Martial Arts in d20

[Spatula]

So - to sum up.
If you treat a gun as an object, the defender gets his class defense bonuses, plus his own dex bonus, plus a bonus for the gun being small. Improved disarm in this scenario means nothing, and the gun wielder gets no AoOs.

If you treat the gun as a melee weapon, the defender gets his class BAB, plus his strength bonus, minus a penalty for the gun being small. Improved disarm is required to avoid your opponent from disarming you back or gaining an AoO.

I know which one makes more logical sense to me - the second one. It also favours strong disarmers versus dextrous characters (ie it favours melee specialists over ranged specialists).

Someone disarming a bat with a handgun makes sense? Or the handgun wielder getting a pistolwhip AoO vs the bat wielder on a disarm attempt?

The first case is a check between the disarmer's experience (BAB) and strength (bonus to attack) vs the defender's experience (class defense bonus) and agility (Dex bonus to defense). Looks good to me.

 

[Plane Sailing]

PS,

I love your version of Jackie Chan -- that's dead-on what I'd use, I think, if I thought about it enough.

Not sure I agree on Bruce Lee, though. Everyone likes to use Fast for anyone who is agile. When I watch a Bruce Lee movie, I don't (and please correct me if I'm remembering poorly) see a ton of acrobatics -- at least, not relative to a Jackie Chan movie. Bruce Lee is not REALLY REALLY good at tumbling and leaping off of walls and stuff like that. He's not bad at it -- I'd give him a high Dex -- but it's not how he styles himself. Running quickly or tumbling would make me think "Fast Hero". I think that Bruce Lee's Basic Class should actually be Strong Hero.

In retrospect I think you are right. He clearly has boatloads of initiative bonus, but strong hero is probably the right way for Brucie to go.

Cheers

 

[takyris]

So - to sum up.
If you treat a gun as an object, the defender gets his class defense bonuses, plus his own dex bonus, plus a bonus for the gun being small. Improved disarm in this scenario means nothing, and the gun wielder gets no AoOs.

If you treat the gun as a melee weapon, the defender gets his class BAB, plus his strength bonus, minus a penalty for the gun being small. Improved disarm is required to avoid your opponent from disarming you back or gaining an AoO.

I know which one makes more logical sense to me - the second one. It also favours strong disarmers versus dextrous characters (ie it favours melee specialists over ranged specialists). Finally IMO, the more people in a combat who are capable of taking an AoO, the better - it emphasises the use of interesting tactics, and skills such as tumble.

So... take your pick.

You argued that very logically, and while I still don't agree with you, I'm willing to agree to disagree. When Charles Ryan returns and gives us the official answer, you might well be right.

-Tacky

 

[Mistwell]

D'oh -- my bad. Remembered Large.

Mist, any word back from Charles Ryan on whether guns are melee weapons or ranged weapons for disarming purposes?

-Tacky

Okay CR is back and I posted the question. Should have an answer today or tomorrow.

Boy do I need to update that damn FAQ...getting behind!

 

[Mistwell]

The official answer:

The default answer is that a firearm is a ranged weapon; therefore you use the rules for disarming opponents with ranged weapons. However, if the opponent last used his weapon as a melee weapon (making a pistol whip, rifle butt, or fixed bayonet attack), treat the firearm as a melee weapon.

 

[takyris]

Thanks, Mistwell! Sounds like a reasonable compromise, in addition to being the official answer.

-Tacky

PS: And stupid me for not asking this before, but does that mean that a gun is ALWAYS treated as a melee weapon when it was last used to make melee attacks?

For example, you can only take attacks of opportunity when armed (or CONSIDERED armed, for martial artists) with a melee weapon.

Let's say that there are three characters:

|......C|
|A....B|
|........|
|........|
|....L..|


Character A, a bad guy, shoots at C, a hero, with a pistol.

Character B, a bad guy, uses his pistol as a melee weapon to whack character C, a hero. He doesn't want to take that five foot step back and fire because he's afraid of a tripwire trap behind him.

Neither A nor B have any martial arts experience that would let them make attacks of opportunity unless they were holding melee weapons.

Character C, on his turn, runs to get to the big important lever (L) that A and B were guarding. In doing so, he moves through threatened squares, and he's planning on taking an action (pulling that lever) when he gets past them, so it's not a double move.

Does it make sense to assume that B, who was using his gun as a melee weapon, gets to make an AoO, but character A, who used his gun as a ranged weapon, does not?

That makes sense to me, but I just wanna confirm. You don't have to actually ask CR this if you think he's covered enough stuff like it.

Thanks!

-Tacky again

 

[Mistwell]

Actually Dodge is a bonus feat for Fast heroes according to Charles Ryan. To my knowledge this is official erratta.

Actually he officially said the opposite.

Q: Was Dodge left out deliberately from the Fast Hero's bonus feat list, or was it an oversight?

A: It was left out deliberately.

The Fast hero already has enough very attractive features; giving it the longest list of bonus feats (which would be the case if you added Dodge) would just be a bit too much. You could add Dodge and remove something else, but given that many Fast hero players are going to pick Dodge as one of their starting feats anyway, that seems to do the class a disservice. For those who have to use a non-bonus feat slot for Dodge, all I can say is that it's a small tradeoff for an otherwise excellent class choice.

 

[suburbaknght]

Actually he officially said the opposite.

I stand corrected.

 

[Tellerve]

I just got my own copy of d20 modern today, no more sitting in B Dalton's

Anyways, after thoroughly rereading parts of the book, I have to agree that martial arts getting pretty roughly rumped. I'm going to make some characters and make sure that my mental calculations are correct but it doesn't look good. I especially like how they do a lot less damage, and eventually (7th level) get flurry of blows, while a gunslinger gets a flurry action at 5th. And that doesn't go into hit die or skill points.

I guess, d20 modern is all about the *bam, bam*. Don't get me wrong, I think a guy with a gun should be able to shoot and kill a martial arts person. I just think the ultimate in martials arts person isn't available after 10 levels in martial arts.

Tellerve

 

[takyris]

People, people, people.

I have several separate counterarguments.

1) I argue that the people who think that martial arts are weak in d20 Modern are looking solely at class abilities.

Guys, look at all the feats. Look at 'em. Look at how many feats you get in this game. Look at a guy who can tumble in close to an ogre, use Unbalance Opponent to deny that guy his Strength bonus to hit you, and engage him in Melee so that your Elusive Target feat kicks in and makes you nigh-impossible for ordinary people to hit. Tell me that he's weak. When I built my martial artist character, I concentrated mainly on offense, but these few feats alone made me a lot harder to hit. For offense, combining your excellent BAB with Power Attack and Streetfighting can push you over the average dude's damage threshold on a regular basis.

2) I argue that people ragging on martial arts are only looking at the Martial Artist advanced class. People, there's a reason that they gave classes names like "Strong Hero" and "Smart Hero". It was a subtle attempt to get people to stop getting your character and your class mixed up.

The Martial Artist class has a lot of great stuff in it. You'll do well to take levels in it, and it's a must-have if you want to make a powerful martial artist hero. But don't stop there. A few levels of soldier will go a long way, and you can explain it as your character leaving the sanctity of the dojo to take stuff to the street and learn true combat effectiveness, if you like.

My ultimate martial artist character was a Strong3/Fast1/Martial Artist6/Soldier10. Those MA levels were nice, but frankly, I was more into having my criticals auto-confirmed.

To put it another way -- notice how the Gunslinger has SOME cool stuff, but he's not the bestest in the world at what he does? If you want that level of specialization, add Soldier levels. Do the same for the Martial Artist if you want to be the master of unarmed combat. Martial Artist levels alone won't do it.

If straight smashing isn't your gig, add Daredevil or Infiltrator levels. Either one will make your guy more versatile.

3) I argue that people who complain about low damage are underestimating the damage a martial artist can do and underestimating the lethality of the game.

At 20th level, I was doing 1d8+a bunch from strength, melee smash, greater weapon specialization, and Streetfighting. With point buy, I made a guy with an 18 Strength -- up to 20 by level 20. I BELIEVE that it was:

1d8 (martial artist living weapon ability)
+1d4 Streetfighting
+2 (Strong Hero melee smash)
+4 (Soldier, Greater Weapon Spec)
+5 (Strength)

So, that's 1d8+1d4+11. That's at LEAST 13, and the average is 18, which will clear the damage threshold on just about anyone. I attack four times per round, if I'm interested in doing as much damage as possible, OR I can use Power Attack to put all my damage in one basket and be SURE of forcing someone to make a Fort save or drop to -1. In addition, I have an 18-20 threat range, I do x3 damage on a critical, and my criticals are auto-confirmed because of my soldier levels. Think about that. 15% of the time, my hit does 3d8+33+1d4 points damage, no crit-confirm needed. Is that horrible underpowered?

I'm not arguing that a gun-person can't do more damage than a martial artist. Quite the opposite -- in the hands of a 20th-level Fast Hero/Gunslinger/Soldier, a gun is a deadly and terrifying thing. It can also be disarmed using the Strike an Object rules, as Charles Ryan confirmed. And if that gun goes away, the Fast Hero/Gunslinger/Soldier is in deep trouble. An unarmed-specializing martial artist can't be disarmed, can't lose his weapons because of roleplaying reasons, and never has to worry about running out of ammo.

But that just gets into the argument I didn't want to get into -- who is better? Who is better is stupid. They're different characters with different concepts, and each has its advantages and disadvantages, some of which I mentioned above. No, the issue is, "Are martial artists too weak to be fun?"

My answer, I suppose, is yes, if you're not smart enough to choose the right feats, wise enough to choose the right classes, or intelligent enough to choose the right combat tactics.

Just like with every other class.

-Tacky