Help me understand Martial Arts in rules term??

[trooper6]

Originally Posted by Gef

I don't understand. How does Dave have a technique from KM is he doesn't have that style. Is it from a different style, unmentioned in his write-up? Also, how does he get to buy an Exotic advantage, Striking ST, without a Special Exercises perk?

Like others have said, you can buy up techniques if you have a good reason for it. In game, I follow the Martial Arts suggestion to only let people up techniques they've been using successfully off of default. But at character creation there have been no ingame rolls off of default. So I let people take skills/techniques if they have a good back story for it. Wannabe Dave says, he's a big tough bouncer who's taken some Krav Maga classes to supplement his street fighting, and in his job the thing he does more than anything is put people in Arm Locks. I say the background works he can have the Arm Lock technique bought up.

As for Striking ST, that's another GM call. If you wanted you could say that he'd have to spend his general perk on Special Exercises in order to buy it up, and then Drop the Lethal Strike and spend those points on something else. Or you could say, considering how often it is mentioned in some of the style write-ups that 1 level of Striking ST is realistic to allow PCs to have one level of Striking ST at character creation if they are playing a tough guy without a Perk, but anything beyond +1 had to come through styles.

There is a lot of leeway with how to set up things.

[johndallman]

Originally Posted by trooper6

... 1 level of Striking ST is realistic to allow PCs to have one level of Striking ST at character creation if they are playing a tough guy without a Perk, but anything beyond +1 had to come through styles.

It also seems legitimate another way: buying a point of ST in installments: you buy +1HP, +1 Lifting Strength and +1 Striking strength in some order that seems rational, and then you have a straight +1 ST. It's like buying IQ in installments via Per and Will.

[sir_pudding]

Originally Posted by the adventurer

I just want to say thanks, the advice in this thread has really helped me wrap my head around Styles and Techniques.

I'm genuinely curious (although I am aware that this might seem snarky; it's not), what is it about the responses in this thread that explains it better than the original text? To me it all seems to be restatements and paraphrasing.

[the adventurer]

Originally Posted by sir_pudding

I'm genuinely curious (although I am aware that this might seem snarky; it's not), what is it about the responses in this thread that explains it better than the original text? To me it all seems to be restatements and paraphrasing.

This part.

Helped me wrap my head around the core concepts, so I could understand the more complicated ideas.

[roguebfl]

The core concept to of styles to me is they are a build and play guide.

once you but the style you can freely improve along the style path without having to find a trainer just spend CP the style perk is all the justification you need. you you might not have any points in any thenecht the style taught you how to do it just a mater of doing it and improving.

Learning stuff outside of a style required the full rigmarole of justified why your get to spent the point before you spend the point. finding teacher, or the self-teaching research and practice.

[Bruno]

Originally Posted by sir_pudding

I'm genuinely curious (although I am aware that this might seem snarky; it's not), what is it about the responses in this thread that explains it better than the original text? To me it all seems to be restatements and paraphrasing.

Seeing things written a different way means you can try to line up the two different ways you heard it. While you're turning interpretations around in your head, when you find the way the two different ways overlap, then you're obviously reading them correctly. Or at least more correctly :)

It's kind of like the sister to the English Teacher trick of making you rephrase text copied from a source, rather than just copy it. Rephrasing it yourself means you have to have understood it first before you can rephrase it; hearing two or three approaches to the same explanation lets you work the process backwards.