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Metahuman Martial Arts 3e $19.95
Average Rating:4.1 / 5
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Metahuman Martial Arts 3e
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Metahuman Martial Arts 3e
Publisher: Misfit Studios
by JP D. [Verified Purchaser]
Date Added: 12/29/2016 02:42:42

Summary - Complicates combat and is best suited for games with a primary focus of melee centric martial arts characters, not a good supplement if you don't have a group dedicated to playing martial arts characters or settings.

The book primarily focuses on bringing real-life martial art styles into the m&m3e rule set, as you'll probably find with other reviews, the book is rather lacking when it comes to super-powered martial arts styles. To me this seemed odd as anime in particular is full of great examples of martial arts or weapon users with fantastic powers, Dragon Ball, Bleach, Full Metal etc (There are a few style tailored to super powered characters flying, bricks, elastic styles along with a handful of others).

The archetypes presented are defensively too low for their PL, even with their stances, this would make them unsuitable for play along side base m&m3e characters. Also of concern is the complexity it adds to melee combat, requiring a lot of reading by the entire gaming group to get to grips with, and I imagine a lot of practice. This seems counter-intuitive for a book that claims it's focus is bringing martial arts characters up to snuff in a world with aliens and meta humans.

A lot of the abilities could be replicated with the same effects via affliction or secondary effects from base, curiously a lot of them seemed over-priced for what they did and I can't imagine them being very effective against a toughness shifted enemy, pretty much the entire selection of characters are attack shifted and have low damage scores.

The book also has a lot of of sections with See A Better Mousetrap 3e This is a little disappointing as I feel they could have done without doing it and it seems like a ploy to get you to buy more of their products, in fairness they do note that it makes extensive use of mechanics presented in their previous book.

With that said, the book does contain some great ideas for characters, each archetype is presented with an example of different story hooks and options for customizing the characters to fit your personal tastes. They all have a good selection of different strengths and combat options that allows for a lot of creative play.

The book contains a ton of write-ups for different styles, everything from basic police training to forbidden ancient kung fu styles. It's hard to imagine you wouldn't find a style that fits what concept you have while creating a martial arts hero...Even if you did there is an extensive guide on how to create your own styles too.

The pre-made villain groups were the highlight of the book for me, they have a structure and background that is well thought out combined with a generous selection of pre-made villains with enough skills and abilities to be used dozens of time without feeling stale.

I could see the book being great for players who want an Immortal Iron-fist style campaign or action/kung fu movie based and are willing to re-learn a system, but as an addition to a m&m supers game I really don't think this is a good purchase. The book changes far too much of the tried and true m&m melee combat, adding body part targeting, changes to critical hits, and pretty much every aspect of close combat. Even the example powers are heavily focused on making use of these changes, making for limited to no functional of use outside a dedicated Metahuman Martial Arts game.

Too much changed from base in my opinion and not enough focus of actual synergy with core rules. In a group with a mixed selection of player characters, in a typical m&m game,it would be a whole lot of re-learning and reading just to cater to the player(s) that want melee centric martial arts builds.

As an addition to supers m&m games 2/5 As a base for kung fu centric games 4/5



Rating:
[2 of 5 Stars!]
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Metahuman Martial Arts 3e
Publisher: Misfit Studios
by Ethan P. [Featured Reviewer]
Date Added: 06/20/2016 16:22:15

An excellent supplement. It makes combat a bit more crunchy at times, but it gives a lot of specialization options and makes martial arts and melee-centric characters much more fun!



Rating:
[5 of 5 Stars!]
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