Secret Fighting Styles

[mcmanusaur]

Not sure how this could be implemented without giving things a decidedly oriental feel, which only works for certain classes unless the whole IG society is that way.

[TMTVL]

Master mages who have hidden away and know spells of great power is a more universal take on the theme, I suppose. It can be done with any class with any type of combat/non-combat ability, but techniques and spells of great destruction tend to be the most fun.

Edited December 3, 2012 by TMTVL

[rjshae]

Not sure how this could be implemented without giving things a decidedly oriental feel, which only works for certain classes unless the whole IG society is that way.

There's something of a similar flavor with the old world fencing and sword-fighting schools, in the sense of having "secret techniques". I don't think it necessarily needs to be oriental in flavor.

[jivex5k]

Secret abilities are a great idea.

Hidden ancient spells and techniques for crafting and fighting, it's all gravy to me.

In regards to the specific suggestions the OP made, I think you got some backlash due to the anti-monk martial arts guys.

But your general idea is good, there should absolutely be hidden abilities and spells to uncover via quests or just random exploration.

 

I'd love to see an entirely hidden school of magic, might be a little played out like the blood magic in DA:O but I'd love to see necromancy as a forbidden school...I think they mentioned something about it already anyways.

 

But why should it be limited to spell casters, I'd love to find secret barbarian tactics, maybe you find some legendary barbarian warlord who knows techniques like no other, appealing to the soul of war.

 

A ranger could find a forest god who imbues him with ancient techniques.

 

A paladin might find ancient texts.....you get the picture.

[Neuralshock]

 

A ranger could find a forest god who imbues him with ancient techniques.

 

A paladin might find ancient texts.....you get the picture.

 

yep this is more or less exactly what I had in mind, although for ranger I had in mind a sort of trueshot bowsman, super slow firing rate with increased damage and almost 100% crit, stuff like that

[Chippy]

The idea of fighting styles is great, I expected other games to follow suit after they were implemented in KOTOR2 (as per weapon styles).  Advantages that are significant would be preferred though (I suppose that would mean that if you didn't have it you'd likely die?), so I imagine boy-king leonidas winning against a wolf because he couldn't be flanked, and because he was further up the hill.  If an ogre tried the same frontal assault (being taller) then it wouldn't be sparta 30 years on. 

 

Or my epic 6 party members attacking an entire army; 2 weapon style fighters holding off the infantry, sword and shield defending the ranger and spellcasters until the single weapon fighter duel's/kills the army general.  That sort of thing.

[.Leif.]

I'm all for having a 5-finger exploding-heart technique.

[JFSOCC]

I'm all for having a 5-finger exploding-heart technique.

But you can only master it if you manage to survive tutelage by a misogynistic racist monk with an overly long beard who's awfully spry for his age.

[AGX-17]

Not sure how this could be implemented without giving things a decidedly oriental feel, which only works for certain classes unless the whole IG society is that way.

He's literally just ripping off names of characters and techniques used in Fist of the North Star and applying them to his derp ideas without really addressing the concept he's talking about.

 

And then talking about turning your character into "DIAMOND THE HARDEST METAL" and making us all laugh.

Edited February 24, 2013 by AGX-17

[Jobby]

Regardless of the OPs inspiration the idea is sound and would add a lot to character development, i would expand on fighting styles though, it may only be some additional abilitys/feats, i.e. ranger helps a few talking trees/dryads, in return he gain a "summon treant" ability to be used once per day etc... Point is it doesn't always need to be handled by secret trainers hiding away in a shed atop the highest mountain because they swore an oath of pacisifm many years ago.. there are numerous ways to approach such a mechanic, i.e. reward for a quest, reward for an archery competition, finding secret texts.. 

 

Something i loved in BG1 was finding those skill books that increased your maximum attributes, there was only a few of them but once you got them you really got a feeling of achievement as you had made permanent positive changes to your character, I'm not advocating some mad overpowered anime stuff, small improvements/ability's that may only be useful in a handful of situations.

[Shadenuat]

Ah, I am late! I am late! Do we hate monks here??

Darn, I'm a page late...

[Failion]

first thing I thought when I read this topic was GTA San Andreas. Where you can choose your protagonist unarmed style of combat. brawling, boxing, karate etc. How can this apply to project eternity I don't know. Monks all have a standard set of animation of attacks and you can find different ones in urns in the game or whatever. So you can have your monk go from asian stylized combat to setting up jabs and throwing haymakers. 

[IndiraLightfoot]

Apropos nothing than the exploding heart reference: David Carradine in Kill Bill certainly looks a lot like our monk in PE, good old Forton:

 

[JFSOCC]

Now I wonder, will it be possible for Forton to die of auto-erotic asphyxiation?

Anyway, I seem to be the only one here who actually likes having some kung-fu influences in a fantasy world. I don't need it to be completely Eurocentric. But that's a different debate.

 

I like Chippy's example of KotOR 2, where your stances gave you different passive bonuses. I was a master deflecter in many playthroughs.

[mcmanusaur]

I'm thinking something a bit more like this: