Different fighting/grappling styles

[Cope]

This guy is called the spider......

[youtube=425,350][/youtube]

[Cope]

I see Einstein using a style similar to these 2 guys.........this is a good fight.

[youtube=425,350][/youtube]

[Lew]

Here's a thought.  What if we did the opposite of what we've been talking about?  We have generalized/slashing/broadsword.  As mentioned before this covers a lot of different looks.  What if we had generalized/brawling/striking.  It covers a these different styles regaudless of foot/fist/claw etc.  Different races would still have a different base damage.  You could still get an extra half in some cases and you could still take a form of two-weapon fighting.

You could also have a grappling multi-skill, that would let you build up to some of the cool stuff.  Including escaping from another grappler. 

[Dj]

Am I missing something? Is there an image or data that is not making it through my firewall? Who is spider?

[Cope]

DJ, there should be 2 youtube videos on my posts above.

[Fingers]

OK I finally got to watch these two fights and yes i would love to see us incorporate some form of mma fighting into the system.  But, I have a problem with this being the way Einstein fights.  First and foremost you never put anyone in a hold.  Second you never take anyone down to the ground and lastly do you change up your damage for knees, kicks, fists, elbows and headbutts( I know you do headbutts and fists seperately but what about the others) cause I see them all being 1 point of weapon damage unless special racial abilities augment them?  One thing I will give Einstein, is he is brawling and not specified so using all these attacks would be potentially feasible, but two handed fighting is weapon specific ( fist/fist, fist /kick, fist/headbutt( for those who don't get it free) so if you go switching things up you would loose attacks. Also when grappling you would loose all attacks save the free headbutt.

Ok to get to the problem I see:
Brawling is too all encompassing.  To me the way we use brawling today is the same as generalized except you may only use natural body parts.  I think brawling, as we use it, is so close to being generalized that it might as well be.  The classified should be split into two areas, grappling and striking, whereas the individual weapon may then be specified in.

Grabbing someone in a hold or striking someone for damage are easily as different as jabbing someone with a dagger or slashing someone with it.  If weapons are this restricted, so then should natural weapons be as well.

I think the "natural weapon" character should have to choose whether they are goung to be good at striking for damage or at grappling.  To be good at both you should have to train at both which basically means that in a "I do damage, you do damage" fight, the MMA fighter won't do as much damage as someone of equal level( due to the fact that they have spent some points on grappling training rather than striking).  So... the grappling aspect has to slow the opponents ability to do damage enough to make it an advantage to learn.

As it is I don't believe that just because you are able to punch or kick the shit out of someone you should be just as good at putting them in a hold.  Grappling should be it's own classified and from there we add in special ablilties and means of doing greater damage or incapacitation.  Can these abilities over lap some, sure... I could easily see penalties for the striking style and or bonuses for the grappler and vice versa for other pertinent skills.  I think again that these should stay complimentary skills that have a level restriction.  As I see these skills totaling 4-5 total, I don't think multi-skills are the way to go.  Either they will be way too easy to pick up at low levels, cause there are so few, or they will be way too costly(skill points wise) because of all the b/s one is forced to take to get to a G manuever.

Yeah I've had my though processes interrupted many times and i know this post is kinda all over the place.  I have not meant to pick on anyone (Cope/Einstein) and I cannot seem to focus well enough to keep some of this from sounding like i am angry.  I'm not and only wanted to put in my two cents in hopes that it may shed some light on the way I view MMA in Pelicar.  However, we decide to go with it won't bother me I just want everyone to think through how some of the suggested changes will affect the balance with those using weapons. 

[Dj]

I got no tube...but I'm at work, so I'll check them out from the house tonight.


(Got no tube, but I got a working banana) 

[Cope]

I somewhat disagree with Darren and I am not angry or pissed (some of this may come off that way)

Brawling is exactly the same as launching or jabbing or hurling. It defines a range of weapons that you can use. Brawling weapons are the person's body. Yes, Einstein went fist-fist when he took 2-weapon fighting and if the only way that you can visualize that is similar to playing Nintendo's Mike Tyson's Punchout so be it. I tend to visualize it differently. It doesn't change the mechanics of the game. It is simply my imagination. (To me he uses all of his body to help him do the most damage possible. If he has to put a person in the Thai clinch to slam a headbutt, he does. It is part of that attack.)

Do you really think that Mat doesn't do cool things with the bow that aren't necessarily covered under the rules or the mathematical mechanisms that have been put in place. That would seem VERY boring to me. (I see Mat doing stuff like shooting 2 arrows, or getting someone's attention by acting like his bow is broken, or fake charging into battle to get an opponent to leave the melee for a better shot. None of these are covered in written rule. Its just my view. I could be wrong and he could be very robotic - 1,2,3 shoot, 1,2,3 shoot.....)

And now to your argument of either or grappling or striking. Okay, I agree with that, but THOSE ARE NOT classified slots in my view. They are specialized slots in brawling and should get the +8.

A person could go straight jabbing and be very dangerous with any jabbing weapon, or that same person could go specified with spear and be extremely dangerous with a spear. Therefore, someone could take brawling and be dangerous at both grappling and striking, or someone could specialize in striking and be extremely dangerous in that. (The guy with the spear is still going to bash with a shield or shove with his body or headbutt to do damage. The brawler is still going to hit, or kick, or grab, or bite, or poke to do damage. These "points" of damage are implicit in the mechanics of our damage system.)

A long time ago, Head brought up a very interesting thought, we have our system a little backwards. He stated something like........is it easier to learn jabbing with one weapon or jabbing with every possible weapon. I have never been to a training class or practice where you worked with every conceivable combination. Usually, you focus on 1-2 things and then hope to extrapolate the learning to other topics.

And lastly, I think if you reread my earlier posts you will see that I do NOT want rule additions. At the most I have said we could build a multi-skill to bring into affect some things. The rest of it is how I visualize MY imaginary character. It doesn't effect or affect anyone else or game mechanics or balance.

[Dj]

I guess I'm just a dick, but what are we discussing here? Are we actually wanting to implement a rule change or add skill and/or maneuvers? Or are we just discussing how an Earthly fight can be described with Pelicar's rules?

[Cope]

I'm discussing how an earthly fight can be viewed as a Pelicar skill. I may have messed up when I started this thread, it was actually a continuation of Darren's topic on grappling damage.

[Dj]

Ok, I was confused. I know you said you didn't want to add rules, but it almost seemed like a rules argument. If there was arguing, I wanted to join in. LOL!

[Fingers]

Terry I do visualize things a little more the way you do as brawling is more MMA style striking and kicking and such, but the only real damage you do is with your trained weapon( for game balance).  If you are actually rolling around on the ground or hanging on to their head, then how is your opponent still using that great weapon against you?  It aint happenin. 

If I remember correctly, grappling is it's own attack mode, which means it resets attack sequences, and is "supposed to be the only "attack" allowed for the series.

I realize that jabbing teaches you to attack in a stlye with all weapons used in that style.  I have no problem with "brawling" adding to whatever natural attack someone choses to use when "striking".  I don't see brawling teaching you to do both, striking and grappling.  To me that's learning two classified styles of combat in one.  To me the way this should be handled as things currently work is just like if you were wielding a weapon.  Weapon Catch and you can grab someone's weapon arm, use drive to make them fall, or dismount to pull some one from a horse, with all the penalties and bonuses that come with those actions.  Without these skills you have to revert back to the grappling rules which state that this is your only action and only generalized should count toward performing these grappling actions, just like everyone else. 

Quote from cope below:
A long time ago, Head brought up a very interesting thought, we have our system a little backwards. He stated something like........is it easier to learn jabbing with one weapon or jabbing with every possible weapon. I have never been to a training class or practice where you worked with every conceivable combination. Usually, you focus on 1-2 things and then hope to extrapolate the learning to other topics.

No, it's not as easy and that's why for the same number of points/time spent you get +8 with the individual weapon rather than +6 for the group of weapons?  Is that enough difference, I don't know, but it really can make a difference over 10 levels.

And yes there were posts made after I wrote this so try to take it in context. 

In that previous post you had mentioned 3 skills to add, a hold and a throw and something if I remember correctly.  And yes I was continuing that discussion.

[Dj]

...I don't see brawling teaching you to do both, striking and grappling...

Our system is closed to its styles, and therefore is hard to visualize how other "earthly" styles work similarly to Pelicar fighting. However, since brawling is about teaching you how to use your own body as a weapon, it would have to be akin to "all martial arts." However, since it is not specialized, it would not teach any specific type, but through brawling one could learn the basics of karate, a heavily strike oriented style; but also, it would teach jujitsu, which has many grappling maneuvers. If it can be equated to anything, it is probably more like the roman-graeco wrestling, which did have both strike and grappling, and is what much of Spartan organized combat was derived from (if I am remembering my history martial arts correctly).

So, now we see the trouble with trying to extrapolate specifics from something rather general. Probably the guy with one brawling slot from the East doesn't fight the same way as the guy with one brawling slot from the West. However, once each of them has five or six slots, they could each fight with a variety of different moves, but tend to have their personal favorites...

[Fingers]

I agree with all the visualization stuff and how "martial arts" works that it is a combination.   But.   I think if you allow two styles of combat rules to be learned for the cost of one skill it unbalances the rules.  Visualization/reality or not.

[Cope]

Darren at first I was going to write a very nasty response to your 2 posts, but I got home and relaxed a little, ate a little, so I wrote a post and it came off sarcastic, so I have now rewritten it.................

I feel like you are completely missing my point, which happens a lot on this board. I agree with you that only certain things can happen inside the rules. Fine, okay, I get it, you want everything by the book and by the numbers. Nothing that I have stated goes against any of this.

By the book, you see Einstein like this.......

He attempts to hit his opponent with his fists twice every series and then on alternate series he includes a headbutt attack. Otherwise, he is hoping that his opponent doesn't roll high enough to hit him. This equals 2 attacks per series with the fist and 1/2 attack with the headbutt. All is good.

With a little imagination, I see....

Einstein circles his opponent who is using a rather large sword. All of a sudden, he rushes in and grasps a shoulder with his left as he swings a mighty right. He then rolls his shoulder, ducking a blow aimed at his head. Then he throws a huge upper-cut left, followed by a slight shove to increase distance between him and the swordsman.

With a grin on his face, he stares at the swordsman. With the knowledge that he will best the swordsman he charges in and startles the swordsman with a quick clinch of the the neck and delivers a bone shattering head-butt. Losing the grip of the clinch, Einstein takes a skillful cut from the sword and gets kicked in the shin. Now, he balances on his toes looking for an opening.........Feinting to the left, Einstein charges forward with 2 wildly thrown, yet accurate punches.

So 2 series with the same amount of attacks as the first one.............
He used a simple grasp and the thai clinch.......all in temporary support of his abilities...........

Its all imaginary. Read Lew's post, he says that sometimes Irving does damage with the hilt of his great weapon. Irving doesn't have that skill, is Lew cheating or going against the rules..........NO. If I think Einstein, temporarily puts an opponent into a Thai clinch to headbutt, are you saying that I am wrong and that's cheating?

I hope my changes removed some of the sarcasm, I really think we are talking about 2 completely different things, I see Einstein as a combination as Wanderlei Silva and Quintain Jackson. Both strike, rush the opponent and fight with a joy and somewhat composed wrecklessness.

You are talking about rules and that I can't see my character that way because it goes against the rules. Now, I really don't think that is what you meant and I hope you can see my point now.