Armed vs Unarmed Melee combat

[James Langham2]

You might want to have a look at my article on unarmed combat, I found the same problem

[swaghauler]

Originally Posted by James Langham2

You might want to have a look at my article on unarmed combat, I found the same problem

It took me while to find it. I see we follow the same mindset. We need a "House Rules Section" where you can just post stuff by topic. The thread map isn't bad but Search will sometimes fail you or generate such a large return you cannot read it all in the time you have to read stuff.

That being said, I STILL give KATO two thumbs up for his good work managing this forum (but we still need a LIKE Button).

[.45cultist]

Originally Posted by swaghauler

It took me while to find it. I see we follow the same mindset. We need a "House Rules Section" where you can just post stuff by topic. The thread map isn't bad but Search will sometimes fail you or generate such a large return you cannot read it all in the time you have to read stuff.

That being said, I STILL give KATO two thumbs up for his good work managing this forum (but we still need a LIKE Button).

Yay! I'm already using some of your stuff.

[The Dark]

Originally Posted by James Langham2

You might want to have a look at my article on unarmed combat, I found the same problem

I'm guessing you weighted striking slightly more heavily than grappling/escaping? I notice that the top four styles by net bonus are Wrestling, Jiu-Jitsu, Aikido, and Military Sambo, which are all grapple oriented (only Sambo has a bonus to Punch, all of them except Sambo have a penalty to kick, and all have bonuses to both grapple and escape). Meanwhile, the five with the largest net penalty are Tae Kwon Do, Fairburn, Savate, Karate, and Muay Thai, all of which are strike-oriented (Savate and Karate are plus in both punch and strike, the other three are all plus in one or the other, and other than Fairburn they're all negative in grapple). The only striking style with more than +1 net is Krav Maga.

[James Langham2]

Originally Posted by The Dark

I'm guessing you weighted striking slightly more heavily than grappling/escaping? I notice that the top four styles by net bonus are Wrestling, Jiu-Jitsu, Aikido, and Military Sambo, which are all grapple oriented (only Sambo has a bonus to Punch, all of them except Sambo have a penalty to kick, and all have bonuses to both grapple and escape). Meanwhile, the five with the largest net penalty are Tae Kwon Do, Fairburn, Savate, Karate, and Muay Thai, all of which are strike-oriented (Savate and Karate are plus in both punch and strike, the other three are all plus in one or the other, and other than Fairburn they're all negative in grapple). The only striking style with more than +1 net is Krav Maga.

ACtually, personally I favor grapples and throws having done Jui-Jitsu however that is more to do with my personal preference for a defensive style.

In game terms I wanted a slight differentiation in styles but nothing over the top like some RPGs. While there are slight benefits to certain styles, I think they are roughly equal as some of the methods will be rarely used in play. I initially tried to have all as a net zero but couldn't get certain styles to fit and it became obvious that certain styles while looking balanced on paper would not be in game usage. I would welcome any thoughts anyone has re the balance of the styles.

[The Dark]

Originally Posted by James Langham2

ACtually, personally I favor grapples and throws having done Jui-Jitsu however that is more to do with my personal preference for a defensive style.

I'm similar personally (I've done both Tae Kwon Do and Aikikai). As someone who's slightly shorter than average and with a heavy frame, I don't have the quickness to really be good at a striking style, but I was fairly competent in close with joint manipulation and throws.

In game terms I wanted a slight differentiation in styles but nothing over the top like some RPGs. While there are slight benefits to certain styles, I think they are roughly equal as some of the methods will be rarely used in play. I initially tried to have all as a net zero but couldn't get certain styles to fit and it became obvious that certain styles while looking balanced on paper would not be in game usage. I would welcome any thoughts anyone has re the balance of the styles.

I pretty much agree, since I think most people would be inclined to strike first (it's simpler and has the apparent advantage of doing immediate damage), so bonuses or penalties to the punch and kick side of the skill have a magnified effect due to their higher use rate. Block would probably be the next most used, with grapple and escape moderately common, probably along with throw. Diving blow and headbutt I would think are the least used, since headbutt is harder, less damaging, and has backlash damage.

[The Dark]

Originally Posted by James Langham2

You might want to have a look at my article on unarmed combat, I found the same problem

One art I'd like to see added if you do any revising is gatka, a northwestern Indian art generally associated by Westerners with Sikhs. It was one of the bases for Fairbairn-Sykes Close Quarter Combat. Tentatively, I'd suggest a modifier line of +1/0/-1/+1/-2/0/-2/+1, with the ability to use knife or sword with the same skill.

[James Langham2]

Originally Posted by The Dark

One art I'd like to see added if you do any revising is gatka, a northwestern Indian art generally associated by Westerners with Sikhs. It was one of the bases for Fairbairn-Sykes Close Quarter Combat. Tentatively, I'd suggest a modifier line of +1/0/-1/+1/-2/0/-2/+1, with the ability to use knife or sword with the same skill.

Thanks, not comeacross that one and it might tie in with the Sikh unit proposed for Charles III to sponser

[The Dark]

Originally Posted by James Langham2

Thanks, not comeacross that one and it might tie in with the Sikh unit proposed for Charles III to sponser

I actually found it because of the mention of the Sikh unit. I vaguely remembered mention of a martial art that was fairly common among the Sikhs from some reading I had been doing about the British East India Company, and poking around a bit, found a description of gatka that mentioned its influence on Fairbairn-Sykes, so I used that as a base with a couple changes (gatka was also used by Hindus, some of whom were kick-focused to avoid touching lower castes with their hands, which is why kick was raised slightly, etc).

[The Dark]

Another idea that popped into my head because the "MMA has no mods" was bothering me:

To develop a fictional or syncretic martial art style, roll 1d10 for each of Punch, Kick, Headbutt, Grapple, Block, Escape, Diving Blow, and Throw.

DM Modifiers:
Hard Style: +1 to Punch, Kick, Block, -1 to Grapple, Escape, Throw
Soft Style: +1 to Grapple, Escape, Throw, -1 to Punch, Kick, Block

Die roll result:
0: -3 to skill
1: -2 to skill
2-3: -1 to skill
4-7: no modifier
8-9: +1 to skill
10-11: +2 to skill

I deliberately did not put +3 to skill on the chart, so that these styles won't end up with better modifiers than existing styles.

[pmulcahy11b]

Hmmm...I wonder if GURPS Martial Arts has anything translatable...need to look...

[The Dark]

I decided to run an analysis on the existing martial arts styles in James' documentand see how to weight the various categories to minimize the difference between the "best" and "worst" art and minimize the standard deviation, then use that information to create a point buy system for new martial arts, as a supplement to the random system I proposed before.

My methodology was to take the bonuses and penalties for each martial art except for Mixed Martial Arts (which had no modifiers), sum the modifiers, then look at the mean, standard deviation, and the spread between minimum and maximum of the sums. Once I had done this, I started varying the weight of each maneuver with an eye towards minimizing the standard deviation and the spread.

To create a new martial art: Roll 2d6-7 and divide by 2 for the number of points available to spend. A martial art may have negative points and/or half points, with a range of -2.5 to 2.5 and an average of 0.


Points spent or refunded per plus or minus (maximum modifier +/- 3):
Punch: 2
Kick: 0.5
Headbutt: 0.5
Grapple: 0.5
Block: 0.5
Escape: 0.5
Diving Blow: 1.5
Throw: 1

With these weights, the mean is 0.25, standard deviation is 1.74, and spread is 5.5. All of the existing martial arts fit into the -2.5 to 2.5 range except for Sport Sambo and Sumo, both of which are at -3 and should possibly receive minor boosts.

The high-value martial arts are the two Kung Fus, Military Sambo, and Wrestling, all of which are at 2.5. Low-value martial arts are the previously mentioned Sport Sambo and Sumo at -3, along with Taekwondo and Judo at -2.

[Vespers War]

Originally Posted by pmulcahy11b

Hmmm...I wonder if GURPS Martial Arts has anything translatable...need to look...

The one I've been looking at recently to try to convert over is Hero Fifth Edition's Ultimate Martial Artist. I need to finish doing some conversion factors first, then sit down with the book and figure out how its math works.

[pmulcahy11b]

Originally Posted by The Dark

DM Modifiers:
Hard Style: +1 to Punch, Kick, Block, -1 to Grapple, Escape, Throw
Soft Style: +1 to Grapple, Escape, Throw, -1 to Punch, Kick, Block

How would you handle something like Hapkido, which concentrates on both punching and grappling?

[James Langham]

Originally Posted by pmulcahy11b

How would you handle something like Hapkido, which concentrates on both punching and grappling?

Straight no modifiers or a couple of +1s and a couple of -1s in things like kick and head but.