Thinking up the way your characters fight: fighting styles

[DevilPogoStick]

Yeah, a random discussion but hey, it could be interesting.

If your characters are written to enter a fight, how would they fight?

While The Kaimon Tales is basically comedic in general, a lot of the characters there are most likely skilled or tough to get into a brawl. Looking at my four main characters:

Maxtaro and Baku are former delinquents who have fought in numerous fights to the point of infamy. Nothing too fancy but they're tough enough to get into long brawls. Basically guys like in Crows or High&Low

Kyoko is a trained martial artist, specifically karate and kenjutsu. Unlike most female martial artist, I ultimately decided against having her do flips and usual "she-fu" stuff. Similar to Ran Mouri from Detective Conan.

Nagase is a pro wrestler with some judo based martial arts. But given that she rarely gets into actual fights, she's relatively inexperienced and it's only her car flipping strength that makes people wary of her if push comes to shove.

So yeah, what are your characters fighting technique like?

 

[ForestDweller]

Mostly long range magic aided with evasive maneuver. Can use a sword if he has to fight in close range.

 

[Nanakawaichan]

Long range magic, bow, sword, bare hands, Great axe, chakrams, double sword, claws, guns, bazooka, lance, tentacles, whip. But I never wrote about spesific techniques.I just explained how they move.

 

[Farok]

In my story, the protagonist is a mage in a world where mages don't fight like mages in D&D.
He is not a fighter. The best he can do is bash someone with his staff, but give him time, and he will make runes capable of melting your skin.

His fighting technique would be: "Dangers ahead, let's flee!"

 

[AdLeto]

Rap battles

 

[ThrillingHuman]

Some things below are things I just keep in mind in writing
All characters below are fodder-cleaners, they have ways to destroy enemies significantly lower in strength in droves (apart from special cases)
Wasn't my new life in a magical world supposed to be easy?) mc: usually useless in a spontaneous battle against opponents close or greater in power without preparation, uses a lot of magic to alter the environment to one favourable to him and adapts to the ways of the enemy through research and uses magic to fight the enemies weaknesses.
When faced with weaker enemies - swift and clean slaughter with no evidence and preferably more survivors. He's a mad scientist, all for human experimentation type. You don't want to be a survivor after a battle with him.
Otherwise flight
Supreme formation immortal sovereign) when fighting against those of similar strength but worse experience and without having a formation prepared, uses hostages, flees and tries to get help. Prefers not to have to fight.
When fighting those of similar strength and experience, well, usually it all turns into a compromise, or him seeking help again
Otherwise, use of overwhelming power of carefully calibrated and expensive af formations. Usually toys with enemies, the sadistic fuck.
Hilda: basically the Final Boss type, 11 forms + final form and 100 ultras + infinite mana and all that. Crushes all with overwhelming firepower, usually with lots of environmental damage in wake
Master: super graceful and beautiful sword techniques, long drawn out fights and clean execution.
Magic of love) mc: with equal strangth escapes when can, asks for help when can. Usually fights by directing a battle between forces behind the scenes.
Below is when faced with enemies >= in power
Lachersia: tools, devices, bombs, portable spacial dimensions - Dr Doom, but more resourceful
Eliza: tank damage and use literal armies of undead and fleeing when can. The embodiment of Russia, this one
Claudia: alter environment or change locations through teleportation or lure into traps and deal with a million prepared traps. Usually while being far away. Almost never engages up close but when that happens and no opportunity presents itself to escape, she either uses ultras to take enemy out immediately or draws it out until opportunity to flee arises

 

[Freesia.Cutepearl]

Well.. Lilith is a Shapeshifting Vampiric Succubus, whom can mimic objects she's absorbed, such as two swords she took off a couple of thugs she got into a fight with, and, due to needing to escape from being tied up she figured out how to make her limbs into tentacles, so now she can turn her arms into sword tipped tenacles~!

Really though.. I'd need more info about the scene to really be able to suss it out.

 

[JayDirex]

Rap battles

Instagram Beef

 

[LordAstrea]

My mc usually focuses on the party as a whole for fighting. I guess I can go by their individual techniques.
Alphonse (mc) is a human scout with high perception. He usually focuses on reading an enemy's stance and habits before striking. If it's a big enemy, then it'll be a battle of attrition. He is also good at using his own position in relation to his opponents in order to make a fight against multiple enemies seem like a one on one battle instead.
Kirie is a warrior catgirl who is self-taught. She's a brawler and uses a heavy double-edged axe. Big swings and follow-through. Best defense is a relentless offense. She can make deadly use of pretty much anything in her environment. She may not have the training and finesse of John Wick, but she can certainly kill multiple opponents with a pencil.
Ash is an assassin-type fox woman. Dual wields scimitars when out in the field adventuring. Very agile. She has a fighting style without weapons that is similar to Kyusho Jitsu by focusing pressure points on the opponent's body. It is highly effective thanks to her ridiculous perception that is arguably better than the mc's at the moment.
Asa is a spellcaster catgirl. Fire is her main element and healing is her specialty. I guess other than that she can poke enemies with her staff. Lol.
Liam is a human warrior who uses a glaive. He utilizes a braiding technique against multiple opponents to leave them open for attack so his comrades can strike along with him. It's called "braiding the spear," where you take a polearm and influence it with your own to move it aside and basically press against the one next to it, effectively making two weapons useless at once. Without a weapon, he is good on his feet when gaining wrist control and on the ground, so his other training involved something similar to wrestling.
Derek wields a warhammer and has a similar style as Kirie. He is more well-trained without a weapon since he was taught by professional instructors and had more opportunities to use it. He spent plenty of years learning Krav Maga and was a former soldier.

 

[OvidLemma]

In my latest series, Orphan Queen Valkyrie, the eponymous character, Valkyrie Valicent, is an incredibly skilled fighter with a lot of magical talent to boot. She labels herself a 'battle-witch' and becomes progressively more badass as the story advances, from a scrappy orphan to a terrifying harbinger of death. Her fighting style is basically informed by her strengths and weaknesses - she's small but fast, well-trained in unarmed and knife combat, and capable of enough magic to overwhelm unGifted opponents in a single lopsided fight or two but not enough to keep it up for a protracted battle (in her universe, magic is not OP). Her default approach is to temporarily incapacitate her opponents with magic and then permanently incapacitate them with whatever weapons are handy. But when magic isn't available, she'll go for a few cheap shots to take as many foes out of the fight as possible. She's at her most deadly when fighting alongside somebody who's practiced the same fighting drills as her because she has a strong intuition for how to synergize her attacks with those of her allies. And she is deadly. Val's fighting philosophy is that she doesn't want to kill anybody who doesn't want to kill her first, but as soon as you go after her or her friends with ill intent, she'll use every trick in the book to make sure the fight is quickly and decisively over.

 

[RepresentingCaution]

Seduction ?

 

[The_Long_Serpent]

Seduction ?

Overt or subtle?

 

[RepresentingCaution]

Overt or subtle?

Depends on the target

 

[DubstheDuke]

My fighting system is based on natural abilities rather than trained combat, so any fighting I do isn't based off any 'style', but rather focused on the intricacies behind condition based combat. It's more like chess than it is like a fight.

 

[EternalSunset0]

My story is just fill with people using personalized spirit weapons that can get summoned, so each character's fighting style revolves around them.

My protagonist, Kazuki, has a shield that is more akin to Issei's Boosted Gear in practice, so he mostly plays defense while using that thing to physically attack enemies. It does have a unique ability that ties in to the eventual battle harem premise of the story (like what LNs do. Start with a girl then eventually throw in a new one every volume until you have a full or pseudo-harem), but that's at the very end of the first volume to be revealed.

The first arc's cover girl, Sayaka, uses a sword and focuses more on agility and precise attacks. I'd like to maintain the good old Lady of War feel, so she fights with a lot of graceful gliding around and spinning.

Eventually, I'll be adding more fighters (aka potential harem members) with their own spirit weapons and their own fighting styles matching their weapons and personalities, so stay tuned~

Oh, and the villains have those weapons, too.

 

[BackWoodsJ_ACK]

I haven't gotten to my characters fighting yet but I got it where my MC's fighting style is brutal and efficient. Whether it's a sword, spear, dagger or even his bare hands, he'll take them out in the most effective way.

 

[Luxican]

In my main project, the protagonist learns fighting in itself from an ex-soldier of a great war, who later continues to fight in gang brawls on the street because he couldn't get his life in check after all the traumatic events .
The MC also gets very restricted magic/mental skills later on, but that's not really the focus.

So, more street-style like with emphasis on hand-to-hand combat, able to use many different weapons but not at the same efficiency as martial artists or professionals of that weapon. He will also try to read the opponents body language, because he isn't the brightest and isn't able to think of complicated strategies, so he instead has to react to the opponent's moves.
In short, more of a defense and counter type than aggressive.

The setting is modern-science fiction btw

 

[DevilPogoStick]

Very nice, everyone.

I admit I used to write things similar to shonen manga, what with named techniques and such. Now I'm just honestly straight to the point as my characters tend to just brawl with whatever skill they have in mind, especially when it comes to their mood.

...Like my character Kyoko would probably aim for the throat with a knife jab as a starter move if things really got serious.