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Old 03-08-2023, 10:08 PM   #1
thorr-kan
 
Join Date: Sep 2008
Default Help me understand style costs for martial arts styles II?

As a follow up to my prior Martial Arts question, I decided to build a 25 pt "module" and test my understanding. I stuck with Collegiate Wrestling as a worked example.

Skills: Wrestling Sport+3 [12]
Advantages: Fit [5], Flexibility [5]
Techniques: Change Position (Wrestling Sport)+1 [1], Force Posture Change (Wrestling Sport)+1 [1]
Perks: Style Familiarity (Collegiate Wrestling) [1]

This gives a decently skilled wrestler, depending on DX, some Advantages that situationally boost his skill, some specialization, and familiarity with his martial art. Now since it's a sport, and not a combat skill, how useful it actually is will depend on the PC. Is he actually just an athlete, or does he think he really does know kung-fu?

Does this check out?
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Last edited by thorr-kan; 03-12-2023 at 06:17 PM. Reason: Didn't include the plus for Techniques.
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Old 03-08-2023, 10:28 PM   #2
Refplace
 
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Default Re: Help me understand style costs for martial arts styles II?

Yes, though not sure you need to make Wrestling a sport version. I think of sport as more for being showy than effective, or perhaps holding back in a fight and you do that less with wrestling.
I would go with Wrestling and Games (Wrestling) to represent a studied knowledge of the rules and tournaments, including some of the better known people in your league or generally famous.
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Old 03-09-2023, 12:50 AM   #3
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Default Re: Help me understand style costs for martial arts styles II?

Quote:
Originally Posted by Refplace View Post
Yes, though not sure you need to make Wrestling a sport version. I think of sport as more for being showy than effective, or perhaps holding back in a fight and you do that less with wrestling.
Wrestling (Sport) is not about being showy, it's about having practiced the skill in order to conform with the rules of the type of competition you participate in. It more or less specifically excludes training in holds that are meant to kill/main, or at least teaches when the stop putting on pressure to avoid disqualification.

Showmanship is covered by Wrestling (Art).
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Old 03-09-2023, 06:39 AM   #4
thorr-kan
 
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Default Re: Help me understand style costs for martial arts styles II?

Quote:
Originally Posted by Refplace View Post
Yes, though not sure you need to make Wrestling a sport version. I think of sport as more for being showy than effective, or perhaps holding back in a fight and you do that less with wrestling.
I would go with Wrestling and Games (Wrestling) to represent a studied knowledge of the rules and tournaments, including some of the better known people in your league or generally famous.
Collegiate Wrestling specifies Wrestling Sport, but I did read up on the differences between combat sport and skill. This was a deliberate choice to keep with the example style and because I have an idea percolating in the back of my head.

ETA: Follow up question: if I buy a Perk, like Special Exercises (Lifting ST), do I have to buy the Advantage Lifting ST at the same time, or can the Perk be an excuse to buy the Advantage later?
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Old 03-09-2023, 07:00 AM   #5
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Default Re: Help me understand style costs for martial arts styles II?

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Originally Posted by thorr-kan View Post
ETA: Follow up question: if I buy a Perk, like Special Exercises (Lifting ST), do I have to buy the Advantage Lifting ST at the same time, or can the Perk be an excuse to buy the Advantage later?
I don't see any reason why it couldn't. Other perks that allow access to stuff certainly don't require you to buy it all immediately, including stuff like Style Familiarity. Admittedly a perk that only allows access to one thing seems a bit pointless if you don't actually buy the thing, but if you want to do it that way, instead of saving the point unspent until you have enough I don't see why not.

Indeed I'll generally let you spend your points toward any trait partially if you want, with the understanding that it does nothing for you until you finish the purchase, in which case you could buy the perk and immediately write Lifting ST [0/5] on your character sheet to represent the 0 points you've spent toward acquiring it if you wanted, and buy it up 1 point at a time too.
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Old 03-09-2023, 02:27 PM   #6
DouglasCole
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Default Re: Help me understand style costs for martial arts styles II?

Quote:
Originally Posted by thorr-kan View Post
Skills: Wrestling Sport+3 [12]
Advantages: Fit [5], Flexibility [5]
Techniques: Change Position (Wrestling Sport) [1], Force Posture Change (Wrestling Sport) [1]
Perks: Style Familiarity (Collegiate Wrestling) [1]
I can't precisely argue with Fit, and certainly when I was doing grappling training I did wind sprints because wrestling is a lot of burst activity that can tire you out real quick. I might consider Lifting ST to more precisely target the body-weight strength training my friends who were wrestlers in high school did.

The mechanical boost to attacking to break free for Flexibility is nice to counter DX penalties when put in holds. So I get the appeal...though I don't know if my wrestling friends were as bendy as my martial arts friends, my diving friends, or my gymnast/dancer friends...all of whom spent a whole lot of time in uncomfortable positions to get super-bendy.

But I'd look hard at Ground Fighting [2-5 points], Low Fighting [2-3 points], and Ground Guard [1 point] representing all the work that wrestlers do lying down, kneeling, and the like to achieve the pin status required to win a match. I might give up 4 points of skill to at least get Ground Fighting and Low Fighting at 2 points each; Wrestling Sport [4] and "no penalties from posture" for [8] might even be a more favorable split there.
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Old 03-09-2023, 07:12 PM   #7
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Default Re: Help me understand style costs for martial arts styles II?

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I can't precisely argue with Fit, and certainly when I was doing grappling training I did wind sprints because wrestling is a lot of burst activity that can tire you out real quick. I might consider Lifting ST to more precisely target the body-weight strength training my friends who were wrestlers in high school did.

The mechanical boost to attacking to break free for Flexibility is nice to counter DX penalties when put in holds. So I get the appeal...though I don't know if my wrestling friends were as bendy as my martial arts friends, my diving friends, or my gymnast/dancer friends...all of whom spent a whole lot of time in uncomfortable positions to get super-bendy.

But I'd look hard at Ground Fighting [2-5 points], Low Fighting [2-3 points], and Ground Guard [1 point] representing all the work that wrestlers do lying down, kneeling, and the like to achieve the pin status required to win a match. I might give up 4 points of skill to at least get Ground Fighting and Low Fighting at 2 points each; Wrestling Sport [4] and "no penalties from posture" for [8] might even be a more favorable split there.
I was considering Low Fighting and Ground Guard when I was misremembering Wrestling Sport as Easy as opposed to Average. I'm happy with my choices.

But I can see trading Fit and a point of Wrestling Sport for Special Exercises, Lifting ST +1, Low Fighting, Ground Fighting, and 1 pt in another Perk or Technique. Ditching Fit and Flexibility all together and dropping 10 pts into Skills, Techniques, and Perks. Adding another 10 pts total would make him quite skilled.

Valuable commentary; thanks.
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Old 03-10-2023, 02:51 AM   #8
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Default Re: Help me understand style costs for martial arts styles II?

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Originally Posted by DouglasCole View Post
But I'd look hard at Ground Fighting [2-5 points], Low Fighting [2-3 points], and Ground Guard [1 point] representing all the work that wrestlers do lying down, kneeling, and the like to achieve the pin status required to win a match. I might give up 4 points of skill to at least get Ground Fighting and Low Fighting at 2 points each; Wrestling Sport [4] and "no penalties from posture" for [8] might even be a more favorable split there.
Note that with the way GURPS assigns point costs, this is not an optimal build. You could buy Wrestling Sport-N for 4 points, and then spend 2 points each for +1 to Ground Fighting and to Low Fighting, for a total of 8 points. But instead of the techniques, you could buy Wrestling Sport-(N+1) for 8 points, and get +1 to Ground Fighting and to Low Fighting out of that for free—and to all other techniques of the skill, and to the basic moves that aren't covered by techniques. Buying two Hard techniques is always a dubious build. I'm not sure that isn't some arcane way to make it pay off, but in general I would consider it suboptimal. Ordinarily I give a combatant one trademark technique per skill, at most; if I want to improve two or more techniques I just buy up the skill.
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Old 03-10-2023, 04:13 AM   #9
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Default Re: Help me understand style costs for martial arts styles II?

Quote:
Originally Posted by whswhs View Post
Note that with the way GURPS assigns point costs, this is not an optimal build. You could buy Wrestling Sport-N for 4 points, and then spend 2 points each for +1 to Ground Fighting and to Low Fighting, for a total of 8 points. But instead of the techniques, you could buy Wrestling Sport-(N+1) for 8 points, and get +1 to Ground Fighting and to Low Fighting out of that for free—and to all other techniques of the skill, and to the basic moves that aren't covered by techniques. Buying two Hard techniques is always a dubious build. I'm not sure that isn't some arcane way to make it pay off, but in general I would consider it suboptimal. Ordinarily I give a combatant one trademark technique per skill, at most; if I want to improve two or more techniques I just buy up the skill.
I can think of two reasons why you'd want to buy multiple Techniques.

1) Maximum skill is capped somehow. Possibly at +X to Attribute or at some fixed number like 18, 20 or25.

2) The Techniques in question are considered "secret" (or cinematic/supernatural/whatever) and not available without spending points in them.

Both of those are GM calls, which makes your suggestion of not buying multiple Techniques the general recommendation. Which is a bit of a shame, since it makes martial artists far more uniform. But changing the rules, to make multiple Techniques per martial artist the better general solution, would require a major rework of several core rules for Skills.
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Old 03-10-2023, 07:56 AM   #10
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Default Re: Help me understand style costs for martial arts styles II?

Quote:
Originally Posted by whswhs View Post
Note that with the way GURPS assigns point costs, this is not an optimal build. You could buy Wrestling Sport-N for 4 points, and then spend 2 points each for +1 to Ground Fighting and to Low Fighting, for a total of 8 points. But instead of the techniques, you could buy Wrestling Sport-(N+1) for 8 points, and get +1 to Ground Fighting and to Low Fighting out of that for free—and to all other techniques of the skill, and to the basic moves that aren't covered by techniques. Buying two Hard techniques is always a dubious build. I'm not sure that isn't some arcane way to make it pay off, but in general I would consider it suboptimal. Ordinarily I give a combatant one trademark technique per skill, at most; if I want to improve two or more techniques I just buy up the skill.
Normally I'd agree. In this case, the 8 points buys off -4 and -2 points of penalties for posture that (a) as a collegiate wrestler you expect to take almost always, in every match, and (b) you expect to be on equal footing with your foe in terms of size and weight because of how the sporting rules work.

You cannot win a collegiate wrestling match without going to the ground and putting your opponent's back to it. Spending 2 points to void that first -1 or 5 points to get rid of all -4 for wrestling lying down impacts attacks, defenses, and contests of skill any time posture comes up ... which is basically "always except for the first few moments of a match, and 100% of actually winning or avoiding defeat by pin rather than on points."

Your build focuses on the early stages of training, negating one point of the -2 or -4 points for the situations covered with low and ground fighting; I'm looking at least half, if not all, of the penalty range. Then it becomes much less clear-cut.

Going to lying down (-4) or kneeling (-2) requires up to 16 points to void completely with skill.

More parsimoniously, 8 points in skill (up to +2) and 3 points only in Ground Fighting gets you

Wrestling at DX+2, Low Fighting and Ground Fighting at DX.

4 points in skill and 7 in techniques gets you

DX+1 in wrestling, and either DX+1 low Fighting and DX Ground fighting or the reverse: DX in Low Fighting and DX+1 in Ground Fighting.

The technique person will be a point better on the ground when it comes time to pin or be pinned; they'll be worse in the initial upright part where takedowns happen. I feel in this case it's a valid choice.

Likewise, let's go the whole way: 8 points in skill for DX+2 and another 8 points to buy off the posture penalties completely. At any posture, you're at DX+2.

Spending the same 16 points all on skill you're at DX+4 standing, DX+2 Low, and DX on the ground. You're trading a good start (decisive even) but a hard finish, as you'll be at a 2-point disadvantage when it comes to finishing the match.

The situations posited are legit trade-offs...they also very much represent how these athletes actually train.

It's not an inherently suboptimal build in this case because you're training off the situation you expect to find yourself in all the time. If there was a perk or switch that said "I've trained on the ground, and suffer penalties standing" I'd do that instead and gleefully.

Also: I stipulate that it's not a good adventuring or street build. Keeping your feet is critical when your opponent's friend can come up and kick you in the skull from behind with an strong and telegraphic All-Out Attack to the neck or back of the skull.
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