I've been reading the thread on unarmed combat and it has come to my attention that I don't understand a few things about the martial arts quality.

1. Can you only take the Martial Arts Quality 4 times at most? In the sidebar on page 156 of Arsenal they note that the cost for martial arts is 5,10,15, or 20 BP. Does that mean that you can only take it 1,2,3 or 4 times?

2. It was mentioned in a thread by citing "Each martial arts entry gives the name of the style and the names of technically similar but distinct styles in parentheses..." (pg. 156 Arsenal) that you could for instance get up to +3 DV in clubs by taking all three variants of Arnis De Mano. The errata says “The maximum cumulative DV modifier possible is +3.” which could be taken as a confirmation that clubs can get +3 DV with the aforementioned method or could be just a general way of addressing the potential (pre-errata) of taking 4 (or more see question 1) martial arts that give +1 DV to unarmed and making a punch monster. Does anyone disagree with the interpretation that taking the technically similar but distinct styles together can be used to obtain multiple unique advantages?

3. Since only DV is limited in the errata does that mean you can take up to 4 (unless question 1's answer is any different) of other advantages like + 1 Full Parry..+1 called shots to disarm... +1 gymnastics dodge (I haven't checked all of these but presumably the maximum number of times you could take something is the number of martial arts that contain that advantage unless stacking as per question 2 is allowed then it's 3 times that)? Basically I'm saying can you get +4 Full Parry (or more if you're allowed to take martial arts more than 4 times)?

4. So can you full parry, riposte and then finishing move and use up your next 3 complex actions via interrupt actions or is there a limit of 1 interrupt action?

5. It seems like Full Dodge and Full Parry are common advantages given by martial arts, but I noticed that firefight and kung fu give advantages to melee dodge/parry. Does that mean Full Parry and parry for kung fu and Full Dodge and dodge for firefight/kung fu or is it just parry/dodge in melee?

6. The errata stated that Firefight has an advantage: "+1 die to Defense Tests to dodge Ranged Attacks if engaged in melee.". So do you dodge things if you are just using reaction or do you have to use the dodge skill to dodge things? Basically I'm asking if you have to use Full Dodge to gain the benefits of this advantage or not.

Ok thanks for reading

1. Each Specific Martial Art has 4 Levels and Abilities, obtained by purchaseng a Level of that specific Martial Art. Therefore, if you wanted to get 5 Martial Arts (for whatever reason) each Level of the individual Arts would cost you 5 BP (or 10 Karma) to learn. with 4 Levels each, that is 100 BP (or 200) Karma in cost. This does not include any Special Maneuvers, and any DV bonuses only stack to +3 DV.

2. You can combine styles to get to the maximum +3 DV, yes.

3. Any other advantages stack with no limits.

4. We have always allowed only a single interrupt. *shrug* Other tables may allow more.

5. As long as you are in Melee, the Full Parry option is allowable. If you are not in Melee, the bonuses directly stated as being for Melee do not apply.

6. I say +1 to Defense Tests (it is not called a Dodge Test), so you can apply it to your Reaction Defense if you like, and to Full Defense as well.


Does this help?

The way the games I've played in handle it you can buy as many ranks in various Martial Arts as you want over the life of your character as long as you can find a teacher (or tutorsoft if allowed) for new styles/advantages/maneuvers you might pick up after creation.

There are only four ranks per Martial Art, however each rank allows you to pick one advantage listed for the particular style and two maneuvers from the shared list at an additional 2 BP per maneuver.

At creation by RAW I believe you can only buy 7 total ranks of Martial Arts due to the 35BP positive quality limit.

1. Ok that makes sense, follow up question though:

Ok so if I wanted to learn Firefight, which has no other technically similar style, for 20 BP would I be able to learn any combination of the advantages like +4 to dodging ranged attacks while in melee or would the only set of advantages be +1 to dodging ranged attacks while in melee, double reduction on ranged combat in melee modifier, and +1 on melee dodge?

2. Alright just checking, so that means you can get +3 dice for exotic melee weapon attacks using a cyber-implant in an usual location by taking Sangre y Acero and it's two variants, but you can't get any higher than that because it's a unique advantage only available to those three similar martial arts.

3. There are limits, you can't take more than a single martial art 4 times.

4. I guess riposting then final moving is a bit much.

5. That is what I thought.

6. That is what I thought, but sometimes the wording seems to be a bit confusing. I suppose when something is capitalized it means something exact, whereas lower case letters are more inexact.

Thank you!

An advantage can be taken only once per martial art (unless mentioned otherwise like Firefight's "reduce penalty for shooting in melee").

Exactly

True.

This could be possible. The rules say:So you would need at least 2 remaining complex actions in the turn to pull that sequnece off.

But, you can take 10 Marital Arts to level 4, and if they all provided +1 to Full Parry as an Advantage, you would then have +10 to Full Parry. The only criteria enforced on the Limit is the Additrional DV, which is caped at +3, regardless of how many MA's you have that provide that particular bonus.

Well I was just being clear in case you were using hyperbole. Yes certain things like Full Parry if you wanted to max it out you could spend a ton of karma/BP on doing just that and it has virtually no limit since it is a common advantage. Incidentally the Full Parry limit is 3 (from aikido et al.) + 3 (from karate et al.) + 3 (from kung fu et al.) + 3 (from muay that et al.) + 3 (from pentjak-silat et al.) = 15. Other things like exotic melee weapon in an unusual location has a limit of 3.

Actually that makes more sense. You are limited by the available complex actions remaining in your combat turn. Thanks.

And that is only counting the LISTED Martial Arts forms. Since there are likely no functional limits on the existence of an unlimited number of Martial Arts Forms, well...

Ad 2.) I strongly disagree with the mentioned possibility of using *styles that are only called different* to get boni multiple times. Imho those names are just there for fluff and should not have any effect rules-wise.

As has been pointed out in the first post, the names do have a ruleswise effect. If you do not like it, you can houserule it.

Indeed... that is always your perrogative, Xenefungus.

Actually, the first post asked explicitly who disagrees with that:



Which is precisely what I am doing

That character would be the grand master of all pornomancers.

Isn't the pornomancer more for the short term enjoyment? Needing a marriage to pull his tricks off would not be that great.

Man, what a day, My Keyboarding skills are just going downhill...
Thanks for the Laugh Glyph.

The limiting factor I've always run with is that you can't use more Interrupt Actions than you have Actions in a Combat Turn. So with 3 IP you can use 3 Interrupts in the first pass, but in the last one you can't use any. Note that this is not even really a houserule, it's simply a general rule of engagement that is followed by most people at my tables. We know we can go over this, but riposting to set up to set up to finish to set up to finish to throw is a bit much.

Also you'd be better off using Two Weapon Style and always being able to declare a full parry rather than having to give up your next action for it.

I had always interpreted that as you could use the next action for the interrupt, but if your next action was not available, you get no interrupt actions.

The rule that was quoted from page 148 of SR4A actually does allow you to "pay forward" your interrupts by taking from later Combat Turns. This also explains why in action movies the heroes always stand there for a few seconds after beating down a lot of enemies - they're all out of Combat Turns.

House ruling in some sort of endurance check on borrowing IPs from subsequent combat turns would make a lot of sense to me. Even mega-badasses need to deal w/ lactic acid buildup.