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Why Martial Arts?

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Victim:
The Martial Arts stunt allows you to use Fists as a perception/knowledge skill for making assessments and declarations, but only for fighting style.  It's a pretty standard example of adding a new trapping to a skill.

But why would a skill swap stunt be the requirement for half of the Fist stunts?  If you already have other knowledge/perception skills to make assessments - which shouldn't be too unusual - then you're essentially spending a refresh just to access the other stunts (and get a more limited version of something you already have).  It's not like those stunts are amazing either - Redirected Force basically equivalent to Riposte; Armed Arts isn't too far from Hand Eye Coordination.

Sure, you can use Fists whenever, as opposed to needing a weapon out, so they can apply more often.  However, it seems like you're already paying for that in lower damage.

Martial Arts was the only stunt in the book that served as a requirement to other stunts - as opposed to SotC, where all skills had stunt trees.  Why restrict Fists, of all skills, in this way?  It seems a little like too much focusing on the name of the Stunt as opposed to what it does.

Deadmanwalking:
This is an excellent point, actually. None of the Stunts that follow Martial Arts seem good enough to absolutely require prerequisites, at least to me, and I think it really is the only example of stunts requiring prerequisites still in the book.

iago:
Generally giving a stunt a prerequisite is about allowing that stunt to be just a tidge more potent (possibly instead more broad). We figured martial arts would be a way to chart that sort of thing out, though really, you can ignore the prereq element if you like. (But I think it feels more real if people have to *understand* fighting styles before they can gain their benefits.)

Victim:

--- Quote from: iago on April 21, 2010, 03:31:24 AM ---Generally giving a stunt a prerequisite is about allowing that stunt to be just a tidge more potent (possibly instead more broad). We figured martial arts would be a way to chart that sort of thing out, though really, you can ignore the prereq element if you like. (But I think it feels more real if people have to *understand* fighting styles before they can gain their benefits.)

--- End quote ---

Well, it doesn't seem like the ability to make analyze fighting styles is unique to martial arts, since other skill types can do the same thing without an inherent limitation.  How someone buys that capability didn't seem to be of great importance.

Second, it seems weird that the default assumption seems to be that someone with Superb Fists wouldn't understand what they're doing.  I mean, that character is essentially operating at a free tag above a Fists 3, MA character (which seems pretty good for someone not planning on punching monsters in the face).  Effectively, the advantage that character with MA can gain with study is applied reflexively by the other character.

Finally, what MA based stunts are more potent than usual?  Guns has something like Armed Arts, letting the character use Guns for certain weapons.  Weapons has Riposte, which is a lot like Redirected Force (except probably better).  There's Lethal Weapon, which is +2 damage with a limit that comes up a lot.  Weapon 2 can be quite good though.  However, it seems less like a bonus for a prerequisite stunt and more like something to make up for the inherent lack of damage to Fists attacks.  Other skills can get something like +1 damage for a stunt (target rich environment/way of the bow for Guns, Off hand weapon training for melee) and start with more damage.

SaintAndSinner:
I was just going to drop the prerequisite.

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