I like one of the approaches in Oriental Adventures: if you take specific feats, you have mastered a style and you are rewarded for that. I think that's a great way to go. I also think that there should be styles that are meant for certain classes. Maybe there is a style that rewards you for being a monk and you can only qualify if you have Flurry of Blows. Maybe there is a style that you can only take if you can channel energy.
I seriously do NOT like the idea of open martial arts and multiple styles outside of the monk.
oriental adventures tried this and it ruined the game for a while.
Personally I'd much rather see a martial arts mechanic in game and throw the Monk out on his rear.
The only reason I allowed a Monk in one of my campaigns is because he is basically a brawling Friar pugilist... the idea of some Wu Fang Shizzle Monk hanging out doing Bullshido in a Western setting just wrecks my mind. It's right up there with some Viking barbarian and his Katana.
Now before you say that 'well the class description can be changed for your setting' let me just say flatly, that Cheese is clearly Wasabi flavoured.
So I'd love to see a good Martial Arts guide, provided we tossed all the real life Earthly style names out.
Hence my earlier posts on DIY build mechanics.
I seriously do NOT like the idea of open martial arts and multiple styles outside of the monk.
oriental adventures tried this and it ruined the game for a while.
IMHO, this is wrong.
If martial arts are added as a feat mechanic, there will be simple no space in the PC to add useful maneuvers without losing "basic" feats like power attack and improved trip.
Is true that in the thread sometimes people pointed out (IMHO) or asked things already existing.. as an example, an improvised weapon specialist is already the Empty Hand Monk from APG.
Just to chime in, I wrote a "martial artist" class here some time ago. To make it short, it gives levels/belts in real-world asian-themed martial arts which in turn gave bonuses to various maneuvers.
Now, however, I agree with those posting that not everything martial arts-related should be asian, nor is the idea of listing real-world martial arts a good one. Just making some abstractions here: judo is much like formalized wrestling, karate is punching and kicking, kung fu is doing some maneuvers and using improvised weaponry, and kendo is fencing.
As some pointed out, there's actually no need to make an additional class if you abstract the martial arts themselves, because there are feat chains that can represent what such-and-such martial art looks like, and the Fighter can specialize himself in a given art by expending his numerous feat slots into it. What can be given, though, is a list of martial arts with a list of feats that can be selected to do it.
If the need for specific class abilities arise, rather than creating whole new classes, the future rulebooks can provide new class archetypes. Example: "Martial Artist", as a Fighter archetype, would exchange armor training for improved bonuses to some maneuvers. "Martial Artist", as a Monk archetype, would give potentially different feat lists for the bonus feats.
Personally I'd much rather see a martial arts mechanic in game and throw the Monk out on his rear.
The only reason I allowed a Monk in one of my campaigns is because he is basically a brawling Friar pugilist... the idea of some Wu Fang Shizzle Monk hanging out doing Bullshido in a Western setting just wrecks my mind. It's right up there with some Viking barbarian and his Katana.
Now before you say that 'well the class description can be changed for your setting' let me just say flatly, that Cheese is clearly Wasabi flavoured.So I'd love to see a good Martial Arts guide, provided we tossed all the real life Earthly style names out.
Hence my earlier posts on DIY build mechanics.
The monk is an asian fantasy inspired character, if it doesn't work in your fantasy world..don't use it....instead, you only need to use a monk when it's appropriate for the setting.
If you have mixed fantasy settings like mine... .then feel free to use the monk, it's just that simple.
The monk is an asian fantasy inspired character, if it doesn't work in your fantasy world..don't use it....instead, you only need to use a monk when it's appropriate for the setting.
Indeed, so those times when we don't have Monks running around, we could use a good martial arts mechanic set :)
Hence my views about seeing the relevance for a product like this, but only if it was delinked from RL martial arts 'branding' and instead offered as a DIY build an Art/Racial/regional styles.
when OA came out , EVERYONE had a martial art, the monks, the wu jen, the shoei. It was stupid.
Maybe keep martial arts to martial characters?
Id also like to NOT see, "karate" and "kung fu" if your going to have martial arts they should be RPG specific:
Orc ki do
Ogre Crush-u-fu
Dragon-Ki-Claw
Elven-ate
etc.
I'm fine with all classes having access, provided they want to blow feats or whatever on it... its not going to be cheap if its good, and the only people able to max it out are going to be martial characters if its expensive.
Or its cheap and plenty take it, but its not overly deadly.
I hope they limit the martial arts to existing rules, archetypes, feats etc. I'm afraid of power creep if the martial arts just adds to all the other stuff characters get in the game.
The martial arts should have fantasy names, it would just feel wrong to call them by their real world names IMO. There should also be specific racial and cultural martial arts as well as martial arts focusing on weapons.
I hope they include a new martial base class which is a lightly armored warrior who can specialize in various forms of martial arts from swashbuckling fencing to pure pugilism.
I would provide feats that allow a bonus based on an element of a martial art style. For example, 'soft strike' or 'hard block'. This would allow characters to build their own styles based on what works best for them. It also makes sense in another way: people will always disagree on what real world martial arts constitute and how they compare, this allows us to bypass that problem by doing away with style names. Further, the most famous or infamous martial artists of real life were those who created their own unique styles - this allows PCs to do just that.
You could have a single feat that allows several 'elements' to be added together to make a style, much like one feat allows several traits.
"ah, I see you know my wu tang style!" hiya!
Might I suggest a feat , maybe similar to dazzling display (but no so similar that you could have both) that would be a reputation feat, as the martial artist gets more levels, (and possibly a requirement to teach others) the legend of his style grows, when he meets opponents they have heard of his style, or even he himself, and his legendary dragon-ki-claw, which could possible cause shaken or staggered conditions, work it in with dazzling display (a couple of chops in the air, a little kick n spin and a waaaaaaaaaaah!) and the enemy is drooling in fear!
"ah, I see you know my wu tang style!" hiya!
Might I suggest a feat , maybe similar to dazzling display (but no so similar that you could have both) that would be a reputation feat, as the martial artist gets more levels, (and possibly a requirement to teach others) the legend of his style grows, when he meets opponents they have heard of his style, or even he himself, and his legendary dragon-ki-claw, which could possible cause shaken or staggered conditions, work it in with dazzling display (a couple of chops in the air, a little kick n spin and a waaaaaaaaaaah!) and the enemy is drooling in fear!
... or giggling in anticipation as they've heard of the move and have developed a counter-move?
*whiny nasal tone*
"aaaahhh I see you are a practioner of the dragon-ki-claw! fortunately for me, I have studied fortune cookie chop!"
I don't know how Ultimate Combat wants to present its martial forms. But if possible, I'd advocate a modular system. Characters would chose/learn:
- an offensive form
- a defensive form
- an internal form
- an external form
The combination of the various parts collectively forms a particular martial art.
As a former martial artist I would support the viewpoints of those who have advised against explicitly including real-world styles by name as the translation will tend to disappoint.
mdt's suggestion above on the hard/soft non-weapon/weapon/mixed is sound and comes close to enveloping what most martial art styles break down to.
I would also suggest mechanical options for adding in various weapons as 'monk weapons'. The present monk weapons (brass knuckles excepted) are largely Okinawan in flavour. There should be a way for small, limited packages of weapons to be adopted by a given martial stylist, whereby martial arts powers can be used with it (i.e. have it considered a monk weapon), without opening such ability to all weapons.
Either a one-for-one swap, e.g. swap in 'halberd' for kama to emulate naginata/kwan dao stylists [Flexible option]
OR
Present packages based on real-world weapons styles plus some fantasy flavoured ones [Least flexible, but allows designers to exclude some weapons if this is a balance issue]
e.g. twin short swords + long pole ('Wing Chun' package)
long sword + scimitar + spear + pole ('tai chi' package)
I think this will please those of us who aren't excited by the flavour of the existing monk weapons.
Of course, adding in more martial arts weapons, ala Oriental Adventures would be great.
PLUS,
One martial art that seems to have gone completely unmentioned in this thread:
Kalaripayattu, from Kerala
it's Wiki page has a nice list of its weapons, including the awesome multi-bladed flexible sword, the Urumi.
*whiny nasal tone*
"aaaahhh I see you are a practioner of the dragon-ki-claw! fortunately for me, I have studied fortune cookie chop!"
"Ha! But as Chief Librarian of the Akashic Library, I am also a master of origami! Prepare to die the death of a thousand paper-cuts in my Flurry of Pages attack!"
TL;DR (Skimmed, really. Then I searched the thread for key words.)
Southern Praying Mantis (Chow Gar); I don't know anything about it from a technical standpoint. It just looks cool.
Also, some sort of brutal, militaristic style with lots of straightforward attacks, grapple breaking, and stomping on downed opponents would be cool. Like Gado and Shina from Bloody Roar.
"Ha! But as Chief Librarian of the Akashic Library, I am also a master of origami! Prepare to die the death of a thousand paper-cuts in my Flurry of Pages attack!"*whiny nasal tone*
"aaaahhh I see you are a practioner of the dragon-ki-claw! fortunately for me, I have studied fortune cookie chop!"
"eeeeeehhhhhh I see, but master badbreath of the dragon-ki-claw school taught me the seven clouds of breath counter to the flurry of pages attack! behold, my scissors cut your paper!"
Off the top of my head:aikido
capoeira
jiujitsu
judo
karate
kendo
kenpo
krav maga
kung fu
pankration
sumo
tae kwan do
tai chi
In my opinion, it makes no sense to list real earth wushu styles. To differentiate all of them, you have to know a big deal about martial arts which is asked way to much for a role playing game.
Plus, real world unarmed martial arts suck against basically every single real world armed combat styles. It´s bare hands against sharp steel that grants improved range. Qigong can strengthen your muscles a great deal and stuff but swords still cut through. d20 Monks are a viable class for one reason: it´s fantasy. Not real world.Plus, for example kung fu is a whole category of battle styles by itself (well, actually "gungfu" is a term meaning "mastery" which can be applied to stuff that has nothing to do with fighting)
Pankration fighting style don´t fit to the monk class (with ki pool and featuring wisdom as important stat), would be better off in some brawler class, as for sumo, I cannot imagine a sumo fighter as a member of a fantasy party.
Tai chi on the other hand is a good inspiration for a monk variant that really emphasizes wisdom.
Also, monks are monks. Monks are these guys from monasteries who are being ascetic and buddhistic and stuff. "Monk" doesn´t equal "guy who practices a form of wushu" - that guy would have levels in a class like "brawler"
And please, don´t use names from earth directly on golarion. Some names directly taken from real earth sources (like "Asmodeus") are ok but I don´t want vudrani monks practicing actual aikido, they are vudrani, not japanese.
To the basic question:
I´d like to see much more weaponized monk variants. I really liked the movie Shaolin Temple in which the shaolin monks use many different weapons like jians, flexible spears and chain whips, also monk spades could be a stylish weapon.
Additionally, wuxia monks who have powers like these impossible jumps in the jet li movies would be sweet, also wuxia styles that feature rather unusual weapons (which golarion already has, for example battle scarves)
How about monks with some spell like abilities, jedi monks or monks who can cast mirror image and the like on themselves?
Or monks with a great deal of shape shifting abilities? (well, Aspect Masters already do that but there´s no bear aspect, I like bears ^^)
i would also love to see a style based solely on quivering palm/death strike, something like "one blow one kill" kind of martial arts style (no idea if any exist in real life, i doubt it)
Well, there is no five point exploding palm technique but real fights are fast, especially when a master of martial arts fights some thugs from the street. A merciless martial artist would just snap the neck of his enemy or the like. Or breaking some bones.
As for "one blow, one kill" in pnps, I oppose them. I dislike save or die spells since fights are no fun with them - either you kill the enemy at the beginning, then the fight is over meh no fun. Or you suck at it and be useless. No fun either.
Elven blade dance.
I do not associate that with monks. Monks as a class are based on wisdom and get 3 high saves. Elven Blade Dancers can go entirely without wisdom in my imagination and I don´t see why they need high will saves. Sounds more like some dex based fighter variant.
Edit: Also, European fencing (as one or multiple different combat styles).
Seriously. Not everyone who knows how to fight is a monk. Fighters, for example, also know how to fight.
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.
Movies featuring asian combatants tend to raise some sort of superstition about asian fighting styles and asian weapons.
Medieval knights and mercenaries like the landsknechte had fighting as their profession, which means that over the centuries they perfected fighting with their weapons of choice. As for samurais armed with katanas against ironclad medieval knights with two handed swords, I´d bet on the knight, katanas aren´t made for fighting ironclad enemies, I´m no expert on this but I would expect them to break, they are rather thin after all. And not that much faster as two handed swords. Samurais would probably wear heavy iron armors if they had access to a sufficing amount of iron and with stronger armors they would want weapons that penetrate them (since katanas are curved, you can not use them to pierce armors like you can with two handed swords - that´s the reason swords have an additional hilt above the guard)(tough samurais were soldiers while knights were elite, the common soldier of medieval europe is a peasant armed with some reforged farming tool who would suck ass against a combat trained samurai)
So, just don´t give in to kill bill hatori hanzo blade fairytales
Rogue -- Ninjutsu [nuff said]
What´s the difference to an ordinary rogue or say an assassin? What ninjas basically do is to sneak around and poison people in their sleep and spying and stuff. When it comes to movie ninjas, sneak attack seems to be exactly what they do. With a wakizashi probably which is basically the same as a shortsword
Animal Styles - too iconic to pass up. Fantasy-enhance them and they'd be great. So much inherent drama.
Absolutely. Take the ones from Kung Fu Panda and we´re done.
Thrown Weapon Style(shuriken-jutsu, tsubute/inji, biao, chakram)
Another reason not to use earth names: real ninjas threw shurikens to distract enemies for a chance to flee. Fantasy ninjas throw them to reduce hit points.
i would like to see a class similar to the 3 martial adepts from the book of 9 swords. maybe we can combine aspects of the 3 into a single class with a heavy swordsage focus, but the manuever system would be overhauled entirely. aspects of all 3 can be thrown in, the point is to create a class that could cover a variety of fancy martial concepts ranging from ninja and samurai to wuxia movie hero and martial artists. it would be very modular, pick your manuevers from a smaller list (think like rogue talents or magus arcana) and they would scale with level rather than needing to be traded. the fluff would need to be mutable enough to fit a variety of concepts. we could call this class the martial adept.my idea of a class skeleton template would be that of the monk
(...)
Sounds good, except for
the ability to add dexterity in addition to strength for melee damage.
which is way to strong in my opinion (why even bother with strength anymore? to carry heavy loads? I even regard Dervish Dance as a very, veeeery strong feat a GM should only give to players he is 100% sure of being no power gamers and Dervish Dance works only with a one handed scimitar without shield or second weapon)
You know who's an absolute master of martial arts? The Pathfinder fighter. As shown by his metric ton of combat feats and his full BAB. Seriously, do you people really think that fighting styles must be named and Asia-inspired or they're worthless?
The fighter is the greatest martial artist in the game. And if they introduce a class that is a superior martial artist, they they are wrong.
Ah. Precisely. That´s the kind of post I wanted to read all along.
Gun Kata. Well, Hand Crossbow Kata can do as well.
That stuff from Equilibrium? Most ridiculous fighting style I ever seen. "Oh, there are terrorists in that room. I have to choices. A: Take a tear gas grenade and throw it into that room. B: Jump right into the center of the room, make useless battle stances, fire my guns, hit everyone and don´t get hit by myself" - while movie heroes should emphasize style over logic they don´t have to be THAT dumb.
I'm not a Martial Arts fan, and I think that's what drew me to this....
When Considering martial arts for an Rpg, I have to ask myself... doesn't the monk already DO martial arts?
I'm seeing a lot... more than a lot.... of Names... no followup, no description of how useful it could be in game, what it could do different.
As a Dm, I want to be able to look at a page.... Like the Monk archetypes in the APG... and see what they do different from The Vanilla class. " oh hey, this one steals energy, this one is super defensive, and this one is all about archery"
I saw someone talk about a martial art that was all about running up an opponent and flipping them onto the ground... Which sounds awfully like a trip attempt to me. This I think Is the issue... We've got four pages full of potential styles, but in the end, many of them are doing the same things.
Precisely. Exactly my opinion. Variants should be very distinctive.
And really, what is martial arts other than excelling in fighting?
Doing that with grace. Thus the "arts". And this is the reason why martial arts are still practised instead of switching to firearms. (plus doing it for the soul, like tai chi which is used more like yoga at the present) (well, medieval knights also wanted to do their fighting in grace, code of chivalry and started to whine when peasants get to take them off horse via crossbows et cetera, but especially shaolin monks didn´t actually trained to hurt other people, knights did)
Something based entirely off of improvised weapons. Nobody messes with a monk wielding a ladder.
Rules, especially when Jackie does it, nice idea.
Just to chime in, I wrote a "martial artist" class here some time ago. To make it short, it gives levels/belts in real-world asian-themed martial arts which in turn gave bonuses to various maneuvers.
If you really use names from earth, please don´t mix stuff like belt ranks and chinese kung fu. My hung gar kung fu master tended to say "belts are to keep your trousers from falling down". Rename them to levels, that´s ok, but belt ranks are a tradition and traditions have to fit.
As for your class, it seems like to build a strong character you have to mix the styles - I´d prefer styles that are better off pure (since karate has all the unarmed damage boni and stuff)
the difference bewteen Gung Fu and Kung Fu is the same difference between Ving Tsung and Wing Chun.
that difference is:
Nothing.
it's an accent, Mandarin, Cantoneese..northern , southern.
In boston they say "Cah"...most of the rest of us say "Car"
dont get english spelling of chineese noises confused as different things or meanings.
The way they "spell" gung fu/kung fu is exactly the same any where in china, the way they say it is slightly different as it is if your from georgia or new york.
there is no correct english spelling of a chineese symbol.
Ving Tsung and Wing Chun and Gung Fu and Kung Fu sounds so ridiculously similar when spoken by someone who is actually chineese, I wonder how the words found different english spellings in the first place.
I am always curious about people who think they know more about the history or intricacies of kung fu, by referring to gung fu.
the difference bewteen Gung Fu and Kung Fu is the same difference between Ving Tsung and Wing Chun.
that difference is:
Nothing.
it's an accent, Mandarin, Cantoneese..northern , southern.
In boston they say "Cah"...most of the rest of us say "Car"
dont get english spelling of chineese noises confused as different things or meanings.
The way they "spell" gung fu/kung fu is exactly the same any where in china, the way they say it is slightly different as it is if your from georgia or new york.
there is no correct english spelling of a chineese symbol.
Ving Tsung and Wing Chun and Gung Fu and Kung Fu sounds so ridiculously similar when spoken by someone who is actually chineese, I wonder how the words found different english spellings in the first place.
I am always curious about people who think they know more about the history or intricacies of kung fu, by referring to gung fu.
by the way the syllable "fu" is exactly the same (synonymous) to the japanese "do" which means in both languages, 'style', or rather the closest translation possible for english... it can also be taken as 'form'.
Goku style for Ki ranged attacks with stunning fist??
To be perfectly honest, I would MUCH rather see PCs and GMs put together their own martial arts "systems" with their own names or maybe Golarion based names from a list of feats. There are a lot of them already in PF and if one really felt it was needed, add some more. Maybe this is a pointless comment arguing against the book per se, but I'm totally disinterested in seeing Karate or Pankration - real world cultural intrusions into a fantasy world. Maybe Paizo intends to do that.
[I deleted three off topic rants that followed.]
To be perfectly honest, I would MUCH rather see PCs and GMs put together their own martial arts "systems" with their own names or maybe Golarion based names from a list of feats. There are a lot of them already in PF and if one really felt it was needed, add some more. Maybe this is a pointless comment arguing against the book per se, but I'm totally disinterested in seeing Karate or Pankration - real world cultural intrusions into a fantasy world. Maybe Paizo intends to do that.
[I deleted three off topic rants that followed.]
i agree, dont want to see a re-make of oriental adventures with real world martial arts styles.
if you need some writers to kick up something for it tho... I spent 10 years studying kenpo (hard form) before shifting over to wing chun in 1993 (soft/hard form). and have ALOT of time on my hands!
ive been thinking alot about vundrani style based on a multi armed marilith.... would be wicked....
I had an abberant vudrani sorceror that was basically human but had snake tail instead of legs.... i could see alot of weird stuff coming from vudra.
all my monks are usually vundrani
if you need some writers to kick up something for it tho... I spent 10 years studying kenpo (hard form) before shifting over to wing chun in 1993 (soft/hard form). and have ALOT of time on my hands!
I agree, they could tap some people with knowledge of real world martial arts as well as an understanding of game mechanics to build something, that would be novel :)
Otherwise we are doomed to another tiome of Wu Feng Shizzle :(
"eeeeeehhhhhh I see, but master badbreath of the dragon-ki-claw school taught me the seven clouds of breath counter to the flurry of pages attack! behold, my scissors cut your paper!""Ha! But as Chief Librarian of the Akashic Library, I am also a master of origami! Prepare to die the death of a thousand paper-cuts in my Flurry of Pages attack!"*whiny nasal tone*
"aaaahhh I see you are a practioner of the dragon-ki-claw! fortunately for me, I have studied fortune cookie chop!"
"ooooooohhhhhhhh! so you have sliced my book of many pages, but with my knowledge of feng shui," opens door behind me, "I shall employ the draft of blow-backs and asphyxiate you on your own stinky breath!"
"ooooooohhhhhhhh! so you have sliced my book of many pages, but with my knowledge of feng shui," opens door behind me, "I shall employ the draft of blow-backs and asphyxiate you on your own stinky breath!""eeeeeehhhhhh I see, but master badbreath of the dragon-ki-claw school taught me the seven clouds of breath counter to the flurry of pages attack! behold, my scissors cut your paper!""Ha! But as Chief Librarian of the Akashic Library, I am also a master of origami! Prepare to die the death of a thousand paper-cuts in my Flurry of Pages attack!"*whiny nasal tone*
"aaaahhh I see you are a practioner of the dragon-ki-claw! fortunately for me, I have studied fortune cookie chop!"
"heh, many months of training my friend, sucking down gross smells, at masters school have made me immune to my own breath" (breaths deeply) "see?, your kung fu is weak!"
too much fun. too much saturday night kung fu marathon
I'm fine with all classes having access, provided they want to blow feats or whatever on it... its not going to be cheap if its good, and the only people able to max it out are going to be martial characters if its expensive.
Or its cheap and plenty take it, but its not overly deadly.
+1
I am not sure if it has been mentioned, but I would like to see a few styles that combine unarmed and armed combat. Kampfringen comes to mind. It was a hybrid style that combined joint locks, grappling, and the use of daggers in close combat (usually targeting weak points in armor or using an opponent's armor against them).
"heh, many months of training my friend, sucking down gross smells, at masters school have made me immune to my own breath" (breaths deeply) "see?, your kung fu is weak!""ooooooohhhhhhhh! so you have sliced my book of many pages, but with my knowledge of feng shui," opens door behind me, "I shall employ the draft of blow-backs and asphyxiate you on your own stinky breath!""eeeeeehhhhhh I see, but master badbreath of the dragon-ki-claw school taught me the seven clouds of breath counter to the flurry of pages attack! behold, my scissors cut your paper!""Ha! But as Chief Librarian of the Akashic Library, I am also a master of origami! Prepare to die the death of a thousand paper-cuts in my Flurry of Pages attack!"*whiny nasal tone*
"aaaahhh I see you are a practioner of the dragon-ki-claw! fortunately for me, I have studied fortune cookie chop!"
"Maybe so, but my strategy is good as you just inhaled that beehive ..."
|
I don't think I saw xingyi (hsing-i) quan listed yet.
It's another of the soft styles, the other two well known ones are bagua and tai chi, both of which have already been listed. While bagua is known for its circular movements, xingyi is more 'linear' in the strikes. I've only done the hebei style, best example was in the film 'The One' with Jet Li, he faced himself with the styles of xingyi vs bagua, it made for an interesting fight.
I would, love love love some of the ideas in Tome of Ba++le: B00k of N!ne Sw0rds get put into this book. The cru$ader is potentially my favorite 3.5 class, the other two base classes were fantastic as well, the prestige classes, particularly the Ruby kn!ght v!nd!cator were awesome. Some of the martial powers would slide in nicely, might make a nice martial equivalent to words of power.
I would, love love love some of the ideas in Tome of Ba++le: B00k of N!ne Sw0rds get put into this book. The cru$ader is potentially my favorite 3.5 class, the other two base classes were fantastic as well, the prestige classes, particularly the Ruby kn!ght v!nd!cator were awesome. Some of the martial powers would slide in nicely, might make a nice martial equivalent to words of power.
Some of the ideas were good ones, yes, but I don't think there is the desire to introduce another 'magic system' into Pathfinder. However, these aren't martial arts styles, so that discussion is a little off topic.
I like one of the approaches in Oriental Adventures: if you take specific feats, you have mastered a style and you are rewarded for that. I think that's a great way to go. I also think that there should be styles that are meant for certain classes. Maybe there is a style that rewards you for being a monk and you can only qualify if you have Flurry of Blows. Maybe there is a style that you can only take if you can channel energy.
Very true. There could be "Generic" styles you can take just with a feat combination, and other supposed to be Class oriented, with Class Feature prereqs.
Limits based on HD (say, no more than one art every 4 levels) could be placed to prevent abuses or inconsistencies.
BTW, the concepts of the old martial arts of OAdv and of ToB maneuvers are not necessarily mutually exclusive IMHO.
There are, as an example, Rogue talents "always active" and rogue talents "once/day"... well, some martial art benefit could be a flat bonus, some could be used 1/day, another 1/encounter...
Do i really need to say it
Crane Style . . :D
@ Dabbler:
Actually, 9swords was a martial styles book, some of the abilities emulate spell-like abilities but it is explicitly stated that the material in tome of ba++le is based off of martial arts styles. Not a single class in that book casts spells of any kind, they use maneuvers and stances, both are martial concepts.
Gun-Kata?
Gun-Kata?
Equilibrium? Grammaton Cleric?
@ Dabbler:
Actually, 9swords was a martial styles book, some of the abilities emulate spell-like abilities but it is explicitly stated that the material in tome of ba++le is based off of martial arts styles. Not a single class in that book casts spells of any kind, they use maneuvers and stances, both are martial concepts.
Yes, and psionics uses powers, not spells, and it isn't magic either, but psionics is still functionally an alternative magic system, and so was ToBs system of stances and maneuvers. Doesn't matter what you call them, both add a new mechanic to the game, and Paizo have said in the past that new mechanics are something they want to avoid in order to keep everything included in adventures to be easy to run with core-only. Including a feat or spell is easy, a whole new mechanic is harder.
I have no problem including martial arts styles, or elements of them, in Pathfinder / Ultimate Combat. I have no problem in using ideas from ToB either, but I see this as being done through feats and the like, not by introducing new classes and mechanics.
Glima (Norse Wrestling)
English Boxing
i would also love to see a style based solely on quivering palm/death strike, something like "one blow one kill" kind of martial arts style (no idea if any exist in real life, i doubt it) but it would be awsome for monks to be feared for their deathstrikes, maybe replacing flurry of blows?
Their is a move death style.
also +1 to capoiera
I'm new to this thread, and unfortunately I don't have the time to read all of the previous posts. Hopefully, I am not repeating things that have already been said. If I am, then I apologize.
Does anyone remember the FIRST edition Oriental Adventures and the martial arts system therein? If you do not, it was based on the idea that you select certain basics about a style (hard, soft) and the main form of attack (strike, kick, weapon) and add up the various modifiers based on these choices (AC modifier, damage per attack, number of attacks). The style might teach a couple of monk type weapons. After that, you would select a certain number of special maneuvers available to that art. These special maneuvers varied wildly, but were very much like feats in their ability to give bonuses or special powers (weapon breaker, iron fist, circle kick, levitate, steel cloth).
Using this system, I had a couple of characters that used savate as their primary method of fighting. Sadly, they would be a little over powered if they were brought directly into Pathfinder - two attacks per round at full BAB, doing 1d8 damage, and that is BEFORE adding in any of the special maneuvers. Circle kick did double damage, flying kick did triple damage. Of course, if you miss, you are prone... And all of that was for a 1st level fighter.
I studied Shaolin Lohan Kung Fu, so I loved seeing the 5 animal styles of Tiger, Crane, Leopard(Panther is close enough), Snake, and Dragon.
Of course you have to have Ninjitsu.
An old 1E OA articles in Dragon Mag #127 they had some cool crazy ones like Cat, Bear, Dark Hand, Dragonfly, Eight legged man, and a bunch others. Those would be fun to use.
I'm still a fan of no Earth based martial arts systems, and instead have Golarion-centric styles.
There's either a significant whitewashing of the historical contexts of a lot of the martial arts being used, or just a complete ignorance of how they came about and why the styles are as they are.
Lets not project Earth history onto Golarion, surely we can come up with new styles than just copypasta stuff.