[Kromm]

There's no need to go unarmed. Trained by a Master gives its main combat-system benefit – halving Rapid Strike and repeated parry penalties – with all melee combat skills! Nothing about it restricts this benefit to unarmed skills.

On top of that, Trained by a Master unlocks chi skills. Most of these either have no direct connection to combat (Autohypnosis, Body Control, Breath Control, Esoteric Medicine, Light Walk, Mental Strength, and Mind Block), or help you in combat whether you're armed or unarmed (Blind Fighting, Immovable Stance, Kiai, Parry Missile Weapons, and Power Blow). Only Breaking Blow, Pressure Points, and Push are strictly unarmed . . . and Throwing Art actually requires you to be armed. Also, Push is deceptive, because it's the skill you use to hit, meaning even when you're armed, you can use a free hand or foot to shove foes without worrying about your Karate level.

Chi abilities are a little more biased toward unarmed fighting, owing to the popular Seven Secret Kicks and Unarmed Master – but actually, those are equalizers to bring unarmed martial artists into line with armed ones. An armed fighter can most definitely get a lot of value out of Mantis Strike and Uninterrupted Flurry.

I'd argue that the deadliest martial artist is one who uses a swung weapon (especially a quarterstaff, which is inexpensive and effective) with Mantis Strike for extra ST and Uninterrupted Flurry for extra maneuvers. High Power Blow skill is seriously nasty then, because swing damage accrues faster than thrust damage. And the extra maneuvers of Uninterrupted Flurry can make it much faster to use Power Blow: someone who would normally use one turn for Attack to make an instant Power Blow at -10 could use one turn for Concentrate and Attack, and use the skill at just -5. Plus with weapons, you don't need to worry about getting Unarmed Master to avoid hurting yourself, and if you have 25 points for that, then you can afford the 20 points for Weapon Master (Staff), which gives you a better damage bonus in the end.