How exactly do you "spar?"

[Akintude]

I read the helpfile on sparring but there does not seem to be a spar command or a "nokill" or "spar only" flag to activate. I have a sparring weapon, when I fight with it does sparring automatically occur? And is it possible (encouraged) to spar with an NPC if it is an appropriate one (one in a gymnasium of some sort, for example, whose ldesc includes a description of them sparring?)

[Socko]

First and foremost, Mercy is the command you should consider.

Mercy, in itself, lives up to its name. Make sure Mercy's 'on', because then in the case of an unfortunate twist in the roughhousing process, you'll be able to hold your blows back. Mercy off is normal combat.. you're not going to hold back, and if your sparring buddy's fallen and can't get up, you just might take the opportunity to splatter his head upon the sparring floor.

Sparring weapons do nothing more than serve the purpose.. they're very weak padded/blunted/limited weapons. You can kill someone with them in the Byn Sparring halls, you can kill a tarantula in the wastes with one-- if you're out to kill with them, good luck, but the fact remains that you can.

As for sparring with NPCs, I'd make sure the NPC was able to react to you. That's something I'd leave to Virtual NPCs.. usually a coded NPC is rarely suitable for that sort of thing based upon the very fact that they can't really react.

They'll just keep fighting with you. Chances are, everyone else is going to want to get you, as the clan guards're going to see that as a blatant attack.

In short, Mercy On, and don't fight with the NPCs. (Unless an IMM's inside one-- I've done this before. It's fine.)

[Bestatte]

Type

mercy on

then attempt to kill your opponent.

Mercy on allows you to attack without the final killing blow, it stops you when they fall unconscious. Beware though, some people can hit hard enough to skip that "second to last" hit and move right into the kill, so it's a good idea to try to match abilities as closely as possible.

In otherwords, you wouldn't want a newbie human sparring with a seasoned half-giant.

Remember to turn "mercy off" when you're done, if you feel it's appropriate for your character to kill things/people and not merely knock them out. A hunter would have it turned off during a hunt, but on during a sparring session, for instance.

[Bedhead]

Sparring generally takes place between trusted characters within organizations (The T'zai Byn probably being the most notori... noted for this)

Codewise, sparring is no different from regular combat.  The use of sparring weapons lessens damage done and setting the 'mercy on' flag usually will keep you from killing someone if health gets that low.   To be realistic, you should never take your health below roughly 2/3 of maximum or your character would probably be seriously injured.

Sparring outside of an organization is risky.  First, it has to be done in a safe place - away from soldiers/militia that would mistake you for trying to truely kill someone.  However, being in such a place leaves the possibility of foul play and if you don't know the person you're sparring with... well.

Bottomline:  Join the military branch of an organization and you will most likely be given the chance to spar.

Cheers

(Of course people have replied while I was writing this - sorry for any redundancy)

[Akintude]

Thank you for all your replies, they've been very helpful.

[My 2 sids]

Role play is another impoartant part of sparing... here are just a few things to keep in mind how some role-play:

:arrow:  Many don't feel sparing (or sparing weapons) would draw blood,  Think more of heavy brusing, maybe a scrape... but not a bloody mess.  Sparing is to teach and tone... not actually hurt.

:arrow: Many people will role play simply stopping, even when it requires you to run away to stop the code.

:arrow: Emotes are important, if one emotes kicking you in the side and the code says head... go with the emote.