Cinematic Martial Arts Technique Rework (by Cdru)

 

GURPS Martial Arts has an entire chapter on techniques. However, some of these techniques are ultimately very impractical, as they often demand All-Out Attack or Committed Attack, make you nearly defenseless, risk injury if you fail, or are otherwise too hard to use properly. It's typically much more practical to simply use bog-standard punches, kicks, chokes, and arm locks. To make it worse, the book offers no solution for GMs who want their players to use flashy techniques, even though it's supposed to accomodate cinematic campaigns. So here comes this set of technique overhauns that you, yes you, might use in a cinematic campaign. They are more practical, less dangerous to use and totally will not force you to save them only for that one moment in entire campaign when you end up fighting an essentially defenseless single opponent.

 

NOTE: These rules intentionally violate Creating New Techniques (Martial Arts, page 89-95), which makes the altered techniques much more powerful than usual. Use them at your own risk outside of cinematic campaigns.

 

NOTE 2: When a technique no longer has to be done as a Committed Attack or All-Out Attack, this means that performing it no longer gives you a defense penalty, inability to retreat, or an inability to dodge/block/parry (or total inability to defend), unless stated otherwise. In addition, this means that if the player does use these maneuvers, you should instead ignore the special rules on damage, let the player freely choose the specific attack they want, and use standard rules on how active defenses are impacted.

 

Acrobatic Stand: No longer has the -6 default penalty. Can be improved to Acrobatics+4. GMs who would wish to "rein in" this technique for some reason (maybe the option to stand up immediately after a fall destroys combat balance 

Axe Kick: Can be performed with any maneuver that allows an attack, doing normal kicking damage. You can't retreat after performing an Axe Kick.

Back Kick/Back Strike: You no longer suffer a -2 defense penalty.

Elbow Drop: Can be performed with any maneuver that allows an attack, doing thrust+1. Missing or having your attack blocked does not risk self-injury.

Entangle: No longer has the -4 default penalty with whips, as it's considered a normal attack for them. Kusaris still take the penalty.

Flying Jump Kick/Flying Lunge: You only risk falling on a miss (rolling against unmodified DX or Acrobatics to avoid the fall), and do not take any damage on a fall. You also do not suffer a defense penalty or an inability to dodge/parry. You can also perform the technique as an All-Out Attack, and you can run your full Move while doing so.

Grand Disarm: You can strike any foe within your reach, not just within a yard.

Hook: The default is instead equal to your Armed Grapple technique, with no penalty.

Initial Carving: You can perform the technique with any cutting attack, not just fencing weapons, your attack rolls are never penalized by this technique, and you do not risk messing up the carving on a miss. In effect, carving initials is more of a special effect of hitting with a cutting attack.
In fact, some GMs might wish to make this technique into a perk instead. In that case it should, of course, specialize for weapon skill.

Jump Kick: Use the Basic Set version. You take no defense penalty, and if you miss, you roll against unmodified DX or Acrobatics to avoid falling.

Kicking: You no longer risk falling on a miss.

Knee Drop: Can be performed with any maneuver that allows an attack, doing thrust+1. Missing or having your attack blocked does not risk self-injury.

Leg Lock: Your enemy resists with unmodified ST or HT.

Lethal Kick: You no longer risk falling on a miss.

Piledriver: You no longer risk self-injury if the attack fails.

Pole-Vault Kick: Simply use the revised Jump Kick instead, treating the use of a pole as a special effect.

Sacrifice Throw: The enemy takes -3 to their active defenses if you drop to your knees. They take -4 to their active defenses if you opted to fall face-up or face-down.

Snap Weapon: The damage you inflict ignores the weapon's DR

Spinning Attack: Can be performed with any maneuver that allows an attack. You suffer -2 to defenses and an inability to retreat. Spinning Kick does not cause you to risk falling on a miss.

Springing Attack: You do not risk any special negative consequences on a miss, and a critical miss simply results in a roll on the critical miss table.

Whirlwind Attack: You can strike any foe within your reach, not just within a yard

Wrench Leg: Your enemy resists with unmodified ST or HT