Multiple HtH styles

[SkyeFyre]

I don't know which to vote on for my answer... so I'll just tell you it

I allow multiple martial arts, keeping all bonuses seperate, and all new ones start at level 1 proficiency

[Killer Cyborg]

We allow non-Rifts martial arts in our games, but usually only if the character background allows it.

As for allowing multiple styles, I don't have much problem with it.
Since the combat bonuses don't stack, I'd allow a character to take as many HTH styles as he wants.

BUT...
There are some problems with trying to do that.
p. 165 of Ninjas & Superspies describes the only N&S martial arts that might be availible on Rifts Earth: the 4 Agent styles, Aikido, Jujutsu, Tai-Chi Ch'uan, and Tae Kwon Do.
Let's say you have a Rifts Character who wants to take as many HTH styles as possible.
I count N&S Marital Art styles as being counting as 1 more skill than Martial Arts does. So a Wilderness Scout who has to spend two "Other" Skills to start with HTH: Martial Arts would have to spend 3 skills to start off with HTH: Tae Kwan Do.
Exclusive Martial Arts count as 2 specific styles; they'd cost a Wilderness Scout 6 skills to start with.

So taking more than one martial art means you don't get many skills.
Also, there's the time factor.
Aikido takes 15 years to learn.
Jujutsu takes 9 years
Tai-Chi Ch'uan takes 15 years
Tae Kwan Do takes 8 years

Now you can learn them faster as secondary forms, but it still adds up to a LONG time.
Let's say that you have a Headhunter who wants to be a Martial Artist.
He can't start off with Aikido because it would take 5 Other Skills (1 to upgrade to HTH: Martial Arts, and 4 more to upgrade to Aikido because it's an exclusive form) to learn and he only has 4 Other Skills.

An OCC that has more skills, like a Rogue Scholar, would make a better martial artist.
It would take a Rogue Scholar 8 skills to learn Aikido, but since he has 16 Other Skills to choose from he can afford it.
So now he's spend 15 years and 8 skills learning Aikido, but he wants to learn other styles too....
Since he took Aikido as his primary form, he can learn Jujutsu in only 3 years. It will take him 4 skills to pick up this second martial art style.
He still has enough skills to pick up another martial art, and he goes for Tai-Chi Ch'aun. It will take him another 4 skills to learn, and it will take him 6 years to learn it as a secondary style.

So now he's spent all 16 of his Other skills on martial arts, along with 24 years of his life. Even Dedicate Martial Artist have a base age of 12, so the scholar is going to be at least 36 years old at first level.

He can keep learning new forms, too... as long as he has enough Other skills to put into it. If he doesn't spend his skills on anything else, he can pick up a fourth style at level 6.

Is it worth it?
Probably not.

[Dead Boy]

What's your thoughts on Martial Arts?

If I were GMing your game, here's how I would handle this situation. If you have a character with Hand to Hand: Matial Arts and you wanted to give him another style, like Commando or one of the more exotic Japanese or Chinese ones, I would allow it, but with some restrictions.

1) First you would have to figure out a reasonable way for the character to gain access to a means of learning it, be it some maunal, or better yet an acutal instructer, which may require some GM assistance in making such a NPC.

2) Just like with any new skill, your proficiency with it starts at level 1, no matter what the characters Experience Level is when it takes it. But even so, I would not allow you to take the begining +2 to +3 melee attacks, but maybe +1. As your character makes it to his next Experience Level ther after, he may then take that martial art's Level 2 abilities and so on.

3) With the character studdying his new form of martial arts, he man no longer progress in his original Hand to Hand skill's abilities when he goes up in level. He can have the ability he would get in one form OR the other, not both. In addition to that, when you take the new Hand to Hand skill, you do not advance in your previous one. For example Say your 5th level character with Hand to Hand: Expert advanced to level 6, and was allowed to take up the skill of Hand to Hand: Jujitsu. With the new skill he would be alowed to take the abilities Snap Kick, Knife Hand and so on from Jujitsu's level 1 list. But even though he is level 6 the character would NOT be allowed to take the Level 6 HtoH:Expert ability of Chritical Strike on a 18, 19 & 20. The same goes for when the character turn level 7; he can either take the level 6 abilitys from Expert, OR level 2 for Jujitsu, but not both.

I think that would be a fair compromise.

[Zer0 Kay]

There is really no problem with allowing multiple styles of martial arts, as long as they pay for it with their skills (which would leave them limited areas of knowledge.....kind of a dull person).

As for the bonuses that do not stack..I have a problem with that. While I agree that a flat merger of the bonuses would get gross (especially if more than two styles are gotten), however I think there should be some form of extra bonuses that could be applied. Speaking as someone who has studied a minimum of three styles for a few years each, you always bring something you learned to the next style. You can't help it, no matter how hard you try, some of the bonuses follow you. Plus, you don't have to train 25 hours a day to maintain your skills , about 12 hours a month would actually be enough (roughly).

You also bring bad habits learned in one into another (i.e. going from a martial art tought as a tournament sport to one that is tought for self-defense or combat).

However according to the rules, bonuses must be kept seperate. That does not mean that while you are fighting you can't throw a punch from one martial art and a kick from another, just that the bonus to strike from the first martial art will only pertain to the punch and the bonuses from the second will pertain to the kick.

[Guest]

eh, 1 martial art is all I really need to add flavor.

I don't like the multiple martial arts option, it isn't "Cool" for some reason to have a guy who is a master of one art to suddenly bust out a completely unrelated art.

like Zanji and Moo Gi Gong, it says it's book legal, it works great, it even kinda fits the idea of the guy being deadly with weapons of any sort...

but it doesn't fit the archetype I have in my head for the samurai to lose his sword and grab a chair and start spinning it around like jackie chan...

maybe I will get an urge to try it later....but generally Im happy with 1 form alone.

[MrTwist]

I wish I could do three styles. Moo Gi Gong, Zanji, and Triad Assassin. No matter what, you are deadly with a weapon in your hands. Modern, ancient, dismembered body parts, etc...

I really dig the gun martial art style thingy from China.

[Larsen]

I allow multiple fighting styles but I require that they either have been taking martial arts since they were very young or their character must be older (say late 20's at least). Also if the game is in rifts which most of my games were they have to have a good background of how those martial arts were available to the character in the first place.

[Zer0 Kay]

eh, 1 martial art is all I really need to add flavor.

I don't like the multiple martial arts option, it isn't "Cool" for some reason to have a guy who is a master of one art to suddenly bust out a completely unrelated art.

like Zanji and Moo Gi Gong, it says it's book legal, it works great, it even kinda fits the idea of the guy being deadly with weapons of any sort...

but it doesn't fit the archetype I have in my head for the samurai to lose his sword and grab a chair and start spinning it around like jackie chan...

maybe I will get an urge to try it later....but generally Im happy with 1 form alone.

So your saying Bruce Lee wasn't cool?

The Samurai that lost his sword(s) in combat would probably end up breaking a chair and using it as he would a sword.

[Zer0 Kay]

I have a problem with people who make the various martial arts styles too common in Rifts North America. The Far East isn't exactly next door anymore, and I doubt it was passed down 300 years in too many places.

Unless the character is a very, very, VERY specific martial arts master, I would never allow multiple HtH styles. If they really train, an upgrade, mebbe, but not 2.

Blah freakin blah. You think the Orient is the only place martial arts developed?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martial_art

. Therefore a person may develop a martial art that is very much like one of the old ones.

[Zer0 Kay]

Blah freakin blah. You think the Orient is the only place martial arts developed?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martial_art

. Therefore a person may develop a martial art that is very much like one of the old ones.

Not the way PCs usualy want to play, as being the Highest Adept of the Righteous Monkey Order, circa a 1973 KungFu flick.

I am sure survivors from Iowa are more than likely to create a Furious Drunken Corn style, but you don't see players usually rushing to play that, do you? It's silly to think there's too much of the old-style MAs prevalent in Rifts North America, though.

Can just imagine drunken wolverine style from BC or Gangly Moose from Quebec. Squatting dragon from PFRPG. Your right about the old styles. However one very old style survived and became an OCC. The style the Cyberknights use is supposed to be based on the PFRPG Knight. Besides I'd let one or two Dedicated Martial Artist from N&S in but I wouldn't let a CS soldier or any other person Rifts learn N&S MA unless it was a Scholar then they'd only be able to learn the non-two slot MA's.

[Zer0 Kay]

We allow non-Rifts martial arts in our games, but usually only if the character background allows it.

As for allowing multiple styles, I don't have much problem with it.
Since the combat bonuses don't stack, I'd allow a character to take as many HTH styles as he wants.

BUT...
There are some problems with trying to do that.
p. 165 of Ninjas & Superspies describes the only N&S martial arts that might be availible on Rifts Earth: the 4 Agent styles, Aikido, Jujutsu, Tai-Chi Ch'uan, and Tae Kwon Do.
Let's say you have a Rifts Character who wants to take as many HTH styles as possible.
I count N&S Marital Art styles as being counting as 1 more skill than Martial Arts does. So a Wilderness Scout who has to spend two "Other" Skills to start with HTH: Martial Arts would have to spend 3 skills to start off with HTH: Tae Kwan Do.
Exclusive Martial Arts count as 2 specific styles; they'd cost a Wilderness Scout 6 skills to start with.

So taking more than one martial art means you don't get many skills.
Also, there's the time factor.
Aikido takes 15 years to learn.
Jujutsu takes 9 years
Tai-Chi Ch'uan takes 15 years
Tae Kwan Do takes 8 years

Now you can learn them faster as secondary forms, but it still adds up to a LONG time.
Let's say that you have a Headhunter who wants to be a Martial Artist.
He can't start off with Aikido because it would take 5 Other Skills (1 to upgrade to HTH: Martial Arts, and 4 more to upgrade to Aikido because it's an exclusive form) to learn and he only has 4 Other Skills.

An OCC that has more skills, like a Rogue Scholar, would make a better martial artist.
It would take a Rogue Scholar 8 skills to learn Aikido, but since he has 16 Other Skills to choose from he can afford it.
So now he's spend 15 years and 8 skills learning Aikido, but he wants to learn other styles too....
Since he took Aikido as his primary form, he can learn Jujutsu in only 3 years. It will take him 4 skills to pick up this second martial art style.
He still has enough skills to pick up another martial art, and he goes for Tai-Chi Ch'aun. It will take him another 4 skills to learn, and it will take him 6 years to learn it as a secondary style.

So now he's spent all 16 of his Other skills on martial arts, along with 24 years of his life. Even Dedicate Martial Artist have a base age of 12, so the scholar is going to be at least 36 years old at first level.

He can keep learning new forms, too... as long as he has enough Other skills to put into it. If he doesn't spend his skills on anything else, he can pick up a fourth style at level 6.

Is it worth it?
Probably not.

You realize not all the exclusive forms take two slots some non-exclusive forms even take two slots. All exclusive means is that you are only able to take one of them and it must be your first MA.

[Killer Cyborg]

Somehow I don't think what they meant by the years to learn was how many years it took to get to the first level skill.

I have used that to mean that it takes an average of this number of years to master the art.

I could be wrong, but going on your theory would mean being stuck at white belt until your mid to late teens at the earliest, depending on when you started studying.

Again, I question what is put in ink.

To me it implies that first level in a Martial Art is more than just being a White Belt. At least for the N&S martial arts styles.
When I studied Tae Kwon Do, I didn't spend 8 years learning it... But I also never learned the 2 Body Hardening techniques, the Korean Language, or Zen or Bushido training.
I also never learned Automatic Roll, Breakfall, Drop Kick, Butjapgo Chagi, Power Block/Parry, or any number of other things that a character gets at first level in Tae Kwon Do.

[Guest]

I didnt say bruce wasn't cool, bruce was the man.

I said it wouldn't be cool to have bruce fight in say, wing chun, and then switch to hwarang do mid fight...

better to do what he did and mix the forms, but this is covered in the MMA thread in N&SS.

and yeah, to a samurai any length of material is a weapon...

and the Zanji/Moo Gi Gong guy is alot cooler after reading Mr. Twists cheeseburger chronicles, but there is just something romantic about a samurai's soul being his sword that pleases me stylistically.

[AllMightyRCB]

I'd allow multiple martial arts. They just cost OCC related skills and not secondary skills. 1 for HTH basic, 2 for HTH expert, and 3 for HTH Assassin or Martial arts.

[Guest]

yeah, but he didn't stick to one form, and then swap to another with different bonuses like the HTH rules in palladium would have you do.

instead he took the best bonus for each situation and the best move for each situation, and used them.

he didn't swap form to form, he melded the forms into something new and flexible.

[Vrykolas2k]

I do it a little differently...
When someone knows say two arts, they get the higher bonuses from the two {they don't stack} and mix abilities... kinda like when I use movements from aikido and shotokan {both of which I have white belts in, in Japan... I have no idea what rainbow belts I'd have here in the states} with my kenjutsu {which I've studied since I was 5}. So to someone who knows martial arts, they can tell what my primary art is, but know there are things mixed in from other martial arts as well. In my games, if someone has HtH Assassin and later gets Expert for instance, someone will be able to tell what the first art is and also know that the character has studied another as well.