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The recent Hunter/Vigilante topic - as well as a conversation I was having with Pepsi Jedi on the amount of time it takes - has got me to thinking about quite a few things regarding using N&SS MA in HU games. And I'm just curious to see how other people use it, and as GMs how you rule on the topic. So I pose the following questions to all for answer:

1. Do you allow HU characters to take a specific martial art form from N&SS?
2. Do you require the HU character to already have HTH MA in order to take a specific martial art from N&SS?
3. Do you require that, on top of whatever other skills the character has to give up per the rules on pages 164-165 in N&SS, the character also has to give up HTH MA?
4. Assuming you use age in your campaigns, do you make the character tack on the additional time in years per the specific form (example, Moo Gi Gong has a 10 year committment), or do you allow it to be included in whatever other training times the character has for their chosen profession?
5. Are there any power categories in HU that you allow to use specific martial arts forms that, per the N&SS rules on pages 164-165, are barred from picking up a specific form?
6. How do you handle attacks per melee for those characters with the specific form? I ask because HU gives you 2 attacks for being alive, while N&SS does not.

My answers to the questions:

1. Yes, I do. It adds flavor to the game.
2. Yes, I do. You cannot have a martial art form if you don't already have a martial art skill.
3. To me, it's not so much a dropping of HTH MA as it is a replacement of the skill. You wouldn't necessarily have both. Now, you may have multiple specific martial art forms, but you wouldn't have a martial art and then the basic HTH MA.
4. After my discussion with Pepsi Jedi, I have to come to believe that it depends on the campaign itself, and the characters themselves. If the player can come up with a good reason (other than "Well, I just wanted it this way") for the training times to be included in one another, then I'll allow that.
5. I don't see why any of the power categories should be barred. I mean, why can't we have an alien martial artist, or a spellcasting martial artist. Why is it that we can write software for artificial intelligences to do everything EXCEPT use a specific martial art form? And in the case that they are barred per the rules, I use a the flat rule that the character has to give up 1 entire skill program OR half of their secondary skills in order to pick up the specific form. And yes, this is on top of spending skills to get to HTH MA.
6. I have come to the conclusion that the 2 attacks for breathing is dumb. If you don't have a skill that gives you attacks per melee (such as HTH, Boxing, a specific martial art form, or a super power that grants extra attacks) then you start with 0 attacks per melee. And in all my campaigns from this point on this will be stressed, and characters will not have those 2 attacks.

I am meaning for this topic to be a nice discussion, and not someone stating how they would rule and then another person telling them that their rules are dumb. I want to see collaboration and honest discussion in the topic.

So - how would you rule on this as a GM?

Severus Snape wrote:The recent Hunter/Vigilante topic - as well as a conversation I was having with Pepsi Jedi on the amount of time it takes - has got me to thinking about quite a few things regarding using N&SS MA in HU games. And I'm just curious to see how other people use it, and as GMs how you rule on the topic. So I pose the following questions to all for answer:

1. Do you allow HU characters to take a specific martial art form from N&SS?
2. Do you require the HU character to already have HTH MA in order to take a specific martial art from N&SS?
3. Do you require that, on top of whatever other skills the character has to give up per the rules on pages 164-165 in N&SS, the character also has to give up HTH MA?
4. Assuming you use age in your campaigns, do you make the character tack on the additional time in years per the specific form (example, Moo Gi Gong has a 10 year committment), or do you allow it to be included in whatever other training times the character has for their chosen profession?
5. Are there any power categories in HU that you allow to use specific martial arts forms that, per the N&SS rules on pages 164-165, are barred from picking up a specific form?
6. How do you handle attacks per melee for those characters with the specific form? I ask because HU gives you 2 attacks for being alive, while N&SS does not.

1. HU + N&S = Crazy Delicious.
2. I count a basic N&S style as +1 skill selection over basic HTH: Martial Arts, when improvising.
3. Yes.
4. I count it toward the age of the character on its own basis. If the character knows a Martial Art that takes 10 years to learn proficiency in, then usually insist that the character be at least 22 years old.
5. I use the rules from the book.
6. I don't use those two extra attacks in HU.
Or, when I do, I tack them onto the N&S martial arts as well.

My views are already covered in the original post so I'm going to touch on 4 and 6

4. If it was something they picked out during character creation and have a very good story on how they learned it, then I will let them pick their age but no earlier than 18 years. If they took a 2ndary martial arts then I will factor in additional time and increase their age.

6. I do use the two attacks given because RL people, untrained can still punch and kick. Also just like in RL someone trained in combat, even basic will be able to do more hence why they get at least two more than someone untrained. Also, personally I never liked that aspect in N&SS where they all start at 0 so in my game I do give the additional attacks as well. can it generate a character with 5-6 or even 7-8 attacks per melee, sure, but again that's still somewhat realistic as their are marital arts that are more aggressive than others and if proven unbalancing I can remedy that in game, like permanent injury or a villain that's comparable in speed, for example.

Ronin Shinobi wrote:My views are already covered in the original post so I'm going to touch on 4 and 6

4. If it was something they picked out during character creation and have a very good story on how they learned it, then I will let them pick their age but no earlier than 18 years. If they took a 2ndary martial arts then I will factor in additional time and increase their age.

6. I do use the two attacks given because RL people, untrained can still punch and kick. Also just like in RL someone trained in combat, even basic will be able to do more hence why they get at least two more than someone untrained. Also, personally I never liked that aspect in N&SS where they all start at 0 so in my game I do give the additional attacks as well. can it generate a character with 5-6 or even 7-8 attacks per melee, sure, but again that's still somewhat realistic as their are marital arts that are more aggressive than others and if proven unbalancing I can remedy that in game, like permanent injury or a villain that's comparable in speed, for example.

They don't start at zero- they start at 1 attack per melee for untrained people, just like in (almost) every other Palladium game.
A trained person does get more attacks than an untrained person- that's why they start with 2+ attacks per melee.
Again, just like (almost) every other Palladium game has always worked.