[Varyon]

Originally Posted by Sindri

Making the lower level defaults easier while not changing the higher level defaults is also giving "poor" defaults at higher levels.

I suppose it's a semantics argument, then. Also, while I said I could see a case for it, I would need more convincing before I implemented such a rule - I'm perfectly fine with defaulting working the same at every level. A character who hasn't put a lot of points into a combat skill doesn't get the benefit of the doubt, and will need to invest a bit more (possibly in the form of a Dabbler Perk) to get competent with a wide range of weapons.

Originally Posted by Sindri

Who said anything about five of them? As I said before you only need one case for it to be problematic.

"Five" is my generic assumed party size. You heavily implied there would be multiple characters at such a level but, regardless, I don't see a problem with an extremely skilled character being extremely skilled. We'll likely just have to agree to disagree on this point.

Originally Posted by Sindri

Not engage with the weapon, engage with his mastery of the weapon. It's trivially obvious that he would use his weapon of choice if he had the ability to.

I have difficulty understanding what you mean here. If he isn't using a weapon with which he has achieved mastery, he isn't using his mastery - but he can "float" the lessons from that skill for using a closely-related one (that is, get a default).

Originally Posted by Sindri

Musashi is irrelevant until you demonstrate that he only had points in one or a small number of those skills. I am not objecting to people who are experts at multiple weapons.

The way I would build Musashi (using my Overhaul), he'd likely have Broadsword as his primary skill, and most else would be defaulting off of that (possibly with a few bought up from default). If a character's default is higher than it would be just from skill, I assume they essentially have points invested in it - that is, Musashi's Polearm skill represents him having trained with such weapons, despite not having any explicit points invested there.

Originally Posted by Sindri

I on the other hand do. Aside from being aesthetically unpleasant for people to be permanently working off of defaults in core competencies it is vital that the trained/not trained distinction be usable for rules purposes and reflect incentivized behaviour.

Again, we'll have to agree to disagree. If for some reason a player wanted to build a Musashi-clone who had never touched a Polearm-type weapon, I'd probably let them go back to their DX-based default with a Quirk (which would need to be bought off before they could start advancing in the Polearm skill). Alternatively, they could make it a flavorful Feature, wherein they'd simply suffer Familiarity penalties if forced to use a Polearm. I would not, however, make this state of incompetency the default.