Is Rolemaster Classic Martial Arts as weak as it seems?

Question

So I rebooted my pen&paper career after almost 20 years with Rolemaster Classic 5.0 (RMC). (20 years ago I think I played 2.0, not sure what exactly that German translation was ...)

Martial Arts was never really a thing for my old groups, but one of my new players developed a weird, apparently unreasonable affection to it (without being a monk ...) Looking into it, it seems that even for a Warrior Monk, it seems difficult to become anywhere en par with a fighter, rogue or even any profession that has x/y for his first weapon class. While a Worrior Monk has 1/3 MA costs, these 4 DP need to be spend 4 times to increase Rk4 (anything below doesn't even deal E critical hits). And then there are Strikes and Sweeps&Throws ...

Sooo ... is there really a reason to use MA, except for as a challenge or because there is just no weapon available? Not saying that would not be realistic, but I wonder if I am overlooking anything.

I know there is a RMSS companion on martial arts, is it worth looking at without switching?

Answer 1

The tactic is to dodge and use light hits till stunned, then hammer with a powerful attack for massive damage.

1. Using rank 1, you can easily get critical on armoured (sweeps & throws) and un-armoured (strikes) targets.
2. Once one of the above yields a "stun" effect, you can hit the opponent with rank 2 or 3 attacks. Use rank 3 or 4 for "stunned and unable to parry".
3. At higher levels, you can use weapons as part of your martial art attack -- I cannot remember the name of it. This opens up much more powerful attacks. This is where martial artists really shine. The extra critical inflicted here make all the difference.
4. The skill "adrenal defence" is cheap and the most powerful way not to get hit. Thus the martial artist does not need to split his OB much to get a really good defence. Note that normally one cannot use adrenal defence with weapons but for the above special weapons, you can making it very powerful indeed.

However, a martial artist facing a swordsman of equal or better skill will get cut to pieces. That's life. ☺

A martial artist should always start with rank 1 attacks -- depending on what the opponent is wearing -- as that almost guarantees a B critical -- If memory serves right. Once the target is stunned, they can "risk" high rank attacks. If the martial artist clearly outclasses the opponent, then rank 2 (or maybe 3) are worth doing. Bottom line, the martial artist will never kill in one blow but as a string of attacks.

The split into four ranks is to model the difference between a lot of fast light attacks and a few powerful devastating ones as is seen in (say) boxing matches. All other weapons user must split their weapons skill score in OB/DB -- with a shield adding a flat bonus. The martial artist does not thanks to adrenal defence but can! Splitting rank 1 gives them the ability to have a massive DB and still do critical hits.

Note that martial artists are terribly weak at low level, good at medium level, and grotesquely powerful at high level. At level 10, you can easily get a base DB of +100 and a rank 1 attack score of +130. The equivalent is an weapon skill of +200 and a massive shield.

_{Note that the number could be somewhat off but should be in a good bulk part.}

Answer 2

Martial arts in Rolemaster are very expensive to develop, however they have a versatility that standard melee weapons and brawling do not. Strikes are very powerful against lightly armoured opponents, whilst sweeps are good against heavily armoured opponents.

@Sardathrion has already detailed a lot of the aspects of MA in RM however there are optional rules in First Edition RM that are very commonly used for Martial artists. These are in section 13.3.1 in Character Law (#1300) and in Arms Law in section 10.3 (#1100) for non-full RM games (games that use some of the RM rules) but often used for all RM games in my experience; I'm not sure where they are in Classic 5.0 I'm afraid.

• Increased Swing Points : For every 5 a martial artist decreases their OB by they can increase their Initiative total by 10. Very useful for getting a first blow in.
• Engaging Multiple foes : If the martial artist has at least 40 OB they can attack 2 or more foes within a 90 degree arc. If they have 60 OB+ this can be any arc. When doing this they subtract 20 from their OB for each foe engaged beyond the first (the example and text disagree). This means if Bob the Monk has 65 OB Bob can attack one foe with 65 OB or two foes with 45 OB. OB split for parry/defense must be the same across all foes.
• Multiple attacks against the same foe : If the martial artist has at least 80 OB they can make 2 attacks against the same foe for a 30 OB penalty.
• Weapon Kata - If the martial artist has at least 50 OB they can use a weapon kata. These boil down to a 20 OB penalty but an additional critical (a appropriate critical from the weapon of one level lower than the martial arts critical) is inflicted.

These special attacks can make Martial Artists very powerful and give them some justification for the very expensive costs of their weapon attacks.

The Martial Arts Companion (#5602) is very much focused on the RMSS system (Training packages) but adaptable to RM Classic; there are some new "Traditional" weapons tables in there, and a couple of fun critical tables as well as some professions and spell lists. However overall I don't think it's worth the trouble (or cheese) of using it unless you're going to have an entirely martial arts focused campaign as it'll start introducing things like Chi powers that will make standard fighters start feeling somewhat left out.