Dragon's Tail Cut?

[Imp]

Monkey Steals The Peach!

Hmm, I dunno, I'm not real real big on martial arts simulation, but it's not the name of this that bugs me so much as how you're supposed to do this with – what – a sword? An axe, I guess? I swear, I'm not a real stickler about this kind of stuff, but the 1st-level moves, if they're associated with weapons, ought to hew kind of close to reality, and get more cinematic/ fantastic as you go up in levels, right?

 

[JohnSnow]

That's another thing that bothers me about this power, besides its name. To be most effective at knocking an opponent backward, a choice weapon to use would be one that would generate a lot of impact force...something bulky, heavy, and long-hafted, like the flat side of a greataxe. A sword doesn't have enough stopping power; it is too light and thin.

...

Anyway. I'm being nitpicky. Physics and fantasy should always be kept in separate containers. But it was bugging me, so I had to say something about it.

Well, for the record, the last time I got hit in the legs with a sword, it knocked me prone. It hurt like hell too.

 

[pawsplay]

It seems like the maneuver, as described, would cause you to never walk again, rather than just knock you down, but hey, that could just be me.

 

[JohnSnow]

It seems like the maneuver, as described, would cause you to never walk again, rather than just knock you down, but hey, that could just be me.

Honestly, it depends on how deep the cut is. A shallow cut would knock you prone, but is something you can recover from, not even necessarily with a lot of time. By way of example:

I was doing some longsword practice this spring. I took a blow to my unarmored face from a greatsword. It gave me a minor cut and a black eye. And it knocked me flat.

A short time later, I was, basically, fine. For safety reasons, I wasn't allowed to resume swordplay, but I could have. There was no lasting damage. I was lucky.

This was an accident. But someone could have done it on purpose. Moreover, traditional european swordplay involved a lot of takedown maneuvers; everything from hooking the legs with the crossguard of your sword to using your legs for a trip attack to knocking your opponent over with a shield push.

It's a common misperception that medieval european combat involved two armored men doing nothing but swinging at one another.

 

[Duncan Haldane]

1st-level moves, if they're associated with weapons, ought to hew kind of close to reality, and get more cinematic/ fantastic as you go up in levels, right?

This is an interesting point.

Simple names to start, fancier names as you go up.

Dragon's Tail Cut doesn't make me think of anything like a longsword sweeping the feet out from an opponent. Soon enough it would be DTC, and we would have another TLA* to deal with.

Sword Sweep - explanatory, simple. Can be "I sword sweep him", can be "I sweep him" (since the players and DM know the player uses a sword, right?).
And easily adapted to other weapons - axe sweep, spear sweep, etc.

Wallop makes me think of the Batman TV series ;-)

When I'm DMing I don't want to have to remember a huge list of powers and what they mean. Sword Sweep I wouldn't have to remember, it's self-explantory IMO.

* TLA - Three-Letter Acronym. But they are better than FLA (four-letter or five-letter acronyms) and XTLA (extended three-letter acronyms).

 

[Duncan Haldane]

They should call it "Sweep the Leg" and write flavor text of how it was a maneuver perfected by the ancient and mysterious Cobra Kai society.

off-topic:
Will Smith wants remake karate kid, starring his 8-year old son as Daniel.
Help stop him!
http://www.thepetitionsite.com/1/scotty-and-nige-say-no-to-the-wil-smith-katrate-kid-remake

 

[Reynard]

This kind of "flavor" doesn't really belong in the Core books, IMO. Not because it is bad, per se, because that's a matter of opinion on whether Dragon Tail Strike sounds better than Knockdown. Rather, because D&D traditionally encourages homebrewing and published campaigns settings, each with their own flavor, keeping the core rulebooks as vanilla as possibile, utilitarian even, preserves that quality. Think of all the "bamed" spells in D&D. They were Gygaxian and Grehawkish and they really didn't sound right in FR or DL. Once the OGL came into being, they had to be excised. KoK went so far as to invent new "iconic" wizards so that those spells would still have names.

Names matter. Imagaine if you ran D&D by the RAW with toally new players, but changed the names thus:

Str=Aspect of the Bull
Dex=Aspect of the Eagle
Con=Aspect of the Bear
Int=Aspect of the Fox
Wis=Aspect of the Owl
Cha=Aspect of the Eagle
Level=Ascension
Hit Points=Manifestation
AC=Insubstantiation

and so on... The Players would think, just based on those names, that they were playing some form of world walking spirits or gods, and if they played long enough and gained enough levels, they'd be convinced of it. Now try this:

Str=Muscle
Dex=Speed
Con=Grit
Int=Smarts
Wis=Sense
Cha=Wit
Level=Skill
Hit Points=Pluck
AC=Luck

and so on... now you are playing a pulpy, noirish game with elves and dwarves. the point is, names do in fact matter. the more specific they are, the more unintended and possible unwanted flavor they inject in everyone's game. Imagine a Hyborea or Middle Earth with Conan or Aragorn shouting "Mountain Sundering Slash" when what they really want to do is power attack.

This kind of "flavor design" is both unneccesary and unhelpful.

 

[Lonely Tylenol]

As I said elsewhere...

Don't we already know that dragons can knock people down/back with their tails? If that's indeed the case, Dragon's Tail Cut makes perfect sense--in character, without the need for anime or wuxia influences on the culture or setting--for an attack that knocks people down.

Well, if you look at most of those real-world fighting techniques, they're called what they do. Nobody calls a particular sword stroke "waterfall slice." It'll be called "downward stroke" or something.

I've noticed that there's been a lot more emphasis on trying to saddle things with fluffy names for the sake of it. I think they want to make sure that every aspect of the game has at least a light dusting of spray-flocking so that nobody has to look directly at the bare rules without some kind of conceptual prophylaxis. What's wrong with unambiguous names for things? Aren't we trying to make the game easy to understand for new players?

 

[Matthan]

The name doesn't really appeal to me, but I'm willing to bet that it doesn't make it into the final product. The author admits that he hasn't run it by anyone else yet. He also mentions writing some flavor text for it. Maybe the text can keep, but the name will shift.

Personally, I'm pulling for a shorter name.

 

[Lonely Tylenol]

* TLA - Three-Letter Acronym. But they are better than FLA (four-letter or five-letter acronyms) and XTLA (extended three-letter acronyms).

Shoot. What's the word for things which are themselves examples of the concept they define, like TLA and XTLA up there?