New Unarmed Combat Talents

[The Wyzard]

I thought you could break the 40 point limit, but it involved wishes or other shenanigans?

...

Also, I think the attribute requirements should be lower. If somebody wants to spend that many talent points, that's a good enough limitation in my book. You're blowing your whole talent budget and declining to wear armor.

(If you bought Wizard's Wrath and Flight you could play DBZ! :D )

[Nils_Lindeberg]

Originally Posted by Chris Rice

It’s a simple, 3 Attribute system. Lots of characters will have similar attribute scores and any given point level. The difference with UCV characters is the prerequisites and the costs to buy the Talents, which as you say, makes them the same from that point of view. My point is, they should be incredibly rare. No doubt some future supplement can differentiate schools or styles of martial arts, but I think it’s fine for a start.

Yes I agree that many characters will have the same attributes, but there are usually around 10-15 builds for each weapon at each attribute level. And the only reason for that limitation is that you want a weapon for your ST.
So if you want to be Morningstar wielder you can chose your IQ, at least three different levels, no expertise, expertise and mastery. As well as maybe boost IQ to 14 for another higher IQ talent. DX can be as varied as you want it to be. Then you adjust it for many different armors and shields, Shrewd attacks or not and so on. And finally with a system for bonus damage of some sort when you wield lighter or heavier weapons than 13 in this case would make your character even more varied.

If you see your self as an Ax/Mace guy you can vary your ST as much as the other two attributes. You could even fight with two weapons and so on. The variety is great, despite there only being three attributes.

With unarmed there is literally 1 build per XP level. And the first two UC levels doesn't count because they are not really viable outside a barroom brawl. And since higher UC strictly dominates lower UC levels no matter ST or DX you will always go with the highest talent you can. And to make matters even "worse" UC talents are fairly expensive, so your character will be a one trick pony. I would say you have way more options with a monk in any version of a class system I have ever seen. It's a very strict progression and not very TFTish.

I don't really understand this. I have several years of UC training myself and I saw people of all body types training. When you look at MMA there are a lot of different body types and I assume IQ. I think it is fair that an old UC master with bad ST and DX can still give a well trained athlete a run for their money, but a ST8 guy shouldn't dominate a ST 14 guy. If that had any base in reality we wouldn't need weight classes. It is one thing that knowledge can compensate to some extent a weaker body. And I agree that a higher UC level should give access to some nifty special abilities. But in a punching match, hit for hit, a UC 2 guy (good basic training) should not lose all the time against a weaker and slower opponent with higher UC level.

The balance is pretty ok now, but more variety of builds would be really nice. Less prereqs and more scaling of damage with ST would open up a bunch of new UC builds. The option of wearing armor should also be included with the natural problem of having a low adjDX and not being able to do the fancy kicks or other maneuvers as well. So the kicks should be more powerful and not easier to perform. That would make the armor choice a difficult one.

Maybe incorporate Cesti and some sort of parrying equipment. Spikes and the like for your legs like foot cesti. Might also be cool. So far as I know, no one has historically ever gone to war unarmed or unarmored if there were any other options. Even the Kung-Fu masters in Hong Kong movies grab a staff or just about anything they can get their hands on and fight with those, especially if they go up against armed people. Maybe just say that with UC you get a bonus of +1 for improvised things or +2 for martial arts weapons in your hands - but the base damage is based on UC. A little like having a parry item in your left hand. You don't really need it, but if given the option you wield it. It also gives more variety. :-)

[Todd Roll]

I don't mind the new UC rules. I don't see my group of players using much more than brawling.

[Nils_Lindeberg]

Originally Posted by Todd Roll

I don't mind the new UC rules. I don't see my group of players using much more than brawling.

But we are not writing rules for people who doesn't intend to use them. We write them for people who does. And if almost no one is going to use them, they should probably be cut all together to leave room for other things. :-)

So let's make them balanced and interesting enough for a semi oriental kind of a campaign or cut them out completely. Now they are pretty complex, I would say the most complex ruleset in TFT since it involves special maneuvers, 6 levels of talents, can be used in different ways and are partially connected to HTH which in itself is complicated (something all RPG seems to have more or less in common).

But the end result is not something great, it is more a so and so balanced cookie cutter build progression without variation or interesting choices. That is why I am not happy with them. And if we are not focusing on a Kung-Fu setting, why keep the cliché that there is something special about unarmed combat that other weapon trainers don't have? Why should UC be a lifelong pursuit with mystical overtones when weapon mastery is not? So either we embrace the oriental setting and mysticism and make the builds more varied or we should scale it down to comparable proportion to other weapon techniques.

-Howitzer-
Pole arm builds are a little bit in the same situation. Since MA is so important given the new 3-hex charge rule. Heavy armor is almost a non viable strategy. I removed those builds completely from my Sim for example. And the "heavier" pole arms are 2h from ST 10 and up so shields are not a great variance either. And since you often get a bonus to DX from side strikes and set vs. charge and most of the time go first anyways, DX is pretty much set at the minimum for Expert or Mastery. So a pole arm build will be ST 10,11,13 or 15. DX will most likely be 12 or 14 and IQ 8,11 or 13. With some added tower shield builds with Javelin or 1h spear mastery.

I am not sure how to fix this, but maybe more pole arms to fill the ST gaps or great ST bonuses. Then maybe some talent change or change the 3-hex charge rule to a 2-hex charge rule, so that MA 6 becomes a semi viable option.

[Chris Rice]

I'm fairly happy with them myself. What we could have done to add a bit more variety, is pare out some of the special abilities like Nerve Strike. Then when you reach a certain level of UC skill you can choose one of these separated skills from a short list options available, be it extra Defence, Nerve Strike, some special weapon, or perhaps even a magical spell appropriate to Martial Arts.

[Shadekeep]

Originally Posted by Chris Rice

I'm fairly happy with them myself. What we could have done to add a bit more variety, is pare out some of the special abilities like Nerve Strike. Then when you reach a certain level of UC skill you can choose one of these separated skills from a short list options available, be it extra Defence, Nerve Strike, some special weapon, or perhaps even a magical spell appropriate to Martial Arts.

There's nothing saying the GM can't use a more "perks" like system that one often sees in video games, wherein reaching Mastery gives a choice of special talent. In that way you could have different Masters each with a distinct special ability, sort of like what one finds in combat-oriented manga/anime (e.g., Fist Of The North Star). So one might choose Nerve Strike, or Absorb Blow (reduces damage), or Shadow Double (the ninja technique of moving in a way as to create an illusory duplicate of oneself). By relegating these perks to the very highest level you ensure that the players only encounter them rarely, and also give UC player characters another reason to strive for Mastery. And you could even define the fighting schools in your world by which final perk they unlock.

[Anomylous]

The balance is pretty ok now, but more variety of builds would be really nice. Less prereqs and more scaling of damage with ST would open up a bunch of new UC builds.

Seconded. (adj)DX requirements are ok, but low ST should be allowed, with the caveat that you'll do less damage (it looks like UC just gives bonuses to base unarmed damage anyway, which varies by ST even in old TFT). Maybe there are also some maneuvers that you can't do unless your ST is at a certain level, i.e you can't throw an opponent whose ST is more than 5 points greater than yours.

(Yes, this will produce a lot of little weedy looking kung fu masters... not a bad thing IMO, very cinematic. They'll still get skewered by crossbow quarrels like anyone else.)

[larsdangly]

Keep in mind that you don't have to have UC V to be a martial-arts focused character. If you want to be a martial artist with a high ST you could go for ST 16
DX 12 IQ 12 (very high by the standards of characters made under the 40 point cap), UC III, and lots of talent points available to learn cool weapons, whatever the new veteran/warrior talent is like, etc. I think I saw a post suggesting they were going to permit 'warrior'-like protection up to 3 points. If you combined this with IC III you would have 5 points of protection bare handed, fight with a pole axe, do cool stuff in unarmed combat, and who knows what else. That's a pretty groovy martial arts master.

[Chris Rice]

Originally Posted by larsdangly

Keep in mind that you don't have to have UC V to be a martial-arts focused character. If you want to be a martial artist with a high ST you could go for ST 16
DX 12 IQ 12 (very high by the standards of characters made under the 40 point cap), UC III, and lots of talent points available to learn cool weapons, whatever the new veteran/warrior talent is like, etc. I think I saw a post suggesting they were going to permit 'warrior'-like protection up to 3 points. If you combined this with IC III you would have 5 points of protection bare handed, fight with a pole axe, do cool stuff in unarmed combat, and who knows what else. That's a pretty groovy martial arts master.

Good point and one I meant to make earlier. You don't have to be UCV.

[Shadekeep]

Hmm, the more I think about this, the more I like the idea of adding "fighting schools". Basically each school would offer a certain kind of fighting style, with extra abilities purchasable at different UC levels. These would be additional talents beyond the UC ones, so would incur their own costs and have their own requirements. And you could only acquire them by being a member of the school, or by being of a higher UC level and fighting a member of that school (and thereby observing and learning the talent).

Some example schools would be:

Cobra (or Mantis) School:
UC3 - Can learn Stinging Strike, a painful blow that distracts foe for -3 DX on next round
UC4 - Piercing Strike, chance of inflicting bleed damage
UC5 - Blinding Strike, render foe blind for 1d6 turns

Bear School:
UC3 - Absorb Blow, can toughen skin to block some damage on next hit
UC4 - Savage Blow, can strike with an effective +4 ST on next hit
UC5 - Repel Blow, take half damage on next hit and reflect other half back on attacker

Shadow School:
UC3 - Shadow Skin, acts essentially as a BLUR spell
UC4 - Shadow Palm, chance of snatching an item off an enemy in HTH (similar to a Slinker steal chance)
UC5 - Shadow Copy, appear to be in two places at once, works not unlike the ILLUSION spell in practice

Most of these talents would also have a fatigue cost, so they act in effect as "martial arts magic". I've got a number of ideas in this direction if folks would like to see this fleshed out, perhaps as an article or supplement.