Monks and Fists

[DrakelenasElderich]

Here is a weird idea. Make it a 3 hit for damage, or what ever # you guys want. But leave in the rage/hero idea as well. Swing one handed, all incoming attacks that hit the fist physrep are crush. Ok to use shield.

*Drake and Sethreal get into a fist fight. We would both call out 0 on our hits untill the 3rd (or what ever #) hit is landed. We then call 1. Now Sethreal being a warrior uses his Rage to deal 1 damage every hit. This shows that warriors are more adept at fighting. Sure Drake is in trouble but he can still manage to win. But Drake is a 24 level character, I.E. well worn to battle situations, so he uses his knowledge, ruggedness, experiance, what ever you want to call it (Hero Point) to help him fight back. Drake then calls 1 per hit too. When either of them hits 0 life they are knocked out like the Knockout feat, 5 min.*

One flaw I see in this is armor. Does that count? Or are we going with just life? I for one dont see a fist hurting armor, but that also makes useing a fist sweet for a warrior to bypass armor. Making it powerful versus heavy armor. So I am at a loss for that.

Ideas??

[Ug]

How bout you call damage every 5 strikes that hit?

So they will be trying to hit eachother as many times as possible, and then they call out one (that's a BIG hit that actually did some damage!), or something along those lines.

That'd make for some long, drawn out fistfights.

[Ug]

Course, I'm still for my idea of spending one life in order to swing for 1 damage, go ahead and use two fists.

[Onimaster]

I don't like the # of hits to start doing actual damage or the 1 damage every 5 in that accounting how many have landed and wha hit your on would be a pain.

I could back Chris' thought about a count and/or maybe Lp to wind up Unarmed combat to swing at will for 1, but I think the count would need to be 10 not 5 and only with one pfist.

[dier_cire]

Not a big fan of the every 3rd/5th hit. You'd have to keep track, which would slow down hits just cause you'd have to keep count, would ultimately confuse the crap out of the person swinging and the person hit.

the only problem with the wind up and attack continously, which I like, is that the first hit wins in fist vs fist. Granted, could someone call "0" with their fist to be able to counter the other person's charge? So it'd be first hit then maybe one or two more before the other person calls "0" and they both end up counting again. Then it'd be:

charge
"1, 1"
"0"
charge
"1"
"0"
charge
etc...

this would also allow for the unaware guard to be knocked out / dead via fist.

charge
"1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1..."
(guard struggles to draw weapon)
"1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1..."
guard drops.

[Onimaster]

This may seem like an odd suggestion, but it seemed the biggest problem was that standing still for 5 seconds was pointless between blows (which I conceed) and It seems that shortening the count time to only a moment delay would fix that. Or maybe making it a delay between blows rather than a charged skill you would be immoble for.

Any character can initiate "Unarmed Combat" with a fist phys rep by making an uninterupted 5 count. They may then swing their fist phys rep for 1 damage. An additional uninterupted 3 second count is required between each swing, but the player may make this count while walking. Any damage received while in unarmed combat is considered crush damage. To exit unarmed combat, the character is required to either leave the combat, draw a weapon, or make an additional uninterupted 5 count.

[Peace420]

It's a new mechanic that's too similiar to another mechanic ( a timed skill instead of a charged skill) and will only cause confusion between the two types of mechanics. Do we really need to add a new mechanic for this? I'd say no but that's just my opinion.

[WayneO42]

I really think we need to work on a Savage Discipline that has Hand to hand. Levels 1-3 are easy but coming up with a good level 4 is tough. Any ideas?

[Nelkie]

How's Evade, just like the wolf druid gets??

[WayneO42]

I think evade is sort of a clunky mechanic and I would rather see something more elegant. I would like to see an offensive skill to contrast the monks defensive skill

[dier_cire]

I still vote for a +1 damage with fists that is not useable with rage. (ie total discipline is you'd do 2 with dual wielded undisarmable daggers and get +2 armor)

Don't see this as broken by any means. Granted it isn't fancy but fancy gets complicated.

[Onimaster]

It's a new mechanic that's too similiar to another mechanic ( a timed skill instead of a charged skill) and will only cause confusion between the two types of mechanics. Do we really need to add a new mechanic for this? I'd say no but that's just my opinion.

It's not unprecidented in the rules. I am aware of a boon from guild points that let you charge while moving (Though I do not know what abilities survived the rewrite as I am not a guild head and didn't read that section of the new rules).

Do we need to add a new mechanic just speciffically for this... no. Would a rule that incorperated a count where your not immoble 'chargeing' be confusing... no, I don't think so. And, this would open new options for other game effects.

Simplicity is elegance, but adaptability is strength. We don't need to shoot down new systems just because they are slightly different. Lets focus on the merrit of the idea not whether change is bad.

[WayneO42]

It's not unprecidented in the rules. I am aware of a boon from guild points that let you charge while moving (Though I do not know what abilities survived the rewrite as I am not a guild head and didn't read that section of the new rules).

Guild Skills no longer exist. The "Charge While Moving" skill would have been killed even if they still did. Charged skills are one of the foundations of our game. Introducing wide spread exceptions to the rule weakens that foundation. One off exceptions like magic items or potentially a potion are fine but an exception that effects all players is a bit much.

We don't need to shoot down new systems just because they are slightly different. Lets focus on the merrit of the idea not whether change is bad.

Change for change's sake is bad. If we are going to make a change it needs to be one that will benefit the game. Most players and GMs are not sold on the fact that hand-to-hand combat would benefit the game. I think it will but we need a solid mechanic that fits within the framework of the game. We have not exhausted enough options yet to resort to changing fundamentals. If we get to a point where we need to, then we will take a serious look at bending the framework.

If there is one thing I have learned over the years as a LARP GM and rules mechanic is that you cannot change the framework of your system lightly. It inevitably effects more things than you can foresee and weakens other areas of the game.

[Nelkie]

I am personaly in favor of adding a hand to hand savage disapline and leaving everything else the same.

What that does is, a common and savage can pay 20 points and be able to punch. Effective, simple, and doesn't effect any rules.

[Peace420]

I'm on the same page as Wayne as far as change, I am certainly not opposed to change, nothing is perfect. But there needs to be a good reason for changing the fundamentals of how the system works. If through discussion and playtesting it's decided that the fundamentals of the system need to change then so be it. Personally I think the fundamentals of the FH system are sound and to add a new mechanic for one skill that isn't even supposed to be effective in an actual battle is not worth it.

For the adding of a discipline, why not priviledged? I can completely agree that if any of the lifestyles should have hand to hand ability it should be savage but adding a new discipline to both savage and priviledged would solve this whole mess comparatively easily. Balancing 2 new disciplines would seem to be a much easier task than trying to come up with a way for everyone to be able to swing a fist for one without spending points to do it and without unbalancing the usefulness of a weapon vs a fist.