Trading Skill Programs for Martial Art Abilities

[Nightmask]

While the game has the option of trading out a Martial Art ability (other than like one Martial Art style) for a skill program (excluding physical) I'm curious if anyone's done the opposite, allowing someone to trade away a skill program in order to add another Martial Art Ability to a character?

[Nekira Sudacne]

Never in my experiance, personally. I can't say I would consider allowing a character to either. Martial arts powers are hard to come by by design and skills are precious in a game as espionage and intrigue heavy as this one.

[Nightmask]

Never in my experiance, personally. I can't say I would consider allowing a character to either. Martial arts powers are hard to come by by design and skills are precious in a game as espionage and intrigue heavy as this one.

Martial arts powers aren't that hard to come by, they come with nearly every MA in the game (outside of Triad Assassin Training and generic HtH), they even toss in bonus MAP to the Worldly MA. While I agree that skills are quite important given the Dedicated MA has almost none (unless he picks a skill heavy set of MA and/or gives up a MAP for a skill program) they aren't so important that acquiring a single MAP in place of a skill program is that hampering compared to the overall look of things.

[sirkermittsg]

if I were to GM, I would allow it. just as easy though is to take a martial arts class that gives you either two martial arts or extra abilities.

[Mantisking]

While the game has the option of trading out a Martial Art ability (other than like one Martial Art style) for a skill program (excluding physical) I'm curious if anyone's done the opposite, allowing someone to trade away a skill program in order to add another Martial Art Ability to a character?

We allowed trading a skill package for an entire martial art.

[Nightmask]

I think it's a bad idea. Operative Agents already get a hand to hand style, no need to make them any more capable with the amount of skills they can already attain.

While there are OCC that are heavy in skill programs they actually aren't going to benefit substantially from giving up a skill program for a Martial Art Power. Look at the Worldly Martial Artist, they have 4 skill programs and gain bonus Martial Art Powers as they level. The most skill-heavy OCC that has a specialized MA (rather than a generic HtH) has 6 skill programs, giving up a program or two in order to improve the MA isn't going to make the character particularly excessive in ability in comparison, at best it simply gives you a bit more variety in customizing as the character proves less capable when it comes to skills to the average member of their OCC (which could be substantially hindering) in order to have an extra MAP or two so they're more combat-capable.

[Soldier of Od]

While the game has the option of trading out a Martial Art ability (other than like one Martial Art style) for a skill program (excluding physical) I'm curious if anyone's done the opposite, allowing someone to trade away a skill program in order to add another Martial Art Ability to a character?

Yes, I have done this. I thought that was within the rules, but looking at the wording again I can see that might not be the case. I don't see a problem with it. One extra martial art power isn't going to tip the balance, and paying an entire skill program to obtain it is I think a fair trade.

[Tor]

We allowed trading a skill package for an entire martial art.

Seems kinda broken to me, since individual MAPs can be traded for a whole skill program and an art can sometimes gives up to 3 or 4 powers, you could loop to get all the martial arts that way.

[Mantisking]

We allowed trading a skill package for an entire martial art.

Seems kinda broken to me, since individual MAPs can be traded for a whole skill program and an art can sometimes gives up to 3 or 4 powers, you could loop to get all the martial arts that way.

We did away with the rule for exchanging MAPs for skill Programs.

[Trooper Jim]

We allowed trading a skill package for an entire martial art.

Seems kinda broken to me, since individual MAPs can be traded for a whole skill program and an art can sometimes gives up to 3 or 4 powers, you could loop to get all the martial arts that way.

We did away with the rule for exchanging MAPs for skill Programs.

Why?

[Mantisking]

We allowed trading a skill package for an entire martial art.

Seems kinda broken to me, since individual MAPs can be traded for a whole skill program and an art can sometimes gives up to 3 or 4 powers, you could loop to get all the martial arts that way.

We did away with the rule for exchanging MAPs for skill Programs.

Why?

Because martial arts are skill packages in and of themselves.

[Nightmask]

We allowed trading a skill package for an entire martial art.

Seems kinda broken to me, since individual MAPs can be traded for a whole skill program and an art can sometimes gives up to 3 or 4 powers, you could loop to get all the martial arts that way.

We did away with the rule for exchanging MAPs for skill Programs.

Why?

Because martial arts are skill packages in and of themselves.

With explicit rules that most Martial Arts can trade in specialized Martial Art powers for conventional skill programs (excluding physical), which makes Martial Arts more like OCC where you can customize them by trading out some things for others. Given many if not most skill packages have variations in what skills you can have (the Vehicle Construction Gizmoteer program for example lets you pick different vehicle skills for piloting) and Martial Arts do allow for variation in what special Martial Art powers you have (for most specialized Martial Arts) again it hardly seems unrealistic that for their Martial Art 'package' they skimped more on their normal skill programs for an extra Martial Art Power.

[eliakon]

We allowed trading a skill package for an entire martial art.

Seems kinda broken to me, since individual MAPs can be traded for a whole skill program and an art can sometimes gives up to 3 or 4 powers, you could loop to get all the martial arts that way.

We did away with the rule for exchanging MAPs for skill Programs.

Why?

Because martial arts are skill packages in and of themselves.

With explicit rules that most Martial Arts can trade in specialized Martial Art powers for conventional skill programs (excluding physical), which makes Martial Arts more like OCC where you can customize them by trading out some things for others. Given many if not most skill packages have variations in what skills you can have (the Vehicle Construction Gizmoteer program for example lets you pick different vehicle skills for piloting) and Martial Arts do allow for variation in what special Martial Art powers you have (for most specialized Martial Arts) again it hardly seems unrealistic that for their Martial Art 'package' they skimped more on their normal skill programs for an extra Martial Art Power.

for some things this makes sense...to a point. Although the most 'logical' thing for a martial artist to study (physical skills) is explicitly forbidden, and you cant take WPs either since you need the Kata to use it. It makes little sense to take say...Piloting as part of your Shaolin Kung-Fu training, though a cultural or wilderness program might.

[Nightmask]

We allowed trading a skill package for an entire martial art.

Seems kinda broken to me, since individual MAPs can be traded for a whole skill program and an art can sometimes gives up to 3 or 4 powers, you could loop to get all the martial arts that way.

We did away with the rule for exchanging MAPs for skill Programs.

Why?

Because martial arts are skill packages in and of themselves.

With explicit rules that most Martial Arts can trade in specialized Martial Art powers for conventional skill programs (excluding physical), which makes Martial Arts more like OCC where you can customize them by trading out some things for others. Given many if not most skill packages have variations in what skills you can have (the Vehicle Construction Gizmoteer program for example lets you pick different vehicle skills for piloting) and Martial Arts do allow for variation in what special Martial Art powers you have (for most specialized Martial Arts) again it hardly seems unrealistic that for their Martial Art 'package' they skimped more on their normal skill programs for an extra Martial Art Power.

for some things this makes sense...to a point. Although the most 'logical' thing for a martial artist to study (physical skills) is explicitly forbidden, and you cant take WPs either since you need the Kata to use it. It makes little sense to take say...Piloting as part of your Shaolin Kung-Fu training, though a cultural or wilderness program might.

Well I imagine the logic behind it is that they're skimping on the total dedication to the martial art and acquiring all the Martial Arts powers available to learn unrelated skills, which they wouldn't be if they went for physical skills hence you're either going all in on the Martial art and the powers it allows for or you're giving up a power or more to learn non-martial art skills. Hence the thought that someone might sacrifice a skill program or two in order to be more intensely devoted to their chosen MA than someone else. Given the Worldly MA actually gains bonus MA as he levels up and has a number of extra skill programs over the Dedicated MA it's not a reach to think someone from one of the other categories could give up a program for an extra MA power as well.

[Svartalf]

While the game has the option of trading out a Martial Art ability (other than like one Martial Art style) for a skill program (excluding physical) I'm curious if anyone's done the opposite, allowing someone to trade away a skill program in order to add another Martial Art Ability to a character?

We allowed trading a skill package for an entire martial art.

Not meaning that you were at all right to do that... Only martial artissts (yes, worldly too, I play unrevised rules, much more fun) are supposed to have more than one form; and OCCs with only generic HtH access are not supposed to get them at all. Game balance is not at stake, as Erick never was good at that, but it's a matter of choosing a frame and sticking to it.