This... is... SPARTA!

[Verjigorm]

The greek Panakration(not Greco-Roman wrestling..that's not invented yet, and it's neither Greek nor Roman. It's french) was a completely different style of fighting. It's actually alot closer to modern MMA. The only rules that existed were: No eye gouges, no bites. Breaking hands, finger, arms and chokingpeople to death were perfectly acceptable actions. It's debated as to howmuch influence Pankration practicing greek and macedonian soldiers in Alex's army influenced eastern martial arts.

I'd say Pankration would be a mix of Judo, Karate, Wrestling, Boxing or Brawling. This is dependent on how the greek in question learned his art. Pankration was useful either armoured or unarmoured, and was quite a brutal sport.

The Suggested template isnt bad, but it needs somehelp. With only 12 points on DX-based skills, it doesn't do justice, especially because you've wasted 40pts on DX, for marginal increases. Unles you have more than 5 DX-baed skills, high DX is not a good way to go. And spartans recieved most of their effectiveness through intense training. The cross-trianingsurely upped their DX, however.

Skills needed:
Primary: Spear, Shield, Soldier, Hiking, Running
Secondary: Shortsword(or Knife), one of Brawling, Boxing or Karate, One of: Judo or Wrestling, Survival
Background: Tactics, Scrounging, Stealth, Armoury(small arms and Body armour)

An average spartan hoplite isn't going to have much tactics. Doesn't take much to work a phalanx. The file closer and file leader of the platoon(36 men strong) are going to be the ones with tactics. Soldier will do for the other stuff that spartans ar good at.

But remember, spartans leave their homewhen their 7 and begin training. Spartans have 168 hours a week to train then. They don't get accepted into a mess hall untill they are 20 or 21. That gives us about 14 years of training. That's alot of time. This means we have lots of points to spend on the skills and attribute we're going to be assigning.

[Infornific]

Originally Posted by Verjigorm

The greek Panakration(not Greco-Roman wrestling..that's not invented yet, and it's neither Greek nor Roman. It's french) was a completely different style of fighting. It's actually alot closer to modern MMA. The only rules that existed were: No eye gouges, no bites. Breaking hands, finger, arms and chokingpeople to death were perfectly acceptable actions. It's debated as to howmuch influence Pankration practicing greek and macedonian soldiers in Alex's army influenced eastern martial arts.

I'd say Pankration would be a mix of Judo, Karate, Wrestling, Boxing or Brawling. This is dependent on how the greek in question learned his art. Pankration was useful either armoured or unarmoured, and was quite a brutal sport.

The Suggested template isnt bad, but it needs somehelp. With only 12 points on DX-based skills, it doesn't do justice, especially because you've wasted 40pts on DX, for marginal increases. Unles you have more than 5 DX-baed skills, high DX is not a good way to go. And spartans recieved most of their effectiveness through intense training. The cross-trianingsurely upped their DX, however.

Skills needed:
Primary: Spear, Shield, Soldier, Hiking, Running
Secondary: Shortsword(or Knife), one of Brawling, Boxing or Karate, One of: Judo or Wrestling, Survival
Background: Tactics, Scrounging, Stealth, Armoury(small arms and Body armour)

An average spartan hoplite isn't going to have much tactics. Doesn't take much to work a phalanx. The file closer and file leader of the platoon(36 men strong) are going to be the ones with tactics. Soldier will do for the other stuff that spartans ar good at.

But remember, spartans leave their homewhen their 7 and begin training. Spartans have 168 hours a week to train then. They don't get accepted into a mess hall untill they are 20 or 21. That gives us about 14 years of training. That's alot of time. This means we have lots of points to spend on the skills and attribute we're going to be assigning.

Thanks for the feedback. I assumed DX 12 mostly represented intensive training in a wide range of skills. On the other hand, DX 11 and more points in skills would be a reasonable way to go. And yes, I should have added Wrestling and Tactics is probably too high for a grunt. I am assuming that some of the time in training goes to improving Attributes, buying Combat Reflexes, buying Fit, buying that Spartan Upbringing Talent, etc Also note realistically a fair amount of time will be spent simply maintaining physical conditioning and scrounging for food. The latter will intially lead to Survival skill (and add Scrounging) but unless the Spartan gets new challenges skills will plateau.

- DW

[Verjigorm]

This is expescially true. I consider a 125pt spartan to be someone wose probably about 16-19. Too young to actually serve as a soldier, but close to it.

Our actual soldiers are gonna be a bit better. But that can be buyingup DX once you have a number of their skills.

[Ze'Manel Cunha]

Originally Posted by Verjigorm

This is expescially true. I consider a 125pt spartan to be someone wose probably about 16-19. Too young to actually serve as a soldier, but close to it.

Our actual soldiers are gonna be a bit better. But that can be buyingup DX once you have a number of their skills.

That be fine for a normal Spartan, but for the 300 though I'd probably go for something like a Special Forces like template and use 250-350 points.

Not to mention something which has annoyed me about the previews of the movie*, ARMOR, the Spartans had really good hoplite armor.


*Haven't seen it yet, fully intend to see it soon.

[zogo]

Originally Posted by Ze'Manel Cunha

Not to mention something which has annoyed me about the previews of the movie*, ARMOR, the Spartans had really good hoplite armor.


*Haven't seen it yet, fully intend to see it soon.

To be fair I think their naked because the Spartans were naked in the Comic 300. Remember this is an adaptation of the comic book rather than a direct movie about Thermopolye.

[Blackseasofinfinity]

Originally Posted by zogo

To be fair I think their naked because the Spartans were naked in the Comic 300. Remember this is an adaptation of the comic book rather than a direct movie about Thermopolye.

Yeah, it was odd... In the comics they were completely naked; they at least put underwear on them in the movie, I suppose lol.

Frank Miller was just showing off their testosterone levels -- when you reach a certain point (when delta x approaches infinity), you eventually walk around naked, building walls out of human corpses and annihilating battlefields of Persians.

[Polydamas]

Originally Posted by Verjigorm

But remember, spartans leave their homewhen their 7 and begin training. Spartans have 168 hours a week to train then. They don't get accepted into a mess hall untill they are 20 or 21. That gives us about 14 years of training. That's alot of time. This means we have lots of points to spend on the skills and attribute we're going to be assigning.

I agree that lower DX might be more efficient, but think one should be very careful about multiplying out hours of training to get points. I emailed Sean Punch about this years ago after playing around with some figures for how much a farmer's skill would improve over the course of a career, and he pointed out that above a certain point most peoples stop improving from routine tasks or routine training.

A Spartan should have some bonus for his reputation of military invincibility. I'm not sure how to describe this, and as it is only operative in large-scale fights it might be a Feature. As with the Swiss in early modern Europe, this was a significant part of their advantage in war- opponents who think they can't win but can run are half beaten.

About 100 points seems reasonable for a typical Spartan hoplite, medieval knight, or other member of a military elite, but I can certainly see figures up 150 points as reasonable. IIRC, this seems to be the range for Special Forces in 4e. (And as always, a Spartan PC can be worth whatever the GM allows).

[DrTemp]

Originally Posted by Blackseasofinfinity

[...]
Frank Miller was just showing off their testosterone levels -- when you reach a certain point (when delta x approaches infinity), you eventually walk around naked, building walls out of human corpses and annihilating battlefields of Persians.

Of course. I hate it when that happens, too.

[DrTemp]

On a sidenote, I am now officially too paranoid. My third thought about that film was that the Spartans in that movie fight against Persia, while a certain large country has increasing tensions with a successor of Persia... but really, to see this movie as a piece of war-preparing propaganda is a bit of a stretch, even though its general tone might be suited for that.

[trooper6]

Originally Posted by DrTemp

On a sidenote, I am now officially too paranoid. My third thought about that film was that the Spartans in that movie fight against Persia, while a certain large country has increasing tensions with a successor of Persia... but really, to see this movie as a piece of war-preparing propaganda is a bit of a stretch, even though its general tone might be suited for that.

Of course, you could also read it the exact opposite way. The Spartans are hanging out in their country. When an arrogant God-King from the other side of the world decides to invade. The God-King has more money, forces, and technology. The God-King wants submission and likes to present himself as the Good Guy. The Spartans just want to be left alone.

The movie is ambiguous enough to be read any number of ways.