DF: Forgotten Realms Martial-Arts Styles

[CousinX]

I've been gradually putting together (with input from others, notably Gold & Appel Inc) some martial-arts styles for use in Dungeon Fantasy, converted from / inspired by the Forgotten Realms setting. I'd love any constructive feedback that people had on the builds, new traits, etc.

The intent of the styles is to be effective, i.e. provide appealing (but not game-breaking) power-ups for DF characters, while still being distinctive from one another, and having the right DF/FR "feel."

I've got several posted on a campaign website at Obsidian Portal (in more DF-appropriate format), but I'm thinking I'll post a few here, in official GURPS Martial-Arts Style format, and see if there seems to be any interest in discussing them.

Amnian Saber Fencing
Hand-and-a-Half
Waterfront Kickboxing
Way of the Broken Order
Whirling Dervish
Zhentish Rapier Fencing

[CousinX]

Amnian Saber Fencing
This style, common among sailors and pirates, makes use of the Amnian fencing saber, a light, curved blade good for slashing or stabbing. The style teaches use of a buckler in the off hand, primarily for defense, but expanded to includes offensive rushes and unbalancing pushes at greater levels of mastery. As a style, it relies less on long lunges and fancy footwork (space is limited on the deck of a ship) than on vertical (shipboard) mobility, and quick circular movements of the blade.

Skills: Climbing, Saber, Shield (Buckler).
Techniques: Attack from Above, Rope Up.
Cinematic Skills: Immovable Stance, Push (Buckler).
Cinematic Techniques: Advanced Remise, Dual-Weapon Fighting, Knife Rappelling, Remise.
Perks: Akimbo (Buckler & Saber), Naval Training, Off-Hand Weapon Training (Buckler), Pommel-Fist (Saber), Shoves and Tackles (Buckler), Technique Mastery (Attack from Above), Unique Technique (Remise).

Knife Rappelling (H) Climbing-3; cannot exceed Climbing.
By plunging a knife or sword edge-down into a sail, curtain, or tapestry (etc – the GM should be generous in determine where this ability can be used, but trees, stone walls, etc, are right out), you may “rappel” down the length of the material, slitting it as you fall. If you can rappel the whole way, you avoid all falling damage; otherwise, you only fall the distance from the bottom of the sail to the ground, and can use Acrobatics or other abilities normally to further reduce falling damage.

Remise (H) Fencing Skill-3; Cannot exceed base skill.
Prerequisites: Weapon Master.
Make a "Remise-elligible" All-Out or Committed Attack (i.e. take the technique penalty to your sword skill on the initial attack), and if you miss or the target defends, make an identical second attack at the same penalty. If (and only if) you've bought the technique up to full sword skill, you can elect to make a Remise on any failed All-Out or Committed Attack, as long as you didn't do anything that would prevent you making a Rapid Strike (e.g. Dual-Weapon Attack, already made a Rapid Strike, etc).

Advanced Remise (H) Remise-4; Cannot exceed Remise.
Prerequisites: Remise.
Same as Remise, but by taking the full penalty for Advanced Remise on your initial and follow-up attacks, you impose a penalty to the target's defenses as though you'd made a successful Counterattack, on the second attack only (which still only occurs if the first attack fails).

Perk - Pommel-Fist (Saber): Use Saber skill instead of Brawling when making a pummeling attack.

[CousinX]

Waterfront Kickboxing
A unique form of fighting that evolved in dockside bars in up and down the Sword Coast, and pirate dives throughout the Inner Sea, this style has been honed by brawlers throughout the West. It contains a wide variety of kicks and other non-traditional moves, many learned by drunken sailors who picked a fight with the wrong visiting Kara-Turan monk.

Skills: Karate; Wrestling.
Techniques: Kicking, Neck Snap.
Cinematic Skills: Flying Leap, Power Blow.
Cinematic Techniques: Flying Jump Kick, Roll With Blow.
Perks: Drunken Fighting, Improvised Weapons, Iron Legs, Power Grappling, Sheer Speed, Technique Mastery (Kicking).

Notes: Intended as an alternate to the typical "Far Eastern" martial artist, this is Savate with the serial numbers filed off.

Martial Artist Lens: Waterfront Kickboxer (0 points)
Advantages: Reduce Chi Talent 2 (30) to Chi Talent 1 (15); add Combat Reflexes (15), and Style Familiarity (Waterfront Kickboxing) (1). • Spend only 19 points (instead of 20) on Chi abilities.
Disadvantages: Disciplines of Faith (Chi Rituals) (-10) as for a standard martial artist; choose the other -40 points in disadvantages from the swashbuckler’s list, instead of the martial artist’s.
Skills: Replace Judo (H) with Wrestling (A) of one level higher. • Add Carousing (H) HT (1)-12; Gambling (A) IQ-1 (1)-9; Scrounging (E) Per (1)-10; Seamanship (E) IQ (1)-10; and Streetwise (A) IQ-1 (1)-9 to the list of background skill options.
Special Abilities: Optionally, points in the martial artist template that are designated for Chi abilities, optional advantages, or special skills may be spent on Style Perks and Power-Ups from the Waterfront Kickboxing style instead.

[CousinX]

Hand-and-a-Half
The bastard sword and longsword are popular weapons for their versatility – swung for powerful cutting attacks, thrust for far-reaching impaling damage, used easily in one hand with a shield, or doubled up for better damage and two-handed parrying. This style teaches the warrior to shift fluidly between different forms and grips, allowing him to seamlessly adapt his attack and defense to changing circumstances. Versions of the style also exist for the battle axe; simply substitute axes for swords throughout the style, and swap out Bind Weapon for Hook.

Skills: Broadsword, Two-Handed Sword. (Or, Axe/Mace, Two-Handed Axe/Mace.)
Techniques: Bind Weapon, Reverse Grip,
Cinematic Skills: Power Blow.
Cinematic Techniques: Dual-Weapon Defense (Sword Parry), Power Attack, Timed Defense (Sword Parry), Whirlwind Attack.
Perks: Grip Mastery (Hand-and-a-Half Sword), Pommel Fist (Hand-and-a-Half Sword), Sheer Muscle, Skill Adaptation (Bind Weapon uses Sword), Technique Mastery (Bind Weapon), Two as One (Broadsword and Two-Handed Sword).

Power Attack (H) Power Blow-5; Cannot exceed Power Blow.
Prerequisites: Weapon Master (Broadsword or Two-Handed Sword); Power Blow.
Roll against Power Attack and spend 1 FP (successful or not); if you succeed, instantly improve ST by half-again (x1.5) for your next attack or roll.

Perk - Sheer Muscle: You use ST rather than Will for the Power Blow skill. Requires Weapon Master (Broadsword or Two-Handed Sword).

Perk - Two as One (Broadsword and Two-Handed Sword): This perk merges the style's skills into a single body. Instead of improving two separate skills for a hand-and-a-half sword, you always use the higher of your Broadsword or Two-Handed Sword skills when wielding a bastard sword or longsword, regardless of grip or how many hands you have on the weapon. Any technique, perk, or other ability (including Enhanced Parry, Weapon Master, Imbuement skills, etc) that you have which applies to either skill, but could also be bought for the other, need only be purchased once to apply to both skills. This applies only to hand-and-a-half swords; you still use a normal broadsword with the Broadsword skill, and a greatsword with the Two-Handed Sword skill. Requires the Grip Mastery style perk; you must also have at least one point in both Broadsword and Two-Handed Sword skills.

[Gef]

Originally Posted by CousinX

Hand-and-a-Half
Skills: Broadsword, Two-Handed Sword.

Why not make it Broadsword, and add the perk Weapon Adaptation (use Bastard Sword or Longsword in two-handed grip with Broadsword skill)? The requirements for Weapon Adaptation are a default no greater than -4 and that the adapted weapon be gripped with the same number of hands as the primary weapon of the base skill, and since broadswords take both hands in a Defensive Grip, you can take this perk to use two-handed swords with Broadsword skill but not vice versa. This gets the effect you want with Two as One. Sheer Muscle seems fine, a straightforward renaming of Attribute Substitution.

GEF

[Gef]

Thinking more about remise...it is some variant of Rapid Strike, clearly. So I would say start by declaring that you are making an attack which will put you in position to execute a remise. Not all conceivable attacks would do this, so you are setting it up in a way that takes skill, and you can't just whiff and claim a do-over, which would be the mechanic for luck. I'd call the stipulation of failing the first attack worse than that for Dual Attack as it absolutely prevents any possibility of landing two blows, so instead of your -3, which is what a cinematic fighter takes for a basic Rapid Strike, how about -2, but this penalty applies to BOTH the initial attack and the remise. An argument has been presented that you may also be able take advantage of an opening now that your foe has already committed to his parry; I'd call that Counterattack in conjunction with Remise. Will that do?

GEF

[vierasmarius]

Originally Posted by CousinX

Remise (H) Saber; cannot exceed Saber+3.
Prerequisites: Weapon Master (Saber).
When making a Rapid Strike (see p. B370 and p. MA127) as an All-Out or Committed Attack, reduce the overall penalty for all attacks by -3.

This one I have misgivings about. In MA, there are basically two techniques to reduce the penalty for attacking multiple times in a second. The first is Dual Weapon Attack; the second is Combination. Your "Remise" technique is basically a Combination, but without any restrictions on number of attacks or hit locations, without the target's defense bonus for repeat attacks, and without the extra up-front cost. It seems overpowered (or at least too cheap) in comparison.

[CousinX]

Originally Posted by vierasmarius

This one I have misgivings about. In MA, there are basically two techniques to reduce the penalty for attacking multiple times in a second. The first is Dual Weapon Attack; the second is Combination. Your "Remise" technique is basically a Combination, but without any restrictions on number of attacks or hit locations, without the target's defense bonus for repeat attacks, and without the extra up-front cost. It seems overpowered (or at least too cheap) in comparison.

Yeah, this is one of the ones I'm still trying to suss out. Here's my thinking:

As a Power-Up, it costs 5 points (1 point for Unique Technique, plus 4 points to buy a Hard technique up to Default+3), and it's only usable on an All-Out or Committed Attack, which come with their own built-in drawbacks ... it can't be combined with a Dual-Weapon Attack, nor with any maneuver, power-up, or technique that's not specifically compatible with an All-Out or Committed Rapid Strike.

That seems more-or-less equivalent to a Dual-Weapon Attack, which is 6 points for the ability to make an extra attack, putting the defender at -1 without the Dual-Weapon Defense technique, and can be used on just about any maneuver that allows an attack -- so long as you don't try to combine it with a Rapid Strike.

That said, I'm definitely open to suggestions ... do you have any ideas on how to fix it?

[vierasmarius]

Originally Posted by CousinX

That said, I'm definitely open to suggestions ... do you have any ideas on how to fix it?

Well, you could make it a Combo (or set of combos), restricting the attacks to pre-defined hit locations. Or you could give Extra Attack (Multistrike, one skill only, Committed/All-Out Only), which will give more freedom of targets, but be quite a bit more expensive. Of course, the typical way for Weapon Masters to get more attacks is just to boost weapon skill; 12 cp gives +3 skill levels, equivalent to an extra Rapid Strike plus the other benefits of high skill, and cheaper than Extra Attack too. Hmm... I suppose you could do something fancy and put a limit on the skill itself. Rapid Strike Only and Committed/All-Out Only together are probably around -50%, for 2 points per +1 skill, or 6 points for an extra Rapid Strike. So I guess it's not terribly different from your technique (though I didn't know about the Unusual Training perk you were charging at first).

[CousinX]

Originally Posted by vierasmarius

Well, you could make it a Combo (or set of combos), restricting the attacks to pre-defined hit locations. Or you could give Extra Attack (Multistrike, one skill only, Committed/All-Out Only), which will give more freedom of targets, but be quite a bit more expensive. Of course, the typical way for Weapon Masters to get more attacks is just to boost weapon skill; 12 cp gives +3 skill levels, equivalent to an extra Rapid Strike plus the other benefits of high skill, and cheaper than Extra Attack too. Hmm... I suppose you could do something fancy and put a limit on the skill itself. Rapid Strike Only and Committed/All-Out Only together are probably around -50%, for 2 points per +1 skill, or 6 points for an extra Rapid Strike. So I guess it's not terribly different from your technique (though I didn't know about the Unusual Training perk you were charging at first).

I should have stipulated that any new Technique (i.e. one that I made up, as opposed to pulled out of Martial Arts) will require a Unique Technique perk as part of the power-up.