How useful are UMA/NH Martial Arts against Orcs?

[Michael Hopcroft]

I have Ultimate Martial Artist, and need to get a new copy of Ninja Hero, but now that I have Fantasy hero I was wondering if FH adventurers who knew UMA martial artist practices were viable in fantasy worlds. I can see fantasy worlds in which there are 'exotic" reigons where these arts are pracitsed, and it may even be a quest in itself to learn them.

 

A very experienced Elf adventurer who has gone to the Oriental lands and studied both Kenjutsu AND Kyuujutsu and brought it back to his home woods could train a cadre of deadly Elf warriors. And especially if he knew battle magic he would be an extremely formidable warrior himself.

[AnotherSkip]

only those tings the GM is willing to deal with should be brought into the game.

 

if you don't think as a base the Elves should have those martial arts then dont start the campaign off that way.

 

However it could make a good adventure for the PC's if that is something they would like to do.

[Michael Hopcroft]

If characters go on a quest to learn skills that cost points (like Martial Arts), hoe do they earn the points to buy the skills as they train in them? Does the GM award the points by fiat if he feels they have spent the proper amount of time out of play training?

[eepjr24]

MA training points?

 

I can't say if most GM's award the points, but I don't. Usually this will be a major goal of the character, and I have them save up at least 5-7 points of XP to get the training started. They will also most likely be dedicating the next 3-5 points on MA if they are serious about it, picking up extra training and skills both on and between adventures. This assumes that they are trying to learn it once the game has begun, not during character creation.

 

- Ernie

[tkdguy]

That all depends on your definition of martial arts. Anything that has to do with combat is a martial art, armed or unarmed. Elves and orcs already practice armed martial arts. Since elves are reputed to be great archers, some Kyujutsu maneuvers could be appropriate, GM allowing.

 

If you're looking for unarmed combat, why can't elves and orcs develop their own styles? Orcs would probably go for hard styles like Boxing and Muay Thai, while the graceful elves would prefer fluid styles like Aikido and Tai Chi Ch'uan.

[Gary Ciaramella]

You really need the UMA and Ninja Hero if you are running a campaign set in the Xena/Hercules setting!

[Dauntless]

I think highly trained warrior-monks should be as powerful as equivalent level mages. In real life, the Shaolin temple was destroyed because a relative handful of Monks defeated an army (well, it wasn't an Army army, but they defeated a vastly larger rebel force). Realizing how powerful they were, the Emperor decided they were more dangerous as potential enemies than beneficial as potential allies. In Japan, the Yamabushi usually defeated the Samurai they fought against in pitched battles. So I seperate warriors that know martial arts from warrior-monks like the Shaolin and Yamabushi.

 

In some way mages and warrior-monks have similar drives. A mage must slave away at the text books for most of the day, and a warrior monk trains not only his body and fighting skills, but his mind as well (which is what seperates him from the more common man-at-arms types of professions). But this "one-dimensionality" is their weakness. Most mages know little of physical skills like climbing, horseback riding, survival, combat, etc. Even warrior-monks will be somewhat disadvantaged in this regard....as Shaolin didn't learn how to ride horses normally (they could if they left the temple to do errands) and they too didn't always learn skills like survival (they were monks...so peasants gave them food and they tilled and planted their own). And although many Shaolin and yamabushi were drunkards, womanizers and general louts...they do have a code which prevents them from doing things other warriors wouldn't be concerned about.

 

In FH terms, imagine creating a martial arts character with an "iron shirt" technique (give him body armor defined as iron chi-kung skills). He has the advantage of having resistant defenses without any weight. To prevent all characters from doing this...you might want to require that they have to have at least 15pts worth of specific martial techniques plus PS and KS skills. I'd also allow martial arts characters to have damage reduction in a limited form. And the martial characters ability to perform NND and AVLD attacks makes them a fearsome opponent even against armored foes (even if the martial artist has no weapons himself!).

 

In some ways, I'd wonder why FH characters wouldn't ALL want to be martial artists. In real life without a "points based" system...martial artists were more powerful than those with little training (for example, pitting samurai against peasant spearmen). The difference of course is training and real world experience. And not just any old training, but intense training. Imagine the difference between living in Sparta, and living in Thebes. The Spartans lived their whole life around the concept of war and being tough. The Thebians however, like Athens, had their warriors, but they were more interested in other pursuits as well. How do you think turned out the better warriors (warrior vs. warrior)? The problem though is that the Hero System allows a player to make any character he wants....even if in real life such types of characters were rare (imagine playing a Star Wars roleplaying game set 5 years after Return of the Jedi where everyone wants to play a Jedi trained by Luke Skywalker himself). There's nothing stopping that from happening in Hero short of GM intervention. Not everyone can become a real warrior-monk, but in Hero, anyone can. So it sort of creates problems in the group dynamics.

[Markdoc]

In answer to the question "how useful...?" The answer is "very".

 

But I would not bother with "travels to oriental lands". Design the martial arts you want for for different cultures and just drop them. Many (not all) cultures in my fantasy world have martial arts and many secret societies or warrior brotherhoods have their own "special" martial arts that must never be taught to outsiders, etc etc.

 

As for the idea that all societies have martial arts, I tend to differentiate martial arts and just fighting. In the first instance, a martial art (at least to me) suggests some kind of continuity, with proper training techniques, so that techniques can be refined and developed. Otherwise, every generation of students makes exactly the same mistakes.

 

For example, few people sneer at the prowess of the Roman army, but they had little formal weapons training and therefore (to me, at least) no military martial art. But the Romans DID have formalised schools of weapon training for gladiators, which both used written instruction and also recruited old survivors to pass on what they had learned: to me, that's a martial art, complete with style limitation.

 

cheers, Mark

[Dauntless]

I agree with Markdoc that you don't need to have your characters go to some exotic land to learn "martial arts". The ancient Greeks had Pankration which was an extremely brutal but efficient martial art system. It didn't have lots of high flashy kicks, but for ground fighting, even a jiu-jistu stylist would be challenged (I've seen some paintings on ancient walls depicting some pankration moves...and many of them are lethal...like a suplex designed to break the opponents neck).

 

The French came up with Savate, and even Bruce Lee chose boxing as the style to pattern most of his footwork from (with a touch of fencing and filipino styles).

 

I think Europeans probably had a formalized martial style even before fencing, but it got lost to antiquity. Why? I think the eastern cultures are more bound by tradition, so that even when guns came along, their reverence for tradition saved these skills (not to mention more rigid caste systems that wanted to save their skills), whereas in western countries they were forgotten for the most part. Fencing was saved due to it's status as a "noble" skill. It took skill and a sword was the sign of someone from a high class. Plus, swords were still used in combat up through to the mid 1800's by cavalry troops, so it had a longer chance to survive. So I think you can create a fantasy nation that has martial arts...and not just exotic nations. Combat is a necessity for all beings, so it makes sense that virtually all races will develop a codified and formalized style of combat to improve their combat ability.

[Michael Hopcroft]

I think you may have a point here. Conan the Barbarian wsn't just strong as an ox -- he had trained in all forms of combat to the point that he was a virtual killing machine.

 

How many points is Conan worth, anyway?

[Crimson Arrow]

Originally posted by Dauntless

SNIP

In FH terms, imagine creating a martial arts character with an "iron shirt" technique (give him body armor defined as iron chi-kung skills). He has the advantage of having resistant defenses without any weight. To prevent all characters from doing this...you might want to require that they have to have at least 15pts worth of specific martial techniques plus PS and KS skills. I'd also allow martial arts characters to have damage reduction in a limited form. And the martial characters ability to perform NND and AVLD attacks makes them a fearsome opponent even against armored foes (even if the martial artist has no weapons himself!).

SNIP

 

Some excellent points in the whole post. A couple of points spring to mind though. First, the monk pays character points to have the Iron Shirt Technique. Sir Justin buys his plate armour with gold coins. That alone might discourage others from doing this, but I like your other requirements; they definitely fit in with the level of expertise required to use that technique.

 

I am not sure NND attacks are that useful in FH. Many are stopped by rigid armour or won't work properly on non-humans. Now, throws...