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One section of UC covers game rules for various martial arts styles.
In your opinion, which styles MUST be included in this section?
Obviously, many of these styles will behave similarly in the game (there are only so many ways you can model punches, throws, kicks, offensive stances, and defensive stances), so we won't have unique entries for every extant martial art in the world, but I'd like to hear from the community about which knows styles are essential in a game treatment of martial arts.
Off the top of my head:
aikido
capoeira
jiujitsu
judo
karate
kendo
kenpo
krav maga
kung fu
pankration
sumo
tae kwan do
tai chi
Any others? I don't want this to turn into a debate of whether X is actually a subset Y, or a historical discussion of X, and so on--just throw down some martial arts you think should be represented in this book.
And don't be afraid to mention some "fantasy" styles, too--elves, dwarves, halflings, and multi-armed creatures probably have their own unique styles based on their physiology and outlook.
NOTE: We can't include styles based on other peoples' intellectual property, which includes martial arts styles developed by copyrighted fictional characters.
such as "gun kata"
or Honor Harrington
NOTE: Please comment with *other* martial arts. Don't re-post suggestions of ones I already have here.
Well, I'd throw in:
Bok Pai
Drunken Boxing
Hwarang-do
Isshin-Ryu
Lee Kwan Choo
Moo Gi Gong
Taido
And just for fun
Metalikato
As a student of Aikido, it seems like it might be a good fit for elves. It aims to cause the least injury--always good when your race lives for hundreds of years; it also seems like it would benefit more from their dexterity than a more 'straight-up' art like karate. It's also a good art for small or lightweight people--again suits the elves fairly well.
I could totally see halflings practicing capoeira. Sorta fits the historical development of it too--could have been developed by Chelaxian slave halflings?
Krabi-Krabong and it's unarmed component, Muay Boran (Muay Thai). Actually, I'm doing those as a monk variant for Paths of Power 2, but I still wouldn't mind seeing it made official.
Savate might be interesting - seeing as it started out as a method of street fighting for sailors in French port towns, it would easily be integrated into a fantasy world as the art preferred among waterfront toughs across the realm.
Let's see...
Jeet Kune Do
Muay Thai
Sambo
are the first that come in mind.
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Savate please!
And while it may not be a martial arts "style" I think a style that is geared towards using the monk movement to the maximum would be great. Kind of a fantasy melding of martial arts and parkour.
Another one I would like to see is a basic boxing style like in the olden days of yore.
Dwarves - These guys need some monk love. But flying around and judo chopping really isn't their way. Maybe a martial arts style that was tied to their harmony with the earth and natural pechant for Bull's Rush and Trip resistance. Earth strike for ranged trips, ground slide for movement. Stuffs like that.
Gnomes - Blurred Fury Style - Calling on their racial inclination to use illusion magic, they could activate special powers like mirror image and prestidigitation to augment their fighting. Kind of like the weirding way from Dune.
Orcs - A straight up savage fighting style making the best use of intimidation and raw strength. Lots of condition options.
RPG Superstar 2008 Top 32
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Just to muddy the waters, from the wikipedia article on Honor Harrington
Honor practices a fictional martial art known as coup de vitesse (French for blow of speed). This is a fusion of several western and Oriental martial arts, where emphasis is placed on offense at the expense of defense, resulting in a very brutal and effective style. As of War of Honor, Honor has earned an eighth level black belt. There is only one higher rank. Her proficiency has saved her and others several times.
Honor has become proficient with the Grayson style of swordplay, involving a blade very similar to the katana, which by a quirk of history is used ceremonially by Steadholders and is the center of a martial art on Grayson. The sword style of the Graysons is derived from the film "The Seven Samurai" - presumably the Kurosawa version - the only recording of swordplay that existed on Grayson once their culture had devolved to the point where swords were desired.
Seriously, some sort of fusion of swords and martial arts -- Kenjutsu (the Japanese form) or staves and martial arts.
Chin'na
The stick-fighting style that I'm drawing a blank on. From the Philippines. Arnis/escrima.
Hwarang-do
Pa Kua/Ba Gua Zhang
And someone already mentioned Isshin-Ryu.
Muay Thai & Jiujitsu - the two go together like chocolate and peanut butter.
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First;
-- Aikido would be great! Trying to be true to the form; it can transform defence and disarm attempts into throws as an immediate action... Minor damage, but great battlefield control for the monk.
[Out of turn retaliation feats created endless broken characters in 3.5, but it can be nerfed.]
Second;
-- Wing Chun is rising with the Ip Man movies, but a Wing Chun like effect can probably be achieved with something like a Greater Flurry of Blows feat... (One more extra attack if it's against the same target)
Third;
Powerful monsters and multiarmed monsters SHOULD have a style of their own.
-- I'm imagining UFC Styled Power Grapple fighting for Minotaurs and the like, yet power grapple fights require patience under pressure, so it might be for creatures with high wisdom. Maintains grapple for 3 or more rounds; double STR damage each round AND a free unarmed attack to the face?
-- Multiarmed fighters might have a style that allows them multiple combat maneuvers in one attack. It might work like claw,claw,rend. Grapple, if grappled, free disarm or trip or steal attempt with +4 bonus?
Hmm...
Well here is my list and I will give my reasons for them. I do not support making them race specific. Making them a favored art form of a race I can stand behind (If that matters) but I would open them up to all races.
Having been a student of the Martial Arts for 20+ years: Ki Aikido (Shin Shin Toitsu) Shaolin Kempo, Taijutsu (The Fighting art of Ninjutsu) and Krav Maga I could see how some of those arts could be applied to specific races although I would make Aikido a favored form for Halflings myself (Just another opinion).
Another thing that could be done is make them favored by particular classes (Rouges - Taijutsu/Ninjutsu; Druids - Animal Form Kung Fu). Not being a serious, published game designer (I have tampered with house rules) I would like to see a more templated system where there is a base number of skills, feats, special abilities or a combination there of followed by a way for characters to customize them even further; to make them their own for the potential to role play (I can hear the cringes now) I have to admit though that I have seen Martial Arts treated as an unwanted step child of system with efforts made to make them feats and the like. This bothers me greatly. I truly hope that an honest effort is made to incorporate them.
aikido
capoeira
jiujitsu
judo
karate
kendo
kenpo
krav maga
kung fu (animal forms)
pankration
sumo
tae kwan do
tai chi
Chin'Na
Escrima/Arnis
Hwarang-do
Isshin-Ryu
ninjitsu
Muay Thai
Savate
Jeet Kune Do
Wing Chun
+1 for the Elven blade(s) dance.
Some fencing moves for swashbuckler fighter/rogue builds.
Gladiator moves for focused Warrior.
captramses, I can see Aikido making sense from a more physical, practical standpoint for halflings; but I think the philosophy of the art is much more in line with elves (another tie-in: concept of circular motion--elves believe in reincarnation, yes?).
Breaking out some of the various Kung fu styles would be cool (if possible; the mechanics will only allow so much of this I gather).
Are these going to be Monk styles?
Savate
Arnis/Escrimna
Sambo
Greco-Roman Wrestling
Boxing
Capoera
The Hawaiian one, Luo or something, it means bone breaking
A Masai/Zulu one
A native american themed even if none exist in the real world.
Parkour (not a martial art but movement altering/enhancing)
A style shaped by the Ghurka of history
edit: a style where a monks unarmed combat damage progression includes critical modifiers (threat or mult) So that imp. crit and feats like tripping strike are really ponderable for a lvl 10 bonus feat, with the excahnge of lower damage per hit of course something like the one I set out in this thread:
http://paizo.com/paizo/messageboards/paizoPublishing/pathfinder/pathfinderR PG/general/whyAllTheMonkHate
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Non-Asian ones.Such as...?
Off the top of my head, there's the German mastery of large swords (especially two handed swords) said to be at least the equal of anything ever achieved in Asia.
I just don't want this to turn into an "It's Asian so it must be better" book. Given the fact that Asian rogues wearing black pajamas seem likely to get their own special rogue+ class, do we really need to make non-Asian fighters obsolete as well?
This may be more than you're looking for...but mechanically, I see Aikido building off of Combat Expertise, or at least defensive fighting. If the opponent misses due to your defensive fighting bonus, you then get a counterattack in the form of a trip, disarm, or reposition maneuver (maybe gaining the ability to combine said maneuvers at higher levels).
Some sort of Dwarven drunken brawling, something similar to in idea to bladesinging, but balanced.
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Combat Feng Shui (hitting someone with furniture!)
In all seriousness though:
Capoera would be cool for a Bard to take.
Pugilism/Boxing
Krav Maga Wiki Entry (The style utilized by Israeli special forces).
Systema Wiki Entry (A russian style).
I just don't want this to turn into an "It's Asian so it must be better" book. Given the fact that Asian rogues wearing black pajamas seem likely to get their own special rogue+ class, do we really need to make non-Asian fighters obsolete as well?
And so it begins....
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I would like to make a plea for 'styles' or 'types' not 'schools'.
Sure, a character can learn to hurt people in a monastery or military academy but using the fluff of schools can close down the options for people who are self-taught or fight 'as the people of my village fight' or many other bits of fluff.
In a way this is a problem with these lists. Codifying/ritualising ways of hurting people without weapons is a product of a certain set of interacting cultures. Entire societies can have a fighting 'style' or set of 'styles' that they never put a name on.
It would probably be neater if Ultimate Combat had lots of combat styles but had zero real-world combat styles as they come with so much cultural baggage and create too many opportunities for "you're doing it wrong" conflict.
We've got:
Scorpion Style
Gorgon Fist
Cornugun Style...
I would like to see more of this, for example
roper style (grappler)
bulette style (charges/headbutts)
Whirlwind style (flurry-master)
Scuttleback style (tripper/grappler)
etc. etc.
Of course, real world martial arts can make great inspiration for this but I don't want to feel (or be told) I'm playing my 'boxing-style' wrong: if I'm playing 'Brutal Fist' style then I will feel less constrained.
Sean, you're now my hero for posting this topic XD
I would say Ninjitsu is a must just because of all the people wanting to play ninja characters. I can only imagine how you would implement this though because of all the different things that people associate with ninjas...
If you wanted to put in more non asian martial arts, you could put in some crazy things like Wrestling and Kickboxing.
Personally, I always thought that one thing that seemed off in rpg martial arts classes is that they are deadlier when they don't use weapons. The truth is that certain martial arts include weapon training, and those that recieve the weapon training are generally deadlier and harder to strike at when they have their weapons. I would love to see martial arts characters with weapons become viable. I imagine certain arts such as Ninjitsu would include weapon training.
Let's see, from Ireland there's Bata, which is a form of stick and staff fighting; France has Savate; Germany had Kampfringen and Harnischfecht, both of which were martial arts while in full plate armor - seriously, wrestling, striking, disarms, and takedowns. One of the fighting masters seriously loved the backbreaker, by the way - I think half of his defensive techniques end that way. English Sword-Rapier style, Scottish Sabre fencing, Spanish Sword-and-Buckler fencing, all the Italian schools of rapier... German fencing schools taught one and two-handed sword fighting, along with the falchion (messer)... There were very many European martial arts, probably as many as Asian martial arts, but they were not preserved as melee fighting fell into disfavor when firearms became readily available.
Some sort of Dwarven drunken brawling, something similar to in idea to bladesinging, but balanced.
+1
Also:
Off the top of my head:
aikido
capoeira
jiujitsu
judo
karate
kendo
kenpo
krav maga
kung fu
pankration
sumo
tae kwan do
tai chi
Hi Sean, saw your fb post.
I've been doing martial arts for 25 years. Most of it was is wado ryu style karate (with a little dipping in tae kwon do and kyokushinkai) but lately some cannon style kung fu and an insidiously aggressive style tai qi quan that i like to translate at 'your throat and balls are mine'.
My sincere advice as a martial artist, sinophile, and longtime resident of both Japan and China is to steer away from using 'Earth' martial arts, and make up your own names for PF martial arts. I'm sure this one's already been spun around your office, so take that as my +1 (or + whatever).
The trouble is that when you talk about stuff like karate and kung fu, they're not really single martial arts unto themselves, this is especially so with kung fu. All that the real world references really do for you is provide fluff. Besides, if you call it karate some asshat karate know it all will get pissed off.
Whatever you guys come up with would no doubt be far more colorful.
So instead I'd make a wishlist that looks like this (off the top of my head):
Characterize judo, sumo, ninjitsu, jujitsu, or arnis (Filipino stick fighting, way cool, dudes, I'm going down to Manila next spring and learn some of this lightning fast short bamboo stick mojo... kung fu also has a style like this BTW)... OR WHATEVER and so on and so forth...
Keep the list short, and have the arts clearly distinguished from each other. {EDIT: This is where game needs to differ from reality purely for the sake of coolness.)
Take your list, make some names that reflect the peculiarities of the style and the region, put them in a context that makes sense (a capoeria style where fighting is banned and they need to conceal their training, hard efficient karateish styles in tightly structured society with minimalistic inclinations, some kung fuish stuff in the place where the martial arts were born--its almost decorative artistic refinement reflects ages of status as an art form....).
Then let the rules brainstorming begin.
Also I'd avoid stuff like Krav Maga, which markets itself as a universal and eclectic style. All it really has to distinguish itself is a very cool name. Martial artists have been broadening their base for centuries by studying in other styles and disciplines, and there are plenty of people teaching eclectic arts out there outside of Krav. For my part, today I can teach from my experience in wado, kyokushinkai, cannon gong fu, and rip your balls off tai qi. I've seen more or less the same kind of Kravlike eclectic system in the Canadian airborne... I'm sure American SFs have the same.
So for you guys (and us players), instead of trying to do something eclectic, I'd create a gaming system where the martial artists could dip into other disciplines, or migrate to other disciplines, and become more well rounded in that way.
That's my 2 cents.
Lots of good stuff.
That's an excellent and well thought-out suggestion, Kruelaid.
I don't think I could top that even if I knew anything about martial arts.
And when you're fluffing them up, remember that martial artists love combat rituals. SOS the Rope. The circle. Very cool. Great book.
And when you're fluffing them up, remember that martial artists love combat rituals. SOS the Rope. The circle. Very cool. Great book.
I see warriors of all discplines gathering at a great tournament in the birthplace of all wushu, at the heart of Tian Xia, and at the foot of the throne of the Dragon Emperor.
Lots of good stuff.That's an excellent and well thought-out suggestion, Kruelaid.
I don't think I could top that even if I knew anything about martial arts.
Hehe. Thanks, Chris.
Looking back at it, if I actually had thought it out I'm not sure it'd come out much different.
Well, if you're looking for more styles to add, I'd like to see something like Bartitsu. It's a bit more of a "western" style (derived from and inspired by eastern styles) that would be very well suited to a more refined, gentlemanly society.
Ok... Krav is an awesome fighting system among many other hybrid systems today. I give you that. I've faced a good exemplar in sparring.
But its pretty modern... Since it relies on real world technique...
It lacks the rules and ritualism of Sumo, Judo, or Tae Kwon Do that make them what they are... that make them wildly cool.
Modern real world technique is characteristic of countless styles, both hybrid on non. It's almost generic. For game purposes it has nothing to set itself apart.
It would probably be neater if Ultimate Combat had lots of combat styles but had zero real-world combat styles as they come with so much cultural baggage and create too many opportunities for "you're doing it wrong" conflict.
We've got:
Scorpion Style
Gorgon Fist
Cornugun Style...I would like to see more of this, for example
roper style (grappler)
bulette style (charges/headbutts)
Whirlwind style (flurry-master)
Scuttleback style (tripper/grappler)etc. etc.
Of course, real world martial arts can make great inspiration for this but I don't want to feel (or be told) I'm playing my 'boxing-style' wrong: if I'm playing 'Brutal Fist' style then I will feel less constrained.
I completely agree. Create martial arts that belong in the game world, rather than placing real-world martial arts into it. Then again, I would probably just 're-skin' the Asian (or otherwise) versions to do this anyway.
Randy
You know, I'd like to see some kind of brutal martial art attributed to hobgoblins.
Thanks for all the input so far!
To clarify, I doubt this book will have entries for karate, judo, and other Earth names, mainly because most games don't take place on Earth. We'll probably either go with practical names ("Defensive Acrobatic Style," "Offensive Scorpion Style," and so on) or create flavorful names (roper style, dragon style, etc.) and in each's introductory paragraph, pointout "This style is good for emulating combat styles such as X, Y, and Z."
In other words: it is important for a fan of judo to be able to find the word "judo" in th book so he can play a character based on his own knowledge, but it is important to avoid the baggage associated with prominently using the name of that style in the book (I'm sure anyone who takes the Karate Initiate feat is going to be the target of endless Karate Kid jokes, for example).