Has anyone seen a copy of the new rules for martial arts that will appear in arsenal?

hahaha

No one that's telling, assuming they're even written down at this point. That itself is a fucking huge assumption.

The mind of the Amazing Keskin sees all. Things that hasn't been written down yet. Even things that the eventual author doesn't know yet. So if you want to know this and more about the contents of Arsenl please send money order or a certified cheque made out to "4889434 Alberta Company" and mail it to:
The Amazing Keskin
C/O Your Mom
#66 Swordfish Mustardball Estates
Calgary, Alberta, Canada

For prompt service make sure to have that cheque drawn up in Newfoundland Pesos.

P.S.

As a teaser Amazing Keskin will let you know the actual title and tagline the book will be released under: "'LeeT Lewtz; Overpowered Gear And Optional Powergaming Rules For The Everyday Munchkin"

Can we avoid the thread-crapping when a new member asks an honest question, blakkie? Thanks.

Arsenal's martial arts rules are in playtest, and thus, have only been seen by the authors/playtesters at this point.

Given the basic design of SR4, one can at least hope that they won't incorporate gazillions of new skills like in Cannon Compendium.

Going from that point, it seems likely that it will be a modular system, allowing to purchase 'special maneuvers' to tailor the style presented, perhaps like mentor spirits or spells.

My two cents on martial arts. Please do not include a skill that completely eliminates the advantage of superior numbers like Whirling in SR 3. I understand that people want to be like Jackie Chan and take on odds of 30 to 1 and barely get a scratch, but it just ruined hand to hand combat. It essentially made it so that grunts were completely worthless, uninteresting in combat, not particularly worrisome in planning, basically they became a time wasting speed bump in the run.

Splitting Unarmed Combat down into various martial arts isn't a bad idea, as long as they're easier to combine than buying a whole new skill.
Some of the maneuvers were cool though. Kip up and ground fighting were my fav's.

Hey how about a martial art skill learning web!?

Now that would be cool.

Seriously though, i like the idea of the martial arts maneuvers system, maybe something a bit more freeform and build it yourself?
Similar to magical traditions.

The maneuevers were indeed nifty.

I guess "maneuver packages" are still going to be the way to go, since technically we can't have multiple martial arts Specializations.

ugh, i can allready see the powergamers going gleefully insane over the posibility of building the ultimate martial art style. i have a feel that most will label it "true ninjitsu"

Nah I will label it
"Way of the Intercepting Fist"

*receives paperwork from lawyer*
"Oh"
Okay that one has been used

It would seem like they could just take a note from Spells, and allow people to buy maneuvers for a minimal karma cost, with them largely functioning like the SR3 ones did (allowing special moves, or bonuses in some situations).

Honestly, linking the number of maneuvers you could know to the level of the skill seemed kinda pointless.

Hopefully, we'll also see the various "traditions" as guidelines for maneuver picks, rather than packages or "buy from" lists...

I hope they'll add something that help integrate armed/unarmed stuff of certain styles. At the moment my char is an eskrima specialist, which kinda works out as the 'close combat skill group' as it covers the blade, club and unarmed portions I was wondering tho, if I were to use actual SR4 specialization rules, would it be....

Blades 6 (eskrima +2)
Clubs 6 (eskrima +2)
unarmed (eskrima +2)

?

Only problem with that is that "Unarmed" means nothing is in your hands, therefore you would never get the spec bonus if you were using eskrima from unarmed. It would automaticly go to blade or club skill.

Sure. He'll just fail to execute all of them.

Of course, that's all well and good for maneuvers that still require an attack roll. For maneuvers that just work (i.e. like whirling) they could just include a skill prerequisite.

hi, i am new in the forums

i like very much the maneuvers point of view.

i am a big fan of boxing styles of fight, so maneuvers like haymakers punches are welcome

Welcome!

I'm a fan of anything that makes melee combat more interesting, and allows people to develop a "style" for their character. Boxing would certainly be one of those

*sigh*

I really hate the concept of buying a martial art. That's kind of artificial. The way I see it unarmed combat ability is broken down by skills and that's the most realistic way martial arts could be modeled. I wrote up a SR3 melee system that was more "realistic" in my opinion a while back.

Nevertheless, I will always remain pessimistic that SR martial arts will never get any better and I will always have to ignore them so as to not make my head hurt.

well, so i think you dont like gurps ehehhehe.

pc: i want to fight jeet kune do like bruce lee

gm: you can do that but you will have to buy 3000 skills to fight jeet kune do like i girl. To fight like bruce lee you will have to buy the 3000 skills with a DX 20

I have always been a fan of martial arts being a specialization of Unarmed Combat. And maneuvers being qualities associated with that particular martial art. The idea would be that a martial art specialization would give you points (like magic gives an adept) to learn manovers and in melee combat you would use your matial art specialization instead of unarmed combat skill. This means you would need multiple specilizations to learn different manovers.

I also never liked style specilizations, as there's not really a lot of times when they won't apply, especially if your players know their martial arts enough to pick something that's well rounded.

I´m having the same Doubts & problems as most people who came here searching for maneuvers - most of my players are martial arts praticants (aikido, one of them is a 3rd dan black-belt, and I practiced judo since I was 3 years old till my mid-twenties), and they constantly ask me about how to do this or that in the game.

Usually, I let them do whatever manuever they want - as long as it´s appropriate for the Unamed Combat specialization they chose (muay thai, karate, white crane kung fu, whatever), with a dice pool modifier for the manuever difficulty (always negative).

Ugh, I just view Unarmed combat as unarmed combat. You train for it, no specializations. It makes life and bookeeping easier that way. And yes, I've done martial arts and still do, and I've done a few different styles. But, if a person is skilled in unarmed combat, then they are skilled in the unarmed combat. Any maneuver will be more of a cinematic and flavour for the game, but I won't bog it down with any arguments about how this style is better than that or why that martial arts is better than another in circumstances.

Oh, but there´s no bookeeping - as we have a good idea what every style do, anyone with only Unarmed Combat can just punch, ram or kick, while others with the martial arts specialization can do a lot of other stuff (+1/-1 to dice pool depending on what). And yes, my game is VERY cinematic, and the players like it that way, so nobody is harmed (except for the people on the business end of a clenched fist). But nobody argues on which style is better - EVERYBODY knows that drunken praying monkey kung fu is the best style of all!

IIRC, the specializations of Unarmed Combat are Cyber-Implants, Martial Arts, Subdual Combat, and Parrying. The easiest house-rule for this (and the least change from what's in the book) is to replace "Martial Arts" with "Attacking," and if the player is a student of a particular martial art, you rename "Unarmed Combat" to that art.

-------------------------------------------

(and now, I pull some of the "focuses" of a couple of martial arts out of my ass)

Let's take Joe Runner, for a moment. Joe Runner has Unarmed Combat at 4, with the Martial Arts specialization. This doesn't really reflect what he's trained to do very well, and there's an awful lot of room left in there for debate over what, exactly, he's able to apply the bonus to. So, we use the house rule I just mentioned:

Let's say, for example, Joe's training is in Aikido. That'd give him Aikido 4 (Subdual Combat +2). Or, his training could be in Tai Chi, which could be expressed as Tai Chi 4 (Parrying +2). Or maybe he was trained in a more aggressive art, like Kung Fu... his skill would be expressed as Kung Fu 4 (Striking +2). If he's an aggressive metalhead, he may even have found an old German ex-military 'borg instructor, and learned the art of Eisenpanzer, which would be best expressed as Eisenpanzer 4 (Cyber-weapons +2).

If you are referring to Gunnm/Battle Angle Alita, you mean 'Panzerkunst' ..which is martian.

*shrug* I know about enough German to figure out a cool-sounding martial art name like "Iron Panther" (that is, very little). If there's going to be heavily augmented and internally armed people in the future, someone is going to develop a martial art for them.

Iron Panther = Eisenpanther (sounds like a KungFu flick.)
Eisenpanzer = Iron Tank (sounds like... Steampunk?)

Actual renaming of a skill isn't necessary, though... names are mostly relevant ingame.