MJ mentioned special maneuvers when we were reproducing my martial arts style, and I didn't quite understand what he meant, beyond obvious ones like a feint. I mean, most of my moves are meant to incapacitate, or as part of a combo to incapacitate, and thus end the battle quickly.
If there were any maneuvers that are really 'special', it would be moves that are in some way distinguished from the main attacks of the style, right?
To be specific, in pressure point combat, a little known fact is there are three 'levels' of points, the most common being those that cause pain, the next being those that tighten or untighten muscles, and the least common those that cause a specific reflexive reaction that is hardwired into the human body. Pain pints are resisted by about 15% of the population and by those with severe mental illnesses of certain types, as well as those high on PCP. Muscle points are resisted by tensing the muscle affected, except for the paralysis muscle points, which require the affected muscle to BE tense. Reflex points, on the other hand, are mostly in the centerline of the body, and are hard to get to, but there is no defense once they are hit.
would an attack meant to paralyze a certain muscle be 'special'? It is a central part of the style, but is it a 'special' move? How about an attack that causes a violent reaction of a certain type, like the reflex points?
an attack I know is special is a 'police stomp' I modified to fit with my style, which generates a lot of forward impetus for a kick. Police use it to kick down doors more easily
EDIT: sorry about the thread title, mistake. Not sure How a J got in there, maybe I had meant to say something with MJ in it.
Yes, for instance;
My martial arts style is a grab-throw style, like...Judo I believe? anyways, I have a basic attack, yes, which is a throw, but most of the attacks I do are a 7@3 Leveraged Attack, which is a special attack that the style focuses on. It has advantages and disadvantages but I almost never use the basic attack in the style; I use the style because I get bonuses on that 7@3 attack for being in style.
So, were I to fully render my style into MV rules, it would probably have the pain points as the base part of the style, and the paralysis and reactionary moves as special maneuvers? Thanks, I will discuss this in greater detail with MJ.
I think my post may have been misleading, I'll let MJ clear it up later.
Anything you do in-style that you expect to have a specific effect beyond "you hit him, he takes damage" - keeping in mind the combat modifiers which you are awarded for simply being in style - is a special maneuver, and it needs to be detailed as a separate skill.
That's what I was trying to say, thanks again Scott.
Ok, thanks, I will talk about this in more detail with MJ.
Thanks!
Brock--the "basic" style for any style consists of attacks that do "ordinary" damage, and "ordinary" blocks and parries; the latter is generally more difficult to categorize than the former.
For a vital area/point attack/poke style, it is a bit difficult because the "fiction" is a little thicker. That is, it is assumed that when you hit a nerve junction you are doing real damage, the "same kind" of real damage that is done by a punch or kick, or a slam into the ground or the wall, or a squeeze or twist. That "real damage" hurts, and also accrues in a way that ultimately will kill an opponent--but it will take at least a few good shots to do this, most of the time.
An attack which does more than that minimum amount of damage is a special maneuver; it's usually a leveraged or intensified damage attack.
An attack which does no damage but causes pain which prevents the opponent from acting (if he fails a check) is a special maneuver; so is one which has this intensified pain plus damage.
An attack which paralyzes the victim is a special maneuver, a paralyzing or incapacitating attack.
I'm inclined to think that most of your attacks are actually special maneuvers, and that in the course of game combat you would be very likely to say that you are going to do X to the opponent, with a very specific X expecting a very specific result. That's sort of what I was getting at with my questions, but you seemed satisfied that these were all "ordinary" attacks, and seemed to think that it would be sufficient for you to say you were attacking rather than that you were going to go for a specific kind of attack. I figured if you were right I was wasting time trying to get a different answer from you; and if I was right it would become obvious the first time you attempted to so something like that in combat, at which time we could figure out what it was you were doing and what you expected from it.
--M. J. Young
And I cross-posted with, like, everybody on this thread, because I opened all these threads hours ago and then was called away on an errand that took half a day, so please don't think I said something different from what Scott said.
--M. J. Young
Ah. Well, the reason I didn't answer your special maneuvers question is I needed time to mull it over, hence this thread. In fact, I was going to mention to you that I think exactly what you said, that most of my attacks appear to be special maneuvers in MV.
If there is any attack in-style that I use that is NOT a special maneuver looking for a specific effect, it is probably a kick or punch.
Should we just hammer out the details later, in play? I avoid combat, so it probably won't come up for awhile.
Brock, I gotta ask, did you label this thread MJartial arts on purpose? Was it a typo, or did you put MJ's initials in there on purpose?
It was a mistake; Brock mentions that somewhere up there.
He can edit the thread title. When he clicks to edit the post, he can also edit the thread title and fix it. Has to be on the first post though.
Oh, really? I believe I started saying something like MJ: martial arts question, but changed my mind and didn't delete all the way or something.
Was still a pretty cool typo.
hehe, yeah.
Here's one for you. I'm watching "The Legend of Chun Li." (It's based on the Street Fighter video game.) It shows how Chun Li trained in Wushu. From the training montage, it looks like her father trained her only in Katas, and that they never actually sparred at all. So, I guess her first fight/first sparring session would be a new use.
(Doing Therapy)
Brock: yes, that seems to make sense at this point. It will be easier to deal with such maneuvers one at a time as they arise, and figure out exactly how to categorize them. For example, I can see that in combat you would be looking for an opening to hit any one of a dozen different points, and taking that opening; the particular strike you would use would be specific to that opening. The effect, though, might be generalized--hitting someone in any of these places causes a specific type of pain that provokes a particular reaction. Thus it might make sense for there to be a "pain strike" without reference to where it hits, the assumption being that using it means you are going to attempt to find an opening to hit any one of those spots, the result of which will be this kind of pain giving you this benefit.
And interestingly there is a category for that.
--M. J. Young
Actually, in looking through the various sources on this site, I have already found a list of maneuvers somewhere on MJYoung.net that included an attack called pain inflictor, so it would be finished already. I also found a paralysis strike that works for the variant of muscle points that work on already tightened muscles and unclenches them. Those would be fine, but in game sounds good.