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was putting this on a Natural genius's charcter sheet when I read it:

if you successfully doge, you can "spend" one action to perform a kick without any bonuses to strike or damage, but the opponent gets to defend normaly

???

so I waste an atack to perform a "bonus-less" kick...for what? am I missing out somewhere?

Now if you had full bonuses and the opponent can only parry and doge without bonuses, that would eb worthwhile, if only from a strategic standpoint

Not quite. This is in the nature of a simultaneous strike. You dodge, without bonuses, and you kick, without bonuses... but they don't have any way to defend against you, because they're recovering from the attack that you just dodged.

FWIW, I do not like ANYTHING that negates all bonuses, or cuts them in half; it penalizes people for being more skilled (if I have a +5 and you have a +1, who is hurt more by having no bonuses? And we're doing the same maneuver?) In the case of the Reverse Turning Kick, I would say a -3 to both the kick and the dodge would be appropriate.

bathawk wrote:was putting this on a Natural genius's charcter sheet when I read it:
if you successfully doge, you can "spend" one action to perform a kick without any bonuses to strike or damage, but the opponent gets to defend normaly
???

I'm guessing you're using the version from Heroes Unlimited.

bathawk wrote:so I waste an atack to perform a "bonus-less" kick...for what? am I missing out somewhere?

Checking my copy of the rules, you don't waste an attack. One action covers both the dodge and the kick.

bathawk wrote:Now if you had full bonuses and the opponent can only parry and doge without bonuses, that would eb worthwhile, if only from a strategic standpoint

This is one of the "problem" areas of N&S. Or at least most people think so.

reading fromN&SS revised 6th printing page 128

I can ALMOST understand abonusless dodge and a bonusless kick for one action (when it would normaly cost 2) but then agin your bonuses for parry are usuualy just as high and free, so unless your dodging a point blank gunshot attack when the opponent is in kick range of you.....

bathawk wrote:reading fromN&SS revised 6th printing page 128

I can ALMOST understand abonusless dodge and a bonusless kick for one action (when it would normaly cost 2) but then agin your bonuses for parry are usuualy just as high and free, so unless your dodging a point blank gunshot attack when the opponent is in kick range of you.....

That's the usual rules, yes. 1 action, both a dodge and a kick, no bonuses.

Mephisto wrote:It's more a cinematic than a practical move, but still in the right situation it can be useful, like anything else.

Which is funny, because it's a mostly cinematic system.

Mantisking wrote:

Mephisto wrote:It's more a cinematic than a practical move, but still in the right situation it can be useful, like anything else.

Which is funny, because it's a mostly cinematic system.

Ninjas and Superspies is odd in that respect; it has many cinematic elements, but it attempts to be realistic with them.

Mark Hall wrote:Ninjas and Superspies is odd in that respect; it has many cinematic elements, but it attempts to be realistic with them.

And all it needs is a few tweaks to go all-out cinematic.

For my own games, I house-ruled Reverse Turning Kick as follows:

Combination Dodge/Kick: Counts as One action.
Bonus to Dodge from the Martial Art only: not P.P.
Bonus to strike from the Martial Art only: not P.P.
Opponent cannot auto-Parry or Auto-Dodge: the opponent must burn an action if attempting to defend.

Character rolls to Dodge, and if successful rolls to strike with Snap Kick or Kick Attack (in my games, I have renamed this to "thrust kick").

I allow characters to use Reverse Turning Kick to attempt to escape arm holds and leg holds (but not joint locks).

But why do you allow a Reverse Turning Kick to be used to escape holds?

To simulate the instances where a character uses a hopping kicking attack to escape having their leg held.

Because I still don't really see much difference between a Wheel Kick and a Crescent Kick, but a Middle Forward Kick is different from a Middle Sweeping Kick.

Having learned each separately, I can say I feel a difference between them.
Especially in terms of extending the range of the attack.

(And for the record a Hooking attack is a swinging motion aiming high, whereas a Sweeping attack is a swinging motion aiming low).

It is possible to execute a low hook kick. Sweeps are executed differntly than hook kicks, although a knockdown is certainly possible with either kick when aimed correctly.

This is how I'd like Palladium to name their strikes: High, Middle, Low, Forward/Straight, Backward, Hooking, and Sweeping.

I like the directional distinctions, although I'm not sure a height distinction is really necessary.
A Thrust Kick (Yoko-Geri in Karate, Yeop Chagi in Tae Kwon Do) can be thrown low, medium or high.

Sentinel wrote:
To simulate the instances where a character uses a hopping kicking attack to escape having their leg held.

That strikes me as being more of a Simultaneous Attack.

Not really, because you have already been grabbed, and have one leg held.
If it were simultaneous, you would have kicked right as you were being grabbed.

in the moves description, the differences are really quite vague.

True, which is why I tend to expand the descriptions for my non-martial arts players.
I also keep a set of handy visual referrences (videotapes, photo sequences, etc) to aid in clarification.

Well I'm trying to simply the naming conventions of the moves to make them more universal, so inevitably some naming conventions will not be accurate.

This is a challenge, true.
I tend to go with a bit more complexity (although not to degree of requiring an actual martial arts encylopedia), in order to encompass the broad range of techniques and their effects.

The reason for the height distinctions is I like to have some moves (such as a High Hook Kick) be more difficult to perform than say a Medium Forward Kick. That is the main reason for the height qualifiers.

My recommendation is to compare the difficulty of each technique in comparison to itself: Yes, a high hook kick may be more difficult (in many respects) than a medium forward kick (I assume "karate kick"), but you should instead simply compare the hook kick to the thrust kick minus the height qualifiers. A medium hook kick is not necessarly much more of less difficult than a high forward kick, and so on. However, in simplicity, a hook kick is slightly more difficult than a thrust kick (regardless of height).

If N&SS had a more precise system of Hit Location, then height distinctions would be more necessary.

Given Palladiums use of random damage however, it's always possible to score a lot of damage with a relatively weak attack, while scoring low damage on a stronger attack, simply because of how dice tumble.
With that, I find that the simplified striking syllabus is less labor-intensive once I've differentiated individual techniques.

Taking some character training into account, I would have to assume that a character with a high kick attack would be a practitioner of a style like Tae Kwon Do or Tang Su, or Wu Shu T'Sung, in which case those types of moves aren't difficult for them at all.

Not really when you consider those are the actual martial arts terms for the moves in question.

I'll see if I can't find something useful to demonstrate the various kicks and such on the web and link it if I do.



Not a great reference but it's a start: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kick

macksting wrote:In addition to any matters of realism, don't terms like "crescent kick" and "claw hand" further the cinematic aims?

Not especially.
They are legitmate techniques found in many martial art styles.

When I use the term "cinetmatic", I tend to use it to describe fight sequences like Mortal Kombat as opposed to Bourne Identity.
Bourne is all about realism, but if Jason Bourne had to fight Johnny Cage or Sub-Zero he'd get eaten alive.

Cinematics (to me) entail the epic, legendary abilities of kung-fu legends, not unlike how martial arts are depicted in Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon.

Crescent Kicks (at any height) can easily be applied to both 'realistic' and tournament fighting, as well as choreographed cinematics. It's all about application here.
For atmosphere however, I would use even more fanciful names like 'hurricane returning kick', and 'ancient Earth tremor Punch' (incidentally, these names loose some of their sillyness when you translate them into Chinese).

Using the actual martial arts terminology can definitely add to the atmosphere of the game. However, some techniques simply sound less impressive than others.

The crescent kick is also found in such non-Oriental styles as Savate and some Native American fighting styles. In order to really capture the feel of films from the Chows, the Shaws, and others, you would want to look for even more fanciful terms.

If I had to qualify, I'd use the GURPS terms: Realistic, Heroic, Cinematic, Four Colour.

Realistic is what it is: just like in real life. Choppy, jerky, un-pretty.
Heroic is more like what you find in most American martial arts films like Above the Law, Perfect Weapon, Best of the Best, and most Chuck Norris movies (I like Code of Silence, Lone Wolf McQuade, and the Octagon).
Cinematic is the next step up in wild, over-the-top martial arts action: The Last Dragon is a good example of that.
At the top of the heap would be the Four Colour action: Characters possessed of phenomenal powers gained through their martial arts disciplines. Examples include Mortal Kombat, as well as comics such as Iron Fist, and anime like Fist of the North Star and Ninja Scroll.

My own campaign tends to run more towards Heroic as the low-end "regular guys", while most martial arts characters are either Cinematic or Four-Colour.