Could someone please explain to me the whole concept of maneuvers?

ab bonecrusher maneuvers
Syntax: MANEUVER CREATE
MANEUVER LIST
MANEUVER DROP
MANEUVER DEVELOP ACTION
MANEUVER DEVELOP WOUNDS
MANEUVER SHOW
MANEUVER PERFORM

You are now able to develop your own fighting maneuvers. You start with being
able to develop a limited amount of maneuvers and gradually increase the number
of maneuvers as your training in Combat and Knighthood specializations increase.
Each maneuver consists of two variables: the action and the wounds. The action
is the attack verb (slash, smash, strike, etc.) that will be executed during the
maneuver. The wounds are a list of the specific wounds you are attempting to
inflict. (Please note that it does not determine if you are able to execute the
action or inflict the wound until you perform the maneuver.)

When you perform a maneuver, you will focus all your mental attention on the
wounds specified in the maneuver. This has two benefits. First, you will only
inflict wounds from that list. So if you want to always inflict a lower level
wound even if the target body part is in critical condition then a maneuver
consisting only of that lower level wound will do just that. Secondly, provided
your wound list is small, you will be able to concentrate more than normal on
perfectly executing the attack. This increases your chance of exeuting that
wound. Thus if you use a maneuver that consists only of a critical level wound,
you lose the ability to do the lower level wounds, but in exchange you increase
the likelihood of successfully making that critical wound happen.

What do the commands... basically do? How can I execute them? Let's say, I want a maneuver to be able to perform necessities that I can fracture skull? I am at Virtuoso bonecrusher and adept combat.

The purpose of a maneuver is to focus your attacks on getting one specific or a specific group of afflictions which you set. When you perform a maneuver, you will not do any afflictions but the one specified, but there will be a higher chance of these afflictions being dealt.

Here's what you would do for a maneuver to fracture skull. I think it's a head jab wound?

MANEUVER CREATE FRACTURESKULL
MANEUVER DEVELOP ACTION FRACTURESKULL STRIKE
MANEUVER DEVELOP WOUNDS FRACTURESKULL FRACTURESKULL <--- this last bit might be two words

And to perform:
MANEUVER PERFORM FRACTURESKULL HEAD (TARGET)

I'll let Rika and other people with active warrior chars focus on the syntax, I will focus on utility.

Normal hits, as you probably know, can deal any affliction as they hit, only two limits being:
1. The wound state of enemy's limb. No heavy afflictions if they got light wounds.
2. Some afflictions only hit on a jab, and not on a swing, or the other way around.

For maneuvers, these limits still apply. The advantage of a maneuver are as follows:
1. The less afflictions you set that the maneuver can deal, the greater the chance that the maneuver will afflict them, instead of simply doing wounds + damage.
2. You often want to do a certain affliction, and not just anything. For example knockdown for legs, and not a broken limb. Or broken nose and not fractured skull for head. That's when you use maneuvers. Also it helps with critical-wound afflictions that have a very small chance to occur normally, like bashbrain. These are all Bonecrusher examples by the way.

And FractureSkull is a swing.

Alright, thought I saw it as a jab on the Scrying Pool.

Second part would be
MANEUVER DEVELOP ACTION HACK

Perform would be
MANEUVER PERFORM DOWN (TARGET)

Alright, so a simple one...

I'd call a maneuver fractureskull.

MANEUVER CREATE FRACTURESKULL
MANEUVER DEVELOP ACTION FRACTURESKULL SMITE DOWN (as in head)
Bleh - I still cannot comprehend.

AB KNIGHTHOOD BASHING has nothing to do with these said maneuvers?

Let us say that I would go for smitedown-smitedown-smitedown until wounds in the head were big enough to fractureskull, or would I just deal out random affs as I went smiting? I'm so confused.

Oh right. BCs use bashing.

The develop action bit will only take one word. The rest of the syntax needs to go with the perform bit.

MANEUVER DEVELOP ACTION FRACTURESKULL SMITE

MANEUVER PERFORM FRACTURESKULL DOWN (TARGET)

I'm not sure what you meant in that last paragraph. But if you're asking what the rest of your smites would do, they would do what normal smites do, random chances for every affliction you have.

Ahh! Now I think I understand - many thanks.

Thank you guys, especially Rika.

Keep in mind sometimes it's best not to use them - if you're smiting down, for example, don't bother. THe afflictions you get for that are almost universally useful, and it's just a waste of time.

Ehhh... why would you want to smite down on head? Besides wanting to give someone fracturedskull, which isn't really that great since you might as well just use dulak to make 'em stupid. All the good stuff on the head (read good stuff as crushed windpipe and bashed brain) can be achieved by jabs which just serve the purpose better since jab head will jab the head but smite down also has a chance on hitting the chest.

Really good part about maneuvers is when you want to inflict only a certain affliction. For example you want to knockdown to make them prone and lose stance and parry. Now if you set up maneuver only for knockdown you can be sure it'll just knockdown. While if you just keep jabing the leg you can break it which is no good unless you're actually going for a hardlock since broken leg won't knock them down.

So the whole point of manuevers is to give them what you want instead one of the afflictions from the list.

Bashbrain. (admittedly, seperate maneuver) Fractureskull. Blackeye. Breaknose. The chance to break their ribs.

Bashbrain is not a jab wound. Breakjaw, bleeding nose, crushedwindpipe are the only head afflicts from a jab, if I remember. Barring crushwindpipe, they're fairly dodgy.

My bad, no idea why I was 100% certain that bashbrain can be achieved by jab. Strange, really, really strange...

Exeryte jabs a vernal hammer into your forehead. It goes straight through your face and into your brain with a dull pop.
You have been slain by Exeryte.