Martial Arts
Each Martial Arts style is taken as its own Skill; just as there are various 'Exotic Melee Weapon (X)' skills and 'Exotic Ranged Weapon (X)' skills, Martial Arts is effectively the 'Exotic Unarmed Combat (X)' skill. Each skill should be listed as "Martial Arts: {style}".

Each Martial Arts skill may have multiple customized "specializations", called Advantages and Maneuvers, in addition to their standard Specialization. Each Advantage is purchased at 1 BP or 2 Karma, and a character may have a number of Advantages equal to their base (Unaugmented) Skill rating. Each Maneuver is purchased at 2 BP or 4 Karma, and counts as two Advantages. Thus, a character with Martial Arts: Wrestling 5 may purchase up to five Advantages for that skill, or one Maneuver and up to three Advantages, or two Maneuvers and up to one Advantage.

Characters use their appropriate Martial Arts skill when executing Maneuvers purchased with that Skill. Once a character has learned a Maneuver for one Martial Arts skill, he may purchase the same Maneuver for additional Martial Arts skills at half cost (1 BP or 2 Karma). Re-purchased Maneuvers still count as two Advantages for determining the maximum number of Advantages and Maneuvers one may learn per Skill.

Maneuvers
Two Weapon Style - A character using this maneuver has trained to wield a second melee weapon in his off hand, or to perform fast, simple jabs with his unarmed fists. In order to use two weapons, each weapon must have a Reach of 0 or 1. So long as the character is wielding two weapons of the appropriate type(s), he may perform a Melee Attack or Full Defensive Parry with either weapon as a Simple Action at a -2 dice pool penalty. Each weapon may only be used once in an Action Phase, so if the character chooses to perform a Melee Attack with his left-hand weapon as one Simple Action, he may only perform another Melee Attack or Full Defensive Parry with his right-handed weapon. This maneuver may be combined with the Multi-Strike maneuver to reduce each dice pool penalty to -1.

Riposte - A character with Riposte who successfully parries or blocks a melee combat attack with 1 or more net hits may make an immediate attack on her attacker using the number of net hits achieved as their attack dice pool, even if it is not her Action Phase in the turn. Making a riposte is considered an interrupt action, however, and uses up the character's next available action. If the defender achieves 2 or more net hits on his parry or block, this maneuver may be combined with the Two Weapon Style maneuver to allow the character to make the riposte attack using his normal attack dice pool with a -2 penalty (-1 when further combined with the Multi-Strike maneuver).


What do you think, Sirs?

Doesn't look that bad, I have to think about it a little longer, but atm I like the basic idea.

I've seen a few suggestions now about house ruling Martial Arts and, I'll be honest, I just don't get it.

I know there are some twink-ish things you can do with them, but I feel like they're a big improvement over previous editions. One of the things I hated was the idea of forcing players to buy extra skills just so they could fight with two weapons (or whatever).

Along those lines, I don't see any need to buy separate skills for each Martial Art. You've bought the unarmed skill, the quality, and the maneuvers. Now you need another skill because you've decided to branch out from Krav Maga to Karate?

I admit that the Riposting Cuisinart is a bit of a problem, but only because there's a debate over the wording interrupt actions. I personally plan to take the more conservative route my table, but that's neither here nor there. I expect the interrupt actions problem will be cleared up with this month's CGL chat. Well, I hope it will, anyway.

-paws

Well, actually, I made MA styles Skills instead of Qualities because I didn't like them being limited by the starting 35-BP Quality cap.

*re-reads*

Ok, I see what you're saying now. I misread a couple things there the first time through... that 2nd paragraph could use a little rewording, maybe. Or I'm a twit. I dunno.

Couple questions for you:

What about regular old Unarmed Combat? Does that cease to exist? If not, why would anyone ever learn it since even something as common/generic as Martial Arts: Judo would allow you to take maneuvers and advantages?

Is the limitation on number of maneuvers and advantages a hard limit or one imposed only at character creation?

What do Martial Arts: X specializations apply to? A particular maneuver?



-paws

Shrug. You could always just rule that the cap doesn't apply to Martial Arts Qualities.

For two weapon fighting should the weapon size usable be upped to two for Trolls?

There you go looking for an easy solution again...

Our group has decided that MA qualities and Magic/Resonance Qualities aren't bound by the cap...
And the cap is just a guideline to us anyway, if you go over 35, just check it with the GM...
Friend of mine made a character like Marv from Sin City, he started with about 60 points in positives and 45 in negatives, but since the character was cool and not munchy (could have made a stronger char for much less just by being a troll instead of a human) the GM allowed it...


It should realistically do this, but trolls are melee munchy enough as it is, so I really wouldn't...