I posted this in another thread but wanted to move any dscussion of it here to avoid hijacking.

My group doesn't use the MA rules in CC. I thought about using them but its all just bonuses with penalties that rarely com into play.

i.e. your mage never cares if he can hit someone in unarmed combat, so he just gets aikido with close combat, whirling, and evasion.

Or your troll adept has enough dice that he is rarely going to get hit back so he takes Arnis de Mano for close combat, kick attack, and multi-strike.

Those are just quick examples. I'm sure that given more time I could find cheesier exploits.

Who uses martial arts in their campaign, and what have your experiences with it been like? Does it ramp the power a bit, leave it as is, or lower the power?

One of my players plays an Oni PhysAd/Mage and he uses the MA rules. It never gets out of hand as he's far deadlier with spellslinging than he is with his art.

We've used them a little bit in previous games, most never really came up as an issue since they've been used little, but any modifiers were played as they did fit with the character concept they were playing.

It does typically give more benefit than drawback, but its not really that cheesey.

Having say, akido 3 and whirling versus just normal unarmed 3 only matters if the mage is attacked by 2 or more people in melee. Which shouldnt be often if the mage is any good. Same goes for any hand to hand guy, I mean really an adept with unarmed 6, improved ability dice, and possibly centering or a focus gains relativly little by being able to use multistrike with a martial art.

It costs more, but its usually a little better, fair trade off imo. Never seen it become game imbalancing even when combined with edges like ambidexterity and magic, or other 'stacked' combos.

Usually, it helps the opposition out more than the runners. Given the fact that the opposition is usually on the losing end of an encounter, given the fact that if they win the runners usually die, being able to use a manuver or two to buy time for the other guards or whatnot act is worth more than a player taking +1 instead of +2 on some attack. YMMV.

I use them, but also apply the maneuvers to all melee combat. The specific maneuvers available to each is still a work in progress though (for which not much progress has occured recently).

we use them regularly. they have the effect of making faster characters into better martial artists, because faster fighters get to choose more maneuvers. you have think more carefully when using the MA rules, because the ads/disads and your choice of maneuver can really backfire on you badly if you're not careful; on the other hand, if you are careful, you can squeeze a bit more use out of your melee skills than you might otherwise.

the best example i can think of is actually also the first time i used them with my main character, a physad. his first real melee combat was against a force 7 earth elemental; my character uses Karate, in which he had 6 skill, and the following manuevers: kick attack, vicious blow, focus will. the elemental had just materialized, and the rest of the team was busy fighting a team of red samurai (the elemental was owned by the red sam mage), so i had three initiative passes to act before it could take an action against me. my firearm did only 6M damage, so i was left to rely on my Killing Hands power.

the first three passes, i laid into it with kick attack (+1 reach, but -1 TN to hit you until your next action) because i knew i had to damage it as much as possible before it had a chance to act. kick attack helped a lot; i was able to get it up to M damage, i think, which isn't bad considering i only had 5 Str. but then the elemental finally got its turn, and it knocked me to M damage in one hit because my last kick attack left me open (the -1 TN). next action, i decide to go all-out with a kick attack, and i think i scored another L damage on it, or something. it attacked me, again with the -1 TN, and knocked me all the way up to S+3. it also knocked me halfway across the factory floor.

i like the MA rules because they add some interesting variety to melee. without them, melee often just breaks down to "i roll, you roll, compare, soak. wash, rinse, repeat." with the MA rules, there's more... i dunno, fun. you can't just depend on having more dice--and if you don't have more dice, you might be able to win anyway.

incidentally, don't ever get vicious blow.

I prefer Vicious Blow as it is in FoF.

I've force my players to use the MA rules and it really improved my game.

The phys Adept, really get something out of it because he was more than a melee and brawl ass-kicker, he now got a distinctive style. I even had one player who learn three type of martial arts to get the beat out of each!

I kinda house rule the MA. In my chronicle, every 2 points you put in MA gives you a technique(Kung-fu 2=1 technique, 4=2 technique, 6=3) i still allow them to buy technique but they get motivation just to improve their martial art.

Player that don't wanna bother get the usual brawl from the martial art section in CC.

But a technique like kippup can even aid an armored street sam that just got blown away by vicious firepower(then again it's sometime usefull to play possum when you got a rocket in your face). You never know when you need to get up fast.

What? You mean someone had the temerity to get Wildcat 6 and Krav Maga 6 (and if you don't think Wildcat is SR's version of KM, you're deluding yourself) just to get all of the best moves at Creation of the cheapest of all the MAs?

I had one player take to it right away, and another who didn't see what was so great. Then we watched this fun kung-fu movie where a guy tosses a knife in the air and then kicks it into his opponents neck and she was like, "She has kickboxing; can she do that?" And I was like, "Sure, we'll make it a manuver. Kick Toss; it'll let you use kickboxing in place of throwing."

I've used them since CC came out and I love em. Most of my players have a hard time spending precious skill points/karma to buy the maneuvers so most end up taking Brawl. I've had an NPC or 2 teach them the error of their ways.
Troll with No-Dachi: Me have 3 points of reach!
Me: I have close combat
Troll with No-Dachi: Me hate Elf-Dance Fighting!

I think the MA system in the book is probably the dumbest of the optional rules and is horribly and stupidly not only broken but completely lame.

Do you have, or use a better system?

GMing opinion:

Can be trained in Evasion and not be totally outclassed. May have combinations of Martial Arts and Maneuvers that makes them far more deadly. Allows tactical flexibilty in an abstract manner and favours the higher initiative character without breaking the game. Less complains of high initiative people losing out due to the "you hurt yourself on your own attack" effect.

Only unbalanced aspect is in the conversion rules. Not much exploits available that wasn't in the system already.

I don't have a better system but I'm not crazy about the MA system. I think the idea is cool but I can never bring mysefl to shell out 12 BPs+ for a rating six skill when I can take Brawling 6 and then add manuvers later for 2 KP a pop as I see fit.

Some of the manuvers are pretty cool but seem pretty high in cost. Kick Attack? as mfb's exaple above shows, it can work for you but there's a real good chance you'll take a pounding for using it.

Kip up, Gound Fighting, and a few others are worth the cost but...

Anyways, I use the rules. Can't say I've ever made a char with anything but Brawling but I like to keep my options open. It does add flavor which can be worth its weight in karma and coolness.

I allow PCs in games that I GM to use the conversion exploit. Specifically I even tell the players to do it. Create a PC with Unarmed Combat(Martial Art) x/x+2 and convert it into Martial Art x+1 (A, B, C, etc) for free.

You wanna share?

kevyn, the problem with that idea is, Brawling might not have all the maneuvers you want.

I hear ya but I can usually make do with a six point Brawling skill versus a 5 point (total cost) MA: 3 with one manuver.

possibly. but six points of brawling are less useful than three points of MA+whirling, if you're taking on four low-skill gangers.

Yeah, but I feel more confident [cooler ] when I have 6 points in a melee skill that doesn't require a weapon.

In my limited experience I used to encounter more one on one situations. My prefereces may just be the result of my experiences. However, I do see your point.

I'm happy to have a few options for my physical adept to work with. Street samurai get this whole book with lots of nice shiny guns to choose from, so I like having a few more options for my guy.

Phys Ads can buy guns too. In fact some of the deadliest characters I've ever seen were physads with 6 extra gun dice, combat sense, and a smartlink.

Here's a question tangentially related to Martial Arts: Does your group faithfully apply movement modifiers when rolling melee skill checks? Due to the fact that you can't attack in melee without being next to your target first, it puts the initiator of combat at a disadvantage (+1 Walking modifier at the very least, up to a +6 if you are Running over difficult ground to get to your target). I suppose that would be the value of a high Quickness to a melee character in Shadowrun, as you'd be able to walk fairly quickly up to a potential target.

I do not apply movement penalties to melee.

We apply them. Its quite a change coming from D&D where you get bonuses for running at someone to SR where you get penalties. But I think its reasonable. The only time actually running at someone is good is when you've got them surprised. Other than that it is harder to hit them because you have to telegraph your attack earlier, and have less leeway for changing in midstream.

Now if everyone here with advanced martial arts degrees (some of which are probably in ninjitsu) would like to flame me: be my guest.

i don't apply them.

I don't apply them either, as the printing of my main book seems a bit contradictory. The movement section says the penalties apply to any tests made, yet in the combat section, the modifier only shows up in the ranged combat table. I only apply the modifiers to ranged combat since the penalty only shows up in that table of modifiers. I wouldn't get too bent out of shape though if a GM interpreted it the other way and added the modifiers to ALL tests, but that would even have to include the athletics test for running.
Player: I want to try and use Athletics to increase my running.
GM: Ok, target number is 8.
Player: But I'm not injured!
GM: Uhh, but your running, that's a plus 4.
Player: Might as well add the vision penalty as well.
GM: Oops your right, target number is a 10.
Player: I hope you rot in hell.

Why wouldn't you apply the vision penalty to running? It is harder to run in the dark.

I don't apply foot movement modifiers to melee; on foot, it's a matter of moments to slow down and start manoeuvring. And lest we forget, that's exactly what a melee combat does - none of this Final Fantasy "line up and take turns swinging at each other". A melee fight IS movement.

This reminds me, I'll have to dig up the martial arts form my GM and I designed. It's called Unarmed Special Operations Physical Adept Combat Training, or USOPACT for short. It's based on the MA rules in CC, just thought I'd let you guys check it out and use it if you want. Basically, it's a hand to hand form taught to physads inducted into the CAS Army. Alot of ground fighting, chokeholds, disarming, and jointlocks. Nothing ground-breaking, just some additional flavor. *gets to work searching for the rules*

BitBasher, are you suggesting, with that link, that the best MA system is to shoot someone?

I think he meant this.