[Torg] Martial Arts Question

[Kansas Jim]

Rabbitfall writes:

> I must have misunderstood the question. I was answering the question
> based on wondering why there would be a Strike maneuver as opposed to
> using Unarmed Combat. The difference there is that, being a martial
> arts maneuver, it deals STR+2 instead of normal STR. But if the

The only reason a martial artist would have for using Unarmed Combat at
all is if he's in a realm where Martial Arts is a contradiction and he
doesn't want to run the risk of disconnecting. Since Martial Arts
substitutes for Unarmed Combat and the skill itself does STR+2 damage,
it's almost always the way to go. The disciplines are supposed to give
you something more than just what the base MA skill does, yet Strike as
written doesn't give you anything.

I have to wonder if at some point in the design process the skill did
not grant you a damage bonus in which case you would need a "basic
maneuver" like Strike to get it. But then they decided to give the skill
the STR+2 damage bonus and forgot to do anything with Strike, making it
superfluous.

> down to one of two possible explanations: either the style is being
> derived from a real-world martial art that only has four "flashy"
> minor maneuvers, or the features of the martial art were deemed to be
> overbalanced compared to the other arts and thus the Strike is forced
> upon it for game balance purposes.

Let's see...the three schools with Strike are Red Lotus, Tai Chi and
Atemi-Waza. Red Lotus is a made up school and Atemi-Waza is supposed to
be the ancestor of Karate.

Atemi-Waza is supposed to combine "speed and devastating power" yet
the only discipline it has which increases its damage over the base
STR+2 of the skill is Crushing Block (STR+3). Now if you needed Strike
for the STR+2 damage then that would towards Atemi-Waza starting out
with a bit more of that "devastating power" than the other schools.
(Except that when you look closer, many of the other styles in the
book get a Minor that lets them do at least STR+4 damage, making
Atemi-Waza one of the least devastating styles by comparison!)

And what to make of Tai Chi being given Strike as its first discipline?
Why was such a famously "soft" martial art school given the same
starting "devestating power" as Karate's ancestor? (Much less Tai Chi
getting Iron Fist as one of its Majors, letting it do STR+6 while the
best Atemi-Waza gets is STR+5 with its Master!)

-- 
Kansas Jim, Torg guru (ksjim (at) sdc (dot) org)
Torg website: http://www.sdc.org/~ksjim/index.html