The "Combat Maneuvers and aiming" Ki effect does the particular maneuver have to be specified at creation of the technique? In other words do you say "This technique reduces the penalty for disarming by 50" or "This technique reduces the penalty for any special manuever by 50" and decide to disarm when you use it.

I've always assumed it's applicable to any maneuver. Granted, for the one character I have with this effect, I'm only using it for Disarm, but I don't think there's any reason why it wouldn't be applicable to others.

Effectively it's a cheap plus to Attack, but with the limitations that:

a) It can only be used when performing a maneuver, unlike the general purpose +75 Attack or whatever, and

b) The benefit caps out at the full penalty for that maneuver, so if you get Penalty Reduction of 50, but for Disarm the penalty is only 40, you don't in effect get +10 Attack. You just attack with no penalty.

Yeah, I think Beadle is right, but: The "Combat Maneuvers and Aiming" are usable with more than called shots etc.

For example, the Ki Technique "Shoryuzan" (Path of Meizo) uses the "Combat Maneuvers and Aiming" to negate the Malus for "Unsheating the weapon" (but you could also use it, to make a called shot, see description isn't a rule, it is "only" fluff).

So long,