Martial arts will give you the order you need in your life. Butt is kicked in an orderly fashion!
Default Attribute
Unskilled Use
You can hit people with your hands, or with basic tools such as clubs, swords and knives. You cannot use esoteric melee weapons such as whips, chains or nunchaku. You can climb, swim and do basic jumps, but no more acrobatic stunts than that.
Physical Ability
You can strike opponents in hand-to-hand combat, either unarmed or with close-up weapons such as swords, clubs, bicycle chains, nunchaku, telephones, lawn mowers, and so on. You can parry in hand-to-hand combat. You can fight with thrown weapons, from shuriken to daggers. You can throw other objects accurately.
Note that the term "martial arts" is used as a catchall to denote all hand-to-hand fighting ability. Your character may not have been formally trained at all, much less in a specific oriental fighting art.
If so, you're a brawler, but you know how to get the job done. If you have a skill rating of 12 or more, you have moved beyond the mundane aspects of Martial Arts, and may learn Fu Schticks.
Knowledge
You know the history of your school or gang, and of its great masters of the past and present. You have a less extensive but still-acceptable knowledge of the histories of rival schools and gangs. You know the philosophy or code of your group, both as it pertains to fighting and to life in general. If it has an oral or written code of conduct, you have memorized all of it. You know by reputation the great martial artists of your juncture. You know others in you neighborhood who can fight, either as colleagues or rivals. You can identify a good fighter, even if you cannot name his style. And you instinctively understand the many unwritten codes of fighting, when it is all right to use weapons, when single combat is appropriate and so on.
Contracts
You know other practitioners and teachers of your school or gang. You know members of rival groups, who may be your enemies. You know people involved in martial arts competitions, from judges to fans to patrons. You know street people involved in fights: ring managers, bar owners, gang members and little-old-ladies-with-sharp-eyes-in-need-of-protection.
Skill Schticks
These are the Pulp Schticks related to this skill. Check with your GM which of them are applicable for this game.
- See Fu