Are you familiar with Final Stand? It's definitely worth taking a look at, if not;

Combat is resolved with a dice pool based on a character's Energy, and this pool is divided into punch, kick, and throw dice and then rolled. 2+ is a success on a punch die, I think you need 3+ for a kick or throw. The player with the most successes is the attacker and remains so until 1) the opponent successfully defends an attack, 2) they run out of dice, or 3) they choose to save the rest of their dice for defense rolls. After each round, if both opponents are still standing, they both regain all their energy and the process starts again.

Each character also has special moves that cost a certain number of die successes to accomplish, and can only be used once per fight.

All in all, it's a swift and intuitive system that works great in play, FME. It sounds like your looking for something a little more detailed, but it might still provide some good ideas.

oh, yeah...LINK (there's a link to the free pdf at the top of this review)

Thans tristram

One thing I'd always pondered to emulate the fact that martial artists don't just spam the same move over and over again is to give each fighter a hand of cards (regular old playing cards) with each suit representing a strategy (fore example: spades being technical attack, clubs being brute strength attack, hearts being recovery defense/catching breath, diamonds being toughness defenses/blocking) and the value of the card determining which moves it was applicable toward. Naturally most 2-10 cards would be some variation of a basic attack, and face cards would be the D,DF,F+P special moves. Once you use an attack, you discard that card. Hand size could be based on the skill or stamina or whatnot of the fighter in question, and after X number of rounds, you reshuffle and draw new cards.

Quote from: Rubio;493058One thing I'd always pondered to emulate the fact that martial artists don't just spam the same move over and over again is to give each fighter a hand of cards (regular old playing cards) with each suit representing a strategy (fore example: spades being technical attack, clubs being brute strength attack, hearts being recovery defense/catching breath, diamonds being toughness defenses/blocking) and the value of the card determining which moves it was applicable toward. Naturally most 2-10 cards would be some variation of a basic attack, and face cards would be the D,DF,F+P special moves. Once you use an attack, you discard that card. Hand size could be based on the skill or stamina or whatnot of the fighter in question, and after X number of rounds, you reshuffle and draw new cards.

Funny you mention this. I was thinking of using cards because the physical act of slapping them down kind of replicates the feel of a martial arts film. However I had trouble coming up with a meaningful combat system using this approach. Having a hand based on skill makes sense.