Has anyone seen a good well developed robust martial arts system for a D20 co.

[HyrumOWC]

I need a good system for this campaign I'm starting and the monk in the players handbook is flat. No stylistic punch kicks throw or holds. So you ask me why not use the normal core class ... I'm holding out for something better.

Please help me.

Hey Elvinis,

You might want to check out the martial arts rules in our Pulp game, Forbidden Kingdoms. It allows for complete martial arts customization and gives a brief history of most of the worlds martial arts. They're based off of Ken Hood's excellent MA rules.

Hyrum.

 

[Elvinis75]

Where can I get that?
Is it on the web?
Whats the addy?

 

[malladin]

Feeling rather shameless about using this to plug our upcoming product, but as its not out yet people will perhaps not be aware of it...

Unearthed adventurers, due out later this week (hopefully ), includes a new class, the swordsman. This class, whilst initially designed to handle the flashy light weapons styles better than the fighter class, has many more applications - one of which is a martial artist.

The design concept of the class is to use distinct combat styles rather than just accumilating feats, and so fits with martial arts quite well. We've not got quite the list of martial arts listed above, but there's the basics there if you want to expand it out and its a fairly simple system to design new styles for yourself.

That said, beyond monks is very good.

 

[HyrumOWC]

Where can I get that?
Is it on the web?
Whats the addy?

Ken's taken his site down, although someone else might have put the files up. You can also get them in Forbidden Kingdoms.

[shamelessplug]

http://www.otherworlds.cx/catalog.shtml

[/shamelessplug]

Hyrum.

 

[jmucchiello]

Being that I wasn't as clear as I could be I won't take it the wrong way but it can be made clear now. I know that the monk in the base book allows a character to simply say that they are going to this or that but it doesn't fill out to the point that I'm looking for. No the fighter doesn't get different thrusts parries and lunges at present but there is nothing saying that they couldn't. Look at the possibilities presented in the Mongoose fighters handbook. different styles that can set each fighter apart from the rest of the PC that take some of their feats.

What I'm looking for is something that takes the known martial arts styles in the RW and transcribes them to the D20 system. Different monestaries training their monk to fight differently.

Don't get me wrong, I'm sure lots of books out there offer what you are looking for, I'm just asking what you need it for. Is an Aikido arm lock really that different from a Judo arm lock? In a game with hit ponts and armor class, should they be different? Look at my sig line and call me a hypocrit but there is a fine line between providing players options and just creating constructs for the sake of doing so.

You seem to know a lot about these various martial arts so you are the right person to ask: Is a karate straight punch going to cause 1d6 or 1d8 damage? How about an Aikido straight punch? How much are actually limiting the martial artist compared to the monk. The monk says "I make a full attck" He gets eventually can flurry for 6 shots that do 1d20 + Str. Your way he never does more than d6 or d8+str.

No one has brought it up, but Oriental Adventures includes a feat path that gets you a bonus to unarmed damage as if you gained a size category. It also has maneuvers named flying kick and stuff. But they don't describe the attack, they merely add attacks of opportunity and spring attack like maneuvers to the monk. That sounds more interesting to me than whether or not I'm using a arm lock or nerve pinch during a round of grappling.

edit: And as a free plug, check out my thoughts on swashbuckling in this week's two-pager (link below). It's a lot heavier on description than on new feats.

 

[Strutinan]

My martial arts system is coallescing into a fine work of rules-mongering mastery! in other words, it looks good so far.

I've been trying for a system that allows flexability in designing your own martial art form, and think I've gotten it. All thats left is to flesh it out, and playtest the result.

In order to get it to work right, I am introducing a monk variant made with this system in mind. The new Monk class allows for developement of the character's abilities in whatever form of the martial arts he chooses, while also allowing him to re-create the original PHB monk, if he chooses.

Still debating about when to release it, though.

 

[Elvinis75]

I think that there are hard and soft martial arts styles that would dictate damage at the initial damage category. I think that they should raise by level using different attacks and don’t believe that I ever said differently. It become easy to see that a master can do a quick kick doing some damage versus a flying spin kick or focused kick to really lay in the damage. In this way they could vary the damage that they do. So I see this as being something that give a player a easier way to describe the actions that they are going to take.

I have the OA book and I’m looking for something more grand that isn’t as complicated as you would think. This is not saying that OA is complicated but it is cowed into that same we must use feats path. I want to make it more like, you use a feat to gain access to that school at a base level and gain points as you increase in level to buy new abilities and attacks thereby letting a character customize their character even within a school. Using their gained feats to branch out to different school or to specialize in their school.

Well thanks for all the help... I think that I'll probably create.
The other books might be good but to buy them sight unseen is a little much.

 

[Yuan-Ti]

Spycraft has a very good, flexible and balanced system. They also have a new sourcebook coming out (Pan Asian Collective) for Shadowforce which will supposedly expand on this martial arts system.

If you download Spycraft Lite (for free), there are some of the martial arts feats detailed in there which will give you an idea at least of what they are trying to do.

http://www.shadowforcearcher.com/spycraft_lite.zip

 

[Psion]

Do any of these contain different punches and kick combos and the rest?

The feats in Beyond Monks allude to specific maneuvers like this, but AFAIK, no d20 system product defines every single attack you use in this way.

If you want to do a little work, I might recommend Masters of Arms over the others mentioned here. Each of the classes in Masters of Arms receives manuevers at most levels which are very specific like this; these maneuvers include combination attacks that have specific effects, such as adding damage or special effects to later attacks in a series if the earlier attacks hit.

Most of the classes already written up in the book are weapon specialists appropriate to a more western setting. However, you can adapt and rename the maneuvers to make your own martial artist prestige class (think of the prestige classes as a style, a MUCH better approach, IMO, than Mongoose's styles.) AND the book has a design system to allow you to make your own manuevers.

 

[Voadam]

There was also the sleeping imperium stuff that had an alternative more in depth martial arts skill sset that worked like perform except that each rank gave you a martial art maneuver. It was free on the web before but I don't remember the address or if it is still around.