How to train combat - the right way

[Bloodhearte]

There are still many questions by the players of what constitues innocent IG combat training, and powergaming. I'm going to put my thoughts down regarding this, please post anything you agree or disagree about.

-Combat lessons should be sought out by students of course, and the teachers/trainers should have IG motivation to be teaching; money, some kind of hope, or other personal reason. But not for nothing. Depending on the 'level' or skill of the instructor, if money is being used, prices should go for per lesson pays.

-The training arsenal should include a worn out or dull weapon, such as an aged dagger (not to be roleplayed as rusty; remember, you don't want to train and die of poisoning), or an aged sword (the kind that you would get from mummies). Any striking equipment beyond that or short of that would probably constitue powergaming (i.e: firesword or needle).

-The armor shouldn't be very cumbersome; for example, probably nothing beyond leather, gloves, pants and shoes. However, your training character should wear metal or heavy armor if that's what he generally fights in real battles, but only when he actually fights real battles. You at least want him to get used to wearing metal in real battles, but not during training. Leggings can be optional, but the RP risk of wearing them is that your character would never condition his legs well if he chose to wear them.

-Nothing beyond wooden shields, if you plan to train with shields at all.

-The actual combat should be rather short; in real life, it takes about 2 hours a day to train physically for martial arts/boxing, but the sparring bouts are actually 5 rounds, 3 minutes each, with a minute break between each bout. This same time frame *might* be used as the maximum time for training, but time in Illarion is shorter than in real life perhaps; so maybe it would be more appropriate to 'spar' until the health bar is down for quite some ways, and that's the lesson for the day.

-Remember, your character needs time to recover from training. Although he may not actually get impaled, he is training to be conditions for being hacked at. So naturally, he will get bruises and cuts, and very, very fatigued. At least a one or two day break is required.

-Also remember that it takes time for your character to get good, so don't be dishonest and impatient, demanding that your character is an undead slayer in three days by training for ridiculous amounts of time. Muhammad Ali didn't become champion when he was just born after all; in Illarion time, it should take a year or more to get where you want to be.

-Take your character's attributes in mind as well; Bruce Lee was rather malnourished as a kid, and wasn't genetically muscular. So speed and definition was his thing. So don't make your character try to use big, heavy weapons rather than thinner, faster swords and daggers if he's better with agility than strength.

Many of you may think that my recommendations for this training are rather brutal if common sense is used, but combat training in the Middle Ages was fairly brutal anyway; they didn't have oversized gloves are various guards for the body with the exception of perhaps leather, torn clothes, and such.

IMPORTANT: NO healing potions or spells during the training; they may be used after for a better RP recovery, but not so your health bar can go up and you can train again. The one to two day rule of thumb is a requirement for not powergaming.

Whadda ya guys think?

[The Returner]

I like it.

[GMcFly]

Any striking equipment beyond that or short of that would probably constitue powergaming (i.e: firesword or needle).

Using needle is not only powergaming, its also bugusing.
btw we can see who had used a needle for fighting.

[Irania]

Why is a using a needle concidered powergaming?

[Bloodhearte]

Because it isn't really a weapon, and moved incredibly fast just to get skills up.

[Irania]

So THAT'S where I got puncture from! I just thought it showed up from nowhere! I've had it since last year and i've been dying to know where I got it from, lol.

[Damien]

We will, of course, delete all characters with a good ranking in "puncture weapons" because of severe powergaming.

[paul laffing]

-The armor shouldn't be very cumbersome; for example, probably nothing beyond leather, gloves, pants and shoes.

What about strength training? Runners weigh down themselves to make their legs stronger and to make them used to running heavily so that in a real race, they feel light and can run quickly. I believe that boxers might do something similar. If you're strength training, wouldn't you want to use very heavy armour?

[Avral]

-The armor shouldn't be very cumbersome; for example, probably nothing beyond leather, gloves, pants and shoes.

What about strength training? Runners weigh down themselves to make their legs stronger and to make them used to running heavily so that in a real race, they feel light and can run quickly. I believe that boxers might do something similar. If you're strength training, wouldn't you want to use very heavy armour?

Not to mention the fact that if youll be using some platemail in the field during a battle , you dont want to confuse yourself and end up getting a few nasty wounds because you thought you could move like you did in training with the light stuff

[Avral]

-The armor shouldn't be very cumbersome; for example, probably nothing beyond leather, gloves, pants and shoes.

What about strength training? Runners weigh down themselves to make their legs stronger and to make them used to running heavily so that in a real race, they feel light and can run quickly. I believe that boxers might do something similar. If you're strength training, wouldn't you want to use very heavy armour?

Not to mention the fact that if youll be using some platemail in the field during a battle , you dont want to confuse yourself and end up getting a few nasty wounds because you thought you could move like you did in training with the light stuff

[Avral]

-The armor shouldn't be very cumbersome; for example, probably nothing beyond leather, gloves, pants and shoes.

What about strength training? Runners weigh down themselves to make their legs stronger and to make them used to running heavily so that in a real race, they feel light and can run quickly. I believe that boxers might do something similar. If you're strength training, wouldn't you want to use very heavy armour?

Not to mention the fact that if youll be using some platemail in the field during a battle , you dont want to confuse yourself and end up getting a few nasty wounds because you thought you could move like you did in training with the light stuff

[The Returner]

In medievil times, warriors and knights wouldent wear platemail to train. Various reasons, including wieght, as well as the fear that they might dammage their battle armor are the cause of this. Remember that even training can dent or break armor, even with blunt weapons.

[Kasume]

Who said Magic was real?

My point is, everything can't be just like the middle ages. This is a Fantasy game with role playing. Not middle ages. They certainly did not have your paralyze spell in the middle ages...

[Val De Gausse]

This is a ROLE PLAYING GAME. Meaning you use logic...

[Val De Gausse]

This is a ROLE PLAYING GAME. Meaning you use logic while you play, not just leveling up

[Caranthir the great]

Who said Magic was real?

My point is, everything can't be just like the middle ages. This is a Fantasy game with role playing. Not middle ages. They certainly did not have your paralyze spell in the middle ages...

I love quoting myself, mind you:

Medieval = setting, age. This is to simulate the timeline, equipment, technics, knowledge, traditons, customs as well as historically accurate political systems amongst many other things.

Fantasy = Allows things such as longears and magic.

In my wise (and omnipotent) opinion, the medieval is the more dominant of the two when it comes to importance.

This is a medieveal fantasy roleplaying game. From these two the "Medieval" is as it says in the quote, the dominant one.

[Val De Gausse]

Medieval = setting, age. This is to simulate the timeline, equipment, technics, knowledge, traditons, customs as well as historically accurate political systems amongst many other things.

Well, i am no sexists, but the women acted a tad different...

[Caranthir the great]

Sure. So if you have any female characters, you know what to do.

Edit:
I thought about mentioning this once or twice, but then I figured that it would be impossible and even meaningless to change. But hey, if you plan to take that route, at least you have my moral support..

[Nartak Ironmaster]

This Guide is great

[Val De Gausse]

WEll I am trying to get a female char, but not accepted yet.

[Kasume]

From these two the "Medieval" is as it says in the quote, the dominant one.

1. Odd worldly monsters
2. Fictional land, areas
3. Magic magic magic
4. Elves, halflings, orcs, dwarves, and walking lizards.
5. Different gods that are none related to middle ages
6. Fire swords, flaming staves

Now come on... Those are some REALLY big points in the game that change it...
Face it, Medieval Middle Ages life... SUCKED. So we throw in fantasy things with it!

[Val De Gausse]

to you maybe, but it is interesting.

[Willum]

Bloodheart I like the idea of your training method......yet most new commers might not. Val made an exelent point about wemon in the medievil ages....but then you must consider "Amazons", and other wemon fighters, for example the Greek Wemon would protect thier village if the men were away. And yes this is a fantasy so almost anything can happen (with exeptions of course). Over all Bloodheart i do like your idea ...but not every one has a good amount of patients to do this training.

[Val De Gausse]

So, almost every women is am amazon? Not only fighting it extends to social behaivor and such

[Willum]

As i said befor its a fantasy (yet it is based on the medievil ages) if and i say again if the wemon wanted to role play as damsells in destress they would do so.

[Val De Gausse]

Fantasy as Cara quoted himself

Fantasy = Allows things such as longears and magic.

Ofcourse we don't want to discriminate here, discourage female characters, but hugging another women who is married was considered very insulting. A man shouldn't touch a women who is married.

Also the ancient greeks were um, dominant before medieval ages. It was taken over by the turks in the Byzantine Ages, became part of the ottoman empire

[Willum]

Yes i know that the ancient greeks were taken over befor the medievil ages i was just trying to make an example of wemon fighting(at the time or befor medievil ages). But i shall not speak of this more because this topic is about the training system Bloodheart made.(If you wish to discuss the issue further i suggest you make a topic about it i would discuss it with you more there)

[Bloodhearte]

So THAT'S where I got puncture from! I just thought it showed up from nowhere! I've had it since last year and i've been dying to know where I got it from, lol.

Puncture comes from scissors. Needles still do slashing.

In any case, both tools are useless for combat.

[Bloodhearte]

-The armor shouldn't be very cumbersome; for example, probably nothing beyond leather, gloves, pants and shoes.

What about strength training? Runners weigh down themselves to make their legs stronger and to make them used to running heavily so that in a real race, they feel light and can run quickly. I believe that boxers might do something similar. If you're strength training, wouldn't you want to use very heavy armour?

In actual fighting, you do NOT want to wear weights. Fighting/sparring is a matter of training the nervous system (timing your blows, knowing when to feint, deciding how to attack, etc). Sparring is the only way to actually get experience from fighting. The nervous system is a system that makes an organism react to an outside influence. You won't be able to learn very quickly if you're encumbered by SUPPLEMENTARY factors such as strength, flexibility, endurance, speed, etc. In Illarion, these are mostly attributes.

Now, how would you manage to deliver such fine blows wearing armor, if you don't even know how to do it unecumbered?

Actual fighting also prepares your body to be used to taking blows, so you don't falter as badly when you get struck.

Strength is usually trained through weights (perhaps lifting heavy rocks in the Middle Ages?). Flexibility/agility through stretching. Endurance through running and technique practice in air.

That's why I prefer sparring over any other exercise my boxing practice; nothing prepares you for a fight like the real thing. Sometimes, I find it funny when people train themselves physically really hard, only to get their butts whooped because they don't actually spar enough/aren't experienced.

But then again, the bigger guys generally have an advantage in fighting if the smaller guy is equally skilled or less.

[Carahawen]

So, almost every women is am amazon?

Definitely not.