Quote from: Omega;730523No no no! We must use Gizmo's theorem for this.

Sex
A: Find woman. Persuade woman into boinking. Find place to boink. Remove clothes. Insert tab A into slot B
B: Boink boink boink

Mastrubation
A: Think happy thoughts
B: add modifiers + Magazines
C: subtract modiefiers - clothes
D: Apply friction.

So obviously sex is objectively better than masturbation.

Your forgot to look up the THAC0 score. That adds at least one additional step.

Quote from: Exploderwizard;730505No not bad at all-unless you are a weapon using fighter and the karate fighter with iron fist kicks your ass.

3 attacks per round at 1-10 + STR bonus each. You are left with nothing to do but go back to your lousy master and tell him who beat you up. :rotfl:

Doesn't sound bad - but won't the Iron fist guy be facing down Katana specialist dudes at some point? I mean this does sound badass, but not worse than some samurai hooligan dual-wielding Katana

Quote from: Sacrosanct;730509Nah.  You forget that if you're attacking with fists, only 25% of the damage is real, and your opponent with a weapon always goes first.  And if you're at 3 attacks per round, so is your opponent (assuming equal level).  

Guy with sword still wins, since it's probably a magical sword he's using as well at that level.

Subdual attempts must be declared as such. OA p100.

 At that level? I'm talking 1st level. It only takes 2 prof. slots to get a style and a difficulty 1 maneuver (Iron fist). When closing the longer weapon might get the first attack, but once melee is joined it is down to regular initiative.

OA martial arts are a ton of fun but they are beyond overpowered compared to poor weapon users without a super awesome magic weapon.

Quote from: Exploderwizard;730530Subdual attempts must be declared as such. OA p100.

 At that level? I'm talking 1st level. It only takes 2 prof. slots to get a style and a difficulty 1 maneuver (Iron fist). When closing the longer weapon might get the first attack, but once melee is joined it is down to regular initiative.

OA martial arts are a ton of fun but they are beyond overpowered compared to poor weapon users without a super awesome magic weapon.

I'm talking about what's in the DMG, and nothing in OA I could find overrides the rules for pummeling.  How are you getting the 3 attacks per round at level 1?

Quote from: Old Geezer;730484* puts head on desk and covers head with arms *

Fuck, I am so old...

I had that feeling recently talking to co-workers in their early 20s (I'm 44).  I was talking about seeing commercials during prime-time newscasts that looked like the same quality of UHF ads...

...Girl goes to me "I don't know what that is".  The only person who vaguely knew what it was had seen the Weird Al UHF movie from 1989.

Quote from: Black Vulmea;730465I had that moment when I was teaching marine biology and realised I had to explain who Jacques Cousteau was to my students.

You would think that marine biologists in training would know that Jacques Cousteau and Ian Anderson co-invented the aqualung.

Quote from: talysman;730542You would think that marine biologists in training would know that Jacques Cousteau and Ian Anderson co-invented the aqualung.

Also the park bench.

Quote from: talysman;730542You would think that marine biologists in training would know that Jacques Cousteau and Ian Anderson co-invented the aqualung.

Survey course, for the liberal arts kids who like dolphins.

Quote from: Sacrosanct;730535I'm talking about what's in the DMG, and nothing in OA I could find overrides the rules for pummeling.  How are you getting the 3 attacks per round at level 1?

Do a monk's attacks all count as subdual? I don't think so. Per subdual (DMG p67) the intent to subdue has to be stated. It also says that subdual damage never applies to PCs. That would mean that regular attacks with any weapon or unarmed do actual damage unless the intent to subdue is announced.  


3 attacks per round at level 1:

Choosing a martial arts style takes 1 prof. slot. For that 1 slot you get the basic #AT/dmg per round of the style (oh and natural AC8 to boot) and no maneuvers.

This is explained in OA under Leraning Martial Arts p 106.

It also costs 1 prof. slot for each maneuver or weapon in the style that the character wishes to learn. All rank 1 maneuvers have to be learned before any rank 2 and so forth.

A level 1 fighter or bushi has 4 prof. slots. For two of those he can learn karate and iron fist which is the first rank strike maneuver. This gives the fighter 3 punches for a base 1d10 damage each. He can use his remaining two slots to specialize in the sword.

A katana also does 1-10 vs S/M opponents.

So our fighter could choose to attack 3/2 at +1 to hit and 1-10 +2 damage (sans STR bonus) with a sword

OR

3/1 at no extra bonus to hit and 1-10 each (sans STR) with his fists.

pg 67 of the DMG talks about subdual in general, using non lethal parts of a weapon.  Page 72 is what you want, where it talks about weaponless combat, and specifically says that pummeling is only 25% real damage.

And yes, I would consider a monk's open hand damage to be exempt from this because it's a class feature.  Something that particular class is specialized in.  

And as mentioned, unarmed attackers always go last against an armed attacker, as per the DMG.  So that 1st level fighter double spec'd with his katana, always going first, makes the fight not nearly as one sided as you're thinking.

OA martial arts played the way Exploderwizard is describing. I agree they are pretty fun, but it's basically a whole alternate melee combat system. And I do not remotely recall that they somehow count as subdual damage in whole or in part, or are otherwise at all stymied by armed opponents.

Quote from: Imp;730569OA martial arts played the way Exploderwizard is describing. I agree they are pretty fun, but it's basically a whole alternate melee combat system. And I do not remotely recall that they somehow count as subdual damage in whole or in part, or are otherwise at all stymied by armed opponents.

Obviously there's a difference of interpretation.  That never happens in AD&D...


The reasoning behind my group interpreting MA damage in OA as subdual damage was based on:

a) the rules in the DMG around weaponless combat
b) it seemed crazy powerful to assume it was real damage like a weapon

*edit:  And when 2e further codified the rules that unarmed attacks were only 25% real damage, it made sense because that's how we were playing it anyway.  It explicitly states that for martial arts attacks (in the complete ninja's handbook for instance), that only 25% of damage is normal.

Quote from: talysman;730542You would think that marine biologists in training would know that Jacques Cousteau and Ian Anderson co-invented the aqualung.

Quote from: Black Vulmea;730553Survey course, for the liberal arts kids who like dolphins.

Play this for them. That way, they can also tell people they studied classical music.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZgsUXUBpS8Q

Adding is a better choice in game design because counting upwards is far more ingrained in people than counting backwards. We don't studying counting down as much as we study counting up.

Back when I taught, I hammered subtraction and negative number math into my students to overcome the imbalance compared to addition and positive number math. I believe my years of THAC0 did help a lot with my early math skills, but that's not a reason to inflict it on players today.

That said, rolling under a percentage is even easier for players because its easier for them to visualize the odds (it says it right there in the skill %) and the success or failure is instantly recognizable on the immediate dice roll.

Thus, BRP wins the math round of the edition war.

Quote from: Sacrosanct;730571Obviously there's a difference of interpretation.  That never happens in AD&D...

What!? That can't be true!!!:D

Quote from: SacrosanctThe reasoning behind my group interpreting MA damage in OA as subdual damage was based on:

a) the rules in the DMG around weaponless combat
b) it seemed crazy powerful to assume it was real damage like a weapon

*edit:  And when 2e further codified the rules that unarmed attacks were only 25% real damage, it made sense because that's how we were playing it anyway.  It explicitly states that for martial arts attacks (in the complete ninja's handbook for instance), that only 25% of damage is normal.

Sounds good.

I became a fairly big fan of the Skills & Powers unarmed combat system wich basically changed 2e unarmed combat from "charming but weird and involved tables" to "very simple" (and kept it definitely inferior to armed combat allthough less so than earlier in that specializing in unarmed combat would make those horrible attacks of opportunity (that'd allow say a dude with a knife, say, to absolutely slaughter a nonspecialized brawler) go away. Still specializing in say fist-focused unarmed combat would be say roughly on level with specializing in daggers, except somewhat weaker

I wouldn't mind a more spectacular/over the top martial arts system though, I think it has its place in D&D. Well East Asian-flavored D&D, anyway, of course.