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Nebbs · **04-14-2015, 08:44 AM**

Nebula dove out of the way of the fire blast, the flames setting the frayed edges of her old robes to flame and scorching her hair. She was ready she had practiced this move for days.... Rolling and coming up on her feet Nebula was already casting as she pulled out her trusty wand to despatch her opponent. Words of power came like song from her lips and the Aether and elements flowed through her.. Spoon! She was holding an old wooden spoon where her wand was supposed to be, maybe cooking before a fight was a bad idea? It was too late the spell was cast and the spoon was wood, how bad could it be?

Nebula's hand spun making the spoon follow complex stirring patterns and release the magics. Then destruction was released at her foe in the form of muffins, stone chipped muffins that pelted the target in a cakey soft Â pebble dash.

"Take that hair scorcher, I am not to be trifled with. Fear my spoon!"

Then she ran.

SicketySix · **04-14-2015, 08:46 AM**

(04-14-2015, 08:44 AM)Nebbs Wrote: Nebula dove out of the way of the fire blast, the flames setting the frayed edges of her old robes to flame and singing her hair. She was ready she had practice's this move for days.... Rolling and coming up on her feet Nebula was already casting as she pulled out her trusty wand to dusoatch her opponent. Words of power came like song from her lips and the Aethe and elements flowed through her.. Spoon! She was holding an old wooden spoon where her wand was supposed to be, maybe cooking before a fight was a bad idea? It was too late the spell was and the spoon was wood, how bad could it be?

Nebula's hand spun making the spoon follow complex stirring patterns and release the magics. Then destruction was released at her for in the form of muffins, stone chipped muffins that pelted the target in a cakey soft Â pebble dash.

"Take that hair singer, I am not to be trifled with. Fear my spoon!"

Then she ran.

Killing Them with Kindness Limit Break level 1,000

Berrod Armstrong · **04-14-2015, 08:47 AM**

(04-14-2015, 08:44 AM)Nebbs Wrote: Nebula dove out of the way of the fire blast, the flames setting the frayed edges of her old robes to flame and singing her hair. She was ready she had practice's this move for days.... Rolling and coming up on her feet Nebula was already casting as she pulled out her trusty wand to dusoatch her opponent. Words of power came like song from her lips and the Aethe and elements flowed through her.. Spoon! She was holding an old wooden spoon where her wand was supposed to be, maybe cooking before a fight was a bad idea? It was too late the spell was and the spoon was wood, how bad could it be?

Nebula's hand spun making the spoon follow complex stirring patterns and release the magics. Then destruction was released at her for in the form of muffins, stone chipped muffins that pelted the target in a cakey soft Â pebble dash.

"Take that hair singer, I am not to be trifled with. Fear my spoon!"

Then she ran.

ilu nebbs

Hammersmith · **04-14-2015, 09:04 AM**

Also, and this is important.

Improv is part of everything.

Use the environment. Â Use anything mentioned. Â If you PLAN on using part of the environment, make sure it's there, already mentioned, or you mention it several posts back before making someone eat it.

Recent example: Hammer was talking with a lalafel about...something. Â He was nursing a bottle of high proof alchohol, slowly. Â During the course of the RP I made it clear the stuff could strip paint and was leaving a haze that burned blue where it hit flame. Â Flammable stuff.

Near the end of the conversation Hammer lets the lala keep talking, while be pulls a strip of cloth off his clothing, lets them keep talking. Â Stuffs the rag into the bottle non-chalantly. Â Keeps talking.

Shakes the bottle. Â Keeps talking. Â Lights the rag with the cigar he'd been posting about smoking the entire time, tosses the bottle into their arms, and stands back to see what happens.

Plan, plot, use what's at hand, but don't just pull a chair out of thin air or have handy dandy dinner knives around to stab someone with (Unless you're like...at dinner).

Know what your equipment is. Â Know what you're carrying. Know what you can use. Â Make sure people know it's coming, even if it's only after looking back and seeing "You set me up"

Don't use hammerspace to always have an answer.

CrimsonMars · **04-14-2015, 10:12 AM**

I actually subscribe to this thread. This is a good learning resource.

Kurt S. · **04-14-2015, 10:13 AM**

(04-14-2015, 08:44 AM)Nebbs Wrote: Nebula dove out of the way of the fire blast, the flames setting the frayed edges of her old robes to flame and scorching her hair. She was ready she had practiced this move for days.... Rolling and coming up on her feet Nebula was already casting as she pulled out her trusty wand to despatch her opponent. Words of power came like song from her lips and the Aether and elements flowed through her.. Spoon! She was holding an old wooden spoon where her wand was supposed to be, maybe cooking before a fight was a bad idea? It was too late the spell was cast and the spoon was wood, how bad could it be?

Nebula's hand spun making the spoon follow complex stirring patterns and release the magics. Then destruction was released at her foe in the form of muffins, stone chipped muffins that pelted the target in a cakey soft Â pebble dash.

"Take that hair scorcher, I am not to be trifled with. Fear my spoon!"

Then she ran.

Such power...aahhh -fizzles out of existence-

Sounsyy · **04-14-2015, 11:42 AM**

I wanted to second what Domri wrote up. (I don't have as much martial training as him, but I did do over five years of Kuk Sool Won and about a year of MMA.) One point in particular I wanted to point out is you will get hit. You acknowledge going into a fight that you might take a beating. The goal is to take less of a beating than your opponent. Like Domri said, if you see a clear shot to the ribs, take it, but know that you're gonna take a hit in return. A strike will almost always leave you open to a counterstrike.

Following through with this train of thought is set-ups. Which I think is extremely important in RP fighting. A few people have mentioned this. Have your fight or RP leading somewhere.

In the example of the rib shot, your opponent will counter with a right hook, maybe a grapple. Because the rib shot hurt, he's off balance and his left foot isn't firmly planted, so you put your leg behind him and pull him across the chest to take him down to the ground and into an armlock. Progression. The same can be done with RP battles. For folks who've watched Sounsyy fight at the Grindstone, they're more than familiar with Sounsyy's opener - the shield charge. Whether it connects or not is not important, the primary post is a setup for the rest of the fight.

Quote:Sounsyy Mirke raised her shield up to deflect the blade swinging from the right. It glanced off the shield with a clang and Sounsyy pressed forward into her opponent's open guard. She stepped forward with her right leg, shield still held high on her left, and stabbed low with her shortsword, aiming at her opponent's thigh - hoping to disable the fighter and slow his movements.

(I don't claim to be an expert on RP fighting, but I end up doing it a bit with Sounsyy's beat-everything personality. And folks seem to like her?) I think just about every fighter at Grindstone has seen this exact post or something similar to it. So lemme try to break it down.

Hits and Counterhits. Recognize that most martial fighters must get in extremely close to score a hit. If an opponent tries to get around Sounsyy's shield, that means Sounsyy's shield is inside their guard. AKA they've set themselves up for a shield bash to the face.
Not being afraid to take hits. Sounsyy is easy cuz she has a shield about as large as she is. However, if an attack comes from her right or my opponent purposefully writes into their attack that they've ninja'd around behind her shield, I can't realistically block the attack with the shield. So I'll have Sounsyy take the hit to her armor if its unavoidable but I still win the roll. Just cuz you win the roll doesn't mean you have to dodge the attack if it's out of character.
Describe the attack and hint at the lead up. Sounsyy is stabbing at the thigh at close range. I've described that Sounsyy plans to cripple the opponent. This is information your opponent can use to write a descriptive response, regardless of if they win or lose.
Furthermore, flower and flashy is nice, but introspection and poetry can't be used by your opponent. They may misread what your attack actually is. You can be flashy, just don't forget you have to give your opponent something tangible to dodge/eat.
Fight Progression. Note how I wrote "shield still held high on her left" - this is a lead up. One, it lets my opponent know her guard is still raised and they can't attack from that direction and two, it sets Sounsyy up very nicely for a pivot and shield bash to the face for her next attack.
Even though posting back and forth may take half an hour for the fight or longer, remember that in real time, the fight is realistically only lasting a couple minutes at most. Maybe seconds if you win every attack roll. But also remember that even a few minutes of extreme physical exertion is taxing to any character, even an experienced one. Sounsyy's swinging a twenty-pound shield as big as she is. She cannot keep going for hours at a time without rest/water (thank you Jancis! <3 ). After a few turns of successful blocks and back and forths, Sounsyy starts really trying to end that fight... brutally, before she gives out.
Communication is super important! I always try to get into a party with whoever I'm fighting. Mostly just turns into idle chit chat, but if I don't understand an attack, it's best to ask. No harm done in clarifying if that was a roundhouse kick to the head or a dropkick. Sometimes you'll write something that makes perfect sense to you but makes absolutely no sense to your opponent.

Well hope that helps some! ^^ Best way is practice though! Come to Grindstone or Runestone, watch some of the fights. Maybe see what kind of fighting style fits yours. Then jump in and start fighting. You'll really start getting a feel for how your character moves and fights the more you practice. Sounsyy's pretty much got her bash-stab-jawbreaker combo on lock now. So... if you wanna fight her? LOL.

Warren Castille · **04-14-2015, 11:46 AM**

(04-14-2015, 11:42 AM)Sounsyy Wrote: So... if you wanna fight her? LOL.

Nobody ever Wrote:I wish to fight Sounsyy

Do not do this.

Kurt S. · **04-14-2015, 11:57 AM**

(04-14-2015, 11:46 AM)Warren Castille Wrote:
(04-14-2015, 11:42 AM)Sounsyy Wrote: So... if you wanna fight her? LOL.

Nobody ever Wrote:I wish to fight Sounsyy

Do not do this.

Noted. Now to actually scrutinize the other posts or pass out trying!

Domri Blackblade · **04-14-2015, 12:07 PM**

(04-14-2015, 08:29 AM)Ramuhnuh Wrote:
(04-14-2015, 01:11 AM)Domri Blackblade Wrote: Something I wrote forever ago. I didn't reread it so it may be awful.

Show Content

Spoiler
So, after reading someone elseâ€™s post, I figured it would be good to let people in on a little bit of psychology of the mind when it comes to fighters. To be clear, I have been studying various martial arts and Bushido since I was eight years old. I have formal training in bo, sai, katana, open hand, and have picked up nunchaku and tonfa.

While Iâ€™m not going to go into how formal physical training is a huge factor, the thing about fighting is extremely a psychological battle. One of your biggest battles? Your eyes.

When Iâ€™m sparring open hand, I never look my opponent in the face. It is actually for two reasons. One? Where I focus determines how much peripheral vision I can utilize. Two? Itâ€™s unsettling. You give your opponent the illusion that you are disillusioned. It immediately can make them believe you are, frankly, extremely confident.

I participated in tournaments for about seven years and my trick was to always read the face of my opponent. Reading their eyes, if they are frowning, if they are nervous. It almost always played into how I proceeded with the fight. If someone looked very nervous, Iâ€™d immediately go aggressive. If someone looked more or less confident, Iâ€™d find a better balance.

I find in RP people are actually over focused on the aggressive and physical aspects, but the fact is, nerves and psychological standing can determine where a fight goes. Toss in an /e stares just to the left of his opponentâ€™s head.

Also, to toss in, sometimes I find RPers can tend to misread another personâ€™s emote intentions due to inexperience or misunderstanding. For example, if someone sweeps your ankle, that is actually not an opportunity to say you locked legs. A properly executed and successful sweep has one intention and that is to knock your foot from under you. If you miss the ankle and try to sweep higher, then it can become a leverage fight. Grab a friend and give the two techniques a work. There is a pretty significance in difference.

Lastly, one rule I was raised on in training is every action opens you up to be struck and the same goes for your opponent. Donâ€™t just throw one technique and donâ€™t throw one technique then stop and reset. Every time you reset, your opponent resets. The key is to know what hits you can take as a trade off.

If your opponentâ€™s ribs are open for a very hard strike, take that blow to the shoulder. It hurts a lot less to get punched in the shoulder than getting broken ribs. Never let being hit discourage.

BEING HIT IS A PART OF FIGHTING.

You will always get hit. If your character somehow blocks and avoids all of their opponents strikes, it becomes extremely unrealistic. Fighting is a mind game of thinking on the spot. What blow can you take to strike back tenfold. What would be the best course of avoiding? He just opened up, can I take advantage of that? Will I reach? What direction is he moving? Can I use that to take him down? Is he extremely mobile? Can I let him tire himself out? Is he not moving a lot? Can I use that to take him down? Is he overly defensive? Can I use that to open him up?

After you train this questions arenâ€™t spoken in the mind, itâ€™s just like a process done. You analyze the situation in the moment and you act. Itâ€™s all in your brain.

And as always, Iâ€™m always available as a resource for more realistic melee combat. Just toss me a PM. Iâ€™m happy to help out and offer insight. I will say, my studies are more Okinawan and Chinese influenced. I am not the end all be all voice on combat, but I can certainly help you out with a lot of theory if you need.

Alright this actually puts in a whole nother dimension to it that I know for a fact I glossed over/never considered. At the very least I can churn out a lengthier sequence but I still don't get the 'Donâ€™t just throw one technique and donâ€™t throw one technique then stop and reset.' bit?

Is it like, Character A throws a punch > Character B parries it > They both go back to their previous stances instead of maybe Character A staying in place after the parried punch which gives an opening for Character B to capitalize on?

To that point. I want to try and recreate the flow from the Ramona vs. Caex'ra fight, aka Ramona in Coil Turn 21 wearing level 46 gear. I want to know if I was actually doing it right with Ramona. Though this does involve another idea in my head that involves manipulating and redirecting her aether to focal parts or general regions of her body.Â

Generally that's how a lot of IC fights go that I read. Exactly the 'punch > block > hops away > reset'. So, for example, when I'm roll dueling with someone on Domri, even if I'm just emoting one action, 90% of the time after someone blocks/parries/dodges or hits him back, he keeps going. Keeps swinging. Visualize what opens when Character A opens when he strikes and what Character B opens when he blocks. They both have created openings and in writing fighting, it's key to be mindful of that or the fight becomes harder to follow.

When I'm not roll fighting because I hate that, my characters will generally do multiple things in succession as that's really what my philosophy of fighting is. You can't win without being offensive because defense can always be broken, opened, and taken advantage of. (I'm trying to keep it brief because I could easily wall of text explanations.) So my characters actually are hyper offensive in that offense is also their defense. But I'm always mindful of what they are fighting, their disadvantages, and their advantages.

Melkire · **04-14-2015, 12:17 PM**

Disclaimer: I have no personal practical experience.

Something important to note that I cannot stress enough: armor is a HUGE advantage.

As a roleplayer writing for an in-fighter with extensive experience in knife-fighting, armor is hell. Yes, there are weaknesses that can be taken advantage of - joints, exposed points like the underarms, chainmail intended to cushion crushing blows from maces but not stop the piercing action of a rondel dagger - but by and large, in a one-on-one, the individual without armor is going to have a hell of a time because each opening that results in an exchange of strike and counterstrike is far more likely than not to leave the less-armored individual with more "damage" than his or her foe. The fantasy setting of XIV mitigates this disadvantage somewhat if your character is, say, a ninja or a monk, but there's still some serious difficulty in selling a victory and that difficulty lies in execution.

My character recently came up against not one but two armored individuals. My character and I had to immediately adapt - it was a big "nope" moment - and even a shift in tactics to engage them separately instead of together still resulted in massive injury to my character, because armor is JUST. THAT. GOOD.

Domri Blackblade · **04-14-2015, 12:23 PM**

(04-14-2015, 12:17 PM)Melkire Wrote: Disclaimer: I have no personal practical experience.

Something important to note that I cannot stress enough: armor is a HUGE advantage.

As a roleplayer writing for an in-fighter with extensive experience in knife-fighting, armor is hell. Yes, there are weaknesses that can be taken advantage of - joints, exposed points like the underarms, chainmail intended to cushion crushing blows from maces but not stop the piercing action of a rondel dagger - but by and large, in a one-on-one, the individual without armor is going to have a hell of a time because each opening that results in an exchange of strike and counterstrike is far more likely than not to leave the less-armored individual with more "damage" than his or her foe. The fantasy setting of XIV mitigates this disadvantage somewhat if your character is, say, a ninja or a monk, but there's still some serious difficulty in selling a victory and that difficulty lies in execution.

My character recently came up against not one but two armored individuals. My character and I had to immediately adapt - it was a big "nope" moment - and even a shift in tactics to engage them separately instead of together still resulted in massive injury to my character, because armor is JUST. THAT. GOOD.

To add onto this, people like to emote going directly for the back of the knees with no effort when it comes to knives. It's pretty difficult to get to the back of someone's legs without a lot of effort because your opponent isn't standing still and letting you just knick at their armor weaknesses. The same rules in general apply in that you have to force the opponent to open up. But in these cases you have to be wholly more creative, and like Melkire said, adapt in tactics.

Hammersmith · **04-14-2015, 12:51 PM**

(04-14-2015, 12:17 PM)Melkire Wrote: Disclaimer: I have no personal practical experience.

Something important to note that I cannot stress enough: armor is a HUGE advantage.

As a roleplayer writing for an in-fighter with extensive experience in knife-fighting, armor is hell. Yes, there are weaknesses that can be taken advantage of - joints, exposed points like the underarms, chainmail intended to cushion crushing blows from maces but not stop the piercing action of a rondel dagger - but by and large, in a one-on-one, the individual without armor is going to have a hell of a time because each opening that results in an exchange of strike and counterstrike is far more likely than not to leave the less-armored individual with more "damage" than his or her foe. The fantasy setting of XIV mitigates this disadvantage somewhat if your character is, say, a ninja or a monk, but there's still some serious difficulty in selling a victory and that difficulty lies in execution.

My character recently came up against not one but two armored individuals. My character and I had to immediately adapt - it was a big "nope" moment - and even a shift in tactics to engage them separately instead of together still resulted in massive injury to my character, because armor is JUST. THAT. GOOD.

I'm a bit of an armor nut, and I agree completely.

There's ways to DEAL with heavy armor, and plate mail, and other suits of supposed invulnerability, but you have to know AND have the tool to fix it on hand. Â

Medieval weapons like axes evolved blunt wedges designed to crimp armor, thus breaking bones like the clavical or putting a sharp point of metal in the diaphram, rather than actually piericng it. Â

A common tactic for dealing with Chain-Mail and hauberk wears was pitch, either poured (boiling oil!), or attached to a tarry rag that could be lit and hurled (Or if you were a ballsy asshole you could pull open the very loose neck of the chainmail and drop it right into the tightly cinched and fastened chest area.Â ). All cases coated the guy in chain mail in burning shit they couldn't wipe off.

Which cooked them alive inside a red-hot chain mail oven.

As you can see most of the REAL methods of dealing with armor involve specialized tools and making the armor into a tomb instead of a protective shell. Â You didn't just stab into someone's armpit with a noble-killer knife and pop their heart like a rotten balloon. Â You only saw opportunities like that after the guy in the armor was crippled or worse.

You fight a guy in heavy armor, you either tire them out (and stamina training was a BIG part of wearing heavy armor), you have a tool to deal with it and know how to use it, or you don't fucking engage.

Flickering Ember · **04-14-2015, 01:01 PM**

(04-14-2015, 11:42 AM)Sounsyy Wrote: I wanted to second what Domri wrote up. (I don't have as much martial training as him, but I did do over five years of Kuk Sool Won and about a year of MMA.) One point in particular I wanted to point out is you will get hit. You acknowledge going into a fight that you might take a beating. The goal is to take less of a beating than your opponent. Like Domri said, if you see a clear shot to the ribs, take it, but know that you're gonna take a hit in return. A strike will almost always leave you open to a counterstrike.

I tried to quote Domri's post as well but I assume since it is on a different page in the thread, the forum did not like that.

I just wanted to add though that this seems to apply exclusively to hand-to-hand combat. With this and kicks, an opponent can survive multiple blows. It is a different story for weapons that are designed to kill, though. I have heard it in a documentary that the average sword fight only lasts for seconds. The trading of blows seems to apply to this kind of fighting as well but the difference is that landing a blow is usually fatal.

For this reason I don't think that the RP community is really capable of role-playing out realistic fight scenes. Our fight scenes are more like movie scenes than historical or lifelike fights.

I feel like this advice can work for the martial arts but I have to wonder if there is any specific advice for weaponry. Role players tend to downplay how devastating wounds can be. For example, a wound to the shoulder or thigh can be one of the most dangerous places to be hit in but the community often uses these spots as 'non-lethal' wound locations.

Caspar · **04-14-2015, 01:30 PM**

Yeah, characters in fiction get hit in those two locations a lot, and are just seriously injured; they don't die. Also there is the classic "arrows just hurt a lot" thing where you can take one and still move, but in reality, I've heard it is very difficult to even limp away after being hit with an arrow, even if it's not in a limb. Getting shot once would probably be fatal, and if it isn't, you would have almost no ability to dodge a second one.

I do not think realism has much stock in a fictional fight, for it greatly lessens entertainment value IMO and severely favors certain methods of fighting not everyone finds interesting. Some approaches are just more practical irl, and yet aren't as cool to everyone. It can be used to enhance your post, but I disagree that it necessarily is the "best" approach to writing fight scenes. Some cannot, or do not want to, do this.

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Combat RP: How do I git gud?

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