Drunken Martial Arts

[Whitewings]

How would you represent a martial artist skilled in one of the real world drunken styles, such as Drunken Monkey or Tsui Pah Hsien (which I'm sure I misspelled)? I'm not referring to the "Drunken Fighting" cinematic perk from Martial Arts.

[lexington]

Those styles have always sounded to me like ones that make heavy use of Retreat and Defensive Attack. Parries are less common than big whole body Dodges in depictions I'm familiar with, they might get Enhanced Dodge (Only on Retreats) or make liberal use of Acrobatic Dodge.

[DouglasCole]

There's a Move and Attack (Evasive) option in the recent Pyramid issue (#3/57) that might also help you out. No reason it can't be applied, with modification, to a hand-to-hand style.

[Blood Legend]

Evaluates, Defensive Attacks, Retreat Dodges, and plenty of Deceptive Attacks.

[crretin]

there's also a perk in martial arts that turns the penalties to dexterity from being drunk into bonuses.

[Peter V. Dell'Orto]

Originally Posted by crretin

there's also a perk in martial arts that turns the penalties to dexterity from being drunk into bonuses.

Yes. Get the perk, and use the +2 bonus you get for drinking too much to make all of your attacks Deceptive (-1 to defend, -2 to hit). Whenever possible, make them even more Deceptive. Use Feint, as well, since your +2 works there, too. You're drunk, but your attacks are harder to stop. At least cinematically.

[Dammann]

That works for cinematic, but the OP is talking about the actual style, I think, which is not practiced drunk. I never learned it (I was a vanilla tiger-crane guy), but the man I knew who did use it demonstrated a style that looked off balance, erratic, and generally deceptive. I'd say it used something like All out Defense (Dodge), Feints, and tons of Retreats- I would almost call them Acrobatic Retreats, as there was some tumbling. I wish I'd seen him do it more, but he was actually trying to teach me less exotic fighting styles.

[Peter Knutsen]

Originally Posted by crretin

there's also a perk in martial arts that turns the penalties to dexterity from being drunk into bonuses.

What about a Perk that makes you seem less skilled than you are? Like your attacks and dodges succeed due to sheer luck, rather than actual skill, at least initially? That seems to me to be a component of "drunken" styles, that you can rely on being underestimated by anyone who doesn't know you can fight or who haven't seen you participate in a fight that lasts more than a few rounds.

[DangerousThing]

Originally Posted by Peter Knutsen

What about a Perk that makes you seem less skilled than you are? Like your attacks and dodges succeed due to sheer luck, rather than actual skill, at least initially? That seems to me to be a component of "drunken" styles, that you can rely on being underestimated by anyone who doesn't know you can fight or who haven't seen you participate in a fight that lasts more than a few rounds.

I would call that the acting skill, along with the general deceptive attacks of the style.