Feats That Shouldn’t Be Feats

[Sekhmet]

Real quickly [MENTION=4937]Celebrim[/MENTION], if you know any martial artists who are proficient in that craft, ask them to stun you. I'm sure they'll be able to oblige, no magic involved!

As I recall, in AD&D or 2e, they had the Component Pouch, which generally had all of the material components with little to no cost. All of your bat wings, cricket legs, sulfur, and what not - basically what Eschew Materials does. It's cost was almost irrelevant, every 1st level Wizard had one.

 

[Celebrim]

Real quickly [MENTION=4937]Celebrim[/MENTION], if you know any martial artists who are proficient in that craft, ask them to stun you. I'm sure they'll be able to oblige, no magic involved!

You are somewhat tardy in giving this device. I use to go around to martial arts academies to see how they would teach throwing a punch. If they thought throwing a punch in terms of chi, I knew that they knew nothing and did not need to fear their punch. One of the reasons that the Chinese Martial arts have had absolutely no success in MMA is that they got so lost in the supernatural explanation for what had probably initially been an artful description of leverage, moment of inertia and so forth that they lost sight of leverage, moment of inertia and all the other things that really go into punching power and started believing in the magic. But the problem was that the magical ideas ended up leading many of them in the exact opposite of where they needed to go. For example, I once sit in on a session where the sensai was teaching how to punch and he taught (I kid you not), that when you were to punch someone you focused your chi down and your arm and in the moment you made impact with the opponent you quickly withdraw your hand so that the chi wouldn't flow back into your body. In this way, the chi would set up a powerful resonance in your opponent and do them great harm. Now, if you are actually familiar with stunning fist techniques in the real world, you should recognize this as the basis of more advanced stunning techniques. And if you are actually familiar with boxing, you should recognize this as horse sheets.

Mau Thai or Jeet Kune Do or Krav Maga doesn't teach that sort of crap. You want to stun a foe you hit them hard in somewhere that it hurts and you hit them hard again before they stop being stunned. That chi stuff is the sort of crap you teach students when you are training them not to hurt each other; only the problem is, the instructors have forgotten that originally techniques like the aforementioned rapidly retracted punch are training/sparring techniques and not self-defense techiques. And honestly, it's even a bad habit to be in if you are training for combat.

The 'stunning fist'/'vibrating palm/dim mak' concept was a huge benefit to professional wrestling, because it let them use soft punches that kayfabe were so supposed to be intensely painful and stunning. But let's confine such notions to the stage where they belong and not pretend stuff is anything more than magic and stagecraft.

 

[Tequila Sunrise]

Fun fact: taekwondo students are taught to retract kicks faster than they are thrown. But it's about balance, rather than pseudo-mystical techniques. Pulling your kick back quickly prevents you from throwing yourself off-balance.

Real quickly [MENTION=4937]Celebrim[/MENTION], if you know any martial artists who are proficient in that craft, ask them to stun you. I'm sure they'll be able to oblige, no magic involved!

While it is perfectly possible to stun someone with a punch or a kick, I agree with Celebrim that anything my character can only do X times per day is in some way magical. (I don't much care about the fluff, but "X/day" as a mundane ability strains my belief too far.)

 

[Celebrim]

Fun fact: taekwondo students are taught to retract kicks faster than they are thrown.

Fun facts: I once saw a black belt in taekwondo get knocked out with the first punch in a street fight. And early in the MMA era, the world Taekwondo champion got beat into hamburger meat by a used car salesman with no special training. It was painful to watch.

Taekwondo is a sport art and while it teaches balance and quickness, it teaches you nothing about punching power or how to get hit. In fact, the techniques it teaches are designed to not hurt the sparring partner. Unfortunately, not everyone in the sport is taught that.

Pulling your kick back quickly prevents you from throwing yourself off-balance.

Sure, but it also prevents you from imparting significant momentum to your opponent. Imparted momentum is equal to force times mass times the moment of inertia which depends most critically on the time the objects are in contact. The faster you retract, the less you push into and through the thing you are hitting and the less damage you do. Compare with an actual combat technique like gastrizein:

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aPvJHIyFTII]Human Weapon Pankration - Gastrizein, Straight Heel Kick - YouTube[/ame]

That kick alone was recently used to put a guy not expecting it out of a fight in MMA. The greeks taught it for shattering an opponent's wooden shield. It's battle tested and it doesn't depend on magical thinking.

While it is perfectly possible to stun someone with a punch or a kick, I agree with Celebrim that anything my character can only do X times per day is in some way magical. (I don't much care about the fluff, but "X/day" as a mundane ability strains my belief too far.)

The basic problem with 'Stunning Fist' is that if it is merely hitting your opponent hard, why is it not tied to damage? Wouldn't that mechanic be basically a 'power attack' - targeting a soft point with a hard attack - as sort of a called shot? Why would it not be an at will ability? 'Stunning Fist' is limited to a number of times per day because its tied to channeling your 'chi', and presumably you only have a pool of available chi of limited size.

The truth of the matter is that most ancient eastern martial arts have been tried and found wanting lately. Oddly, it's the ones that got less attention back when kids believed ninjas really could jump over school buses - Filipino, Indonesian, Thai - that turned out to have the most practical ideas.

 

[Tequila Sunrise]

Fun facts: I once saw a black belt in taekwondo get knocked out with the first punch in a street fight. And early in the MMA era, the world Taekwondo champion got beat into hamburger meat by a used car salesman with no special training. It was painful to watch.

Yeah, and I once saw a girl scout one-shot Chuck Norris, as he was reaching for the cookies. No sarcasm.

Real life is kinda like high-op D&D with a low massive damage threshold; if you get the jump on the other guy, or at least swing first, it doesn't matter how awesome he is. You stand a decent chance of winning before the fight really starts.

Taekwondo is a sport art and while it teaches balance and quickness, it teaches you nothing about punching power or how to get hit. In fact, the techniques it teaches are designed to not hurt the sparring partner. Unfortunately, not everyone in the sport is taught that.

I know that you're trying to help, but you're making gross generalizations. It's not all gentle sportsmanship.

The basic problem with 'Stunning Fist' is that if it is merely hitting your opponent hard, why is it not tied to damage? Wouldn't that mechanic be basically a 'power attack' - targeting a soft point with a hard attack - as sort of a called shot? Why would it not be an at will ability?

Welcome to D&D, where stuff doesn't make sense.

 

[Celebrim]

Welcome to D&D, where stuff doesn't make sense.

Granted, but I'm not arguing that it does make sense. I'm arguing against the proposition that it makes sense because its exactly like real life.

 

[Ragmon]

I find that all-in-all there is one feat that should not be before we talk about the rest.

Vow of Poverty in Book of Exalted Deeds, but not balance wise but design wise.

This feat give the player a full progression, unlike any other feat, and this feat actually existed in 3rd edition where it was a prestige class (Masters of the Wild - The Forsaken (page 58)).

As a side note (so I can vent my frustration about Book of Exalted Deeds).
And in the end its even more redundant that only good characters can opt to take this feat.
Most of the Vow feats are not even clearly good in a sense, like Vow of -Poverty, Abstinence, Chastity, Obedience, Purity. The rest I find to be justified to be good only Vows.
Most of the feats in the Exalted Deeds book are ultra gimmicky. Take a feat, write [Exalted] next to it add Exalted or Sacred next to ever Damage, add celestial to every creature and here you go Book of Exalted Deeds.

In the end 80% of the feats "should not be", in this book.

 

[Thurbane]

I sometimes make a houserule for spontaneous casters and Heighten Spell in my game: for spells with multiple versions (like Summon Monster), the spell becomes the version that you heighten it's level to...i.e. if a Sorcerer Heightens Summon Monster I to a 4th level slot, it is treated as Summon Monster IV. It helps characters like Bards, Sorcerers and Favored Souls save precious "spells known" positions.

 

[Sekhmet]

Several different text blocks.

I apologise for the tardiness, I moved to Virginia and haven't been able to access the internet for a while.

I agree with your central premise, that the majority of eastern martial arts are more about spiritual and personal growth as opposed to actual fighting, and I also agree that they are largely useless in terms of combat.
On the flip side of your argument, you mention Krav Maga, Pankration, and Mau Thai, all of which teach various methods of stunning an opponent through massive blunt force trauma to the head or chest - the very essence of the Stunning Fist feat. I learned CQC and parts of Krav Maga when I was in the Army, and while they are very lethal combat styles, they also teach nonlethal submissive attacks.

I like the idea of tying it to damage, and I also like the idea of making it more like a combat manuever than an x/day element. I think I'll be doing that iin future games.
Does anyone see a problem with making it a DC10 + 1/2 level + 1 per 5 points of damage to stun for 1 round?

 

[Tequila Sunrise]

Granted, but I'm not arguing that it does make sense. I'm arguing against the proposition that it makes sense because its exactly like real life.

My bad.

Vow of Poverty in Book of Exalted Deeds, but not balance wise but design wise.

Agreed 100%. I have an innate bonus system somewhat like VoP, but it's not tied to alignments or feats. It's just there so players don't need the Big 6, and I can focus on giving them cool stuff.

I sometimes make a houserule for spontaneous casters and Heighten Spell in my game: for spells with multiple versions (like Summon Monster), the spell becomes the version that you heighten it's level to...i.e. if a Sorcerer Heightens Summon Monster I to a 4th level slot, it is treated as Summon Monster IV. It helps characters like Bards, Sorcerers and Favored Souls save precious "spells known" positions.

Sounds like a good rule!

I like the idea of tying it to damage, and I also like the idea of making it more like a combat manuever than an x/day element. I think I'll be doing that iin future games.
Does anyone see a problem with making it a DC10 + 1/2 level + 1 per 5 points of damage to stun for 1 round?

So I would make an attack, and declare it as a stunning attack? Then roll attack, damage and calculate the DC? That sounds awesome. Possibly OP. It'd handily shut down anything without a very high fort save.

I suspect Stunning Fist would become the Quicken Spell of the non-casters.