Of the kick command, and emoting

[SailorMars]

Here's an idea that came to me the other night. I can't quite tell if it's overkill, or would be neat, so time to put it on the boards for feedback.

Right now, in combat, the kick command is the only way to use your body to strike your opponent, unless you are totally unarmed. (Note, I see bash as a takedown, not a strike.) When you spar, you might emote 'throwing a knee', or 'striking with an elbow', but in the end you still type kick, and see a kick-related message. That's somewhat hard to suspend disbelief for, IMHO.

Now, disarm and bash are delightfully vague. You can emote just about anything for those, and the accompanying success or failure message fits. For example, with disarm, you could emote kicking at their weapon, punching their hand, stabbing their wrist, etc., and the disarm message goes along with it.

So, how about making kick a little more generic too? What about changing 'kick' to 'strike'. If something generic like 'strike' was used, you could emote head butting, elbowing, kneeing, or just about anything... Another possible approach woule be adding an argument to the kick command that could take -elbow, -knee, -punch (defaulting to kick with no argument), and having different success/failure messages for those. (Punches, kicks, elbows, and knees are the four most common hand to hand attack types.) Maybe add -head just for amusement's sake...

Thoughts? Suggestions?

Edit: Oh yeah, my point behind this was to make combat emotes more flavorful and varied.

I dont like the strike thing, but changing it to a generic message would be good. But then again there is also the area it hits... which is unchangeable really.

emote thrusts a foot up at %man chest while bringing up a sword in front of him.
kick man
You unleash a brutal side-kick on his leg! (Or whatever)

this would be much better if  just viewed as:

So and so, kicks so and so (hard/lightly/etc).

That way the damage could still be there, but the area would be up to the emoter, or the person if the emoter doesnt take control.

[SailorMars]

After seeing the back-stab message, that might be another one to consider making more generic, so the backstabber could emote the vital area they wanted to try to hit... I think in the helpfile it mentions backstab isn't necessarily aiming for the back. D&D 3E changed backstab to sneak attack, and I've noticed it added more flavor to combats involving that attack form...

Another 2 'sid from SailorMars...