New Martial Art, Iffy? Crazay-MUNCHKIN? Good idea? Options

[Toptomcat]

Sha Jin Shu Ban fa
A style created by a group of Chinese monks in the hope that their martial arts would remain relevant in this age of cyberware and magic, the Metal Killing way capitalizes on the tiny faults given fighting styles develop when augmented by cyberware or magic.
Benefit: Access to a number of unique maneuvers, as well as a wide variety of standard ones
Disadvantage: A paractitioner of the Metal Killing Way cannot use cyberware, or be a Physical Adept, mage , or shaman.
Maneuvers:
All the standard maneuvers minus Vicious Blow, Sweep and Ground Fighting, and plus the manuvers described below.

Anti-Cyber Fighting (better name?)
Cyberware is hard on the body, and those using it tend to become dependant on it- creating and widening pressure points and introducing minute flaws into the user's fighting style. Anti-Cyber Fighting takes full advantage of these problems, enabling an uncybered martial artist to capitalize on them fully.
For every two full point of Essence under 6 the opponent posesses due to cyberware, the character gains one extra die on Metal Killing Way tests that can only be used against that opponent.

Anti-Magic Fighting (better name?)
Fundamental technique has a way of being neglected when magic guides one's every strike, creating openings that a clever opponent can exploit.
For every two points of Improved Ability the opponent has in the melee combat skill he is currantly using, the character gains one extra die on Metal Killing Way tests that can only be used against that opponent.


I created this martial art to make the archetype of the non-Adept martial artist a not-completely-suicidal proposition. Thoughts?

[Tanka]

...Ewww...

Theoretically (since we can't officially say anything on cyber/magic, as it doesn't exist), the cyber wouldn't expand any pressure points, as they're just points. If anything, some cyber would stop pressure points from being used.

And adding dice? Dude, no. Maybe lowering TNs, but not adding dice.

[mfb]

i think you're going about this MA the wrong way. for one, cyberware and magic are two very deep, very divergent fields; the idea that one single MA can exploit both their weaknesses is a bit much to take. for another, it feels heavy-handed and railroadish to say you can't learn this art if you've got cyber or are a physad. also, simply adding dice feels kinda silly, and kinda flat. if you gave them the capability to cause stress to cyberware, or cause temporary magic loss (a la banishing), i can see it working okay. but not extra dice, and not extra abilities for both anti-cyber and anti-magic.

[Shev]

In my opinion, it still doesn't make the mundane martial a viable option. No matter how many dice extra they get, they won't be able to match the adept. It works slightly better against the wired-to-hell sammy, but both the adept and the sammy will still be fast, at with at least two more initiative dice to roll. (And if you house rule melee like I do where you have to sacrifice an initiative pass you have available to counterattack. Otherwise, you have to use full defense)

Edit: My personal opinion on the matter: no matter how hard you try, an off-the-rack mundane will not be able to take on a physad or a cyberguy.

Let me make a comparison here: basketball. Imagine that in a few years, people start being born abnormally tall, so tall that the can just drop the ball right into the basket while his frantic opponents can only jump as high as his knees. Now imagine that, to compete, some basketball players become adept (no pun intended) at using stilts and so can match the naturally tall players.

Now, will the non-stilt non-tall players be able to compete with the ones who are on a 1-1 ratio? Simple answer: no. However, if they work well as a team, they can overcome the (fewer in number) tall and stilt players.

Simply put, most prime(combat oriented) runners are gonna have either a lot of magic or a lot of cyber in them. Not to say that a mundane non-cyber can't be useful, just not as in regards to combat.

[Toptomcat]

So, making it better.
-1 TN rather than +1/2 Essence or IA dice? Init bonuses? Negation of init bonuses?
I particularly like the idea of causing cyberware stress. Can you expand on it?

I don't think the mundane MA a totally non-viable option with this, as both cyber scans and astral assensing will come up nil. I don't want to make him able to win a fight with a cybered-to-hell sammie or super-adept, just able to survive combat with both for a few rounds.

[mfb]

*shrug* just give the martial artist the option of causing a point of cyberware stress instead of damage. say, one point of stress for every two boxes of damage he would have otherwise done.

[Stumps]

jin shu - metal 金属
sha - To Kill 殺
ban fa - way/method 辦法

Those are big5 translations.
As to their order...I couldn't really say.

[Toptomcat]

Many thanks. I'll just put them up in any old order for now.

[Kagetenshi]

If you're going for an anti-cyborg martial art, why not just call it the Panzer Kunst?

~J

[Tanka]

Well, I don't know a lot of grammar for that language (Chinese? Japanese?), but I can guess...

Jin Shu Sha Ban Fa.

Usually Oriental languages (well, and most other languages outside of English) have all their sentences "backwards" from us. Usually.

Don't take that translation as absolute, because it almost assuredly isn't.

[Glyph]

Sorry to say, but it seems a bit contrived (as well as a bit overpowered) to me. My opinion is that giving special perks to uncybered mundanes undermines the dual cyberware and magic themes: the cyberware theme is one of becoming superhuman at the expense of trading in your humanity, while the magical theme is like that of the X-Men: you have neat special abilities and powers that set you apart from normal metahumanity, but you are alternately idolized, hated, and feared for something you were born with.

Mundanes should have to struggle to survive in the world of Shadowrun. Only by skill, cunning, and clever tactics can they hope to survive. They are best as faces, snipers, or skill monkeys. Even in those fields, they are at a disadvantage. As faces, they don't have the social adept's special powers, a spellslingers mind-reading and mind-control spells, or the sammie's cultured pheromes. As a sniper, they come closest, but don't have the sammie's overall combat versatility or the adept's improved ability. Even as a skill monkey, they can be outdone by someone with skillwires and a CED: 3 who can slot a chip for whatever skill he needs, or they can watch someone with a mnemonic enhancer learn at a greater pace than them.

But that fits the theme of Shadowrun, as they look at the awakened characters with envy and are constantly tempted to get "just one" piece of cyberware or bioware that could make them so much better.


If you want to survive combat with an adept or sammie for a few rounds, get a martial arts skill of 6 (Better yet, get the Ambidexterity Edge and use two weapons for extra dice), max your Strength and Body, take the Toughness and High Pain Tolerance Edges, and get some decent impact armor. If you have a decent Combat Pool, you can come close to matching some sammies and adepts. You might even win some fights against sammies or adepts - not all of them are oriented towards melee. If you have a mundane who is not combat-oriented but has a decent Combat Pool, consider the Full Defense option when attacked.

[Stumps]

Get rid of the magic thing.
Chinese monks wouldn't be against magic. "Chi" and all other concepts like it are readily common in chinese thought and art forms.

Machined "cyborgs", on the other hand. Well now, there's something that stikes tradition the wrong way so I can see them fighting that specifically.

So, first.
The name. Um...Metal Killing Way would suggest that the art is a way to kill with metal, not how to kill the metal "men".

The Way to Kill Metal is more appopriate, but if you still would rather only have the three words then, Killing Metal Way.

Second. Their art is supposed to exploit the weeknesses of cyberware, which if you look at it, is that it causes a low essence.
The only way you are going to make that available to show it like this.
(warning: may cause necks to tighten the wrong way from dislike in it's turn away from cannon)

The art concentrates on the energy of CHI. Chi is the essence of life, it is the life, energy, and essence in all man-kind and all living things in the world.
These "Cyborgs" have taken it upon themselves to strip themselves of some of their Chi, their essence in trade for an upper hand (no pun intended) from cyber-implantation.
The Metal Killing Way monks channel in on the "cyborgs" essence and strike it with their own powerful control and force of Chi.

"Great flavor, what the hell does that mean when I roll?"
When attacking with this artform, the attacker targets the defenders essence.
All rolls for the attack will be as normal melee rolls, but the defender rolls their essence (rounded down, but no lesser than 1) rather than rolling their Body to defend against the attack.


That's my two nuyen.
And it hits the cyber guys where it hurts.

[Crimson Jack]

Ya know, a really good way to tell if something is "munchkinny" is to ask yourself, "how would I feel if my GM made me face one of these guys?" I would tend to think that my group, in particular, would find this to be an overly nasty baddie for me to toss in the mix of any combat. That's just me though. Do what thou wilt. ;)

[Tanka]

Actually, it isn't "munchy" more than it is just... Underdeveloped.

The mundane still isn't going to do much versus a wired character (or any character with some form of Initiative enhancement).

Granted, there are things like Jazz to help in that, but that's temporary.

In the long run, the cybered/Awakened character wins out. They get far too many benefits over a mundane with no 'ware.

[zenpoetsix]

i have a completely mundane character in the game i play and she's one of the scariest characters in my game...you have to play a mundane like batman..think about...batman has no powers but yet he's the scariest person in the j.l.a....why? everyone one else think one or two steps ahead...batman thinks 10 steps ahead of everyone....that;s the way she plays it...plans within plans within plans and back-up plans for everything....makes for interesting gaming.

[Tanka]

Like somebody else said, mundanes are usually Skill Monkeys.

Average mundne Human:

Attributes: 30
Skills: 40
Resources: 90,000 :nuyen:

With no 'ware to spend on... A gun or two, maybe a melee weapon, ammo, a bit of lifestyle, and Contacts. Top that off with 40 skill points, with maybe two combat abilities, and you've got the makings of a good Skill Monkey.

[mintcar]

but a mundane without cyber will have much more points to spend on skills and attributes. I agree this wont make it possible to be a better combatant than the wired character, but in a brawl its the skill that counts. And the wired reflexes wont help much. I´d say close combat is the best option for a mundane au natural dude taking on a wired guy.

Then you have the wealth of leftover skill points you can spend actually knowing stuff instead of just chiping it. And the comfie feeling of not having itchy foreign objects stuck in you, not having your humanity fading away and not having your gamemaster telling you that your skillwires need a firmware upgrade to work with the new activesofts :rotate:

<<<edit>>> two posts while I wrote this.

[toturi]

The MA is good in principle but a little shaky in execution. Those manuevers are not muchkinny, but they simply do not fit into the flavour of the MAs. The central theme of MAs are always reflected in the Adv./Disadv, the maneuvers are tacked on more for variance.

From a game balance POV, the enhanced guy has sacrificed something(BPs) for his enhancement, what has the mundane spent to gain this slight increase in ability against enhanced people as opposed to normal people who do not have this skill?

[Tanka]

[Stumps]

I stand by my suggestions of fixing it in balance.
When metal killing monks attack cyber guys, the cyber guy had to defend by rolling their essence rather than their body.

It's simple. And it represents the idea.

[KarmaInferno]

Someone's been reading Battle Angel manga?


-karma

[Glyph]

@Stumps: How is that "balanced", though? It lets mundane characters or adepts virtually insta-kill cybered characters, who, probably rolling 1 die, if any, will have no chance to even stage Damage down. It lets you easily take down the fractional-Essense troll who has 11 points of Body before dermal plating, etc. It's only "balanced" if you really, really want to discourage anyone from ever playing a cybered character in your campaign.


By the way, looking at Tanka's A: Attributes, B: Skills, C: Resources mundane character, I would like to point out that under the point system, that would only be 110 build points. So in games using the point system, you will have even more in the way of skills and/or resources for a mundane character.

[Stumps]

Sorry, I didn't follow throuh.
It would be all stun damage for one.
And you could further that by saying that the TN to downstage it's damage would be 2 or 3 instead of 4.

Shrug...I wouldn't add this art to my game in the first place really.

[Just Jonny]

It seems to me that the obvious way to counter these metal killers is just to keep it ranged. Provided that .5 Essence sammie has a smartgun link and a gun, I kinda doubt these guys'd do much. All the melee dice in the world don't matter at 5 meters.

[Stumps]

exactly.