Spun out of the Endless Vigil discussion thread, and since it was slow at work, I now present my Kung Fu Master tree:

The idea here is that while Marauder covers the Brute Force side of melee and brawling, the Kung Fu Master is more elegant and agile. The example I made previously was Ivan Drago - whatever he hits, he destroys - vs Jackie Chan, wiry and nimble and jumping all over the place while he's beating your ***.

There were two directions I was thinking of going with this - either as a universal spec, or I would include it in the Hired Gun. Why Hired Gun? Easy! The Last Man Standing Sig Ability would be a perfect simulation of Bruce Lee with Nunchucks cleaning the clocks of a dozen faceless mooks.

More notes:

What is Supreme Free Running? No idea! It'll be something awesome though!

What is Weapon of Opportunity? That's a brand new talent that removes a black [] when fighting with giant and unwieldy weapons. Basically it's for when Jackie beats up 20 guys with an eight foot tall Teddy Bear while standing in a Burger King ball pit.

What's Kung Fu Parry? That's like the F&D parry, but instead of using lightsabers, it's unarmed parry. But otherwise, the talent remains the same.

So, what do you think sirs?

You spelled Soak wrong....

I reserve the right to further commentary at a place and time of my choosing....

It would be nice to have an ability where you can use two-weapon fighting with Brawl and Melee with only 1 extra Difficulty instead of 2. Cut with a sword, followed by a roundhouse kick!

In all seriousness it looks fine. The Free Running makes it very Kung Fu Theatre.

I mentioned it over in the original thread you mentioned this from, but Creative Killer. Maybe even an Improved for it. And Grapple from the Warden tree. Also from Warden, Overbalance and Precision Strike.

Needs a Drunken Boxing talent that grants defensive bonus when disoriented.

I second Grapple.

Geeze, why in the hell did I not think of some kind of Drunken Master talent! That's brilliant.

Okay, I'll have to juggle some talents - but hey, it was a first draft! Now I just have to figure out what to cut. . . .

I think we might need multiple trees or variants of the tree. We got Parry, Creative Killer, Grapple, Overbalance, Defensive Training, Precision Strike, Freerunning, Defensive Stance, Center of Being, Feint, Jump Up, Knockdown, Conditioned, Crippling Blow, ect.

I just named 14 talents, a few of which are ranked, that all would be good candidates for a Martial Artist class.

Statistics to the rescue!

Here's the data on how many talents specializations tend to have:

Specs with 10 Talents: 0 1

Specs with 11 Talents: 0 2

Specs with 12 Talents: 0 5

Specs with 13 Talents: 16

Specs with 14 Talents: 27

Specs with 15 Talents: 21

Specs with 16 Talents: 0 8

Specs with 17 Talents: 0 7

This means that the average spec has 14.25 Talents, giving an average range of 12.81 - 14.25 - 15.69. Once we round that, it means that specs should have between 13 and 16 Talents, and should never have more than 17 different talents in one tree.

Coordination Dodge would be a good addition. Not only do martial artists parry, but they dodge in the most acrobatic ways possible. Why merely step out of the way of an incoming strike when you can do a double back handspring .

I like it.

In fact, I now demand all new trees are drawn up exactly like this when a new splatbook comes out.

I really love the 'Soke' talent.

And 'Kung Fu Party'. (Or is it 'Parry'? I think 'Party' sounds better. Cue Carl Douglas music...)

I like it.

In fact, I now demand all new trees are drawn up exactly like this when a new splatbook comes out.

I really love the 'Soke' talent.

And 'Kung Fu Party'. (Or is it 'Parry'? I think 'Party' sounds better. Cue Carl Douglas music...)

The 'Soke' talent should be part of the Drunken Master theme.

Love it Desslok. Consider your future final draft stolen.

If I can borrow from one of your proposed talents for a moment...

This seems pretty nice and to the notion of allowing its use at the table? "+2 Would"

Too much combat stuff, and getting boost to both Cool and Vigilance for initiative is too much in the context here. It is okay making those bonus career skills though.

You need some talents that give boost to Discipline checks.

And separate talents that give boost to all Cool checks, not just initiative, or the ability to take a point of strain to upgrade the checks.

Being able to use DEX for all ranged, melee, and brawl checks is a little outrageous! Brawn exists for a reason. The ability to use those weapons effectively despite having low Brawn is represented by taking ranks in the skill. Instead of a talent switching the Characteristics, have one or more inherent Accurate 1 talent.

That's just my opinion, though.

Definitely needs Precision Strike, Grapple and ideally Overbalance.

Being able to use DEX for all ranged, melee, and brawl checks is a little outrageous! Brawn exists for a reason. The ability to use those weapons effectively despite having low Brawn is represented by taking ranks in the skill. Instead of a talent switching the Characteristics, have one or more inherent Accurate 1 talent.

If his talent were to work like the Selonian's tail, the character would only use Dex to build their dice pool and would still use brawn to calculate damage.

Carl Douglas' favorite specialization.

Being able to use DEX for all ranged, melee, and brawl checks is a little outrageous! Brawn exists for a reason. The ability to use those weapons effectively despite having low Brawn is represented by taking ranks in the skill. Instead of a talent switching the Characteristics, have one or more inherent Accurate 1 talent.

If his talent were to work like the Selonian's tail, the character would only use Dex to build their dice pool and would still use brawn to calculate damage.

Sure, there are still Specs like Marauder with talents that add damage to the check, regardless of what characteristic you use. But it will take quite a bit of experience over many games to get your damage up to a respectable amount if you have low Brawn.

Ataru Striker works because Lightsabers have flat damage, breach, and can have linked. There aren't any high damage brawl weapons that make up for low Brawn, the best you get is some pierce, a far cry from the Breach on sabers.

Brawn also infers some good survival benefits that work right from character creation: Soak, Wounds, Resilience rolls, higher encumbrance. High Agility characters need rely on purchasing talents and equipment.

So I won't poopoo what looks to be a terrific concept for Agile fighters, aside from pointing out the play experience between a 0xp Kung-Fu Master with 5 agility will be vastly different from a 0 xp Marauder with 5 Brawn.