Sustenance is a really good quality for any of the Infected. Other than that, Krav Maga is good to Ready Weapon as a Free Action or to take +1 Called Shots to Disarm and focus on disarming opponents.

He isn't infected, and the latter is exactly why I think Krav Maga was a poor choice: it's designed as martial art for gun-bunnies in this game. Ready Weapon as a free action is silly for an unarmed specialist. You have a point about the called shots to disarm though.

Well, if you are taking Krav Maga, you are not an Unamrmed Specialist, and I would enforce that.
Sustenance is not a bad power, and it only costs .25 PP. I love it.

It's new player syndrome, IMO. He went into chargen saying he wanted one thing, then spent like two hours going "OMG THIS IS SO COOL" at the various options (I think this is his first experience with a classless system).

I probably should have monitored the chargen more closely, but I felt that leaving him in the capable hands of someone who is familiar with Adepts would be best.

I sorta did that over GURPS a week or so ago. "Wait, they have a disadvantage for that?"
(Like "Sterile." Yup. It's in there. Right next to "Hermaphroditism.")

Next you will be throwing "Bouncing Bettys" and "Sidewinders" ....step up to the Dinner Table o Knight!

Krav can be used by unarmed specialists in the game: +1 for Called Shot to Disarm, Take Aim as a Free Action. You take away their weapons and then aim for the eyes! I'll agree it isn't as optimal as other unarmed specialist choices, but you can use it for unarmed with a little imagination.

Unfortunatly you cannot take aim with a melee weapon

Hrmm... Well I've never tried it in the game, but I guess that makes sense as there are the Called Shot rules.

Yeah, i had the Krav Maga argument with one of my players "the rules lawyer" and we had a go round that ended with him spending several hours pouring over all the books we own, to finaly give in and agree that by RAW you cant take aim with a melee. and he only came to that conclusion begrudgingly.

Which actually makes sense the way take aim is worded. With the first action you remove range penalties, which do not apply to melee, with subsequent ations you get a dice pool bonus, if neither the target nor the attacker move. This is hardly ever the case in melee.

My Point is that while Krav Maga may have unarmed techniques in it, it is not strictly an Unarmed Martial Art. Therefore, if your focus is strictly Unarmed Combat, then you should probably not take Krav Maga. Concept, and all that.

If you are changing it to fit your concept, then it is not Krav Maga anymore.

Actually, he's just looking for ways to use the Krav Maga advantages in melee combat, which is perfectly valid, and still within the limits of Krav Maga, which is actually designed to be used in hand-to-hand combat, and has nothing to do with firearms targeting; seriously, who writes this stuff? Why is Krav Maga (a mixture of striking and grappling techniques with well-known techniques for disarming opponents who have firearms) a better "gun fu" martial art than the actual gun-fu martial art? I get the bonus to disarm, but why the aiming enhancement?

Yeah, that is a little weird.

Bye
Thanee

Just a curiosity, isnt Krav Maga what the American armed forces are using now IRL?

Krav Maga is used by many militaries around the world, including the USA. Our marines use MCMAP, I believe, and I think our Army guys have some sort of custom fighting system as well, but the study of Krav Maga among special forces is still pretty common.


So yes, it's normal for someone to have training in both firearms AND Krav Maga, but the fighting system itself isn't really designed to improve your aim. It's about rapidly disabling an assailant by whatever means are available/convenient/effective/permanent.

Aha..i see then, a "more efficient than flashy" style. Sounds effective. Thank you!

Because Krav Maga also teaches situational awareness and using anything in the martial artist's reach to take down the threat as quickly as possible. This includes the weapon he already has or just took from the attacker. Take aim as a free action reflects that extra bit of accuracy without compromising speed. I agree it does not mesh with the RL Martial art to use the Free Action Take Aim to zoom in on a target.

Yikes four ninjas.

Mechanically, if they were trying to reflect Krav Maga, I think they could have done a better job. As it is, Krav Maga kind of makes Firefight unnecessary, or at least less attractive (if I was going full gun-fu, I'd probably take both, but if I could only have one Krav Maga is the obvious winner). It's a shame, because Firefight is a cool concept (I imagine it's supposed to reflect GunKata, the imaginary fighting system from Equilibrium, which was an attempt to codify the fantasy gunplay from a decade of John Woo movies)

For a change I totally agree.

It is odd that the way Firefight works most efficiently is that you charge up to your opponents and shoot them in the face, but hey.

You say "odd", I say "the least efficient way possible to use firearms in Shadowrun".

I think the intent was that if someone charges up to you while you're shooting you can still return fire, but the problem is that pistols and other guns are considered clubs when used in melee (and Firefight does nothing to change that), defending yourself in melee with your unarmed skill while dual-wielding pistols would be impossible.

IMO, Firefight should allow you to use the unarmed skill when wielding firearms in melee, either in addition to allowing you to fire into melee without penalty or as a separate advantage. Some sort of bonus to ranged dodge would also make sense.

No, that really is how you use Firefight. You don't bother with Clubs because Clubs is silly, you take [your favorite gun skill] and Dodge. Firefight 2, Krav Maga 1 reduces the 'attacker in melee combat' range combat modifier to 0. So you run right up to people and shoot them in the face. They are at point-blank range so you get +2, and normally you would get -3 for being in melee with them, but you don't so you just get a net +2. If they shoot you back, they get a net -1. If they melee you, you have Dodge.

You may be confusing something here. Guns are considered clubs in melee, only if you use them to club someone with them. You can still fire them if someone is attacking you unarmed or with a melee weapon. Firefight explicitly helps you, when you do this. It lowers your dice pool penalty. It also helps you to avoid being hit (with ranged or melee weapons and unarmed attacks) while engaged in melee. I think this is pretty much spot on for Gun Kata.

@UmaroVI: It's not quite clear, whether you get the +2. Firstly for melee you are not necessarily within 1m of the target, secondly there is no method giving for the order in which you apply the modifiers and advantage:
a) -3 melee +2 point blank= -1, reduce penalty=-0
b) -3 melee reduce penalty by 1-3 =-2 to -0, point blank range +2=0 to +2

No. You take Pistols and Clubs with Firefight, and take the Two Weapon Style, Offhand Training (Clubs), and Riposte maneuvers. In melee, you claim a Full Parry with either gun, using Clubs, and when they miss you Riposte by shooting them in the face for no penalty. If you have Ambidexterity you don't need Offhand Training.

I am surprised Krav Maga has no bonuses to dual attacks, since striking simultaneously with both hands, or blocking with a simultaneous strike with the other hand, is a common practice.



-k

That's true of a lot of martial arts. They don't have a good way of representing Wing Chun either.

Well, a lot of martial arts feature, for example, blocking and/or grabbing an opponent's punch, and then taking advantage of his unbalanced position by striking blows to his briefly unprotected body with the other hand. Kind of a left/right/left alternating attack pattern.

Krav Maga specifically teaches a lot of strikes where you drive both fists in one motion at the opponent, so your left hand may punch or slap the incoming blow aside, and in the same motion your right hand is striking his chest, head, or stomach. You'll often seen practitioners performing the double-punch multiple times in rapid succession to disorient and confuse their opponent as much as attacking.

This is not to say other martial arts don't feature double strike techniques, but it is a core feature of Krav Maga.


-k

A lot of Wing Chun involves simultaneous hand movements, and double-punching is a pretty common feature of many of the sub-styles that are rolled together into "Kung-Fu" in the book. It would have been nice to see something a bit more creative done with Kung Fu; as it is, it's statted up like as being fairly similar to Karate, which isn't strictly true. But then, Wu Shu/Kung Fu is more like a genre of martial arts traditions than a single fighting system.

Yeah, "Wushu" literally translates to "martial art".

And "Kung Fu" means "skill derived from hard work".

Both kinda broad terms, there's hundreds of styles attributed to them.



-k

You mean... the Riposte maneuver? And Specializing your Unarmed for Blocking? Remember, a single melee attack is a combination of multiple jabs, feints, and attacks.

No, I mean this.

Yes, I know, the example is from a not-so-great cable show, but it illustrates the technique.



-k

That's an attack. You don't need a special maneuver with special rules. There are an impossibly large number of special maneuvers to define specific fighting styles in this game. You roll your attack dice, you get your effect. The rest is cinematic window dressing - fun to describe but pointless to overcomplicate mechanically.

Yes, you mean Block and then use of Riposte. You can fancy it up however you want, but that's the game-mechanics way to get it.