11-11-2011, 07:48 AM | #11 | |
Join Date: Oct 2007
Location: Vermont
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Re: [Houserule] Brawling Default at DX-4
Oops, my bad. I didn't have basic within arms reach when I wrote that. I still think it should be an easier default than -4.
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First: I don't think frequent play fighting is as common as you do. In Western culture, at least, girls rarely play fight when compared to boys. Secondly: Untrained humans (and small kids rough housing), in my experience, typically wrestle instead of striking.
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11-11-2011, 07:59 AM | #12 |
Join Date: Sep 2004
Location: Canada
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Re: [Houserule] Brawling Default at DX-4
The typical primate pattern is to wrestle/grapple and bite. You still see this in one or two year olds, and for a very good mechanical reason, not just because little children are "wild". Children that young are not only rather poorly co-ordinated and are still working on their muscular development, but they also have stubby limbs compared to an older child or an adult - their leverage is really very bad. On the other hand, toddlers have disproportionately large heads, meaning disproportionately large mouths and reasonably developed jaw muscles.
Older children and adults, on the other hand, don't have the big heads so they don't have the weird proportions making up for our small mouths and weak jaw muscles. The penalty for giving up the usual primate diet involving chewy plant parts in favor of cooked plants and meat - but at least cooked food burns less calories to chew up, and it's faster to chew too (once it's cooked). So, humans can't really do the grab and bite of serious primate combat. We still do grabbing for play fighting - I think that instinct is going to stick around forever. When untrained humans get really serious, instead of adding in bites, we tend add in over-arm blows to the head (and shoulders and neck when we miss). Usually with some sort of fist-weight (a lamp, a rock, a plate, whatever's handy) but we use the same blows unarmed too. We seem to literally be evolved to whack people over the head with rocks.
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11-11-2011, 08:32 AM | #13 | |
Join Date: Jan 2006
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Re: [Houserule] Brawling Default at DX-4
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11-11-2011, 11:36 AM | #14 |
Join Date: Oct 2011
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Re: [Houserule] Brawling Default at DX-4
I would say that's relatively untrue. About a fight between untrained individuals. My father has seen a lot of bar fights, and that was brawling. I think of brawling as the natural fighting that almost any human is capable of doing. I would include knees, throws, slams, elbows, just pure violence.
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11-11-2011, 12:00 PM | #15 | |
Banned
Join Date: Apr 2008
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Re: [Houserule] Brawling Default at DX-4
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11-11-2011, 04:08 PM | #16 | |
MIB
Join Date: Sep 2004
Location: Melbourne, Australia
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Re: [Houserule] Brawling Default at DX-4
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Having at least 1CP in the Brawling skill allows you to parry two different attacks a round. So the default brawler confronted by two foes will only be able to parry one of them, the skilled brawler can parry both. Having at least 1CP in Brawling allows you to use a blackjack or sap or similar, giving +1 to damage. The punch will do basic thrust damage, for a ST10 character that's 1d-2, or 1d-1 for kicking. A blackjack/sap takes punching to 1d-1 - so the skilled brawler can do as much damage with their fists as the default brawler can with their feet. Remember that by the rules, you cannot get defaults off defaults, only off Attributes or Skills with at least 1CP in them. So Techniques cannot be used until there's at least 1CP in Brawling. Most GMs would allow the default brawler to kick, but probably not disarm, etc. So if it does nothing else, the 1CP in Brawling unlocks access to those techniques - but you'd probably want to spend some CP on some of them. And having techniques above default will be useful. For example, kicking at Brawling-2 - well, if you've DX10 and you kick at 8, you have just a 25.9% chance of connecting - and if you miss, you have to roll vs DX or fall over (and DX10 will give you a 50% chance of staying up or falling). Why would you kick? Because it does +1 damage, and another +1 if you're wearing heavy boots. So the default brawler can try to kick and will usually miss and half the time fall down, the skilled brawler can kick and do extra damage. This extra damage means an extra chance of achieving a "major wound" (over HP/2), or crippling wounds on limbs (HP/2) or hands/feet (HP/3) or knocking them out by a blow to the head, etc. So the default brawler confronted with a skilled brawler or brawlers may shortly find themselves on the ground (whether from falling over or being injured) being kicked into crippled unconsciousness. And lacking the Ground Fighting technique, and unable to parry more than one foe at once, the default brawler is even more doomed. A default brawler may have been grappled, and thus be unable to punch or kick, or parry. Someone else may be laying into them. They would probably then wish they were a skilled brawler and could head butt, knee, elbow and so on. Other techniques include: aggressive parry, disarming, elbow drop, elbow strike, eye-poke, eye-rake, eye-gouging, feint, ground fighting, head butt, jam, knee drop, knee strike, push kick, stamp kick, sweeping kick, two-handed punch, and uppercut. And all of these will be useful at some time.
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11-11-2011, 05:37 PM | #17 | ||||
Join Date: Nov 2009
Location: Oregon
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Re: [Houserule] Brawling Default at DX-4
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11-11-2011, 05:58 PM | #18 |
MIB
Join Date: Sep 2004
Location: Melbourne, Australia
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Re: [Houserule] Brawling Default at DX-4
The situations where the techniques are useful may be rare, it's true. The same goes for First Aid skill in most people's lives. But when you do need those things, they're really useful. And just a slight edge can mean the difference between being uninjured and being crippled for life - or dead.
And if the person without the skill/technique cannot do it at all, then even a poor skill level will be surprisingly effective. Of course, how rare the situations in which skill/technique X are useful depends on you, the GM, and the actions of the players. And it's a bit unfair to say, "I have created a campaign where nobody will ever brawl, and so now it turns out that Brawling skill isn't useful, obviously the rules are broken."
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11-11-2011, 07:05 PM | #19 |
☣
Join Date: Sep 2004
Location: Southeast NC
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Re: [Houserule] Brawling Default at DX-4
Sure, you can punch and kick (at -2) using DX and parry with DX/2+3, but AFAIK, you don't get anything else. If I'm right, putting even 1 point in Brawling gives a large benefit over an untrained fighter of the same DX by opening up full skill and small penalty techniques like Feint and Hammer Fist.
I will probably introduce a semi-default of DX-4 for making/resisting feints barehanded, while keeping the DX punching.
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brawling, default, unarmed, wrestling |
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