Hi

I just got my copy of dominus exxet and I really like it. the only thing that concerns me are the new martial arts:

Do I read the rules correctly that I can acquire most of the advanced degrees araound level 3-4 ? Doesn`t that weaken the Tao considerably?

If you mean the Standard Martial Arts at Advanced Level, then that's probably a good estimate of the level. Possibly earlier. But them there's still the Supreme Degree to come, at about Level 7ish.

If you mean the Advanced Martial Arts at Base Degree (Emp, Asakusen etc) then no. There's two that you can get at Level 1 (Velez and Dumah, although Dumah needs some number-crunching), Asakusen maybe at Level 5, the others usually about Level 7, although you can crunch a bit to get them a level quicker if you're going nuts.

Arcane Degrees of Advanced MAs are much, much later (unless you know an easy way to get to 300 Attack and 300 Defence).

hm seems to me that getting most of your interesting boni so late would weaken an already weak starter class. Most MArtial Arts are simply not worth it on base degree (Kung Fu i am looking at you). Maybe I will just houserule it.

But How do you get an advanced martial arts on level one? don't you need an advanced basic martial art?

Yes, but Velez only needs Advanced Tai-Chi. Which has absolutely no requirement in terms of Attack or Defence score. Just enough MK to have bought Use of Ki (which you will have by the time you've bought Base-level Tai-Chi).

As an exercise, I created a Tao that at Level 1 has Advanced Kempo, Advanced Tai Chi, Base Lama, Base Velez and Base Dumah; giving +20 Attack and +30 Defence as bonuses. Can Attack off 140 (or twice at 130), Defend twice at 90, can attack as energy, with +10 to breakage and -2AT off his opponent.

That is WAY more than any other class at that level, even assuming a ludicrous +15 weapon.

Low levels are the time when Tao are definitely NOT underpowered. When you're in that lull period between Base Level Advanced MAs and having the 300 needed for Arcane level, that's when it might be worth class-switching to a Techie for a while. But up to Level 8 or 9? They're pretty cool.

hm ok I grant you Taos can be powerfull. I think my problem comes from the fact that I really like some of the martial arts fluffwise, but they are really crappy on low levels (Kung Fu). But I stand corrected, when you take the right abilities you kick ass