Why learn a martial art?

[Ulzgoroth]

Originally Posted by Peter V. Dell'Orto

Yes, and I don't think what I said contradicts that. It's something you pay for, really, and I've got no issue with that.

Then what is the issue exactly? I suggested paying for it back at the very beginning.

Originally Posted by Peter V. Dell'Orto

Page 49, and I know that. I chose a one-style example for ease of illustration of what I see was the abuse, not because I don't know how to figure out how many perks you can buy. ;)

Okay, but why is it an abuse to not separate your hypothetical 'style' and 'non-style' skill investment, but not an abuse to count the same investment several times over toward perks in different skills?

Originally Posted by Peter V. Dell'Orto

I'm not sure what you mean here. If a technique can be outside your style, then some "moves" can belong to a particular style.

There is no point in the rules where you'd need to or even be able to declare that you are using a particular style in your attack.

A punch is neither Goju Ryu nor non-Goju Ryu. It is a particular technique (or lack thereof) and is thrown by a character with particular style familiarities (or lack thereof)...but ascribing a particular style to it doesn't arise.

(Except maybe in secret techniques/calling your attacks type stuff? I don't remember those rules well.)

Originally Posted by Peter V. Dell'Orto

What is it you want Hypothetical Man to get for this? Figure that out and price it out.

If he doesn't get anything he doesn't already get (see the first thing you quoted), it costs zero and just don't worry about it. If it gets him the same as if he had another style that no one knew, and thus no one could ever get the effect of knowing all of his styles, it's working basically like a new and/or secret style. It's 1 point (Unorthodox Attacks, say?) and it's not any different than anyone else who did it via another style.

I did that 28 posts ago...

Originally Posted by Peter V. Dell'Orto

Which clearly isn't the intent. I'd argue that's twisting the letter of the rules, personally, but I agree we could have made it more explicit it's a version of "know your enemy" not "you fight like your enemy and you get the full benefits of his style, including all upsides and downsides of having another Style Familiarity, without the point investment." The intent is very much the former; you chuck 1 point into SF (Italian School) as one of the Style Perks of Masters of Defence and know their moves, unless they have some other style you haven't studied. Not that you're an Italian School stylist.

I figured as much. It's just that that's different in almost every respect from what a style familiarity perk as written does. Assuming, of course, that it's not supposed to grant the social benefits and no-questions-asked training and perks either.

[Pragmatic]

Just out of curiosity, has anyone addressed the issue that the self-created style may be worthless (or, at least, very ineffective)? Most martial arts are the result of generations of people figuring out what works and what doesn't. One person working on their own (specifically to avoid being too like any existing martial arts style), may not have had time to refine it.

Pretty sure Martial Arts has rules for this...

[DangerousThing]

Originally Posted by Peter V. Dell'Orto

Which clearly isn't the intent. I'd argue that's twisting the letter of the rules, personally, but I agree we could have made it more explicit it's a version of "know your enemy" not "you fight like your enemy and you get the full benefits of his style, including all upsides and downsides of having another Style Familiarity, without the point investment." The intent is very much the former; you chuck 1 point into SF (Italian School) as one of the Style Perks of Masters of Defence and know their moves, unless they have some other style you haven't studied. Not that you're an Italian School stylist.

Maybe there should be a Style Knowledge perk for those styles one can use, and a Style Familiarity for those styles one has studied to know the enemy.

[Peter V. Dell'Orto]

Originally Posted by Ulzgoroth

I did that 28 posts ago...

Well, then what are you trying to convince me of? You've got the answer you need for your games . . .

[Ulzgoroth]

Originally Posted by Peter V. Dell'Orto

Well, then what are you trying to convince me of? You've got the answer you need for your games . . .

Well, when I proposed it back in post #23, you disagreed in post #29. The rest seems straightforward enough...

[Otaku]

Originally Posted by sir_pudding

There's almost no point in doing this, I'm afraid. The rules for Martial Arts didn't quite change as much as Psionic Powers (for example) between editions, but it changed a lot. You might as well be using a fluent knowledge of Portuguese for a conversation about French grammar.

Thanks.

Based on what I had read in this thread... it didn't seem that different, at least relative to the specific things I have commented on. I have not, for example, worried about "Perks". I will point out that I regularly used English words that had a common root to deduce the meaning of Spanish words (and then learn them) in Spanish, and did the same with both when taking Latin. ;)

So now someone needs to explain to me why some of the "abuses" are abuses... or at least abuses when following both the letter and the intent of the law. One of the purposes of recognizing martial arts styles it to allow more depth and realism within the game. I don't understand how, once you go into that territory, someone can have "no style".

In game terms, what does the penalties from facing (bonuses from using?) an unfamiliar style against an opponent represent?

[Ulzgoroth]

Originally Posted by Otaku

Thanks.

Based on what I had read in this thread... it didn't seem that different, at least relative to the specific things I have commented on. I have not, for example, worried about "Perks". I will point out that I regularly used English words that had a common root to deduce the meaning of Spanish words (and then learn them) in Spanish, and did the same with both when taking Latin. ;)

So now someone needs to explain to me why some of the "abuses" are abuses... or at least abuses when following both the letter and the intent of the law. One of the purposes of recognizing martial arts styles it to allow more depth and realism within the game. I don't understand how, once you go into that territory, someone can have "no style".

In game terms, what does the penalties from facing (bonuses from using?) an unfamiliar style against an opponent represent?

The effect is that if you have Style Familiarity, and your opponent also has Style Familiarity with every style you do, your Deceptive Attack's effectiveness is reduced by one (unless you use a technique that doesn't belong to your style).

I believe what it represents is that they know pretty well how people who fight like you fight, so they can anticipate the ways you try to get around their defense.

You can have no style by not having any style familiarity. Really nothing complicated about it. Using styles in a game does not forbid not using styles. (Somewhat akin to how using powers does not forbid 'wild' advantages.)

[Otaku]

Originally Posted by Ulzgoroth

The effect is that if you have Style Familiarity, and your opponent also has Style Familiarity with every style you do, your Deceptive Attack's effectiveness is reduced by one (unless you use a technique that doesn't belong to your style).

I believe what it represents is that they know pretty well how people who fight like you fight, so they can anticipate the ways you try to get around their defense.

You can have no style by not having any style familiarity. Really nothing complicated about it. Using styles in a game does not forbid not using styles. (Somewhat akin to how using powers does not forbid 'wild' advantages.)

Not sure if I am following, but I definitely see the folly of interjecting myself into this conversation, for which I do apologize. It is too much like referencing one language to try and comprehend something similar (me posting, not the topic at hand); while some terms match up, others don't. Useful term by term, but not for anything overly complex, which I now understand would be this situation.

Yes... I was being rather thick. >.>

Just to explain where I am coming from... Style Familiarity used to be an Advantage for styles the character was not proficient with; without it you defended at -1 against attacks from someone using a style you didn't know. It was not associated with the character's own proficiency in the style.

If a setting was bothering to use "Styles" as more than flavor, any given method of combat technically had a style; it is just that outside of real world "martial arts" there often was little reason to dwell on the differences. It may be a "double standard", but to a degree it was justified; players weren't really worried if how one culture used a sword was different from another unless the differences were already extreme enough (re: different skills or different "styles" of the same skill) to bother keeping track.

So getting back to the topic at hand... even if RAW states you can have a "generic" martial arts style, I'd personally would require the player back it up or pay for any advantages generated (as compared to having a specified style). Unlike a wild version of an advantage, we are discussing how one represents the performance of a related series of actions and utilizes a body of knowledge. It is one thing to have (for example) the "wild" generic version of Luck in an "all in" Powers heavy setting - Luck there can still just represent the manipulation of game mechanics, of exchanging points for a more desirable outcome.

This feels more like trying to get a second Native language for free... though I don't remember how 4e handles that (for 3e it was just a Special Effect or Unusual Background cost similar in price to simply buying the language up to that proficiency). The difference is being born into a bilingual family (or environment) is a lot more likely than inventing your own form of advanced combat skills.