Martial Arts

[arxhon]

I'm happy to see this thread move into something more intelligent. The last thing i want to see is kewl powerz whether or not they are based on some kind of "real life".

Or you could just take the Accuracy gift.

I concur with Brian. Why create more rules and modifications than needed?

After all, it is much easier to aim with you limbs than with your weapons.

Jake may quibble. I honestly don't know, myself.

Shock attacks:
On a successful hit against an unarmored area, you can inflict extra Shock by spending extra CP. Each extra CP=1 extra shock. You can spend up to your proficiency.

I like this idea better than the previous one by Jon the Bastard, especially the "unarmored area" part. Some guy in chainmail isn't going to care much about you punching him. The guy in plate is going to laugh and wait for your hand to break.

Knives are not punches....(snip) We also don't use lots of kicks for one very good reason: If someone has something sharp, all you are doing is giving them a target

'Nuff said.

[Jon the Bastard]

I concur.    That puts the martial arts squarely into the manuvers realm.   Now, lets see if we can't start writing up some different martial arts.  Don't forget the training , or how the martial artis should prioritize their stats.

[arxhon]

Potentially usable maneuvers that are already in the game:

hook (footsweeps)
grapple
punch
kick
parry (if you are unarmed, may not be used at any range longer than hand....it's hard to parry a sword blade with your arm)
stop short
toss
thrust
double strike

and of course full/partial evasion and duck and weave

would the following work/fit?
simo block/strike
counter....from what i know, softer martial arts that redirect attacks against the aggressor may be good at this.
feints
bind and strike

that's actually most of the maneuvers in the game already.

By mixing and matching these you could come up with several styles right away. For example, karate, would lack grappling, judo would lack kicks and punches, and various styles of kung fu would have some of the maneuvers and lack others. There is already a lot of potential available.

I suggest working within the framework already established unless new maneuvers are absolutely necessary. New maneuvers should be comparable in power to current ones, should we decide they are even necessary. A punch is a punch is a punch, whether it is really called a "Dragon Claw Strike" or "Singing Willow Bows in the Wind", when you boil it down.

Despite my hacking on Mordacc (sorry dude), I am not averse to flashy eastern martial arts like you see in Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, Iron Monkey, or Jackie Chan/Bruce Lee flicks. A good example is from the Kill Bill trailer, where Uma Thurman thrusts at a martial artist, who in turn leaps up, stands briefly on the end of Uma's sword and then kicks her in the face. Mind you, this can already be done with current maneuvers as it is, say, a Duck and Weave, followed by a Kick to the head (area IV), with cool narration by the player/Seneschal. Nothing really spectacular in terms of SA's, Vagaries, Ki, etc. is happening, just a couple of standard maneuvers with some imagination.

On the other hand, ninjas just flying around in the sky at will, reflecting swords off their heads with nary a scratch and throwing fireballs like Ryu from SFII is a bit much, IMO. This is what I don't want to see, as it would cheapen the game considerably.

[Sneaky Git]

I'm the first to admit that I like my games gritty and "realistic" (I use this term loosely, but you all know what I mean).  Although a fan of HK Theater (how many of you remember fondly Kung Fu Theater Saturday afternoons?), to quote arxhon,

The last thing i want to see is kewl powerz whether or not they are based on some kind of "real life".

That is me, however, and I freely admit that others may feel differently.  To each his own.

It's obvious, however, that some here would like to see more of an Eastern flavor to their unarmed combat.  That being the case, I agree with arxhon's attempts to work within the system, rather than generating a new one.  TRoS is incredibly flexible, and that should be taken advantage of.

Potentially usable maneuvers that are already in the game:

hook (footsweeps)
grapple
punch
kick
parry (if you are unarmed, may not be used at any range longer than hand....it's hard to parry a sword blade with your arm)
stop short
toss
thrust
double strike

and of course full/partial evasion and duck and weave

would the following work/fit?
simo block/strike
counter....from what i know, softer martial arts that redirect attacks against the aggressor may be good at this.
feints
bind and strike

that's actually most of the maneuvers in the game already."

It would seem to me that practically any form of unarmed combat could be massaged out of this system, so long as one focuses on the specifics of a particular style.

Chris

[MrGeneHa]

Taking a note from the "Social Combat" thread, is anyone thinking of writing up specific style rules for various Martial Arts using current rules?

And I'm not just talking about Turkey Trot Shaolin Gong Fu, I'm talking about French Savate and the difference in focus between Spanish and Italian fencing styles.  I don't practice any Martial Art, but I've read that there are differences.  Are they large enough to get this specific?

Though perhaps it might pay to wait till we can read TFoB...

Gene Ha

PS  I think all this "spiritual" Asian martial artist stuff is crap.  Asian warriors were just as selfish, cruel, materialistic, and bawdy as their western counterparts.  SAMURAIS WEREN'T MONKS!  They slept around, with each other, with whores, mistresses, and little boys.  They drank too much, robbed the poor, fought, and pissed off the religious types.

Ditto Korean, Chinese, Thai, English, etc. warriors.  (I'm proudly Korean, thank you).

(Actually, the same is true of European and Asian monks).

There were deeply spiritual warriors, who thought their spiritual development was inseparable from their martial development.  In Europe and Asia.  But this was the exception.  But now we talk about "chivalry" and "Asian mysticism" as if they were the norm.

People often see foreign traditions as more pure.  Americans study Buddhism because it's more intellectual.  Some Chinese study Catholicism or Mormonism because it's more intellectual than the street Buddhism with which they grew up.

[Bob McNamee]

I wonder if it would be appropriate to add some sort of Proficiency (or something) like a "Martial Style and Counterstyle" idea.
In an eastern game require folks to take a style of combat or two...

making this up
Martial Art- Dragon-style (counters Snake?-style) giving a small bonus to the Character when fighting opponents using that style.

[GreatWolf]

Well, I'm probably going to kitbash an unarmed combat style together with my wife for her character, using the current maneuvers.  If/when I do that, I'll post the results here.

Seth Ben-Ezra
Great Wolf

[Ashren Va'Hale]

another idea, I was watching some UFC th othr day and I saw some muay thai  guy beat the tar out of a boxer and what it seemed to me was that the muay thai fighterkicked easier than the boxer but didn't puch as well, now brawling and grappling are proficiencies that theoretically allow you to toss teh same amount o dice for any attack within the proficiency but different schools focus on different aspects ofthe fight. SO, in game terms you could lower or raise atn's and dtn's for punches and kicks as befits the style in question. This would allow you to simulate the ease of the boxers punch and the crappiness of his kicks while doing the reverse for the muay thia and I apologize for butchering teh spelling...

[svenlein]

maybe the muay thai guy had a higher proficiency or attributes or maybe his grandmother's dying wish was for him to win the UFC tournament and when he was born a twin tailed comet flew over head and it was prophesied that he who was born under the twin tailed comet would become the greatest fighter in the world, so this muay thai guy might have a lot of SA's going for him.

My bet is he trained harder and longer and better than the boxer, but you can go and lower his ATN if you wish, go ahead, ruin the game ... ( :) just kidding, lower the ATN if you want to it should be fine for your world)

You could say that maybe the muay thai school had a better teaching program than the school the boxer went to?  But since in TROS you get better at fighting through SAs and not practice it won't mater.  (unless your Drive is: practice all the time, then practice might build your SAs)

Scott

[Ashren Va'Hale]

what I specifically meant was that if you want to model a kick based martial art where in fighters train to kick and use kicking attacks then teh activation costs for kicks or kick ATN/dtn would be lower than a punched based style and perhaps you could alter the activation costs for various maneuvers depending on how they fight withthe particularstyle.
This is my suggestion for those who want to differentiate some of the different schools as was mentioned earlier in the thread. Hope that helps to clarify.

[MrGeneHa]

I'd love to see something like the GURPS Maneuver system in TRoS.

Some styles prefer kicks, some prefer punches.  Some sword styles use the same weapons, but advocate stabs over swings.  Some way of buying down a TN would be really interesting to me.

Of course, that could get really cinematic really quick ("My Paladin Dragonblood Oakenhedd has a TN of 4 for Duck and Weave!  He rules!").

Gene Ha

[arxhon]

Ok,
I see no problem with mucking with activation costs. There's already precedent (check grappling under the wrestling proficiency and compare it to the other proficiencies AC for grappling).

On the other hand, buying down TN's is a dangerously slippery slope, as MrGeneHa already demonstrated (thanks, BTW).

Being better at something is reflected in having a higher proficiency, not lowering the TN. A punch is already at ATN 5 (pretty low, actually).....whether you have a level 1 prof. or a 12 prof. The level 12 means you are better with it, meaning you are more likely to hit, and more likely to cause damage. This is why there are proficiency levels in the first place.

Modeling the kick based martial art would be as simple as giving them the following maneuvers:

Kick
Hook
Stop Short
Feint
the usual evasions and duck&weave

and possibly
Toss

I'm still seeing the idea of making an unarmed fighter better than one carrying a sword floating around here. Why is this? Is it just me?

[Jake Norwood]

I'm still seeing the idea of making an unarmed fighter better than one carrying a sword floating around here. Why is this? Is it just me?

Yesterday I was sparring a guy. He had a greatsword, I was unarmed (well, I threw my gloves at him, but it didn't get me too far). I beat him by waiting for him to thrust, setting his attack aside, disarming him, and "stabbing" him in the back with his own sword as he tried to grapple with me. This guy had about 5 inches of height on me, and a few pounds. Why did I beat him?
1. Luck. I'll admit it. I got lucky.
2. Skill. I've been doing this for a long time now, and I'm pretty darn good. He's been at it for about 6 months (but he's good for how long he's been here).
3. Understanding. I know how the greatsword works, and where it's weak spots are. He knew what I'd try to do to get in (and kept me at bay for a long time), but he misjudged the effect of his thrust.

That's the thing. If I was fighting me, I'd have gotten creamed. The skill of the fighter is 80% of the equasion. "School" is 20% at best. In TROS terms my CP was a lot higher than his--enough that I could afford to get past his range and his CP, but only enough that it required luck. If I were to take on another guy of my level (same CP, so to speak), then I'd have been toasted 4 times out of 5. Weapons were invented because they're better than bare hands. "If you fight a guy with a knife, expect to get cut" is the popular saying. "Ha," I say, "not if my knife is a lot longer!"

Jake

[arxhon]

Yesterday I was sparring a guy. He had a greatsword, I was unarmed (well, I threw my gloves at him, but it didn't get me too far).

Hehehe....a Toss. :-) Cool. Throw that into available maneuvers. That leaves simo block/strike, feints and counters as "up in the air".

I'm still seeing the idea of making an unarmed fighter better than one carrying a sword floating around here. Why is this? Is it just me?

In retrospect, i guess it sounds like i'm saying "Buddy with a sword should always win against an unarmed dude." This isn't what i'm trying to say.

This is:
What i'm seeing, IMHO, is a lot of "Asian martial arts are superior and will always win against western martial arts.", with various ways of trying to make it so (super powers, lowered ATN, some kind of shock attack thingie).

If I was fighting me, I'd have gotten creamed. The skill of the fighter is 80% of the equasion. "School" is 20% at best. In TROS terms my CP was a lot higher than his--enough that I could afford to get past his range and his CP, but only enough that it required luck. If I were to take on another guy of my level (same CP, so to speak), then I'd have been toasted 4 times out of 5.

You won because, as you said, you are better than him and have a greater understanding of a greatsword's capabilities. In TROS terms,your higher proficiency in Greatsword defaulted to a Grappling proficiency that was more or less equivalent to his proficiency in Greatsword (an interesting use of defaults, btw).

I'm also saying that a skilled martial artist (of either end of the continent) is skilled because he has a greater Combat Pool, not because of kewl powerz, lowered ATN's or whatever. This is what i want to avoid, personally. A white belt in kung-fu destroying a Knight of the Round Table in full plate simply because the white belt knows some kung-fu is, well, in a word, lame. A 10th dan black belt on the other hand, might have a pretty good go, though he'd probably do what you did (grapple, disarm, turn weapon), rather than try to punch the knight out.

Please don't get me wrong. I'm all for kung-fu, karate and wing chun. I love Jackie Chan movies. I love Bruce Lee movies. I want to see flashy martial arts. I love Asian martial arts.

But i also want gritty bloody brutal no holds barred desperate realistic combat, which is what drew me to TROS in the first place.

i'm positive flashy Asian martial arts can be modeled within the TROS combat system already. There's no need to create a whole pile of new rules (i am reminded of Dark Sun and the Psionics Handbook......too many new rules, ugh....) to do it.

I'm going to quote myself here:

A good example is from the Kill Bill trailer, where Uma Thurman thrusts at a martial artist, who in turn leaps up, stands briefly on the end of Uma's sword and then kicks her in the face. Mind you, this can already be done with current maneuvers as it is, say, a Duck and Weave, followed by a Kick to the head (area IV), with cool narration by the player/Seneschal. Nothing really spectacular in terms of SA's, Vagaries, Ki, etc. is happening, just a couple of standard maneuvers with some imagination.

This is what i'm on about. The tools are already there. We just have to apply them imaginatively. However, I've been on about it long enough, I'm sure, so i'll turn it back over to the original topic.

Weapons were invented because they're better than bare hands.
"If you fight a guy with a knife, expect to get cut" is the popular saying. "Ha," I say, "not if my knife is a lot longer!"

LMAO!

[Brian Leybourne]

A good example is from the Kill Bill trailer, where Uma Thurman thrusts at a martial artist, who in turn leaps up, stands briefly on the end of Uma's sword and then kicks her in the face. Mind you, this can already be done with current maneuvers as it is, say, a Duck and Weave, followed by a Kick to the head (area IV), with cool narration by the player/Seneschal. Nothing really spectacular in terms of SA's, Vagaries, Ki, etc. is happening, just a couple of standard maneuvers with some imagination.

Side point:

I have always found Duck & Weave to be just a tiny bit too hard to pull off. At TN9 even ten dice will only give you (on average) 2 successes, which just isn't enough to avoid most attacks.

I've been floating the idea of a TN8 for Duck & Weave for a while now, using it in my own game etc. I also put it as an optional rule in the combat sim. Has anyone used that in the combat sim, or experimented with it in actual tros play? Any thoughts? Too unbalanced? etc.

Brian

p.s: The Character Generator is almost done, and should be v1 early next week. Is anyone keen to give it a really good thrashing for me? I'm not interested in "I played with it for 20 minutes and made up a character" but someone who can really put it through its paces (and especially see how the sheets print out since you guys use Letter size and I can only test it in A4 down here). Etc. PM me if you're interested and you know and understand TROS character creation rules really well already. Thanks.