So just what is it in the marital arts that a spirit cannot understand? I think your example is undefined.

Asked and answered.


Okay, let's cut to the chase. Do you believe that a spirit could learn a mundane martial art with no need to alter it or interpret it for its own world experience, i.e. as a human would?

Yes, just as they can learn and use metahuman languages despite not really having lips, tongues, and teeth - muchless vocal cords or the actual need to move air across them.

@Aaron
Woo, I got an answer. Did not quit expect to spawn such a debate, though.
I can see where this Martial Arts/Spirits thingy is coming from, no true body/mass/balance and all and I also never really cared for if they can learn them or not, it just seemed so odd when reading it first. But there is one little detail that makes your reasoning awkward: possession tradition.
This would be even worse with Inhabitation, but since that is NPC only, it does not really matter right now.

Whatever, I'm satisfied knowing the reasoning behind that decision.


Maybe understanding the concept of communication is easier for spirits than the concept of momentum? Who knows, it's magic.

But marital arts are dependent on a lot of muscle training something a spirit dose not have. Where as speech and such its thought based. Spirits may use martial arts but there not the same as human ones much like TM skills they do the same job just differently. That's how I would run it now teaching and interpret the old arts or making your own that I don't know how to treat as of yet.



A human will need to interpret it for its own world experience. Although I know where your coming from.

Why people think combat martial arts are all just doing the moves baffles me. As its all about using the parts of the moves you now have in muscle memory when you need to. That robot would need to by high very stated close to being an AI to be as affective as an intelligent being.

Edit: wrong quote time to get some sleep I think.

Ah. Well, then your experience with martial arts seems to be somewhat different than mine. C'est la vie.


It's true. For me, though, it came down to whether it was worth the word count to mention that martial arts for spirits doesn't quite work the same way, or to just nix the whole thing. And for me, "... or any quality from ... Augmentation ..." allowed me to include information in the writeup that was more valuable than a discussion of an edge case for an optional rule. And all the other stuff I've already posted in this thread also applies. =i)


Wait, am I still on DSF? ;i)


Excellent point. Come to think of it, I once won a fencing tournament almost entirely on a parry-riposte that was nigh-automatic for me (at the time; I'm probably way out of practice now). But yeah, when you're on, it's tick-tick-tick-tick-bam. Which probably makes little sense now that I read it. It's automatic, but it's more than that, it's like a flow -- meh, hard to describe. But yeah, I dig where you're coming from.

I think its that we both fenced. I use fencing ideas when ever in a fight block, defelect, moving away and striking when of balance. In fact there are a few skills sprits should have a hard time learning climbing and doge spring to mind. But some of these aren't needed any how.

This muscle memory idea applies to almost every physical and combat skill, yet no one really argues against a spirit learingn Unarmed Combat or Gymnastics. The martial arts picks can get you things like a +1 DV to unarmed attacks from practiced hitting or +1 die to defend against unarmed attacks from practicing blocking/parrying - why couldn't a spirit learn this?

no idea. But part if me thinks that these would be none standard arts. Well when you can change your arm's mass mid swing you need some combat technecs that are very diffrent to murry-mundane's and andy-adept's

This goes back to the fallacythat just because you can do a thing that you must do it. Remember that just because I can walk, that doesn't stop me from playing wheelchair basketball just as well as a paraplegic that has spent the same amount of time training at it as I have (which, btw, is one time... it was kinda weird). The spirit never has to change its mass in mid swing - it can certainly operate just as a metahuman would when making a punch and this should include throwing the punch in such a way as to gain the martial arts benefits.

Keep in mind that the muscle memory argument should also keep a spirit from speaking as muscle memory in the tongue, lips, and a few other muscle groups are key to forming sounds. Sign language and typing also rely on a certain degree of muscle memory. Once again, no one argues that spirits can't speak, sign, or type if they take the relevant skills. What makes martial arts special?

spirits don't necessarily even need a mouth to speak, actually. presumably, that's not how their ability to communicate works. they may not even have a human-shaped form... in fact, many won't. a giant hawk or insect are quite likely to be more common forms for free spirits than human-shaped, with the exception of ally spirits. a spirit's *natural* form is to be a purely astral entity. their natural habitat is a place where they aren't ignoring the natural laws of the material plane, but rather a place where those natural laws may or may not even exist. they aren't humans. they may not even *look* human. in fact, other than a select few with the realistic form power, pretty much none of them do look quite human.

you or i can build up muscles or callouses by training. a spirit can't. a spirit doesn't toughen up it's fists by punching a punching bag a lot, it toughens up it's fists by getting karma from someone else and converting that into a knowledge of how to toughen it's fists (which are not actually even fists, to be honest). a spirit doesn't learn about fighting by constant training, it learns about fighting by getting karma from someone else and then simply transforming that into knowledge about fighting.

most spirits probably don't have the inclination to spend time learning martial arts, and why would they? their natural habitat is not the material plane. their materialised form isn't their body, it's just a collection of spirit-stuff that happens to look like a body and which is useful for manipulating things on the material plane, if they absolutely have to go there.

If you're asking me, I'd say resolution. Martial arts is a very specific subset of Unarmed Combat.

I agree with the muscle-memory ideas. Sounds are just that, sounds. They can be made from a number of different sources, and don't require your muscles to remember how to do them. It's much more conscious thought required. I've done a bit of martial arts myself and when you're in combat, your body responds with the move because it's programmed to. You don't just think it, you have to physically do the motion as well. A robot could imitate any sound without issue, but it would require a very specific set of joints, pistons and the like to create the motion range required to pull of certain combat motions, not to mention a processor capable of interpreting an incoming attack and responding with the correct move to deflect or stop it. Muscles do that reflexively. A spirit has no muscles, so likely couldn't do the martial arts. I think that's also why you don't see spirits with the Running skill.

I do also agree that it should be more difficult to learn other skills, like typing. I can touch type because my fingers know where to go when I need certain letters. I don't think, okay, right middle finger to the I key when I need to type that. I just think words and my fingers find the buttons for me at a rather brisk pace. A spirit would have no problem with typing by looking at the keyboard to find the keys. Touch typing would be much harder, as their lack of muscles couldn't remember exactly where to go when they needed letters. Sign language would be similarly slow, because they'd have to think out the words, instead of just performing the motions from muscle memory.

Climbing wouldn't be an issue because a spirit can fly and just imitate the motions. Swimming the same thing. Swimming is just flying through a different medium for a spirit. So maybe a houserule to make it more costly for spirits to learn physical skills? Or a dice penalty when doing certain things?

Oh and on dodging, knowing to move out of the way is something a spirit could do. It's a spirit. Blink, it's over there. Or it floats to the left as a dodge. It won't dodge like a metahuman, but it can still know how to get out of the way.

I think you have that backwards. A spirit doesn't need muscles to perform physical actions, so it shouldn't need muscles to perform martial arts techniques. If a spirit can learn physical skills - which it certainly can - then what makes martial arts so special? Driving, firing a gun, and virtually every skill linked to a physical attribute involves muscle memory (which, BTW, is primarily a neurological conditioning, not a 'reflexive' feature of muscles), yet a spirit can perform all of those activities just fine. Further, if there were special driving maneuvers that could be learned, I'd argue that a spirit could learn them as well - but currently martial arts is the only such expanded area.


A language is FAR more than just sounds. Odd that you would grossly simplify one complex activity (verbal communication) while trying to make martial arts seem far more complex.

Nothing to worry, citizen, it seems you took the wrong turn somewhere and ended up in bizarro DSF. Regular operations will resume shortly.
No, really, your reasoning works fine for me.

Spirits can learn to use skill that would require muscle memory and indeed a real body with all that fancy body stuff, because they might have their own versions of it, somehow, or can understand the basic idea behind. But Martial Arts from the Material Plain might just be too far removed from them to grasp or care.
And from a pure game mechanic perspective, you can't really afford to spend you karma, precious, precious karma, on some wonky Martial Art anyway.

I'm thinking you're trying to be funny, but I see no smileys here...

If you're serious and believe that martial arts are something beyond a mundane (non-mystical) application of a systematic fighting style in combat (or competition, or whatever...), then I'll find it funny in a different way.


The same could be said for a great number of skills and qualities, but that doesn't ban them from trying if that's what they really want to do (excepting matrix/AR/VR stuff).

Oh boy. What do I respond to that? To keep it short: MA are mundane. Spirits are not. Kind of the opposite situation of a mundane trying to learn astral combat, or something (yes, I know, does not really compare, yadda, yadda).
It's not like it really matters, you cannot resolve this topic with reason, logic and all that. It's a game, you don't like it, houserule it. It's not like I care for either side of the argument here. Was just curious for the "why" and since I don't like houseruling, I will stick to RAW... most likely also because that problem will never, ever come up in my game.

Really, why bother?

Also, I was not 100% serious (never are), but since you got me wrong almost completly, it was




There, a smiley. Happy now?

Funny what people tend to start discussions on

It is a rather simple subject to me... Spirits are not explainable by pure mudane logic. Starting of from there, I see many good reasons for Spirits not to master martial arts aswell as reasons as many and good for the to do it or even be better at it. Real experience is almost worthless here, as no one possibly would have experience on spirits doing martial arts.

It after all is just a matter on what parmeters one wants to set for ones game reality, and that is always up to the ST/group. I think we do not even use the martial arts rules at all, in our campaign.

On the phiosophical angle, you'll find that there are spirits in myth that should be masters of martial arts beyond of what a human can reach, while others might not even be able to grasp the concept.

All in all, I think it is not necesarry to make "spirits and martial arts" a topic at all, if you do not plan to do a whole chapter about it... and who would need that.

I would make them cost 2 or 1.5 times more.

while you can, you will be fighting your instincts all the way as the first time the wheelchair becomes a problem you want to step out of it.

for a spirit thats like when a blow comes it would either not care, as it do not pack the needed willpower to overcome its natural immunities, or it will make use of its built in abilities to defend against or avoid said blow. and if i understand martial arts right, its just as much about defense as offense...