I’m thinking we over at the wiki ought to provide more insight into MA than the nuts & bolts. Why would someone want Centipede Style, for instance? (It’s extremely effective against single-target Bad Stuff. Just don’t start with it!)
To that end, I’d appreciate it if you’d share your thoughts about the various styles you’ve tried. I’ll go first.
(Definitions: early-game is until the player hits melee/dodge/Unarmed 4 or so. Mid-game ends at 6-7; at this point, they’ve got everything the style can do. My version has traits for taking any particular style at chargen: animal styles cost 5 points and the exotic stuff costs 4. Shade & I are thinking that this approach, though thematic, probably isn’t well-balanced.)
Taekwondo: Decent defensive style early-game, and the bonus for ST helps conserve clothing. Makes me glad I took a little bit IRL, back in the day. I’ve never seen the Sweep come out, no matter my Unarmed skill (as in 10).
Judo: The Throws could help with crowd control; I’ve not seen the Defensive Throw that often. When I had the choice, I preferred alternate styles, and the NPC who taught me died to the Megastore crowds.
Ninjutsu: If the Block came out earlier, I’d recommend it as a decent choice for Dynamic–there’s an OK blend of offensive and defensive stuff. As it is, the early-game might be a bit touch & go but middle could work. Whether hostiles make noise when they attack you isn’t clear–if so, then this would be late-game at best because it’d take a while to skill to the point that you could reliably one-shot most critters.
Dragon Style: This seems Really Cool for high-IN characters, and the early Block can come in handy. In practice, though, I’ve never seen the Sweep or Knockback attacks, so it doesn’t really have a lot of late-game utility. I’d want some other style to help out.
Centipede Style: If you’ve got some other way to boost damage output (strength, mutations, etc) this can be a right terror against single targets or weak mobs (such as rat caves). If you start with it, though, you deserve whatever you get–it’s got no defense, no base damage, and requires long strings of uninterrupted hits to be effective. For the record, moving tends to drop 1-2 levels of speedup per move.
Zhi Quan: Technically/code-check circa 02Feb, it’s only 40 dodges per successful attack. Could be an issue against one particular Mine critter, perhaps, but that is a helluva lot of Dodges. I might consider starting with this, but it seems to lack late-game punch.
Thanks for helping us help everyone!