Style Feats(Boar, Crane, etc) Question

[Saperaud]

I've recently made a character that makes use of Style Feats, and one bit of text is confusing me a little so I figured I'd ask the boards.

Ultimate Combat wrote:

Although you cannot use a style feat before combat begins, the style you are in persists until you spend a swift action to switch to a different combat style

With this line is it intended that your Style should end when combat ends or does your Style persist even out of combat until you spend a swift action to switch it to another Style? I'm leaning towards the first option but I figured I should get other peoples interpretations.

[Deighton Thrane]

It is intended that your style ends when combat does. Essentially, you don't walk around town in boar style, you only go into it when you start fighting. Otherwise you'd have a bunch of people walking around as if they worked for the ministry of silly walks.

[DominusMegadeus]

I don't much like that rule. Obviously most people wouldn't walk around town in their stance, but I can't even practice it unless I find a fight somewhere?

[LazarX]

DominusMegadeus wrote:

I don't much like that rule. Obviously most people wouldn't walk around town in their stance, but I can't even practice it unless I find a fight somewhere?

You can practise it whenever you want. But that's still a duration of combat rounds because you can't sustain that level of activity constantly, any more than anyone can walk around constantly boxing.

In other words the rules don't allow the constant benefit of your style feats (unless specifically stated otherwise) which is what the actual agenda behind your questions are.

[DominusMegadeus]

Level of activity? I'm in a combat stance. I'd look like an idiot, but it's hardly an exertion.

[LazarX]

DominusMegadeus wrote:

Level of activity? I'm in a combat stance. I'd look like an idiot, but it's hardly an exertion.

Combat stances are part of the flow of combat, they're not simply standing around in idiot poses.

[DominusMegadeus]

Then how does it take an action to start?

[Cao Phen]

Combat Style Master let you have one style active before combat starts.

[Komoda]

Standing at "Attention" or "Parade Rest" for any length of time hurts. Standing in a "Combat Stance" is a friggin killer.

[Abraham spalding]

Komoda wrote:

Standing at "Attention" or "Parade Rest" for any length of time hurts. Standing in a "Combat Stance" is a friggin killer.

If you say so. I have done both for over an hour at a time without any issues.

[graystone]

Komoda wrote:

Standing at "Attention" or "Parade Rest" for any length of time hurts. Standing in a "Combat Stance" is a friggin killer.

I've hear tell of these dudes in England that wear these funky hats that stand at attention for a 2 hour 'tour of duty', and may not eat, sleep, smoke, stand easy, sit or lie down during their tour of duty. The queen's guards.

[Durngrun Stonebreaker]

graystone wrote:

Komoda wrote:

Standing at "Attention" or "Parade Rest" for any length of time hurts. Standing in a "Combat Stance" is a friggin killer.

I've hear tell of these dudes in England that wear these funky hats that stand at attention for a 2 hour 'tour of duty', and may not eat, sleep, smoke, stand easy, sit or lie down during their tour of duty. The queen's guards.

And if they can do it for two hours, then anybody should be able to do it all day everyday, right?

[graystone]

Durngrun Stonebreaker wrote:

graystone wrote:

Komoda wrote:

Standing at "Attention" or "Parade Rest" for any length of time hurts. Standing in a "Combat Stance" is a friggin killer.

I've hear tell of these dudes in England that wear these funky hats that stand at attention for a 2 hour 'tour of duty', and may not eat, sleep, smoke, stand easy, sit or lie down during their tour of duty. The queen's guards.

And if they can do it for two hours, then anybody should be able to do it all day everyday, right?

Anyone that takes a style feat, yeah. Characters are larger than life after all. The average character can carry 33 lbs all day every day with no side effects. Can the average person? Stances being 'too tiring' to keep up just doesn't seem right to me.

[Komoda]

In boot camp we had to stay at Attention and Parade Rest for about 2 hours, 4 different times (inspection). Each of those times, we alternated between the two stances about every 20 minutes. Those switches were very welcome. Yes, it is true, every one of us could have done it for hours on end, but it is a joke to claim we would not have felt it.

Then again, I was really old for boot camp.

Back to the game; when you "take the style," that can be compared to my experience of boot camp. You know how to do it. You know where to put your feet. You understand exactly how your hands should be closed. You know the angle of your elbows. You even know that you must be in "Attention" before you enter "Parade Rest" and must go from "Parade Rest" to "Attention" before any other style, including no style (dismissed). Yeah, you can do it proficiently and get away with it for a while. By no means do you have "Style Mastery."

Once a character has "Style Mastery" then they compare to the chaps in Britain that make just about all other watch standers look like unprofessional morons. And as such, you can effectively be in any style you want at any given time.

[James Risner]

Cao Phen wrote:

Combat Style Master let you have one style active before combat starts.

Less, "always" active and more "automatically activate at start of combat" in my mind.

[Komoda]

Yeah, that is the "effectively" part.