A Chang-xiao-bang/Dai-so-jo prestige class?

[llamatron2000]

I'm pretty sure that if you put a rock on the end of a stick with a cup on it and throw it, that it will go a far shorter distance than if you were to sling it with a rope of equal length to the stick. By your reasoning, the rock slung with the stick should go further. I'm saying that adding a flexible point onto the lever generates more of a mechanical advantage, at least in some situations.

But...on another note, I think that this may depend on the strength of the wielder.

When you add a flexible point to a weapon, you are lessening the leverage put into it, because you can no longer put your strength into it. However, the velocity should go up in multiples, since you are adding another system with mechanical advantage to the weapon. I'm no physicist, but....speed = energy?

I'm pretty sure there's an upper limit to the speed at which the flail's head can travel, too. Since the flail is not delivering ANY of your strength into the blow, this means that there's an effective 'damage cap' on it that cannot be surpassed by any amount of brute strength greater than that which reaches the damage cap. Which means that maces become more attractive when the amount of work put in reaches a certain point(what this point is, and if its within human norms, I'm not sure.)

This means that a stick actually does provide more leverage, but the flail's head is delivering more damage with considerably less effort.

 

[Celebrim]

I'm pretty sure that if you put a rock on the end of a stick with a cup on it and throw it, that it will go a far shorter distance than if you were to sling it with a rope of equal length to the stick.

No, not really. Consider the game of Jai alai.

By your reasoning, the rock slung with the stick should go further.

No. You are confusing two different things. The distance a rock travels is based on its velocity. The damage done to something is based on the energy imparted to it. Velocity is only part of the equation. In the case of the stick vs. the rope, both will achieve the same velocity (more or less), so the rock will go (more or less) the same distance. But in the case of being hit by the rope or the stick, clearly there is a difference.

I'm saying that adding a flexible point onto the lever generates more of a mechanical advantage, at least in some situations.

Well, if you add a flexible point, then that changes things. But note that this is different than a rope or a stick. With a flail, the handle counts as much as the flexible part. Rope or not, you still need a lever.

The way a flail works is you get everything moving, and then you stop the handle. The speed of the striking part then increases because it revolves around the now stopped tip of the handle, picking up speed for much the same reason that an ice skater goes faster when he draws in his arms. In theory, this generates higher velocity and consequently more momentum. But stopping that handle such that it flicks the chain part around is actually tough. If you'll go to youtube and watch some three section staff forms you'll see that mostly they do alot of whirling, which doesn't obtain this advantage. It looks really fast, but if you go watch a staff form you'll see that a whirling stick is moving just as fast.

Not that whirling is useless. Whirling on a flexible hinge actually has a different thing going for it, and that goes back to that moment of inertia, in that you can exert a force for a longer period in this way. A trebuchet actually uses both mechanisms. It's lever stops really nicely when it gets to vertical and 'flicks' beautifully. But the other great thing about the sling is that it allows the weight to spend more time being accelerated than could be done with a rigid lever and the same height of engine. Plus, a sling is really light weight, and thus doesn't impede the motion.

The rest of your analysis gets confused.

What's important about a rigid weapon is that you can continue 'pushing' with it after making contact. This increases the time you spend accelerating the target, and increases the ammount of energy that is imparted to it. This is why so many sport martial arts teach you to punch like a sissy. They train you - sometimes deliberately - to retract your punch quickly. That's the exact opposite of what you want to do. You want to aim for the back of your opponent's head and push through. With a flail, the fact that the weight is on a flexible arm means that you can't keep 'pushing' (on the other hand, because you don't keep 'pushing', you don't smash your weapon). The energy of impact is not as efficiently transferred to the target as it might be. This, combined with the fact that its hard to generate that theoretical extra velocity with an inherently more clumsy weapon, means that in practice I doubt a flail does alot more damage to something than an equivalent rigid club.

I've never used a flail, but I imagine that the technique has alot in common with broadsword. There is alot of wrist going on and the motion is probably something more like a jab than a swing.

 

[llamatron2000]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=59kx8WVkOr8

I think this discussion is getting way off the main topic. So I'm gonna stop hijacking now and drop the physics of flails discussion. I don't have enough knowledge to refute what you're saying, but I'm pretty sure that the speed generated by the flexible part of the flail will generate more speed, since it multiplies the amount of work put in. Here's a video of a flail fight. Uhh, now...where were we?

 

[Mycanid]

Umm ... yeah.

Niles - regarding your saying "On the other point I think you may have fallen for the meme that oriental weapons are automatically more graceful and elegant." What I base my assumption on is how I saw it used in the movie. It WAS more graceful and elegant. My original hope in the thread was to see how something like that could manifest in game terms with a prestige class for the monk preferably (fighter secondarily) and with feats.

On other notes. Neither the two or the three sectioned staff I saw had any metal on the staff parts - these were just wood. The metal was in the sturdy chains holding the staff sections together. A flail has a bunch of metal on it and would hurt a lot more to my understanding.

FireLance - I like your ideas, but I am hoping more for something a little "souped up" per se, something that a MASTER of the weapon could do with it, kinda along the lines Celebrim has been suggesting, I guess.

I am still looking for a prestige class. Something like "Shaolin Monk", who is then offered a whole series of schools he can specifically (i.e. singly) focus in develop, rather as the psion focuses in a specific discipline of the psionic practice, I guess (to use a rule-based image reference). The Shaolin Monk prestige class could also gain access to a slough of feats unavailable to the fighter classes or the monk class by itself. Stuff like that. And I thought the 2 or 3 sectioned stick could be one of these series of school options the Shaoling monk could go into. I imagined the Shaolin Monk prestige class as being heavily psionic or semi magical ... thus the amazing things they can do with their weapons or their focus in the aspect they specialize in.

Anyhoo ... this is where I hope to go!

Btw - a nice little clip of video there Ilmatron.

 

[Celebrim]

A flail has a bunch of metal on it and would hurt a lot more to my understanding.

Somewhat. Metal is less elastic than wood and so less of the force goes to deforming the wood, and more of the force is transfered to the target. But wood is still sufficiently inelastic, and it will still bash your brains out just fine (how it reacts to hitting a peice of metal is probably more of an issue). Even more to the point, metal is denser and you can shape it to have these spiky parts, which causes the force to effect a smaller area which can increase effective the shearing force.

I am still looking for a prestige class...I imagined the Shaolin Monk prestige class as being heavily psionic or semi magical...

The great irony of this is that I don't have prestige classes in my game (I think that they are dumb), don't have monk classed characters in my game (I think that they are dumb), and tend to be rather skeptical of and sometimes downright dismissive of eastern martial arts - particularly kung fu and karate (Again...). Additionally, I'm skeptical of your plan because I thought that the 'Monk' class already was inspired by the Shaolin of fiction (being semi-magical and all), and it sounds to me like your plan is to just create an 'uber monk' with more monk fighting goodness than the monk and effectively more fighting feats than the fighter. Moreover, whenever I see combat that looks graceful and elegant, or at least graceful and elegant in the way that eastern martial arts are usually presented, I tend to see it as a dance art - not a combat art - that would get you killed if you actually tried it in battle. So, I'm about the last person to help you accomplish your goals.

On the other hand, I'm a martial art fanatic if by martial arts you mean 'things actually used in combat', I don't mind helping people smith rules, and I'll gladly brainstorm flavorable weapon feats that you can hook together into some sort of inflexible chain of prestige class abilities.

 

[NilesB]

The various oriental two section staves are well within the variation for a european heavy flail.

But I've never seen a European flail weapon that consists of three sections of equal length, nor do I know of any european weapon that's wielded remotely like a three section staff. If you can point me to one, I'd appreciate it, because I'm something of a martial weapon buff and I dig discovering new weapon variations.

Yes and we were specifically discussing the Dai-so-jo aka the two section staff, the Sam-Jit-Gwun or three section staff is it's own thing. (At least according to the link in the first post)

I'm sorry for the misscommunication.

 

[Celebrim]

Yes and we were specifically discussing the Dai-so-jo aka the two section staff, the Sam-Jit-Gwun or three section staff is it's own thing. (At least according to the link in the first post)

I'm sorry for the misscommunication.

Well, the second link in the first post is to a three section staff page. It's that I chose to discuss, because that was the part that I had something to say about.

 

[Mycanid]

The great irony of this is that I don't have prestige classes in my game (I think that they are dumb), don't have monk classed characters in my game (I think that they are dumb), and tend to be rather skeptical of and sometimes downright dismissive of eastern martial arts - particularly kung fu and karate (Again...). Additionally, I'm skeptical of your plan because I thought that the 'Monk' class already was inspired by the Shaolin of fiction (being semi-magical and all), and it sounds to me like your plan is to just create an 'uber monk' with more monk fighting goodness than the monk and effectively more fighting feats than the fighter. Moreover, whenever I see combat that looks graceful and elegant, or at least graceful and elegant in the way that eastern martial arts are usually presented, I tend to see it as a dance art - not a combat art - that would get you killed if you actually tried it in battle. So, I'm about the last person to help you accomplish your goals.

On the other hand, I'm a martial art fanatic if by martial arts you mean 'things actually used in combat', I don't mind helping people smith rules, and I'll gladly brainstorm flavorable weapon feats that you can hook together into some sort of inflexible chain of prestige class abilities.

Hmm ... touche mon ami.

To be honest, though, what I had in mind was making a prestige class for the monk like the weapon master is to the fighter. Sure, the fighter can do a lot more in general, but the weapon master is a focus on a specific aspect of it. Same idea with the monk prestige class I have in mind - a focus on a specific aspect of the monk. On the same note, I would also like to develop other prestige classes that focus on other specific aspects of the monk.

I agree that the shaolin monk was the main basis for the DnD monk ....

Of course in real life martial arts is nowhere near as "dancy". In real life most martial art combats take only a fraction of the time I am told (by a black belt in aikido no less). At the same time in real life weapon combat is usually much shorter as well - although perhaps not as short since the combatants are usually protected by armor and shields, etc. to minimize the blows struck.

You have done some wonderful things thus far, and I am grateful to you (and others) for your submissions thus far!

Anyhoo ... keep the ideas coming!

 

[TheLe]

Hmm ... do you know if anyone has ever developed prestige classes in the sense of "martial arts schools" for the monk? Many of the B-grade kung fu flicks focused on members being part of certain "schools" and I don't recall this ever being fleshed out by Wotc ... maybe some d20 products have done this? I know of a few things done (and have) by The Le Games in this regard.

[imagel]http://www.thele.com/TheLeGames/images/tn/NeoRangers_TheSpiderKing_tn200w.jpg[/imagel]I love it when me or my company is mentioned. Since I love to talk about me, how about I offer a free book to you all? Just send me an email and say "hi", and I will fire off a free copy of Neo Monks: the Dragonlord to you. I wrote this book and gave the Monk a very Dragon themed set of abilities!

This offer is good until Friday March 23rd (about a week).

Feel free to review it too, if you are so inclined!


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