"Blade Dancing"'s place in the Bad Lore explanation topic

[BlessChu 181]

Good day fellow role-players, I wanted to address the fundamental flaws of Blade dancing, from the point of view of someone who has attempted many iterations of this lore piece, and its place as a bad lore piece. For those interested this is the passage I will be responding too; 

 

This comes from the following article; 

Now, with that out of the way. I do agree with a lot of this. Blade dancing is an extremely challenging lore piece to balance mechanically as you might struggle to balance weight, weapon mobility, and adequate weakness' for the caster so that they are not so far ahead in using weaponry at range that there is no reason to bother fighting martially. 

However a line out of this explanation made me realize something extremely important; "While again, a super cool and thematic idea". This line does well to outline the appeal, and reason people want blade dancing at all; it is a cool thematic way to combat opponents. And so I present my reasoning as to why I don't think the idea is fundamentally bad, my solution to the presented problems, and why this piece does not belong in this explanation topic. 

The goal of blade dancing as a lore piece doesn't necessarily need to put all of the issues that have been laid out into consideration. For example, if Blade Dancing was mechanically identical to LoTC's archery combat, simply reskinned with channeling flying swords instead of knocking arrows and drawing a bow, then they will be no stronger then an archer. We can justify this extremely easy within lore too. I will go through each concern, treating Blade Dancing as a reskinned bow and arrow combat:

"What stops the user from not only manipulating blades, but having one of their own?" Alright, instead of knocking the arrow, and a drawing or aiming emote (Emote 1 and 2) we state that player must channel magic into the weapon for 2 emotes before the final, attack emote. The player cannot use another weapon simultaneously because they're too busy holding their hands out focusing on making the flying weapon attack to actually use another blade of their own. 

"Can they move just fine?" Yes, you can do this with a bow so I don't see why you could not in this instance. You can move up to 4 blocks, and then use a major action to progress channeling the flying-sword-attack, Just like how under the Honor Default combat rules you can move as well as take a major action such as notching an arrow, or drawing the bow.  

 "Are they still strong?" On the cast emote, the strength of the attack is equal to the damage an arrow would have dealt to the target player. You can justify this as a strain caused by using magic at a distance affecting the strength of the flying-weapons swing. This solution would also fix the weight issue; it doesn't matter what weight the weapon is if every weapon deals the same amount of damage towards their opponent. By treating all melee weapons as a mechanically equal weapon, we allow archetypes (Like a rogue using flying knives vs dark knight using a flying greatsword) without their being any power difference between the two choices. 

"What cost is there to their lore?" If, mechanically speaking, the lore piece is identical to a bow and arrow, there doesn't need to be a cost. Because remember; the hypothetical piece we're making here is simply a reskinned bow and arrow. In exchange for the range these attacks offer us, we have to take longer to make our attack. 

 "How long can they keep it up?" With a bow and arrow you must re-notch and re-draw your arrow each shot, so for Blade Dancing we will say that after the flying sword have swung majestically across the bare chest of the well-oiled barbarian you're fighting; the sword returns to the caster floating in front of them to be re-channeled for a next attack. Again, this is basically a magic-bow-and-arrow. You will be able to use it just as frequently. 

"What stops them from just stabbing people in the back with undodgeable strikes constantly?" I understand why so many people see this as an issue but it has such an easy solution. The weapon returns to its caster if it ever leaves the casters line of sight. Or even falls out of the air entirely, either works. One might argue that other players will just stand in front of the casters target to break line of sight- and sure. They should become the new target. If this was a bow and arrow they'd get shot instead. And, just a like a bow and arrow, you can utilize things like cover to break a casters line of sight and avoid getting hit. 

I truly believe that blade dancing's place as a fundamentally flawed concept is only true if you overthink the concepts possible mechanics. And I know this all too well as someone who fell into the same trap. The concept, if made as a reskinned version of the bow and arrows combat mechanics, could exist as a feat that has no further spells. That only exists to give players that unique aesthetic they are looking for. Unfortunately though, now that it is labelled a fundamentally flawed lore piece no one is going to want to try. As in the lore teams own words; "we strongly, strongly suggest not writing these pieces else you wish for a swift denial."

[Bonito 2263]

it reads like the only thing this hypothetical submission would do is shoot swords directly at people, which isn’t how bladedancing is defined in the pic and therefore should be fine. but u also mention swinging the swords, something a bow & arrow doesn’t do, so mimicking the mechanics doesn’t translate if that’s the case. 

 

there’s also no mention of the defensive capabilities. if i surround myself with a bunch of floating swords and move around, would that not kill people i just walk up to? how do people get close without being stabbed by a dozen edges?

[UnBaed 8941]

i notice cake sword isnt on the list of bad lore

[BlessChu 181]

9 hours ago, Bonito said:

it reads like the only thing this hypothetical submission would do is shoot swords directly at people, which isn’t how bladedancing is defined in the pic and therefore should be fine. but u also mention swinging the swords, something a bow & arrow doesn’t do, so mimicking the mechanics doesn’t translate if that’s the case. 

 

there’s also no mention of the defensive capabilities. if i surround myself with a bunch of floating swords and move around, would that not kill people i just walk up to? how do people get close without being stabbed by a dozen edges?

 

I agree that was probably the point the article was probably attempting to make but I don't believe it made it very well. While shooting swords are not the same as actual sword fighting at a distance; Blade dancing was defined in the topic as "using a form of telekinesis which allows the user to manipulate floating blades around them, or weapons of some other kind" so even though yes, this hypothetical is just shooting swords at people it is still blade dancing under the given definition.
You could add more substance to the concept using the bow and arrows mechanics as a base if you wanted to; for example a bow and arrow takes 2 emotes, and attacks on the third. Maybe with Blade Dancing you could choose between an attack or a defense emote on that third emote to protect an ally from a distance for that turn. Personally I don't see that as too unbalanced since it takes 3 emotes, and you're sacrificing one of your few chances to attack to defend an ally. But with just this minor change the lore piece becomes very slow sword fighting at a distance, that leaves the caster almost completely vulnerable during this process, but I wouldn't say this concept is fundamentally flawed yet. 

 

I don't really understand why whether a sword is magically swinging or being shot into an opponent matters. A flying sword slashing an enemy versus an arrow firing into someone are both narrative ways to deal damage to an opposing player, the bow and arrow is just LoTC's primary method of ranged combat. Which is why I felt it was the most relevant set of mechanics to mimic if one wanted to add this aesthetic to lore. Unless the fact an arrow does a more piercing kind of damage is relevant to the ranged mechanics in any way? I was under the impression though that 3 emote mechanic of the bow was put in place because of the range an archer can utilize and not way it harms the opponent. 

As for defensive capabilities that's a pretty good point. My first thought would be to make floating weapons ethereal when they are "idle" (maybe there is a pre-combat emote that must be taken before combat to make your flying weapons ethereal) and floating around a player and then they channel with 2 emotes to give the blade enough of a form that it'll harm but not so much they fall out the sky. This could act as an alternative justification to why the flying swords do the equivalent damage to what an arrow would. and then finally attack on the third. Or if you want to make it alot simpler; just only allow one flying sword at a time.

I appreciate your insight on this topic. I worry that with how the article is presented players will be dissuaded from even trying as in the article there is the extremely intimidating line "we strongly, strongly suggest not writing these pieces else you wish for a swift denial". And just before that; "While spite is a great fuel and naivety is a blessing," which I think is a concerning thing to be telling the aspiring writers of the community. There is no way that this is going to be true of every writer that approaches these concepts, infact in my experience writing there was a 10 minute conflict after me and another, more experienced lotcer and writer submitted the same concept within the same week before we looked at one another's sources of inspiration and decided to work together instead. 

 

6 hours ago, UnBaed said:

i notice cake sword isnt on the list of bad lore

Well umm- yes. If your cake can be manipulated in the air then under the definition of blade dancing from the articles paragraph (or even Telekinesis in the article in general), yes it is. Unless you're point is that this hypothetical isn't the same as the kind of blade dancing the article is referring to, in that case sure I agree, but that's not what it says. 

[Hylofear 54]

The purpose of lore like this should be to add to the roleplay experience, rather than to introduce a whole new mechanic. Reskinning bow mechanics to create blade dancing is much easier than balancing a whole new combat style. It fulfills the fantasy without complicating gameplay. I do wish that it was possible to create new mechanics for blade dancing, but a compromise like this is fair and balanced, as long as bows are fair and balanced to begin with.
The main difference between blade dancing and bows is their ability to slash rather than puncture. Bow's do well against chain mail, while swords don't. Swords cause large wounds that bleed profusely if not staunched, while arrows plug any wound inflicted. This adds variety to combat without creating unbalanced or unfair mechanics that would make blade dancing more viable than other forms of combat.
This kind of lore being dismissed just on the idea alone is unfair to the writers and roleplayers who want to see this in game. It's possible to implement it, and labelling it as futile just because it's blade dancing is an insult to the creativity of this playerbase. At least consider the idea before dismissing it.