I've been browsing around the forums trying to figure out the answer to a question I have on the martial arts. However the topic seems loaded with all sorts of Chaff that confound my searching efforts. And since I don't have an Agent 6 program with a browse 6 to put to the datasearch task all night I am going to post the question and see if there's been any rulings on this.

The build in question is a physical Adept. Now I'm going to skip out on the auxillery side stuff and cut straight to the trouble. The guy has 4 strength, a 4 rating in his unarmed combat. He took critical strike at level 5. So DV 7

He then took as many martial arts that have +1 DV and crammed for them. Now, I know there's a rather lengthy topic in the forums with a long heated debate as to the how valid it is to stack up martial arts as opposed to becoming a savant of a singular style. For intents and purposes this game is allowing the combining of multiple martial arts as per the rules as written.

His style list is as follows:
+Karate (+1 DV on Unarmed Combat)
+Kung Fu (+1 DV on Unarmed Combat)
+Muay Thai x2 (+1 DV on Unarmed Combat)
+Tae Kwon Do (+1 DV on Unarmed Combat)
+Wild Cat (+1 DV on Unarmed Combat)

That's +6 DV for a total of 13 DV unarmed. So there you go, someone who hits almost as hard as a mortar round with his fists.

Now, arsenal has the following lines page 156:

Now the argument brought up is DV is not a dice pool. However in my book it tends to be more powerful then dice since on average 3 dice over your target in the long run gives roughly +1DV. So, I figure it would be more in the spirit of the rules to treat the damage value bonuses like dice pool bonuses an cap it at his unarmed combat sill of 4 leaving him with only +4 DV and 11P damage with his unarmed strike.

However, one could also argue that since it isn't a dice pool, the stacking rules may not apply, one could try only applying the largest bonus.

Granted of all those rules, the martial artist still has to get in the face of whoever he's dissaembling with his bare hands before he can actually apply any of these large damage modiers. So this makes him absolutely useless in car chases and sniper fire and likely to end up dead vs stuff like dragons.

So the grand question of the hour is has there been any consensus reached on the DV stacking?

Hardly impressive. He spent 30BP and all he can do is hit hard. That's not broken or unbalanced, it's just boring. Let it stack. Just avoid HtH combat with that character after he one-punched a few guys.

Artillery with the fists? Why not?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xnt5Q5HaV6U...feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mUlFqL72iV0...feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J1ZZa_JFN9s

That 's scary high DV for unarmed combat, i would probaply not be okey with allowing that, but most of all i would like to know how the chatacter background explains him knowing all those martiall arts(and only the parts about them that ugrade his damage). Becouse having relly good story for having all that would probaply go a longway toward GM allowing that DV to stack.

i would agree it's within the spirit of that rule to limit him to as many bonuses as the connected skill. that being said, he has adept powers that let him improve his skill, he should probably use them

Let him have it all. You might even suggest a few more bonuses to stack on top. Then have the very first little old lady he meets in the game shoot him right in the face.

From a rules aspect: let him have it. Its punching damage. he's got magic. La di da.


From a 'real world' aspect/game design aspect: Blech. This comes from not thinking things through very well. A non-fanwankerish look at martial arts shows you they all pretty much teach the same things, they just get their by different methods. Since learning the basic fundamentals of punching people as hard science, rather than learning through trial and error (in the case of martial arts, inheriting generations of trial and error as a replacement for hard science...), you wind up with the view that +1 DV is the same regardless of style you learned it under. Only internally stackable bonuses (+2 DV from same MA, fer ex) would apply, and you could argue that having learned the +1 DV from any other style counts for the style that lets you go to +2. They just got that much further in expanding the knowledge of 'punching people'.

But since this is a game with magic, dragons and immortal elves, why the hell not suggest all martial arts tap into mundane levels of magic (if there is such a thing.. belief shapes magic, whatever) and learning from a 'true master' gives you magic kung fu abilites to punch people. Learning from a lot of masters gives you lots of kung fu abilities to punch people, resulting in a dude who spent his whole life learning to punch people until he could 'punch the world'.

Now that dude thinks that the ability to 'punch the world' makes him a shadowrunner. God help us all...

Except you can shoot anyone, so it doesn't really have the appropriate level of irony.

Have him hit an explosive filled human looking drone.

I would have no problem letting them stack, but there better be a damn fine explanation as to how this guy leaned those techniques from 5 different MA...

It could be possible... Some people are just obsessed with the "how can I kill someone with this martial art", they don't care about the discipline, and the other training that comes with it. He would be hated by all martial arts, because of his lack of devotion to any of the arts, he's just a poser of all. Since all martial arts require an instructor to learn, he better have alot of contacts, or he's pissed off all of his instructors with his lack of dedication, and its unlikely he'll get any more training very easily.

Just adding fluff, YMMV. But just some interpretations I'd have of the character.

is this in SR4 cause i cant find the pages for any martial arts anywhere?

It's in Arsenal. Optional Rule stuff.

is that a different book? or is it in the core rule book?

It's this book. It has weapons, gear and stuff.

I'm not sure a DV of 13 is that hot. He could do pretty much the same by having a monofiliment whip weapon focus which would cost less BP and is more likely to hit?

But yeah as fortune points out it is a game with guns and being able to punch through steel walls just isn't that impressive. I say go for it. Get a backstory sure, but no reason not to let him do it.

Other things he could do with those BP includes, say, taking longarms 6 +2 sniper rifles and buying a smartlink and a Barreta and fitting EX-EX and frankly is alot more likely to hit and does almost as much damage with one net hit - but he will get more than 1 net hit.

I've got a guy that runs 9 DV unarmed. Sure it's 4 less, but he's also got a crapload more manuevers, and actual skill points in other things.

I admit sometimes it's temping when you have a concept for something 'uber' (the Uber Hacker, The Uber Puncher, Uber Fugu Slicing Specialist, whatever), to pour as many BPs possible into one thing to see how uber it gets. I had my guy's DV higher at one point but then i saw how much he was missing out on other stuff so I lowered it to 'still fucking awesome' from 'absurd'. It does look nice at first glance but then you see the big picture of the character.

But even those things DO stack...i mean, explaining to them that if they just take say, a dv of 9(which is ONE away from a PANTHER CANNON explain), they have a LOT of BP to do other cool stuff with. Ok, he's got 6 DV from martial arts, which means his normal is 7 DV. Really, cut out 4 of them, that's 20 BP, that's 2 Edge points, or alot of Resources, or Magic(if he's an adept), or a full 5 Skill Points, or a bunch of Manuvers(which rock as im finding out), or a little bit of all of the above.

8-9 DV will knock out/kill most stuff in melee real quick, especially since you add hits to that. When you think about it, look at the humble heavy pistol. 5P damage. Ive seen people with a nice Pistols dice pool annihilate people with that.

I am with the general consensus that this is not a balance issue. So what if they are gods in melee? They still have to get into range first. That usually means sprinting on their first action and not getting to attack till the second, if then even. The absurd amount of BP spent on Martial Arts to get max DV is stupidly inefficient. He should have just made a troll, maxed his unarmed, taken a specialization in punching, gotten 3 levels of Improved Ability (Unarmed Combat), maxed Penetrating Strike at 3, Muscle Toner 2, Muscle Aug 2, Attribute Boost (Agility), Attribute Boost (Strength). There are already ways shooting DV through the roof without stacking Martial Arts Bonuses.

My main issue with stacking DV from martial arts is that it doesn't make sense to me. I guess it is a way for mundanes to compete against adepts, though it requires more effort to do so. Example being some guy who studied the killer techniques from as many Martial arts as possible. Seriously though, this guy is probably lacking big time in other crucial aspects of being a shadowrunner.

My main character is an elf face with Agility 6 (soon to be 10 with 4 levels of toner), Unarmed 6, Strength 3, Critical Strike 3. Helped him survive in Yomi when taking on Orks and Trolls, but by no means maxed. KK's Hurricane Hannah on the other hand got about 10 net hits one time on a guard (Agility 5, Strength 5, Critical Strike 5, Penetrating Strike 3, Unarmed 6(9)+2, Killing Hands). With her base DV8, -3AP and 10 net hits, the GM rolled Body got next to no hits: "Well, after Dodging him like a squirrel, you come into range and give him a straight. He seems to be caught unaware as you sheer his head from his neck." All I got to say is "Shadowrun: Yeah, it's kinda like that."

EDIT - BTW, Wounded, I like the Hokuto no Ken links. I read the manga ages ago but never saw the anime. Have to remember that he is a high level initiate adept with 10+ levels of critical strike, Killing Hands, and Delay Damage (Obvious).

Thanks for the input. Stacking most likely will be the route to go. The guy knows how to write, so background stories are not really an issue here. At least he hasn't tried kicking people while wearing those roller blades that are in his gear.

I just got this amusingly horrible picture in my head of the 'Extreme Team' from The Protector when you said that.

The whole "martial arts are godly" thing kinda rubs me the wrong way. But I agree that it's not that big a deal. It's much cheaper for an Adept to load up on Critical Strike and other melee buffs, so by the time anyone has every damage boosting martial art, the Adept has just as much DV, but also a higher dice pool in unarmed combat, and other useful abilities to boot. And in the end, being able to kill people in one punch is something I think belongs in the setting, because it's all about cybermonsters and insane magical powers and such.

So does this mean that SR has...

Armor piercing Jiu jitsu?

But yeah, the phrase that leaps into my mind is "one trick pony".