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The Kick Attack maneuver in Arsenal p160 reads:

A staple of many martial arts, kicking has a greater range and power than punching. The attacker receives +1 Reach on Unarmed Combat Tests when using a Kick Attack.

No requirement, straight bonus, no malus.

From a mechanics point of view, is there any reason not to use a Kick Attack maneuver on all Unarmed Combat attacks?

Cristol.GdM
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1 Answers1

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The Arsenal lists a variety of Martial Arts Techniques. All of them have different bonuses for different fighting styles. As a boxer, punching is better than untrained kicking, while grappling and kicking are favored by other styles. Generally, if you are untrained, you are right, kicking is king. However, any training will dwarf the simple +1 reach from untrained kicks. A master in a technique will not need that +1. Their own technique will grant about +3 in some aspects, some have more reach, do more damage or grant defense dice.

nvoigt
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  • Hmmm... I don't see how that's right actually. Kick Attack gives the same bonus (+1 Reach) no matters what martial art the character does, it stacks with Martial Arts advantages, and it is available to every martial art. Technically, a boxer using Kick Attack is just straight better than a boxer who doesn't. We could argue that from a roleplaying perspective a boxer should not be able to use Kick Attacks, but that was not my question. – Cristol.GdM Jul 28 '14 at 23:24
  • A boxer does not get his boxing technique bonus on kick attacks. I don't have the book here, but as far as I remember a boxer gets +2 damage on punches if skilled. That's better than +1 reach on kicks. Statistically, you'd need to get +6 to hit to make up for +2 damage. – nvoigt Jul 29 '14 at 04:39
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    Actually Boxing says - as for every other martial art with the same kind of advantage - "+1 DV on Unarmed Attacks", so it technically applies to every kind of attack. We could argue that boxers don't kick (legit) argument, but then 1 - we enter the realm of arguing what Martial Art can do what, and that's very subjective, and 2 - it would make Boxing quite a bad martial art considering that as written, Kick Attack is such a great maneuver (a bonus with absolutely no disadvantage, unlike every other maneuvers). – Cristol.GdM Jul 29 '14 at 04:52
  • I was actually hoping for some kind of errata, adding a disadvantage or something to the maneuver (for example making the character easier to hit until his next action or something) – Cristol.GdM Jul 29 '14 at 04:53