Is picking things up from the ground in one turn possible?

[Nikolai]

Summary of the RAW:

If a human with normal reach wants to pick up someting from the ground, he does it as follows according to the rules as written - assuming that the item weighs no more than his BL and is in his hex or an adjacent hex# [see p. B383 („Picking something up from the ground“), 364 („Change Posture“), 368 („Step“) and 353 („Lifting and Moving Things During Combat“)]:

Turn 1: Take a Ready maneuver: Use your Step to go from standing to kneeling and then pick up the item with the Ready maneuver. You are at -2 to defense until your next turn because you are kneeling.

Turn 2: Take any maneuver that allows a Step (f. e., an Attack maneuver). Use the Step to go from kneeling to standing and then execute your maneuver, f. e. to attack someone within reach of your weapon.

I think one could thus say that it takes about 1.5 turns to pick something up from the ground and get back to a standing position. (On the second turn, you already get to do something else useful.)


# I interpret the rules as written as meaning that you can pick up something from the ground if you are kneeling in an adjacent hex (and needn‘t be in the same hex).

My question is:

Can a skilled martial artist do it more quickly? Can he get around the -2 to defense between turns for kneeling?

One of my players claims that his martial artist type character with DX 15 and Acrobatics 13 should be able to pick up things (like dropped swords) from the ground in combat in one turn from a standing position without kneeling.

He was able to demonstrate to me in real life that *he* can pick up things from the ground without bending his knees. (I‘m not sure if he could do it in one second in combat without giving up his defenses, though.)

*I* can‘t touch the ground without bending my knees at all. But I probably have DX 9 or 10 and Acrobatics skill at default only. He, on the other hand, has done a lot of martial arts training in real life.

So what do you guys experienced with stuff like this in real life think? Should I allow his character to do this? Or should I maybe require him to have the Flexibility advantage for 5 points? (Maybe that‘s what he has in real life!)

But even if you need Flexibility to touch the ground without bending your knees, maybe I should allow some Acrobatics move which includes bending the knees but still enables him to have the weapon in his hand and be back to a standing position at the end of his turn 1?

What should he roll against for it? Acrobatics? At a penalty? How big a penalty? And what should be the result if he fails the Acrobatics roll? Did he just waste his turn or did he successfully kneel down?

Can somebody tell me if the upcoming Martial Arts has rules for this?