Proposal: Advanced Martial Arts

[GM Craig]

The typical specialization under Brawling is only the basics of martial arts. There is a whole world of advanced skills out there allowing special moves and defensive abilities. Advanced Martial Arts has sub-specializations, which correspond to specific styles of combat.

Advanced skills are tracked separately from the governing attribute. For example, if you have a strength of 3D, and put CP's into (A) Martial Arts, your (A) Martial Arts rolls are at 1D.

Advanced skills cost double CP to improve compared to standard skills.

(A) Martial Arts falls either under strength (for offensive) or Dex (for defence). Offensive and defensive (A) Martial Arts are skilled and tracked separately.

There are specializations to (A) Martial Arts, and the specialization corresponds to a particular style.

General martial arts combat add together the Brawling: Martial Arts dice to the (A) Martial Arts (Strength) dice. Similarly, general martial arts defensive rolls add together the Brawling Parry: Martial Arts and (A) Martial Arts (Dexterity) dice.

Within the different styles, there are special moves known only to that style. A couple of (draft) examples are shown below:

Hapan Martial Arts

Technique	Description	Difficulty	Effect
Feint	The character can feint to draw off an opponent's defence.	Easy	If the character makes the required skill roll, he fakes a maneuver to draw his opponent off. If the opponent's Perception roll is lower than the character's martial arts skill roll, the character gains a +2D to his next attack skill roll.
Roundhouse	The character is trained to deliver a spinning kick to the head.	Moderate	A successful skill roll indicates that the character delivers a spinning kick to the head of an opponent. In addition to the +1D to damage, the opponent is considered "Stunned" for the remainder of the round.
Snap Kick	The character is trained to deliver a powerful kick with relative speed.	Moderate	If the character makes the required skill roll, he may deliver a powerful kick at Strength+1D damage with such speed that he may make one other hand-to-hand attack this round without incurring the multiple action penalty.
Flawless Counter	The character can counter a melee attack to perfection.	Difficult	If the character makes the required skill roll, his next attack (which must be a hand-to-hand attack) is automatically successful.
Triple Kick	The character is trained to deliver three attacks with his foot.	Difficult	The character, after making the skill roll, may deliver a trio of powerful kicks at Strength+2 damage in a single round. Any further actions this round incur the multiple action penalty as normal.

Echani Martial Arts Style

Technique	Description	Difficulty	Effect
Hilt Blow	The character can use the hilt of a weapon to strike a stunning blow.	Easy	If the character makes the required skill roll, he may attempt to strike an opponent with the hilt of his weapon, causing that character to be stunned for the remainder of the round.
Rolling Throw	The character can roll backwards and throw an enemy with force.	Moderate	If the character makes the required skill roll, he may roll onto his back and throw an opponent backwards. If the opponent is thrown into a wall or other solid object, they suffer 2D damage.
Throat Jab	The character is trained to target breathing tubes in the throats of opponents.	Moderate	Characters using this manoeuvre may target breathing tubes or blood veins in opponents necks to strike at. If the character is successful in making his skill roll, his opponent may take no other actions this round due to shock and blood/air blockage.
Pivot Kick	The character can pivot on a hand or weapon and deliver a powerful kick.	Difficult	If the character makes the required skill roll, he may spin using the hilt of a weapon, or his hand, as a pivot to inflict STR+1D damage to the legs of an opponent. If the damage roll ends with a stun result, the opponent falls to the ground. This may be used as a reaction skill while falling down.
Whirlwind Attack	The character is trained to attack multiple enemies at close range.	Very Difficult	When surrounded at close range, Royal Guardsmen are trained to use this technique to eliminate nearby threats. If the character's skill roll is successful, he may attack up to 3 enemies within arm's reach using the martial arts skill roll as his attack roll for each opponent (no multiple action penalty).

Ter?s K?si Martial Arts

Special Rules: While using Ter?s K?si abilities, the character cannot do anything else that round, including dodge.

Technique	Description	Difficulty	Effect
Power Boost	Using their mental discipline, the Ter?s K?si fighter can redistribute up to half their (A) Martial Arts dice to their attributes.	Very Difficult	If the character is successful, they may transfer some of their Martial Arts dice to their attributes (note - does not affect their skills), though the Ter?s K?si fighter may not exceed racial maximums by more than 1D.
Damage Reduction	The Ter?s K?si fighter can transfer half of their (A) Martial Arts defensive dice to harden their body as if they were wearing armour.	Difficult	The Ter?s K?si student gains as many D physical armour as the dice transferred as physical armour, and one third of that as energy armour.
Leg Sweep	The Ter?s K?si student drops low and swings their leg in a powerful circle, attempting to knock down all opponents adjacent to them.	Moderate	Anyone adjacent to the Ter?s K?si student must make a competing balance roll or be knocked to the ground.
Damage Boost	The Ter?s K?si student can transfer up to half of their (A) Martial Arts dice to their Strength dice when determining (A) MArtial Arts damage.	Easy	The Ter?s K?si student may give up to half their D on their attack roll to increase their damage dice.
Defensive Boost	Instead of resisting damage, the Ter?s K?si student can transfer half of their (A) Martial Arts dice to improve defensive rolls.	Moderate	The Ter?s K?si student can designate half of their (A) Martial Arts dice be counter for defensive rolls. These then create a "pool" of dice the character can spend on defensive rolls for the next round as if they were CP.

[GM Craig]

Just an additional note - there would be many other styles, with their own moves.

[Trax]

This is most likely what I'll be looking into once Jex and Niil start their Jedi training.

[Collan]

Do the special moves also include the base moves listed in the Spec Forces manual like Instant Stand? I always had great luck with that when playing Nicholas...

[GM Craig]

I'll have to review those. I thought things like instant stand were style-specific moves.

[Collan]

I've been taking some Krav Maga classes and learned a couple techniques. Given the Middle Eastern flavoring, it seems relevant:

Kick Fake.
Difficulty: Moderate
Description: combatant fakes a kick with one leg that turns into a small hop to drive power for the other leg to deliver the real kick. As the kicking leg returns to neutral position, the combatant sets and delivers a follow up kick with the leg used to fake a moment before.
Effect: +1D to attack, +1D damage due to double kick

Hip Plant.
Difficulty: difficult
Description: upon being grappled, the combatant shoots hips and legs backwards to conduct an uncontrolled fall slightly to one side to plant one hip into the ground and then pop back up.
Effect: if an enemy has a successful grapple, characters knowing this technique receive an automatic roll to break the grapple and follow up with an attack at no multiple action penalty

[Nightshade]

So, I don't know if I am the only one here who is a student of martial arts, but as a red belt (at one and a half years of study) in Tae Kwan Do, I have to admit that I really disagree with a style of martial arts being an advanced skill.  It makes sense for Medicine and Engineering, where you have to study for a lot of years and get a degree before you acquire that skill, and in each field there are basics on which the advanced skills are built.  However there are no basic martial arts...if anyone is studying a martial art they are studying a style from day one.  The white belt beginning students in my academy learn the same moves that I do as a red belt, I am just expected to be that much better at them.

Also to separate it out as advanced skill seems to be going against what is listed in the WEG source material, and yes I know that this is Craig's game and he can make whatever rules he likes, but I have yet to see him make a ruling that is more restrictive than the source material that we have access to...it seems that normally the house rules are to bridge gaps that we come across that the source material does not cover.  Doing this basically makes the styles useless as someone who is devoting their character points in to this will either have to be a serious one-trick pony, which seems to go against what Craig wants in his games, or be such a complete novice that a child with a stick will stand a good change of beating him.  Now if a child with a stick beats me at martial arts, well look out for flying pigs, and icicles in hell.  There will be no advantage to sinking character points into these styles when you can accomplish pretty much the same thing with a straight up melee combat skill and a good weapon.  With the exception of a couple of really basic moves that have an easy rating, the others have at least a moderate difficulty rating...meaning that you would have to have at least 4-5D in the skill to average a 50% success rate! By the time I have done that I could have gotten up to 8D in a basic skill and be just about guaranteed of accomplishing moderate and difficult tasks and be 50% success at the very difficult ones.

The way I envision styles is that it is more of an enhanced story mechanic to give flavor to your martial arts and taking the kicking, punching, and blocking up a notch to really flow into a fantastic tale of space opera, the heart of Star Wars.  I know this next part only makes sense to Craig, but that is what I was going for in my style, all of the moves being based on what I know from my own training (a style of only five moves is very limited and certainly wouldn't be called advanced in any of the modern martial arts schools), but even if you debate this point, I think that we should let styles tell a story and not be a goal no one wants to obtain. 

[GM Craig]

OK, for comparison:

A Heavy Blaster Pistol specialist does not learn trick shots like "Three-Hit-Ricochet" or "Silent Shot". A specialist in Vibroblade does not learn a "Dragon Whips Tail" special attack that lets them attack three opponents without penalty.

The specializations allow you to get better at something that the base skill for half the character points. So, you sink points into the specialization for heavy blaster pistol. You're then better with heavy blaster pistols than regular blasters or blaster rifles. The specialization (which limits you) is made up for by being better with a sub-category of weapon. It doesn't give you extra tricks, one-shot kills or special defences. So I use that as a comparison for what is allowable under a specialization.

So, I will not allow someone to spend half the character points to improve a particular form of brawling, and become way more deadly with that dub-class than someone who specialized in heavy blaster pistol. So, on it's face, the special moves of martial arts are a non-starter in the rules as written. Special martial arts rules are also not part of the core rules - they were printed in specialized supplements.

So, on it's face, special moves are a non starter.

However, I like the flavour. Teras Kasi, Echani and Hapan martial arts are part of the extended universe for Star Wars. Martial Artists exist. But it is way to overpowered to make them part of what amounts to a weapon specialization. So, I tried to find a way to incorporate special moves into the game that did not break the point of specialization. I allow you to take the special moves as an advanced skill.

Both Ben and Corey have mentioned you guys take martial arts, and you have both compared the strikes and moves you learn to the game rules. I think that's not an appropriate comparison. Think of the martial arts you learn at your weekly class as the baseline martial arts skill. But true practitioners can perform heroic feats like the Kung Fu warriors of legend (like Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon). THAT is the point of the Martial Arts (A) skill. So, a Teras Kasi master can increase their attributes, become deadlier, quicker and tougher than is normal for a human. A master of Hapan martial arts can strike out with a single kick and hit three opponents faster than the eye can see (in a single segment of combat time, as opposed to three separate actions). A master of Echani martial arts can leap and spin through opponents faster than the eye can follow. These are heroic feats, and I envision them being beyond those who merely practice martial arts. A master of the Martial arts you are developing, Ben, can kill someone with a single strike (if they strike from surprise) regardless of armour or protection. You have specials that make you quicker, harder to see, and deadlier than someone with a standard "once a week for an hour" martial arts class. Special moves are a mark of devotion to the study of that particular art.

And you can pick up moves from more than one art, if you find a teacher and learn moves from that style. Want to walk up walls? Balance on a tiny tree limb? Fly through the air? You can build a martial art around those moves, and perform these heroic feats.

Also note that when you do standard martial arts fighting (no special moves), you combine the martial arts specialization with your martial arts (A) dice, meaning your advanced study makes you more effective with even the basics than a novice. The Martial Arts (A) moves only use your Martial Arts (A) dice, but your damage and standard attacks / defence are rolled normally.

I definitely see a place for martial arts moves in the game, but not as a specialized form of brawling. To get the advanced martial arts moves, you need to devote time to studying it, as an advanced skill. I haven't heard anything so far that makes me thing otherwise. And I'm not going to give a brawling specialization more advantages than someone who specializes in heavy blaster pistol.

So, the options are special moves becoming available as an offshoot of a dedicated study of advanced martial arts, or they are removed from the game entirely. I'm certainly not about to work out a bunch of trick shots someone with Heavy Blaster Pistol specialization can do.

Now, having said all that, I can possibly see a case to remove the Offensive / Defensive split. And the Silent Kill DC you and I discussed over e-mail may have been a little high, comparatively. But I think the overall premise is sound, and I haven't heard anything so far that convinces me otherwise.

My ruling stands. I'm still open to continuing discussions about this topic, provided you have something to contribute or a new perspective to the discussion that hasn't been covered already.

If you guys seriously see no value to this, then we'll yank the special moves entirely.

[Trax]

I don't think using a style like Karate, Kung Fu or Tae Kwan Do to emulate what's being proposed here is accurate.  I agree with Craig in that those types of things would be covered by the base skill.  There are much more effective and dangerous/deadly styles of martial arts that require many, many more years of study to master and I think that's what's intended by these rules (along with some much less real life type stuff).

Now having said that I was planning on starting this once the force sensitive characters started training their jedi skills but now I'm leaning more towards focusing on Resist Force and just up my base martial arts skills as per normal.

I'm mixed about the offense/defense, it seems a little expensive in terms of both cps and time but I can see how one could focus on one aspect of the art in favor of the other.  But having the advanced skill apply to both would essentially make it cost half of what it would for other advanced skills.

And what's this about a silent kill?

[GM Craig]

In the "Republic Special Forces" handbook, they have a martial art detailed there that includes a move called "Silent Strike" that, if successful, allows a one-hit kill/incapacitate (player choice).

[Trax]

How does that work exactly?  Does the target still get to roll to resist damage?

[GM Craig]

Not according to the sourcebook. The attacker make a roll, and if successful, the target is killed of incapacitated, at the attackers choice.

[Nightshade]

Yes, think like a marine killing a sentry by snapping his neck...it requires complete surprise and stealth rolls to get into place to perform and then a difficult skill check to accomplish it.

[Nightshade]

Also, a round is six seconds, and I can tell you that even our beginning students can land three attacks in that time, it doesn't require years of training...however I don't think I can convince you without actually showing you or having you witness a class, and I doubt you would think it wor that much effort, which I understand.

I do think that by making it an advanced skill you should remove the offense, defense split or it really isn't worth it.  Styles tend to focus on one or the other, like Judo is mostly defensive with throws and locks, etc. and Karate is more offensive with strikes.  So it really limits the usefulness of choosing a style at all if you have to essentially quadruple the cost to improve both sides. 

It my time as a GM I looked at this time of game a lot differently than the basic tabletop game these rules are based on.  The very nature of time delay in a forum based game balances out some of the character point costs, i.e. in an active tabletop game you could be earning 10 cps a month, while in a forum game you might earn 10 cps a year.  Maybe this game goes faster than that, however the threads that I have read don't seem to bear that out.  This bei the case, then I think that there would be no point in maintaining the split if it could be three actual years before I can get enough skill to do any of the moves with any chance of success.

[Trax]

Not according to the sourcebook. The attacker make a roll, and if successful, the target is killed of incapacitated, at the attackers choice.

Yes, think like a marine killing a sentry by snapping his neck...it requires complete surprise and stealth rolls to get into place to perform and then a difficult skill check to accomplish it.

If we get to vote, my vote is going to be against incorporating this attack into the game.  Only because I don't like instakills in any game mechanics.  Players tend to forget that if they have access to such a skill/ability the GM and enemy npcs do as well.  And npcs are likely to be much more highly specialized/effective in said skills and abilities.