🧵 "Martial classes" problem in DnD
Anonymous at Tue, 7 May 2024 05:28:26 UTC No. 196773
In DnD, whenever I play, I absolutely hate when players who choose a martial class don't add flavour to their attacks. "I hit him with my sword 3 times", "I punch him twice" is the most you'll get out of them. I hate it even more when the DM does it or when when the DM doesn't allow accumulative damage in games if you target a specific area with enough strikes. I get that the dweebs at WoTC only put barely half the effort of making martials viable in high levels with the battlemaster fighter subclass, but do NONE of these guys have love for the "ART" part of martial arts? Theres so much flavour you can put, like if a player goes for an elbow to the face enough times there will be a cut above the eye that now gives the opponent a disadvantage on perception checks and attacks due to not being able to see. Or hell implement ANY sort of good ruleset for how grappling arts can be used in game to help break limbs, throw enemies to the ground or completely isolate/submit opponents. Or if the player makes a high enough dex check with a weapon once per the enemies turn, they can immediately parry and get a quick strike in.
Maybe this is the price I pay for being into martial arts and dweeb shit at the same time but holy shit is it ever annoying. Especially when no one seems to want it changed.
Anonymous at Tue, 7 May 2024 05:40:24 UTC No. 196776
That's why you should use the dungeon world engine because you can just specify intent "I elbow him in the forehead to try and cause a cut that impairs his vision"
Then roll to see how that gambit played out for you
Anonymous at Tue, 7 May 2024 13:45:20 UTC No. 196787
Anonymous at Tue, 7 May 2024 14:24:07 UTC No. 196790
>>196787
A board prominently featuring martial arts threads, where I can complain about dweebs not being creative about martial arts in a game about creativity.
Anonymous at Tue, 7 May 2024 14:43:25 UTC No. 196791
>>196773
>or when when the DM doesn't allow accumulative damage in games if you target a specific area with enough strikes
I tried out the LARP version of Vampire: The Masquerade years ago and tried to have my character cut the motor muscles in the forearm of whichever guy we were fighting in order to subdue him. The GM enjoyed the flavor but later told me that the game mechanics didn't allow for that and I would have been better off using the knife as a stabbing weapon (had better stabbing than cutting bonuses) or using my character's natural weapons and simply getting the guy to low HP.
Anonymous at Tue, 7 May 2024 15:12:27 UTC No. 196792
>>196791
LARP combat in any game sucks, but it's much worse in social manipulation games like Vampire. Tabletop has both standard and optional rules for getting specific about combat.
Anonymous at Tue, 7 May 2024 15:16:08 UTC No. 196793
>>196792
>LARP combat in any game sucks
I like how it works in Darkon and Amtgard where you just hit them with a stick.
Anonymous at Tue, 7 May 2024 15:49:25 UTC No. 196796
>>196794
Darkon has grappling and Amtgard produces some of the most technically skilled stick fighters in America. This is arguably more on-topic than the also on-topic threads about /xs/ /a/ and /tv/ content.
Anonymous at Tue, 7 May 2024 16:54:20 UTC No. 196805
>>196796
>Amtgard produces some of the most technically skilled stick fighters in America
>press X to doubt
>>>/tg/
Anonymous at Tue, 7 May 2024 17:16:52 UTC No. 196808
>>196805
The LARP provides a strong motivation to get good so people take it seriously to such an extent there are guys who can financially support themselves by traveling around and teaching Sword Knight classes (Sword Knight being a status achieved from winning certain tournaments). Circa 2016 one of the top guys nationally in the SCA was an Amtgard Sword Knight who switched sports, haven't really been keeping up with that scene since then however.
Anonymous at Tue, 7 May 2024 17:19:20 UTC No. 196811
>>196808
>no guys really one of the really good LARPers was also a good LARPer in a different LARP that makes him one of the best fighters in the country
Come on buddy
Anonymous at Tue, 7 May 2024 17:31:32 UTC No. 196814
>>196811
>best fighters in the country
*some of the most technically skilled stick fighters in America, was my claim
Who else is doing competitive stick fighting with any kind of comparable turnout?
Anonymous at Tue, 7 May 2024 18:09:37 UTC No. 196817
>>196814
>Who else is doing competitive stick fighting
Escrima, HEMA, kendo, dog brothers
>with any kind of comparable turnout?
Not super relevant when your “stick” is actually a pool noodle
Anonymous at Tue, 7 May 2024 18:45:53 UTC No. 196824
>>196817
>Escrima, HEMA, kendo, dog brothers
There's a lot of crossover between these and the aforementioned stick fighting events, in part because the LARP and LARP-adjacent sports are bigger and more competitive in America. In some regions the FMA and HEMA guys hang around SCA, Dagorhir, Amtgard, etc. because they don't have the numbers to do their own thing.
>Not super relevant when your “stick” is actually a pool noodle
The pool noodle thing is more of an issue in light-contact LARPs like Nero in which you're not allowed to hit hard and the rules are far more /tg/ than /xs/, putting more weight on your character sheet than on your personal fighting skill. In Darkon, Amtgard, etc. the weapons are usually padded PVC pipes or fiberglass rods, light strikes don't count, and the character sheet doesn't matter in tournaments or most fights in general. In SCA it's 1.25" thick rattan swung hard enough to dent steel helmets with only fighter skill factoring into success or failure.
Anonymous at Tue, 7 May 2024 20:41:47 UTC No. 196843
>>196824
I will give credit to SCA for actually bashing each other properly even if I do think their costumes and fake titles are super lame. That padded pvc shit does not actually behave the way a proper cane does when you hit another cane with it, or a person for that matter
Anonymous at Tue, 7 May 2024 23:02:41 UTC No. 196861
>>196843
>I will give credit to SCA for actually bashing each other properly even if I do think their costumes and fake titles are super lame.
Agreed. When I used to fight with them I used to think of the costumes as being the uniforms of the sport (you'd look like a dork wearing football pads in public, too) and the titles as being stylized administrative/organizational roles and that framework made it a little less lame but I have the wrong kind of autism to get into the court pageantry some of those folks get excited over.
>That padded pvc shit does not actually behave the way a proper cane does when you hit another cane with it, or a person for that matter
Also true, but it translates well enough to rattan fighting, kind of like how foil is a good smallsword trainer but not a perfect smallsword emulator. It's different enough that for slow-speed light-contact skills training out of armor in SCA we used wiffle ball bats instead of boffer weapons, but not so different that a good boffer fighter can't quickly adjust to being a good SCA fighter. The lack of armor in boffer fighting also allows for a level of grappling and aggressive shield work that's hard to incorporate safely in something like the SCA; the grappling and aggressive shield work is my favorite thing about Dagorhir (boffer combat game without a role-playing game system). You have the Tuchux doing a kind of SCA-MMA hybrid sport but they hit a lot lighter (at their own events, they have a reputation for hitting hard at SCA events) and wear less armor to accommodate it.
Anonymous at Thu, 9 May 2024 06:21:51 UTC No. 197020
>>196773
First off I completely agree that "I make 3 attacks", "okay 2 of those hit for 14 damage" is very lame, a seasoned DM should give a little flavor in the discription of attack. But I think you misunderstand how combat is supposed to function in the game. Let's take your elbow cut above the eye for example. It's very cool, I won't disagree, but it sets a difficult precedent. If you can impose disadvantage by striking above the eye, why won't every player start trying that? Why aren't intelligent monsters trying to blind the players when they attack? By allowing that sort of attack you can drastically alter the way the game is played. (this isn't necessarily a bad thing but isn't the sort of ruling I would make at my table, in my experience you start to lose focus from the core gameplay loop)
Combat in D&D is by nature an abstraction, and should be focused on players out maneuvering monsters and clever use of terrain, the environment and the resources the players have. Focusing on the second to second details of an exchange of blows would grind the game to an absolute standstill, especially with 5+ players engaged in a large scale battle.
I also agree with you on the lack of good grappling rules. I run a halfway point between BX (which doesn't have anything on grappling) and AD&D (several paragraphs that are nearly incomprehensible). At some point I'd like to hombrew my own system but it probably wouldn't make sense for someone who isn't familiar with judo or bjj.
If you really want detailed blow by blow action you should probably look into other systems, D&D just wasn't built with that in mind.
Anonymous at Sat, 11 May 2024 12:19:46 UTC No. 197281
GURPS has a martial arts expansion for this type of stuff iirc.
Anonymous at Sat, 11 May 2024 22:02:31 UTC No. 197332
>>196773
Song of Swords has everything you want. No need to try to force D&D into being something it isn't.
Anonymous at Mon, 13 May 2024 06:19:18 UTC No. 197461
>>196791
>the game mechanics
I don't know how these nerd ass games work but isn't it pen, paper and your imagination. If the game doesn't allow it just make house rules that accommodate it. It's not like a video game where it's hard coded and there is not much you can do. I'm sure if everyone in the group agrees it should be fine. I'm surprised that some other nerd hasn't written up rules that are already balanced for people to implement into their games.
Anonymous at Mon, 13 May 2024 14:43:45 UTC No. 197495
>>197461
LARP rules for Vampire are literally rock paper scissors for success/failure.
Anonymous at Mon, 13 May 2024 17:11:47 UTC No. 197507
>>196773
GURPS you absolute flaming faggot
You've fucked up so badly sticking to DnD that you're now spreading this irrelevant shit on boards that have absolutely nothing to do with it
Get off 4chan, play GURPs and stop bitching
Anonymous at Tue, 14 May 2024 00:23:20 UTC No. 197551
>>197461
With some LARPs like that one there's a larger organization with interconnected stories so they're usually handled with a greater degree of standardization and fewer house rules than some one-off game you run locally for your friends. The game session I joined had at least a couple dozen players and several GMs who had to communicate and coordinate with each other to run that single session in that single location.