How do I make Martial Arts Maneuvers?

[bushido11]

I was showing a friend of mine how to make a character in HERO and he told me that he wanted his character to do particular maneuvers with his two swords. I figured that could be done by making it a Martial Arts style. The problem is, I don't know how to make Martial Arts Maneuvers. I saw the way some of the maneuvers were constructed, and the numbers seemed out of whack to me. A maneuver that gives you a +2 to OCV and DCV with Block and Abort for 4 CP only? I don't understand how they came up with those numbers. Could somebody please show me how it's done?

Also, about Weapon Element, I want to see if I have this straight:

If you want to use a particular maneuver with a weapon but the Martial Arts style doesn't incorporate that weapon, you have to spend an extra CP. Is that right?

[Yamo]

The rules for constructing new martial arts maneuvers are very arbitrary and very different from the rules for building Powers, which is why I dislike them so and don't use them in my games.

They're found in the Ultimate Martial Artist book.

As for why you can get all the goodies associated with martial arts so cheap, all I can tell you is that I don't know. It's not really balanced point cost wise with everything else in the system.

[Monolith]

The Ultimate Martial Artist adds some 40 additional Martial Arts maneuvers to the list and FREd and has some 75 marital arts packages. The packages also include certain weapon package such as sword fighting. The book also has rules for creating new maneuvers if you cannot find what you are looking for. You should check that book out.

[bushido11]

So I need to get the Ultimate Martial Arts book just to make Martial Arts styles? What a bummer. Right now I'm not in the position to fork out any more cash so it looks like I won't be buying that book. Oh well, looks like I'll have to resort to CSLs and PSLs instead.

[Pattern Ghost]

Originally posted by bushido11
So I need to get the Ultimate Martial Arts book just to make Martial Arts styles? What a bummer. Right now I'm not in the position to fork out any more cash so it looks like I won't be buying that book. Oh well, looks like I'll have to resort to CSLs and PSLs instead.

Not really. The rules for building maneuvers are in there, but it's probably best to learn the system before delving into that end of things.

As for styles, all you need to do is select a group of martial art maneuvers that fit the style you want, and viola! Martial style. There are more rules in UMA that are specific to a Martial Arts campaign that involve styles, but they're really optional for most other genres.

Just for an example, let's take Judo. Basically, your elements of Judo are grappling, including throws, takedowns, and mat work, with maybe a defensive strike. So, you'd pick martial versions of Throw, Disarm, Grab, and Escape. Toss in a Defensive Strike, and you have a martial art. Of course, you may pick other maneuvers, which is fine, too. And don't forget that martial artists still have access to all of the standard maneuvers.

You can also buy 3 point skill levels with your Martial Arts, which you can shift around between OCV and DCV. If you want to specialize in a technique, you can buy Penalty Skill Levels. For example, a character good at fighting multiple opponents might buy PSLs with Sweep.

The 5th Edition core rules have plenty of options to play around with. UMA is a good resource, but can wait. Hero Designer provides a full list of MA moves, including those found in UMA, so if you're looking at a next purchase, that might be a good one, as it saves a lot of number crunching AND has more MA manuevers.

[Monolith]

Originally posted by bushido11
So I need to get the Ultimate Martial Arts book just to make Martial Arts styles?

No, it just comes down to work. You can buy UMA and have all the work done for you, or you can do the work yourself. Either way the choice is yours. That is always the point of buying a supplement: to save the buyer time and work.

If you want to make new Martial Arts maneuvers it is not that difficult to make them (assuming you know anything about martial arts). You just create new maneuvers based off of the existing maneuvers in FREd. They will not be "legal" within the published rules, but they will be legal within what you are trying to do.

[Killer Shrike]

IMO, the Martial Manuevers are one of the best things about HEROs (although I've never liked the way they interact with weapons, but thats a rant for another topic). They are cheap and efficient because they are primarily intended for Heroic level games, which are on a lower point scale. The also make it possible to play a Martial Artist without resorting to building some wonky combination of HA variants and STR only to grab, and a collection of 2 pt CSLs to hit and 5 pt CSLs for DCV [only w/ Manuever X] and calling it 'Judo' or 'Choy Li Fut Kung Fu'. You can still do that of course, but buying Martial Arts is just more elegant.

Personally, I wish that HEROs just segmented them out in thier own category on the same level as Powers, Perks, Skills, and Talents. One of my favorite Features of HERO Designer in fact is that it seperates them out to thier own tab (I just wish I could buy CSLs from that tab too for organizational purposes, but cest la vie).

However, what I like best about Martial Arts is that even in a superheroic campaign, a Martial Artist bought with the actual Martial Arts manuevers can compete on par with other pure-powers supers, without outshining or underachieving.

If you get into the Martial Manuevers and play a dedicated Martial Artist, its really is very cool to execute your different Manuevers and deal with thier pros and cons relative to one another.

Its also a lot of fun to fight another martial artist with a different style. It really plays out like something from a kung fu movie and is very cinematic and lots of fun.


As far as the UMA is concerned, its extremely KOOL. But, no, you dont need it. You can use the Martial Maneuevers in the book and extrapolate from there. OR, buy Hero Designer (you'll thank yourself) and get the new UMA Character Pack -- it has prefabs for all the UMA Martial Art Sytles....cant beat that for 7 bucks, not even with your Funky Monkey Style.