Ziggurat Zagger
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Why are monks and Tm the only ones to start with Unarmed?
Did I make a lame complaint? Check for Bingo!
Totally gracious CSDC Season 2 Division 4 Champeen!
Although the central place for design discussion is ##crawl-dev on freenode, some may find it helpful to discuss requests and suggestions here first.
Ziggurat Zagger
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Vaults Vanquisher
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Grandiloquent Gentleman wrote:If the species you choose has claws that you can choose that as your weapon.
Vestibule Violator
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Barkeep
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rchandra wrote:while other backgrounds don't start with Unarmed skill, they do start with unarmed equipment. Nothing stops you from using your starting weapon for d:1-3 or so while training UC.
Vestibule Violator
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Vaults Vanquisher
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njvack wrote: Training one melee skill while killing things with another just feels silly to me.
Ziggurat Zagger
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Tasonir wrote:What I really want, and what I consider a flaw in the background system, is that it's surprising hard to start an unarmed character. I think only monks and transmuters can start with unarmed. Certain races, basically those with claws, also get the option to start with it on fighter/gladiator backgrounds. I want all races to be allowed to choose unarmed on any background that allows weapon choice. I'd love to play an unarmed fighter with most classes because that way I could start with a shield. That's probably the closest to being logical, but being the diehard unarmed fool that I am, I'd probably also do weird things like playing unarmed skalds, giving up the brand spells just to get regeneration and shroud.
It can be grayed out as an inferior choice, just let it be there.
Ziggurat Zagger
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Ziggurat Zagger
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Tomb Titivator
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crate wrote:Why would you ever start as gladiator instead of monk if you want to be unarmed? Monk is just better if you want to do that.
Like I can understand Sk, Be, DK, or AK (or even CK) wanting to use unarmed. But gladiator? Really?
If Gl/Fi can start with unarmed then there is no reason for monk to exist (though that is certainly one reasonable thing that could be done).
Dungeon Master
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DracheReborn wrote:I thought Mo's big thing is the automatic 2 star piety on joining a religion. Maybe it would make sense to give the UC option to Fi and Gl, and reflavour Mo as a weapon-wielding zealot now that old Priest is gone. New Priest/Monk would start with weapon choice and automatic 2 star piety when choosing a god.
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mumra wrote:DracheReborn wrote:I thought Mo's big thing is the automatic 2 star piety on joining a religion. Maybe it would make sense to give the UC option to Fi and Gl, and reflavour Mo as a weapon-wielding zealot now that old Priest is gone. New Priest/Monk would start with weapon choice and automatic 2 star piety when choosing a god.
What's wrong with a background having multiple reasons to pick it?
The monk/UC thing is an old trope but one that always felt very fitting and cool to me.
Crypt Cleanser
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Tomb Titivator
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Wahaha wrote:Why are ice elementalists the only ones who start with ice spells? I think some other classes might do well with ice spells. Gladiators starting with freeze for example.
Shoals Surfer
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Mo's big thing
Dungeon Master
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DracheReborn wrote:Nothing wrong of course, but you could easily flip the question. Why not give players additional flexibility after background choice?
DracheReborn wrote:Funny thing, but monks and UC aren't terribly associated in my mind. Other than the Shaolin, are there other real world monks who do martial arts? Historically, martial arts is more of a warrior thing.
DracheReborn wrote:Monk + staff is a much closer association in my mind. But YMMV of course.
Tomb Titivator
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mumra wrote:Many martial arts have very close connections with spiritual practises. In fact searching google for "martial arts and" brings up "spirituality" as the second suggested autocompletion (bizarrely Christianity is first). Wikipedia mentions T'ai chi ch'uan, Aikido, and Jujutsu, but there are numerous others and obviously Shaolin Kung Fu which is a bit hard to dismiss in the first place since it is so widely known.
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Pressure Points
Ki
, or life-force energy, is a central concep
t in Oriental medicine. This energy is
thought to flow along certain paths or
meridians
under the skin (which may or may not
coincide with actual nerve pathways). Sp
ecial points along these meridians are known to
be especially sensitive, and have therefore b
een utilized as points to effect treatment by
finger pressure (
acupressure
or
shiatsu
) or by the insertion of needles (
acupuncture
). In
this way the Oriental physician adjusts the disrupted flow of
ki
energy which is thought to
be the cause of pain, disease and organ
malfunction in many cases. Oddly enough, it
seems to work quite effectively, as our se
nsei has proven many times by relieving the
pain of bumps, strains and minor injuries
incurred by students in and out of class.
As with most medical knowledge, the concept of
ki
and acupuncture points can be
used to help
or
to harm. When used
against
an opponent, the techniques are known as
1
kyusho-jitsu
or pressure-point fighting. These tec
hniques, inherited by
Okinawan karate
m
asters from their original Chinese kung-fu
instructors centuries ago, were considered
the most dangerous and most secret of all fi
ghting techniques. Only
a very few of an
instructor’s pupils
(sometimes none!) were entrusted
with this knowledge, nor was it
passed on to the Japanese mainland when Okinawans began to teach karate there for the
first time early this century. It has remain
ed a little-known aspect
of Okinawan karate,
understood and taught by very fe
w black-belt instructors today.
Fortunately our sensei is knowle
dgeable in this esoteric ar
t because it was taught, to
some extent, by Robert Trias, founder of the
Shuri-ryu system. Cons
equently, references
to it will occasionally be made in class; some background is provided here to help
understand those remarks and comments. But
don’t expect any significant amount of
instruction in pressure-point fighting at the
color-belt stage. These techniques are very
dangerous even to practice in the dojo, and
are rightly reserved primarily for black-belt
students. (Now you can begin to understand why
people say that getting a black belt is in
many ways just the
beginning
of a martial artist’s traini
ng, rather than the end-point.)
There are over 600 identified acupuncture points on the human body, but only a
relative few are utilized in pressure-point fi
ghting. These are ofte
n places where a nerve
or blood vessel passes over a
bone or hard structure against
which it can be trapped when
struck. Your “crazy bone” in the elbow is
the most commonly known point in everyday
experience; people don’t generally
realize that they have vu
lnerable “crazy bones” all
over their bodies!
Pressure points can be “activated” in a number
of ways, most of which require a great
deal of practice. Some are merely squeezed
tightly with the fingertips, as during a wrist-
grab. Others must be struck by a fore-knuckl
e fist or a spear-hand at a specific angle to
the surface. And some can simply be punc
hed, such as the knoc
k-out point along the
lower jaw line. The effect of activating tw
o or three pressure points simultaneously can
be remarkable, often causing instant paralysis
or loss of consciousness (neurological shut-
down). Activating only one can cause uncons
ciousness or merely numbness and loss of
muscle control in an arm or leg, facili
tating the application of a joint lock.
Practicing pressure point fighti
ng is so dangerous that in
most dojos strict rules are
applied. Usually only 15 minutes
a day are allowed for such pr
actice; only one side of a
practice partner’s body can be struck on a gi
ven day (because hit
ting points on opposite
sides amplifies the neurological impact mark
edly); and for some especially sensitive
points the attacker is only allowed to tap lightly on the spot. Each technique must be
learned along with
the corresponding
shiatsu
“correction” technique for reversing the
harmful effects.
It is interesting to not
e that, although the Okinaw
an masters passed on their
kyusho-
jitsu
knowledge only rarely and with the gr
eatest reluctance, th
e techniques are
nevertheless “hidden” in many traditional kata. Without instruction in the
bunkai
or
application, however, they
go largely unnoticed by students and outside observers.
George Dillman, one of the
leading exponents of pressu
re-point fighting, wrote:
The information about pressure points is
contained and revealed
in kata. In the
practice of kata, the location and inte
r-relationship of va
rious points are
rehearsed. Some of the kata moveme
nts represent the opponent’s actions.
Some show exactly the movement the
defender makes, and some techniques
2
3
show, on the performer’s body, the points to
be struck on an attacker’s body.
This is why karate masters have always stressed the need for visualization
during kata practice. And this is why
the old masters took longer to perform a
kata than the modern student. They
were too busy practicing the full
meaning
of the form—not merely its physical
expression—to hurry the movements.
This also explains why the early karate mast
ers always insisted that kata (rather than
sparring) was the heart of karate training.
Vestibule Violator
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Spider Stomper
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Dungeon Master
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rebthor wrote:Can I get a TL:DR on that?
Vaults Vanquisher
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rebthor wrote:Can I get a TL:DR on that?
Abyss Ambulator
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mumra wrote:rebthor wrote:Can I get a TL:DR on that?
Karate master:
Learn pressure points, embark on
Spiritual path.
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