The cover is mildly attractive, featuring a wiry swordsman in an art comic book style, and several (slightly cooler) inserts of various martial artists of various genres. To me, this softcover seems a little too soft, almost magazine-like. The pages are a very light paper; I have some doubts about the physical longevity of this product. The layout is workmanlike, very faithful to the standards set by Ninja Hero. The internal art is of wildly varying quality; the ninja on p.80 is particularly kewl, but the cyborg on p.84 is just odd. The artwork did not catch my eye very often, despite the visual business of the book. I'd have to describe the art as more clutter than accent. Overall, this book could have been a lot more durable and attractive, but has few problems.
The writing is conversational and rarely dry, but compact, which I like. I found only a few typographical and grammatical errors. This book doesn't have the wit of some previous Hero products, but it's still a pleasant read. It's greatest strength is the sheer density of relevant information.
Capsule summary:
Chapter One - Martial Arts Styles and Maneuvers
The meat of the book. It's clear that Long's intention was an accurate, colorful, and informed encyclopedia of the fighting arts. While Ninja Hero offered a nice overview, this book catalogs martial arts from nearly every corner of the world in some detail. After a brief overview of martial maneuvers, learning styles, and ranks, it launches into a 47 page catalog of real world martial arts. One nice feature is the sybstyles section that follows each martial art. You have not just Kung Fu, but nearly twenty kinds of Kung Fu. You get a dozen varieties of Karate, and even eight flavors of Arnis, Escrima, and Kali, the Filipino martial arts. Clearly, Long aims for a level of detail that will please even knowledgeable gamers. The next, somewhat smaller section, is Fictional Martial Arts, covering a few super-heroic fighting styles, some mythic China flavors of Kung Fu, and Zen Riflery. Advanced Jinjitsu gets its own section, adding four fictional styles to the modern and historical styles included earlier in the book, plus relevant special abilities, mystic abilities, ninja weaponry, and "Ninja From Other Lands," briefly covering the Lin Kuei (from China), Sulsa (Korea), Trulkor (Tibet), and Modern American Ninja. The Martial Arts in Other Genres gives some helpful suggestions for fantasy, sci-fi, and superhero martial arts, accompanied by somewhat uninteresting examples of new styles. The Designing New Martial Arts section is excellent, suggesting style conception and including the system used to construct Martial Arts maneuvers (which is versatile, simple, and balanced). Ranged Martial Arts covers the (somewhat less varied) maneuvers used for ranged weapons such as shuriken or bows. Power Advantages for Martial Arts cover an optional system for adding a Power Advantage to a Maneuver, perhaps of most utility in a Heroic campaing featuring some moderately fantastic martial arts abilities; Superheroic and fantasy wuxia characters should probably stick with Powers.
Chapter Two - Character Creation
The Martial Arts Archetypes section is a depressingly terse overview of characters like The Honorable Ninja, the Irritable Student, and The Ronin. Each gets one to two paragraphs, with the vaguest possible suggestions for abilities. Sklls covers some old skills in new detail, with new options. Combat Skill Levels with Non-Weapon-Weapons makes a return. Perqs and Talents cover two entirely sufficient pages (excepting, I would have liked a discussion of Combat Luck in a martial arts context). There are fourteen pages of Powers, covering a variety of martial arts abilities in those terms. Some, such as Clinging and Gliding, are very useful; some, such as Arrays, are clunky and questionable. Martial Arts Multipowers are covered. Disadvantages are surprisingly meaty; this may be be the best part of the book outside the style entries themselves. These listed Disadvantages could certainly bring a martial arts campaign to life, or help distinguish a martial arts character in another campaign.
Chapter Three - Combat
This section adds a few new maneuvers (such as Bind) and variations (such as Grab and Block). It includes some clarifications on martial arts NND's, Killing Throws, and other topics. There are rules for blindness, bound characters, punching through barriers, concealed weapons and gadgets, critical hits, disabling attacks, disguising damage, alternate healing rules, armor, climbing, clutter, flying, footing, groundfighting, mounts, mystery damage, an optional rule for Sequence Attacks (a somewhat odd, but possibly interesting concept, of using attacks to line your opponent up for a wallop), weapon reach, wounds, twisting the blade, and zero gravity. The section on Martial Arts Weapons is extensive and well-detailed, including both stats and a glossary. The weapons are all designed in compliance with the 5th edition rules; gone are the numerous exceptions and special cases made in Ninja Hero. There is a nice assortment of Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Indian, Tibetan, Indonesian, Malay, and Philipino weapons, plus Euopean weapons like the cestus and schlaeger. It has stats for karate and kendo armor, as well as samurai armor. Its creating weapons section is brief, but clear, and includes a list of useful new Limitations.
And that's the end of the book.
If you don't mind doing a conversion or two, Ninja Hero or the previous Ultimate Martial Artist will probably serve you as well. But if you lack one of those volumes, this one will be a great asset if you have even one martial artist in your adventuring group. With the extensive style notes, this book seems to be making a bid to displace GURPS Martial Arts as the roleplayer's martial arts bible, and it is worth the price in that role, too. Unlike Ninja Hero, this book leaves you on your own to create many specific abilities; however, it is a treasure chest of ideas. Even the most sedate Fantasy Hero campaign could use Weapon Martial Arts, while any four-color superhero campaign should take a look at Brick Tricks and Speedster Martial Arts. It also offers alternatives to the traditional Hero System Martial Arts, such as attack multipowers, simple Hand to Hand Attacks for brawlers without much of a "style," and Combat Skill Levels to represent some straightforward fighting techniques. And finally, the extensive notes on various styles, real and imagined, armed and unarmed, hand to hand and ranged, will help you out if you don't know where to begin when building a martial artist character. However, this book does not contain genre notes; if you are looking for a Chinese cookbook, you will have to look further. This book is all about martial artists and abilities, not martial arts movies. Overall, I'll rate it a good buy for the martial arts enthusiast or Hero System completist.
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