Quilone/WhatAboutBrawl
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What about Brawl?
The Martial Arts ability, as it stands, has many advantages over Brawl. I considered different ways in which they differ and how it could be modeled.
- Martial Arts requires instruction; Brawl can be learned on your own.
It seems sensible that a tutor should be required for learning Martial Arts. They are the result of thousands of years of thought and refinement, and were probably given to Man by the Gods, the Primordials, or the Dragon Kings, originally. Exalts have their past lives to help them, but even this might not always be enough (compare with the Past Lives merit...)
- Martial Arts should have reduced applicability.
In these rules, I strongly suggest that Martial Arts not allow a user to do absolutely everything it currently is able to. If Martial Arts requires different styles to use different weapons, or even to perform moves like punches and kicks, it no longer walks all over Brawl. Brawlers gain in versatility - they can clinch, punch, kick, throw, use brawling aids, improvised weapons, with just the basic skill. Martial Arts is always iffy as it seems like it should allow any weapon. With reduced applicability, it can - but you have to learn different styles to do so.
- As a result, Martial Arts sub-abilities should have experience costs. Brawl is cheaper, and now broader. Martial Arts shift from being very broad to being very deep with the possibility of breadth with larger expenditures of experience. You could still learn low levels of many Martial Arts, if you sought all the masters you could find, and emulate the 'make any Brawl move, use several other weapons' aspect of canon Martial Arts.
