Topic: High End Martial Arts

[Marc R]

RM in different variations has offered powers you'd expect to see in an over the top Kung Fu movie. . .ranging from skills, like adrenals, to spells, like the monks, to psions in SM.

The description of the Essence field in magic can be broadly interpreted to sound a lot like some eastern magical traditions of an all encompassing "field of energy" that casters tap into. . .or ki martial artists can "tap" into.

I find that in my games adrenals can sometimes become unbalancing. . and often start to lose their special feel as they become just another skill you can buy. "The Goblin warrior uses adrenal strength and attacks you" or the like.

OTOH treating all of these like spells seems to limit them from being used often (due to limited PP), and begins to blur the line from ki like martial art abilities into all out Street Fighter fireball tossing short range teleport behind the enemy style "martial arts abilities".

So far the best answer I've had is to limit the adrenal type skills to "schools" where they'd have problems with outsiders learning them, so that they remain special. . . .but this tends to then unbalance combat unnaturally in favor of monk like martial artists.

Any of you have similar issues, and come up with answers I might use for my games?

[markc]

  No, I geneally have them tied to combat styles or backgrounds. I also try and keep some of the oposits away from one another ie adrenal St and Adrenal Sp etc.
  I have also thought of tieing them to combat styles with the option of adding them to a style for DP and increasing the Dp cost of the style. Or requiring the adrenal skill as part of learning a style.
 
MDC

[Elton Robb]

So far, only my cousin has tried any of the adrenal skills.  I've given my party's orc Adrenal Strength, but he (his player is a she) has yet to use it.

[DangerMan]

I used to think the adrenal skills are too powerful, but recently I've started to lean towards them being okay (for all). These skills help balance the power level between spell users and non spell users, as the former tend to dominate combat at higher levels.

I think players should justify their adrenal skills, by some training, in their bacground story, but wouldent limit it to certain professions or requier a talent.

[Marc R]

So would you consider the concept of Ki/Chi in martial arts to be a skill, or magic more akin to Essence or Mentalism?

Or would you consider it both, with more "realistic" abilities on one end, and more fantastic ones the other?

[DangerMan]

I would consider it a skill, not magic, but I hve no problem seeing the connotations to mentalism. I guess I'd prefer it as a skill, as making it magic possibly might confuse things (e.g. in relation to countermagic, power perception etc). I'd "invoke simplicity" on this one, as we say 

We've been seeing a lot og TWF combined with adrenal speed, and there's always the danger that this becomes a sine qua non for fighter characters. I wouldent like that, but I think the players themselfes should take the responsibility to make sure this doesnt happen.

[Marc R]

All too often, the GM is the one who has to say no.

If you look at it realistically, martial arts were generally better than the unarmed combat traditions in the west in the modern era. . .now the military teaches variations of eastern tradition martial arts. . . .if something works, other people will take it for themselves.

If Knights find themselves being taken apart by Samurai moving at double speed, history says they will take one of two routes. . .label the Samurai witches and burn them all, or learn to do it themselves.

So it's hard to avoid the logic that if the Monk like character is thrown into a western Europe like scenario, that people may start to copy them . . .if they can. In RM, it's just DP, so if one person ever convinces a monk to train them. . .the genie is out of the bottle and these esoteric skills are being taught in fencing schools across the continent.

Which means that a really useful skill can really only be rare for a brief window of time. Martial Arts were essentially unknown in the west the 1930s, and part of pop culture by the 60's. (Admittedly, life moves a lot faster in the information age, but even 100-200 years is really the blink of an eye in history.)

So unless the skills are REALLY expensive for non monks, they'll become commonplace. . .much like various eastern or eastern inspired martial arts are common in the west now. . or the fact we almost all use Arabic Numbers.

Which makes it hard, for me at least, to control skill based adrenals, short of railroading the PCs. . . .like the moment the Monk PC starts training the other PCs in adrenals despite my warnings at chargen, a posse of Elder monks shows up to stop them. (And if the PCs want to fight them. . .I tend to consider a TPK to be a loss, not a win). . .it almost gets to the point where I either just consider them rare, but not restricted skills, or just completely cut them out of my games completely.

On the other hand. . .I never seem to have such problems with the Monk semi profession base lists.

[Usdrothek]

We've had the same proliferation of adrenals, so adrenal speeds go off every other round (yawn). Not just monks, but fighters with high SD can muster adrenals pretty efficiently.

I've always thought Martial arts was overpowered when it comes to RM combat. This prompted the very question last session: "Why doesn't every army just cultivate and muster 1,000s of trained monks instead of trained knights?"

[Marc R]

You can't have more than 12 in one place or they get into a theological argument until enough are killed to bring the number back to 12 or less?

[Usdrothek]

Or they are intensely passive and no power on earth could martial them for war.

They'd rather 'meditation death" themselves. 

If a player wants to be a monk, as a GM I enforce mandatory flaws that represent the "school" from which they did their training.  Codes of behaviour, Chivalrous, pacifism. Something to stop them being out of control stomping machines.

Stepping out of line, soon sees some of the brothers appear to correct the errant behaviour of of their own.

[Marc R]

I think we hired a dog robber for our high warrior monk, as it cost too many DP for him to do anything not martial arts related, like tying his own shoes. (Now you know why all those kung fu monks wear slippers)

On a more serious note, we metered martial arts as:

Tier 1  self trained (Brawling or grappling)
Tier 2 Trained but limited (Boxing, greco roman)
Tier 3 Trained Unrestrained (Kickboxing, Judo)
Tier 4 Cinematic (Crouching Panda, Hidden Unicorn style)

So we only allow 4 if the game is intended to have wall jumping, stone block splitting martial arts.

The funny thing is, in an all out cinematic kung fu game, we didn't use the Adrenals there either, since everyone was a monk or some other semi kung fu variant.

[Cory Magel]

I've had characters that used Adrenals extensively.  I tend to play light fighters that wear rigid leather at the heaviest, so having skills such as those is very helpful.  One of my favorite characters, ended up around level 17 I believe, was a Rogue that made extensive use of adrenals and the read runes skill (due to a system of 'Blade Runes' we use(d)).

Personally I find they have enough limitations that they do not become overly powerful.  I'm not sure about the RM2/RMC rules, but in RMSS you have rules that cover penalties for keeping adrenals going multiple rounds, they need (Core Rules) 20% activity to attempt, you're limited in the number of attack actions in around to two (meaning you should never surpass four attack rolls per round even as a multi-weapon combo user), and other game-wide considerations.  They do help the pure arms users 'keep up' with spell casters at higher levels also.

You might have to be a little careful if not using exhaustion points at all (most of us) and if you ARE using Talent Law as it is possible to really stack up combination's of talents in order to drive that skill up early (+20 to Adnrenals, +X to SD stat, +X to a Catagory, etc).

[kevinmccollum]

Is everyone using the core rules? If you are in melee, your adrenal skills are checked at -20. So that warrior with a 70 or 80 adrenal skill only has a 50% chance of succeeding. Bleeding also reduces the chance of success by -10 per point of bleeding. It doesn't take long before that high skill isn't working so great. This is using RM2 material. I think in RMSS, the penalty was -30. not sure though since I hate RMSS.

[Marc R]

Those high warrior monks usually got their skills way up, especially if they used the improved BGO tables to get themselves a really sweet SD bonus.

[mocking bird]

If Knights find themselves being taken apart by Samurai moving at double speed, history says they will take one of two routes. . .label the Samurai witches and burn them all, or learn to do it themselves.

Or learn how to do it themselves then label everyone else who can do it witches and burn them.

I've always thought Martial arts was overpowered when it comes to RM combat. This prompted the very question last session: "Why doesn't every army just cultivate and muster 1,000s of trained monks instead of trained knights?"

Several reasons.  First off, it takes years to learn how to be proficient enough in martial arts.  Second armor makes a huge difference.  Who would win - a moderately trained person in full plate and a broadsword or an unarmored master fencer win an epee?  Different tools for different situations.

Regarding adrenals, they are the only stuation where we actually used ehaustion points.  It helped balance their over requiring essentially power points. Also consider thta  exhaustion points are pretty much a constant - you can't gain any more via DP's. 

[Marc R]

The problem lies in the fact that "Who would win, a master fencer with a saber, or a black belt in kung fu, both unarmored?"

This is where the problem becomes more evident.

The kung fu guy should really tear the fencer apart if this is kung fu movie where the unarmed get mystical powers of dodging, multiple striking, etc that the fencer doesn't get.

Odds are that if you limited the kung fu guy to tier II attacks, one attack per round, and no adrenals, he'd be at a severe disadvantage.

Go ask any martial arts instructor what he thinks about his odds facing a master swordsman unarmed. . .if they're not lying to you, they would say that's not a situation you ever want to get into.

I have zero problem with fantastic martial arts elements, hell, there's magic in the system too. . .but there's no real balancing fantastic armed elements that really work well, as a lot of the fantastic martial arts elements have rules provisos like "no armor" "Nothing big in your hands" etc etc.

RM2 made some efforts with things like armored adrenal defense, Way of the Warrior, etc. . .but due to the way they structured, you could pile most of these types of abilities onto the unarmed fighter also, so it didn't really "fix" the imbalance, it just created more DP sink skills and tippped some advantage toward arms against casters, but made Martial Artists even more unholy.

[Usdrothek]

It takes years to be trained swordsman also. In the real world, a guy who is armed with a weapon would most likely clean the floor with the martial artist (or at least gravely wound him).

In Rolemaster, a trained warrior monk (High DB, high Adrenal defense, Sweeps and throws and strikes to rank 4, MA training, a big SD bonus, doing extra crits and damage from hammerhand and various styles) will tear apart a swordsman either unarmoured or fully armoured.

I've had most warrior monks at around 6th level being able to muster (thank to appropriate talents and adrenal defense) around 160DB. It would take a very skilled (or lucky) swordsman to take out a martial artist like that.

[rdanhenry]

In the real world, the martial artist would also have a sword (or spear or staff or...). The real distinction between European and East Asian fighting is not armed v. unarmed, but that in the West, these were distinct arts and in the East they were integrated. The European Knight without his sword can still punch, kick, tackle, or grapple his foe. He probably even has practiced doing so. The Samurai who loses his sword will fight without weapons in a system of fighting deliberately designed to use similar movements to those he uses when fighting with his sword. Weapon katas make a lot of sense realistically; the problem is making them free when the unarmed attack tables already make the warrior monk formidable. Some cost for being able to use the weapon is appropriate. At the least, make someone take one rank at the regular cost to train with a weapon before allowing it to be used under weapon kata rules.

[Marc R]

True, but keep in mind that there's a whole chunk of "Core" skills that are really fantasy martial arts skills.

i.e. if running rolemaster in historic fantasy mode, where there's little magic, and things are mostly in line with real. . .

I don't allow any adrenals (Including adrenal defense), no strikes/sweeps/grapples over Rank/Tier II, no weapon Kata.

Which does put the bias firmly back toward weapons (where it should lie) but where a skilled martial artist is still a formidable foe. . .who will usually carry a spear or staff under the limitations above.

In balance terms, other than taking a monk profession and going the kata route, there's no way for a swashbuckler concept character to just say "I want to double the damage of my weapons at will." "I want to do an additional Critical at will." or "I want to take the advantages of no armor, then buy more DB cheap." and "I want to go twice as often as anyone else, cheaply".

All of that without it actually being magic. . .

[yammahoper]

I played without Adr Def for years.  After allowing it in, I restrictrd the skill to 10 ranks (50DB) and costing 40 activity.  To save def, a beginning martial artist could buy this a 30 point talent.  With talent law, the max Adr Def bonus became 65 with the right martial arts talent.

I had a player try to apply a +20 from Racial training, but I said no.

I also do not allow unarmed PC's or NPC's to parry armed opponents.  Surrender, or be cut down.

Of course, I allow parry to be applied to all frontal attacks.  I am a Gemini, lol.