Femme Fu
 

Fiddling with this for a female character who would love to learn it.

Femme Fu

This is the martial art learnt exclusively by femme fatales in action flicks. I has both striking and grappling components, with the striking component focusing on kicks to high hit locations (preferably executed whilst wearing a skirt), but also including slaps to the cheek, and knees to the groin.
Whilst the grappling component focuses primarily on head locks, chokes, or neck snaps executed with the lower body (bonus points for doing them from a handstand), it also teaches Power Grappling to allow waif like women to chuck around 200+ lbs. marines.

Stylists make extensive use of Acrobatics, usually performing multiple (surprisingly slow) flick flacks across a room to reach their opponent.

Then there's the sexy component, revolving around sex appeal-based feints. These feints still take up an attack manoeuvre, but count as hands-free for anything that cares (i.e. Extra Attack).

It also teaches stylists how to fight in high heels, and even use them to ones advantage.

Stylists must be at least Attractive in order to be accepted into a school teaching this style, however appearance can degrade after it's been learnt, and there may be rogue teachers who are willing to teach anyone it's components (perhaps even men!).

Cinematic stylists, sorry, more cinematic stylists, might make use of Pressure Points (for a variety of purposes), Hypnotic Hands (don't ask), and Body Control.

Note that this is the unarmed style of femme fatales, the armed style is considerably more risqué.

Skills: Acrobatics; Karate; Sex Appeal; Wrestling.
Techniques: Acrobatic Attack (Karate or Wrestling); Acrobatic Stand; Eye Rake (Karate); Feint (Sex Appeal); Ground Fighting (Karate or Wrestling); Hammer Fist; Kicking; Knee Strike; Lower-Body Head Lock; Lower-Body Neck Snap; Stamp Kick (Karate); Sweep (Karate or Wrestling); Targeted Attack (Karate Hammer Fist/Face); Targeted Attack (Karate Kick/Face); Targeted Attack (Karate Kick/Neck); Targeted Attack (Karate Kick/Skull); Targeted Attack (Karate Knee Strike/Groin); Triangle Choke.
Cinematic Skills: Body Control; Hypnotic Hands; Pressure Points.
Cinematic Techniques: Lethal Strike; Pressure-Point Strike.
Perks: Acrobatic Kicks; Ground Guard; High-Heeled Heroine; High-Heeled Hurt; Improvised Weapons (Feminine); Iron Nails*; Power Grappling; Sexy Feints; Technique Mastery (Feint); Technique Mastery (Kicking); Trademark Move.

*Prevents nail breakage. Allows appropriate unarmed attacks to do Cutting damage at -2 or -1 per die, whichever is worse, with a (0.5) Armour Divisor. Permits humans to purchase the Long Thumbs Perk.

Optional Traits
Attributes: Improved DX; Improved HT; Improved Basic Speed.
Advantages: Allure; Enhanced Dodge; Enhanced Parry; Flexible; Improved Appearance; Voice.
Disadvantages: Callous; Lecherousness; Unlucky (Abduction).
Skills: Acting; Climbing; Erotic Art; Intimidation; Jumping; Running; Stealth.
Perks: Extra Option (Bulletproof Nudity); Improvised Weapons (Any); Sexy Pose; Shtick (Immaculate); Teamwork.

Let me know if I've missed anything. Also let me know if this is horribly sexist, it wasn't intended to be, it's meant to simply be a representation of the style found in most action flicks.

EDIT: Would particularly appreciate input from women (or men) on how realistic the High-Heeled Heroine Perk is.

Re: Femme Fu
 

I've never seen any indication that it's supposed to be.

Realistically, training can probably mitigate the penalties inherent in wearing a particular type of unsuitable footwear for a given activity, but never to the extent that the character can run, jump or fight equally well while wearing high-heels as when wearing sport shoes. Same Move is also right out.

In a harshly realistic game where someone nevertheless wanted to wear high-heels at all times, I would allow Techniques to buy off up to half the penalty for any given activity.

I'd be fairly broad in my definition of 'activities', but I'd still require a separate Technique for each skill, which would mean High-Heeled Running was distinct from High-Heeled Fighting (Karate) and High-Heeled Gymnastics.

I can't imagine it will come up, however, as I don't see someone playing a character who insists on wearing high-heels for combat, chases and acrobatic scenes in anything resembling a realistic campaign.

In fact, one of the ways one can quickly spot whether a given story is 'gritty' or 'cinematic' is whether the characters in it display their competence by preparing for challenges, using equipment and clothing appropriate to their supposed expertise, or whether the 'rule of cool' governs attire and equipment, which nevertheless has no appreciable effect on the success rates of the protagonists.

Re: Femme Fu
 

I'd add Acrobatic Stand to the techniques list. You could make an argument for Eye Rake, Ground Fighting (Karate), Stamp Kick and Sweep too.

Re: Femme Fu
 

I was wondering about this for a character who likes the idea of being a femme fatale, and would wear heels when possible. If it turned out it was completely inefficient to wear heels, she'd probably eventually and begrudgingly switch to flats. So a realistic setting, but a character with a cinematic mindset, call it a Quirk-level Delusion.

Re: Femme Fu
 

Probably right.

I considered Stamp Kick and Sweep, didn't think of Eye Rake or Ground Fighting. I'll probably add all of those suggestions, this is intended as a bit of an 'Ultimate Style'.

Re: Femme Fu
 

Well, it's actually pretty reasonable to expect spies and such to dress appropriately for one set of circumstances, while actively preparing for another. For example, an assassin might know she's going to do some killing at the grand ball, and she can't afford to show up in combat fatigues and boots, but in a smashing dress and heels. She'd need to know how to either fight/run in them, or how to transition quickly out of them ("Never wear straps.") and handle herself on bare feet.

A realistic assassination attempt might involve poison in the wine, or a sniper on the roof, or both, rather than expecting the female agent to smuggle in, I don't know, a knife or a pistol and then actually fight the target, but there's always the chance that something is going to go awry, and she needs to be ready in case they do.

But this doesn't really disprove your point, just puts an asterisk on it. The real reason we have heroines fighting in heels is because heels are hot and we want hot heroines in our cool action movies.

Re: Femme Fu
 

Don't you think pricing as skill-specific Technique is rather harsh compared to what can be bought for a similar price? Surely things like Sure-Footed (Uneven) [1] are way more point-worthy than being able to negate a penalty that you only inflict on yourself for æsthetic reasons? In fact, Exotic Weapon Training seems to deal with that sort of penalty for weird/inconvenient weapons. Or Shield Wall Training. And they're each [1].

Re: Femme Fu
 

One thing I'll note is that Extreme Sexual Dimorphism isn't so much "She has a nice body" as it is "Those are some of the biggest boobs I've seen in my life." (Or for men it's not so much "well hung" as it "that thing kind of scares me.")
As in cartoonishly extreme. Look up "Polypropylene breast implants" (almost guaranteed to be NSFW, even on Wikipedia) to get an idea of the kind of "Extreme" involved.

It's really meant for such physical sexual characteristics that are large enough to become Distinctive Feature (Exaggerated sexual feature) [-1].

Re: Femme Fu
 

It provides a bonus against half the population, so it can't be too extreme, though. You said it yourself with the 'that thing kind of scares me', which doesn't sound like a positive reaction.

Re: Femme Fu
 

Hence why it's under optional traits. I would say a few Hollwood femme fatales qualify for Distinctive Feature (Exaggerated sexual feature), hence why it's included). Breasts don't have to be that big before they'd give a penalty to disguise, shadowing etc... And ESD isn't just about breasts, but rather general feminine features (wide hips, narrow waist, full lips, and yes, large breasts, I'd say Jessica Rabbit is probably the archetypal ESD characters).