Martial Arts Rebalance for Karate

[Hymore246]

Summary

SUMMARY: Balance "Martial arts rebalance for Karate"

Purpose of change

Partially implements #32422
Update for the martial art: Karate

Describe the solution

Karate is a popular martial art, originating from Japan. It focuses on rapid, precise attacks, blocks, and fluid movement.

Current Buffs, Techniques, and Special Abilities

Name	Level Available	Type	Effect
Arm Block	Unarmed 2
Karate Hit	Unarmed 0	OnHit Buff	+1 Dodges, +2 Blocks for 3 turns
quick punch	Unarmed 0	Unarmed Tech	Rapid
karate chop	Unarmed 4	Unarmed Crit Tech	Stun duration: 2

Karate seems like it's unfinished. Everything in the style is decent but it feels like it's missing a lot of stuff too.

Problems and issues

• Other styles do what Karate is doing better.
  Boxing can do what Karate does better with more damage and control. Karate Hit is all Karate has over Boxing but Aikido and Zui Quan do group combat MUCH better than Karate. Even as a hybrid martial art, Karate doesn't offer enough make it the middle ground between single and group combat.

• quick punch is the only normal tech.
  Unless a style is completely based around speed, it's a bad idea to give a style a Rapid technique and nothing else. A Rapid technique is better damage per turn (132% normal damage) but it's also less damage per hit. Late game enemies with lots of armor might be immune to Karate if it only has quick punch.

Rebalance Goal
Karate is probably the most popular and well known martial art in real life. From self-defense to MMA, there are a lot of styles of Karate and narrowing down what to use for style is difficult. In some cases, you might be able to argue that ANYTHING could be added to Karate and it would make sense. Back when I asked Reddit for input on improving the martial arts in CDDA (LINK) one comment about Karate stuck out to me. "I like Karate for it's simplicity." That comment is true because Karate IS a simple martial in real life. "Simple" isn't a bad thing. Having a martial art that is straight forward and flows together without a lot of complicated mechanics is very nice. I used this idea to rebalance and improve Karate.

New Buffs, Techniques, and Special Abilities

Name	Level Available	Type	Effect
Arm Block	Unarmed 2
Karate Stance	Unarmed 0	Static Buff	+2 Accuracy
Roundhouse Kick	Unarmed 0	Unarmed Tech	+20% Bash damage
Quick Punch	Unarmed 1	Unarmed Tech	Rapid
Karate Strike	Unarmed 3	OnHit Buff	+1 Dodge attempts, +2 Block attempts, blocked damage reduced by 50% of Strength. Lasts 2 turns.
Karate Chop	Unarmed 4	Unarmed Crit Tech	+33% Bash damage, Stun duration: 1
Karate Counter	Unarmed 5	Unarmed Block Counter

Important Changes

• Added Karate Stance.
  +2 Accuracy doesn't seem like much but being able to hit your opponents is a very important part of combat. It also helps make Karate's OnHit Buff easier to activate too.

• Added Roundhouse Kick.
  This new attack will help keep Karate from being unable to damage high armed opponents with Quick Punch. Roundhouse Kick is technically less damage overall (120% vs 132%) so it is learned earlier than Quick Punch.

• Added Karate Counter.
  Having lots of Block attempts is good but having a counter that can capitalize on a successful block is even better! This also gives you a better chance when fighting groups.

Advantages

• All of Karate's gameplay is straightforward. Karate Stance makes you more likely to hit and activate Karate Strike. Karate Strike gives you more chances to dodge and block. Blocking lets you counterattack.
• Karate Strike is a powerful buff that makes group combat easier.

Disadvantages

• Karate lacks complexity and that means it doesn't get the tool that other styles have such as a Grab Break, Disarm, Feint, damage buffs, etc.
• Karate Strike only lasts 2 turns and is your primary tool for group defense. If you need to fight a group, you MUST keep landing hits to stay alive. If you need to run, there is a good chance Karate Strike will wear off and the group will tear you apart.
• Getting Grabbed in a large group can end very badly.

Describe alternatives you've considered

If the style is too strong...

• Reduce the Block attempts from Karate Strike from 2 to 1.
• Reduce Accuracy bonus from Karate Stance from 2 to 1.
• Remove the blocked damage reduction from Karate Strike.

If the style is too weak...

• Move the blocked damage reduction from Karate Strike to Karate Stance.
• Increase Karate Chop stun duration from 1 turn to 2 turns.
• Increase the damage of Karate Chop from +33% to +50%.
• Add bonus damage to Karate Counter.

Additional context

References:
Karate wikipedia page

[DemAvalon]

Roundhouse kick should receive the vorpal effect if you name your character Chuck Norris.

[ampersand55]

As always, the changes look great, but I think the names for the techniques should be in martial art terms rather than layman terms.

While it might be a bit harder for a beginner to understand what the techniques does intuitively, CDDA has never shied away from favouring realism and immersion before beginner friendliness. I think "karate chop" sounds like something Austin Powers would do, while "knifehand strike" sounds like an expertly performed technique by a skilled martial artist.

Some suggestions:

• arm block - cross-body block (morote-uke)
• karate stance - two-fist stance (ni-kobushi-dachi)
• quick punch - backfist strike (riken uchi) or front-foot punch (choku-tsuki)
• karate strike - pursuit punch (oi-tsuki)
• karate chop - knifehand strike (shutō-uchi)

I think it's a good time with this rebalancing project to update the names of some techniques globally for all martial arts Sorry if this puts some extra work on you.

[Hymore246]

Not a problem. I'm going to swap out the names Quick Punch and Karate Chop but I'll leave the rest the same since I want show how Karate has crossed through a lot of different cultures. I'll the messages the same for those attacks so people can relate to what exactly they are doing. Not everyone knows what a knifehand is for example.

Also, this new PR Validator seems to have a problem with this PR but won't give me the logs. So I'm also updating to see if I can get that error to go away.

[ampersand55]

Fair enough.

Btw, I think you forgot to update the "messages".

[ghost]

Does the kick in this & Capoiera ignore unarmed weapons? Can't kick with knuckles. 😛

[Hymore246]

Does the kick in this & Capoiera ignore unarmed weapons? Can't kick with knuckles. 😛

They do not, that's actually a limitation of the system right now. If I set unarmed_weapons_allowed to false, the technique will never trigger even though you SHOULD be able to kick while holding something like Tiger Claws. So I kinda need to let this go until we can figure out a way to prevent the weapon damage from being included in the damage calculation for certain attacks. It's not the best solution but the real one would require a few new technique attributes and a rework of certain parts of the melee code. That's way outside what I can do in this PR.

[SnowmanST]

It may be a bit late and nit-picky but I think the most powerful technique of karate being knifehand strike is rather odd. Knifehand strike isn't that effective in real fights simply because it doesn't have much force behind it.
I think Gyaku-zuki (逆突き) or more English friendly Reverse Punch (often performed while stepping in, that particular technique is often called "blitz attack") is more suitable one because people actually get hurt/knocked out with this one in real fights like MMA or kick boxing.

[Hymore246]

It may be a bit late and nit-picky but I think the most powerful technique of karate being knifehand strike is rather odd. Knifehand strike isn't that effective in real fights simply because it doesn't have much force behind it.
I think Gyaku-zuki (逆突き) or more English friendly Reverse Punch (often performed while stepping in, that particular technique is often called "blitz attack") is more suitable one because people actually get hurt/knocked out with this one in real fights like MMA or kick boxing.

I won't call Knifehand the ultimate attack, it's more a way for the style to stun something with a well placed hit. It has to be a critical because having a stun on a normal technique makes it really easy to stunlock opponents.