Revised! Check it out!

Instead of just specializing in unarmed combat but not really having it do anything except +2 to all your unarmed attacks, I thought I would create a list of various martial arts forms. I know it's hard to generalize these arts into such simplicity but for the sake of the game and for wanting to have each art/style have it's own unique flair, here is what I've come up with. Take what ya want, or edit it..at least this may provide a good start for your campaigns. Anyways, this is all in good fun!

Certain arts can use weapons like an extension of their own art. While using the weapon, they can choose to use their unarmed combat roll and receive whatever bonuses that art gives them to that weapon as well.

First, an optional rule...
Unarmed Critical Success Rule:
If you achieve a 4 or more successes over your opponent then you can opt to turn the damage to physical. In this way, grapplers have found their way into a superior lock and strikers have found the perfect opening. It will be hard to critically succeed over another who is evenly matched.


Acrobatic Martial arts: No bonus dice. While in full defense, if you dodge a melee attack and win by at least 3 net successes then the attack is reversed and the opponent must defend as if he were the one being attacked. May only do this once per initiative phase. If you have a gun, you may also use this ability when using full defense in a ranged combat situation. (ie. John attacks a flipping David. John rolls 1 success and david rolls 5 as a dodge. Now the attack is reversed and John has to defend as if david attacked him and rolled 5 successes.)

Aikido: +2 dice to attacks to knock down(p.152). –2 dice to offensive attacks and strikes. May substitute Agility for Strength when comparing to the opponents body for knockdown attacks. If an Aikido practitioner wins initiative and delays his action until the opponent attacks, then they both roll unarmed attacks at the same time. If Aikido person wins, then the attacker takes damage with the base damage of his own str / 2 + total hits both he and the aikido practitioner scored. So if Aikido scored 3 and opponent scored 2, that would be counted as 5 net hits + opponents (str / 2). If he loses then he cannot defend the attack. Also his net hits are not subtracted from his opponents (ie. Aikido scored 2 and opponent scored 3. Aikido martial artist must now resist opponents (str /2) + 3. His 2 successes do not take away from the attack.)

Brawling: No bonus dice. +2 DV. +2 dice on the damage resistance test to any stun damage. +2 Body when determining if they are knocked down from a strike or shot. If knocked unconscious, the brawler can get 1 final punch before collapsing. If an edge is spent, then the brawler can ignore the damage modifier penalties for this final hit.

Boxing: +2 dice to offensive punching. On a successful hit, you may roll an extra attack but can only use 1 die for every net success. (ie. you boxed 3 net successes. You get a free attack but can only roll 3 dice). May not use this ability more than once per initiative phase. –2 dice to resisting attacks to knock down(p.152) and subduing.

Hard Style Kung Fu: +2 dice to all offensive strikes. If opponent is defending and both score the same number of hits, then it is still counted as a hit with 1 success as opposed to a miss or a touch attack. May choose 2 melee weapons to use Hard Style Kung Fu specialization skill with.

Jujitsu: +2 dice with all Subduing attacks/defenses. May substitute Agility for Strength when comparing to the opponents body for knockdown/subduing attacks. Opponent gets -2 body when determining attacks to knock down(p.152).

Karate: No bonus dice. All aggressive unarmed attacks can reroll 6's. May choose 1 melee weapon to use Karate specialization skill with.

Kick Boxing: +2 dice to offensive strikes. +1 DV. Opponent gets -2 body when determining if they were knocked down from a successful strike (similar to a gel round)

Ninjitsu: No bonus dice. May substitute Agility for Strength when comparing to the opponent’s body for knockdown attacks. Attacks to knock down (p.152) inflict standard unarmed damage. May choose 1 melee weapon to use Ninjitsu specialization skill with.

Soft Style Kung Fu: +2 dice with all defensive manuevers (unarmed). Successful deflections will knock them off balance and give you a superior position bonus (+2) for the next attack. Do not suffer any penalties for being attacked multiple times in the same phase. May choose 1 melee weapon to use Kung Fu specialization skill with.

Taekwondo: +2 dice with all offensive kicks. -2 dice penalty to attempts to knock down (p.152) and all subduing maneuvers/resists. Taekwondo martial artists can attack up to two targets at once without having to divide up the combat pool. Roll standard attack roll and if first opponent could not defend against it, then the second opponent must resist the attack or be struck as well.



of if none of those float your boat...

Generic Grappling: +2 dice to resisting and using subduing techniques.

Generic Striking: +2 dice to offensive attacks

Generic Takedowns: +2 dice to all attempts to knock down.

Cool ideas, I like most of them.

Only issue I have is that some can use agility instead of strength for damage. I can understand the reasons for this, but with agility already being the kickass attribute that it is, a character could take this and totally neglect strength...Pretty scary from a game balance point of view, but I can see your intentions...

Whoops, was a little unclear..I just revised it.. The agility was not in reference to the unarmed attack but in subduing/attacks to knock down.

With attempts to knock down, it's a normal melee attack. If Strength + net hits exceeds opponents body then the person is knocked down. Aikido, Jujitsu and Ninjistu can substitute the agility for strength when determining knockdown (aka sweep/flip/etc.) and/or subdual attacks. My bad, I should have elaborated, because Agility is cool enough. It doesn't replace the damage from strength... at least not in these instances.

Good stuff, just one question, then a possiblity to consider.

First:

Karate gets to use weapons. YEAH right. It means open fist...

It´s pretty cool, all in all, good work
I allso thougt about something like this, but did not have time to eleborate on it yet.

What about doing physical damage by sacreficing 4 dice off your attack pool? Crit rule should still apply, it´s pretty cool, and with a crit on a physical attack (allso with weapons), you could have something like with a glith on damageresistence (sever organ damage, that is up to the gm´s discretion).
You could do this one with a lock, too, but only get to deliver phys damage once, after that you´d have to renew the lock or do just stun!
A Critical success on a subrual or knock down should do instant damage, like an aggressive strike.

Edit: Aikido should allow agressive attacks, but subtract 2 dice from the pool or somthing. In gameterms you are learning general unarmed combat and afterwards specialize in a specific Martial Art. So you could still hit people you just have to overcome your specialization.

is this from the SR4 book? or just some stuff made up by a player?

if so I'll waite for a canon companion sr4 equalivialant.

Well, then You´ll have to wait, presumably ´till Arsenal is out!

You better would.

Extra options bought like spells would be a very flexible, yet easy system.

Well, in SR3, there was a martial arts maneuver that halved power but made your strike physical damage.