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Message no. 1
From: pixelonpicnic@*******.com (Niels Sønderborg)
Subject: Weapon Fighting Techniques ...
Date: Wed, 08 Sep 2004 22:31:57 +0200
I like the new Martial Arts system and have wondered why the system havent
been extended to cover other types of martial sports as well. I have tried
to come up with a few techniques using the Cannon Companion. While not good
they are at least an attempt hehe
Antone have any ideas in this area?


Sword fighting Techniques

Some seek to perfect their unarmed fighting skills through Martial Arts,
while others seek to armed fighting skills through other combat sports such
as the European fencing and the Japanese Kendo sports. Each requires as
certain concentration and grace to perform with perfection and each has its
own techniques and edges.

Kendo or Fencing can be chosen instead of Edged Weapons. Maneuvers must be
chosen for each 3 points obtained in skill at a cost of 2 karma a piece. If
any other bladed weapon is used with these skills there is a +2 penalty.


Kendo: A Japanese martial sport where the contestants fight with a boken
(wooded replica of a katana), though its teachings works just as well with a
real katana.

Advantages/Disadvantages: At the beginning of any given Combat Turn you can
choose between three different stances: Offensive, Defensive and Neutral.
You are unable to change stance during a turn.
Offensive stance: +1 dice when attacking, but –1 dice when defending.
Defensive stance: +1 dice when defending, but –1 dice when attacking.
Neutral stance: No modifiers.

Maneuvers: Blind Fighting, Disorient, Focus Strength, Full Offense,
Multi-Strike and Sweep


Fencing: European Sport where contestants fight each other with a Rapier.

Advantages/Disadvantages: +1 dice when using the Full Defense option, only a
+2 modifier when making Called Shots.
Because it relies on movement, characters using this skill suffer –1 dice
penalty when in tightly enclosed areas or any area where full movement is
restricted.

Maneuvers: Evasion, Full Offense, Herding, Kip-Up, Crippling Strike and
Zoning

Crippling Strike: This maneuver can only be used in conjunction with a
Called Shot maneuver, which is modified with an additional +2 modifier.
Penalties for any wound suffered due to this attack are doubled.

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Message no. 2
From: ShadowRN@********.demon.co.uk (Paul J. Adam)
Subject: Weapon Fighting Techniques ...
Date: Thu, 9 Sep 2004 21:29:34 +0100
In article <BAY13-F16fpoN2PWetG0003b94d@*******.com>, Niels Sønderborg
<pixelonpicnic@*******.com> writes
>Fencing: European Sport where contestants fight each other with a Rapier.

Or an epee, or a sabre, and that's just if you're limiting it to classic
sports fencing. And a sports fencer is accustomed to a confined, linear
fight against a single opponent who isn't allowed to grab, grapple,
kick, bite or gouge. (Fencing foil, you can only score with the point on
a limited area of the target: with epee, you can hit them anywhere but
still just with the point, and so pinking them in the knee will count as
'a win'; sabre is limited in target to above the waist, but at least you
can score with edge as well as point)



It's worth remembering that in the old days in Britain, to be a Master
of Defence required you to demonstrate mastery of long sword, back
sword, sword and buckler, and the halberd or another pole-arm. And part
of the qualification was to fight seven Masters of Defence, seven brave
and willing men, and seven men half mad with drink :) Victory was
typically judged either by "beaten until unable to rise" or "bleeding
enough to need stitches".

In Germany, 'mastery' and membership of the Federfechter or the
Marksbruder required proof of skill with the long sword, quarterstaff,
Dussack and pole arm, and even in ornamental fights victory was scored
by a bleeding wound to the enemy's head.

As mastery became more about sports and status than about actual
survival, so it became more specialised, and manoeuvres like "if you're
falling over anyway, headbutt your in the groin and grab his knees to
make him fall with you" went from commendable improvisation to wicked
fouls. (Any 'martial art' that has a list of actions that are 'too
dangerous' is a sport rather than a fighting style)




It was expected, back then, that even one of those effete Italian
"fencing masters" should be skilled with a wide variety of weapons, with
the rapier being very poorly regarded as a courtier's ornament rather
than a fighting weapon: at that, when Rocco Bonetti set up shop in
London in 1576 as a 'fencing master', he avoided all tests against the
outraged Masters of Defence whose business he hoped to poach: but when
he drew his rapier on a foul-mouthed boatsman, he found himself thrashed
into hospital by the boatsman's oar.


--
Paul J. Adam

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