Quote:
Originally Posted by Kelly Pedersen
I'm currently debating with a player in my campaign whether to allow the Technique Mastery perk (Martial Arts p. 52) to apply to the Dual-Weapon Attack technique. Dual-Weapon Attack, it seems to me, applies to a lot of attack rolls, and I'm worried that it would be unbalanced - it feels like giving +4 to skill for 5 points. What do people think? Should this be forbidden? Or do the drawbacks of Dual-Weapon Attack (no shields, no Rapid Strikes, no two-handed weapons) compensate for the bonus?
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I have a
lot of animosity towards the Technique Mastery perk, and towards its application to Dual-Weapon Fighting and Low Fighting in particular.
On the one hand, if you impose the "styles and style perks" accessibility rules, that will make it more difficult for the character to pick up Technique Mastery casually. On the other hand, he can
still pick it up as a general combat perk (by spending 20 CP in combat skills and techniques, which isn't difficult to do).
My problem with TM is, as Icelander pointed out, it's a point crock. In fact, in a feint-relevant game, they become even worse, because any modifiers that apply to an attack roll also apply to a feint,
but not to resisting a feint.
The result?
Someone can have DWA at Skill+4, Low Fighting at Skill+4, and Feint at Skill+4 (which doesn't require technique mastery). Now, let's say their base skill is 16. That means that if they feint, while crouching or kneeling, as part of a DWA, they will feint at Skill 30. Not only is it practically impossible to win that quick-contest if you're defending against the feint, but if you have equal base skill and Feint (16 and 20, respectively), you'll lose the contest, on average, by 10 points. Which means -10 to defending. And since your opponent will be making the second half of his dual-weapon attack at +8 (for DWA and LF), he pretty much has his pick of hit location without having to worry about you defending. He can attack your skull at effective skill 17, your arm at effective skill 22, etc., and since you're defending at something like 4, there's really nothing you can do about it.
From a "common sense" perspective, I still have problems with it, because as soon as that Dual-Weapon-Low-Fighting Feintmaster puts down one of his weapons and stands up, he suddenly becomes
exponentially worse.
The solution that I've come up with, although I haven't put it into practice, is to change the way that combining techniques works. Instead of stacking technique skill modifiers in all situations, someone attempting two techniques (or more) simultaneously will be at either
(1) skill penalty equal to the sum of the penalties of the techniques—so someone with DWA at Skill-1 and Low-Fighting at Skill-2 would make a LF-DWA at Skill-3, as normal—or
(2) skill modifier equal to the worst individual modifier from the techniques they are attempting—so someone with DWA+3, LF+1, and Feint+4 would make a DWA-LF-Feint at Skill+1—
whichever is worse.
Thus, with DWA-1, LF-4, and Feint+4, you would make that DWA-LF-Feint at Skill-4, because your Low-Fighting modifier (-4) is worse than the sum of your total modifiers (4-4-1 = -1).
With DWA-1, LF-4, and Feint+0, you would make the same maneuver at Skill-5, because the sum of your total modifiers (-5) is worse than the worst individual modifier (-4).
The result is that if someone wanted to make a DWA-LF-Feint at Skill+4, they would have to know
all of those techniques at Skill+4, and it they would never be feinting at a level that defies someone's ability to resist it (since they can't ever feint at better than Skill+4—or SKill+6 with Technique Mastery in Feint—just like nobody can ever resist a feint at better than Skill+4 (or +6), either. Thus, balance/sanity is restored.
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As far as individual techniques are concerned, I don't have a problem with TM allowing you to get DWA+4 by itself. Sure, it's +4 attack for what ends up being a total of 10 points (5 points to buy up from -4 to +0, 1 point for TM, and 4 more points to buy from +0 to +4)—but some people can be that overspecialized. It doesn't really bother me much that someone who has trained exclusively in two-weapon fighting might be clumsier if they only had one weapon—they wouldn't know what to do with their other arm, or their muscle memory might have them automatically moving it in ways that are impractical for single-weapon fighting. And since it doesn't affect the character's ability to defend himself or to resist feints, it doesn't seem like it's that unbalancing, either. On the one hand, you can spend ten CP and get +4 to dual-weapon attacks (and dual-weapon feints), or you can spend 8 CP and get +2 to attack, +2 to feint, +1 to parry, +2 to resist feints, etc., and still have 2 CP left over to buy whatever strikes your fancy. Like Weapon Bond, perhaps. ;)
The same goes for Low-Fighting by itself, and so on. It's the combined techniques that really rub me the wrong way.
Edit PS: Technically, it'd be 11 CP, not 10 CP, because you also need to pick up the Off-Hand Weapon Training perk to get the full effect.