actually, when you describe it that way, I can see where you're coming from; the techniques may not quite identical, but they're not different enough to make a mechanical difference.

The main reason that I thought a few additional manouvers might be good is that in my training of Goju (karate) and Kobudo (weapons), we find that while they largely share techniques (when you compensate for having a weapon in your hand, changing your grip doesn't change how you actually punch, for example), some things like grabs and arm bars are just a LOT harder with weapons than with bare hands... though that might be properly accounted for via a "weapon" instead of a new manouver, even so.

(1)  To be clear, this is *not* supposed to be against the blade itself, although some techniques are designed to minimize damage from a blade (blocking with the bony ridge of the forearm, for instance) in case you do get hit.  As my sensei noted, if you're in a fight with someone with a blade, it's not a matter of if you will get cut; it's a matter of when.

That's about what all of my teachers have said, though they also went as far as to add "how badly".

[Nick the Nevermet]

I would express strong ki as a combination of a high combat pool and a large amount of SAs.  Its a combination of skill and mental state.

The point I want to add to this discussion is that in my view, the Savaxon berzerker, the faith-powered paladin, a Fahal zealot, and the eastern warrior are all expressed in mechanically equivalent ways (IMHO, of course).  Roleplaying them would be totally different, but functionally, if one wants a combat oriented character capable of absolutely awe-inspiring feats, the rules are in place already.

hmm.
i've been lurking so long, I forgot how to write a good post.  sorry.

[Mike Holmes]

The main reason that I thought a few additional manouvers might be good is that in my training of Goju (karate) and Kobudo (weapons), we find that while they largely share techniques (when you compensate for having a weapon in your hand, changing your grip doesn't change how you actually punch, for example), some things like grabs and arm bars are just a LOT harder with weapons than with bare hands... though that might be properly accounted for via a "weapon" instead of a new manouver, even so.

I'd make it two sets of skills that closely defaulted to each other. Some, perhaps at zero penalty?

Mike

[tauman]

Hmmm... I can find books proclaiming that the earth is flat, astrology is real, dowsing works, I can go on and on, but none of them are "proof." I have yet to see any objective book that shows proof (or even evidence strong enough to convince me to suspend judgement) that Ki is "real." Granted, I think it can help a student's visualization and understanding when explaing some of the abstract concepts of martial arts, but whenever a "master" tries to show some sort of mystic power or such using Ki, it's always some sort of parlour illusion (sometimes including self-delusion on the part of the "master").

Actually, it IS real... but the idea that Ki is some sort of mystical power is the error. What it really amounts to is focus, balance, relaxation... a combination of physical elements, and is really a term rooted in Zen and Buddhist  philosophy more than anything else.

Miyamoto Musashi's concept of the Void is the same thing; the Void is a way of meditating and focusing one's mind on the task at hand... again very real, but also nothing mystical or even mysterious.

The reason that this tends to comes across as a "secret" to the untrained is that the teachers of old didn't want outsiders to understand what they were doing. If you take a close look at how Aikido works, they talk a lot about Ki (it is after all the "way of Aiki"), but the techniques are based on the physics of human bodies -- which is why they work. Part of it has psychological, though; some of them work through deceiving the opponent.

Either way, Ki IS real... but it's a skill that anyone willing to take the time and put in the effort can learn.

(And no, I don't for a minute believe the tripe about a person taking a full-on blow to the throat and not even flinching... the skill of Ki allows you to use your body, not alter it.)

Well put! I absolutely agree with what you say, so I think I'll have to backtrack on my statement somewhat. Given your use of the term 'Ki', I can't argue with you at all. However, in the context of my post, I was really talking about the extreme stuff (blows to the throat, "sustain blows that are fatal to others", etc), that I just don't buy. I guess I should have qualified my statements somewhat.

--Steve

[Thalaxis]

Well put! I absolutely agree with what you say, so I think I'll have to backtrack on my statement somewhat. Given your use of the term 'Ki', I can't argue with you at all. However, in the context of my post, I was really talking about the extreme stuff (blows to the throat, "sustain blows that are fatal to others", etc), that I just don't buy. I guess I should have qualified my statements somewhat.

20 years of training would lead me to agree with not buying it any more than you do, especially since my sensei trained under a National Treasue of Japan... and I was fortunate enough to learn a kata from him personally before he died.

(I'm just glad that I had a chance to meet him.)