Buffing the Martial Artist: Attributes and Skills

Attributes

16 DX is the highest in DF, and also the only good Attribute Martial Artists have, but they can't really afford to lower it.  ST and HT are horrible for a frontline combatant, but can be bought up with advantage points, while IQ only really matters for two Chi Skills (Invisibility Art and Pressure Points).  Meanwhile, Move 8 is a bit unnecessary, and Will is a tad low for the stereotypical "kung-fu master".

I'd suggest the following changes:

• Decrease Basic Move to 7 (+5)
• Increase Will to 12 (-5)

Skills

Martial Artists are supposed to fill the same niche as the Swashbuckler; a lightly-armoured combatant who can fight, jump pits, and climb walls, but is incapable of doing almost anything else.  Despite this, they only put 8 points into weapon skills; tied for the second lowest out of all the templates with the Wizard, only beating out the Thief (which is borderline worthless, and needs to be entirely rewritten).

They also waste a few points on Meditation, which is essentially useless, and Tactics, which is the purview of the Holy Warrior and Knight.  I propose the following changes:

• Remove Meditation (+2)
• Remove Tactics (+4)
• Remove Thrown Weapon (X) and Throwing skills entirely, as Throwing Art is strictly better, and move Blowpipe and Sling to the list of optional Background Skills (+1)
• Upgrade Climbing and Observation to mandatory Background Skills (-2)
• Decrease Background Skill choices to 4 from 3 (-1)

The melee skill packages need to be entirely reworked.  For some reason, they completely lack a single skill option, and the unarmed option is pitifully low.  There are some other oddities as well: there's no Polearm, which means no in-theme Naginata, but they do get Smallsword, which is incredibly out of theme.  There are also no Jitte/Sai weapons in Basic Set, which goes against the simplicity of the rest of DF.

Thanks to the changes above and from Chi Skills, there are 8 more points to work with.  Here are the changes:

1. One of Knife (E) DX+5 [16]-21, Axe/Mace, Jitte/Sai, Polearm, Shortsword, Staff, or Tonfa, all (A) DX+4 [16]-20, or Flail or Kusari, both (H) DX+3 [16]-19
2. Two of Knife (E) DX+3 [8]-19, Axe/Mace, Jitte/Sai, Polearm, Shortsword, Staff, or Tonfa, all (A) DX+2 [8]-18, or Flail or Kusari, both (H) DX+1 [8]-17
3. One of the Melee Weapon skills from option 2 and raise one of Judo or Karate to DX+1 [8]-17 and the other to DX [4]-16
4. Raise one of Judo or Karate to DX+3 [16]-19 and the other to DX [4]-16

Results

This is alright.  Considering that the Martial Artist is the only template in DF1 that can't take Shield, they absolutely need those high skill levels to survive after they get hit once and are reduced to 1/2 Dodge.

One big problem I still have is that the Martial Artist is pretty good in a fight, on the same tier as the Barbarian and Holy Warrior, but it lacks a secondary role.  Similar to the Swashbuckler, though, they're prime candidates for taking a lens; mostly likely either Scout or Thief.