Martial Arts

[Loc Taal]

We created a house rule for martial arts. Martial arts becomes an advanced skill (twice the normal points to advance, etc). You use your martial arts skill as a "pool" to add to other skills in 1D increments. You can add 1D increments to brawling & brawling parry rolls and to damage rolls for successful brawling attacks. For example, if you have 4D in your martial arts skill, you could add +1D to your brawling roll, +1D to your brawling parry roll and +2D when rolling damage for a successful brawling attack. This needs to be declared at the beginning of the round, when declaring your actions.

*Gamemasters need to be careful when implementing this rule, as characters with a high martial arts skill level can become very powerful.
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[Rexer]

This rule is actually very helpful and works good. You can have a powerful character due to this skill but it does take awhile to get there. I think it is a good balance of what a character has to sacrafice to get the skill when it comes to spending their character points. Also there is enough of a plus to warrant spending the character points.
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[Volar the Healer]

Martial Arts House Rules:
There are two types of martial arts. One type is flashy, but not particulaly effective (Tae Kwon Do, boxing, etc). For these, we change brawling/brawling parry to boxing/boxing parry. The director makes a note of it and gives the player some cool descriptions. A practitioner of Tae Kwon Do could attempt to throw or sweep an opponent rather than inflict damage. A boxer could taunt his opponent while pummeling him.

There are some martial arts which are unbelivebly destructive (Shorin-Ryu, Dim Mak, etc). For these we change brawling/brawing parry to (A) Dim Mak/Dim Mak parry. The offensive portion is counted as an advanced skill - remember these start at 1D; the defensive portion is normal. The offensive and defensive skills must remain within one die of each other. So for effectivly paying tripple cost the Dim Mak partioner scores damage equal to his skill, not his strength. A black belt in such a skill (expert = 5D) could destroy a wookie in hand to hand combat. This is as it should be.

Under no circumstances do we accept "Wookie-Fu" as an art. "Nogri-Fu", sure. Wookie-Fu no.

[Rexer]

I like that with the specializations you get the damage at your skill not your strength. If a person spends the character points to get up that high then the character obviously studied the skill and knows how to employ it expertly.
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[Volar the Healer]

No, Rexer! Characters don't get damage equal to their skill with a specialization. Only with an advanced skill of martial arts. I must have written that poorly.

Normally advanced skills stack on top of another ((A)medicine + first aid, (A) engineering + repair, etc). But giving martial artists more damage seemed the best way to represent, in a game mechanic, what martial arts do. Advanced skills also have a prerequiseite (ie: must have 5D first aid before a character can gain medicine) so my advanced martial arts skill has a postrequisite; maintaining offense and defense skills within one die.

A specialization is raised for half cost. I wouldn't give a character extra damage for that! My advanced skill effectivly costs tripple to gain the extra damage bonus.

But such things are possible in real life, so they should be possible in the RPG.

[Rexer]

Ahh, I see now. I misunderstood your rules Volar. The written rules seem pretty well written to handle this. Thanks Auron.
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If you run .... you will only die tired!

[gollummen]

I really like your house rule Loc Taal.
I will use it our group, because the official martial arts rules are just too slow and complicated for our style of casual gaming.

What are the prerequisite skill(s) for your martial arts skill...
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All stats 2D, except: brawling parry: versus boxing 2D+2, melee combat: swords 3D, melee parry: swords 2D+2, languages: english 2D+1, scolar: history 3D, scolar: social studies 2D+1, brawling: boxing 2D+2, computer programming/repair 2D+1.

[Loc Taal]

Hmm, I don't remember exactly what the prerequisites are. I think the prerequisite for any advanced skill is at least 5D in the base skill (I could be wrong there, can anyone confirm?). So I guess the prerequisite would be at least 5D in brawling and brawling parry.
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[Jedi Skyler]

[Loc Taal]

Considering it potentially adds bonuses to both skills, we thought they should both be prerequisites.
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[Krapou]

[Jedi Skyler]

That's not a bad house rule... although I can see someone arguing that if they have a Search skill higher than their Perception that they ought to be able to use that instead. It does make sense, though. A fight is constantly evolving as it progresses, and one must remain vigilant in order to find an opening to exploit.

[garhkal]

Not really, as with search, one has to be actively looking, while perception is a passive thing. Kind of hard to actively look for somethjing while fighting for your life? 8)
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[Jedi Skyler]

Depends on how good you are. If you've been training long enough, you're trained to look for openings and weaknesses; it becomes part of your routine. I mean, from the time I was first taught to spar, one of the FIRST things I was taught was to look for things my opponent is doing wrong, so I could exploit them. The longer I did it, the more unconscious this became.

[Ejacobs]

That certainly is a valid point Skyler, but for the game, I might allow for no more than half the search dice pool to be rolled for damage or strength (whichever is greater) when attacking with martial arts. You still aren't actively seeking out every possible weakness, plus the time available to do so while getting hacked at is minimal.

E JMHO

EDIT-- PROMOTION!