Worthwhile Martial Arts for Inclusion (make your case here!)

Game Talk The Drawing Board
21

What do you mean “there’s no choice”? Should we get rid of butter knives because we have combat knives? I don’t understand where you’re coming from. Why not have some styles that are strictly better than others? If you started with two styles and one was better in every way, sure that’d be pretty weird, but you’d generally have to learn boxing, see below.

The current status of styles and skills as I understand it (and from memory, so details may be off):
The given attack has melee, unarmed, bashing, cutting, and stabbing components. (some of these are exclusive, stabbing and cutting definitely are, I think unarmed with no weapon is bashing-only, you CAN trigger “unarmed” with a weapon if it has the “unarmed” flag, like brass knuckles).
For a given attack, the skill used is melee + the highest applicable specialized skill.
All a selected style does is apply various situational bonuses, and throw additional techniques into the pile to be activated.

This is orthogonal to the brawling versus boxing thing though, my point there is boxing would have better situational bonuses and higher quality techniques available to it than brawling, because boxing is based on medical and kinesthetic studies of the human body as opposed to trial-and-error.

As for formal versus ???.
I was operating under the assumption that acquiring the boxing (or any other non-default) style would involve either acquiring training from an NPC, a pre-cataclysm trait, or a training manual. I think that’s what you mean by “formal training”, but I’m not sure.

The alternative is “informal” styles like “brawling” and “wrestling”(somehow differentiated from other formal wrestling style, I have no idea what they are) and possibly others (street fighting?), that you’d just pick up as you progress in combat ability. It’s better than nothing, but just wouldn’t be as good as the styles that have been honed by years and years of practice by experts.

22

Are there actually levels of styles right now?

23

No. Style is like an overarching static trait. The higher your unarmed skill goes the more use you get out of your style.

24

I hadn’t realized that had changed with the rewrite, sorry - just thought it was handled dynamically, realized I never explicitly checked my skill list to see if they’d been removed. >_< My bad.

In that case, boxing as a “straight upgrade to no trained style with unarmed” is fine.

I think we want to limit ourselves to one of those at the most, though.

25

I can see reasons for and against breaking stuff down more and more.

I’m curious what the criteria is for something that would get denied. Too similar to something that’s already there? In the case of Ninjutsu, not useful enough?

26

Well nothing has been approved or denied yet, just opinions shared. But personally Im of the opinion it needs to be useful, fun, and lead to meaningful effects on how the person using them plays the game in order to be worthwhile. Others may have different criteria. Everything so far has simply been my opinion on whether or not and why something does or does not meet those criteria - obviously others may have different opinions. And for Boxing (for example) I didnt even say I wanted it out, just that I thought we could do better with it if we put it in - I just want people to try really develop the “idea” into an actual proposal and push them on it to make it as interesting as possible to have in gane.

Ninjitsu kind of fails on all fronts though.

27

Unless it helps in stealth. Stealth will have its own skill right?

28

Oh, after/if we do the stealth stuff, it will certainly be worth considering. But we don’t, now, so it’s not really worth putting in, now.

29

Boxing is not just better, it is way more technical than a normal brawl

imagine a pro boxer - road work every day, weight control, practicing punches 9999 times until perfection. You have to minimize worthless movements and put the whole body strength in the punches.

quick stunning jabs, heavy crit uppers, straights and counters. All punches have a purpose.

Do you really think a pro boxer would lose to so street punk???

30

I’d be interested in seeing styles that are more effective against specific enemy types. For example, one could develop a new style that is particularly damaging to zombies, more headshots and better defense against bites. Or one for triffids that focuses on bladed weapons and crippling effects simulating lopping of bits.

I suppose since they’re newly invented styles you’d have to learn them from fighting that enemy. Probably not possible to implement but cool idea i think.

31

[quote=“GlyphGryph, post:26, topic:3299”]Well nothing has been approved or denied yet, just opinions shared. But personally Im of the opinion it needs to be useful, fun, and lead to meaningful effects on how the person using them plays the game in order to be worthwhile. Others may have different criteria. Everything so far has simply been my opinion on whether or not and why something does or does not meet those criteria - obviously others may have different opinions. And for Boxing (for example) I didnt even say I wanted it out, just that I thought we could do better with it if we put it in - I just want people to try really develop the “idea” into an actual proposal and push them on it to make it as interesting as possible to have in gane.

Ninjitsu kind of fails on all fronts though.[/quote]

Sorry I wasn’t trying to defensive there. I was just curious what your thoughts were in terms of what you’re looking for in martial arts styles.

32

Quick because busy.

One thing I haven’t seen for Boxing: it trains you to read and fight one target, so bonuses to dodge/block/hit the last target engaged. This means that something like Capoeira may be better in that it works well against multiple targets?

Combination attacks, too.

Ask me later this week and I’ll dig out GURPS MA.

33

Doubleposting to bump, significant new thoughts:

Overarching request: MA styles should be their own skill, under Unarmed in much the same sense as Bash/Cut/Pierce are under Melee, and guns are under Firearms.

It’s probably worth having two options for every main type (Kickboxing, Grappling, Weapons, etc). Roleplaying is a meaningful choice, IMO.

OK, dug out the MA sourcebook.

Capoeira: definitely ought to provide bonuses to Dodge and movement speed. Probably should grant Feint as well.

Eskrima: GURPS seems to think it focuses on disarming the opponent via called-shots to the weapon/hand. Might be worth including Disarm.

Keep plz: Taekwondo. It’s a very solid defensive style, in much the same sense that Karate was a solid offensive style.

I’d like to see some of the Kung Fus kept around, popssibly as advanced versions of Karate, quest/faction rewards, etc. Dragon Style, for instance, was a handy option for IN-heavy characters. I’m not sure whether Leopard or Crane styles saw much use, though.

The Venoms are a fun reference, and generally seem more useful than the Shaolin arts. I’ll understand axing them though.

Potential new MA: Pentjak Silat? Apparently a decent weapon & unarmed style, with accounting for terrain in the bargain–perhaps half-off movement cost penalties?

34

The tiger style with the str instead of dex for accuracy is awesome. Please keep it. I even had a character named Bolo Yeung for that.

If there is ever a body fat system, Sumo style with charge knockdown based on one’s own weight would be nice. If I think about it, zombies being able to pull one to the ground would make them much more dangerous in packs. Some martial arts - like Sumo or Judo - could give the possibility to resist or even counter that.

35

Russian matrial art:

36

[quote=“Moddan, post:34, topic:3299”]The tiger style with the str instead of dex for accuracy is awesome. Please keep it. I even had a character named Bolo Yeung for that.

<snip, no comment-KA101>[/quote]

Seconding this. MA styles that let people with nontraditional stats fight well should be kept around.

37

Actually the non-traditional stat-based styles were some of my favorites in the original version and I’ll probably make a PR with at least some of them eventually (to be vetted for inclusion as need be, etc).

One thing I really disliked about it though was that making it 0.5STR + 0.5[other stat] makes strength bonuses (say, from CBM: Hydraulic Muscles) considerably weaker when using the style. It’s especially weird for something like dragon style where the alternate stat affects damage rather than to-hit, so I’m leaning towards something closer to STR+0.2*[other stat - 8]. But it’s still all up in the air as I’m currently neck deep in “real life” work :confused:

38

Did you mention the russian sambo(самбо) martial art already? If not, then you should totally add it.

39

But…but… you’ll feel GOOD doing it! Especially if you manage to take opponent down. I mean, this thing boosts your morale seriously!

Do capoiera, finish some enemies while listen to your favorite tunes on MP3 and you get to elated mood guaranteed.

40

Thinking Tiger and Dragon styles for the Shaolin KF branches, and those really could be quest rewards once NPCs are rebuilt.

Actually the non-traditional stat-based styles were some of my favorites in the original version and I’ll probably make a PR with at least some of them eventually (to be vetted for inclusion as need be, etc).

One thing I really disliked about it though was that making it 0.5STR + 0.5[other stat] makes strength bonuses (say, from CBM: Hydraulic Muscles) considerably weaker when using the style. It’s especially weird for something like dragon style where the alternate stat affects damage rather than to-hit, so I’m leaning towards something closer to STR+0.2*[other stat - 8]. But it’s still all up in the air as I’m currently neck deep in “real life” work :/[/quote]

Uh, swwu?

20% of the amount one has over 8 means that there’s NO bonus until you’re at 13 in the stat, and currently there’s not much other point to 13+ in PE or IN.

So…no. Just no. Uh-uh. Funktioniert nicht.

If you insist on 8+ before any bonus, make it at least 50% of the overage, so people can get a bonus at 10.

(I’d expect Dragon Style’s damage bonus to come from working out where-to-aim on the fly, and hitting weaknesses better. Maybe a bonus to crit chance?)