How do you handle Martial Arts..

[Contegolibertas]

The Martial Arts and Lightsaber skills definitely tickle a key problem with SW D6.

1) SW D6 is made simple. It is intended to be cinematic and flashy. Pick a difficulty, pick a skill and roll.

I have practiced martial arts for numerous years. It is hard to impossible to quantify the skills involved into a single RPG skill. A simple example is technique or styles of focus. Example "Me": I am trained in both karate and jujitsu. I'm only a Green belt, but I spar on the level of a black belt. However, my punches are faster than many black belts. But their kicks are better than my kicks.

2) Style vs Style
Tae Kwon Do styles emphasize kicking alot. Which is good against another Tae Kwon Do person...but not Shotokan Karate. We'll punch them in the face before they can get their foot off the ground.

3) Firearms vs Blasters (solution?)
Cinematic-ally and possibly realistically, a Gunslinger with the blaster could do the same point and shoot with a firearm....right? Lets just say no.
How about separate skills? Tae Kwon Do, Karate, Jujitsu, Kung-Fu etc. And brawling is the generic street-fighter skill. Note: Decent street-fighters actually utilize Martial Art techniques that they discovered for themselves.

4) Brawling 5D then MA not specialized
How about it has the requirements of a (A) skill. However, doesn't cost the same as an advanced skill but the cost of a regular skill?

5) Purchasing Techniques
Same as above, however each technique needs to be purchased. Say each costs 5 cp a piece?

There is various other things you could do. For example, if a person wants to just beef up brawling and 'know' how to fight all styles, be really strict with him. Require him to find teaches who 'know' all the styles. The same thing applies to other skills. A character wants to raise his blaster to 6D, but only ever uses a blaster pistol (No light repeater, E-Web etc).

CL

[bruz]

What kind of martial arts do you practiced? Or what is your perfect choice of martial arts?
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martial arts equipment

[ZzaphodD]

I think its a bit futile to try to use too much experience from 'real life' martial arts in a combat system as simple as D6. If you should try that to any other effect than just favouring 'your' styles you should have to pool experience from many practitioners. And we all know the age old 'my style is the most effective' dilemma...

The major reason why Im even looking into this is because I have a player that want to learn Martial Arts in the game and use it as a complement to lightsaber combat. Of course, one could just use Brawling and wing it when he wants to do specific maneuvers. However, to give the sense that the character is actually learning something specific and apart from 'normal' brawling a specific skill is a perfect tool.

Specialization is out the window, as it is not limited enough to warrant the 'cheap' advancement (as pointed out earlier). Overall I dont like specializations because of the munchkin factor involved in some cases.

So, for me, that leaves Martial Arts as an Advanced skill. The skill adds on top of the Brawling skill, but is used on its own to perform specific techniques (sweeps, throws, spectacualr attacks, etc). Given the fact that it requires 5D in Brawling (which is about professional level), also means that at an beginner level most martial arts probably fall under the Brawling skill (ie general techniques). This could reflect that a large part of the 'skill' of a (real world) martial artist is general experience with unarmed combat and physical training. This makes it rather easy to learn a new martial arts basic techniques.

[Whill]

[jmanski]

I just don't see Martial Arts as an advance skill. Make it it's own skill if you think specialization is too quick.

Personally I see major benefits from Martial Arts coming quickly. But that works for us.

As to brawling- I agree, that's bar room fighting, Indiana Jones stuff. Effective, but not trained.
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Blasted rules. Why can't they just be perfect?

[cheshire]

My main beef with making it an advanced skill is the 5D brawling requirement. Really, that doesn't make sense to me. When I first started in Martial Arts I didn't know the first thing about how to throw a punch. When I would goof around with my friends and we'd "spar without training" I was just goofy, laughable, and just plain bad. It wasn't too long after I started that I really caught on, and exelled beyond my rank. I was about half of the rank of a black belt, but I gave every single black belt a really hard time in tournament sparring.

If you want to have a requirement, it should be really low, such as 2D or 3D.
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Before we take any of this too seriously, just remember that in the middle episode a little rubber puppet moves a spaceship with his mind.

[cunning_kindred]

I think people read too much into the name of the brawling skill. Its the skill for unarmed combat. Martial arts is a type of unarmed combat. Martial arts should be included in brawling - just my feeling. Specializing in martial arts is clearly a cheap way of getting cheap brawling but specialzing in a particular martial arts manoeuvre has worked for our games.

[ZzaphodD]

[gollummen]

I like fast and easy rules so we use:

Martial arts skill

Martial arts (A) (prerequisite skills: Brawling and Brawling parry at 5D)

You use your martial arts skill as a "pool" to add to other skills in 1D increments. You can add 1D increments to brawling and 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.

[ZzaphodD]

[gollummen]

I dont mind giving a bonus to the few players that try to get up close and personal in the heat of battle

[cheshire]

I'm surprised no one ever comments on the MA style introduced in the Shadows of the Empire book that allows you to split your dice pool between hit and damage.
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Before we take any of this too seriously, just remember that in the middle episode a little rubber puppet moves a spaceship with his mind.

[ZzaphodD]

[cheshire]

Not exactly. He's using as a pool which other skills can draw upon. In the Shandows of the Empire book it allowed you to develop a pool of dice that you got to split between hit and damage. For example, if I had 8D in martial arts, I could select 2D to hit, for 6D damage, or 4D to hit for 4D damage.
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Before we take any of this too seriously, just remember that in the middle episode a little rubber puppet moves a spaceship with his mind.

[atgxtg]