Isn't the point of this thread to talk about "What is appropriate" for Martial Arts in D&D?

So for realism's sake - you have real-world martial-arts and how they're supposed to mechanically tack on to the existing combat mechanics.

Normally - you punch and do 1-point +Str. Kicks are the same.

So for Martial Arts, we would need to establish:

Striking styles
Kicking styles
Grappling styles
Throwing styles
Weapon styles

Sub-styles that might tuck under these are Locking skills, Physical enhancement techniques, Mental enhancement techniques

For D&D's conceits - you immediately venture into the unrealistic with the Monk Class and it's implied martial-arts contained within the functions of attack/defense/damage progression.

That means we have a *lot* of descriptive and mechanical design-space to work with in terms of creating a martial arts system for the game.

I think everyone is in agreement that Fighters should have an open-hand option. I'd push that further that I feel *every* class should have an option to invest in martial-arts at a cost. My feelings are that a good martial art system should be more than *just* wire-fu, but certainly could go up to that.

Note here: I'm dispensing with East vs. West - and "realism" because frankly, there's nothing realistic about it in the context of D&D. The question should be where are the demarcation lines that define the limits.

For me - that's the Monk. Any damage progression over the base d6 should be something that will require deep investment by other classes. Whether you want to untether Monk damage progression entirely is up to you - but that "line" should be the limit outside of special maneuvers that could exceed it.

Of course... if everyone wants to jack off about Eastern vs. Westerns styles in reality - I'll bow out of the discussion

Edit - I should stipulate - I'm perfectly happy with making existing real-world styles IN D&D - but I want my D&D Muay Thai to be everything from Samart Payakaroon to Sagat at the far end. But the system needs to encompass all of that and scale.

My reductionist side would want unarmed combat to be folded into regular fighterly stuff.

So you have fighters who mostly do weapons, fighters who mix a bit, and fighters who specialize in unarmed.

And then classical monks would be ... eldritch knights. Think about it! (maybe with cleric list instead of wizard)

Quote from: tenbones;799949So for Martial Arts, we would need to establish:

Striking styles
Kicking styles
Grappling styles
Throwing styles
Weapon styles

Sub-styles that might tuck under these are Locking skills, Physical enhancement techniques, Mental enhancement techniques

I think that's too many styles with a confused mixture of levels of abstraction. Kicking is part of striking and you can't easily throw without grappling. You only need three in this schema:
Striking
Grappling
Weapon

Even then it's more about focus or the mix of the three. You could have styles that focus on just one, or a mix of two, or all three.

Quote from: Kiero;799963I think that's too many styles with a confused mixture of levels of abstraction. Kicking is part of striking and you can't easily throw without grappling. You only need three in this schema:
Striking
Grappling
Weapon

Even then it's more about focus or the mix of the three. You could have styles that focus on just one, or a mix of two, or all three.

I would not argue *any* of this. It's a clean way of doing it. All the throws, locks, kicks, weapon-manuevers could be easily folded in.

So the entry point is what? a Feat. If so - should we differentiate between Hard/Soft/Hybrid?

@ Will - no sense in not having some of your reductionist peanut-butter with our additive chocolate. Why not use Archetypes as the basis for your form of unarmed combat - and we could make both completely compatible.

The QUESTION I have is:

If we want it to scale, my gut reaction is we do via Archetype, and the base Styles remain Feats. But where does that leave us with Manuevers? Make them purchasable like Tools. Or do we create a new level-based currency?

If damage scales with leveling based on Archetype - that's easy to calc. But the key thing here is options with the assumption it plugs into the martial arts Feat system (or whatever modular construct that contains it)

Potentially this system could give the other weak Fighter Archetypes plausible options for use with the martial arts feat system without the scaling factor an Unarmed archetype would enjoy. a Battlemaster with a weaponstyle might be crazy fierce. Perhaps it would make sense to make it a dice-based currency system that tacks on to the Battlemaster's Superiority Dice? OR we could say that Superiority Dice can be used to fuel martial arts manuevers (as needed).

My inclination is a nod toward Old Geezer's comments about OD&D and complaints about 3e gatekeeper feats.

That is, I'd rather have options be available for everyone, just with some odd flourishes or nudges from various options.

Mockup:

Archetype - Martial Artist.

1) Choose a style - Striking, Grappling, Weapon. Gain free access to one Martial art within that style (see Feats).
2) Gain X Bonuses (specific to each style)
2a) As you level gain X Bonuses to DMG and miscellaneous utility.
3) Gain X number of (Superiority Dice*) to fuel style- (this is a deliberate hook into the Martial Arts Feats) per/lvl.

Feats
Martial Arts Feats
1) Divided by Type: Hard, Soft, Hybrid. Each type will confer a small bonus to DMG/AC/Init respectively specific to their Style - Strike, Grapple, Weapon.
2) Each style will have Manuevers that represent that style based on Type.
3) Manuevers will cost (or nothing?)

This means non-Martial Artists can purchase Martial Arts Feats, but their ability will not scale nearly as much as a Martial Artist or Monk.

Monks - Start with the higher die-code of unarmed damage based on their class/level OR the base of the Martial Art. Any weapon-based Martial Art will be allowable for Monks to used their Monk combat routines with - but bonus damage beyond the weapon base damage-code will be the standard Monk scale. Ki can be used to fuel any Martial Art manuever requiring an expenditure.

Corollary rules:
Hybridization rules - how to mix your martial arts styles and create you own.


So that's off the top of my head. Ideas?

The one thing I find truly odd about grappling rules in D&D 5 is that it doesn't seem to affect spellcasting. Allowing grapple to prevent spells with somatic components turns it into a much more worthwhile endeavour, and at least from my amateurish point of view (both in regard of grappling and spellcasting in real life) this ommission doesn't seem to make sense.

Quote from: Will;799975My inclination is a nod toward Old Geezer's comments about OD&D and complaints about 3e gatekeeper feats.

That is, I'd rather have options be available for everyone, just with some odd flourishes or nudges from various options.

3e Gatekeeper Feats were complete shit. I totally agree. But here's why: Feats in 3.x/PF SUCK ASS. Arguably they're meaningless because as created - they're really just parsing shit out your class should already have. The PROBLEM is that it's an atomic helping of flavorless shit.

Feats need to be BIG and BEEFY to matter. 5e does a pretty good job of this. The idea should be about differentiation within the same context: If I'm a western Boxer, I am not going to fight like a BJJ grappler. And it shouldn't feel "samey" - or be boiled down to just some abstraction with a condition slapped on. "Trip" shouldn't be used in place of "Throw" with the same effect.

My problem with rolling *everything* into a class is it doesn't allow for evolution. I'll give you an example (and yes this is obviously HIGHLY subjective) - I ran a gladiator campaign. The whole thing revolved around people fighting WWE-Street-Fighter-Lovechild-style in a vast arena-based game that moved from city to city.

One of the great joys of the game was introducing new ways to fight and letting the PC's learn and adapt - and hybridizing their techniques while growing as characters. It's hard if not impossible to do that with all their abilities locked into a track within a class.

I think it can be done with Archetypes and Feats with minimal extra mechanics.

Quote from: Beagle;799978The one thing I find truly odd about grappling rules in D&D 5 is that it doesn't seem to affect spellcasting. Allowing grapple to prevent spells with somatic components turns it into a much more worthwhile endeavour, and at least from my amateurish point of view (both in regard of grappling and spellcasting in real life) this ommission doesn't seem to make sense.

I thought the very same thing. I think a Lock maneuver by a Grappler should allow a Martial Artist to remove two-Spell component usage as a byproduct of the maneuver. So you could lock someone up for an effect (a Choke) - removes Vocal and Somatic components from being used. Cast away wizard... good luck with that.

Would there actually need to be the inclusion of "hard", "soft", "hybrid" as descriptors of MA styles? Isn't that just how some Asian arts describe themselves and therefore makes it a meaningless way to talk about art from anywhere not based on Asian cultures?

Quote from: tenbones;799980I thought the very same thing. I think a Lock maneuver by a Grappler should allow a Martial Artist to remove two-Spell component usage as a byproduct of the maneuver. So you could lock someone up for an effect (a Choke) - removes Vocal and Somatic components from being used. Cast away wizard... good luck with that.

While I concour that some sort of chokehold would probably male it very difficult to speak, I think from a purely gameplay perspective, it would be simpler (and thus both easier to memorize and probably a bit more elegant) to just limit it to somatic components or prevent spellcasting alltogether because I don't think that there are many spells left which have neither of those.

As an aside, fantasy has utterly spoiled me on real martial arts.

I used to take tai chi, and it was annoying when we did hand thrusts that were _clearly_ meant to fire off blasts of energy and nothing happened.

Quote from: AxesnOrcs;799982Would there actually need to be the inclusion of "hard", "soft", "hybrid" as descriptors of MA styles? Isn't that just how some Asian arts describe themselves and therefore makes it a meaningless way to talk about art from anywhere not based on Asian cultures?

Yes and no.

By Yes - it's definitely a "an Asian" concept.

By No - It's not a mandatory thing. I'm just talking out loud and getting some concensus by those interested (including you) . And I'm doing this out of my own personal interest because I'm working on something relating to it (which of course I'll share).


However! as an abstraction its a great way to create further distinction (in my opinion) with a direct mechanical benefit other than "because I said so." We're not just talking about realism - we're talking about fantasy martial arts. So where Boxing is clearly a "Hard Style" - vs. Will Fu and his Fireball Taichi, whose flowing movements and evasion skills make him hard to hit, is a "Soft" style... It gives a form of emphasis-fluff that is backed up mechanically (and the downstream effects will further enhance the evolution of your character).

I would like a Martial Art system to make the expression of Martial Arts be something that no-two people do the same but you can base your entire character around OR simply make it an affectation as a part of your background and it be useful.

Quote from: Will;799985As an aside, fantasy has utterly spoiled me on real martial arts.

I used to take tai chi, and it was annoying when we did hand thrusts that were _clearly_ meant to fire off blasts of energy and nothing happened.

Dude if only you had stuck with it a little longer ..... that whole Chi blast not working phase is just a way to weed out the tourists.

Quote from: AxesnOrcs;799982Would there actually need to be the inclusion of "hard", "soft", "hybrid" as descriptors of MA styles? Isn't that just how some Asian arts describe themselves and therefore makes it a meaningless way to talk about art from anywhere not based on Asian cultures?

I think its a useful descriptor. Boxing is a hard style for sure.