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Message: <blockquote data-quote="takyris" data-source="post: 813014" data-attributes="member: 5171">JPL: Interesting points... lessee:Well, we can't all be deadly ninja masters.(cough, cough) <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f600.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":D" title="Big grin    :D"  data-smilie="8"data-shortname=":D" />This would be where you and I differ in opinion.  I certainly agree that brawling is ONE possible interpretation of the Brawl feat, but I treat it as the coin and nickel scenario:If my character is described as a bar-room bruiser who knocks people out cold, he probably has the Brawl feat.However, just because my character has the Brawl feat does not mean he MUST be that bar-room bruiser.  There are other interpretations for that feat, based on the mechanic.But this ain't a freeform LARP.  The rules are the closest thing we have to a tangible expression of mutually agreed-upon imagination.You're attempting to declare what I can and cannot imagine based on a rules mechanic.  I might not go for the Vulcan nerve pinch, but I might very well say that he's trying for smart strikes to the jaw or temple instead of body shots or face shots.  What's more, you're declaring that I have to imagine it in YOUR way, but your way is not consistent with the rule mechanic as written.In real-life, I have far too much experience with the actual mechanics of knocking people out without causing them permanent harm to believe that nonlethal damage involves "making the other guy's brain bump into his skull until he stops moving".  That's not consistent with Brawl.  That's consistent with doing enough lethal damage to take them to -1 hit points.  Someone knocked out that way has a good chance of stabilizing and being fine, but there is a chance that they could die.Sure.  No problems there.  I'd say that the difference between saying something is a pressure-point strike and saying something is cheap-shot dirty-fighting is whether or not you like the guy who's doing it.A well-trained street fighter is going to have the same knowledge of where to hit a guy to make it hurt a little more that a wizened old man meditating for years under a waterfall is going to have.  One guy calls it knowledge of ki centers.  One guy calls it "hit 'em where it hurts."  By the rules mechanics, both of them have taken Streetfighting.That's your flavor text again.  My martial arts school taught me a technique that involved five successively uglier strikes to the groin (in a way that made logical sense and was practical on the street).  I can do that without flinching.Adding in kata doesn't mean that it's somehow no longer the Streetfighting technique.  Since I do kata as well, I'm apparently a dude with the Streetfighting feat and a few ranks in perform (Dance). <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" />Sure.  It's melee combat.  That's what Strong and Tough heroes are supposed to be best at.And now you're stripping away all the flavor text of the feat and comparing a bare rules mechanic to the flavor-text interpretation of a Strong or Tough hero.It can "make sense" for them to be bonus feats in any number of ways, depending on the character you have created.Of course not.  And neither does Streetfighting.  If you want to play by flavor-text rules, "Hitting as hard as you can" is Power Attack, part of a completely different feat chain.  By flavor-text arguments, one might wonder why Power Attack isn't a requirement for your version of Streetfighting.Does it make sense for your "untrained, no-holds-barred, rough-hewn" brawler guy to pick up a rapier and start tosssing off swashbuckling witticisms?  With your flavor-text restrictions, the swashbuckler-and-duelist-friendly "Improved Feint" feat, which requires Brawl and Streetfighting, could only be taken by bar-room drunks whose greatest thrill in life is rattling brains around in skulls.I respect the fact that you've thought about this, but I don't see anything in this that makes me think that Brawl needs to be advanced to a separate form of martial arts.  The reason that they called it "martial arts" and not "Aikido", "Boxing", "Capoiera", "Dragon Style Kung Fu", "Escrima", or any of the other letters of the alphabet, is because it was assumed that characters would be taking the feats that gave the closest approximation of the rules mechanics to let them add their own flavor text in.You take CMA and Power Attack and call yourself a Karate expert.You take CMA, DMA, and Elusive Target and call yourself a Capoiera expert.You take CMA, Dodge, Brawl, Two-Weapon Fighting, and Agile Riposte, and you call yourself a boxer.You take DMA, Combat Expertise, Improved Trip, and Improved Combat Throw and call yourself an Aikdo or Jujitsu expert.I'm definitely looking forward to Vigilance's list of additional martial arts feats, but I would hate to see complexity added where complexity does not need to be added.-Tacky</blockquote>

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