Combat Lulls

[jacobmuller]

Some brain food, although you've probably done it Haute Cuisine and I've missed it:)
Kuroshima suggests Energy Points
DouglsCole suggests something as yet unnamed

Breathlessness seems the reason for Lulls/Clinches. Nothing takes your breath away like holding it and working hard. Throwing punches causes you to momentarily hold or expel breath. I'm not suggesting invoking Breathholding contests as part of combat but Breathholding B351-2 would have the average character starting to have problems after 5 seconds which can be used as a guideline for combat flurries; add in Fitness, HT, Encumbrance level and Skills to get numbers that might be useful.
If Back-off or clinch to catch your breath = Lull, how long before you need to pause?
From
Below Average HT (8?), heavily encumbered (-4?), unskilled (?), unfit (*0.5) = 2 turns of combat
to
Above Average HT (13?), No Enc, professional (?), Very Fit (*2) = 26 turns

And if you don't pause, you earn 1 FP, then start counting again?
If you do pause, how long to recover your breath? Reverse the formula? 24 for the unfit guy but 7 for pro-athlete?

Perhaps Unfit/Very Fit range from -2 to +2 instead of divisors/multipliers?

[Danukian]

Well, a major part of every MA training (including boxing and wrestling) is breathing technique, so if you are breaking it down, I would say skill Over 13-16 should get a +1, 16+ a +2 - I am not suggesting a skilled fighter should be able to hold his breath longer in breath holding competitions, but (s)he is trained to better use use the lungs to avoid fight fatigue.

[DouglasCole]

Originally Posted by Danukian

Well, a major part of every MA training (including boxing and wrestling) is breathing technique, so if you are breaking it down, I would say skill Over 13-16 should get a +1, 16+ a +2 - I am not suggesting a skilled fighter should be able to hold his breath longer in breath holding competitions, but (s)he is trained to better use use the lungs to avoid fight fatigue.

I'd be careful here. I've heard that world-class sprinters, who do the 100m in, what? 9.6 seconds in 2009..they don't breathe for that entire time. There's no point. Oxygen intake during a flurry (or a sprint, which is effectively the same thing) will do nothing for you in the short term, as you're depleting your ready store of glycogen (I think).

What training WILL accomplish during the flurry is to move more efficiently, using less energy to make the same motions (or really, BETTER and less wasteful motions) as a novice.

Breath control and experience will also help you recover between flurries.

Skill should lower, perhaps the fatigue required (or, for simplicity, increase the pool of short term fatigue either in general, or 'aspected,' as in "Action Points, Skill-based only" just like you can get FP, Mana Only). Fitness and Breath Control should raise the recovery rate.

Well, that's my opinion, anyway.

[Ulzgoroth]

Originally Posted by DouglasCole

I'd be careful here. I've heard that world-class sprinters, who do the 100m in, what? 9.6 seconds in 2009..they don't breathe for that entire time. There's no point. Oxygen intake during a flurry (or a sprint, which is effectively the same thing) will do nothing for you in the short term, as you're depleting your ready store of glycogen (I think).

More relevantly, you're depleting your local stores of oxygen and using anaerobic lactic acid metabolism. (Glycogen is a form of polymerized sugar used for storage.)

[jacobmuller]

Yes, that's the direction I was heading; skill bonuses for EPB [Extra Pain of Book-keeping] similar to damage bonuses for Karate/Boxing etc.

Sprinters fit with the B351-2 description of prepared breath before exertion.
I'm not sure about combat but then again skill bonuses would fit this too.

Experienced fighters could also conserve energy by fighting as if fatigued (half Move and Dodge), Rope-a-Dope?

Sports: between round breaks could count as first aid for Fatigue earned during the round, eg make a HT roll to recover 1 Fat, modify for Fitness; have the second make a First Aid check to recover more.

The big question: would it be worth the extra book-keeping?

[Gigermann]

I maintain my belief that what we generally see WRT fatigue effects in fights is the result of folks using Extra Effort. This doesn't allow for recovery during lulls, though.

At this point, I'm thinking that a given fighter can "flurry" for HT/2 (or FP/2?) + Fit/VFit bonus (or whatever else fits), after which he takes 1FP per full increment. Since we already have "different kinds of FP" (starvation, sleep come to mind) that recover under different conditions, it's less of a stretch to say that FP lost in this manner can be recovered in a lull at an accelerated rate, while "normal" FP could not (i.e. Extra Effort). Thoughts?

Whatever the mechanic of losing the FP is, it's the recovery of it that makes "lulls" work, in my observation.

[DouglasCole]

Originally Posted by jacobmuller

The big question: would it be worth the extra book-keeping?

If it's fun, forces interesting tactical choices, and doesn't break verisimilitude, it would be a welcome optional rule for some. There are lots of metagame and book-keeping opportunities already; this one would be loved by some, hated by others.

the key, I think, is postulating a VERY simple set of rules that are easy to keep in mind in play, and then staging arena combats and other trials (foot or horse races would seem an obvious possibility) to test them out.

The reason in the other thread I went with "every individual thing you do costs one point" is for the dirt-simple nature of it. Attack? Point. AoA? Usually that's two things (hit twice, hit once plus hit hard; hit more accurately doesn't feel like more Action Points), so two points.

This will initially drive serious tilting in favored tactics and strategies that will need actual play to figure out.

[David Johnston2]

Originally Posted by Danukian

Well, a major part of every MA training (including boxing and wrestling) is breathing technique, so if you are breaking it down, I would say skill Over 13-16 should get a +1, 16+ a +2 - I am not suggesting a skilled fighter should be able to hold his breath longer in breath holding competitions, but (s)he is trained to better use use the lungs to avoid fight fatigue.

That's one of those things that should probably NOT be based on Dex.