Hoplite type char

[The Scorp]

Just saw trailer for 300 (which looks awesome btw) and that inspired me to make a martial artist that fights with Spear, Short Sword and Shield.  


I wanted to know if there are other Martial art styles that compliment the spear and short sword.  Anything in the Scroll of the Monk? or Imperfect Lotus?  And if you were to build a charm tree based off of shields, what ability would you use? MA, Melee, Resistance?  


Info would be much apprieciated.  Thank you in advance.

 

[Zaramis]

Sword and Spear = Five Dragon Path. it's true.

 

[Jeppe]

Five- Dragon Style is the only style that has both the sword and spear as form weapons, however:


The Path of the Arbiter Style (Imperfect Lotus, p. 7) may use any hand-to-hand weapon as a form weapon, and Mantis Style (Scroll of the Monk, p. 97) allows any martial arts weapon as a form weapon. Once you've mastered the Celestial Monkey Style (Scroll of the Monk, p. 85) , you may also use any weapon as a form weapon with this style. The first is a terrestrial style, the two last are celestial styles.


Lightning Hoof Style (Imperfect Lotus, p. 5) and Golden Janissary Style (Scroll of the Monk, p. 48 ) both use the spear as a form weapon. The Crimson Pentacle Style (Scroll of the Monk p. 63) utilizes the long spear. These styles are terretrial styles.


From the Scroll of the Monk, you can find that Even Blade Style (p. 69), Falling Blossom Style (p. 43), Five-Fold Shadow Hand Style, smoke branch (p. 75), and Seafaring Hero Style (p. 59) all use some variant of the sword as the form weapon. These are terrestrial styles.


Fire Dragon Style (Dragon-Blooded p. 204), Snake Style (Core book p. 240), and The Art of Meditative Discussion (Imperfect Lotus p. 18 ) all use hook swords as the form weapon. These styles are all celestial styles.


Violet Bier of Sorrows Style (Storyteller's Companion, p. 73) also uses the sword as a form weapon, but you'd probably have to find a Sidereal sifu. Good luck with that . The style is celestial, by the way.

 

[The Scorp]

Wow ok....thats alot.  Anything of them look like they would work well with a shield?  If Crimson Pentacle is the same as 1st ed, then good.  But what of the others.  Looking for something that will work for gutter Legionnaire/Hoplite type w/ spear and shield.

 

[Jeppe]

As far as I know, only Crimson Pentacle Style uses a shield. WW hasn't made that big a deal out of shields, in generel or in MA. Unless that style fits the bill, you'll either have to houserule your way out of it, or create a MA style that actively uses spear and shield.

 

[The Scorp]

Im gonna have to get my hands on the 2nd ed version of that style and look it over.  thanks Jeppe

 

[Persell]

Ummm... why not use melee? It fits the spartans and their hoplites perfectly.

 

[Ledaal Kajiri]

Five- Dragon Style is the only style that has both the sword and spear as form weapons, however:
The Path of the Arbiter Style (Imperfect Lotus, p. 7) may use any hand-to-hand weapon as a form weapon, and Mantis Style (Scroll of the Monk, p. 97) allows any martial arts weapon as a form weapon. Once you've mastered the Celestial Monkey Style (Scroll of the Monk, p. 85) , you may also use any weapon as a form weapon with this style. The first is a terrestrial style, the two last are celestial styles.


Lightning Hoof Style (Imperfect Lotus, p. 5) and Golden Janissary Style (Scroll of the Monk, p. 48 ) both use the spear as a form weapon. The Crimson Pentacle Style (Scroll of the Monk p. 63) utilizes the long spear. These styles are terretrial styles.


From the Scroll of the Monk, you can find that Even Blade Style (p. 69), Falling Blossom Style (p. 43), Five-Fold Shadow Hand Style, smoke branch (p. 75), and Seafaring Hero Style (p. 59) all use some variant of the sword as the form weapon. These are terrestrial styles.


Fire Dragon Style (Dragon-Blooded p. 204), Snake Style (Core book p. 240), and The Art of Meditative Discussion (Imperfect Lotus p. 18 ) all use hook swords as the form weapon. These styles are all celestial styles.


Violet Bier of Sorrows Style (Storyteller's Companion, p. 73) also uses the sword as a form weapon, but you'd probably have to find a Sidereal sifu. Good luck with that . The style is celestial, by the way.

Actually, there are some inaccuracies here. Fire Dragon style does NOT use the hook sword, but instead paired shortswords. In 2nd ed, Five Dragon uses only the straight sword and daiklaive, and no other swords. Path of the Arbiter uses any one hand to hand weapon. Additionally, Violet Bier of Sorrows style allows the use of all swords, staves, and knives and is a Celestial style. For current purposes in 2nd ed it is published in the Storytellers book, though as it has been stated as being the natural Sid style, it will be in their book more fully. Five Fold Shadow Palm it should be noted anyone who studies the style past a certain point can use all the form weapons...so long as one takes the charms with the share (element) keyword...thereafter one can use that element's form weapon. So anyone who actually fully masters all parts of Fivefold Shadow Palm can use the shortsword. Seafaring Hero allows shortsword and slashing sword. Falling Blossom allows all swords and knives. Even Blade allows slashing swords.


For your purpose Five Dragon is likely the only single style that serves...unless you wish to study multiple styles, or create one. It does allow armor at least.

 

[Jeppe]

Fire Dragon style does NOT use the hook sword' date=' but instead paired shortswords.[/quote']
The Manual of Exalted Power, p. 205 reads:

The signiture weapon of Fire Dragon Style are paired short swords, each curved to a claw-like point at the end. Paired short daiklaives serve as the artifact version of these weapons.

Those are hook swords. The reason they have stated that paired short daiklaives are the artifact weapons for the style is, that they at the time of print, they had not published stats for artifact hook swords. Those can now be found in the appendix to Scroll of the Monk.

 

[The Scorp]

Melee is going to be used, definately, but I wanted to see if there might be a MA style that compliments that type of warrior.

 

[Cthulhu_Wakes]

I ran a game with a Solar who practiced the hoplite style of fighting, but more of the offshoot for Achillies in Troy. It was awesome. He was the last of his kind.

 

[Jeppe]

I'm not very big on history, I admit that, but didn't the hoplites only use the spears for throwing, and only right before they stormed into the other army to chop them up with their swords?


If that be indeed the case, I'd say use melee and thrown charms. If you want (assuming now that the character is Solar) a whole army of your very own tiger-lite (?) warriors, I'd suggest you creating a MA style from scratch, but since MA styles are pretty narrow, you'd only represent either the throwing part or melee part of the action. I'd focus on a sword-and-shield fighting technique, and only let the spear-throwing be a warm-up for the goodies to come.

 

[Cthulhu_Wakes]

I'm not very big on history, I admit that, but didn't the hoplites only use the spears for throwing, and only right before they stormed into the other army to chop them up with their swords?

Psst...*hands you card from stage right* That's the Roman style.

 

[Persell]

A movie of 300? Wicked! That comic won.

 

[Cthulhu_Wakes]

SPARTANS! TONIGHT! WE DINE IN HELL! *drive into McDonalds*

 

[The Scorp]

LOL!


That movie is gonna rock.  And yeah...it also reminded me of Achilles in Troy soooo I wanted to make something akin to Hoplite or Myrmmidon.  Whichever...just a rugged spear, short sword, and shield fighter.  hmmmm...yeah I guess I might have to make up charms.  I just don't like doing so.  I like to work with the resources already there.

 

[Cthulhu_Wakes]

It's not the Charms. It's how you use them.

 

[The Scorp]

do tell.  what did you do?


There aren't any charms for shields though.  Well not that I know of anyway.  I know Crimson P has alittle something...but thats it.

 

[Cthulhu_Wakes]

Well, a lot of it is how you describe it. Plus we made some simple Shield charms.

 

[Ledaal Kajiri]

Fire Dragon style does NOT use the hook sword' date=' but instead paired shortswords.[/quote']
The Manual of Exalted Power, p. 205 reads:

The signiture weapon of Fire Dragon Style are paired short swords, each curved to a claw-like point at the end. Paired short daiklaives serve as the artifact version of these weapons.

Those are hook swords. The reason they have stated that paired short daiklaives are the artifact weapons for the style is, that they at the time of print, they had not published stats for artifact hook swords. Those can now be found in the appendix to Scroll of the Monk.

Ah...there's a major problem here. A) Paired shortswords and short daiklaives, exactly as I said. B) Hook Swords were already statted out in the core book, if not their artifact versions...and yet are NOT listed as a weapon of the style.

 

[riven5]

Crimson Pentacle Blade style is exactly what you'd want.  It's entirely based around a spear and shield combination, without any armor.  It even gives bonuses based on pursuing one of five different "postures", all of which have their own symbolic armament and trappings.


And before you say, well, it's a Terrestrial style and therefore the suck...understand this.  I decided to make a Hero of the Realm DB with this style and thanks to but a few weak artifacts got him above 20 dice of accuracy for a standard MA attack with his spear.  Mind you, the entire purpose of this was to see if I could create an uber min/maxed munchkin if I needed too.  The answer was a resounding yes.


As far as I'm concerned there is no other style more suitable for a spear/shield user.  Although as was stated earlier, melee charms might be a good investment instead, or in addition.

 

[The Scorp]

well thank you all.  when I get the chance Ill look at that style and see if I can use it, especially in conjuction with melee charms.  probably describe my shied as what really parried the blow or in certain circumstances, counterattacked the enemy with a shield bash.

 

[Ledaal Kajiri]

I think the lack of armor is one of his primary concerns with Crimson Pentacle Blade. A hoplite type character is an armored fighter generally. Admittedly, a Crimson Pentacle Blade user...and even worse someone who studies both Crimson Pentacle Blade and 5 Dragon Style is rather strong...but for a hoplite style character, armor is about as important as a shield.

 

[The Scorp]

well due to lack of armor, may 5 dragon will compensate.  If it can then I'll be cool.  I guess it will be more of a Spartan than Hoplite.  Yknow...shield, greaves, helmet, short sword and spear...and that it.

 

[Sherwood]

There are enough charms that can increase your bashing and lethal soak that the armor really isn't necessary.  I wrote up a Solar using Snake style a while back (1st ed).  There are charms that increse the bashing soak, and in the form charm of the MA it turns your bashing soak into lethal.  There are others that add your martial arts rating to your bashing soak which is now lethal from the form charm.  So, I'd advise to do as I did and combine some of the martial arts charms with the basic Endurance and Resistance ones to get you a character that can kick ass with nothing but your spear, shield, and a loincloth.


If you want to get REALLY up there, add a few Terrestrial level spells.  Unbreakable Bones of Stone in BotC adds to your soak, and the famous Invulnerable Skin of Bronze does too.