[DL] Martial Arts balance

[Martha Frey <natasha_corey@yahoo.com>]

Let me apologize for the angry tone this message may
take in advance, but this is something I feel pretty
strongly about.

Does anyone else consider the martial artists overly
powerful, new system or old???  Let me set the stage
here a bit, and then I'll give you my systemic
reasons.

Maggie and her friends make it to Milwaukee to deliver
the news of a former party member's death to his
sister.  Now, when I think of Milwaukee, I don't think
of martial artists, I think of breweries.  Granted,
with Iron Dragon, I probably should have, but that's
not the point.

The posse is in a second story hotel room planning
their next move, when Maggie hears a groan coming from
downstairs.  Those of you who have seen "Dead Man"
know where my mind went; in fact, it was a group of 9
"yeller men" beating up on a single male.  Five Geese,
bless his Bear Totem heart, leaps out the window to
save the guy; Alexandra, Maggie, Doctor Reed and
Professor Jackson bolt down the stairs to join the
fray.  Seeing as how this is a rather large Northern
city with an anti-gun carrying ordinance, the party
leaves the pea shooters behind.

To make a long story short, Thorn Fingers Win makes
chop suey of Five Geese.  Marguerite the player has
very little systemic knowledge of martial arts; we're
not allowed to build a character with them and haven't
read even the rules about them.  Thorn Fingers not
only used a maneuver which, as a *vamoose*, knocked
Five Geese on his butt, but then proceeded to use some
lightening-looking ch'i power which did non-chippable
damage to the tune of a Critical to the head (the GM
admits by all rights Five Geese should have been
dead).

This is practically ignoring four other goons who laid
into Maggie (who had no clue that not interrupting the
one-on-one combat between Thorn Fingers and Five Geese
was honorable, and therefore made her the best
target), and one who almost took off Professor
Jackson's head with a flying kick, but who's botched
roll and resulting broken patella will be keeping him
quite busy.

Okay, there's the scene.  Granted, our characters are
not supremely good at hand-to-hand combat (most of us
have a brawlin' of 2 or 3), but Five Geese was no
slouch with that tomahawk, and didn't land a single
attack.

Here's my systemic problem with martial artists:

First, it's cheap and clean.  I learned from the GM
that "martial arts" itself if a one point Edge, where
as the Arcane Background which gives the character
access to ch'i is the standard 3.  Here's what kicks
me in the head: no backlash, no roll, no gear or ammo,
no nothing: they're bare handed COMBAT MANEUVERS. 
Once you have the basic martial art, that's it; yours
to use as you choose.  I have to assume that, at least
with ch'i powers, rolls are required, but like any
good gunslinger would ramp their skill, the martial
artist could do the same.  After reading Goff's recent
post about the new rule system converting martial arts
to a single ch'i skill, this just makes it worse.

Second, martial arts are only really designed to be
countered by a fellow martial artist.  Two characters
with martial arts makes for an interesting and
strategic combat, as the maneuvers can often only be
countered by other martial arts maneuvers.  You get a
regular old brawler in there, I don't care how good
her or she it, and they just can't compete.

Keep in mind, this is completely ignoring any mystical
systemic knowledge that being from a culture with a
thousand year magical tradition includes; I would
imagine that they, like the Indians, are knowledgeable
and adept at dealing with spiritual forces at work in
the Weird West.

Granted, martial artists have some serious
limitations.  They have practically no range ("Catch
the Pearl of Death" or no), and at least as built in
the original rules, no Dodge skill - one bullet is all
it takes.  In addition, the tradition surrounding
learning martial arts can severely limit their
background and make it nearly impossible to learn new
arts.

Here's my point, if you've suffered through this far:
they seem unbalanced.  Systemically, they don't suffer
the potential problems that other arcane background
have to deal with (backlash, loss of faith, oaths to
spirits / appeasement, ...), combined with a cheap
start-up cost (one point of Edge).  Compare this to
someone like Maggie who spent 8 Edge points to be good
at what she does.  She may be good with a pair of
pistols, but she can't vamoose to cost her opponent an
action to get up, and she can't do non-chippable
damage.

Comments, disagreements and illustrations to the
contrary gladly welcomed; I'm just confused at why the
martial artists seem to stick out so much.

Marguerite of EMGB, otherwise known as Maggie Jensen

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