Martial Arts

[jibbajibba]

Actually, I think the point of Strength resolving before Warfare solve the problem nicely.  (It's just not presented very well or easy to find.)

If Gerard is close enough to grab Benedict, then he simply does.  Benedict, knowing his own weakness, tries to not be there in the first place.  So, if Gerard flipped out, and Benedict happened to be near, then Gerard can toss Benedict around (Strength vs Strength).

If Benedict isn't right there, then Gerard is going to have to sacrifice a few hits to get close enough.  How many strikes is up to how it's played out, which could determine who wins.  If it's a longer range battle, Gerard would be down before he gets close enough.

So, Gerard would carry a sword for those times he's not close enough. With a sword, he can stave off a hit or two, which could be the matter of winning or losing.

Yeah, that timing resolution works for me.  I hope they make it more prominent if they even come up with that new edition.  Thanks.  

Glad you got an answer , not sure I agree with it mind :-)
There is a tendancy to think the game is perfect and you need to play the rules as written, This is not the case. Your rules are like to be just as valid as those in the book. Rember the rules say unarmed combat not just grappling so according to the book Gerrard would beat Benedict if they were punching and kicking just as easily as if they were greco-roman wrestling.
There is a tendancy as well here to think of Gerrad as exisitng inside the ADRPG as a character as opposed to thinking of the ADRPG as a shell that had been built round Gerrard, Corwin et al in an attempt to describe them.
Fact of the matter is Gerrard carries a big sword because if he gets into a fight when people are trying to kill him with swords he can use it to stop them. He might be as strong as an elephant but blocking a sabre with your arm is going to hurt.

[Croaker]

Yup.

Even if you're trained to disarm opponents, this is always tricky, especially if the opponent is skilled. So, going barehand against a competent guy may be very dangerous, while a sword lets you close in (and then disarm him) more easily sometimes.

[gabriel_ss4u]

Anyone in Chicago going to Amber con?
(besides me?..... I hope!!!!)

[Trevelyan]

Warfare has to play a role if we follow Zelazny.

Look again at the fight between Gerard and Corwin. Corwin starts of doing pretty well for himself, he manages to get a few blows in and avoids getting hit in return. This is entirely inconsistent with the notion that Strength alone decides unarmed combat.

Take a step back from the fight itself and look at the preamble. Gerard's own words "...if I can get my hands on you but once" indicate that Gerard himself knows that he only has the advantage when he literally has Corwin in his grasp, and that "if" suggests it's far from a sure thing.

But Gerard cheats in that fight, he sets things up so that he has the advantage. Corwin notes that the fight takes place in a bowl shaped depression, selected by Gerard because Corwin stands a chance if he can keep moving back and avoiding his brother while getting a series of weaker blows in. Gerard's tactic is the opposite, to take a few weak hits from Corwin and, aided by the terrain, get in close enough to grapple. And this is exactly what he does.

That one fight demonstrates how Amber combat works on so many levels. It shows the interaction between Warfare and Strength, it shows one participant using circumstances to alter the odds in his own avour. More significantly it shows that an quick and agile fighter (warfare) has the advantage on unarmed combat over a slow but strong fighter if he can avoid a grapple.

As an aside, when unarmed strength is pretty much the sole damage decider. While skill might allow Benedict to cause nasty wounds with a blade, once unarmed there is very little a brother can do that actually hurts Gerard. Although warfare is useful, it would take a truely insurmountable Warfare rank to avoid a grapple in a confined space if the grappler was willing to take a hit.

ADRPG appears to break with Zelazny in proclaiming Strength the arbiter of unarmed combat. However both the warfare entry and later combat examples show warfare as dictating whether blows hit.

[Nihilistic Mind]

Those are some very good points, Trevelyan. I'm gonna have to re-read that fight more thoroughly.

[Croaker]

More significantly it shows that an quick and agile fighter (warfare) has the advantage on unarmed combat over a slow but strong fighter if he can avoid a grapple.

Well, IIRC, warfare in ADRPG is general reflexes and quickness.

This doesn't contradict with strength being martial arts.
If you want, gerard may have a lot more know knowledge of karate, judo, blablabla, but still be slower than corwin, who'll use his speed to stay away of gerard instead of fighting him.

Thus, corwin will use his warfare, saying something like "I try to stay away from gerard by using my superior speed, with some quick blows when he comes closes" instead of "Ok, kung-fu time": It looks like corwin uses martial arts, when in fact he just use warfare tactics. If he had tried to fight a regular karate fight, he's had been defeated. Instead, he flees.

Am i too unclear here?

[Arref]

Warfare has to play a role if we follow Zelazny.

That one fight demonstrates how Amber combat works on so many levels. It shows the interaction between Warfare and Strength, it shows one participant using circumstances to alter the odds in his own avour. More significantly it shows that an quick and agile fighter (warfare) has the advantage on unarmed combat over a slow but strong fighter if he can avoid a grapple.

ADRPG appears to break with Zelazny in proclaiming Strength the arbiter of unarmed combat. However both the warfare entry and later combat examples show warfare as dictating whether blows hit.

All the attributes play a role if we follow Zelazny.

I've been in games where Warfare determines quickness and sequence for every use of Attribute expertise. In those games, you cannot have Brand paralyze Benedict because Brand doesn't even have the "quickness" to challenge based on Warfare.

Trust me, once the GM declares that Warfare determines if a spell hits or a grapple succeeds, you don't have Attribute parity. If Gerard, Brand or Random are no longer dangerous because they don't have the Warfare cred, you don't have the Zelazny dynamic anymore.

[jibbajibba]

You are all getting caught up on the idea that Corwin Gerrard fight takes place with in the confines of ADRG. The oposite should be the case. The rules are meant to enable us to replicate events like that fight. If we look as written they don't. The point has been made that Corwin gets a few blows in before Gerrard grabs him. If you think about context its not enough to say these blows are not strong enough to hurt Gerrard the fact is Corwin doesn't want to hurt Gerrard. Corwin enters the fight already handicapped because he isn't prepared to hurt Gerrard.
The rules have been presented to make the attributes more even. Thus Strength is beefed up. This is not representative of the books it is a game mechanic to make the stats more even. In that sense it works. However, its my opinion that that is a clumsy way of doing it and a better approach would have been to add more attriubtes and use them to weaken the dominance of warfare. Now just 4 attributes makes for faster character generation an I can conceed that more stats would slow it down. Now for me that isn't important. The first session of a game should be making up characters and I think we have time for 2 more attributes... Now if you are running a game at a convention in a 4 hour slot there might not be enough time but that is not a justification for this sort of compromise.

[Croaker]

the fact is Corwin doesn't want to hurt Gerard. Corwin enters the fight already handicapped because he isn't prepared to hurt Gerrard.

IIRC, there's a moment were corwin has an opportunity to strike a low blow to gerard.
And he refrains, not because he doesn't want to hurt him, but because if he did, gerard's reflexes would have him break corwin's arm, or something like that.
Which would imply that gerard is holding back a lot more...

[jibbajibba]

IIRC, there's a moment were corwin has an opportunity to strike a low blow to gerard.
And he refrains, not because he doesn't want to hurt him, but because if he did, gerard's reflexes would have him break corwin's arm, or something like that.
Which would imply that gerard is holding back a lot more...

Yup that is true too. Gerrard is certainly not using his full power but he is using his whole skilll which is really the difference between Warfare and strength.

[Croaker]

How do you know?

Say corwin is more skilled.
He uses his superior skill to strike gerard at the groin. Whatever their relative strength, if gerard's reflexes are to break corwin's arm, he need to be skilled enough to hit/seize him.

Let's face the facts. This is amber. One can always argue any way But this is cool, this is a strength

[Arref]

You are all getting caught up on the idea that Corwin Gerrard fight takes place with in the confines of ADRG.

Well, I went back and checked the thread question. I think we were supposed to talk about Amber Diceless system and Strength.

The rules are meant to enable us to replicate events like that fight. The rules have been presented to make the attributes more even. Thus Strength is beefed up. This is not representative of the books it is a game mechanic to make the stats more even. In that sense it works.

OK. So some of us think it represents the book well and some of us don't. It doesn't look like either side is convincing in its logic. So here we are.

However, its my opinion that that is a clumsy way of doing it and a better approach would have been to add more attriubtes and use them to weaken the dominance of warfare. Now just 4 attributes makes for faster character generation an I can conceed that more stats would slow it down. Now for me that isn't important. The first session of a game should be making up characters and I think we have time for 2 more attributes... Now if you are running a game at a convention in a 4 hour slot there might not be enough time but that is not a justification for this sort of compromise.

So do we need threads to clearly address Amber Diceless rules versus re-writing the rules to suit personal tastes? Do we label such threads? Because we seem to be spending a fair amount of bytes talking about something nebulous that isn't Amber Diceless.

Generally I don't mind the tangent-chat, but I also don't find the rules 'clumsy'. How do others wish to handle this?

[James McMurray]

I'm jumping into this late, and it's probably already been said, but why not let the guy choose? If he wants to strike and use Warfare, cool. If he goes for the grapple and uses Strength, that's cool too.

[grappling]
Inigo Montoya: You are wonderful.
Man in Black: Thank you; I've worked hard to become so.
Inigo Montoya: I admit it, you are better than I am.
Man in Black: Then why are you smiling?
Inigo Montoya: Because I know something you don't know.
Man in Black: And what is that?
Inigo Montoya: I... grappling is not my strong suit.
[Switches to striking and gains an advantage]
Man in Black: You are amazing.
Inigo Montoya: I ought to be, after 20 years.
Man in Black: Oh, there's something I ought to tell you.
Inigo Montoya: Tell me.
Man in Black: I'm not much for wrestling either.
[Tosses out a kick and regains his advantage]

[Croaker]

We were discussing whether martial arts should be strength (as written in its ADRPG depiction) or warfare.

I guess you're from the second school of thought

[James McMurray]

Close. I'm from the "it should be either, depending on the wishes of the character" school of thought.