So I was wondering, if using a martial art maneuver with a weapon, which skill do you use? The martial art or the weapon skill? Is there an official ruling on this somewhere that I overlooked? I was thinking that which ever was lower would be used. The other skill being complimentary, which would demonstrate how exceeding effective weapons combined with martial arts can be.

I don't think there is a specific rule.

Personally if you're using the martial arts form in conjunction with the weapon skill I'd say roll the weapon skill with the limitation that if the weapon skill is higher than the martial arts skill you can only roll a number of dice equal to your skill in the martial arts form.

So if your person has skill 6 in Polearms and skill 4 in Kung Fu (I think it has weapon access) the most they could roll of their 6 polearm skill would be 4 dice if they wanted to use a Kung Fu maneuver.

If conversely the person had 6 in Kung Fu and 4 in Polearms they'd be limited to their skill in Polearms of 4 dice because quite honestly picking up a martial arts form that makes use of a weapon doesn't make you any better with that weapon unless you practice and equivalent amount of time with it as you do the martial art.

Anyone else?

tbo

Since I've never completely understood the canon rules for weapons and martial arts as listed in CC, I made my own house rule up which may apply: any person with a melee weapon skill equal to or higher than their martial arts skill can use that melee weapon in conjunction with their martial arts. That means that the person uses their martial arts skill (not their weapon skill) as the base number of dice to roll. However, instead of doing unarmed damage (usually (Str)M stun) they inflict damage based on the weapon their using. All applicable maneuvers that can be applied to the weapon skill are applied to the weapon skill.

Caveat: if the player has a specialization for a type of weapon skill and the rating of the specialization is greater than or equal to their martial arts skill but the base skill is not, then the character must be using the specilized weapon to use it as a martial arts weapon.

Example 1 (Non specialized base skill):
Kathy the Kung Fu Mistress has Kung Fu 5 with the Kick Attack and Pole Arms 6. Therefore, she can use her telescoping staff as a part of her Kung Fu. She'll roll 5 dice to attack (not the 6 for the Pole Arms) and causes damage based on the damage rating of the telescoping staff. However, if she chooses to execute a well timed Kick attack, she does her unarmed damage because it's hard to kick someone with a staff.

Example 2 (Specialized base skill):
Kathy's brother Kevin the Kung Fu Master has Kung Fu 5 and Pole Arms (telescoping Staff) 4(6). Therefore, when using a telescoping staff he can combine his skill with the staff and his Kung Fu prowess. However, if he picks up a different pole arm -- say a trident -- then he isn't skilled enough with this less-familiar weapon to effectively combine it with the martial arts skill. He can either roll 4 dice and attack with the trident or drop it and roll 5 dice fighting unarmed with Kung Fu.

I've toyed with saying that for every 2 skill ratings the weapon skill is higher than the martial arts skill it subtracts 1 from the target number to hit to a maximum modifier of -2. This would reflect someone's ability to mesh their weapons skill with their martial arts skill. But, I can't speak to the balance of the option to this optional rule because I haven't tried it yet. My characters so rarely get into melee combat anyway.

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Edit: I swear that I chose Kung Fu and Pole Arms for my example without having read The Burning One's post. Freaky.

Anyway, he brought up the idea of weapon access: I usually say that a person could apply any weapon to the MA skill that they want to. If you want to fight with Kickboxing but wield that Combat Axe then you can, just with the fact that your axe won't help your kick attacks (or punching for that matter).