auto locks

[Mantisking]

I'm going to say no. While it makes sense in real life if you know the regular version well enough to use it as a defense, you can use the regular version -- this is a game.

[Mantisking]

A quick check of my notes lists Aikido, Sankukai, and Yu Sool are the only arts that are like that, and this reflects the defensive natures of those arts.

[Mantisking]

Then you might as well throw the styles from the book out if you are going to let the "purity" of the arts be modified at will.

Purity of the martial arts is a non issue for two reasons. The first is that it is a fantasy roll playing game and the second is that in reality, there is really no purity in martial arts due the ease and regularity of travel and communication from one side of the planet to the other, and that the very philosophy of most martial arts is to improve and innovate. Many people are stuck in the thought that martial artist are staunch purist ( some yes but not most) when nothing could be further from the truth and point to Bruce Lee as one example, Now, the book (N&SS) says that with akido, you cant do much unless you are attacked. So if you wanted to gain an offensive capability and not have to take two martial arts they could take the kick boxing and wrestling and have good set of aggressive moves that can be used with full bonuses.

The first point about RPGs is valid. The second point about there being no purity in martial arts is false. If you're talking about pure combat artists you're fairly close. On the other hand if you're talking about people who are studying a martial art for the art itself, you're wrong. A lot of teachers of traditional, classical styles are picky about you importing techniques from other styles into the one they're teaching. There are a lot of dying old styles out there because of this. Bruce Lee is probably the worst example you could have picked. What was it he said about kata and traditional styles, "that classical mess"?

[Sgt Anjay]

Actually, the fact that its a fantasy RPG helps both sides of the coin. One might say that a reason pure combat artists are less purists in the real world is the lack of combat advantage of purism.

On the other hand, in the fantasy RPG combat advantages are evident in very things real world combatants eschew, because they result in powers, which include control of physical statistics (strength, endurance, speed etc), supernatural senses, destroying someone's sense of balance with a literal snap of the fingers, and switching one's personal chi polarity and using negative chi to destroy an opponent. The fact that the mystic arts that in the real world are downplayed have real destructive power in the fantasy world, would in the fantasy world encourage the purism necessary to get those powers.

Just saying.

[Regularguy]

Out of curiosity, is there an official ruling on what happens if a DMA uses one art to slap a hold or a lock on someone, and then wants to switch to his other art, which offers the same hold or lock? (And would it matter if only one of his arts offered the "automatic" version?)