Sumo in Martial Arts Styles

[Fred Brackin]

Originally Posted by nanoboy

In the Martial Arts book, there is really only one style with the Sumo skill-- Sumo Wrestling.

Nope. Sumo is in Tai Chi Chuan too. See p. 200.

[nanoboy]

Originally Posted by Fred Brackin

Nope. Sumo is in Tai Chi Chuan too. See p. 200.

Good catch. Still, relative to the other skills, I think that my point stands: Sumo is the least popular unarmed fighting skill.

[Refplace]

I built a 3e style for Dwarven stylist that involved shield walls and such. The idea was a few weapon skills and reliance on Sumo and Push to hold the line or break through one.

[aesir23]

One of the styles that I practice, Baji, would certainly list Sumo in it's primary skills (and does in all of the write ups I've done of it).

Here is my most recent write-up:

Baji Chuan 5
Baji Chuan, or bajiquan, is a Chinese martial art in the taoist tradition. Historically it was prized as a bodyguard art. It is very popular today in parts of China and Taiwan, as well as in Japan where it is known as Hakkyokuken. It is difficult to find schools in Europe and the Americas, but they do exist.
The style is characterized by medium low stances and powerful punches, shoves, and slams. It is very common to include some weapon training for advanced students, starting with the staff and spear and working up to training with the Dao and the Miao Dao (same stats as a Katana).

Notes: Most Attacks are Committed (Strong), practitioners often counter-attack with a grapple to the arm that attacked, kicks are low. The skill teaches many shoves and slams, it teaches the principles of uprooting your opponent and occupying his space, often using shoulders and hips to shove him around.

The signature move in Baji is to simultaneously launch yourself into your opponent elbow first while pulling him towards you by the arm. Treat as a Grab and Bash.

Skills: Karate, Karate Art, Sumo Wrestling, Wrestling
Techniques: Counter Attack, Elbow Strike, Feint (Beat), Hammer-fist, Sweep (Sumo Wrestling)
Perks: Armor Training (Karate) (In Historical games), Special Set-Up (Hands-free Shove), Special Set-Up (When using Grab and Bash, may target a different location than grabbed), Special Exercises (DR 1 with Toughness), Special Exercises (Iron Arms), Style Adaptation (Pigua), Unusual Training (Imbue with One Skill Only: Forceful Blows)*.
Cinematic Skills: Immovable Stance, Power Blow, Push, Forceful Blows (Karate)*
Cinematic Techniques: Springing Attack.

Optional Skills: Broadsword, Broadsword Art, Judo, Spear, Staff, Two-Handed Sword.

*In a cinematic campaign, Baji practitioners may replace Imbue with Trained by a Master as a prerequisite for the Forceful Blows skill.

[Lord Carnifex]

I haven't written it up as a formal style, because it isn't, but I've used Sumo for bar bouncers, concert security types, and prison guards. Sumo seems the go to skill for people who have to shove others through doors, bar them from entry, or otherwise decide where they go without hurting them.

[sir_pudding]

Originally Posted by Refplace

I built a 3e style for Dwarven stylist that involved shield walls and such. The idea was a few weapon skills and reliance on Sumo and Push to hold the line or break through one.

It's interesting that Hoplomachia (sp?) doesn't have it. "Pushing" in the argive sense is probably outside the scope of normal GURPS combat, perhaps it's actually covered by Soldier in that case.

[Johnny Angel]

I think there is some truth to your OP. I'm one of the only people I know who regularly make use of Sumo Wrestling. I'm currently playing a DF Knight who uses it in concert with his shield. In many instances, I feel that part of the reason a skill like Sumo (and Judo/Judo Throw to a lesser extent) gets overlooked is because the value of battlefield control (pushing, shoving; moving your opponent around) is something which is often overlooked in favor of raw damage by most people.

[Kromm]

That kind of pushing isn't really handled well by Sumo, though. What you want there is covered by Teamwork, specifically:

Brace a teammate in front of him and within a yard, adding 1/5 (round down) of his ST or HP, as applicable, to his ally's score when his friend resists a slam (p. B371), executes a shove (p. B372), or suffers knockback (p. B378). This is a free action.

Note that with up to three people behind you, and the Shoves with Weapons rule on p. 112 of Martial Arts, you can get some pretty scary shield presses going. If Alexander, Bedros, and Cleon, all with ST 12, brace Drusus, also ST 12, then Drusus has effective ST 18. Behind a DB 2 Argive shield, he's doing a 1d+3 shove. That's 8-18 for knockback, averaging 13 . . . enough to knock a ST 15 man back and perhaps down. If Drusus' opposite isn't braced, he falls and is overrun.

These rules aren't really meant for mass combat per se, of course, but for individual combat. However, they get the point across.

[Aneirin]

Sorry for resurrecting the threat but I do want to see more players use sumo as well. I was having a polish game to practice my rules knowledge and my little brother took a character and I suggested he take an unarmed skill, as he was making a character with a long reach weapon and not much armour I suggested he take sumo to push people out of the way.

It worked out alright. A lot of the enemies were raiders with knives or short swords and when they got close, he mainly used sumo to grab (he had enough skill that the lack of a strength bonus from wrestling was only a slight disadvantage) And he also didn't use damage for grabs, but mainly dragging people around and I decided to give him a strength bonus from sumo for that.

Ofcourse when he did lose his weapon and tried to out sumo a knife wielder he had difficulty! Mainly due to lucky DX rolls which meant he didn't fall over when he got shoved.

What I would like to make sumo better, is for it to give it's strength bonus, and give a penalty to DX rolls to stay up (i.e. Sumo at +1 gives a minus 1 to DX to resist falling down from a shove or slam, sumo at +2 gives a minus 2 to avoid falling over)

Kromm's suggestions in other ancient threads regarding letting sumo wrestlers take more HP also helps them to double damage in slams to get definate knockdowns, and weapon adaptation perks to use sumo skill with a reach 2 or 3 weapon across the chest to get even more damage is helpful (as well as using it to get a bonus to shoves, going from +2 to +3 with a reach 2 or +4 with a reach 3 or large shield according to martial arts (page 112, shove with a weapon does thrust-1 + reach or DB of shield) , with a strength 10 character that leads to 4-10 damage (doubled to 8-20 for shoving) averaging 13, and potentially enough to cause strength 10 characters to go back two yards (giving a very hefty DX penalty to stay up with the above house rules...which I think is realistic, a normal dude being pushed over by a trained sumo wrestler is not likely to be standing up!)

Or possibly a perk that lets sumo wrestlers base shove damage off of maximum HP to represent them knowing how to use their weight meaning they are more liekly to shove people back more than a yard.