He nods.
"Well, I hope you were right. I tend to think so--there didn't seem to be the sort of cries of dismay I would expect from real stranded sailors when we turned away, but we were pretty far out, and I might not have heard them.
"If you don't mind, though, I'll be saying that you saw them readying grapples and boarding pikes through the telescope. No need, as you say, to stir up concerns."
--M. J. Young
I nod right back.
"Sounds fine to me. I'll back you on exactly that.
You may not have heard them yelling, but I felt the change in emotion when we sailed away. Those men felt cheated and angry, but far from desperate or helpless. Trust me, sir, and put your mind at ease."
If he has nothing else, I'll go to the cargo hold and do my Restore Freshness and Remove Fatigue spells.
Then I think I'll retire to my room and try out this new skill. For the most part, practice, but there are a few new uses I'd like to roll the dice for, declaring them not-just-practice and so on, as we established could be done back when I was doing it with gunslinging.
1: Can I pick out a specific person to get a read on?
1a: Can I instead passively scan and get a bead on the general emotions around me? The empathic background noise, as it were?
2: When passively scanning, can I discriminate between the general emotions of the ship and the emotions of a specific person?
2a: Multiple specific people at one time?
3: Can I locate a person - direction and distance - based on this sense of them, or is the feeling directionless, like a light with no obvious source?
In reference to my recent other thread, this is a technique I learned from reading Robert Jordan many years ago. Male channelers are encouraged to use the One Power for everything, because they get stronger very quickly by forcing it. This is an approach I seem to have adopted with my own superhuman abilities, though I'm only just now recognizing it in myself. When I discover a new ability, I try to use it for everything I can conceive of using it for, in the belief that forcing it will make me grow stronger in leaps and bounds as opposed to gradually over time. It occurs to me that I do this in real life, too. Upon acquiring a new skill, I test - or at least speculate on - a wild array of things I could possibly use the same general idea for.
As between 1 and 1a, I've run the skill as 1, that it isolates one individual. One of the problems with getting the "general" emotion around you is that it's not likely to be consistent; it also involves contacting multiple minds simultaneously. If you want to create a distinct skill that does that, I'll look into it, but it will be considerably more difficult than focusing on one person. Thus all the questions about "multiple" persons are void; you pick up one person at a time, and have to roll to switch persons.
As to using it to locate an individual, there are two ways it works, but neither of them is particularly useful for that. You can pick out someone you can see (even if they're only a speck, as long as you can identify that it is a person) and using that knowledge of their location read their emotions. Alternately, you can pick out someone "familiar"--in the sense that you have read that particular individual before (although whether you read their minds or their emotions or used some other telepathic skill in connection with them) and tune in to their frequency, as it were, and so know what that person is feeling right now, but it does not give you distance or direction--there is no limit but that the person must be in the same subuniverse as you are (and frankly, your character knows nothing about subuniverses, and there aren't any in this universe, so it's effectively anywhere in this universe, as long as you know the person's "spirit").
I don't believe you've ever contacted anyone with any telepathic/mind reading/empathy skill, so the only person you can contact "remotely" at present is that same pirate you were reading before. If you like, you can attempt to establish connections with specified crewmen; those will require rolls.
Also if you like, I can try to work out if there's any way in this universe for you to contact multiple mortal spirits.
--M. J. Young
I will roll to see if I can pick out specific crewmen. The Captain, Doc Evans, my friends in Security, whoever my replacement at the helm was. Just see if I can get the hang of cycling between them.
I don't necessarily want a separate skill for reading multiple people at once.
As for using it to find people, that was a longshot, so, meh. I'm content with getting it to cycle between people and pick out specific individuals.
Once that's done, I'll go to the galley. Are there anyone playing cards? Liars' Dice?
If not, I'll go find my friends from Security and spar with them.
You've never had any direct psionic contact with any member of the crew. Should I presume you are tracking them down individually so you can make the connection directly first, and then trying it again remotely?
Yes, the game is Canasta, and the stakes are one diktar per hundred points, to the nearest hundred points on a hand.
--M. J. Young
Do I need to have? I just basically want to feel around till I find someone, then latch on and get a read. I don't particular care who at this point.
I don't know how to play Canasta, but I'll ask them to teach me, watch a few hands, and then ask if I can play too.
During the game I'd like to use my new skill - what are we calling this, Empathy? Sense Motive? - to tell who's bluffing and who's not. I'd like to run dice on these, as I'm trying to push my training again. I'll play with whatever I have in my pockets, probably 20 or 30 diktar.
Once I've lost my pocket change, I'll move on and spar with the guys in Security. I wonder if I can use this skill - or a variant of this skill, or a similar skill - to give me a sort of combat precognition. Not actual precognition, but knowing what someone is about to do by reading his intentions. I'll try that, too, and if it ends with me getting my ass handed to me in a spar, well, I'm already a fair hand with a sword - training the mind is more important tonight.
Do I need to have? I just basically want to feel around till I find someone, then latch on and get a read. I don't particular care who at this point.
I am addressing this behind the screens.
You flail around, like spinning a radio dial, and find no one. You realize that there must be millions of beings in this universe who are somewhere on the dial, but that you must somehow pick the exact frequency of a specific one to get a reading, and that the dial must be so vast that the odds of "typing in" a frequency in use are astronomically against.
Canasta is in some ways similar to Rummy. You put down sets of cards of the same number--it has some relation to Go Fish, but is played with a double deck. You need three cards to put any down, but cannot put any down until you have a certain mininum point value which goes up as scores increase. Seven the same is called a Canasta, and generally you have to put down one complete canasta to begin putting down anything--but several cards are wild, including the four jokers and all the 2s, so you can fill in the gaps. There are a lot of nuances beyond that--3s are special, and red threes are different from black 3s. You can pick up the discard pile by using the top card in a meld, but the pile can be locked requiring you to have natural cards in hand for that meld. Scoring at the end of each hand counts the cards on the table in your favor and the cards in your hand against you. They are scoring hand by hand, and so the scores don't escalate and the minimum requirement for meld doesn't rise.
I am calling the skill "empathy" and it senses emotion. The most you get from your targeted card player is "confidence" or "doubt", and it appears that this does not tell you much about his hand. You're welcome to play, or to try to develop another skill that tells you something more useful.
You are able, using a slightly different approach, to read the mind of your fellow combatants, specifically reading their motor control centers to anticipate their movements before the commands reach their bodies. It gives you a slight edge both offensively and defensively in combat. They're still better than you are, but for the nine minutes you maintain this, you are marginally better than you were, and you can tell the difference, although it still will take some time for you to process the information fast enough to get a real edge (knowing how your opponent is going to move one fraction of a second in advance still requires you to react that fast to counter, but it is a recognizable advantage).
Do I understand that you are also going to attempt to see the future as a means of predicting the next movement of your opponent?
--M. J. Young
I think I will. Emotion calls to emotion, thought calls to thought. I think I would like to try reading their thoughts as well as their emotions. While I imagine that true clairvoyance - seeing their hands through their eyes - is well beyond my ken, it seems a logical leap that if I can hear emotions, I might be able to hear thoughts as well, so I will try to directly read their surface thoughts, focusing on whoever has the current turn....Canasta...
That would be the Jedi way, but I get the feeling trying that would make my head explode. You hit the nail on the head with reading the nerve centers of the brain - that is as "precognitive" as I intended to be, so from now on I will add that whenever I am sparring, I am also using this. I will claim a New Use by rolling to see if I can multi-target it (though if this winds up being a separate skill, that's fine too - I'm getting used to that in MV), and another by trying to see if I can predict someone who is not fighting me. If I can multi-target it, I will roll to see if I can then predict multiple people who are ALL not fighting me (such as predicting two people who are fighting each other). All of this I will slowly begin pushing to see how far in advance I can predict them, how many people I can keep track of at once, and whether targeting someone who has a hostile intention toward me helps or hinders.;Do I understand that you are also going to attempt to see the future as a means of predicting the next movement of your opponent?
If there is nothing else, then, I'll add these to my cycle of random things I'm practicing. Mind-reading and Empathy will both be pretty much all the time, sort of how I'm constantly practicing my telescopic vision while I'm working, I'll now also begin pulsing those, and I'll use my new Read Nerves (the actual name of this is confusingly long) whenever I'm sparring, and that will mean a return to business as usual.
You get a solid mental link with one of the other players, and are able to read his intentions. On this first attempt, the link holds for quite a while (unless you drop it to try to connect to someone else).
Your mind reading skills all seem limited to single individuals; you can, however, run multiple individual links and to some degree keep them discrete in your mind--but each is more difficult to add. In your effort to do so in your sparring situation, it takes you seven tries--at one per minute--to link into the second mind.
I'm holding up on the other uses because I seem to be working on two timelines already (1: playing canasta in the galley; 2: sparring with someone in security, who suddenly has become two people), and I think that adding a circumstance in which there are also two other people sparring with each other would give us the very unlikely circumstance of three out of five security team members sparring in the space provided for exercise. They have to sleep sometime. Also, I think using it against someone with "a hostile intention" might have to wait until you have a situation in which that is likely to occur.
When you are doing mind reading and empathy "pretty much all the time", who are your targets? Are you going to attempt methodically to cover everyone in the crew equally, or do more with the people with whom you spend more time, or target officers over crewmen, or exactly what? (I ask because familiarity is based on, well, familiarity. If you are constantly contacting the captain and the chief pilot, you will find them easy to contact, but have no luck if you suddenly have to reach the chief of deck; if you spread the practice among everyone, no one will stand out as particularly easier to reach, but you'll have a chance of reaching any person you choose.)
Also, you now have the ability to know what your opponent is thinking. That will include things like "I need another five," and "Can I go out with this, or should I hold on?" and "It appears that he's collecting 7s; must remember not to discard any for a while." (It will also include things like, "Dinner smells pretty good; I wonder what they're making?" and "Got to make sure I get some sleep before my watch," but those aren't as useful.) What are you doing with this information?
--M. J. Young
Sparring: That's about all I was trying to figure out. That it can be done is enough for me, getting it to work well is what practice and pushing are for.
Canasta: I'll use the information to guide my own strategy. When I know what they have and how confident they are in it, then I'll bet accordingly. I'll probably still lose, since I don't actually know canasta very well, but maybe it will make me look like I've at least played before.
The rest: I'm going to target more or less whoever I see. If I see someone I haven't targeted before, then I will link them with Empathy and Read Minds. Otherwise I'll just get practice with linking whoever is handy. I won't go out of my way to track down absolutely everyone - receptive telepathy isn't THAT important to me - but I will prioritize people I see less often. What I will do is practice linking people I've linked before, who are not currently within my line of sight. I want to see if I have better luck doing that.
You find that there is no immediate difference between reading someone you are observing and reading someone you have read once before; however, gradually over time you realize that it is becoming ever so slightly easier to read Christian, the security officer with whom you spar most often--and that there is a connection, that your ability to read his movements and his emotions and his thoughts are all getting easier.
You also think there might be some increased ability to read Tolomy, the most senior deck hand. You often see him on deck, working, giving instructions to the others, and so you find yourself reading him simply because he is an available target--and that is getting a bit easier.
Thus it appears that frequent contact with any part of the mind/soul/spirit of an individual gives you some benefit over time.
I am going to ask that you keep track of those individuals in the crew with whom you have familiarity, and include the familiarity numbers on those occasions on which you need to roll for contact (when it matters) with these individuals. You have +2 for Security Officer Christian and +1 for Deck Hand Tolomy; these numbers are derived over several weeks of practice, and will not increase terribly quickly.
--M. J. Young
I don't have a copy of my character sheet in person - that's why I always ask for a printout when it comes time for UberCon. Incidentally, I'll need a printout when it comes time for UberCon, since you have my most up-to-date numbers.
It's a bit disheartening to know that it gets easier to track people I've linked repeatedly. That means I can't reliably tell how good at this I actually am: my familiarity with Tolomy means my little trick won't be as effective when I really need it later on. I'll make a note of that in my journal, and resolve to try nerve-predicting other people as well, using that trick in a non-combat scenario, adding it to my other things I do in my head while my body is steering the ship.
Once my latest round of experimentation is over, back to business as usual, I suppose.
You've been improving slowly in a number of skills (listed behind the screens).
Otherwise, you've returned to your routine.
--M. J. Young
Ahh, business as usual.
I'll fall into my usual patterns, then. Work, practice, prayer. All is well.
A month later, roughly, on the two hundred twenty-first day of this voyage, you are relieved at shift change in the pale light of dawn. You are chatting with Pilot Commander Stanis about nothing in particular.
There is a shout from the crow's nest. A ship is emerging from the morning fog, not a quarter mile away and converging on your course. It is light and fast, and will be ahead in the lane shortly.
"Alert all hands," Stanis shouts. "Wake the captain."
--M. J. Young
During this month, I would have been practicing my Empathy, Read Thoughts, and Read Nerves.
I'll try to mind-link the Captain. This time I'll try to broadcast a thought. It will be simple and to the point, "Ship approaching!" I've linked him before. I don't have a Familiarity with him, but it shouldn't be any harder than anyone else. Heck, after a month longer I might have a familiarity with him, but it doesn't matter that much.
Whether it works or not, I'm going to try to Empathy them on the other ship. Hostile?
If yes, then I'll run to get the Captain.
If no, I'll still run to get the Captain, but I'll tell him they're not hostile.
Bloody pirates. It's been two months since I laid my bulk combat spell. I'm hoping we won't need it...
You make no contact with the captain.
You also get nothing in your effort to reach a mind on the approaching ship.
I presume you're running to get the captain, but not telling him whether or not the approaching ship is hostile.
The captain responds immediately, pulling himself out of bed. "All men to battle stations," he says. "Get up there and see what else you can learn; I'll be dressed in a moment."
--M. J. Young
"Yes, sir."
I haul ass up to the deck.
Are the crew of the incoming ship within visual range?
If yes, I detect their surface thoughts and emotions.
If no, I whip out my telescope, and <i>then</i> I detect their surface thoughts and emotions.
If I can pick out their captain, helmsman, or anyone with a weapon to target, bonus.
By the time you get back outside, they have indeed gotten close enough to see--close enough to see them readying boarding pikes, loading pistols, preparing grapples, and generally getting ready to attack.
I would guess you're not going to attempt to read anyone's thoughts or emotions at this point. And you can pick out quite a few people with weapons, but they are still just out of range of your pistol. Security is readying cannon.
--M. J. Young
I draw my sword, and use my Bonus Strike spell while preparing for battle.
Once they are close to pistol range, I'll Bonus Strike my pistol. Then when they are IN range, I'll trigger my Psionic Accuracy and fire. My target at that point will be their captain, or, if he is not visible, their helmsman. If neither are visible, I will shoot someone holding a boarding plank, or otherwise pick a target as likely to cause mayhem and confusion as possible. Do they happen to have a keg of gunpowder on the deck? *evil grin*
My other two spells trigger off the same key phrase, so I'll wait until battle is joined, after I have switched back to my sword.
If at any point the fight seems to be turning significantly against us, I will begin to sing "Warriors of the World" while I fight, to trigger the group battle spell lying dormant in my holy ground, the one I constantly leave on because I feel better piloting with it on. This has no flashy effects - the men will just take a sudden second wind and begin kicking ass. And yes I can sing and fight at the same time - I'm basically tone-deaf anyway so not concentrating on singing doesn't make my singing any worse.
You can feel that something has gone badly with the first spell, but you do not know what.
You can see the helmsman, but even if you get a great shot at this distance it's not going to be more than symbolic. There are several crewmen at medium range, and you might be able to hit the barrel in the center of the deck, which might be gunpowder, although it might be grog. Pick your target.
--M. J. Young
I'll pick the barrel in the center. If it is gunpowder, and if I manage to detonate it it would be a major score. Bonus Strike, Psionic Accuracy, fire.
You put a hole in the barrel. Some liquid spills out on the deck, spreading outward over the wooden surface and draining through cracks.
Grapples are thrown from the approaching ship; three of them grab something on the Piper. One pirate goes overboard when he loses his balance. A heave pulls the ships closer.
Your deck cannon fire in a huge explosion. An enemy sail is torn, and a yardarm broken; a shell hits the hull, but is deflected. Balcon is yelling orders, and deck hands are trying to hack through the ropes on the grapples. They get two of them, but the enemy is now close enough that they are preparing grappling hooks.
--M. J. Young
I'll switch to my sword and go up to the line, preparing to engage. Until the enemy begins to engage, I'd like to start unhooking hooks, cutting ropes, and generally making the pirates' job harder. As usual, part of that will include TK Pulsing their ship, making the roll of the deck worse to throw off their balance and screw with their aim.
You would be aware from practice that your TK pulse is probably good for one attempt per minute, and works between one third and two fifths of attempts. I am guessing that you intend to attempt to push the top of the ship away from the Piper, which creates a lateral rocking and pulls against the grapples. However, I can see other possibilities.
- You could push against the ship's center of mass. This would not create rocking, but it would pull against the grapples and push the ship away possibly as much as a few feet--although if the pirates hold their grapples, it might cause the Piper to rock.
- You could "push" the mast toward you, again creating lateral rocking. The advantage here is that if the pirates are surprised, their grapples are momentarily loosened and might be easier to dislodge (releasing a grappling hook from a gunnel requires removing the tension from it and then raising it). The disadvantage is that it brings them closer first, and they might be able to use that.
- You could use the push along the line of travel, causing the ship to pitch either forward or back. This does not bring them closer, but might impact their ability to maintain grappling hooks, particularly off the center point of the ship, as they rise and fall relative to the Piper. I don't immediately see a difference between starting with a forward or a backward tilt, but it may be that you do.
- You could accelerate or decelerate the target ship by pushing fore or aft on its center of mass. This sudden shift in relative velocity between the two ships could also impact ability to hold grapples.
--M. J. Young
I'll use it to push the top of the mast towards the Piper, as per your second description.
I'll also pray, "Odin keep my thoughts in line!" I'm hoping I can impose upon Odin in his capacity of the god of memory and mind-magic to bonus me on my next attempt at a psionic ability. We'll call this one "Bonus Psionic Ability" - I'm hoping it comes out as an @1 like my Bonus Strike spell. Alliance holy magic, requires an active holy ground (which I have), my named-unique sword in hand and pointed at my target, which I will do, and a Smallsword Dueling check to swish an Uruz rune in the air, which I will also then do. Whether this works or not, I am still TK Pulsing the other ship as described above.
I may have missed a post; conversely, you may have thought you posted something you did not.
You consecrated most of the deck of the ship as holy ground; but your consecration rituals (if I am remembering them aright) require that you subsequently activate such holy ground when you intend to use it. Did I misread or misunderstand something, or did you omit the part where you activated the holy ground?
--M. J. Young
You missed or forgot something I've said a couple of times - the one on the deck I leave on constantly. It has to be activated, but it also has to be manually discharged - just using it to cast a spell doesn't discharge this one like it does the others, except for the big bulk-combat spell because the holy ground itself is part of that spell. So I activated it once long ago, and haven't turned it off since. Even during the crew uprising - they simply can't tell the difference.
Also, my personal combat bonus spells have never required a holy ground. I had those spells in place LONG before I consecrated the deck.
O.K., I'm going to have to take a step back for a minute and figure this out behind the screens. Join me there.
--M. J. Young
The resolution is that you did activate the holy ground some time ago, and activation is maintained until the ground is used to support the casting of a spell. You have not at any time attempted to cast a spell that relied on holy ground as one of its components within this space since you activated it--you have cast spells in the cargo hold and in your cabin, but not on deck--and thus as you enter this combat the ground is still active. Your bonus strike spell does not include holy ground as a component, and thus did not use the charge.
You perform your flourish and declare your prayer. You then attempt the TK pulse while running toward the rail, but you do not manage to get focused on the ship.
--M. J. Young
Then I'll just draw my sword, and have at. Battle is joined. I use my three normal battle prayers on the way to the rail, and then find something to stab. A pirate. A rope. A pirate holding a rope. Whatever is handy.
Are these the three prayers, or have I got something swapped?
- 1@2 Bonus Strike M1@2 0:06 whispered prayer "Thor guide me. Put strength in my hands and rage in my heart, to defend my friends and break my enemies" while holding intended weapon in weapon hand RS/10 minute duration RS/10 bonus to attacks with weapon +6SM
- 1@2 Defensive Bonus M+1@2 penalize all incoming attacks by RS/10 for one minute, TF 0:06, say "Thor protect me", -5SM, +10 if prayed before/while engaging in a risky action in honorable combat (for +5SM total)
- 1@3 Reduce Attack Success M+1@2 say "Thor Protect Me" sword in hand during battle, RF1 Duration RS/4 penalizes incoming attacks RS/10 +0SM
--M. J. Young
Yep that's the ones.
You pray your prayers and reach the rail to find a pirate trying to secure a rope. You slice him fairly solidly, but he's still fit enough that he's reaching for his own weapon.
I have noted an anomaly on your skills that you ought to consider at this point. A sword is generally a repeat factor 1 weapon; you have a 2@ skill ability level in it, which doubles your attacks to 2 in a minute. You also have an RF 2 weapon-based style, and a second level SAL in that, which means that you get four attacks with the style, but only two with the weapon.
You have a feint attack, but it's the sort of thing that is bad if you fail. I am assuming that the style includes some other types of attacks that are not directly with the weapon, probably with the other hand, but you would know the style better than I.
In any case, you can use the sword to hit this person again, but then would not be able to strike with the sword again until the next minute; or you could use one of the non-sword attacks to attempt to finish this opponent, leaving you another sword and another non-sword attack in the minute.
While it may seem odd that you would be able to strike four times with the small sword style but only twice with the small sword, it would be resolved easily if you had a second comparable sword in the other hand.
--M. J. Young
I'm not sure why we have both "use smallsword" and "smallsword fencing" on there - it's just how you told me to write it down. I really have no idea what the difference is, such that to me the style is the only way I know to use the weapon, other than flourishes and the like. When fighting with it, it's the style. So yes, two sword attacks and two non-sword attacks works fine, especially considering I have some martial arts moves like my groin kick that can fill in the non-sword attacks. The smallsword style itself is weapon-dependent, so there really is no "attacking" that isn't with the sword. I suppose I could use an attack action for an active parry, or a disarm, but those still involve the weapon even if they don't involve damage. Do you have any suggestions as to what I could use those other attack actions for? Can I use my martial arts moves like the groin kick, or is that considered out-of-style? (I could easily parry and then follow through with the groin kick.) How about punching a man in the face with the D-guard of my sword? Is that considered using the weapon, or would that work to take up a non-sword attack?
As he goes for his weapon, I'll go for his groin with my Groin Kick maneuver, and shout a Kiai while I'm at it. "Hoo-ah!" Crunch.
To explain the distinction first, the martial arts weapon skill applies to your ability to use the sword as if it were an extension of your body, within the context of a martial arts style; the smallsword style skill is the style within which you use it. Both are transferable. That is, if you learned another style that allowed or required the use of a weapon, you would have the same skill with your sword that you have already, but would be learning the new style. Conversely, if you picked up a different weapon, say for example a bo ku toh, you would have to learn the new weapon but could incorporate it into the techniques of this style.
Also, Multiverser does not consider anything "out-of-style"; the only restrictions arise if there is a direct conflict of action--you cannot do a two-handed choke hold on an opponent while parrying with your sword unless you have a third hand or some other way of controlling the sword. A weapon-dependent style requires that you have a weapon in hand to get the bonuses granted by the style (presumably you are using it to parry, among other things), and thus any maneuver that requires the use of both hands would be prohibited in most cases in a weapon-dependent style. Thus any maneuver you know can be used in any style you know. This solves the problem that arises if you learn more than one martial arts style using the same weapons or maneuvers: you already know the weapons and maneuvers, and learning the style inherently involves learning to incorporate the known techniques.
As mentioned, it is assumed that you are already parrying with your sword; that's what gives you the -5 defensive sit-mod in the style. A specific parry is a possible maneuver, but normally uses one attack with the weapon; hitting with the weapon guard would also be an attack with the weapon (since otherwise the character using a staff could argue that he should be able to hit with the other end of the staff at no penalty). Thus the groin kick and the feint are the likely choices (the feint need not be done with the sword to be effective), although you can incorporate or create new techniques if you can describe something that seems plausible. Also, it would be assumed that there is a baseline style attack, probably with the hand or arm, that can just be stated as "I attack him in style" and the attack and damage rolled without more detail than that as long as your arms are not impeded.
You shout and he shouts right back at you; you kick, but he shifts out of the way, dropping the rope and drawing his sword. You move in with the sword and open his midsection wide, blood and guts pouring from him onto the deck as he goes down atop them.
--M. J. Young
I check his body. Does he have a pistol? If so, I pick it up, trigger Psionic Accuracy, and fire at the next nearest pirate.
If not, I'll look around. Is there another pirate handy to stab? If so, I stab him, both in style, and with style. Muaha! (Kiai!)
If not, I'll look around. Is there another pirate about to be nearby, or such that I could double-lunge on him without having to jump over water? If so, I double-lunge.
You do the double-lunge and put a serious tear in the midsection of another boarding pirate; coming in with another well-aimed blow, you finish him, and his body falls into the water below.
Two pirates close around you, coming in with cutlasses.
--M. J. Young
I'll stand my ground, watching the pair of them.
When the first one attacks (whichever he be), I'll hop back, lift my sword, and try to direct his attack into the guy on the other side of me. We'll call this the "fool-killer sidestep," and classify it as a new martial-arts move. I'm feeling theatrical tonight - maybe the gods will favor me.
You almost got that right, but it took a lot of effort, and the enemy avoided your swing and landed a pretty decent gash--nothing life threatening or anything, but you definitely felt it. You can try it again on the other pirate, or you can make another sword attack and another weaponless maneuver before the other gets a shot at you.
--M. J. Young