Unlike most of the martial arts detailed in Arsenal Firefight only gives three possible advantages to choose instead of the four used by other examples. What would your suggestion be for a fourth? +1 die (before splitting the pool) to shooting with a gun in each hand sounds good to me, but anyone else have different ideas?

What Maneuvers from the book seem appropriate for practitioners of this style? I like the idea of using Break Weapon and Disarm for shooting weapons out of opponents hands, what else?

Not to sound too forum-troll like here, but uh... why does it need a fourth?

If a practitioner of Firefight (using RAW) is maxed out in what he can learn in Firefight there are other martial arts he could learn to complement them.

Why shouldn't Firefight be on par with the rest of the Martial Arts? I've actually been assuming that the lack of a fourth option was a misprint, but the company hasn't been very good about producing FAQ's and errata. As for complimenting Firefight with another Martial Art, I'm thinking of doing that (a Face with Firefight/Akido) but I just think that it should have a "black belt" level (i.e. a fourth tier). If I wind up playing the character and can get the GM to agree to any of the ideas spawned here I may even petition to have the character himself invent the fourth tier move.

As for not sounding like a forum troll, one thing that may help in the future is responding to the rest of the post, not just the part that seems to have annoyed you. Do you have any suggestions as to which maneuvers would be taught in Firefight?

If you'd care to examine the other styles, they don't all have four advantages. Boxing, for example, only has two, each of which may be taken twice, making for a total of four selections. For the same reason, Firefight only has three, because the attacker in melee modifier can be reduced twice.

Which only gives three selections. All of the other styles, taking into account selections that can be doubled (or IIRC in one case tripled), have four selections available. I'm just not seeing why Firefight was left out on this.

And again, why is everyone complaining about the first question but ignoring the second?

Wow, oops. I just stopped reading, when I checked it, as soon as I saw the parentheses on the second one.

why not watchful guard? Also: two weapon style seems natural for the dual wielder...

Cheers

Max

p.s. see? I am taking up the second question...

I could see a penalty to attempts to disarm a Firefighter, or a +1 DV to clubs attacks as an additional advantage, if one's necessary. It occurs to me that it may not have a fourth advantage because it's less developed than any of the others.

As for maneuvers, Disorient would go well, as well as Kick Attack, Sweep, Herding and Evade.

And this is why I asked the second, I haven't seen a lot of Gun-fu movies. It wouldn't have occurred to me to put kick or sweep on a list of moves taught in Firefight.

Because not all martial arts are created equal, and Firefight very clearly isn't very much like other martial arts? It's still a way to burn plenty of Quality points on being better at something, yes, but it's obviously not meant to work like Karate or Kung Fu or something -- it's not an unarmed art, it's meant to complement the use of handguns in ridiculously close quarters.

If you feel like it really needs to be house rules, you could give it two-weapon bonuses or Club bonuses for pistol whipping (both obviously inspired by Equilibrium). As it is, though, it does what it's designed to do, and lets you use a handgun in melee with a much smaller penalty than anyone else. That's enough, IMO (and in the opinion of the designers).

I'd agree that Firefight could have fewer advantages as it is a relatively newly developed martial art, and is so unique that it cannot even draw on older martial arts. If you really want to add something, perhaps +1 to dodge opposing gunfire?

As far as manoeuvres, I'd focus on those that inflict modifiers, rather than those that cause damage, and those that allow/improve dual wielding.

Evasion would be my top choice for this art.

I personally like it as written. If in your game you wish it had more modifiers, go crazy with it. If in my own game somebody wanted to be totally Firefight with no other martial arts and be like a Grammaton Cleric from equilibrium I'd suggest they take one level in Krav Maga and then call that 5pts worth of Krav Maga their 4th advantage in Firefight and roleplay that they are one of the world's best at it.

I'm a pretty big fan of sticking to RAW unless its pretty badly broken so YMMV.

Dude, I made that chara. Complete with burst fire modded preds.

Yeah? Did he do all his runs with a "calm/emotionless" moodchip slotted?

fourth advantage: -1 dice pool penalty for renged attacks in melee, thus negating it

maneuvers
disarm-the Waco Kid in Blazing Saddles
multi-strike-perfect for Chow Yun Fat
ground fighting-even the best fighters get knocked down
watchful guard-useful when trying to shoot several enemies desperate to get medieval on you

I also agree that Firefight doesn't necessarily need as many advantages as the other martial arts. You're saving BP or karma by having only 3 levels of it--perhaps you could use the karma or BP you would have spent on the fourth and instead buy 1 level of something else? It seems to me that if you were that good at Firefight, then by that point you would basically just be incorporating some other martial art into it, anyway. Take a level of Kung Fu or something, and just say that your "firefight" martial art is influenced by Kung Fu. Or whatever martial art offers the technique your character's after.

It occurs to me that Firefight probably isn't anybody's first martial art. Granted, there's no reason that you couldn't learn it without having learned another, but it seems like it's essence is something to be added on to another martial art. So, much like CircuitBoyBlue was saying, it would be like your Firefight is influenced by the martial art that you were originally trained in. That the Martial Arts quality isn't necessary for having learned any given martial art, would get around any requirement for purchasing another Art along with Firefight, which I'm sure wouldn't fly with many players, since it would cost them more points. Saying that the entirety of your martial arts experience is with Firefight, though, would seem to be unrealistic, when considering that it's only officially existed for two/three years.

I agree with CircuitBoyBlue and Jackstand.

Using the Equilibrium example, the Grammaton Clerics fought with Katanas as well as pistols. I think their close quarters fighting skills began as a Japanese or at least Chinese martial art; they then swapped out pistols for their swords and learned to use something that spat lead.

As far as trying to emulate the Gun Katas, you'd have to ask your GameMaster if you could take +1 dodge against ranged weapons... as the Gun Katas were designed to avoid BULLETS, not blades.

Also don't forget that Christian Bale in Equilibrium was playing THE BEST Grammaton Cleric, the most highly skilled and awesome. In SR you'd probably have to take elements from like five different martial arts, and max out all his firearms skills as well as the blades and unarmed combat skills, and add a maneuver that lets you reload your weapons, pick up assault rifles with your feet, etc. all as free actions.

That said, I think an awesome combo would be:

Sangre y Acero (Blood and Steel)
5BP: +1DV with Blades
5BP: reduce opponent's "friends in melee" bonus by 1
2BP: Two-Weapon Style
2BP: Off-Hand Training (Blades)
2BP: Off-Hand Training (Clubs)
Firefight
10BP: reduce ranged "attacker in melee" mod by 2
5BP: +1 on melee dodge defense tests
2BP: Evasion
Krav Maga
5BP: Ready Weapon becomes a free action
5BP: Take Aim becomes a free action
2BP: Multi-Strike
2BP: Watchful Guard